The Jaguar: A Charlie Hood Novel Part 7

"No. He just came up in the net. But I couldn't throw him back. He's so good. So wholesome. So tempting."

"You just accidentally found him?"

"Through your mother, Suzanne, of course. She was the magnet and Charlie Hood was a small iron shaving."

"He's been looking everywhere for you."

"I know. I receive his requests for information about me every week. Sometimes two or three times."

"What does he want with you?"

"I'm not sure. But I'm concerned for him. He seems to have me confused with an Irish priest who helped build a school in Costa Rica. Imagine."

"You're a meddler, Mike."

"I'm a lot more than just that!"

Later Bradley called Hood on the satellite phone. Hood was on his way to Ciudad Juarez, the murder capital of the New World. The ransom money was safe. Bradley said nothing of Mike Finnegan, the object of Hood's growing obsession. First things first, thought Bradley. Erin first. Nothing else matters.

12.

HOOD CROSSED THE BORDER INTO Ciudad Juarez just after dawn Tuesday. He looked up at the mountains above the city and saw the huge sign declaring in Spanish, "The Bible Is the Truth. Read It." The morning was cool and the light was soft. The city looked peaceful enough at this hour but Hood knew its tremendous violence.

He checked into the Lucerna and was told his room was ready. The lobby stood empty except for two men in short-sleeved white s.h.i.+rts and sungla.s.ses who watched him from the far side and were gone by the time Hood was given his room key.

Dazed by the long drive he wheeled his luggage and the small duffel to the elevator bank where the two men intercepted him. One of them reached inside Hood's sport coat and confiscated the Springfield .45 from his hip rig, then started back toward the lobby. The other nodded to Hood to follow.

At their direction Hood loaded his luggage and Bradley's money into the back of a battered black Escalade with smoked windows parked curbside. He sat in the second row of leather seats. The pa.s.senger was in his late thirties, he guessed, short in the legs, thick in the neck like a bull, with the diffident air of a gunman. The driver was very big and young and looked intently through the winds.h.i.+eld.

They drove the Juarez streets in silence for a few minutes. Hood had never been in the city before. It was said to have the highest murder rate of any city on Earth, including second-place Caracas and third-place New Orleans. The Zetas and the Gulf Cartel had littered the streets with two thousand bodies in the past year alone.

Hood also knew that four hundred others, young women, maquiladora workers mostly, had been raped, mutilated, and murdered in a decade, virtually none of the crimes solved, their bones salting the surrounding desert in shallow graves. Hundreds more of the young women were missing. The murders were the work of at least several men, it was agreed, perhaps working in concert but perhaps not. Violent monsters, certainly. Gangsters and maybe police too. Hundreds of killings and no arrests had been made. And of course the city was dying along with its people. Hood had read Mexican media reports estimating that five hundred thousand citizens-roughly one-third of the population-had left Juarez because of the violence. One hundred sixteen thousand homes had been abandoned. Ten thousand businesses had folded. All blown away by a wind that smelled of human bodies baking in the sun. The living couldn't take it anymore.

Hood looked out the smoked windows at the neighborhood around them-small concrete houses, recently built but now abandoned, covered with graffiti, their windows broken and boarded, no cars on the street, no signs of life, just trash and brown dirt yards.

"Do you know our city?" asked the driver. "This is the Rivera Bravo zone. Once the government said it was a model for the future. Now see it. It is new and almost dead. Anyone who can afford to leave Juarez is doing so. It is having less and less people."

The pa.s.senger gave the driver a long look.

"Where are we going?" asked Hood.

"You have nothing to fear," said the driver. He raised his big face to the rearview.

"I have the money. I can show it to you and you can save the cost of gasoline."

"Mr. Bravo, we wanted to talk to you," said the driver. "We wanted you to see our city. There is much history here, much of it bad. But it is not as terrible as everyone in the United States believes. If Calderon can weaken the cartels before he runs out of political support, Juarez will return to normal."

The bull-like man in the pa.s.senger seat turned and looked at Hood through his sungla.s.ses. He looked familiar. "Sgt. Rescendez of the Tijuana city police is a man I know," he said. "He told me he recognized you from Mulege."

"I was not in Mulege," said Hood.

"He said you were one of the Americans who rescued the ATF agent, Holdstock."

"No. He is mistaken."

"He has always been an observant man. Let's say he is correct. Then you know that Benjamin Armenta still wants to punish Holdstock and ATF for killing his son."

"I only know of that story from the media," Hood lied again. "Armenta has punished the man enough. Did you see his family on TV? The newspapers said the shooting was accidental. That Holdstock wasn't even aiming at Armenta's son."

