Returning to the parish office, an image of Pamela shimmering in his mind, he heard his conscience ventriloquize Sister Josefina: You are a bad priest, Timothy Riordan. Bad, bad, bad. Forget a deeper intimacy with God, he thought. Dad had it right: death alone is the way off the streetcar named desire.
Entering the office, he was startled to find the cop, the self-styled Professor, seated there. He had Riordan’s Latin grammar open on a laptop covering his knees.
“Buenos días, Padre Tim,” he said, his pale, piercing eyes beaming out from cavernous sockets. He was again in plain clothes, except for a windbreaker bearing the Federal Police logo, a seven-pointed star. And the gun, a black semiauto in a black ballistic-cloth holster. “I saw this on your shelf,” he went on, in English, tapping the book. “Thought I’d brush up on my declensions and conjugations.”
“This isn’t a public library,” Riordan said, flushed with indignation. “How did you get in here? What are you doing here? What do you want?”
“Are you curious or pissed off?”
“Both, and it’s not fifty-fifty.”
“I’ll take your questions in order.” The Professor noticed Riordan frowning at the pistol and zipped up the windbreaker to cover it. That was civil of him. “I got in here because your man let me in.”
“Domingo?”
“He’s one of the reasons I’m here. He and his brother have asked for police protection. It seems they’re not confident that Señor Díaz’s neighborhood watch is up to the job.”
Riordan sat behind his desk. It gave him the illusion that he would be in control of whatever came next.
“It also seems that the Brotherhood isn’t ready to write off San Patricio,” the Professor continued. “We think they’re going to try to regain control here. The Quirogas got a phone call the other night. They are supposed to start paying a cuota again,” he elaborated. “Domingo’s brother was the one who came to us.”
“Adan,” Riordan said. “An older brother.”
“He was scared shitless, which I’d say is an appropriate response, but he wasn’t ready to roll over. An installment was due early this morning, while the bakers were baking. You guys can bust the collectors when they show up, Adan told us. So we did. Two of them, young guys from right here in town. I wouldn’t be surprised if you gave them Communion last Sunday.” He said this jovially. “We’re having conversations with them at the base. They’re plankton, but they might lead us on up the food chain to the barracudas. Don’t ask who they are. You’ve got your secrets, we’ve got ours.”
A little gas bubble formed in Riordan’s gut and bobbed into his throat. “Where is Domingo now?”
“Two of my men gave him a ride home.”
“I was with him an hour ago. He never said a word about this.”
“Why would he? Not the kind of thing you want to spread around. But I thought I’d let you know, since he’s your employee.”
“He’s not an employee. He volunteers. Not that that makes any difference. You said police protection, Pro … Is there something I can call you besides ‘Professor’?”
“Try Inspector. Inspector Grigorio Bonham. We’ll have two officers watching Domingo’s and Adan’s houses twenty-four/seven, two more at the bakery, and we’ve beefed up security in the plaza to keep an eye on your church, since he works here part of the time.”
“What did the caller say? Did he make threats?”
“A threat would have been superfluous,” said Inspector Bonham. He clasped his hands behind his head and stretched out his legs, crossing his ankles, his trouser cuffs riding up to show costly, ostrich-skin cowboy boots with quilled toes. His relaxed pose and vigilant stare brought to mind a well-trained rottweiler at rest. Under different circumstances, he would have made Riordan nervous; but in a bad neighborhood, it was good to have an attack dog in your yard.
“I’m very fond of Domingo. If anything happened to him … Is there anything I can do to—”
“Nothing that we’re not doing. You might want to encourage your parishioners to cooperate with us. If they know something, say something. Anonymity guaranteed.”
“An apology from the captain might put them in a more cooperative mood.”
“Forget that, but he might be in a better mood himself because he has to be,” Bonham said. “The orders to disarm the autodefensas have been rescinded. The government figures disarming them would be more trouble than it’s worth, so the neighborhood watchmen here and everywhere get to keep their flintlocks. And we—the army and the police—have been urged to cooperate with them. I doubt Valencia is going to be Díaz’s best friend, but”—Bonham drew himself out of his slouch—“it’s what you suggested, so congratulate yourself, Padre Tim. You were ahead of the curve.”
Riordan noted the phrase: ahead of the curve. “How long did you say you lived in the States?”
“I didn’t say.”
“You can’t blame me for being inquisitive. Your English, your last name.”
“My father was a Brit, not American. A mining engineer. My mother was a third-rate Mexican actress, crazy enough to think she was a star. I got American citizenship for doing four years in the U.S. Army. The Eighty-second Airborne. We were in the Panama operation to nab Noriega in eighty-nine. My first drug bust.”
“So you’re a dual citizen?”
“Triple. I’ve got a British passport. Stifle your inquisitiveness. You’re already well out of the need-to-know box.”
“Are we done, then?”
“No.”
Bonham got to his feet with a languorous movement, laid the laptop on the desk, then moved around it to stand behind Riordan. Leaning over his shoulder, he turned the computer on, tapped the keyboard. A still image filled a YouTube window. He clicked to full-screen display. Wearing a baseball cap, a man seated at a cluttered table was looking right into the video camera through the slits in the balaclava concealing his face. Centered on a wall behind him was La Fraternidad’s emblem: the robed bones of Holy Death clutching an AK-47, her hooded skull grinning. Posters of Che Guevara and Emiliano Zapata flanked her, Guevara on her right, Zapata on her left.
Bonham clicked Play.
