“Listen carefully. When the rain stops, go home. But first, right now, or as soon as I’m gone, call the judge and tell her that I’m not holding you hostage, you’re free, and I’ve gone to Paraguay; tell her to catch me if she can.” He paused for a moment, then added: “All you have to do to call the judge’s secret number is hit zero.”
He splashed out the door. The current outside was so strong it almost toppled him. But he reached his car, got in, started it, and drove away gunning the engine and parting the waters, like a new Moses.
XII
As soon as the killer policeman was gone, Vanessa astonished her friend, who had already opened her mouth and was about to launch into a commentary on what had just happened, by demanding silence with a peremptory gesture and turning toward the table where the pair of sweethearts were sitting, still holding hands, as silent as two objects.
“Heddo,” she said, and tried again, grimacing, but without any more success, on the contrary: “Geddgo. . leglo. .” Then, finally, she got it right: “Hello!” She apologized with a smile: the nervous tension had made her tongue go numb. “I didn’t say hello before because I didn’t want that madman to notice you. Do you know who it was? Did you hear him?”
“Ma’am, yes,” said Adelita — it was her.
Jessica turned her head with a look of shock and horror, as if to say: “This is too much! If there’s one more twist in the plot. .” And perhaps her dismay was justifiable. As a beekeeper may be killed by just one more sting because of all the toxins that have accumulated in his system, although a bee sting in itself is almost harmless, there may be a limit to the quandaries that a mind can accommodate. Vanessa, who was more than willing to explain now that she had recovered the ability to speak, enlightened her friend immediately:
“She works on the third floor in your building. She was the first person I turned to when this all started, don’t you remember? I told you! The Pastor’s friend. . which reminds me,” she added, spinning around to face Adelita: “You know he’s dead? He was killed by that guy who was here with us. We were witnesses.”
“Ma’am, yes. I saw it on television,” Adelita said, pointing at the screen. “But he wasn’t my friend. You saw me walking with him, but that was the only time we ever spoke.”
“And what did he say to you?”
“Ma’am, he told me to believe in Jesus and things like that. But I didn’t listen.”
“Good for you. It was all a front. Luckily the truth always comes out in the end.”
Talking had restored Vanessa’s confidence, and she wanted to regain control, to wrest the initiative away from the television. She went and sat down at the couple’s table; Jessica followed. Perfunctory introductions were made:
“This is Jessica, my best friend. It was pure chance that we got dragged into this business.”
“Hi.”
“Hi,” said Jessica.
“Hi,” both girls said to the boy, who was fugly and insignificant and hadn’t opened his mouth.
“This is Alfredo, my fiancé.”
“Uhuh? You’re engaged?” asked Vanessa in a slightly supercilious tone, thinking, “Birds of a feather.”
“Ma’am, we were separated for a while but we got back together again tonight, thanks to your brother.”
“Maxi!? You know him?”
“Ma’am, yes. He’s a saint.”
“He’s a saint,” echoed the fiancé Alfredo, rustily, as if he had gone for years without speaking.
“Maxi, the things he does!” said Vanessa, shaking her head.
“He’s really sweet,” said Jessica. “But he’s too naïve.”
Adelita seemed to be on the point of stepping in to defend him, but she kept quiet. There was a silence. The four of them looked out of the windows: the storm had resumed in all its fury, as if it were starting over again, with a lavish festival of thunder and lightning, and the rain pounding like millions of drums. They had to rest their feet on the crossbars of the chairs because the tiled floor was under four inches of water. The waiters were sitting on the bar. There was nothing to do but wait. Vanessa heaved a long sigh and said:
“Well, now that it’s all over. .”
“Ma’am!” said Adelita, interrupting her. “If I may. . I don’t think it’s quite over yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think your brother is in danger.”
The look of shock on Vanessa’s face expressed a bewilderment larger than the girl herself. It was as if she didn’t even know who her brother was.
“Maxi?” It looked like she was going to say, “You know him?” again. But instead she said: “What’s he got to do with it?”
“Maxi!” cried Jessica simultaneously. “Of course! We forgot about him! Where could he have got to?”
“What’s it matter?” said Vanessa and added, addressing Adelita: “Don’t worry about him. He might seem really vague but he knows how to look after himself. And even if he does get a bit wet, it won’t do him any harm.”
Adelita shook her head stubbornly.
“Ma’am, I wasn’t talking about the rain. They found him a place to sleep in the shantytown because he couldn’t stay awake.”
Vanessa burst out laughing.
“He’s such a baby. He falls asleep on his feet as soon as it gets dark.” But thinking about it, she frowned. “Did they put him to bed?” And in an aside to Jessica: “I hope the sheets are clean. He’s so fussy. .”
“So what’s the problem?” Jessica asked Adelita.
“Ma’am, I’m worried that the man who killed the Pastor might have gone to kill Maxi.” The two girls gaped in amazement. “Because he was following him today, wasn’t he?”
“We were following him. We wanted to see what he was doing. But Cabezas. .” They looked at each other. “Come to think of it, it’s suspicious the way he turned up right then. Could he have been following us?” They both spoke at once. “But why would he want to kill Maxi? And how would he find him, if he’s asleep in a house in the shantytown?”
“Ma’am, it was the Pastor who hid Maxi and maybe he told that man something before he died. You didn’t hear anything?”
“Yes,” shouted Vanessa in a panic. “He gave him an address. Something with ‘seventeen,’ could that be right?”
“Ma’am, that’s where he is,” said Adelita in a dramatic tone of voice.
“Maxi’s doomed, Vanessa! That madman’s going to kill him! And it’s our fault!”
“But he said he was going to Paraguay! And he won’t go to the shantytown; that’s where the Judge is looking for him. .”
“Ma’am, I think he was lying. Didn’t you see that he headed off in the direction of the shantytown. .”
“That’s true. .”
Alfredo jumped up, plunging his feet into the water.
“We have to go and warn Maxi! Come on, Adela!”
“No, wait a minute. We wouldn’t get there in time.”
“And we’d drown on the way,” said Jessica.
In spite of everything, Alfredo was ready to rush off, but Adelita grasped his arm.
“I’ve got an idea.” She pointed to the cell phone that Cabezas had left on the other table. The two girls looked at it too.
“We forgot to call the judge!” exclaimed Vanessa. “We can call her now and tell her to protect Maxi. .”
“Ma’am, she won’t be able to do anything, but I can call the people who are hiding him. .”
They handed her the phone at once. She examined it for a moment, then punched in a number and lifted it to her ear.
Alfredo turned to the two middle-class girls and said confidentially:
“Adela’s very intelligent. She always works things out. Since she came here from Peru, she’s succeeded in everything. The only thing she couldn’t do was find me. Luckily Mr. Maxi came along.”