EL PRíNCIPE GIVES JERÓNIMO THE KEYS TO A FORD EXPLORER WITH California plates, a cell phone, and a roll of bills totaling $5,000 for expenses. He also hands him a loaded 9mm Smith & Wesson. Jerónimo almost refuses the pistol, thinking of the trouble it might land him in, but so many people these days, a gun is the only thing that scares them, and he has a feeling it’s going to take some scaring to get this job done quickly.
All the Prince can tell him about Luz is that she left on foot carrying a zebra-striped backpack containing his money and his gun. As for her past, besides the fact that she was once El Samurai’s mistress, he doesn’t know much. He thinks she grew up in Tijuana, but she never talked about what colonia she lived in or who she ran around with.
“If I could find her myself, why would I need you?” he says, standing in the driveway beside the Explorer as if seeing off an old friend.
Jerónimo sticks the money and the nine in the center console and starts the truck. El Príncipe waves good-bye to him as he backs down the driveway and calls out, “I’ll take care of your family.”
Jerónimo doesn’t reply for fear of what he might say.
His first stop is Irma’s sister’s house to pick up his passport, which he’ll need if he has to cross the border. Irma’s sister is hysterical, wants to call the police, but Jerónimo tells her that would be the death of Irma and the kids.
“I’ll handle this,” he says. “You know I will.”
He finds his passport at the bottom of Irma’s jewelry box. He also takes along a necklace of hers, a locket with a tiny photo of him and the children inside.
Back in the Explorer, he drives to Tacos El Gordo, a twenty-four-hour stand frequented by Tijuana’s army of taxi drivers. He’s looking for Don Rafael, a retired cabbie who knows every driver in town and acts as unofficial godfather to them all, listening to their gripes, mediating their disputes, and advising them on everything from the best mechanics to whom to bribe and how much to pay in order to be left alone to work in peace. The drivers see and hear everything that goes on in the city, so there’s a good chance one of them spotted Luz.
Don Rafael is sitting at one of the stand’s plastic tables with a couple of other old guys. He’s a gaunt man with a deeply lined face. His thick white hair is combed straight back, and his bushy white mustache has a yellowish tinge from countless cigarettes and cups of coffee.
“Híjole,” he says, surprised to see Jerónimo. “You’re out?”
Jerónimo pulls up a chair and sits backward on it. “I’m doing a job for someone,” he says.
“You look good, healthy,” Don Rafael says. He reaches out to pat Jerónimo’s arm. “Can I get you something to eat? To drink?”
“Un café,” Jerónimo says.
Don Rafael calls to the woman at the counter and raises his foam cup. “One for my friend here.”
“I need your help,” Jerónimo says.
“Of course,” Don Rafael says. “Whatever I can do.”
Jerónimo shows him the photos of Luz.
“I need to find this girl. I want you to put the word out, see if any of the drivers might have come across her. Let them know there’s a thousand-dollar reward for good information.”
Don Rafael pulls a pair of reading glasses from the breast pocket of his shirt and slips them on to examine the photos. “Hot stuff,” he says, then peers at Jerónimo over the tops of the cheaters. “El Príncipe?”
Jerónimo shrugs, and that’s enough of an answer.
Don Rafael shows the photos to the other men at the table.
“She look familiar?” he asks.
The men shake their heads, and the taquero brings down his cleaver on a hunk of meat. Jerónimo feels the THWACK! on the back of his neck. Stay calm, he tells himself.
Don Rafael takes out his phone and uses it to snap a picture of one of the photos. He shows it to Jerónimo for his approval.
“I’ll send it to some people with a note about the reward,” he says. “News like that will spread fast.”
“Fast is good,” Jerónimo says. The woman sets his coffee on the table, and he lifts the cup to his lips and takes a sip while the old man pokes at his phone. The smoke from the grill drifts out into the street and rises above the traffic. A couple of drivers parked at the curb lean against their cars and eat, craning their necks so as not to drip salsa on their shirts. It’s a good life, driving a taxi. Jerónimo thinks he might take it up again when he and his family move to the States. Or maybe a truck.
“Okay,” Don Rafael says, pressing a last key with a flourish. “Now we wait.”
The old man brings out a deck of cards, and he and Jerónimo and the other men play a few hands of La Viuda. Jerónimo has trouble focusing on the game, keeps thinking of Irma and the kids. If he gets nothing from the drivers, he has another plan. He knows some people who used to work for El Samurai, and while it’s dangerous to cross the lines between crews, they might have some dirt on their late boss’s old girlfriend that’ll help him find her.
