The Dead Women of Juarez

even on the floor of the battleground itself. Other men were betting with bookies down in the crowd or even with the men sitting around them. Sevilla ignored this and watched faces, looking for the one he needed.

Ortiz was not as close to the fighting as Sevilla expected; he was halfway up the far side of the arena seating. The bodyguards on either side of him carved out a comfortable space so that he was not pressed flesh to flesh against other men. He wore a white suit jacket and slacks and a striped shirt of bright colors made brighter by the stark arena lighting. He didn’t carry betting slips, but made a note of each fight on a pad with a pencil.

Hot breath boiled out of the arena from shouts and curses. The fighting circle was stained with blood that between-match soakings could only partly eliminate. Cocks jumped and clashed and there were feathers and death.

Sevilla didn’t know what he would do if Ortiz never left his seat. Eventually Ortiz rose. He spoke to one of the bodyguards. The man nodded, but didn’t follow. Neither did the other. They kept Ortiz’s place, the only gap in the sea of bodies funneling down to the bloodsport.

The place had two restrooms. Sevilla went to the one closest to Ortiz’s side of the palenque. The air was heavy and humid, smelling strongly of beer and urine. One man combed his hair in a clouded mirror over the sinks. Another used the piss-trough. Sevilla took a stall, but didn’t sit.

Ortiz came in afterward. He said something to the man at the piss-trough that Sevilla didn’t catch, then undid his fly. Another man entered and took the stall beside Sevilla.

Sevilla waited until he heard the sound of water before he left the stall. He had the impact baton in his hand. It clicked open and Ortiz turned toward the sound. The first blow caught him on the side of the neck and he spilled over, falling into the piss-trough and cursing.

When Ortiz put up his hands, Sevilla broke his wrist. He battered Ortiz’s upraised arm until the man couldn’t lift it any longer. Ortiz lost his balance, tumbled free of the piss-trough and collapsed on the floor. Sevilla struck him across the back three times until he thought he heard one of Ortiz’s ribs break.

The door of the bathroom opened. Sevilla turned. The man stood framed there for a moment, seeing Ortiz, seeing the baton and seeing Sevilla’s face.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Sevilla said. The man obeyed.

“?Pinche cabron!” cried Ortiz on the ground. The concrete was pitted and filthy from dirty boots and cigarette ash and men too drunk to hit the trough on their first try. “Goddamm you.”

Sevilla put the baton away. He brought out the pistol. His back twinged when he bent over Ortiz and put the muzzle in his face. “Shut up until I tell you not to,” Sevilla said. “You hear me? Do you understand?”

Ortiz had blood on his face and on his lips. His eyes rolled like a horse’s in panic. The second stall door opened and the man inside emerged. He flinched once as if Sevilla were striking at him and then fled for the door.

“Sebastian Madrigal,” Sevilla said. “You know him, yes?”

“?Que chingados quieres?” Ortiz asked.

“I asked you a question!” Sevilla thundered, and kicked Ortiz as hard as he could. The blow made Ortiz cough blood for a long minute and Sevilla regretted it. “Sebastian Madrigal.”

“I know him,” Ortiz managed to say.

“How do you know him?” Sevilla gestured with the gun for emphasis.

“Parties,” Ortiz replied. “I arrange… please don’t kill me.”

Sevilla raised the gun and brought it down across Ortiz’s skull. The man’s scalp split and blood gushed. Scalp wounds were the bloodiest. The white material of Ortiz’s suit jacket was stained red, black and dirty yellow. “What parties? Where?”

“There is one tomorrow!” Ortiz cried. There were tears.

“Tell me where.”

The restroom door burst open. It crashed against a wastebasket and sent it crumpled to the floor. Used paper towels spilled on the dirty concrete. The bodyguard filled the frame.

Sevilla fired two shots into the man’s chest. The black material of the bodyguard’s T-shirt exploded wet and he toppled backward out the door. The door was blocked open by dead legs and outside the crowd was in a sudden panic. The noise of men and voices changed from celebration to terror.

He caught Ortiz crawling toward the nearest stall. Sevilla’s heart raced and his vision throbbed. Every cut on his face pulsed with angry heat in time with the beat. He pulled the trigger again and Ortiz’s leg was soaked in blood.

“The parties!” Sevilla demanded. “Where?”

Ortiz told him through mucus and tears. Sevilla strained to hear above the shouting. He glanced back once and saw the bodyguard had not moved. Sevilla felt nothing for the man’s death.

The confession did not end. Ortiz grasped at the concrete until his palms were black with filth and his nails were encrusted. Breath hitched in his throat. Blood from his head wound mingled with puddles of water and piss. The smell of cordite and waste made Sevilla gag, but he listened.

And then it was done.

“Please don’t kill me. Por favor, for the love of God,” Ortiz pleaded.

Sevilla was ill, but not from the sight and smell of this place. Everything from Ortiz’s mouth was bitter, poisonous and curdled in Sevilla’s head. Ortiz lolled onto his back and put his stained hands in front of him. He had grime on his teeth.

“No me mate, no me mate,” Ortiz said.

Sevilla wiped his mouth with the back of his forearm. “I didn’t kill you,” he said. “You killed yourself.”

He left the restroom when he was done with Ortiz and joined the throng jamming the exits. He didn’t see the second bodyguard until he spilled out with the rest into the parking lot. Police vehicles were there, strobing the lot with white, red and blue. The bodyguard stood shouting into a cell phone near the big pick-up, the engine running, waiting for passengers that would not come.

The police tried to put up a cordon, but there were too many men in the palenque and not enough cops. Cars and trucks pulled away and could not be called back. Others slipped away into the night and would come back when the chaos was over and the police had given up. Sevilla was among these, walking nearly a mile to where his car was parked.

The shaking didn’t begin until he was behind the wheel. In the middle distance he heard sirens, and flickering above the rooftops of houses and buildings there was the dry lightning of police and ambulances. People were out of doors despite the hour, comparing theories, but soon even they went indoors. More death in the city of the dead. It was not worth interrupting a quiet evening at home.

Only when the tremors retreated into his chest and his breathing and heart were calm did Sevilla touch the ignition. He drove a half-mile without turning on his headlights before he remembered them, and then the rest of the way with the slow care of a man twenty years his senior. He was intensely aware of the pistol against his body. When he passed a policeman on the way he tensed, but the car was gone in moments.

He went to an all-night liquor store near the tourist district and bought a fresh bottle of Johnnie Walker. He didn’t wait to get home before he drank from it. Half was gone by the time he reached the door and the other half he guzzled in the shadow of his unlit kitchen. He fell into bed fully clothed and slept until past dawn.

FIFTEEN

SEVILLA DIDN’T DREAM OF ORTIZ, but Ortiz was the first one he thought of when he opened his eyes. The feelings he had for the man were not those of pity or sadness; Sevilla had a blank inside himself where Ortiz rested because he could not summon the energy necessary for anything else.

A headache blazed behind his eyes and his mouth tasted like death. Sevilla ate breakfast in the kitchen wearing the fancy sunglasses that hadn’t fooled the Madrigals, burying a handful of aspirin beneath a slurry of juice, fruit, milk and toast. Eventually he knew the only way to make the hangover go completely away was to treat it with more whisky, but for now he resolved to keep a clear head despite the pain.

He tried to call Enrique, but the call wouldn’t go through. He imagined Enrique somewhere in the American desert well away from any town or settlement, blessedly ignorant of what had transpired over the last twenty-four hours. Then Sevilla imagined what Enrique would say when he knew. There was nothing to be done about