At the edge of the parking area she crouched behind a cluster of sea grape. She watched the cars jockey toward the one narrow exit road. Most of them had their windows down and the people sang and yelled and threw beer cans at each other while their stereos blasted away, mostly the Jaguars, but Erin could also hear Fabian Ortega and Los Tucanes de Tijuana and Ry Cooder and Luis Miguel and Julieta Venegas.
She stood on trembling legs, then stepped from the foliage into the parking area. Look calm, she thought. Look assured. Surely, someone will give the gringa singer a ride to town. She approached the SUV and held her hand against the door and saw that it was one of the mayors and his wife and she addressed them in her able Spanish.
— I need to go to town.
— You are a guest of Benjamin.
— I need medicine from the pharmacy in the morning.
— But he can have it brought to you.
— Please, can I get in?
— We cannot interfere. You must talk to the boss.
She grabbed the back-door handle but she heard the click of the locks going down and then the mayor’s window rose and closed and the vehicle jumped forward. The front tires dropped into a rain-filled pothole, which threw muddy water against her knees and she could feel the grit of the dirt as the water washed down her calves and into her boots.
She splashed her way to the next vehicle, a late-model Mercedes sedan. The windows were up and the brights went on. With her hands cupped to the glass Erin could see the governor’s wife sitting behind the wheel and the governor himself resting an open bottle of tequila on his thigh. The woman refused to look at her and the man waggled a finger in front of his face and shook his head as if Erin were a child and should know better.
She pushed off the car angrily and stood up straight, looked around in the rain for someone who might care. There in a swank metallic cream-colored Escalade she saw the TV network anchor and the reporter and two of the magazine editors that Owens had pointed out. Both of the windows on her side went down and the four journalists stared at her in collective disbelief.
— I need a ride. Do you have room for me?
— Aren’t you a guest? said the anchor.
— I am not a guest. I am not here of my free will.
— Oh, Miss McKenna this is very, very bad. However, your music was beautiful tonight.
— He has kidnapped her, said the TV reporter. Her voice was loud, and sharp with alarm.
— Let me in.
— This is impossible, said the anchor. We cannot defy Benjamin. This would only heat the plaza.
— Fuck the plaza, friend, these people are going kill me.
— Let her in, said the reporter.
Erin pulled on the door but it was locked and the Escalade rolled forward and bumped into the pickup truck in front of it. The cops in the truck started yelling and the anchorman hit his horn.
— Let her in. She’s been kidnapped, yelled the reporter over the horn blast.
— Please let me in. I’ll tell you everything.
— You will be safe now, said the anchor. See? This is perfect. You now will be safe.
With this the driver’s window started up and in the glass Erin saw Saturnino close behind her, his face growing full as the window rose. She felt his hand clamp down on her arm and twist. The excruciating pain that shot into her shoulder collapsed her to her knees in the muddy lot.
— You don’t have to hurt her, yelled the reporter.
— Thank you, Dolores, said Saturnino. Many thanks to everyone at ‘Veracruz Tonight!’
— Be merciful to her, Saturnino.
— And you be silent, you mouth of a whore.
Saturnino pulled Erin to her feet and marched her struggling out of the parking area and toward the jungle from which she knew she would not return whole if at all.
Deep in the darkness they stopped and he clamped his hands on either side of her face very hard and dragged his tongue against her lips and teeth. She struck him and Saturnino slammed her flush on the jaw with his elbow and she went down. “Sing to me now,” he said. Through the dizziness she felt one of his hands tight against her throat and the other yanking her dress up over her knees and waist, then tearing and rolling it up to her neck and over her face and she kept flailing at him, but most of her blows missed and none of them had the power to hurt him and she could hardly draw breath. He pulled off her underpants and drove his knees between her legs and forced them open. The jungle floor was cold and sharp against her legs and back but she thrashed and screamed into the fabric piled tight against her face. His hand was rough against her center and he pulled a handful of her hair and said again, “Sing to me now.”
She heard a loud smack, as if he had hit her, but felt nothing. She wondered if she were passing out. She couldn’t feel his hand around her throat as she gasped for a full breath, and she couldn’t feel the weight of him between her legs either. Is this how you survive it? she thought. Do you shut down in shock? Then a more terrifying and practical thought: no, he’s let go of my throat and lifted up his body and he’s getting himself ready. He’s going to do it.
Erin lashed out with fresh terror but her fists found nothing to hit so she dug in her heels and pushed herself backward fast across the slick ground and rolled over to her knees, grabbing two big handfuls of fabric and yanking the dress all the way over her head and covering her near naked self with it while she panted. She managed to stand and was ready to run.
Air and breath. Air and breath. Two lights. Two men. Benjamin and Father Ciel.
On the ground between them in their flashlight beams Saturnino swayed on hands and knees. He was frowning at her and his mouth hung loose. His head was split open at the hairline, a gash of white skull, a stream of blood running down his face to the jungle floor. He looked insensible but surprised.
Ciel walked around Saturnino without taking his eyes or light off him. Standing before Erin he handed her the flashlight, then took off his black jacket that smelled of vanilla and wrapped it around her while he muttered a prayer.
Numbly she stared past him. Benjamin sat on his haunches a few feet in front of Saturnino, who had collapsed. Benjamin’s forearms rested on his knees and the flashlight dangled from one hand, the beam ending at the ground. He looked like a man trying to reason things out. She lifted the torch beam to Armenta’s face and saw the agony on it.
20
Late in the black morning Ivana’s wind finally pushed the Chevrolet off the highway. The car planed to his right and Hood steered into the drift and touched the brakes and watched the wall of rainwater crest up to his left, then fall. The heavy old Impala righted its course and slid back into its lane. When he sensed that the car wasn’t about to slide off again he leaned forward and wiped the fogged-up windshield with a wad of paper napkins, the defroster nonoperational.
“You drive almost as good as a Veracruzano,” said Luna.
“It’s a bad enough highway without a hurricane,” said Hood.
“It’s a famously bad highway, even for Mexico. We will stop and stay in Tuxpan.”
“A famously bad city for floods,” said Hood.
“I hope it is not to be having another.”
They had been driving all night, putting all the miles they could between themselves and the Reynosa police, trying to make as much progress toward Merida as they could before Ivana ground them to a halt. One man napped while the other drove but there was no real sleep for Hood, who saw the slaughter of Julio again and again, wondering if he should have said something to Julio as he stood outside the motel room door, something to confirm that he was alone and okay; or if he should have looked through the window to make sure that everything was fine before opening the door. But he had not and the young man was dead along with five baby narcos who seemed poorly prepared for the violence they had commenced.