Upside Down

50

Marta and Arturo sat in Jerry Bennett's office, waiting for him to join them. She wondered what the idiot thought he was accomplishing by making them wait-wasting their time when they were all that stood between him and a death sentence. He acted like it was just a day like any other. Marta didn't know whether he was in some fog of denial or just couldn't alter his normal patterns for fear that he would trigger some avalanche that would bury him. She was thinking about something she'd seen in a movie. She thought she would enjoy cutting him into small pieces, starting with his toes. She'd feed them to hungry pigs while he watched-his stupid eyes lit with fear and pain.

Marta studied Arturo's profile as he chewed his fingernails. She felt the familiar desire, the need to protect him-to cradle him to her breast and comfort him. She knew him as well as she knew herself, knew that he depended on her, perhaps even loved her as she loved him. Men were a different sort of creature-another species entirely.

She had taught him English. She had taught him her trade, but he didn't understand the nuances that would elevate him beyond being a plain-Jane killer. Arturo liked killing-almost too much, which wasn't the same thing as using it as a tool, a means to an end. She didn't know how she could teach him judgment, patience, or any of the thousand things that he needed to understand and be able to call upon to rise to the level she was on. He was loyal and as fierce as a jaguar, but he lacked the necessary instincts and the ability to see a much larger picture. He thought strategically, but only in the limited sense of a predator. For Arturo, the future was no further away than tomorrow. He was concerned with comfort, with showing off, with satisfying his passions. Unlike Marta, there was no fire burning in his soul that demanded feeding. He was beautiful and he was all hers.

The door swung open soundlessly and Jerry Bennett entered. He reminded Marta of a clown. The pancake makeup that she supposed he wore to give himself a tanned appearance had stained the collar of his shirt. He wasn't feminine, but he still made Marta think of an old whore who was dependent for her livelihood on the filtering effects of liquor, poor lighting, and makeup to keep her viable. At what must have been a young age, Marta's own mother had also resorted to those tricks to camouflage the effects of a hard life, abusive men, constant worry, and childbearing. She shuddered at the sudden memory of her mother lying dead on a dirt floor with a pool of her blood swelling out from under her head, her neck laid open by a man the law had not bothered to punish. She remembered the small bloody footprints where a frantic child, barely out of diapers, had paced around the room for hours before people had come in.

Before that day, her own life must have been hard, but she didn't remember it that way, because the orphan's dance that came after that had been so horrible.

“Well,” Bennett said, exhaling loudly, “where are we at, people?”

“We are at your office,” Marta said. “What I cannot tell you is why.”

The fire in Arturo's eyes burned her, almost as intensely as did Bennett's.

“ Why is because Mr. Estrada here made a mess of an assignment so uncomplicated that a retarded chimpanzee could have pulled it off. I want to ask you why you two professionals, if I can use that word with a straight face, haven't been able to locate one frightened child and retrieve my property.”

“We will find her,” Arturo said quickly. “Soon.”

“Mr. Bennett,” Marta said calmly, “if you have other professionals you can summon, perhaps you would like to do that before we go any further in this mess. It seems to me that if you had bothered to tell either of us that in the envelope we were to bring you, there were-besides the eight pictures you mentioned-negatives, Arturo would have checked to see that they were there. And Amber Lee would have come up with them. Since you failed to mention their existence, I don't think you should speak to Arturo so disrespectfully. I think you should be more considerate of the only people who can remedy your predicament. We will fix this problem, but insulting us is not acceptable. If I were you, I wouldn't do it again.” The icy quality in her tone was as infused with warning as the buzz from a rattlesnake.

“I may have… I believe I misspoke. It's just that I'm under so much pressure. Of course you are doing the best you can. The best anybody on earth could do. And I failed to mention the negatives because I wasn't thinking about them. I assumed they would be with the prints. Well, there it is,” he said, trying to smile. “So I am sorry if I insulted either of you, because that wasn't my intent. I mean, if you can't succeed, who can? The cops don't seem to be getting anywhere, and they're the cops, for Christ's sake…”

The ringing phone in Arturo's pocket ended Bennett's stammering. He opened it, stared at the caller I.D., and put it to his ear. “Go.”

As Arturo listened to what the caller was saying a smile appeared and started to grow. “Right now?” He turned his free thumb up and nodded. “Where? Just four or five minutes away.” He stood and pocketed the phone. “The kid's using the cell phone. The aquarium just down the river.”

“Remember my negatives!” Bennett called cheerfully, clapping his sweaty hands.