AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She wasn’t kidding about having room. Her “auto” was a Hummer limo with a custom interior that made it as comfortable as a living room.
“Tell me, Mr. Moore, what is your line of work?” Constanza said when they had settled themselves and Manny, behind the wheel, had pulled out into the circular traffic flow leaving the airport. She had the sort of body most women of twenty would kill for: big-breasted, slim-waisted, long-legged.
“Import-export,” Bourne said without hesitation.
“I see.” Constanza, watching Rebeka as she stared back at the pick-up area, continued, “I so love people with secrets.”
Rebeka turned. “I beg your pardon?”
“My late husband, Acevedo Camargo, was a man composed almost entirely of secrets.” She smiled slyly. “Sometimes I think that’s why I fell in love with him.”
“Acevedo Camargo,” Bourne said. “I’ve heard that name.”
“I expect you have.” There was a distinct twinkle in Constanza’s eyes as she addressed Rebeka. “My late husband made his money, like so many clever men in Mexico, in the drug trade.” She shrugged. “I’m not ashamed of it, facts are facts, and, besides, it’s better than kowtowing to Gringos with your face in the dust.” She waved a hand. “No offense, but we’re in my country now. I can say what I want, when I want.”
She smiled benignly. “You mustn’t misunderstand me. Acevedo was a good man, but, you see, in Mexico, more often than not, good men die. Acevedo turned his back on the drug trade. He became a politician, a crusader against the people who had made him a multimillionaire. Brave or stupid? Possibly both. They killed him for it, gunned him down in the street between his office and his armored car, a hail of bullets; no one could have saved him, not even if he had had a dozen bodyguards instead of three. They all died that evening. I remember the sun was red as a bullfighter’s cape. That was Acevedo—a bullfighter.”
She sat back, apparently exhausted by her memories. Manny drove along the Circuito Interior Highway, heading into the dusky west.
“I’m so terribly sorry,” Rebeka said, after exchanging a quick look with Bourne.
“Thank you,” Constanza said, “but there’s really no need. I knew the life I was drawing when I fell in love with him.” She shrugged. “What can you do when desire and destiny become entwined? This is life in Mexico, which is made up of equal parts poverty, hopelessness, and shit. An endless series of defeats. Excuse my bluntness, but I’ve lived long enough to know how tedious it is to beat around the bush.”
Her hand, slender, elegant, and burnished with nail polish and jeweled rings, made circles in the air. “Because this is what life is here, we learn to take any path that will lift our faces from the mud. I chose Acevedo. I knew who and what he was. He would not, could not, hide those things from me. Over the years, I advised him. No one knew, of course. Such things are frowned upon for a woman.” She smiled, almost wistfully. “I gave him more money instead of children. Being tied to the kitchen and the nursery was not for me. I told him that at the very beginning. Still he loved me and wanted me.” Her smile broadened. “Such a good man. He understood so much. Except how to survive.” She sighed. “Smart as he was, what he never figured out was that it made no difference whether the law was raped and pillaged by the government or by the criminals.”
She lifted her head, a brave smile on her face. “Thinking back on it, I’m certain now that he knew he would be killed. He didn’t care. He wanted to do what he wanted to do.” That enigmatic smile again. “Brave and stupid, as I said.”
The limo, exiting the highway, turned left onto Avenue Rio Consulado and then the Paseo de la Reforma. As they entered the city proper, the navel of the Distrito Federal, home to twenty-two million souls, Constanza’s eyes snapped back to focus on Bourne and Rebeka.
“Dios mio,” she said, as they drove through the choked streets of the Historic District, “listen to me rambling on about my life when I so want to know about yours.”
So,” Don Fernando said, “who do you belong to?”
Martha Christiana, plucking off a bit of buttery croissant, concentrated on her breakfast. “Why should I belong to anyone?”
“All women yearn to belong to someone.”
She took a sip of her café au lait, served in a thick white porcelain cup the size of a small bowl. “What about the independent women?”
