“Eleven more written, twelve recorded.”
“They could not all be epic corridos.”
“They will be what you want them to be. I do not have to be the subject. Write whatever you want to write.”
She sipped the wine and studied his hopeful face. An idea presented itself to her, and although she had no time to examine it, she felt confident that it was good and workable.
“I know you,” she said. “You’ll take the million dollars from Charlie Bravo whenever you want to take it. After seeing the treasures in this place, I know this is true. To you, this million dollars is only filthy paper. But it means a lot to me. It belongs to me and my husband and the baby inside me. I earned some of it. So I want it back. I will not write the songs unless you send me home with Charlie Bravo and the money.”
His frown broke into a smile. It was the first smile she had seen on him and it was wide and robust and genuine. “Would you like to be a part of my organization? I will give you cocaine and mota distribution in Los Angeles. The plaza will be yours. The money is very tremendous. And with your contacts, all of the musicians in L.A. will remain high forever and produce wonderful works.”
“How about no? No works for me.”
“I am kidding you. A joke for you.”
“That’s very funny, Mr. Armenta.”
“I agree, then. And you agree to eleven more songs to be written and twelve recorded. At the end you will be flown home with one million dollars, and this Charlie…what is his last name?”
“Bravo.”
“Brave. Of course. Very brave when he killed my Gustavo. I had forgotten his bravery. But I now promise I will send him home with you.”
“Not to the tigers?”
He shrugged and avoided her eyes.
“You ordered your people not to feed them.”
“Agreed. Not to the tigers.”
“I will be finished in one week. I believe in you as a man of your word.”
Now he seemed to vet her like a taste of product, a pleased look spreading across his face.
“Also,” she said. “I need the freedom to leave my room when I want to. With no one to watch me. I need to be free to walk around in your Castle and on your property. Except the third floor, of course. I won’t run away again. I give my word on this, and it is every bit as good as yours, and you know it is.”
He smiled again but this time there was something amused in it, as if he’d just been told a good joke. “Of course this is impossible!”
“Impossible why?”
“Because I don’t trust you. Now the truth is exposed. Neither one of us trusts the other but we are making deals like powerful capitalists in the back room! No. You may have limited freedom but only when Owens is with you. Or you will run away. I can see this happening very clearly.”
She took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay.”
Looking down through the last rays of daylight she could see that the outside gunmen were gone now, having vanished as they sometimes did to places unseen, and for reasons not apparent.
The waiter brought a tray heavy with plates of seafood and beef, and another piled with tamales and Yucatecan mango-topped enchiladas. He set out dishes of hot sauce and wedges of lime and baskets of tortillas.
Armenta lifted his wineglass to her and she took up her glass but did not acknowledge his gesture. “I am worried about Saturnino. He is never to leave here without telling me.”
“He’ll probably show up.”
“You never saw him on the trail to the cenote?”
“I told you I never saw him at all.”
“Then maybe he was not acting loco. Maybe he truly is loco and he has taken off for Merida or Veracruz or…who can know?”
She said nothing and watched his face crinkle into a scowl. He set down the wineglass and lifted a phone to his head again.
When he stood and cursed into it Erin heard the gunfire erupt outside, short urgent bursts in the darkness. She saw a ragged flash of orange from the jungle, then came the answering shots from somewhere down in the courtyard. A round whinnied through the night, then another.
Armenta stashed the phone and slid a large holstered pistol around his belt until it hung in front. Then he came around the table toward her and when she stood he put both hands on her shoulders not roughly and he guided her to the floor and under the big table.
“Stay down and the bullets will go over your head.”
“Who are they?”
“The same as they will always be.”
He went to the armoire that sat along one wall and pulled out an assault rifle and swung the strap over his shoulder and chest. Next came what looked like a shotgun, short-barreled and pregnant with a drum of shells. He looked back at her once then marched from the dining room and Erin could see the silent bodyguard leading the way from the suite. He was an older man like Armenta but they moved lightly and spoke to each other though she couldn’t hear the words.
Then the generators went silent and Erin heard gunshots replace their insistent drone and these came from inside the Castle, below her, nasty little rattles that seemed to be arguing with each other. The darkness was sudden and deep. She lay in it with her back to the floor and lifted her knee and worked the Cowboy Defender loose from her calf. When the gun was free she looked to the window and saw below the rim of the tabletop the quarter moon high in the east and the lights of what might have been a commercial jet blipping up and away from what city she couldn’t say.
She rolled over and crawled out and peeked over the window frame. The drive below was lined with solar lights set in decorative concrete frogs, turtles, fish, and crocodiles, and in their modest light she saw two men sprawled on the drive and two more moving slowly toward the Castle from the trees. Two heavy booms and a fusillade of lighter reports erupted from downstairs. Where in the Castle? she wondered. Had Armenta made it outside? Were all those sicarios trying to protect him, or kill him? A flare was launched from the foliage and flew into the courtyard out of her sight. She could see the bright red light of it washing the pavers and the columns of the portico and when the two men ran from the jungle onto the drive they were cut down by fire she could not trace. One of them lay still and the other moaned and rolled back up onto his hands and knees but a furious chatter of fire pocked the sand around him and sent him down absolutely and he did not move again.
The glass above her blasted apart. She slumped down against the wall and felt the shards raining down on her. The main battle seemed to be taking place on the drive right below the dining room but she heard other shots and shouts farther down the driveway and from the nearby jungle where Saturnino had attacked her and from the far side of the building. She crawled back to the table with the glass pricking her hands and knees and the derringer held absurdly in her teeth. She stood and tried to tip over the table but bullets whizzed past her and smacked into the wall and she fell to the tile and rolled flat to the floor under the table. Outside she heard the sound of boots on the crunchy sand of the driveway and men shouting and a scream ended by a volley of fire. The flare light burned into the night from the courtyard and she saw the gun smoke rising into it, then felt the concussive explosion downstairs within the Castle. A grenade, she thought, or a bomb of some kind.
Then she heard vehicles on the drive and more shouting and automatic weapons, and the roar of engines. The bullets twanged against the vehicles and she wondered if they were bouncing off or going in. Then an abrupt silence fell. She lay curled in a ball in the dark hugging herself and talking to the baby inside her about some of the beautiful things he would get to see in his life, beginning in just a few short months. In fact, you will open your eyes to the sky and the moon and stars and Daddy’s and Mommy’s faces and the faces of toy bears and lions, and there will be music too, beautiful music, and even though you can’t see the music it will make you imagine things that you will see whenever the music plays and sometimes even when it doesn’t. She felt her heart thumping and the cool of the tile against her flank and she could smell the festive smell of gun smoke wafting in through the broken window. She put a stinging finger into her mouth and sucked at the blood.