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Three more men get out of the SUV. Each one of them has a pistol tucked into the waists of their overly baggy blue jeans. They are wearing tight wife beaters, exposing muscular arms covered entirely in tattoos. Even their faces and shaved heads are covered in tattoos. But not Juan. He is dressed like he has stock in Brookes Brothers. He’s wearing a finely tailored, summer-weight, baby blue suit. Under the jacket, he’s got on a black silk shirt that’s unbuttoned half-way down his hairy chest, exposing a thin gold chain. A gold cross hangs from the chain. On his feet, he wears black Gucci loafers, no socks, like he just got off his yacht.
My pulsing heart is stuffed in my mouth. All I want to do is run away from the scene. What if he’s seen the FBI Wanted poster? What if his gangster posse has seen it and someone recognizes me? If that happens, they will shoot me on the spot. No, scratch that. They won’t shoot me on the spot. Instead, they will drag me into the woods where they will hold me down. They will snip my fingers off, one by one. They’ll do the same to my toes. They’ll cut off my nose and my eyelids. They will cut off my ears. They will pull out all my teeth with a pair of heavy-duty pliers. Only then, when I am writhing in horrific pain, and they are bored with chopping me up, will Juan press the barrel of his gun against my forehead and blow my brains out. If I were a Hollywood screenwriter and not a simple postal worker, that’s the way I’d script it.
Slowly, I start back-stepping away from the scene, trying to put as much distance from Juan and his gang as I possibly can. I keep my eye on him as he does something very strange. He slowly drops to his knees and makes the sign of the cross. The three gangsters behind him also make the sign of the cross, as if it would be disrespectful not to follow their boss’s lead. As if it would cost them their lives not to follow his lead.
When Juan clasps his hands together in prayer, the gangsters also clasp their hands together.
“Our father who art in heaven,” Juan begins to pray and together the four members of the murderous Jalisco New Generation Cartel recite the entirety of the Lord’s prayer, as if they have God on their side.
When the time is finished, Juan wipes both his eyes with the backs of his hands and then raises himself up, and carefully swipes the dirt and dust from his knees. I’m still back-stepping towards my mail truck when he eyes me suddenly. That’s when I feel like the ground beneath me is about to open up and swallow me whole. God knows, I wish it would.
“Hey, gringo,” he says, in his deep Mexican accent.
I look over my shoulder, like I’m pretending he could be speaking to someone else. But then I point to myself with extended index finger.
“Who, me?” I ask, the words peeling themselves from the back of my dry throat and mouth.
“Yes, you,” he says. “What business do you have in this place?”
I try to swallow, but it’s impossible.
“I deliver the mail around here,” I say. “I needed to drop something off at one of the cabins beyond the trees there.”
He takes a step forward and his entourage follows, their shooting hands now wrapped around their pistol grips, like they rehearsed it this way.
“You deliver the mail,” Juan repeats. “When do you deliver the mail precisely?”
It seems like an odd question to me. But then, there’s nothing very normal about this whole shit show.
“Every day,” I say. “Except Sunday.”
“What time, gringo?” he asks.
“What time?” I repeat.
“Am I stuttering?” he asks, his eyes wide, his face going tight.
The last thing I want is to piss him off. Piss him off any more than he already is.
“No, not at all,” I say. “I usually hit this area around nine or nine thirty. I’m usually done by ten or ten thirty.”
“So, you were delivering the mail on Saturday, am I correct?”
“I think so,” I say.
“Which is it, Gringo?” he presses. “Did you or did you not deliver the fucking mail on Saturday?”
He takes another two or three steps forward and the others follow. I get the feeling they wouldn’t need much of an excuse to draw their weapons.
“Yes, yes,” I say.
“And you delivered the mail last Saturday,” he says. “You might have seen who killed my two younger brothers. You did hear about what happened here on the news, am I right? I mean, you’d have to be living under one very large rock not to know what went down here, Gringo.”
“Oh, I agree,” I say.
“So, you know about the murders,” he says. “Maybe you even saw who did the murdering, but you’re afraid to speak up about it because it might get you killed.”
I shake my head. I want to answer him, but for the moment, I’m incapable of making a sound.
Another step forward.
“Well, let me tell you something,” he says. “If you saw what happened here and you are not speaking up about it, that will surely get you killed. Do you understand me? Gringo?”
I force myself to swallow.
“I assure you, sir,” I say, after a long beat. “I saw nothing happening here. I just keep my head down and go about my business. The last thing I need at my age is trouble.”
He just gives me a look with his dark eyes like he knows that I know that God above knows, that I’m a lying sack of shit. He can’t prove it yet, and he’s not about to shoot me in broad daylight with cars and trucks going by like Joanne got away with on his little brothers when she blasted their brains out. There might be twenty-five or thirty feet separating us, but I get the feeling that he can spot a liar a mile and a half away.
Then, coming around the corner, an unmarked police car. For the first time in a long time, I’m glad to see the cops.