Border Crossings: A Catherine James Thriller (9 page)

“As do I,” said Catherine.  “So this boy, Juan, has he taken off like this before?”

Maria was surprised at Catherine’s interest.  “Well, he and his friend are homeless so they go around everywhere, but it’s not like Juan to go off without Julio.  So, no, he hasn’t done this before, I don’t think.  I only really know him from the market, but he’s a sweet boy, they both are, though they do get into trouble from time to time.  I hope he hasn’t done anything foolish.  I think Julio keeps them out of trouble for the most part.  Juan can be a bit impetuous.”

“Do you think something may have happened to him?”

“I don’t know,” she told her.  “I thought he was here, that the police were holding him or took him to the shelter, but if he’s not here, then I can’t imagine where he’s gone.  I wasn’t very concerned until now.”

“Now you’re worried?” Catherine asked.

Maria nodded.  “Yes, now I’m worried.  Something feels wrong.”

As they reached the door Catherine pulled out her own business card and wrote a number on the back.  “Well, I’m sure it will be okay.  I know the police sometimes don’t pay much attention to a missing homeless person, though, so if you need a little help getting information, please give me a call.  Juan will probably show up soon, though.  Little boys are adventurous.  And, of course, if you hear anything about Taylor Woodall, I’d be very interested, even something small.”  She handed her the card which had the number to a pre-paid cell phone she’d already purchased at the airport, one with a local number so she might be available at all times.

Maria took the card and thanked her.

When Vargas came back from lunch Ramirez asked him about the boy.  “Oh, that,” he responded matter-of-factly, “just boys playing.  They had seen a blond woman and thought she looked like the one in the picture.  I gave him a ride to show me where they saw her, but it was nothing.  Just some tourist they’d seen, probably.  Either that or they were making it up to try and get some of the reward money, them and everyone else.”  They’d already encountered a number of people with off the wall stories trying for the reward.  It was all part of the circus.

“Did you drop him off somewhere?” asked Ramirez.

“I offered to give him a ride back to the square, but he said he was fine, so I left him there on the tourist strip, by a dress shop I believe.  I think he was upset I wasn’t impressed with his story.  He was convinced he was going to get a reward.  Why, is anything wrong?”

“A woman came by and said he’s missing.”

“Missing?  Missing from where?  He’s a street kid.  They never stay in one place.”

“Still,” said Ramirez.  “She’s worried.”

“Well, should I go back and look for him?” Vargas asked.

Ramirez sat thinking, his pen rapping again.  “No, I suppose he’ll turn up.”

“I’m sure he will, too,” said Vargas.  “I’ll take a ride back down where I left him anyway and see if he’s not still hanging out down there.  It might not hurt to talk to some of the vendors again, anyway.”

Julio had bedded down in an alley near the restaurant district.  He’d found a half-eaten, lemon-pepper chicken breast in one of the dumpsters, finished it off, and was now in a makeshift tent he’d built by leaning cardboard against the dumpster where it butted against the wall.  The smell was unpleasant, but it was good shelter for the night and gave easy access for when the restaurant threw out its breakfast leftovers in the morning.  Sleep was not coming easy, though.  Julio wondered what Juan had told the police and worried for him as he shifted his weight vying for comfort.

At the end of the alley an old cream-colored Pontiac pulled to a stop.  The man who had taken pictures of Julio and Maria earlier was standing on the street and walked to the car.  A few words were exchanged and the man pointed down the alley.  The driver gave him a handful of money and the man smiled happily and then walked away, back down the street in the direction the car had come.

As Julio tossed and turned he heard an unfamiliar sound in the alley.  A car’s engine could be heard echoing off the cracked brick walls.  He poked his head out from his makeshift tent and saw it slowly creeping down the alley, its headlights ominously off. Immediately, he was filled with fear.  He ducked back inside hoping he hadn’t been seen and sat quietly listening and waiting.

The car pulled up next to his shelter and the engine died.  He heard footsteps approach, their clip-clop noise nearly drowned out by the beating of his heart, which was now pounding in his chest.  The cardboard was jerked away, and the first thing Julio saw was a gold medallion flashing before his eyes.  He bolted as fast as he could, two hands just barely missing him.

“Grab him, you idiot!” the man shouted to his cohort.

Julio ran with all his might, the sounds of two sets of feet just behind him.  “Help!” he screamed, “Help!”

“Damn!” yelled the other.  “He’s like a cockroach!”  Julio was running full speed and despite his shorter legs, was gaining the distance to the end of the alley faster than the men.

