A few feet ahead there was a side street. Ty waited until he was sure the cops running the checkpoint were busy, then spun the wheel and turned down it. Cars parked on either side meant that he had to squeeze past yet another Policia Federal Dodge Charger, driving in the opposite direction. The driver was in a hurry and didn’t check them out.
‘What are you doing? Why are you turning off?’ Julia asked, her voice panicked and rising in pitch and volume as he tried to stay aware of everything around them and get round the checkpoint.
‘What does it look like I’m doing? I’m trying to get us there safely,’ Ty barked. The road was widening but any extra room was taken up by food stalls and street vendors. Even at this early hour, crowds of people milled around. Something about the area was beginning to look familiar to him, but his mind might have been playing tricks.
He glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw that Julia’s face was pressed against the window. ‘Sit back. Someone might see you.’
It was already too late. The SUV, even with the tinted glass, was drawing gawkers on either side. This was hardly a tourist area. Two small boys, brothers by the look of them, raced over to Ty’s window, jumping up to tap on the glass, smiling excitedly and motioning for him to lower the window. He kept it closed. Give them a few pesos and it would only draw more kids and more attention. An old man wearing a straw hat and drawing hard on an unfiltered cigarette eyed them warily from the corner.
Ty nudged the RAV 4 forward, but the car ahead of him had stopped to allow an old lady to cross the road. Dressed in black, perhaps fresh from morning mass, she took her time as Ty’s long fingers drummed on the steering-wheel and he searched for an escape route. Barring mowing down the old lady or squelching the kids, who were still running alongside and tapping at the glass, there was nothing to do but wait.
As the old lady cleared the road, Ty pressed down on the horn. The vehicle in front stayed put. He pulled out, trying to get an angle to see if he could get round it. It looked too tight a squeeze. It inched forward again and he dropped back in behind it, eyes flicking from rear-view to side mirrors as he watched for any sudden movement from the crowd.
In the back seat, Julia was growing agitated. Ty had seen it before in Iraq: some people made it through the most traumatic situations by surfing on a tide of grit and adrenalin, only for the wheels to come off as they neared safety. The mind simply wasn’t built to contain what Julia must have endured at the hands of Mendez.
‘Why don’t we just get out and walk?’ she asked suddenly.
‘Hey, be cool for me, ’kay? The traffic will clear in a minute.’
She was rocking back and forth. He saw her arm move. ‘I can’t breathe in here. I need to get some air.’
As she reached for the handle to open the door, his hand shot out and the central-locking clicked into place with a thunk.
‘What are you doing?’ she screamed. ‘You’re not taking me to my parents, are you? Who are you?’
Inching forward, Ty hit the brakes then the button to unlock the doors. ‘You want to get out? Be my guest. But you’re on your own. Now, I know you’ve been through hell. I get that. But if they catch us, you might be safe, you might not, but I am definitely going to be dead. So, if you don’t trust me, go. You’re not the only one who’s scared here. You hear me?’
He eyed her in the mirror. His words seemed to be having an effect. Her chin slumped to her chest and she lapsed into silence
Ahead the traffic was moving, not in fits and starts but at a steady clip. They were getting past the last of the street vendors. Ty glanced at the GPS. They had less than a mile to go before they reached the consulate building. Less than a mile to safety.
He settled back into his seat, and checked the sat-nav screen in front of him, plotting a route through the side-streets that would take him close to the consulate. His plan was to leave the vehicle somewhere close by, make the phone call, and then, before word could leak from anyone at the consulate to the local authorities, walk her in. If he was stopped, he would inform whoever was doing the stopping that the consulate officials already knew they were there. He doubted any regular cop, no matter how corrupt or plugged into the cartel, would have the balls to block their safe passage at that point.
His eyes flicked back to Julia just as she glanced to her right. Her pupils snapped from pinpricks to full dilation faster than he had ever seen. She opened her mouth and began to scream.
Sixty-two
The hollowed-out eye sockets of Santa Muerte stared back at Julia through tangles of damp white hair. A part of her rational mind knew it was just a shrine, just a skeleton dressed as a woman, but that part was a lost, lonely voice drowned by a cacophony of others screaming at her, telling her that she had to get the hell out of there — now.
She opened the door and stepped out into the road. The people clustered around the shrine turned to look. A heroin-thin man shuffled towards her, eyes as vacant as those of the saint he had come to worship. A fat girl with a baby wedged against her hip whispered something to an older woman. All the while, Santa Muerte shot that demonic smile in Julia’s direction.
She jumped as she felt a hand in the small of her back. Someone giggled at her reaction, the laughter rippling through the crowd. She spun round to see Ty.
‘We have to get out of here, Julia. You understand me?’
Her eyes flicked to the row of gifts laid at the skeleton’s feet. Cigarettes and bottles of beer and tequila jostled with baby bootees and tourist-tat jewellery.
‘Who is she?’ she asked Ty.
He hesitated. ‘It’s some messed up bullshit is all. Now, let’s go.’
She didn’t move. ‘I asked who she is.’
‘Santa Muerte,’ he said.
Muerte. She knew that word. Muerte was Spanish for ‘death’. Santa Muerte. Saint Death.
The junkie had stepped from the semi-circle of the crowd towards her. He had his hand out, asking her for money. Ty took a step towards him, ‘Back off, asshole,’ his hand resting on the butt of his handgun. The junkie lurched back into the crowd, spitting at Ty’s feet as he went.
‘Okay,’ he said to her quietly. ‘You have until the count of three. When I hit three you are on your own, Julia. You got me?’
She said nothing. She knew she had to leave, that she had no choice if she wanted to stay alive, but the shrine was drawing her towards it.
‘One.’ His voice betrayed the weakness of a parent who has threatened a sanction they’re not sure they’ll be able to deliver.
‘Two.’
She turned back towards the SUV, ready to get back in but his hand grasped her elbow. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Too many people have seen us now. Seen the vehicle we’re in. We’re going to have to walk.’
Tears bulged at the corners of her eyes. Her lack of control had made the hole they were in even deeper than it had been. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Save it,’ said Ty. A huge arm folded over her back and he led her meekly away from the shrine. She glanced back at the vehicle, abandoned in the middle of the road, the rear passenger door still open.
Ty set a brisk pace but eventually he had to slow down. The only way she would have been able to match his long, loping strides would have been if she had jogged and she was too tired for that. Beyond the shrine, he shepherded her down a side-street, away from the prying eyes of the crowd, who, no doubt, were still discussing the behaviour of the two crazy Americans who had offered up an SUV to Saint Death.
The GPS clasped in his hand, Ty was busy recalculating their route. He turned down the volume and zoomed out, trying to commit the new route to memory, aware that he would need his eyes on the girl and the surrounding streets rather than the screen.
They had under a mile to cover. Given the traffic, walking wouldn’t take much longer than driving. They might be more mobile too, and it would be easier to adjust their route, to duck into a doorway if he saw the cops. The drawback was that they were both exposed. You could hide in a car. Now everyone they passed could see
