The Death Box(49)
An old man sat behind a counter smoking a cigarette. His yellow and wizened eyes wandered over Leala with approval.
“I would please like to make a phone call,” Leala said. “It is a hurry.”
“Locale?”
“Honduras.”
The man gestured to a rack of colorful plastic cards at his back, marked by countries and denominations and time allotments. “You will need a phone card, pretty one. I can sell you a five-dollar card good for twenty minutes. It is a good deal.”
“Five dollars?”
“Plus tax. Does the pretty lady wish a card?”
Leala’s head had been held under water. She had been raped, beaten with a stick and kicked. She had been slapped, fed slop, forced to live with rats and make her soil in a bucket. She had been made to do terrible, nasty things time and time again. But she had not earned a single centavo. She had no money.
But she had received lessons in making it.
Leala looked across the grocery and when she saw they were alone, stepped to the door and turned the sign from OPEN to CLOSED. She returned and leaned on the counter to better show the tops of her breasts as her mouth hung open. Look sexy and stupid, Orzibel had once instructed. It makes money.
“I will trade you for a phone card,” Leala said.
“What do you mean?” the old man frowned, looking between Leala and the door.
Leala nodded toward the rack of phone cards. She smiled and pumped her fist slowly in the air.
After earning the card, Leala instructed the old man to assist her in the call, then go outside and leave her alone. He assented quickly, needing a cigarette and time to catch his breath.
“Leala?” her mother wailed upon hearing Leala’s voice. “Oh my baby!”
“Mama, shhhh. Please, Mama. I need to talk to you, fast. There are difficulties here. I am fixing them and then I will come home.”
“What are you doing? Are you worki—”
“There will be time to talk later, Mama. Now you must listen.”
“You must listen, Leala. You have to—”
“Silencio, Mama! You are in danger from the one who led me away. Terrible danger. Bad people wish to control me through you.”
“Madre de Dios,” Leala’s mother whispered. “What do I do?”
“Go to Tegucigalpa and stay with Aunt Esmel. Do not tell anyone where you are going. How soon can you leave?”
“Maybe by the day after tomorrow if I—”
“I mean minutes, Mama.”
In addition to everything else, the store also sold inexpensive clothing and shoes. Leala departed ten minutes later in a new blue cotton dress, new sandals on her feet, a bright white scarf to keep the sun from her head, and the largest pair of sunglasses on the rack. She had a colorful woven bag to carry her fruit and tortillas. Plus ten dollars in singles.
The old man was gasping as she left, his legs too weak to cross the floor, and Leala thoughtfully reversed the sign to read OPEN once again.
25
Orzibel stretched out on the couch and used one hand to pull his aloha silk shirt higher up his rib cage, the other drawing a dark-haired head closer to his body. “That’s right, baby. All the way down. STOP FUCKING GAGGING! You wanna make money you gotta learn to—”
The cell phone buzzed from the glass table beside Orzibel. He snatched it up, checked the number and put the phone to his ear. “Things OK down there, Chaku? The food get deliv—” Orzibel scowled and pushed the girl roughly away, his thumb yanking toward the door. “Beat it, puta. School’s out for now.”
He put the phone back to his ear, his voice a tense whisper. “I’ll be right there. Keep looking.”
Orzibel jammed his shirt into his pants, zipped up and ran to the basement, where Chaku waited with three Hispanic men in low-slung pants and bandana-wrapped heads.
“The Rosales girl is gone, Orlando,” Chaku said quietly. “Vanished. We have searched the whole of the basement. Every crack.”
“What? HOW?”
“Jaime and Pablo brought food and water through the tunnel last night. It’s possible she concealed herself until no one could see her escape.”
“What of the watchman in the warehouse?”
“He saw nothing. Neither did Jaime and Pablo.”
“Mierde!” Orzibel’s fist slammed the door. “The girl will call her mama when she gets a chance, all they ever want to do is call mama. I will contact Miguel in Honduras. When Leala calls, Mama will tell Leala to get her tight little ass back here or Mama’s heart goes the way her eye did.”
“Eye?” Chaku grunted.
Orzibel mimed plucking out his eye. “I will amend the threat to include death if we do not see Leala Rosales soon.” Orzibel pulled his phone, paused. “Wait, Chaku … you have a photograph of the girl?”