The bull nodded. "That may be true. But if Benjamin Armenta believes that you are an ATF agent in Mexico, he will take the money and kill you."

"I'm not an ATF agent. But I think he might kill me anyway. And I don't know where your friend gets his alleged information about me."

"He was one of Luna's men. He helped to rescue the agent Holdstock."

They made two left turns, reversing direction.

"Well, he's working for Armenta now," said Hood.

"There have been thousands of police officers fired across Mexico," said the driver. "Thousands more have quit under suspicion and even more because of fear. There are few livings to be made here by police. So they go where the jobs are. North, or to the narcotrafficantes. Rescendez was once a good man. See? He still offers us information we can use. For money, however."

Hood considered this. What could be a more dire ailment for a nation than an inability to retain decent law enforcement?

"You are a friend of Bradley Jones?"

"Yes."

"What did he do to Benjamin Armenta to deserve this?"

"I don't know," said Hood. "He's an American cop. He makes a fair salary."

"Yet Armenta sends men to the Estados Unidos in order to kidnap his wife? And he wants one million dollars to free her? This makes not enough sense."

"Who are you? How do you know this?"

"This area is called the Campestre," said the driver. "You see the mansions? This was our most expensive district. There were country clubs. Now you see these houses are for sale and for lease. They are falling apart. n.o.body wants to live here. Too many murders. Too many beheadings. See the boulders in the driveways? The owners placed them there to slow the vehicles, to make kidnappings and carjacking and a.s.sa.s.sinations more difficult. It did not work. So, the prosperous people, they sell. They're in El Paso now, and Dallas and even in California."

A truth began to dawn on Hood, or at least he thought it did. He looked out at the derelict mansions of Campestre. Most of the wrought-iron security gates had been carried off by thieves and the streetlights had been yanked for their copper. The long driveways they once protected were choked with leaves and fallen branches and trash. A pack of dogs rooted through the garbage.

Soon they were outside of the city, traveling into the steep desert mountains to the south, the big "The Bible Is the Truth" sign towering above them. The road turned to dirt, then it cut along flush against the mountain. Soon Hood was looking down on Juarez from hundreds of feet above and he could see the slow brown Rio Grande and El Paso beyond it and he thought: If I'm wrong about this I'm a dead man.

They stopped and the driver shut off the engine. Then he partially turned his bulk to face Hood and show his badge holder. "We are Special Investigations, Juarez Police Department," he said. "We are the most a.s.saulted police force in the world. There is almost nowhere in the city where it is safe to work or even be seen."

The pa.s.senger took off his sungla.s.ses and turned to face Hood.

"You are a Luna," said Hood.

"Yes. I am Valente Luna and he is Julio Santo. You are Charlie Hood. Raydel was my brother and he spoke respectfully of you. Like him I have sworn to remove the plague from my country. Raydel died for your friend Holdstock. Now you will take us to Benjamin Armenta, Mr. Hood, and Raydel's death will have meaning."

Hood looked from Luna's badge into his fierce black eyes. He remembered Raydel's similar eyes, the goodness and will and bravery in them. Hood had heard Raydel Luna say one of the most beautiful things he had ever heard said, then he had helplessly watched the man die. Since that moment Luna had earned full citizens.h.i.+p in Hood's dreams and seeing now that some of Raydel was still alive in his brother made Hood's heart glad.

"Right on," he said. "Now maybe you should get me back to the Lucerna before the Gulf people see me talking to you."

The driver started up the SUV.

"Our informants told us where you would be and what you were carrying in the luggage," said Luna. "We a.s.sume that they have sold this information to others as well. Information is cheap of course, and can be sold many times. So in Mexico everyone soon knows everything. Armenta has thousands of enemies who would love to find you. We expect the next part of your journey to be fraught with possible danger."

He offered Hood his pistol, handle first.

An hour later Hood answered the knock on his hotel room door. Two men in dark suits and open-collared dress s.h.i.+rts walked past him into the room without invitation or greeting. Hood saw the Mayan blood in them, in the broad cheeks and slightly almond-shaped eyes, the ample ears and compact bodies. Their eyes were quick and hostile. When the hotel door swung shut the heavier man went straight to the suitcase standing upright against the wall. He swung it up and onto the bed and held out a hand to Hood.

Hood tossed him the key and the man caught it and opened the lock, unzipped the main compartment and flipped over the top.

The other man stood in front of the door with his hands crossed contritely in front of him.

