Savages

“The finca is the other way, Mother.”

She says, “We’re not going to the finca.”

He looks confused.

Of course he does, the poor darling, so she continues. “The plan was for us to go to the finca, where Beltran would have had us assassinated. He set the bomb—if it didn’t kill me, it would have driven me to seek safety at the ranch under his protection.”

Her laugh is bitter.

“How did you know?”

How didn’t you know, Elena thinks, is more the question. And the problem. She cannot leave him in Mexico, he wouldn’t survive five minutes. She will have to take him with, and arrange for his bruja wife to follow after.

Before she can answer, Beltran’s Suburban does a U-turn to follow her, but two other cars appear from a side alley and block the way. Elena looks out the back window as men with AK-47s jump out of the two cars and open up on the Suburban.

Beltran comes out of the passenger side firing, but they riddle him with bullets and he melts into the pavement.

“You can go now,” Elena says to the driver.

The car moves ahead.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Hernan asks.

“Could you have pulled it off?” she asks. “Disguised your feelings, smiled, and shook his hand?”

“No.”

“Well, then.” She pats his hand, sighs, and says, “I’m tired of war, tired of the killing, the worry. I have been for some time. So I’ve prepared a move. We’re going to the United States. Lado has prepared the ground for us. Your sisters are there already.”

Azul wants Baja? she ponders.

Fine, he can have it.

Good luck to him.

“To America?” Hernan asks. “What about the police? The DEA?”

She smiles.

Oh, my darling boy.

241

Dear Mom-O,

London is XQZT. And swings like a pendulum do. Did you know that Big Ben is the clock and not the tower? I didn’t. And the Tower of London is really interesting. A lot of people got their heads cut off there. Like, yech, right? Good thing they don’t do that anymore, except I guess they do in some Arab countries like Arabia. Anyway, it’s really cool here. Okay, it’s off to Trafalgar Square and later to the West End to see a play. I might even give Shakespere a try! Who’d a thunk, huh?

Miss U

143,

O (for short)

When O and Esteban aren’t watching TV on Hulu, they’re on Google and Wikipedia looking up stuff on the cities that O is visiting on the European travels that she’s e-mailing Paqu about.

“She’s, like, a detail freak,” O explains to Esteban, “so I have to get the little things right.”

The crazy thing is that Paqu never writes her back.

Too busy with Jesus, O guesses.

242

Spin looks gloriously ridiculous this morning in a skintight Ferrari cycling suit with a Cinzano cap.

The thing you gotta love about Spin is that he doesn’t even blink when Ben shows up with twenty mil in assets and cash and says it needs to go on the superfast cycle but come back as all cash, albeit squeaky clean.

An IRS sort of thing—Ben might have to have a nice explanation as to how he got the money, something other than he took it from the same people he’s about to give it to. He doesn’t say this exactly to Spin, but he doesn’t need to.

Spin sits down at his laptop and

—sells Ben’s house to one of Ben’s own companies, then to a resident of Vanuatu who doesn’t exist, then—

—off-loads a bunch of Ben’s stocks and bonds to a holding company Ben owns, then—

—creates a small ranch in Argentina, puts cattle on it, sells the cattle, and—

“Your cash is immaculate.”

Spin gets back on his bike.

Ben goes to see Jaime.

243

“Where did you get it?”

Jaime asks, looking at the briefcases full of cash.

“What difference does it make?” Ben asks, figuring a lack of resistance might arouse suspicion.

“We have some money missing.”

“Gee, that’s too bad.”

Ben explains that some of the cash came from the short money they’ve been paying him for his 420, the rest came from selling about everything he owns, thank you very much for that, BTW.

“We’ll need documentation.”

Ben gives him the computer-code keys to the kingdom and tells him to knock himself out.

“I’m transparent,” he says.

Just hurry it up.

Jaime hurries it up.

It all checks out.

“Why didn’t you just do this before?” Jaime asks.

“You tried selling a house these days?” Ben answers. “As it is, I took a thumping on it. Make the call, Jaime.”

Jaime makes the call.

Elena personally okays it.

She’s glad, truly glad, that she can let the girl go.

244

Esteban comes into O’s room looking almost sad.

“They’re going to let you go,” he says.

WDYS?