“Especially the independent women!” he said with enthusiasm. “Independence needs to be attached to something, otherwise it is meaningless. It has nothing to contrast with. It withers and turns bitter.”
The two of them were sitting at a round table with a glass top and heavily filigreed wrought-iron legs, one of perhaps a dozen scattered across the rooftop restaurant that overlooked the busy harbor at Gibraltar and, further out, the deep-turquoise Mediterranean. The high blue sky was dotted with benign-looking meandering clouds. A freshening breeze stirred her hair. It had been late when they had finished in the room where her mother sat, locked inside her own mind. Martha had needed to talk, though it shamed her at first. Later on, after he had helped her put her mother to bed, much to her astonishment, the shame had evaporated like mist in sunlight.
She looked up now into his strong, lined, sun-bronzed face. He saw her expression, and his hands opened wide. “What? I’m the man who loves women.”
“At the moment you don’t sound like it.”
“Then you’ve misunderstood me.” He shook his head. “No one chooses to be alone, no one wants it.”
“I do.”
“No,” he said evenly, “you don’t.”
“Please don’t tell me what I want.”
“My apologies,” he said without really meaning it.
The eggs came then, along with papas bravas and salsa verde. They ate silently for a time. A tension was building between them. At the moment Martha Christiana realized that it was deliberate, he said, “So now who do you belong to?”
A tiny smile broke across her lips, which she hid by mopping a runny yolk with several potato bits and popping them into her mouth. Now she understood what this conversation was about, and why he had taken her back to Gibraltar. She chewed thoughtfully and swallowed.
“Why do you want to know, Don Fernando?”
“Because,” he said calmly and evenly, “you came to me as the angel of death.” He caught the flash of her eyes, their ever so slight widening. “Now I’m wondering whether we have gone beyond that.”
“And if we haven’t?”
He smiled. “Then you must kill me.”
She sat back and wiped her lips. “So you know.”
“It would seem so.”
“When?”
He shrugged. “From the very beginning.”
“And you let me go about it?”
“You intrigue me, Martha.”
Her serious eyes studied him for a moment, then she laughed raucously. “I must be losing my touch.”
“No,” he said. “You no longer wish to be alone. You want to belong.”
“I belong to Maceo Encarnación.”
There, she had said the dreaded name. It was out.
He shook his head. “That, my dear, is an illusion.”
“Now, I suppose, you’ll tell me it’s an illusion created by Maceo Encarnación.”
“In fact, it’s an illusion you yourself created.” Don Fernando, knowing she loved fresh-squeezed blood-orange juice, refilled her tall, narrow glass. “Maceo Encarnación does not possess that power.” He paused for a moment, as if in deep contemplation. “Unless, of course, you have given it to him.”
He shrugged again, his gaze tangling with hers. “You’re stronger than that. This I know without question.”
“How?” she said. “How do you know?”
He answered her with his eyes.
“I have been with Maceo Encarnación for a number of years, after a long line of—” She was about to say after a long line of men who used me and who I used, after I escaped Marrakech, but she bit her
tongue instead. She could not recount those months of humiliation, even with this man, whom, she realized now, she had come to trust, an utterly astonishing revelation, considering she had been quite certain she could never trust a man. That included Maceo Encarnación, who paid so generously for her services, just as he had paid for her training. “You’re a natural at killing,” he had told her once. “All your skills need are more options to choose from, a bit of refining.” The concept of trust had never been raised between them. Theirs was a strictly transactional relationship, nothing more, but nothing less, either. The fact remained, however, that she had never once contemplated betraying him. Until now.
Don Fernando Hererra, the man sitting across from her, staring, it seemed, into her very soul, had changed everything, upending her life, causing her to transgress every rule she had imposed on herself. But, on second thought, maybe not. Perhaps he was an emissary, perhaps he had just handed her the key. The rest had been her choice, as he had intimated. It was she who had opened the door, stepping through into an entirely new world. He hadn’t told her how to act or feel—he had been trying to tell her that she had already made her decisions.
