The newscaster's face appeared on the screen and said, "Joining Senator Chase at that impromptu news conference was Casey Jordan's former husband of ten years, Taylor Jordan, the notable Austin philanthropist."
"Christ," Casey said, her eyes glued to the enormous screen, but still conscious of the glances flashing at her from all quarters.
Taylor, handsome, conservatively dressed, and gray around the edges of his wavy hair, sniffed and looked up with red eyes. "My ex-wife, Casey Jordan, has slandered me publicly and privately. I am pursuing her in court for the shame she's brought on my good family's name, and I'm here to tell the truth about her, so that this good man, a hero to many of us for his stand on American values, will not have to suffer the humiliation that I have. It's wrong. It was wrong when she did it to me with that… that movie. And it's wrong now."
The newscaster appeared, silent and shaking his head in disgust before getting back to business. "In Iraq today, twenty-seven-"
Casey looked at Jose, aware of the uncomfortable quiet that had settled on the room.
"Jose," she said, speaking low, "I am so sorry I dragged you into this."
Jose clenched his hands and looked up, his nostrils flaring, but with eyes that glistened. He turned and headed for the door.
Casey went after him, catching him outside and grabbing hold of his arm to stop him from getting into a cab.
"What?" she asked. "I said I was sorry. Jose?"
Jose shook his head, unable to meet her eyes.
"Come on," she said. "What's wrong?"
Jose shook his head again, looking down.
"Jose? It's not true, is it?"
"Not all of it," he said, clenching his teeth and looking up at her. "But some, I guess."
"What part?" she said, her words sounding desperate, her mind racing back over the allegations: gangs, drugs, prostitution.
Jose wouldn't answer. He pulled away, his face tight and flushed with shame, and headed back for the cab.
Casey let him go.
CHAPTER 50
SHOWERED, SHAVED, AND HIGH, WITH HIS HAND ON A CHROME.45 automatic and a cigarette dangling from his lip, Teuch rode beside Adulio, his brother-King. Slouched down in the front seat of Adulio's pimped-out '73 Impala, they rumbled down the steaming street past the Catholic church in Wilmer. The church's doors swung open and there stood the priest. Teuch might have thought the priest meant to welcome them, except he knew the priest could not have known that Teuch would be back in Wilmer.
"Stop," Teuch told Adulio in Spanish, taking a final drag before pitching his cigarette out the open window.
"Que?" Adulio asked, looking around, his bald brown head swiveling.
"Back up," Teuch said. "To the church."
They did, and the priest studied them without moving from the stoop, a watering can cradled in his arms. The priest's face suddenly relaxed and he approached the car.
"You look terrible," the priest said, in Spanish. "I didn't recognize you."
"Guess I fucked up," Teuch said in Spanish, offering up a placid grin. "Last time I saw you, Father, you offered me a blessing. I should have taken it."
Teuch pointed at the white helmet atop his head. "Cop blew half my fucking brains out, Father. Now I got some sense."
"To blow out half of his?" the priest asked, raising an eyebrow and switching to English.
"To see what you wanted me to see before, Father," Teuch said in Spanish, "to take your blessings this time. Bring me some luck."
"I hope to bring you the Lord's blessings by showing you the work I believe your brother died for," the priest said, returning to Spanish, resting his watering can on the gravel next to the small plot of flowers surrounding the stunted belfries. "I told you that days ago. Did the men who killed your brother do that to you?"
Teuch touched the dressing and smiled at the pain, now muted by heroin. "Yes. I'd like to know more."
Teuch got out of the car and followed the priest up the hard-packed dirt walk lined with small round stones. The priest swung open the dark door and they entered a musty nave with rough-cut dark wood pews that faced an altar lit by a single arched piece of stained glass and watched over by a large wooden Jesus, bleeding on his cross. Along one wall the priest went, turning in to a flickering chapel no bigger than a motel room. Teuch eyed the wooden Jesus above the main altar and sniffed before turning in to the chapel himself and seeing a hundred or more small photographs taped to the plaster wall in rows. Beneath them stood two racks of candles, their small orange flames guttering low and dribbling clear white wax.
"The people say 'Triangulo de Bermudas' behind my back," the priest said. "These are the missing, their photographs. Some from right here, they simply disappear. Most of them have sent word that they are coming and then, nothing. Back home, in Mexico, the people say they went. Here, they wait, but no one comes."
"Coyotes," Teuch said with a nod.
"Maybe," the priest said. "But why hasn't anyone heard? Some of them are bad, these coyotes. They take advantage of the weak. But their stories are told. These people"-the priest nodded at the wall-"there is nothing. They simply vanish."
"And my brother?" Teuch said.
The priest nodded vigorously. "He didn't tell me what it was, but I found him here in this chapel, late one night, just before he died. I don't know how he got here, or what he was doing, but when I asked him, he told me these souls might not be lost. That was all he would say, but I took it to mean something."
Teuch studied the souls. A young girl. A man with a full white beard. A fat mother with two grinning children. Smiling, random faces with no connection to one another beyond their Mexican heritage and their quest for a better place. Teuch chuckled and turned away, waving his hand.
"Ghosts and demons and smoke and mirrors," he said. "The work of priests."
Teuch stopped in the middle of the nave. The priest had followed him, but with a head hung in disappointment.
"Bless me anyway, Father," Teuch said, turning toward him and eyeing the bloody wooden savior. "For luck. I can't say it's God's work, but it is work I think He'd want done."
CHAPTER 51
CASEY WOKE TO THE SOUND OF HER CELL PHONE RISING ABOVE the alarm she'd been too lazy to shut off. She cleared her throat and coughed, picked it up, and answered.
"Where are you?" Stacy asked.
Casey swatted the clock radio into silence, woefully eyeing the bottle of sleeping pills on the nightstand. She widened her eyes, worked her jaw, and wagged her head to clear the ill effect of the pills.
"I'm coming," she said, clearing her throat again.
"You sound like shit," Stacy said.
"I feel great, though," she said.
"Sorry."
"You saw that last night?" Casey asked.
"How's Jose?"
"I better get going here," Casey said.
"The TV trucks got here before me. I showed them where to set up."
"How do they look, the reporters?" Casey asked.
"Hungry, I guess."
"Good. They're about to get fed," Casey said, then hung up.
A cold shower cut through the fog of the sleeping pill. She dressed quickly, gulped down a glass of tomato juice, and hurried out the door with her briefcase tucked beneath her arm.
She darted in and out of the morning traffic, which was thinning now with the lateness of the hour, until she found herself in front of the courthouse with a pounding headache. TV trucks jammed the drive with more than just the local news and she pulled up her Mercedes behind one of them like just another reporter risking a ticket and a tow. She found three Advils in her purse, swallowed them dry, and checked her makeup in the rearview mirror. She got out into a sun standing well above the horizon, too bright and too hot to look at.
Stacy appeared beside her wearing a new dress and high heels that made Casey stare.