Maria’s eyes ranged over him. Other than that, her features didn’t change. It seemed to Aideen that the woman was looking for something. A man she once loved, memories to soften the hate? Or was she searching for something different? Something to revitalize her anger. The sight of arms, a chest, thighs, and hands she had once held and caressed.
After a moment Maria turned and walked back to her bicycle. She snatched her grip from the basket behind the seat.
“Keep this for me, Luis,” she said, indicating the bicycle. She walked over to Aideen and offered her hand. “I apologize for my rudeness, Ms. Marley. I’m María Corneja.”
Aideen accepted her hand. “Call me Aideen.”
“I’m glad to know you, Aideen,” María said. She looked at Luis. “Is there anything else I need to know?”
Luis shook his head. “You know the codes. If something comes up, I’ll call on your cellular phone.”
María nodded and looked at Aideen. “Let’s go,” she said and started toward the helicopter. She made a point of not looking at McCaskey again.
Aideen slung her own backpack over a shoulder and scurried after her.
“Good luck to both of you,” McCaskey said to the women as they passed.
Aideen was the only one who turned and thanked him.
The Kawasaki chopper revved up as the women approached. Though they wouldn’t have been able to hear one another over the din, Aideen found the bitter silence awkward. She also felt torn. As McCaskey’s colleague she felt she should say something on his behalf. But as a woman she felt like she should have ignored him too — and, while she was at it, used her own eyes to curse all men. Curse her father for having been an abusive alcoholic. Curse the drug dealers who ruined lives and families and made widows and orphans in Mexico. Curse the occasional gentleman caller in her own life who was only a gentleman for as long as it took to become an intimate.
They climbed on board and were airborne in less than a minute. They sat close beside each other in the small, noisy cockpit, the silence continuing until Aideen finally had had enough of it.
“I understand you were out of the police business for a while,” she said. “What did you do?”
“I managed a small legitimate theater in Barcelona,” she said. “For excitement I took up skydiving. For even more excitement I acted in some of the plays. I’ve always loved acting, which is why I loved undercover work.” Her tone was personable, her eyes unguarded. Whatever memories had troubled her back at the airfield were passing.
“That was your specialty?” Aideen asked.
Maria nodded. “It’s very theatrical and that’s what I enjoy.” She tapped her duffelbag. “Even the codes are from plays. Luis uses numbers which refer to acts, scenes, lines, and words. When I work out of town he phones them. When I work in town he often leaves slips of papers under rocks. Sometimes he even writes them in the open as graffiti. He once left me — what do you call them? Good-time numbers on a telephone booth.”
“That’s what they call ’em in the States,” Aideen said.
Maria smiled a little for the first time. With it, the last traces of her anger appeared to vanish. Aideen smiled back.
“You’ve had a terrible day,” María said. “How are you feeling?”
“Still pretty shell-shocked,” Aideen replied. “All of this hasn’t really sunk in yet.”
“I know that feeling,” María said. “For all its finality death never seems quite real. Did you know Martha Mackall well?”
“Not very,” Aideen replied. “I’d only worked with her a couple of months. She wasn’t a very easy woman to get to know.”
“That’s true,” María said. “I met her several times when I lived in Washington. She was intelligent but she was also very formal.”
“That was Martha,” Aideen said.
Mentioning her stay in America seemed to bring María back down again. Her little smile evaporated. Her eyes darkened under her brow.
“I’m sorry about what happened back there,” María said.
“It’s all right,” Aideen said.
María stared ahead. “Mack and I were together for a while,” she continued as though Aideen had not spoken. “He was more caring and more devoted than any man I’ve ever met. We were going to stay together forever. But he wanted me to give up my work. He said it was too dangerous.”
Aideen was starting to feel uncomfortable. Spanish women talked openly about their lives to strangers. Ladies from Boston didn’t.
María looked down. “He wanted me to give up smoking. It was bad for me. He wanted me to like jazz more than I did. And American football. And Italian food. He loved his things passionately, including me. But he couldn’t share all of that the way he wanted to, and eventually he decided he’d rather be alone than disappointed.” She looked at Aideen. “Do you understand?”
Aideen nodded.
“I don’t expect you to say anything critical,” María said. “You work with him. But I wanted you to know what that was about back there because you’ll be working with me, too. I only learned he was here when I learned you would be coming with me. It was a difficult thing to accept, seeing him again.”
“I understand,” Aideen said. She practically had to shout to be heard over the roar of the rotor.
María showed her a little half-smile. “Luis tells me you worked to bring in drug dealers in Mexico. That took courage.”
“To tell you the truth,” Aideen said, “what it took was indignation, not courage.”
“You are too modest,” María shot back.
Aideen shook her head. “I’m being truthful. Drugs helped to wreck my neighborhood when I was a kid. Cocaine killed one of my best friends. Heroin took my cousin Sam, who was a brilliant organist at our church. He died in the street. When I got some experience under my belt, I wanted to do more than wring my hands and complain about it.”
“I felt the same way about crime,” she said. “My father owned a cinema in Madrid. He was killed in a robbery. But both of our desires would have been nothing if they weren’t backed by courage and resolve. And cunning,” she added. “You either have that or you acquire it. But you need it.”
“I’ll go along with resolve and cunning,” Aideen said, “and one thing more. You have to learn to stifle your gag reflex in order to learn.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You have to close down your emotions,” Aideen explained. “That’s what allowed me to walk the streets undercover — to observe dispassionately and to learn. Otherwise, you’d spend all your time hating. You have to pretend not to care as you talk to hawkers, learn the names of the ‘houses’ they represent. In Mexico City there were the Clouds, who sold marijuana. The Pirates, who sold cocaine. The Angels, who sold crack. The Jaguars, who sold heroin. You have to learn the difference between the users and the junkies.”
“The junkies are always the loners, no?”
Aideen nodded.
“It’s the same everywhere,” María said.
“And the users always travel in packs. You had to learn to recognize the dealers in case they didn’t open their mouths. You had to know who to follow back to the kingpins. The dealers were the ones with their sleeves rolled up — that was where they carried the money. Their pockets were for guns or knives. But I was always scared in the field, María. I was scared for my life and scared of what I would learn about the underbelly of someone else’s life. If I hadn’t been angry about my old neighborhood, if I weren’t sick for the families of the lost souls I encountered, I could never have gone through with it.”
María let the smile blossom fully now. It was a rich smile, full of respect and the promise of camaraderie. “Courage without fear is stupidity,” María said. “I still believe that you had it, and I admire you even more. We’re going to make a very good team.”