“Just shoot him!”

Hearing this, Julio immediately jerked to his side and ducked his head, a bullet just missing him and careening off the wall, its echo resounding sharply.  He was near the end of the alley, but just as he was about to round the corner another gunshot echoed and he felt his leg explode in agony, as though he’d just been lashed with a whip of fire.  He let out a scream but did not stop, instead stumbling forward, forcing himself to stay on his feet; refusing to allow gravity to take him down.

He rounded the corner and continued running, desperately trying to keep his balance through the searing pain. 
I’m going to die,
he thought.  He’d never outrun the men chasing him. 
It’s the gangsters, they found me.  Juan told the police and they’ve found out, and now they’re going to kill me.
  His leg hurt horribly and was shaking unsteadily with every step.  If it wasn’t for the adrenaline coursing through his body, he would have already collapsed.  He was just about to give in to the pain when he saw a fleeting hope ahead.  There on the street was a storm drain in the curb.  He ran to it with all the speed he could muster and practically dove inside.  It was no easy fit, but he scrambled in, scraping his arm and cheek, but disappearing inside just as the men fired again.

There was a small culvert inside the drain just big enough to fit him and he crawled in just as a face appeared in the opening above him.  A hand with a gun attached, probed inside as the man
squinted his eyes trying to see where Julio had gone.

“Shoot the little bastard!” The man wearing the golden medallion ordered to the other.

“I can’t!  He’s crawled in a fucking pipe and I can’t get my arm low enough for a shot.”

“Here
, there’s a manhole.  We’ll go in after him.”

Julio sat inside the culvert, roaches all around him, crawling up his shorts and falling on his head.  A small mouse squeaked next to him in protest of the invasion.  He paid them no mind and concentrated his ears on the sounds above him.  He could hear the men fumbling with the manhole.

“We need something to pry it open with,” said one.

“Find some r
ebar or something,” said the other.

Julio shook and cried in fear.  Any moment they might pry the manhole open and drop down in front of him, pointing their guns and blowing his head off.

Then he heard a siren.  He wasn’t sure if it was the police or some other emergency vehicle, but he prayed someone had heard the gunshots and that the siren he heard was the police on their way.

“Hurry!” said one of them.  “Try this!”

Julio heard the sound of something being pressed into the slit of the manhole in an effort to pry it open.  He shut his eyes and prayed.  He prayed for the police to get here in time or for the men not to be able to open the manhole.  He heard the sound of it moving and held his breath.  It was too late.  A sliver of light beamed down as the manhole began to open.  Then . . . Crack!  Clank!  Just when he expected to see one of the men drop in front of him, something snapped and the manhole, which had just barely begun to open, echoed like a bell as is slipped back in place.

“Damn it!” One of the men said.  Above on the street he held the cracked remains of a discarded broomstick handle he’d been trying to use to pry the manhole open.  The siren became louder and Julio kept up his prayer.

“Come on!” said the man Julio had seen before.  “We’ll find him later.”

A face appeared again at the drainage opening and a voice called out to him.  “Hey!  Can you hear me little cockroach?  Does your leg hurt?  I hope so.  I hope you bleed to death down there.  It’d be better for you if you do, because the next time I find you I’m going slit your throat
and chop you into little pieces.  Then I'm going to feed you to the crocodiles in the swamp like I did your little friend.”

“Come on!” said the other again.

“I’ll see you soon, little cockroach.”  The shadow disappeared from the storm drain and Julio could hear their footsteps echoing away as they ran back to their car.

He sat crying inside the culvert.  He’d never been so scared in his life.  He felt his leg with his hand.  The bullet had grazed his thigh.  It was bleeding and painful, his skin peeled back like a banana revealing his muscle, but it wasn’t as bad as he first thought.  He’d still be able to walk, but he’d have to put a dressing on it soon to stop the bleeding.  As he sat in the culvert, the man’s words echoed in his ears. 
I’m going to feed you to the crocodiles like I did your little friend
. 
Juan
, he thought. 
Poor Juan
.  That’s why he hadn’t seen him in the last few days.  They must have been waiting for him outside the police station.  They snatched him up and killed him.  It was just as he’d warned Juan.  He wondered if Juan was still alive when they cut him.  He wondered if his friend died screaming in pain as he wept.

Yesenia didn’t remember falling asleep but she had the vague recollection of strange noises in the night.  When she awoke she had to look around her orange surroundings to fully recall where she was.  She’d hoped it’d all been a dream, some kind of nightmare and she was still asleep on the bus to Reynosa and none of this had really happened since then, but the orange walls were an unwelcoming herald back to reality.