He’s about to head over to the club where these men used to hang out when Don Rafael’s phone rings. The old man greets the caller and listens to what he has to say. When the caller finishes his spiel, Don Rafael presses the phone to his chest and addresses Jerónimo.
“This guy claims that the woman you’re looking for got into his cab earlier today, and he ended up driving her all over town. He’s afraid of getting involved though. He doesn’t want to piss someone off and end up with his balls shoved down his throat.”
“I don’t need his name,” Jerónimo says. “Just where he took her.”
Don Rafael relays the message, then says, “They went to a house in Taurinas, and then afterward he dropped her off at a body shop in Libertad. The problem is, he doesn’t know the addresses.”
“But he could find them again.”
“He thinks so.”
“Then ask him to come here now and show me,” Jerónimo says. “Tell him I’ll give him a thousand bucks for his trouble.”
He gnaws on his thumbnail while Don Rafael makes the offer. The old man presses the phone to his chest again when he’s finished.
“He’s asking me if he can trust you,” he says.
“On my wife and children, nothing will happen to him,” Jerónimo says.
Don Rafael raises the phone to his ear and tells the caller that Jerónimo’s word is gold and he’ll stake his reputation on it. A few second later he ends the call and sets the phone on the table.
“Well?” Jerónimo says.
“Don’t get this guy killed,” Don Rafael says, lighting a cigarette. “I’ll look like a real asshole.”
The caller shows up half an hour later, a nervous man in a black ball cap and a T-shirt that says Hecho En Mexico. Lalo is his name. He doesn’t look Jerónimo in the eye when they shake hands. As they walk to the Explorer, Jerónimo tries to put him at ease, apologizing for making him come out so late.
“Your old lady is probably pissed,” he says.
Lalo doesn’t answer, just climbs into the passenger seat.
“I’ll get you home safe,” Jerónimo says.
“And the money?” Lalo says.
Jerónimo reaches into the center console and removes the roll of bills. He counts out $500 and passes it to the guy.
“You get the rest when we finish up,” he says.
Lalo re-counts the money, then sticks the bills into the front pocket of his baggy jeans.
“Do you know the way to Taurinas?” he asks.
“I wish I could say no,” Jerónimo replies.
They glide down murky streets toward the colonia, traffic fading away as they get closer. Jerónimo remembers back when he had his cab, many drivers would refuse fares going this way, saying it wasn’t worth the risk. Not him. Not even after a couple of pendejos he picked up in Zona Norte got him lost over here and tried to rob him. Their knife was no match for his gun, and one of them ran off with a bullet in his leg.
He cruises up one potholed street and down another, Lalo making him stop at every corner. The guy is having a hard time retracing his route, especially with many of the streetlights shot out. “Left here,” he’ll say, then, “No, no, fuck, right.” He’s sweating even with the air conditioner blowing on him, keeps wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. Jerónimo figures he saw the Smith & Wesson sitting next to the money in the console.
There are still lots of people out at this late hour. They sit on their porches or in their yards to escape the heat of the shacks they live in. Some have even moved TVs outside. Poor people, desperate people, breathing air that smells like shit and drinking water that makes them sick. It’s as bad as prison—worse, because out here they tell you you’re free. Dusty boys with no future kick scuffed soccer balls, a widow in perpetual mourning sells tacos from a grill in front of her house, and gangsters congregate in the shadows with caguamas of Tecate, dreaming of international hit man stardom.
Lalo finally finds the place he’s been searching for, an ugly concrete box on a street lined with hovels that look like broken teeth. Fugitive snippets of soap operas and salsa commercials escape through the bars covering doors and windows.
“Are you sure?” Jerónimo asks.
“This is it,” Lalo replies.
He can’t help but see the gun now, when Jerónimo grabs it from the console and tucks it into the waistband of his jeans. Jerónimo takes the money, too, tells Lalo to sit tight. Every dog on the street is barking as he approaches the house. A neighbor draws back a curtain, then lets it fall. The front door of the house is open behind a steel security gate, revealing a garbage-strewn front room, dark except for a single dim bulb.
Jerónimo pounds on the gate with his palm, and a voice calls from the back room: “You’re early.”
