Ballistic(18)
He hesitated. He was busted, no sense in drawing out an obvious lie.
With a shrug he said, “I knew Eddie. I was just in the area. Thought I’d come by. Sorry. I have to catch a bus. Excuse me.” He tried to move past her again, and again, she shifted into his path.
“Eddie? You are American?” She had switched to English.
“Yes.” She remained wary; she did not smile or nod. But slowly she extended a small hand, and Court took it. “You are Eddie’s wife?”
“My name is Elena. Sí, I was Eddie’s wife.”
“My name is Joe.” He pulled the name out of the air.
He regarded the woman for a moment. “Eddie was going to have a baby?” Court winced even as the words came out of his mouth.
“He is going to have a baby. A boy.”
He said nothing. Just nodded.
“You were with Eduardo in the Navy?”
“No.”
“Ah, Drug Enforcement Agency?”
“No.”
The soft features of her caramel-colored face scrunched up as she thought. “You knew him back in California or something?”
He hesitated. He hated telling people the truth. It was not how he operated. He determined to remain vague. “A long time ago, your husband saved my life, risked his own to do it. That’s really all I can tell you.”
He felt her eyes on him for a long time. Twice he glanced to her and found her staring at his face; both times he turned his head back to the gravesite.
She smiled. Said, “He saved many lives, I think. Here and in the United States. He was a good man.”
“I’m really sorry—”
“Are you here for the memorial?”
“The memorial?”
“Tomorrow, in Puerto Vallarta, there will be a commemoration of the eight officers who died in the bay. We are expecting a large turnout of locals who will come to honor their sacrifice. Will you be there?”
Gentry hesitated. “I’d love to. But I have to get back on the road.”
“What a pity.” Elena looked as if she did not believe him, which to Court meant she had a pretty decent bullshit detector. “I need to paint the cross again.” She stepped up the hill and knelt down, unsteady with the change in her center of gravity. As she opened the can of paint, she looked back over her shoulder, smiled, and extended a new invitation. “You must come home with me now. Eduardo’s entire family will be there, some friends, and the relatives of three of the other men killed. Everyone is at our home tonight for a dinner; in the morning we are all going together to the memorial. Eddie’s mother and father will be so pleased to meet a friend of Eduardo’s from the United States.”
“I wish I could, but I’d better be heading back to—”
“You have come all this way. You and Eduardo were friends. What would he think looking down on me from heaven if I did not take you home and give you a meal for your trouble?” She knelt and began working as if the matter were decided—she covered the black graffiti with the clean white paint.
Court wanted to protest more, but he could not deny he could use something good to eat. With what remained of his cash he had just enough to make his way across the country to Tampico and buy a few tortas or tacos from street vendors along the way. He wouldn’t fight Eddie’s wife on this.
He motioned at the graffiti. “Who did that?”
“Cabrones,” she said, then looked up at Court with an apologetic smile. “Just people who are fans of Daniel de la Rocha.”
“The drug lord has a fan club?” Court asked, somewhat taken aback.
“Oh, they say he is an honest businessman. They say that he has done much good for this area. They say my husband acted without permission. But Eduardo knew all about de la Rocha; he would not have gone after him if he were a good man.” She finished her work. A few bright splotches of white had dripped on the broken brown dirt below the tombstone. “We will get him a nice headstone. Once the messages stop. It’s not worth the trouble now.” Then she stood. She let Court take the paint can and the brush, and they began walking towards the exit of the cemetery.
LAOS
2000
Flies and roaches and rats found the basement cell; the hot, sick stench of human waste saw to that. Court became weaker by the day: he’d lost twenty pounds since the hospital, and his skin was now dry and coarse from the lack of fluids and vitamins. Other than the daily journey to the interrogation shack, he had no exercise and no natural light or fresh air. At the end of the second week the interrogators told Eddie he and his fellow prisoner would be taken to the labor camps in three day’s time. Eddie once again angrily demanded that his cellmate be hospitalized or at least given medicine for his malaria, but the Laotians showed no concern whatsoever for a young Western drug trafficker. Eddie flew into a rage, attacked his interrogators, and was only fought off with the butts of two big SKS rifles that were driven into the base of his skull. He was returned, unconscious, to the basement with a fat, bloody knot on the back of his head. Then Gentry was dragged up for his “session.”