Justice by Fire

held out the license above the officer's head.

'You think you're funny?'

'No, sir. I don't think I'm funny. You told me to keep my hands up. My hands are up. You asked me for my name, you told me to shut up...'

'We got ourselves a California black, here. From foggy San Francisco. So, you explain to me, California boy. What are you doing here? This is an exclusive neighborhood. What do you want?'

'A tan. I heard about the Florida sunshine...'

'Down. Push-up position! Feet wide. Hands wide.'

As Floyd Jefferson stared at the seashell-patterned sidewalk inches from his nose, headlights flashed past. Another limousine swept through the gates of Quesada's mansion. Jefferson watched the entry. He thought he saw two Anglo faces pass through the entry's lights, one man with close-cut gray hair, another with blond hair.

'Eyes down!' One of the policemen put his shoe on Jefferson's back to force his face into the concrete. 'What is it you're looking over there for, boy?'

The other officer read Jefferson's name and San Francisco address into the radio. 'It says he's a reporter. He's out here on Ocean Avenue, taking pictures. What of, he won't say.'

Listening to the patrolman broadcast his identity and profession into the Florida night, Jefferson felt a formless, irrational fear touch his imagination. He thought of police-band scanners and of the thousands of expatriate Cubans employed at every level in the Miami city government. As his imagination threatened to turn his dread into panic, he reassured himself with the knowledge that in a few hours he would return to the West Coast, far from the Salvadorans and Cubans and uniformed bigots of Miami.

Days later, Jefferson would laugh at the naive thought that distance might protect him.

After all, airlines sold tickets to anyone who had the money.

2

In the next apartment, Lucha Villa sang of love and loss from a radio tuned to a Tijuana station. The Rivera family gathered around the table as David Holt spread typed sheets and legal papers in front of Antonio Rivera. An attorney with a lucrative practice in San Francisco, Holt wore the gray-suit uniform of an advocate. Though also an attorney, Senor Rivera wore khaki work pants and a polyester shirt. His hands bore the blisters and torn skin of a professional who now earned his living by manual labor.

A month before, Senor Rivera had served as mayor of a tiny town in the Salvadoran province of Sonsonate. Now he, his wife and their surviving children hid in a one-room apartment in a San Diego barrio. By day, he cleared brush and broke concrete, while his wife Lidia taught their children English with the aid of comic books and television soap operas. Nights, they flipped through the television channels for news of their country.

Day and night, they watched the street for Immigration. They feared deportation to El Salvador more than death. If the United States Department of Immigration and Naturalization Service seized the family and returned them to El Salvador, they would suffer the same horror that had taken their teenage son: death by mutilation, courtesy of the knives and machetes of El Ejercito de los Guerreros Blancos.

'We can prepare a petition proving your fear of persecution if you are deported,' Holt told Senor and Senora Rivera, 'but the State Department refuses to recognize Salvadorans as political refugees. First, we must have irrefutable proof of the political terrorism directed against your family...'

Rivera touched the envelope containing the black-and-white photos of his murdered son and his administrative aide. Only sixteen years old, his son had died in the courtyard of the family's home. Farmers had found the remains of his aide in a ditch. The Riveras never looked at the photos. To show Holt, they had handed him the envelope, then turned their eyes away as he studied the nauseating horror.

'The photos are not enough...'

'And the notes from the Guerreros Blancos…'

Rivera touched the clear plastic that sheathed the blood-marked pages the death squad had left on the bodies. In the stilted Spanish of a university graduate, the notes declared the young Rivera a Communist and an enemy of El Salvador.

'And the articles from the North American and European newspapers,' Rivera continued, gesturing at the thick bundle of clippings reporting the murder of Ricardo Marquez, the San Francisco journalist.

'The murder is the foundation of your case. First, we must prove it happened as you say. The Salvadoran authorities claim the Communists killed Mr. Marquez. They claim you arranged the murder. We may in fact need to fight requests to extradite you to face a trial in a Salvadoran court. If we can somehow prove the death squad committed the murder, and that you witnessed it, we will have a good case for asylum. If not… perhaps we can gather public support for your case. However, the State Department does not recognize rallies and slogans in court.'

'But he was an American,' Senor Rivera protested. 'Los Blancosmurdered him. Doesn't your government want justice? Do they not want to protect the rights of their own citizens?'

Holt shook his head, no. 'They will not admit his death was murder. The State Department told the press and the Marquez family that he died in a cross fire, an accident of war.'

'Machine guns that shoot machete bullets...' Rivera laughed bitterly. 'I saw the Blancoskill Ricardo. I saw them take his head and put it on a fence post. I told your embassy of what I saw. I identified the Blancos. Then they came to kill my family. Your country is a democracy. You elect your leaders. How can your people elect leaders who lie and deceive and betray?'

The San Francisco attorney struggled to answer, his lips forming the first syllable of a rational and educated explanation of his president's and nation's Central American policies. But his voice died before he spoke. He knew no rational explanation for the parody of foreign policy his nation's leaders presented to the world: the circus parade of ignorance and fictions, and the vainglorious leading democracy to defeat in the undeclared war against the Soviet empire.

Footsteps stopped at the door. A knock sounded, saving the North American attorney from voicing his own despair.

Senora Rivera answered the door, opening it only a few inches. 'Who are you? What do you want?'

'I'm Floyd Jefferson. Mr. Holt told me to come here...'

'Floyd!' Holt ushered the young black reporter into the crowded apartment.

'I would've called but your office couldn't give me a number.'

'You have the photos?'

Jefferson passed an envelope to Holt. 'Got on the plane as soon as I got them from the lab.'

The attorney introduced the aspiring journalist to the Riveras. 'Floyd Jefferson worked with Ricardo. Now he's working with us. Mayor Rivera, Mrs. Rivera...'

The young man surprised them with Spanish. 'Mucho gusto, senor. Senora. Lo siento por las problemas mipais da ustedes. Antes del muerte de mi amigo Ricardo, pienso…' When he paused to think of the correct Spanish phrase, Senor Rivera cut off the apology.

'You are not responsible. Please, we speak in English, so we are not rude to Mr. Holt. Did you study Spanish in college?'

Jefferson laughed. 'No, I studied English. I talked Spanish with my mother.'

They sat around the table. 'Your mother spoke Spanish?' Senora Rivera asked.

'She came from Puerto Rico. My dad spoke some Spanish, too. And Indian. And Gaelic. He came from New Mexico.'

'You have many bloods,' Senor Rivera commented. 'Truly a child of America.'

'I got a lotof different people in me — black, white, red, maybe yellow.' Jefferson laughed. 'When people call me black, I want to set them straight, 'Nah, rainbow.' Nino del arco iris.'

Holt stopped the small talk. 'Floyd has just returned from Miami. Look at these photos. Perhaps…'

Despite the low light and forced development, the prints captured every feature and expression of the