CHAPTER 8
Only a few heads turned when Santiago stepped down from the last creaky stair, and no one gave him more than a fleeting look.
Without asking, he grabbed a damp towel from the side of the bar and headed to the nearest empty table. He stacked the dishes into a neat pile, wiped down the surface, took the pile through the swinging kitchen doors, and set it in the sink. A plastic tub caught Santiago’s attention. He could carry more dishes, making fewer trips back and forth. And spend more time eavesdropping. Someone once told him it was easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.
“Mi hermana,” he told the owner, testing out the strange word and enjoying how natural it felt rolling off his tongue. “Wants privacy and—”
“Do you hear me complaining?” Don José carried plates of enchiladas, tacos, posole, and rellenos to a large party crammed into one table. “Wipe that chair down too. I see beer dripping down it.”
Conversations flew from all directions. He tuned out the ones about family members and life outside of Capaz and focused on those about crossing. As he moved his cleaning rag and gray bin from one table to the next, no one paid him the slightest attention.
A man to Santiago’s right slapped a newspaper onto the table. “What the pollos don’t understand is that there’s nothing out there. No food, no water, no shelter.”
His companion grunted in agreement. “Exactly why we don’t need a wall out here. The sun takes care of everyone that doesn’t know where he’s going.”
“Oye, flaco,” called a different man from another table. “I thought we lost you to the desert, hombre.”
“You almost did, you jerk.” The two embraced like brothers. “Los azules picked me up and threw me in jail, thanks to you.”
Santiago moved his bin to a table where a boy not much older than himself was drunk and weeping like a baby. “The bodies. Every time I close my eyes I see them. They were only out there for a half a day and hadn’t even crossed the border.”
“That’s why they need someone like you who knows the way, knows how to survive in the desert.” His friend pushed another drink in front of him.
The crier took a swig. “But I don’t know the way, and I don’t want to die. I can’t do this!”
“Sure you can. Come with me a couple more times and you’ll know the route in no time. But it’s always good to show the pollos the skeletons so they know they can’t do it on their own.”
Santiago had heard enough. Heaving the bin onto his hip, he headed to the kitchen. Anyone who talked so callously about dead bodies and used them to get business was not a coyote they would hire.
“Unload and come back out.” Don José pointed to a table where four men sat with a clutter of empty dishes. These men, most likely brothers, shared similar features with sunken dark eyes and square jaws. Their haircuts indicated money, and the way they sat with their shoulders back showed their place in the world. A gold watch shone on each brother’s right wrist.
Like the others, they didn’t stop their conversation as Santiago approached and began collecting dirty dishes. Like he wasn’t even human.
“We have to do something about Domínguez. He’s out of line,” said the bearded brother.
The oldest brother, and the one with the most jewelry, waved the concern away. “I don’t think he’s taken that much business from us. Especially after his incident.”
“That’s beside the point,” Beard snarled. “He’s ruining the whole chain of command we’ve established.”
“Others see him and start thinking they can earn more by going rogue as well,” the youngest brother piped in.
“Looks like Domínguez needs to be reminded of his place.” The final brother, with a broken nose, mimed a gun being shot.
A gold watch flashed as the oldest brother slapped the other’s hand. “No, you leave Domínguez out of this. Like him or not, he’s family.”
“Your wife’s family,” reminded the youngest.
“My family is our family. Don’t you forget that.” The oldest man turned and waved a finger for Don José to bring them a round of drinks.
The younger three men said nothing, but even with his head hung low, Santiago could feel looks being exchanged that their older brother didn’t notice.
The table cleared and wiped down, Santiago moved to the next one just as Don José came with the beer. The conversation quickly changed to a baby’s baptism.
Without finishing their drinks, the four men suddenly rose from their chairs and glided into the kitchen, the one with all the jewelry coming within a hair of knocking into Santiago as he glanced over his shoulder.
Officers entered the tavern in pressed navy uniforms and shiny black boots. Two of them carried rifles in their hands, and the rest (Santiago counted seven) all had handguns in their holsters. The other patrons, coyotes and immigrants, pulled coins and crumpled banknotes from their pockets to leave at the tables and inconspicuously disappeared from the bar, some through the front, but others through the kitchen’s back door.
Santiago rested the tub against his hip and slid beside the owner to whisper, “Who are these guys?”
The old man didn’t even look up from where he counted the coins left on the bar. “La migra. Border agents.”
Santiago swallowed. “Ours?”
The agents pulled up chairs, and the ones with rifles rested them on their laps. The weaponry froze Santiago in place.
“Theirs. But don’t worry, they don’t have any official jurisdiction here.” Don José slid the coins into his pocket.
