Amili slid the needle into her flesh and watched a tiny balloon of blood pump into the glass tube. The sight of her blood made her gasp. She pushed the plunger down. An electrical charge gathered at the base of her spine, then began to climb her vertebrae. When the charge reached the base of her skull it dissolved into a high and warm musical chord that kicked her head back and filled her brain like a symphony.
She reached behind her and turned off the lamp on the end table, leaving only the lamp in the corner. The room became roofed with stars. As the ceiling stretched into the night sky of her childhood, Amili stepped from within her body and flew through the cielo until sleep found her and tucked her safely beneath the dark horizon of the world.
Orzibel paced his office as he dialed his phone, the heels of his boots muted in the purple shag carpeting. One wall was fully mirrored. The street-side wall was painted black and the windows hung with plush scarlet drapes. The ceiling and two walls rippled with burgundy velvet, hundreds of square meters of fabric. Orzibel had taken the idea from Elvis’s game room in Graceland. Instead of Elvis’s Tiffany-style shade, Orzibel had opted for a cut-glass chandelier stolen from a silent-film-era theater in the process of restoration: six feet in diameter with three levels of dangling crystals. Luckily, the ceilings were tall, so he could almost pass beneath it without ducking.
He heard a pick-up on the other end and pressed the phone to his face.
“Miguel?”
“Ay … is that Orlando?” Miguel Tolandoro said, his voice at the edge of slurred. Mariachis played in the background and there was the sound of talk and laughter. “The connection is …”
“Get outside where you can talk. Now.”
“Momentito, mi amigo.”
A scraping of a chair and the scuffing of a phone in a palm. The sounds grew distant. “I am in the street, Orlando.”
“Do you never leave the cantinas, Miguel?”
A wet laugh. “I am a shark on the prowl, Orlando. There are young ladies here and if I am successful, they may soon be there, no?”
“I don’t want cantina whores, Miguel. I need—”
“There is a church festival here, Orlando. The nearby villages have emptied into the streets and I have approached many sweet and simple girls who yearn for a better life. You will soon meet several of them, I expect. Why do you sound so angry, my friend?”
Orzibel closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “My apologies, Miguel. The day has been difficult. Do you recall Leala Rosales?”
“How can one forget such a perfect treat? So pretty and yet so smart.”
“It’s the smart that troubles me.”
“Why, Orlando? What has the girl done?”
“She remains an independent spirit and has become a danger. I need you to make an example of her mother, and quickly. Then I will arrange a call where the mother can tell the girl what her foolish behavior has caused, and what will further happen if little daughter does not behave.”
“Fingers, Orlando?”
“An eye. Not pricked, removed.”
“La mamacita is in a tiny village thirty kilometers distant. I will pay a visit tomorrow.”
“Gracias, Miguel. It will save me much trouble.”
“De nada, Orlando. It is a simple task.”
22
It was time to explore the basement. Leala let what she felt was an hour elapse. Judging by the increased volume from above it was late. The paper plate beside her bed held the day’s ration of cold frijoles refritos and uncooked tortillas de maiz. Needing strength for what lay ahead, Leala forced the tasteless food down her throat. The discoteca above me is very large, she thought. The basement will be very large as well. One could not gauge its size because, behind the heavy door of fence that prohibited escaping upstairs, the basement had been chopped into many tiny rooms. There was the central hall that was two meters wide, but from it were many tight passages, like tiny dark alleys. Sometimes the alleys led to other alleys, sometimes they stopped at a wall.
It was a laberinto.
She headed deeper into the labyrinth, where there was no light. Light came from bulbs in the ceiling, you pulled a string and could see. Leala waved her hand in the dark, found the string and pulled. She saw a dead end filled with fast-food bags and beer cans. An expired rat decomposed on the floor.
Leala inspected every passage that fell from the main hall, finding walls made of bricks, and walls of concreto. The latter would be the true walls of the foundation, the others added to make the little prisons. A passage from the basement to the outside, she reasoned, would go through a concrete wall.
Leala returned to a section of the foundation wall. The alley between it and the brick wall was as black as the bottom of a well. She took a deep breath and entered the dark, hands feeling both walls as she stepped down a path barely wider than her shoulders.