She knew without having to ask that this was how Don Fernando saw it, and she was immensely grateful for that. He was the sort of man she had dreamed of, but had convinced herself she would never meet, that he could not possibly exist.
And yet…
Breaking her gaze away, she stared out over the rocking boats, the furled sails, the drying nets on the decks of the just-returned fishing fleet. The granite boulders rising like a giant’s shoulders from the sea.
“When I was a child,” she said, “I used to think I lived at the end of the world.” She waited, afraid, almost, to go on. Then she took the next step into the brightly lit room. “I was wrong. It was the beginning.”
16
Constanza Camargo lived at the corner of Alejandro Dumas and Luis G Urbina, in Colonia Polanco. From her jalousied front windows Bourne looked out at the modernist, angular man-made pond in the center of Lincoln Park, beyond which, to the north, past the thick, geometric stands of trees, was Castelar Street. The interior of the colonial mansion was warm and comfortably furnished, made welcoming and even intimate by the profusion of personal items, photos, memorabilia, and souvenirs from half a lifetime of world travel.
“Someone in this family loves Indonesia,” Bourne said, as he and Rebeka followed Constanza into the dark wood-beamed dining room. It was wallpapered in a dark-green semi-abstract forest pattern and had French doors that led out to an inner courtyard dominated by a lime tree and a concrete fountain sculpted into the shape of twin dolphins, caught in mid-leap. Purple and pink bougainvillea clung to the pale stone walls.
“That would be me,” Constanza said. “In Java, I stood atop the Buddhist sanctuary, Borobudur, at sunrise. In the late afternoon, I heard the Muslim voices of the muezzin calling and echoing all across the dusky, sun-bronzed valley. Astonishing. I fell instantly in love.”
As they sat at the thick trestle table, they were surrounded by servants, each carrying a tureen of stew or a platter of food or bottles of tequila, wine, and spring water.
As lunch was methodically, almost ritualistically, served, Constanza said with that same twinkle in her eyes, “Now I’ve told you my history, you must tell me yours.”
“We’ve come to Mexico City looking for someone,” Bourne said before Rebeka could answer.
“Ah.” Constanza smiled. “Not on a vacation.”
“Sadly, no.”
She waited while a servant spooned a dark, rich pork mole onto her plate. “And may I assume that your search is urgent?”
“Why would you say that?” Rebeka asked.
Constanza turned to her. “Did you think I didn’t see that evil-looking man lurking in the arrivals hall? I may be getting on in years, but I’m not senile!”
“I want to be as sharp as you are,” Rebeka said, “when I’m your age.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Constanza said with a wink. “Why do you think I offered you a lift?” She leaned toward them, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “I want in on the action.”
“Action?”
“Whatever you two are up to. Whatever that evil-looking man wants to stop you from doing.”
“Since we’re speaking bluntly,” Bourne said, “that evil-looking man wants to kill us.”
Constanza frowned. “Now that I won’t put up with!”
Rebeka shook her head. “You’re not shocked?”
“After you’ve lived my life,” Constanza said, “nothing is shocking.” She turned to stare at Bourne. “Especially for people who say they’re in import-?export. For many years, that was my husband’s line of work!”
She put her hands together, no longer interested in eating, if she ever had been. “So, tell me what you can and I will help you find whoever you’re looking for.”
“His name is Harry Rowland,” Bourne said.
“Or Manfred Weaving,” Rebeka added.
“Legends,” Constanza said, a sprightly gleam in her eye. “Oh, yes, I know about legends. Acevedo used them in the early days when we traveled abroad.”
“There’s something that may make this man easier to locate,” Bourne said. “We think he works for SteelTrap.”
Something new overcame Constanza’s expression, something powerful and dark and thoroughly unpleasant. She looked from one to the other. “This will undoubtedly sound overheated, even melodramatic. I wish it were either of those things.” Her eyes had turned dark and unfathomable with secrets best left untouched. “My best advice is to forget this man Rowland or Weaving. Whatever your business is with him, forget it. Leave Mexico City on the next flight.”
