Payback

131

Calvina Agnese—Adnese on her passport — stared as the door of the room in the small police station opened. The officer who had brought her here wheeled in a computer on a small stand, smiling apologetically. He said something to her in English, a long explanation probably, though she had no idea what he was trying to tell her. He’d been very nice since stopping for her on the road, nicer than she expected, even giving her food. One of the men at the station spoke a few words of Spanish, enough to ask who she was and what she was doing on the highway in the middle of the night.

“Running from someone?” he asked.

She’d cringed, then shaken her head. When he asked for identification, she handed over her passport. It seemed to satisfy — him.

She thought they would either put her into jail or send her back home, or somehow arrange to do both. She’d been a foolish girl to dream of being like Senor DeCura; she was just a girl who washed floors and always would be.

The policeman left the room, then returned with a telephone. A long cord stretched out from behind it into the other room. He pulled a keyboard out from the shelf under the computer, then turned it on.

He fiddled with the keyboard. A picture appeared in the center of the screen. It had a whitish-brown tint, and the figure in it moved in jerks and starts. But as Calvina stared, she realized it was the woman she had seen in Ecuador — her angel.

“Hola,” said the woman.

“¿Hola?”

“Do you remember me?”

Calvina didn’t answer.

“Should I speak Spanish or Quechua?”

“Spanish.”

“You were in the hallway and I asked if you needed help. Am I right?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Calvina, how did you get to the U.S.?”

“Two men helped me. One was older and very kind.”

“Did the other walk with a cane or crutches?”

“Yes. ”

“Can you describe them please?”

She did. When she was finished, the angel asked her about the truck she had been in. Calvina described it carefully.

“And the men used another car or truck, didn’t they?” said the angel.

“Yes,” said Calvina Agnese, nodding.

“Tell me about the last vehicle they got into,” said the angel, leaning closer to the screen.