A few seconds later a woman appears, pretty once, but made ugly by life, spilling out of a red negligee. She opens the gate without checking who’s on the other side, then flinches, startled, when she sees Jerónimo, and tries to pull the gate shut again. Jerónimo’s foot stops it.
“I need to talk to you,” he says.
“Not now,” the woman says.
“I’ll be quick.”
“I’m expecting a customer.”
“Don’t make me be rude. Invite me in for a minute.”
The woman looks him up and down angrily, then surrenders, releasing the gate and taking a step back. “What can I do?” she says. “You’re a man, I’m a woman, right?”
Jerónimo walks into the house and nods toward the back room. “Is there anyone else?” he says.
“No,” the woman says.
She stands before Jerónimo unashamed in her worn lingerie, defiant even. He shows her a photo of Luz, watches her face for a reaction, gets none.
“This girl was here earlier today,” he says. “What is she to you?”
“Nothing,” the woman says. Her bravado is belied by her shaking hands.
Jerónimo sets the photo on a table and draws the Smith & Wesson. At the same time he pulls a hundred-dollar bill from his pocket and offers it to the woman. Plata or plomo.
“Your choice,” he says.
The gun frightens the whore. Jerónimo sees it in her eyes, in the way her shoulders sag.
“What a tough guy,” she says.
“I’ve got a job to do,” Jerónimo says.
“Yep, a real tough guy.”
The woman takes a deep, bitter drag off her cigarette.
“She’s my daughter,” she says.
“Why was she here?”
“She wanted the name of a pollero, to go to the U.S.”
“Did you know of one?”
“There’s a man. Freddy. He works out of a garage in Libertad.”
“And you sent her there?”
The woman licks her lower lip and fixes her gaze on the cracked and stained ceiling.
“Yes,” she says.
“Was she going to L.A.?”
The woman continues to stare at the ceiling. She takes a shuddering breath and slowly releases it. It looks like she might be about to clam up, so Jerónimo points the gun at her head.
“Was she going to L.A.?” he says again.
“Maybe,” the woman finally says. “My sister lives there.”
“Your sister?”
“Yes.”
“Give me an address or a phone number for her.”
The woman fights back with an angry glare. “You’ll go to hell for this, for making a mother betray her child,” she says.
“You’ll go to hell right now if you don’t tell me what I need to know,” Jerónimo says.
The woman walks to a cluttered shelf, opens a Bible lying there, and removes an envelope stashed between its pages. She hands the envelope to Jerónimo.
“This is the last letter I got from my sister, six years ago,” she says.
Jerónimo tears the return address off the envelope and gives the letter back. The cheap perfume the woman has sprayed to cover the stink of the house is giving him a headache. He offers her the money again, and she slaps his hand away, one of her fingernails nicking him, drawing blood.
“You’re going to kill her, aren’t you?” she says.
“I’m going to find her,” Jerónimo says. “What happens after that isn’t up to me.”
“She has a daughter there,” the woman says. “She only wants to be with her. Don’t you have someone you love?”
Jerónimo ignores her. What kind of question is that from a whore? He walks out the door and down the steps to the Explorer. Lalo stares at the woman watching them from the porch as the truck pulls away. Jerónimo snaps at him to mind his own business and tell him how to get to the body shop.
They pass a burning car on their way out of Taurinas. A small crowd has gathered, a sullen, silent bunch transfixed by the hunger of the flames and the smoke rising blackly into the night sky to blot out the stars.
“Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ!”
The fat man, Goyo, presses one hand to the bloody gash below his eye and raises the other for mercy. He was reluctant to call this Freddy, so Jerónimo smacked him with the nine to encourage him. He’s had enough of fucking around after scaling the locked gate of the body shop in order to sneak up on the fat man, who was asleep on a cot in his office.
“Dial the number and hand me the phone,” Jerónimo says.
Goyo obeys quickly this time, then uses his filthy bedsheet to stanch the bleeding from the cut, which looks like an evil red smile on his cheek.
“What the fuck are you calling me so late for?” Freddy says.
“I’m at the shop,” Jerónimo says. “Goyo is about to tell me where you live. I can come there and wake your family or you can come here.”
“Who is this?”
“I have some questions about the woman who came to see you today.”
“What woman?”
“Do you think I’m playing around?”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing.”
“Do you think I’m playing?”
There’s a pause, then Freddy mutters, “I’m on my way.”
