nothing else to occupy their time. Though Krill did not understand the abstruse terms of social science or economics, he understood jails. He had learned about them in El Salvador and Nicaragua, and he knew how you survived or didn’t survive inside them. Men in confinement all behaved and thought in a predictable fashion. And so did their warders.
Krill had a very strong suspicion that his captors did not understand how jails worked. The gringo Frank was a good example of what American convicts called a “fish.” He had not only baited a prisoner but had informed the prisoner of his ultimate fate, which in this case was death and burial in concrete, telling the prisoner in effect that he had nothing to lose. Frank had made another mistake. He had not bothered to note that when Krill was placed in the cell, he was wearing running shoes, not pull-on boots.
Krill had slept three hours on the floor, his head cushioned on a piece of burlap he had found in the corner. As the early glow of morning appeared through the window on the far side of the cellar, a man came down the stairs carrying two bowls filled with rice and beans. He was a strange-looking man, with dirty-blond hair and a duckbilled upper lip and eyes that were set too far apart and skin that had the grainy texture of pig hide. He took one bowl to the cell where Krill believed La Magdalena was being held, then squatted in front of Krill’s cell and pushed the second bowl through the gap between the concrete floor and the bottom of the door.
“I need something to eat with,” Krill said.
“This isn’t a hotel,” the man said.
“We cannot eat our food with our fingers.”
“Eat out of the bowl. Just tip it up and you can eat.”
“Hombre, we are not animals. You must give us utensils to eat.”
“I’ll see what I can find,” the man said.
“Bring me a spoon. I cannot eat rice with a fork. Bring us water, too.”
“Want anything else?”
“Yes, to use a real toilet, one that flushes with water. Using a chemical toilet is unsanitary and degrading.”
When the man had gone upstairs, Krill lowered his voice and said, “Magdalena, can you hear me?”
“Yes,” the woman said.
“Did they hurt you?”
“No.”
“Where is Dowling?”
“I think he’s dead.”
“Did they mutilate him?”
“Yes, very badly.”
“Listen to me. I must say this in a hurry. I have killed many men. I have also killed a Jesuit priest. I tortured and murdered a DEA informant. I need your absolution for these sins and others that are too many to name.”
“I don’t have that power. Only God does. If you’re sorry for what you did and you renounce your violent ways, your sins are forgiven. God doesn’t forgive incrementally or partially. He forgives absolutely, Antonio. That’s what ‘absolution’ means. God makes all things new.”
“You remembered my name.”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because everyone calls me Krill.”
“It’s a name you earned in war. You shouldn’t go by that name anymore.”
“Maybe I’ll stop using it later, Magdalena. But right now I got to get us out of here. We need a fork from the man who brought us our bowls.”
“Why?”
“There are only two ways we’re going to get out of here. I have to open the lock on my door or get a man in my cell. We need a fork.”
“I heard you ask for a spoon.”
“This man is stubborn and slow in the head. He will do the opposite of what he is asked.”
The upstairs door opened, and the man with the duckbilled mouth came down the stairs. There were two dull metallic objects in his right hand. “I got you what you wanted,” he said. “Put your bowls outside the door when you’re finished.”
Krill stuck his hand through the bars and curved his palm around the utensil the man gave him. A spoon, he thought bitterly.
“Disappointed? I was jailing when I was sixteen,” the man said. “Better eat up. You got a rough day ahead of you.”
The single-engine department plane dropped down over a ridge and followed a milky-brown river that had spread out onto the floodplain and was dotted with sandy islands that had willow trees on them. Above the plane, Hackberry could see the long blue-black layer of clouds that seemed to extend like curds of industrial smoke from the Big Bend all the way across northern Mexico. Down below, the willow trees stiffened in the wind, the surface of the river wrinkling in jagged V-shaped lines. On the southern horizon, the cloud layer seemed to end and looked like strips of torn black cotton churning against a band of perfectly blue sky.
The wings of the plane yawed suddenly, the airframe shuddering. “We’re fine,” the pilot said above the engine noise. He was a crop duster named Toad Fowler who worked on and off for the sheriff’s department. “Those are just updrafts.”
Nonetheless, he kept tapping the glass on his instruments.
“What’s the problem?” Hackberry asked.
“The oil pressure is a little low,” the pilot said. “We’re okay. We’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“How low?” Hackberry said.
“It’s probably not a line, just a leaky gasket,” the pilot said. “I’ll check everything out after we get down. Hang on. We might bounce around a little bit.”
“You didn’t check everything out before we left?” Hackberry asked.
“It’s an old plane. What do you want? Shit happens,” the pilot said.
When the plane dipped down toward the river, Hackberry felt Pam place her hand on top of his shoulder, her breath coming hard against the back of his neck.
“We’re okay,” Hackberry said.
“How do you know?” she asked.
“Toad just told me.”
“Tell him I’m going to shoot him after we land.”
Down below, Hackberry could see great squares of both cultivated and pasture land and bare hills that looked molded out of white clay that had hardened and cracked. The pilot made a wide turn, the wings buffeting, and came in low over the river, the islands sweeping by, then Hackberry saw a feeder lot and hog farm whose holding pens were churned a chocolate color and buildings with tin roofs and houses constructed of cinder block and then a short pale green landing strip that had been recently mowed out of a field, a red wind sock straining against its tether at the far end. They landed hard, rainwater splashing under the tires. A flatbed truck with two men lounging near it was parked by the side of the strip.
“You ever see them before?” Pam said.
“No,” Hackberry replied. “You okay?”
She didn’t reply until Toad had cut the engine and gotten out of the plane and lit a cigarette by the wing. “I’m backing your play, Hack, but the idea of getting involved with Jack Collins makes my stomach churn,” she said.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you stayed with Toad. I can handle it by myself.”
“That’s not going to happen,” she said.
“I have to get Miss Anton back, Pam. If I don’t, I’ll never rest.”
“We’re making a deal with the devil, and you know it.”
“That’s the breaks.”
“You mean after this is over, you’re going to let that bastard slide?”
“Jack Collins isn’t planning to leave Mexico,” he said.
Her eyes went back and forth. “How do you know that?”
“Collins brought us here as his executioners,” he said.
