His girlfriend?
Don’t be weird.
“He's not really a questions guy, anyways,” Javier says on the drive over; “We go way back; he owes me one.”
“So how do you know Tio Torito?”
So much for not being a questions guy.
I start to respond, yelling and still not even hearing the sound of my own voice over the loudness of the prop engine, before Esteban grins and reaches over to turn my headset on. The sound of his friendly laugh coming through my headphones signals they're on.
“What?”
He snorts a laugh, grinning and shooting a quick look back at Javier sleeping in the cramped backseat of the plane behind where I sit up front with Esteban; “His- how do you- his nick name? My kids call him that. It means Uncle little-bull literally, but I think it loses something in translation.”
I grin, allowing myself to laugh into the mouthpiece which helps my nerves with the wild shaking of the plane; “I don’t think it loses a thing in translation, actually,” I say, laughing; “And I guess it’s complicated,” I finish with a small smile and a shrug; “How I know him.”
He laughs, “Yeah, that sounds like Javier.” He rubs his chin and grins to himself, as if reliving old times.
“So you guys are old smuggling buddies?” I cringe a little as the words tumble out of my mouth, wondering if I've just crossed some sort of criminal code by even asking.
Esteban just chuckles though and shakes his head; “Me? No, no, no, that’s not my business. I mostly do commercial jobs. Todo en los libros; everything on the books. It’s all on the level.” He grins, pantomiming a straight line with his hand; “No bandito stuff for me, but sometimes, an old friend like Javier asks me to fly something, and I just decide not to look at what it is.” He turns to me, his wide face smiling; “I thought it might be rude this time to ask you to sit in the cargo-hold.” he says with a wink.
“He helped me, you know,” He says after another minute of rumbling, shaking silence in the plane.
“Hmm?”
“Javier; that’s how we know each other.” Esteban nods slowly to himself; “He was in Peru, during the uprising when the Communists were fighting the government. My wife and I and our three girls were hiding out by the docks, apparently in one of his holding warehouses. But when he found us, it wasn't even a question. He was small-time, back then; tiny boats, no planes, none of the tricks he used later. He was there to bring some crates of whatever he was moving then onto that boat and get away before the rioters got to the port, but he took us instead; no questions asked.”
Esteban smiles to himself; “I asked him for a long time what was in those boxes that he'd left behind when he took us; you know, to pay him back. But he never told me, and that son of a bitch never lets me pay him back a penny.” He turns to me with a shrug; “So, that's how I know him.”
“I didn't know that part of him, I guess.” I say quietly, turning to look out the window at the clouds streaking past us.
“He's a complex man. He's seen too much, I'll give him that, and he got in deep with the wrong people a few years ago, when he was up in New York.”
He got in deep with the wrong people a few years ago, up in New York. Like, around the time he started pressuring Logan with blackmail and ended up kidnapping him and my sister Quinn?
“In another world? In some other reality with different circumstances?” Esteban jerks his thumb over his shoulder at the sleeping Javier; “He'd probably be president somewhere, or a Saint.”
I bite my lip as I turn and let my eyes linger on the man sleeping behind me; the man who's got me turned around and inside-out in ways I've never felt before.
“So, you two are…” Esteban trails off and gives me a conspiratorial wink.
I blush furiously and shake my head; “Oh, no, no nothing like that,” I say, way too quickly as my cheeks burn.
Esteban suppresses a knowing grin and just shrugs; “Hey, it’s none of my business, señorita. But as a friend to him?” He turns, looking into my eyes; “Be nice to that one. He's a better man than you’d ever know by just looking at him; remember that.”
22
Chelsea
If I was confused about everything with Javier before, I don't know what to think after talking with Esteban. It's a side of Javier I've never even considered. I mean, in my mind, he's a villain. I might've been having ridiculous thoughts as of late of him being my villain, or whatever, but a bad guy he remains in my head.
Except the story from the plane changes all that. The selfless, charitable Javier? I'm not sure I've ever met that side of him, and suddenly I'm curious what else there is to know about this man - this criminal - that he's managed to bury so deep.