Down Among the Dead Men

87

The Barracuda tore down the coast road, Ortiz looking much more at home behind its wheel than he had when he was driving the taxi.

“Tell me the truth,” Vargas said. “This isn’t the first time you’ve taken Yolanda’s car for a late-night drive.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, pocho. ”

“Don’t worry; I’m not gonna say anything. I’ll probably never see her again.”

“Then you’re a lucky man. Because when she gets up in the morning and opens that garage, she gonna be pissed.”

“That’s what I don’t get,” Vargas said.

“What’s that?”

“Why you’re willing to risk her wrath to help me. And why you’re risking your life to take me to Ciudad de Almas. After that reaction from Little Fina’s crowd, I figured you’d be running for cover just like everyone else. And don’t give me any bullshit about customer service.”

Ortiz shrugged. “Maybe I got my own ax to grind with these circus freaks.”

“Like what?”

“That pendejo shot at me. I don’t like people who shoot at me.”

“And?”

Ortiz hesitated, then shook his head. “There is no ‘and.’”

“Come on, Ortiz. What do you know about these people that you aren’t telling me?”

“You hear stories, but you never know what’s truth and what’s fiction. People use La Santa Muerte and El Santo like the bogeyman. Scare their kids into doing their chores.”

“Only the bogeymen are real in this case.”

“I know they do some business in Playa Azul, and all along the Baja coast, and they make enough money off the drug and sex trade to make them extremely dangerous people. But Little Fina was right. They’re ghosts. They’re very private and want to stay that way. You don’t get in their face, they won’t get in yours.”

“So what’s your beef with them?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Come on, Ortiz.”

Ortiz sighed. “There was this girl I met up in Tijuana a few years back. Gracilia. She worked in a factory making seat belts and air bags for American cars.”

He looked out at the ocean as he drove. And for once he didn’t have a smile on his face.

“One day she and a couple of her co-workers just up and disappeared. Police couldn’t figure it out. But the rumors started that El Santo was behind it. And not the eat-your-vegetables version, either.”

“And you believe it?”

“No reason I should,” Ortiz said. “But yeah. People say El Santo steals these women and either uses them as sex slaves or as human sacrifices to appease his god. Tells his people that the sacrifices bring them blessings and good fortune.”

“Jesus. And nobody’s been able to confirm this?”

“Like I said, pocho. Ghosts.”

“And this girl in Tijuana. She must’ve been pretty special.”

Ortiz shrugged again. “I didn’t really know Gracilia all that well. But I could have, amigo. I could have.”

Vargas thought about Beth. Despite what they’d been through, he didn’t really know her all that well, either. But he hoped to hell he wouldn’t one day be saying he could have.

He knew he had every reason to blame himself for what had happened tonight. But he’d already been through the blame game with Manny, feeling like he should’ve been a better brother. Thinking if he’d done something different, Manny would still be alive.

No point in retreading that territory. He’d made choices tonight, and they’d had consequences.

Besides, this wasn’t over. And he had no intention of leaving Mexico without Beth.

They cruised in silence for a while; then Ortiz’s cell phone rang.

Swearing under his breath, Ortiz pulled it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen.

“Holy shit. It’s you again.”

Vargas turned sharply and snatched the phone from him, clicking it on. “She’d better be alive, asshole.”

“…Nick?”

It was Beth.

“Jesus Christ, Beth, where are you? Are you okay?”

She started to cry, her voice trembling. “I think I killed him, Nick. We wrecked the car and I found your phone in his pocket. I…I think he’s dead.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No…I don’t know. I shouldn’t have killed him…he knows where she is…But I couldn’t help myself, I-”

“Where are you?”

“By the ocean,” she said. “I’m by the ocean, near a lighthouse. I need clothes. He wouldn’t even give me a blanket…a fucking blanket…”

“Just hold on, Beth; we’re coming.”

“We have to get to Ciudad de Almas…They’ve got Jen there…We have to get there before…before…”

There was a long silence.

“Beth?”

Then the phone went dead.

“Shit,” Vargas said, turning to Ortiz. “Is there a lighthouse around here?”

“Down the road. About thirty minutes.”

Vargas dialed his number and listened to it ring. “Make it twenty,” he said.

And Ortiz hit the gas.

They found her on the beach, using the ring of the cell phone to guide them. The lighthouse sat shining in the distance, on a rocky patch of land that jutted out toward the ocean.

She was lying faceup in the sand, a pale, naked figure, out cold, still clutching Vargas’s phone in her hand.

Vargas’s first instinct was to panic, but then he felt for a pulse and got a strong one.

She was alive. A bit battered and bruised, but alive.

Ortiz brought a blanket from the trunk of the Barracuda and they wrapped it around her. And as Vargas pulled her into his arms, Beth stirred, looking up at him.

“Easy,” he said. “Easy.”

When she realized who it was, she heaved a soft sigh and threw her arms around him.

“Nick…”

They kissed, and Vargas suddenly realized how worried he’d been. He’d kept his emotions crammed deep, but now that he’d found her and she was alive and in one piece, his relief was a tangible, living thing.

When he’d seen the condition of the Jaguar, and Mr. Blister’s broken body inside, Vargas couldn’t fathom how Beth had managed to escape.

Breaking from the kiss, Beth said, “We have to go. We have get to Ciudad de Almas.”

“We’re not going anywhere until you see a doctor.”

She pulled away from him. “No, we have to go now. Rafael told me they have Jennifer and Andy.”

“Andy? Who’s Andy?”

“I’ll explain in the car. I tried checking his phone for numbers, but it was broken in the crash. We can’t waste any time. We have to find them before midnight tomorrow.”

“I don’t mean to rain on your parade,” Ortiz said. “But that could be a problem unless you got a map with an X on it. Ciudad de Almas is almost as big as Playa Azul.”

Ignoring him, Vargas said to Beth, “What happens at midnight?”

Despite the heat, she shivered, pulling the blanket close. “That’s when the cleansing begins. A cleansing by fire.”