It took days to get there and once I crossed over through Texas, time seemed to stop. Though I would never completely fade into the background, there was anonymity here that seemed to shake loose what little soul I had left. I felt free from everything – who I was, where I came from, the baggage I carried.
For a year I bounced around from place to place. I started with the resort towns on the Caribbean side before heading to the ones on the Pacific side. Veracruz, Cancun, Tulum, Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco. When I got tired of the tourists, I moved inland and stayed in different cities, then towns, then villages. Each place had something special about it and in each place I met people who seemed to think I was some use to them.
It wasn’t until I started running out of money that I found myself reaching for these people. It was also then when I met Carmen.
I was in a town just south of Manzanillo. It was a small resort-town, a bit down at its heels but popular with Mexican tourists, which suited me just fine. I’d met a man once called Carlos and, of all the people I’d met, he not only was the most genuine but also the most ambitious. Though cordial and generous, he was also a realist and made things happen. He had connections – none of which he held lightly – and success in his sights.
When I first met him I was sitting a bar in a rustic but authentic establishment, sipping tequila, which the bartender gave me on the house for no real reason, and reading a book. Some John Grisham thriller, something to pass the time. I read a lot that first year in Mexico.
Carlos was there with two buddies of his, conducting business in the corner. At least I assumed it was business because when I would look over there, their faces weren’t laughing and no one except Carlos was touching their drinks.
Suddenly there was a yelp and a fight broke out. Before I knew what I was doing, I was in the middle of it, holding one man back, the man who sneered like a dog and seemed hell-bent on ripping Carlos’s face off with his own veneers.
I don’t know why I got involved – instinct I guess. But after the two gentlemen were escorted out of the bar, Carlos bought me a drink. He wanted to know where I was from, what I was doing there. He wanted to know where I learned to move like that, if I knew how to handle a gun, if I knew how to fight.
I didn’t tell him much beyond the fact that I had been in the American military. He seemed happy with that. He said there was a lot of work here for someone like me, and then he gave me his card, patted me on the back, and left.
I’d kept in touch with him via email after that. Just a few messages here and there. Advice. Where I should go next. Every time he told me I should look him up if I’m in the area. And sometimes his area moved around too.
One day, I was out of money and in the same place that he was.
We met up at a bar. A casual deal was made. I’d accompany him on a few transactions, sort of a bodyguard. It was easy work and he paid me well. He trusted me and I trusted him.
But soon I did more than just stand around and give people the stink-eye. I started doing him favors. Nothing terrible. But I knew Carlos was a drug lord and whatever package I was delivering, dropping off, handing over, to numerous nondescript people either contained drugs, weapons, money, instructions or a combination of the four.
And still I did my job.
And when I discovered Carlos’s sister was moving back to town and I first laid my eyes on Carmen Hernandez, I realized I had more than this job keeping me in Mexico.
I fell in love and fell in love hard. I don’t know if I ever picked myself off the ground.
We married. We made plans. We talked babies.
We had a blissful year together.
And then she was dead.
And I lost the last parts of me that were human.
***
Alana Bernal was doing something to me and I wasn’t sure if I liked it. Actually, if I was being honest with myself, I was loving it but that reaction in itself spurred on one of the opposite nature. I wasn’t used to being excited, to being intrigued, to feeling remotely good. I was used to the cold dead inside of me, to the life of monotony and that growing numbness that reached into everything I did.
Change was frightening. Change made you weak. And I didn’t want any part of it.
But I wanted part of her. That was a problem.
Of course, when I met her for coffee yesterday, I had to act like I hadn’t been following her for days. It wasn’t so much that I was interested in what she was doing with her time the moment she was discharged from the hospital – because let’s face it, I was – but that I wanted to make sure that I hadn’t been replaced.
Thankfully, from watching her apartment I came to the same conclusion as I had when watching the hospital. There was no one else still, only me. It was wishful thinking that whoever ordered her assassination had just forgotten about her. They hadn’t. Not for the price on her head. They were just biding their time. But there was no one else on the job, not that I could see.