Sufficient Ransom (22 page)

“But why do Max and his cousin want to help us?” Richard asked.

Kika heaved a sigh. “Max’s brother was killed recently. A drug deal gone bad. Three months ago, Max’s uncle was gunned down in Tijuana. Both men made the mistake of thinking their lives were safe in the hands of murderers. Max wants to avenge Pablo’s death. Julio owes Max. You see, he’s the one who got Max’s brother into the drug business. And though he hasn’t said it…” Her voice dropped. “I think Max wants to help me make up for the terrible things I did to your family.”

Richard acknowledged Kika’s remorse with a single nod and resumed pacing. “But trusting drug dealers to save Ann is crazy,” he said. “Why not let the DEA handle this? They’re trained for this sort of thing.”

Kika sought the gold medallion at her neck. “Julio won’t help Ann if the DEA gets involved. Besides, he can get at the tunnel from both sides of the border, the DEA can’t. Mr. Olson, I pray your wife is alive and your son too. Please understand. We’ll do whatever we can to help them. I’ll call you when I know something. Remember. This is our secret. Let Max and his cousin try their plan before you go to the police.”

3:00 P.M
.

C
huck Blackmart was standing at the back of his Tijuana gallery in the loading area. He slapped the worker’s hand away from his masterpiece. “Be careful!” he snapped in Spanish. “She’s delicate.” The worker recoiled like a kicked dog. His sullen expression fueled the artist’s anger. “You want me to tell El Martillo you can’t keep your hands off the goods? Is that what you want me to do?”

The worker should his head emphatically. “No, Señor! Por favor, no!”

Momentarily appeased by the young man’s groveling, Blackmart stepped back to survey
Señora Hermosa
. The four-foot female figure dangled from a meat hook at the top of a steel pole. The hook held the figure’s spindly neck in place as air from a battery-powered fan, nailed to the crated display, gently pushed her around. The naked body was partly obscured by coils of snakelike hair that sprang from her bowed head and cascaded down her shriveled breasts.

Blackmart smiled. He never tired of admiring his own work. Moving his head from side to side to get the full effect, he noted that the focal point of this fantastic piece was not the hair, the pierced neck, or the defeated face—it was the figure’s distended abdomen. From a bloody cut, partially hidden by the weight of the full belly, the long legs of a hairy spider peeped out and then retracted at seven-second intervals. The spider had been pure inspiration!

When the art critic at the
New York Times
asked Blackmart where he got the idea for his groundbreaking work, he explained that the idea for
Señora Hermosa
came to him after he attended a funeral. “A carpenter I’d hired to expand my art gallery here in Tijuana was murdered,” Blackmart had said. “You see, the funeral got me thinking about Santa Muerte. Mexicans believe strongly that the dead should be recognized and honored. I’ve come to adopt this view.”

Soon the world over was raving about Blackmart. Everyone except for that bitch Ann Olson, of course.
After what she wrote about me, she deserved to lose her son!

The workers forgot to pad the bottom of the crate. Chuck’s eyebrows came down in a straight line. “That wood’s rough, you idiots! If the bags tear, the powder will get all over my work. Where are the blankets El Martillo’s men left?” He swatted one of the workers across the head. “Hurry up! The driver’s waiting to load her. Our agents at the border go off duty in two hours. If we miss this window, we’ll have to wait until Monday!”

4:00 P.M
.

K
ika and Nora were seated on Nora’s back lawn looking out at the ocean. Kika had never noticed, until now, that she and the philanthropist shared the same green eye color, though their shapes—Kika’s almond, Nora’s round—differed. Since undergoing corrective surgery last month, Nora had stopped wearing glasses. “New eyes for a new way of looking at things,” she said, when Kika pointed out their similarity.

“I was afraid you’d slam the door in my face,” Kika said shyly.

Nora’s mouth trembled. “I knew Ann was innocent of those charges.”

“You tried to tell me,” Kika said. “But I didn’t want to listen. I’m sorry I was so rude. You didn’t deserve it.”

Nora dabbed her eyes with a crumpled napkin. “When you refused to see me, I spoke to your boss at CPS. She told me about little Frankie. How you blamed yourself. I figured that everything you’ve done since has been colored by that.”

Kika’s remorse seemed endless these days. “I was awful to the Olsons.”

Nora’s smile was kind. “Your youth and inexperience got in the way of your judgment...” Her voice drifted off. When she spoke again her voice was wistful. “To be young again.”

“I’m not so young anymore,” Kika said. “I’m thirty-four.”

“A mere embryo.” Nora’s own words seemed to give her pause. “Did you know that I had a daughter once? She would have been about your age.”

Kika felt a sudden, inexplicable sense of loss. “What happened to your daughter?” she asked, hoping she wasn’t being rude by asking such a personal question.

Nora’s shoulders lifted and fell with her sigh. “She died at birth. It was a difficult pregnancy. I was very sick. I never even got to hold her.”

“Was it when you lived in Mexico?” Kika asked gently.

Nodding, Nora lifted her tea cup. “Then Chet came along. It’s been a busy life.”

