Savages

240

Elena packs a few things.

She only needs a few things because she has complete sets of everything she needs at all her residences. Each house, she thinks, sits full and ready, waiting only for my presence to complete its emptiness.

There’s a knock on the door and she knows from its tentativeness that it’s Hernan. She lets him in and he asks, “Are you ready to go to the finca?”

“Yes, all ready.”

They go downstairs, then out into the courtyard and into the car that has been specially fitted with armor siding. Beltran, anxious, hovers like a mother hen, sees them into the car, and gets into a heavily armed Suburban in front of them.

They drive several blocks, then Elena orders the driver to take a left.

“The finca is the other way, Mother.”

She says, “We’re not going to the finca.”

He looks confused.

Of course he does, the poor darling, so she continues. “The plan was for us to go to the finca, where Beltran would have had us assassinated. He set the bomb—if it didn’t kill me, it would have driven me to seek safety at the ranch under his protection.”

Her laugh is bitter.

“How did you know?”

How didn’t you know, Elena thinks, is more the question. And the problem. She cannot leave him in Mexico, he wouldn’t survive five minutes. She will have to take him with, and arrange for his bruja wife to follow after.

Before she can answer, Beltran’s Suburban does a U-turn to follow her, but two other cars appear from a side alley and block the way. Elena looks out the back window as men with AK-47s jump out of the two cars and open up on the Suburban.

Beltran comes out of the passenger side firing, but they riddle him with bullets and he melts into the pavement.

“You can go now,” Elena says to the driver.

The car moves ahead.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Hernan asks.

“Could you have pulled it off?” she asks. “Disguised your feelings, smiled, and shook his hand?”

“No.”

“Well, then.” She pats his hand, sighs, and says, “I’m tired of war, tired of the killing, the worry. I have been for some time. So I’ve prepared a move. We’re going to the United States. Lado has prepared the ground for us. Your sisters are there already.”

Azul wants Baja? she ponders.

Fine, he can have it.

Good luck to him.

“To America?” Hernan asks. “What about the police? The DEA?”

She smiles.

Oh, my darling boy.