Santiago watched la migra agents. Their faces, a mixture of brown and sunburned, seemed relaxed and unperturbed, but arrogant as well, knowing people feared them even outside their country. A greater need to be invisible overcame Santiago. Nothing good ever came from the presence of the police, regardless of what division or country they worked for. In his experience, once a cop, always a perro.
La migra greeted Don José in booming but completely incomprehensible voices. On a good day, Santiago only knew a few words in English: “hi,” “bye,” “thank you,” and “Coca-Cola.” Other days, some accents didn’t even allow him to understand those words.
Santiago went into the kitchen, staggering from the weight of the bin.
“Wash those pots for me.” The chef motioned to the pile he’d placed in the sink. “Every time people start using my kitchen as an escape route, I know who’s arrived, and they all eat like pigs.”
Not a minute later, Don José entered the kitchen with enough orders to feed twenty people. Santiago quickened his pace, scrubbing the pots and pans with steel wool and giving them a quick rinse before passing them back to the chef.
The owner watched him for a couple of seconds as he ate a few spoonfuls from a bowl of menudo. “I don’t think our dishes have ever been cleaner.”
Santiago shrugged as he placed a stack of plates to soak while scrubbing the last pot. He didn’t know how to answer that; people didn’t usually notice what he did or talk to him at all.
The owner set down the bowl and started flash-frying some tortillas for enchiladas. “There’s plenty of menudo if you’re hungry. Those lightweights out there won’t touch it. Take a couple of bowls upstairs to your sister and niece. Anything you guys want to eat.”
Was that a subtle way to get him to leave? But the dishes weren’t done, and both of the men were busy cooking. “I still have work to do.”
“Un chile de todos los moles.” He praised Santiago. “It’s sure appreciated.”
The bar got even busier once la migra left and the buses arrived. The people looking to cross, mostly men, but some women, teens, and children as well, stood out from the local smugglers. Some were curious and quiet, taking everything in. Others complained that they had paid too much money to stay in such a dump. Regardless of their demeanor, all of them showed signs of nervousness.
Now, with potential customers, the coyotes used every method of persuasion to get hired—fear, bribery, and machismo.
“You’ll get lost and die without me. There isn’t a town for over one hundred fifty kilometers once you cross the border.”
“It hasn’t rained in months, and it’s hot enough to fry an egg on your bald head, but I’ll carry an extra bottle of water just for you.”
“Only the strongest, toughest people survive the desert. I don’t know if you’ve got what it takes to make it.”
A man with a dark mustache sitting on a bar stool motioned Santiago away from the predators. At first Santiago pretended not to notice. During the whole day, none of the customers had paid attention to him other than to hand him an empty glass. But when the man waved again, Santiago shuffled over with the heavy bin of dirty dishes still in his hands.
“You’re new,” the man said, eyeing him up and down.
Santiago shrugged.
“ ’Bout time José got some extra help here,” the man continued.
Santiago remained silent. He had wiped down the bar and cleared all the dirty dishes from it. As far as Santiago was concerned, there wasn’t anything the man could want from him.
Not that the man cared. He jerked his chin toward the kitchen. “Do you know if el cocinero made any menudo today?”
“Ey.” Santiago found his voice.
“Well, see if you can find enough to fill up a bowl for me.” He flicked a peso coin over the bar to Santiago.
Santiago pocketed the coin without thinking.
The pot of tripe stew sat on the far end of the stove, where it stayed warm without taking up a burner.
“There’s a man who wants the menudo, and Don José has gone upstairs. All right if I give it to him?” Santiago asked the chef.
In way of response, the chef quickly warmed up two tortillas in a skillet, turning them every few seconds with his bare fingers, and placed them on the plate next to the soup bowl.
Not a drop spilled as Santiago set the stew on the bar for the mustached man.
“I’ll take a Coke, too.”
Going behind the bar felt imposing, but the refrigerator holding the drinks hummed in plain sight. Santiago wouldn’t have to snoop to retrieve a cola.
“Thanks, kid.” The man placed a crumpled fifty-peso note on the bar.
What was he supposed to do with that?
“Don José will be down in a minute with the bill,” Santiago said. He went to pick up a stray plate and almost got knocked over by a cowboy bursting through the flimsy screen door.
The cowboy stood there for a few minutes, scoping out the joint. Dressed in what looked like his best clothes—shiny boots, creased black jeans, blinding-white cowboy shirt, and tan cowboy hat—he looked ready for a wedding, or funeral. Santiago gestured at a few empty spots, but the cowboy continued searching for whomever he’d come to meet.
“I’m looking for Domínguez,” the cowboy finally called out. “Where can I find him?”
The mustached man swiveled slowly on his stool until his elbows rested on the bar behind him. The fifty pesos were no longer on the surface. “Depends on who you ask. Why’re you looking for him?”
