The Dead Women of Juarez

When Esteban came at him, Kelly didn’t try to get out of the way. Esteban grabbed Kelly by the front of his shirt. His expression was twisted, frantic, and now he did cry. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot. “She said she was going to see you!”

“I didn’t hear her,” Kelly wanted to say, but he only whispered.

“What the fuck, Kelly? What the fuck?” Esteban shook Kelly and the tears came freely. “Why won’t you tell me where she went? Just tell me where she went, Kelly, so I can go get her.”

“I don’t know where she went,” Kelly said.

Esteban didn’t let go; he buried his face against Kelly’s chest and sobbed. Kelly put his hands on Esteban and they clung to each other. Kelly shook all over as he cried and a part of him was ill at ease when his tears fell into Esteban’s hair, but there was no time for that.

“I want to bring her back home,” Esteban said.

“I know,” Kelly said because it was all he could say. “I know.”

FIVE

THE MATTRESS STANK SO BADLY THAT Kelly couldn’t stand to sleep on it. He put a pile of gym clothes on the floor of the bedroom and used his training gloves for a pillow. Esteban crashed on the couch. They shared Kelly’s tortillas and rice for dinner and made little conversation. When Kelly fell asleep that night, he heard Esteban weeping quietly to himself.

In the morning they would go to the police. That much they decided on. They would get cleaned up and dress right and when they made their report they would be taken seriously. Esteban had a wad of American bills; he would pass a couple hundred bucks to the man in charge. That, too, would be taken seriously.

Kelly had dreams. Maybe they were of Paloma and maybe they were nightmares, but he remembered nothing about them. He slept longer than he intended, and when he stirred he heard Esteban moving around in the front room. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” Kelly called. He went to the bathroom and washed and dressed in the clean, button-up shirt with a collar that he saved for Sunday meals with Paloma.

He owned no fancy shoes or slacks, so had to wear sneakers with jeans, but it would be enough. He went to the front room. “Bathroom’s open,” he said. “You want to hurry up and—”

“Esteban isn’t here,” Rafael Sevilla said. He sat on the couch where Kelly and Esteban shared their quiet, simple dinner the night before. “He’s down with the locals. Says his sister’s disappeared. He’s not so dressed up like you, Kelly.”

“What the hell are you doing in here?”

“The door was wide open.”

The door was open still and the glare was bright. Kelly had his shoes in his hand and he felt stupid standing in front of Sevilla in his Sunday shirt, his skin still damp from the shower and Esteban long gone. “When did he go?” Kelly asked.

“I don’t know, but they called me a couple of hours ago. I tell the locals who I’m interested in and they pass word on to me. Same with you. That’s how I know when you’re in the shit again, Kelly. And you’ve been in the shit, haven’t you?”

Kelly didn’t look Sevilla in the face. He went to the kitchen, though there was nothing there to keep him. He had only one unbroken glass for water and he used it. “I fucked up,” he said.

“I know. But that’s the kind of fuck-up you can’t afford, Kelly. I told you before: I turn a blind eye to the hierba, but not the other. I thought you were smarter than that.”

“I guess not,” Kelly said with his back to Sevilla.

“No. But all you addicts are stupid when it comes to heroina, eh?”

“I’m not an addict. I fucked up. That doesn’t make me a junkie.”

“Then look me in the eye when I’m talking to you, Kelly.”

“I’m not some kid you can boss around.”

Sevilla had a quiet voice, but it had strength. Kelly heard it before and he heard it now. Sevilla said: “A man could look me in the eye.”

Kelly turned. He looked at his feet and then the counter, the phone, the sliding glass door at the back of the apartment and finally to Sevilla. The old cop sat utterly still. His eyes seemed sadder and the lines around them deeper. Just looking at Sevilla made Kelly feel tired, as though there was an unwelcome weight shared between them.

“I slipped,” Kelly said. “It wasn’t what I wanted. I got right again.”

“Until the next time.”

“No. There’s no next time.”

“If you were with Paloma I’d believe it, Kelly,” Sevilla said. “But she’s not around. Where did she go?”

“I don’t know.”

“What did Esteban tell you?”

“Nothing. He said… he said she went to check up on me and, hell, I don’t know.” Kelly’s eyes burned and he rubbed them. He didn’t want to cry in front of Sevilla. That would be too much.

“Who sells Esteban his heroin?”

“Oh, for Christ’s fucking sake!” Kelly shouted. “The man’s sister is gone, all right? She’s just… just fucking gone and I don’t give a shit who gives Esteban what and what for! Now why don’t you just get the fuck out of my place?!?”

Sevilla didn’t move, but his expression settled into something hard. He wore a suit, but like all of them it wasn’t pressed and had the impression of age. Sevilla took the handkerchief from his breast pocket and held it out to Kelly. “You want to wipe your snotty nose?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Kelly demanded, but he touched his nose with the back of his hand unconsciously.

“I mean if you’re going to be a spoiled little boy—”

“I’m not anybody’s—” Kelly began.

Sevilla cut him off: “?Parate! Right now I talk and you listen. And listen closely, Kelly, because I don’t want to lose my temper with you. You don’t want me to lose my temper with you.”

Kelly closed his mouth. Sevilla rose from the couch and walked the room the way he did: a slow circuit that never paused long, but missed nothing. He lingered at the sliding glass door and touched the thick splatter of dried butter leavings. When he looked back to Kelly, his eyes were dark and no longer sad.

“She’s been gone ten days,” Sevilla said. “I know because I asked around. You were gone, too — crawled up into your fucking needle — but Esteban was also missing. Did he tell you that? Did he say he was out of town?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

Kelly waited for Sevilla to say more, but instead Sevilla looked out toward the maquiladora beyond Kelly’s balcony. He was quiet for a long time, until Kelly couldn’t stay silent anymore. “Where was he?”

“Somewhere,” Sevilla said. He put his back to the view and fished a pack of cigarettes out of an inside pocket. “I could make a guess, but I don’t have real answers. That’s because I don’t know names. Names like who supplies Esteban with heroin.”

“Goddammit, I told you I don’t know.”

Sevilla knocked one cigarette from the pack, perched it in the corner of his mouth and lit it. He inhaled deeply and exhaled through his nose. He came away from the sliding glass doors and closer to Kelly. He used the cigarette as a pointer. “Then let me tell you what’s happened. Esteban and his good friends you don’t know, maybe they aren’t such good friends after all. Maybe Esteban makes too much money, or maybe he doesn’t make enough. Someone gets angry or he gets angry, but the end result is the same: Paloma goes for a ride and until everyone’s happy again and made friends again she stays away.”

Kelly shook his head. “No,” he said.

“No? Maybe she doesn’t come back at all. Maybe she’s dead already.”