“Come on, baby. We need to go with them.” He stood, trembling, as the waiter came over with his steak. “I’ll take that to go,” he said.
The two men nodded at him.
And that’s when Johnny grabbed Juanita’s hand and made a mad dash for the door.
He expected to hear some shouting and/or the sound of gunfire as the men who’d wanted to abduct them decided they would have to die instead.
But he and Juanita made it outside and into the parking lot, and when he whirled around, they were
“Johnny!” cried Juanita. “What do they want?”
Before he could open his mouth, two small sedans roared up and cut them off. More men — at least six — got out, all similarly dressed, all about the same height and age.
Johnny lifted his palms. It was over.
They took Juanita by the throat and shoved her into one car, grabbed him and threw him into the other. Johnny’s head hit the backseat as the driver screeched off, and sometime after they left the parking lot, perhaps a minute or two later, he had become so nervous that he simply fainted.
Johnny awoke some time later, his arms and legs bound against some kind of a pole that he realized was part of a car lift. He was inside an auto-body shop, surrounded by vehicles in various stages of assembly and repair. Dim light filtered in from a bank of windows to his right, with two large steel garage doors rising directly ahead.
The two men who were in the restaurant stood before him, an HD video camera clutched by the slightly leaner man. Johnny sighed. They’d just kidnapped him and were holding him for ransom. He’d make the video. Corrales would pay. Everything would be all right.
“Okay, okay, okay,” he said through another sigh. “I’ll say whatever you want. Where’s Juanita? Where’s my girlfriend?”
The camera guy glanced away from the tiny screen he’d been studying and shouted across the room, “Are you finished yet?”
“Yes!” came a voice.
And then Johnny saw them: two more men wearing black protective jumpsuits, the kind used while painting cars, although they hadn’t donned the headgear. The suits were stained darkly on the arms and hips. One man carried a yellow power tool with a narrow blade extending from the front, a reciprocating saw. Johnny had been to many accident scenes as a local newspaper reporter a few years back, and he’d become familiar with the tools first responders used to extricate people trapped in their cars.
The man with the saw revved the tool’s engine, and as he stepped closer, Johnny realized that the saw was stained with …blood.
“Look, no need for threats. I’ll do what you say.”
With a snort, the guy with the saw rolled his eyes and moved forward.
“Wait!” Johnny cried. “What do you want from me? Please!”
“Senor,” said the man with the camera. “We just want you to die.”
23 BUITRES JUSTICIEROS
Miguel Rojas was awakened at 6:41 a.m. by an aching desire. He rolled over and let his hand move slowly up Sonia’s leg. She stirred and whispered, “Always in the morning with you. Wasn’t last night enough?”
“It’s nature,” he said.
“No, it’s just you.”
“I can’t help it. It’s your fault, really. I can’t stop thinking about, you know …”
“Well, there’s more to life.”
“I know, I know.”
“Good. I understand how men are, and it’s okay, but I worry about you losing respect for me.”
“Never.”
“You say that now.” She draped an arm over her head. “Sometimes I wish …”
He frowned at her. “What?”
“I wish everything in my life had been different.”
“That can’t be true.”
“You might be the perfect man for me. But life is complicated, and I just worry for us. I wish everything had been different before I met you.”
“What was wrong with your life before that? You have great parents who love you very much. You’ve done very well.”
“I don’t know what I’m saying, really.”
“Is it the money? Because—”
“No, it has nothing to do with that.”
He tensed. “Then what is it? Another guy back home? That’s it. You’re still in love with another guy.”
She began to laugh. “No.”
He gently grabbed her by the chin. “Do you love me?”
“Too much.”
“What does that mean?”
She closed her eyes. “It means that sometimes it hurts.”
“Well, it shouldn’t. What can I do?”
“Just kiss me.”
He did, and one thing led to another. He wondered if Corrales and the others in the next room could hear them. She groaned softly, but they tried their best to remain discreet.
They hadn’t done much during their first day in the old city, spending most of their time around the villa and getting accustomed to the area. Miguel had chosen to stay in a new place and to live like a tourist, rather than exploit his father’s connections and stay in the same old boring mansions. He’d found them a quaint, European-run boutique hotel, and their first-floor villa had a kitchen, dining table, sitting area, and bedroom with bath. Murals and Mayan textiles adorned the walls, with a wood-burning fireplace opposite their bed. While the room had no air conditioning, they didn’t need it. Outside was a veranda with chairs, so they could sit and watch people in the lushly landscaped courtyard, where a hammock lay beneath the long limbs of a shade tree. A young couple had been lying on the hammock and kissing deeply. That image had been enough to drive him and Sonia back into their bedroom for a quick round of sex only hours after they’d arrived.
As Miguel rolled off of Sonia, the cockerels began their morning announcements: Indeed, the sun was rising. It felt as though they were on a farm, but Miguel enjoyed their racket. This was semirural Mexico, and it was just he and Sonia and this beautiful little city to explore. The concierge had told them that many writers, artists, academics, and archaeologists stayed at the hotel and spent their days both exploring the city and driving out thirty minutes to the ancient Mayan city known as Palenque, where the ancient temples and palaces with their broad staircases and partially crumbling walls drew thousands of visitors each year. Miguel had been to the ruins only once, as a boy, so he thought he’d like to explore them again.
First, however, they’d go shopping, which he knew would make Sonia very happy. They were only a ten- minute walk down the hill to the louder central streets. Miguel rose and moved to the window, staring out past the courtyard at the highlands, draped in long shadows, the green mountains still dark and forming a moonscape along the horizon.
Farther away, the streets seemed to writhe their way along the hillsides, and the brightly colored houses — some green, purple, and yellow, and all with red tiled roofs — lay in tight clusters along those narrow paths. Beyond