Hood watched the first man rummage through the bundles of cash. He pulled some out, then picked up the whole suitcase and dumped the rest of the money onto the bed. He took a packet of fifties, cut through the plastic with a switchblade and extracted a thin stack of bills. These he fanned with a thumb, closely watching the play of the paper in his hands. When he was done he dropped the fifties into the pile and looked at Hood. "Your phone."

Hood popped it from his hip and tossed it. The man dialed and waited a moment, then motioned Hood over to take it.

Hood held it up to his ear and waited. Erin's voice was thin and trembling.

"Charlie?"

"Yes, it's me. Are you okay?"

"I've seen the most terrible things."

"Have they hurt you?"

"They fed a man to leopards and I fainted. I can't lock the door to my room and I can't get out and this man says he'll rape me when he wants to. There's a priest who wears a gun and young acolytes following him around and I don't know where I am or what these people are going to do to me. I'm afraid, Charlie. I'm trying to be strong but I'm just d.a.m.ned afraid I'm going to lose everything, even what's inside me."

"Have they hurt you, Erin?"

"I'm okay, Charlie. Where is Bradley? We only have a few more days. Have you heard from him? Why isn't he here? No! Wait-"

As in Tijuana one of the men claimed Hood's old phone and gave him a new one, another prepaid model, another car charger wrapped around it. The other man handed him a plastic shopping bag containing two Mexico license plates issued apparently by the state of Yucatan. On Armenta's gulf, thought Hood.

"Reynosa in one day. You will be called there. Drive through Texas. It is faster than Mexico and more safe. As soon as you cross into Mexico, change the license plates."

"I have something for you," said Hood. He reached for his duffel and both men drew down on him. Hood raised his hands and they nodded and he moved very slowly, working two of the small photo alb.u.ms from his duffel. He slipped a one-hundred-dollar bill into each before handing one to each of the narcos.

They looked at Hood blankly, then opened the booklets.

"Do you know him? Have you seen him?"

The men flipped patiently through the pictures. One looked up at Hood with an amused smile. The other went through the photos twice.

"No."

"No."

"Keep them. Show them to the men you work with. Show them to whoever you want. I've got a thousand dollars for anyone who can tell me where he is. My numbers are on the last page. Call collect if you want."

"Reynosa in one day."

When the men were gone Hood called Bradley on the satellite phone. "She's okay. I just talked to her. She's scared but she's okay."

"Tell me everything she said."

Hood did. When he was finished he listened to the silence at the other end. "Where are you, my friend?" asked Hood.

"On my way to Veracruz."

"Who aimed you there?"

"Carlos's people. The bad guys always know where the other bad guys are."

"Do you know where they're keeping her?"

"Somewhere on the Yucatan peninsula. Trust me, Hood-when I know where she is, you will too. But I suspect you'll find out long before I do. If I do."

"Do you trust Herredia?"

"I have to. I'm lost down here without him."

"I'm guarding this money with my life. I'm doing my job, Bradley."

"Tell me everything she said. Please. One more time."

Dear Beth I hope you are okay and that Daisy has been good company. I'm in Mexico helping some a.s.sociates who are in a tight spot. It's a long story and I won't burden you with it, although I remember you asking me to share my burdens. I'm still learning how to do that. I wish I could blather, warble and yap, as you describe your own talents. I don't know why I seem to think my burdens are too special, or maybe not special enough, to share. I miss you very much, the hope in your eyes and the sweetness of your breath and the way your hair falls over your forehead and when I lift it back into place it falls again. Lots more than that too.

Down here it's another world, Beth. Juarez is devastated by the murders of the women, and the cartels have added another two thousand or so bodies of their own in the last two years. Whole neighborhoods are deserted now, mostly the more prosperous ones because the betteroff people have left. Anyone who can afford to leave has gone. The mayor lives in the United States because he fears for his life. I recount these horrors not to impress you with my bravery (or foolishness) but as a way to measure my own puzzlement over why I choose to work along this border of sorrows. I remember you told me how you enjoyed the challenge of treating cancer patients. How you loved the idea that you could win. So I think you must understand what draws me here. I could go back to L.A. anytime. I could get back my patrol in Antelope Valleyyou know how I like the desert. But I stay close to Mexico. Why? I believe that I'm needed here though I can't prove that my actions and sacrifices, or those of the brave men and women I work with, some of which have been far deeper than my own, have accomplished even one tiny bit of good in this lawless place so immune to good fortune. I wonder if a man's soul can grow used to defeat, and if so, can the soul of a place?

There are many beauties in this world but none of them touch the beauty that I see in you.

Your Missing Man,