Dr. Clara pulled up tight to the orphanage gates. “Get him inside.”
As Simon and Pedro helped Harold from the car, the police officer on guard duty started toward them. Dr. Clara crossed the road and spoke with him. Pedro held Harold by his good side. Simon walked on his other side, maintaining pressure on the compress bandage. Dr. Clara caught up with them as they passed the chapel. They hurried across the courtyard and into Harold’s office. Simon heard the kids talking in the classrooms and hoped no one saw them.
Dr. Clara helped ease Harold into the office’s one chair. “I don’t have my equipment. Does the orphanage have a clinic?”
“First aid only,” Pedro replied. “My sister carries a medical kit. But she is away.”
“In Juárez. I know.” Dr. Clara eased away the blood-soaked shirt. “Two bits of good news. First, the bleeding has almost stopped. Second, the bullet only creased the top of your shoulder. There should be no permanent damage. How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been shot.” Harold’s tongue sounded overly thick for his mouth.
“Don’t pass out on me.”
Pedro demanded, “Who are you to be giving orders around here?”
She narrowed her gaze. “The one person who might save Simon’s life.”
Even Harold focused on that news. “What do you mean by that?”
“Later. First we need to cauterize this wound. Pedro, go to the kitchen and bring me a container of cayenne pepper.”
But Pedro did not budge. “How do you know my sister is away?”
“That, too, must wait. Also I need a needle and thread. Surely your clinic has that, yes?” When Pedro still did not move, she snapped, “Go!”
Pedro rolled his eyes. “Make sure she doesn’t poison him.”
Simon asked, “Save me from what?”
Dr. Clara looked at him then. Really looked. Her face was flat, her features very squared off and tight. She reminded Simon of photographs he had seen of Incan Indians, an ancient race with very distinct features, very unreadable. She said, “You need to listen very carefully.”
“This is coming from the woman who cheated me and lied with every breath, am I getting this right?”
Harold turned toward him then. “Simon.”
“What?”
“You must finish the device.”
Simon was reluctant to break away from the woman’s flat gaze. “Shouldn’t we talk about that later?”
“You need to listen to him,” Dr. Clara said. “It all comes down to the apparatus.”
“Which you tried to steal for a thousand bucks!”
Pedro rushed back into the room. “I have the pepper. And there was a surgical sewing kit in the clinic.”
“Any antibiotics? Pain medication?”
“Just this bottle of Tylenol. Everything else is with Sofia.”
“Then this will have to do.” She lifted the pepper tin. “Hold still.”
She dumped a liberal portion into the wound. Harold’s roar shook the wall behind Simon. Dr. Clara chided, “The children.”
Pedro hissed, “You are a witch doctor!”
“I am a specialist of modern medicine. But I have also studied ancient Mexican techniques. Cayenne pepper will clot a wound in ten seconds. It possesses antibacterial and antifungal properties. It also numbs the surrounding tissue. Watch.” She threaded the curved needle and inserted it into Harold’s shoulder. “Do you feel anything?”
“Everything hurts.”
“But you cannot feel this needle, am I correct?” She swiftly inserted five stitches, then tied and snipped off the thread. “You’ll be fine. Just drink lots of water. And rest.”
“My head is pounding.”
She shook out two Tylenol, poured a glass of water, then helped Harold drink. She said to Simon, “I need to give you something. Armando left you a letter.”
Pedro was shocked. “Why would he leave such a message with you?”
“Armando and I were engaged to be married. He knew about other work I have been involved in. But that discussion will also have to wait.” She reached into her purse. “Armando was very hurt by what you did. But he never stopped loving you. The closer he came to solving the problems with his machine, the more certain he became that he was being tracked. He feared for his life, but he refused to give up on his dream. So he reached out to you one final time.”
“Praying you would finish his work.” Harold’s voice sounded weak but solid. “He told me this the last time we met. He prayed you would make his goals your own.”
Clara handed Simon a wrinkled envelope. “He asked me to give you this.”
Pedro started to ask something when the phone in Harold’s office rang. The sound startled them all. He crossed to the desk in the adjoining room, spoke briefly, then returned to say, “The church in America wants to make sure I am bringing the solar lanterns. They have an event planned for tonight.”
Harold said, “Of course you’re going.”
“I can’t go while you are like this.”
“We need the money. Go.”
“But . . .” Pedro was halted by the sound of several vehicles pulling up in front of the gates. He ducked out, then returned to say, “More police have arrived.”
Harold struggled to rise. “I’ll go talk to them.”
“You will stay exactly where you are. I’ll speak with them myself. But it won’t do any good.”
Pedro demanded, “What is happening?”
“I am not yet fully certain. One thing I do know. Simon, you can trust no one outside these gates. Do you hear me? A smile can conceal great menace. Say nothing to anyone except me or Agent Martinez. And say nothing to anyone about this conversation. To the outside world, I must remain your enemy. Both our lives depend upon this.”
“Your words are nonsense,” Pedro complained. “Why were you after us in the city? How did you know about Sofia? Why are the police following you?”
“Your questions are valid, but you must hold them until later. Simon, are you ready?”
“For what?”