The young woman who had first greeted Yesenia and Silvia was named Evelyn.  She was
28 and originally from El Salvador.  She had spent all her money four years ago to reach Mexico City, and from there fell into the same trap as they did.

Yesenia saw her in the hallway of the ugly mobile home as she came out of the bathroom.  “How long have you been here?” she asked Evelyn.

“Oh, hey,” she said.  “You must have been tired.  You slept for nearly 12 hours.”

“I guess,” said Yesenia.

“So how long have I been here?”  She seemed to think on it for a bit.  “Four years, I guess.  You never get out of debt, you see.  We have to give them everything we make and they pay Miss Lydia directly.  Every now and then they’ll give you some for clothes or whatever, but not often.  Your best bet is if a man gives you a tip, then hide it away.  They don’t really say much about tips unless it’s a big one, but don’t get caught hiding a big tip or you’ll get sent to the hot box.”

“What’s the hot box?” asked Silvia, who walked into Yesenia’s room after hearing the voices.

“It’s this old metal trailer they have outside.  If you get in trouble they lock you inside.  Imelda’s out there now.  She spends a lot of time in the hot box, actually.  She smarted off to Miss Lydia last night.  Trust me; you don’t want to go there, especially this time of year.  Just a few hours in the summer and you’ll be sick as a dog.  Plus, it stinks in there.  The dogs piss in it.”

Their conversation with Evelyn illuminated just how precarious their situation was.  The makeshift compound they were at served as both a brothel and a
trafficking hub for drug smuggling.  Miss Lydia was the madam and the three men were her enforcers when they weren’t running the drugs.

“The one with the fancy boots, that’s Arnulfo.  He’s gay or something so you don’t
have to worry about him trying to get in your pants, but don’t tell Jose or Hector.  Arnulfo comes over, but he just likes to hang out and talk.  The other two don’t know, I don’t think.  He’s the only one that’s halfway decent.  If you give him your tip money he’ll get you things in town as long as you keep them hidden so Miss Lydia doesn’t find out.  I think she knows he does it sometimes, but so far she hasn’t said anything.  The other two, though, Jose and Hector, you have to watch them.  And if Jose is drinking, stay away from him no matter what you do.  He’s not right in the head to begin with, but I can’t even tell you some of the things he’s done when he’s drunk.”  She shivered at a memory the girls were sure they didn’t want to know.

“I’m not a prostitute,” said Yesenia flatly.  “They told me they were going to help me get a job as a maid or nanny.”

“Yeah, that’s what they always say,” said Evelyn.  “You think I was a prostitute before coming here?  I used to work in a hair salon back in El Salvador.  I should have stayed put, too.”

“How many others are here?” asked S
ilvia.

“Well, Miss Lydia lives in that one there,” she pointed out the window to a tan mobile home, the only one that didn’t seem like it was thirty years old.  “Jose, Hector, and Arnulfo stay over there,” she pointed to another run down white mobile home.  “That just leaves our house and the one next to it.  We three stay here, and in the yellow one you have Imelda, Maria, Isabel, and Catalina.  Would you like to meet them?  Come on, you can’t sit here crying all day.”  Before either girl could protest Evelyn grabbed them both by the hand, yanked them off the orange bed, and ushered them out across the dirt to the yellow mobile home.  She knocked twice on the door but didn’t wait for anyone to answer, pushing it open to reveal a mobile home much like their own, except slightly larger.  Immediately upon entering Yesenia saw two women sitting on an old floral couch watching television, both of whom looked up as she entered.

Evelyn introduced the first girl on the couch, “This is Catalina.”  She smiled and held up a hand.  She was a waif of a young woman with a cleft chin and a friendly smile.  “And this is Isabel.”  The other girl was curvy with short hair bobbed at her shoulders.  She looked up and waved, but no smile crossed her lips and she barely paid notice to them.  “Isabel doesn’t like to talk when her novellas are on,” explained Evelyn.  “Where’s Maria?” Evelyn asked Catalina.

“She’s with Arnulfo.”

“Shhh,” scolded Isabel.

“Come on, we’d better go,” Evelyn whispered to Yesenia and Silvia.  As they stepped outside they saw a vehicle pull up in the distance by the entrance,
and then heard its horn sound.  “Uh, oh,” said Evelyn, "it must be someone’s lunch hour.  I hope you two are ready.”

“Ready for what?” asked Yesenia.

“We have a customer, and customers always want to try the new girls.”