After enduring a restless night during which Charles Thorne was pursuing her through a labyrinth of dank corridors that smelled of anaesthetic and death, Delia awoke in her own bed with a pounding headache even three ibuprofen couldn’t quite eradicate. She checked her phone to see if there had been any calls from Soraya’s ICU nurse, even though she knew there hadn’t been. One voicemail and two texts from Amy, wondering how she was. Amy and Soraya did not get along, which was a great sadness to her. She hadn’t wanted to believe it, but Amy was jealous of the intimacy she shared with Soraya. Even though she had assured Amy there was no physical component to their friendship, that Soraya was strictly hetero, she had come to the realization that Amy didn’t believe her. “I’ve read all the articles about how rampant homosexuality is in the Arab world,” Amy said in one of her less than finest moments. “It’s all been pushed underground, it’s all sub rosa, which makes the urge all the stronger.” Nothing Delia could say would dissuade Amy from her point of view, so she had stopped trying, and gradually the subject of Soraya dropped from their conversations.
Showered and dressed, she grabbed a bite at a McD drive-through. She might as well have been eating the cardboard packaging for all she could taste the food.
Arriving at the office, she occupied herself with figuring out a fiendishly clever double-blind detonation mechanism. When, at length, she looked at her watch, over two hours had passed. She stood up, stretched, and took a walk around the lab in an attempt to clear her head.
It was no use. No matter what she did, she remained alone with her thoughts and her seething anger at Charles Thorne. Her first concern, of course, remained Soraya, but now she was at a total loss to understand what had drawn her friend to that monster. Maybe it’s a heterosexual thing, she thought, with both amusement and bitterness. He had humiliated her. Far worse, she had allowed him to humiliate her.
She returned to her workstation, but now she was unable to concentrate, so, grabbing her overcoat, she returned to the hospital. It seemed important, somehow, to be near Soraya, especially because she was unconscious and vulnerable.
Already exhausted and terribly hungry, she went down the hall to the ICU, but once she was assured by Soraya’s nurse that there was no news, she took herself
down to the basement commissary, filled up her tray with a mishmash of dishes, added a soda and, after paying, sat down at a Formica table. She ate staring at the huge analog clock on the wall, her thoughts with her friend, hoping that with every breath she took now she’d be closer to healing.
Dear God, she thought, stay close to Raya, protect her from harm, let her and the baby be okay.
Her eyes burned and her skin felt parched, products of spending time in the hospital’s canned air. She knew she should leave, take a break, walk around the block even, but somehow she could not get herself to do it. She waited for her mobile to ring, willing there to be good news.
And, at last, there was. Her mobile vibrated, she jumped up, and listened to the nurse even as she was on her way upstairs, her heart pounding in her chest. Too long a wait for the elevators, so she turned to the stairwell, taking the treads two at a time, thinking, Come on, Raya. Come on!
Pushing the large square button on the wall to open the automatic doors, she went into the ICU. On either side of a wide central aisle were screened-off bays from which issued the mechanical beeps, whistles, and sighs of the various machines keeping the critical care patients alive, in some cases, breathing.
She hurried past the burn and cardiac units. Soraya’s bay was the last one on the right. Her nurse, a young woman with her hair pinned back, looked at Delia with caring eyes.
“She’s awake,” the nurse said, reacting to the acute anxiety on Delia’s face. “Her vitals have stabilized. Dr. Santiago and one of his colleagues have been in. They seemed pleased with their patient’s progress.”
Delia felt as if she were walking on burning needles. “So the prognosis?”
“The doctors are cautiously optimistic.”
Delia felt a bubble in her chest deflate. “Then she’s out of the woods?”
“I would say so, yes.” The nurse offered one of those nursely smiles that could mean nothing at all. “Though there’s still a ways to go, she’s made remarkable progress.”