Dr. Clara’s face shone with grim foreboding. “For a Mexican prison.”
Pedro went out and spoke with the police who had gathered around the orphanage gates. He returned to Harold’s office. He and Clara spoke in Spanish. She gave off terse replies, saying little in response to his questions. Twice she spoke his sister’s name. Pedro returned to Harold’s office, dialed, and cut the connection. He spoke two words in English, “Voice mail.”
“Go speak to the children while they’re still in class,” Clara urged.
“What should I say?”
“Harold is unwell. But he will soon be fine. That is enough.”
Pedro glanced at Simon. “And about the police?”
“They will be leaving soon.”
When Pedro departed, Simon said, “A few answers would be nice.”
“A little information will do you no good, and there is not time for more.” She indicated the unopened letter. “Armando is waiting.”
But Simon put the letter in his pocket. “I’m having trouble accepting you’re not the enemy.”
“Much in Mexico these days is not as it first appears.”
“That’s not much of an answer.”
“Simon, I will tell you everything. But not now.” She showed him an ancient’s gaze. “I can’t ask you to trust me. But I must ask you to be patient.”
Pedro entered the office. “If I am to arrive at the Presidio church in time, I must be leaving.”
“Go,” Clara ordered. “You can do nothing here.”
Pedro eyed the doctor with suspicion. “And Harold?”
She glanced through the bedroom’s open doorway. “He is resting. Go.”
Pedro crossed the courtyard and climbed into the van and drove out. The police halted him, had a long conversation, then inspected the boxes in the rear. Simon watched through the office window. He was fairly certain they had been making sure he was not hiding in the van’s rear hold.
The second police car was joined by a third. They pulled in nose to nose, blocking off the entrance. But otherwise they did not disturb anyone. Clara announced she had to go to the clinic. When Simon started to demand some answers, she halted him with an upraised hand. “As soon as it is safe to talk, you will know. Until then, go with God.”
Simon was still trying to find a response as she crossed the courtyard, spoke with the police, climbed into her car, and drove away.
Simon fought against a sudden urge to scale the rear wall and flee. He returned to the classroom and tried to work but found it impossible. The heat congealed into a lump at the core of his being, so vast and heavy he had difficulty breathing around it. Finally he picked up Harold’s book and returned to the director’s office.
He heard Harold’s breathing from the back bedroom, slow and steady. Simon settled into the chair by the piano and found his place. The words on the page flitted in and out of his brain. Even so, it was comforting, as though he could hear Harold talking to him. Of a moment beyond this one. Of a future with meaning. Of hope.
Simon did not find peace in the pages, or even answers. But he did find patience. And just then, it was enough.
He was still there an hour later. More cars pulled up before the gates. Harold woke to the sound of car doors slamming shut, two, three, four, five.
Harold called through the open bedroom door, “What is it?”
Simon’s chair was positioned so he could look through the office window and see the front gates. “Two more cops. Sofia. Juan. Enrique. The woman agent, what’s her name, Martinez. And Pedro’s back. He looks angry.”
“Come help me up.”
Simon entered the bedroom. “Clara said you needed to rest.”
“I don’t have strength to argue, son.”
Simon gripped Harold’s good arm and took most of the old man’s weight. At Harold’s direction, Simon slipped a shirt through the free arm and draped it around his shoulder. Then he supported Harold through the office and out to the veranda. As soon as they came into view, Pedro shouted, “How could you?”
Simon realized the assistant town manager was addressing him. Enrique demanded, “Who assembled these lanterns?”
“Me and the kids.”
Harold demanded weakly, “What is going on here?”
Enrique reached behind him, and an officer handed over a solar lantern. He popped off the lid and turned it upside down. A plastic bag filled with white powder fell to the ground. A rustle of shock and indrawn breath flitted through the courtyard. Every kid knew what that plastic bag contained.
Enrique said, “Pedro is fortunate our friends on the police were tipped off about this shipment before he arrived at the border.”
Pedro covered his face and bent over at the waist. His sister rushed to comfort him. Sofia gripped her brother by the shoulders and turned an angry face toward Simon. “Is this your deep, dark secret? That you used us to smuggle drugs?”
“I didn’t do this.” The protest was feeble, weak even before it was formed. “Pedro, listen to me. Harold, you have to believe me, I didn’t—”
“Why don’t you tell everyone why you really came to Mexico?” Enrique’s voice rang in the silence. “Could it be for the same reason you went to prison in America?”
Simon watched from a great distance as two of the uniformed police moved toward him. The manacles glittered in the afternoon light. He opened his mouth, but the power of speech was gone.
“Should you tell our friends what you did to the professor? How you repaid his trust?” Even Enrique’s outrage carried a polished quality. “Harold, do you know why Professor Vasquez left MIT? Shall I tell them, Simon? Because Simon betrayed him.”
Simon wanted to speak, to explain, to object. But his throat was clogged by too much shame. Not even when the police swung him around and snicked the cuffs in too tightly could he speak. The officers gripped his arms and pressed him forward. Across the courtyard and through the gates and into the waiting car.
The officer slipped into the front seat and started the motor. Simon took a shaky breath and did not look up as they drove away. His one coherent thought was that cop cars all smelled the same.