Fifteen minutes later a Nissan truck pulls up in front of the shop and honks twice. Goyo opens the gate, and the truck drives onto the lot and parks next to the Explorer. Freddy flies out of the truck before the engine even dies, a whirlwind of exasperated energy.
“What’s this about?” he says.
Jerónimo plays it cool, rising slowly from the couch where he and Lalo have been waiting and casually positioning the gun in his waistband so Freddy can see it.
“Thanks for coming so quickly,” he says as he extends his hand.
Freddy reaches out to shake, confused. “So who was she?” he says. “Your wife? Your sister?”
“That’s not important,” Jerónimo says.
“Oh, I get it,” Freddy says. “You’re working for somebody.”
“She came to see you about going to the U.S.,” Jerónimo says.
“Did she?” Freddy says.
“Where did you send her?” Jerónimo says.
“Let me explain something to you,” Freddy says. “I’m a businessman, and part of what people pay me—”
Jerónimo shoots out his hand and pinches Freddy’s Adam’s apple between his thumb and forefinger. He shoves him backward until he’s against a wall, then runs his other hand around the guy’s waist to see if he’s carrying a gun. Freddy glares at him, eyes bulging, cheeks puffed. The jagged scars on his forehead stand out like lightning.
“Maybe we should go to your house,” Jerónimo says.
“One of my men, a gringo, took her to Tecate,” Freddy gasps. “A border inspector there, who also works for me, is going to pass them through in the morning.”
“Call the gringo and tell him to bring the girl back,” Jerónimo says.
“I don’t think it’s gonna be that easy,” Freddy says. “She’s desperate to get out of Mexico, and she has a gun. If the gringo tries anything, I think she’ll use it and then find some other way across.”
“Call him,” Jerónimo says in the coldest voice he has.
Freddy swipes at his nose and thrusts out his chest, a rooster used to being in charge. Too fucking bad. He takes his phone from the clip on his belt and keys in a number.
“Who’s this?” he says when someone answers, then, “Where the fuck is Kevin?”
A second later, he shrugs and holds out the phone. “Some crazy bitch said I had the wrong number and hung up on me.”
“Luz?” Jerónimo says.
“Some other crazy bitch.”
“Try again.”
Freddy hits redial and starts screaming into the phone as soon as the girl picks up.
“Listen, cunt, put Kevin on now.”
Jerónimo reaches out and takes the phone from him.
“What’s your name?” he says.
“Angelina Jolie,” the girl says.
“Let me talk to Kevin. It’s an emergency.”
“Talk to my fucking asshole, puto. And you better not call back unless you want my man to turn you out like the faggot you are.”
The phone goes dead.
“If this is some kind of joke—” Jerónimo says to Freddy.
“You’re the fucking joker,” Freddy says. “You bust Goyo’s head open, you put your fucking hands on me, and still I do everything I can to help you. In truth, I should get a piece of whatever you’re getting for tracking this bitch down.”
Jerónimo takes the money out of his pocket. He hands Freddy two hundred dollars and drops another hundred on the ground in front of Goyo.
“And there’ll be more in it for you if I find her,” he says to Freddy. “So tell me, partner, how do I catch this Luz?”
Freddy hisses and shakes his head. “Partner,” he says. “You guys are hilarious.”
An hour later, after paying off Lalo and dropping him back at the taco stand, Jerónimo is speeding down the toll road to Tecate. It’s almost two a.m., and the chaparral, iced by the moon, glows silver and pale blue, so that the surrounding hills sparkle like the ocean frozen in mid-swell.
Jerónimo is unimpressed. All this open space makes him nervous. A city boy, a convict, he’s at his most comfortable when his existence is circumscribed by four walls and a roof overhead. He dreams sometimes of his ancestors. They come to him as yipping ghosts thundering across an endless plain on their war ponies, and the vision always agitates him, because out there in the open is where your enemies can get to you, where they can sneak up and put a knife in your back or drive by and shoot you full of holes. Without cover, you’re an easy target.
His reverie is interrupted by a rabbit darting across the road in front of the truck, a flash in the headlights. He instinctively mashes on the brakes, sending the Explorer into a tire-screeching skid, but it’s too late. The rabbit bounces against the undercarriage two or three times as the truck passes over it, and Jerónimo glimpses the carcass in the rearview mirror as he drives away. A thing like that is a bad omen. He crosses himself, mutters a prayer, and wishes for an instant, crazy as it is, that he was back in his cell.