The cowboy walked to the mustached man and dropped onto the bar stool next to him. He lowered his voice, but not so low that Santiago couldn’t hear. “He got my brother and nephew across a few months ago. But since I’ve gotten here, everyone’s been saying that Domínguez has the highest death rate of all the coyotes combined.”
The mustached man reached around for his Coke and nodded in understanding. “People believe what they want. Sometimes truth is subjective.”
The cowboy wrinkled his brow under the hat brim. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means just because you think one way and someone else thinks another, doesn’t mean both aren’t right.” He raised his Coke at the cowboy, toasting him before taking a swig.
Several seconds passed before the cowboy shook his head. “You speak in riddles. Do you know where I can find Domínguez or not?”
The mustached man shrugged. “If I tell you, are you going to trust him to take you across?”
“Maybe? I don’t know.” The cowboy sighed.
“So, think about it. If you want to hire him, I know where to find him. If you decide he’s not the guide for you, then we’ve both lost nothing.” The mustached man raised his empty Coke bottle at Santiago to indicate he wanted another.
The cowboy stood up to leave. But then he started a dance of returning to the bar stool before changing his mind, heading to the door, and then sitting back down a couple of times before he finally left the tavern.
“Poor man wouldn’t know where to take a dump if he came across two toilets side by side,” the mustached man said with a smirk as Santiago set the second Coke in front of him.
Santiago returned behind the bar and used his rag to clean up a spill he hadn’t noticed from the other side. “You’re Domínguez, aren’t you?”
The mustached man twisted the cap off the bottle and took another chug before answering. “It’s possible. Common name, after all.”
The indecisive dance the cowboy had done proved to be not so crazy after all. Santiago could see the risk. After all, rumors often got started from truth. But from the conversation Santiago had overheard from the gold-watch guys, it sounded like they hated Domínguez because he didn’t play by their rules.
Not playing by the rules didn’t make someone bad. Especially if the rules were unjust to begin with.
This man, Santiago could tell, had experience, obvious by the comfort he had in his own skin and his take-charge attitude. In Santiago’s mind that implied he knew how to do his job: He could get them across. He also didn’t prey on the pollos like the others did and was the first coyote who hadn’t made Santiago’s skin crawl. He hated to admit it, but Domínguez had also been the only customer to see him as a person.
But was all that enough to put his life, and the lives of María Dolores and Alegría, in this man’s hands?
“Could you take us to el otro lado?” Santiago asked, still not convinced but willing to hear more.
“Who’s ‘us’?”
“Me and my sisters.” He realized his mistake as soon as he said it. If they wanted the lie to be believable, then he’d have to say that Alegría was his niece instead, like Don José had assumed. But even though he’d never had a sister, nor a niece, he liked the sound of having two sisters. It felt better too.
“How old?”
“Nineteen and five.” Or close enough.
Domínguez shook his head. “Nah, I don’t like taking the little ones. Too dangerous. They can’t run fast.”
“So you think we’re better off going with someone else.” Santiago said it in disappointment, but Domínguez interpreted it as a bartering tactic.
“Son of a gun, no.” Domínguez shook his head. “You’re a sharp kid, you know that? Twisting things around to get your way. A lot like me.”
Domínguez drank from his Coke again before turning back to Santiago. “Mira, here’s the deal. Crossing the border with a five-year-old is hard; I won’t lie to you. You could all die trying to save her. You might die anyway, even if you didn’t have her.”
Crossing without Alegría would mean going without María Dolores, and he wouldn’t be here in the first place had he been alone.
“It’s either the three of us or none of us.” This time Santiago knew what he was implying. He might not like or trust any of the other coyotes who’d frequented the tavern so far, but that didn’t mean they weren’t options.
Domínguez reached into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. After the first drag, he turned back to Santiago. “Guess you and your sisters are better off with me than one of these punks hanging around here who thinks north is straight up into the clouds.”
Santiago smiled slowly as he raised his eyes from the now clean workstation. “Does that mean you’ll take us?”
Domínguez grumbled. “I’ll consider it. But I don’t work for free. It’s ninety-five hundred pesos. Per person.”
Santiago’s stomach contracted as if someone had punched him in the gut. That much? Each? He’d been so desperate to leave his past life, he’d forgotten about a crossing fee. María Dolores must have assumed he had the money to pay for himself. For the first time in his life, he agreed with la malvada—he was a no-good, begging, lentejo. Expecting something for nothing.
Santiago hid these thoughts as he nodded, indicating he never expected it to be cheap. “My older sister handles the money. She’s upstairs. Can I send her down?”
The cowboy returned, boot heels clomping with determination as he stomped back toward them.
Domínguez sighed and rolled his eyes at Santiago as he muttered, “I don’t like this, but yeah, go on and get her before I change my mind like this idiota.”