“Good day, brothers and sisters, from the comandancia of the Brotherhood,” the masked figure began. “This will be the first in a series of video communiqués we will issue from time to time…” He went on for four minutes, thirty-seven seconds in a muffled voice as robotic as a recorded announcement in a train station. Then the screen faded to black.
Riordan stared at it, fascinated and appalled. “What … what is this?”
“Looks like the Brotherhood is opening a media campaign. Next thing they’ll have a Facebook page. I thought you’d appreciate his religious sentiments. ‘Who is without God is lost,’” said Bonham, positioning himself with his hands on the back of the chair, as if he meant to wheel Riordan across the room—or give him a shove.
“That was him? Salazar?”
“Yes. I recognize the voice.”
“You would think a cartel boss would be embarrassed to call himself ‘the Butterfly.’”
“He does because he was one thing that became another thing.”
“I am mystified.”
“Ernesto Salazar is an alias. Real name: Julián Menéndez. Julián was a pioneer in using new media in the trade. Back in oh-one, oh-two, he produced snuff videos for his mother. Mom’s sicarios executing people, with snappy narco-corridos for background music. A bright guy. Has a business degree from the University of Texas.”
“You seem to have gotten ahead of yourself,” Riordan said. “And please sit down where I can see you.”
Bonham spun around the desk and dropped back into his chair.
“Yvonne Menéndez was la jefa of the old Agua Prieta Cartel,” he said. “Half Irish-American, half Mexican, and all bad, a mega-bitch. Next to her, Lady Macbeth looked like Little Bo Peep. Murdered her husband, with her son’s help, so they could take over. Ten years ago, we raided her ranch to free three Americans she’d kidnapped. She killed one of them, and then I killed her. We smashed her operations, but Julián got away. Did I mention that Julián is also a dual citizen? Mom was an American. He changed his appearance—dyed his hair, some minor plastic surgery—and sneaked into the U.S. under a false name and with forged documents to prove that Julián Menéndez was now Ernesto Salazar.”
Riordan raised a hand to signal for an intermission and said he was having trouble absorbing all this history.
“Are you? Well, there’s more,” the inspector said. “He got religion, became a born-again Christian, and joined a congregation in El Paso run by a nutball, James Showalter—Pastor Jim, they called him. Kind of a Christian jihadist. Preached a gun-totin’ brand of Christianity. Torched abortion clinics, that sort of thing. Julián a.k.a. Ernesto became one of his apostles. Few years went by, he came back to Mexico. He’d learned a big lesson from his mentor: religion inspires loyalty and imposes discipline. And he used it to stitch the pieces of Mom’s organization back together. Then he went to war with Joaquín Carrasco. You know that name, don’t you?”
“He’s a folk hero around here,” Riordan said, nodding. “Or was.”
“Joaquín was Mama Menéndez’s nemesis. She was at war with him back in the day. Her devoted son wants to finish what she started, and he’s almost there.”
“You said you killed her…?”
“When I was as close to her as I am to you,” Bonham replied with a cordiality that didn’t go with the statement.
“And there’s a reason you’ve told me all this?”
“Partly for background purposes.”
“And partly what else?”
Bonham steepled his hands under his chin. “You heard what he said at the end of the video: ‘We of the Brotherhood also promise justice, and we keep our promises.’”
“Something is going to happen,” Riordan said, another acidic bubble shooting into his craw. He wasn’t thinking about Pamela now. He could scarcely remember what they’d said to each other, as if this conversation had recorded over that one.
“The question being what’s going to happen,” said Bonham. “What goes for your parishioners goes for you. If you know something, say something.”
The steeple rocked forward, and with the dry sniper’s squint behind them, Riordan imagined the joined fingers as a multibarreled gun aimed at him.
“I’m sure Salazar or whatever his name is won’t be contacting me,” he said.
“You get out into the boondocks. The Brotherhood’s turf. All those villages in the Sierra Madre…”
“From time to time, yes.”
“So does your doctor friend.”
It would be foolish, he understood, to ask how the inspector knew that he and Lisette were friends.
“You might hear something. Or see something. Or she might mention something to you,” Bonham continued. “I don’t care if it’s gossip, a rumor, second- or thirdhand, you let me know.” He plucked a card from his wallet, wrote on it, and placed it on the desk. Hesitant to pick it up, as if that alone would commit him, Riordan merely glanced at it. A minimalist card if he ever saw one, offering only Bonham’s name and the phone numbers he’d written below it.
“Call me on any one of those, with this,” he said, producing a flip phone, which he set down next to the card.
“I have one,” Riordan said. “An iPhone.”
“Use this one. It’s a burner, virtually untraceable.”
“A what?”
“Burner. A prepaid phone with encryption.”
“Aren’t you being a tad melodramatic?”
“Careful is what I’m being. Call me. Any little scrap you might come across.”
“Outside the confessional,” Riordan said firmly as he thought, This is preposterous. “I want to make sure we’re clear about that.”
Inspector Bonham made a slight bow and said, “Right-ee-o,” as if drawing on his British heritage. Then he stood, swept the laptop off the desk, and wedged it into its case.
“Your man told me you’re looking for a contractor to repair a roof,” he said, moving toward the door.
“You must have had quite a long conversation with Domingo.”
Bonham shrugged.
“It’s the dome,” Riordan said. “It’s two centuries old. A tricky job. But I don’t see that our roof is any concern of yours.”
“It could be. You never know. I might be able to find somebody. And if they’re jumpy about coming out here, I could provide a police escort.”
“Another one of your quid pro quos?”
“I won’t need to rely on that, wouldn’t you say, Padre Tim?”
The percipient look on Bonham’s face made the question rhetorical.