Kika came expecting Nora to denounce her for treating Ann so badly. Instead, here she was revealing her intimate secrets. Kika wanted to return the favor, and put the philanthropist’s mind at ease concerning Ann. “Nora,” she said tentatively. “I uh, I think I know where Ann is. But I can’t say any more now. You see, I promised…”

Her eyes wide, Nora slowly placed her cup on the table. “What?”

“I promised I’d keep the details secret,” Kika added quickly. “I just wanted to let you that there’s hope for Ann.” Despite her reassuring words, Kika wondered if her former enemy would come out of this ordeal alive.

5:00 P.M
.

A
nn jolted awake. She had fallen asleep while resting against the wall. She was losing consciousness more frequently. Even when awake, the inky blackness seemed to blur the line in her mind between dreaming and wakefulness. The thin beam of light under the door of her prison was extinguished long ago. She hadn’t had anything to drink in the longest time. Weak and anxious, she kept picturing Animal Man hiding outside her door waiting to jump her. Straining her ears for sounds, she heard nothing but silence.

After a while, Ann concluded that even Animal Man’s guttural tones would be better than this tomb-like silence. “Where are they?” she said out loud. She pictured Earless Man’s toothy grin as he planned her death.
Why waste a bullet on the gringa? Let her feed the rats, one finger at a time. Your son means nothing to me!
His laughing face spat the words back at her over and over.
Nothing to me. Nothing to me
.

And everything to me!
The irony of her situation did not escape Ann. This godforsaken hole, deep in the ground, was a far cry from her clean orderly life in La Jolla. Her perfect home with everything in its proper place. Burning with shame, she remembered chiding her husband if he forgot to remove his shoes the moment he stepped into the house. For snacking out of the refrigerator without a dish. For doing anything that could mess up her spotless house.

She thought: I deserve this nightmare. A fitting end for a mother who can’t protect her own child. The spirit of self-flagellation buoyed Ann with an unnatural energy. “Please God,” she whispered. “If You get me out of here, I promise I’ll try to believe in You. Don’t let it end this way. Not for me, for Travis.”

Ann smelled smoke. The thought of getting caught in an underground fire raised goose bumps on her skin. She had to get out of this coffin come what may. Bracing herself, Ann brought her knees to her chest and slowly pushed her back up the rough wall. Standing, her legs tied at the ankles, she was able to move a few inches forward. Breathing hard from
the effort, she stopped to rest. She did this several more times before finally feeling the door. Her head against the door, she pushed. The hinges groaned. The door was unlocked. Her jailers had probably figured there was no way she could escape this place. She mentally kicked herself for not trying the door sooner.

The narrow corridor was completely dark. Turning her feet in a sideways motion, Ann was able to travel a few inches at a time. In what direction? She wasn’t sure. But it didn’t matter. She had to move towards a goal, any goal that would take her from this smoke-tinged darkness.

Inch by inch she progressed; perspiration from the effort slipping down her face and neck. She pictured the room where she met Earless Man, ten or fifteen yards down the tunnel. She held out hope that maybe she could reach the room and find a way to cut her bonds. She prayed that the scraping sounds of her feet on the plywood, as she moved along, were not too loud.

To keep her mind off her fears, Ann started counting her sideways shuffle. After a while, something soft touched her arm. Pulling back in surprise, she lost her balance and fell backward. Her head hit the wall. Momentarily stunned, Ann lay gasping for breath. Her back to the wall for support, she finally managed to force herself up, the rough surface against her torn shirt biting into her damp skin. Upright again, Ann shuffled a few steps forward. A cloth brushed her face. She realized that this thing that had spooked her was the curtain into Earless Man’s office. A tiny pinpoint of light close to the floor shone in the room. It looked to be from a machine.

Afraid of falling again and calling attention to herself, after she had managed to make it this far, Ann dropped to the floor and rolled into the space toward the twinkling red light. It was a computer. The light provided enough illumination for her not to feel completely blind.

The smell of smoke was getting stronger. Ann remembered seeing an overhead light and a desk lamp. Straining to discern the objects around her, she wondered where the light switches were. Her face to the desk’s
surface, Ann slowly felt for the lamp. Her cheek touched papers, a box, but no lamp or computer monitor.

Lowering herself back onto the ground, Ann wormed her way to the left, toward where she remembered seeing the makeshift bar and the door. She stopped. Her face had touched something cold and hard. Feeling it with her cheek, she realized it was one of the plastic folding chairs. Squirming along on her belly, she reached the filing cabinet. To the left was the bar.

On her knees, her back to the bar, Ann carefully pulled one of the cabinet doors open with her tied hands. She reached into the space with one extended finger, the other nine fingers clinging to each other so as not impede the lone explorer. She felt nothing. A little further in, she touched something hard. Her bound hands gingerly groped the object. It was a bottle wedged between other bottles. She managed to ease it out.

Holding the bottle firmly in one hand, Ann twisted off the cap with the other. A fizzing sound filled the air. The bottle slipped. She wrenched her body around in the direction where it had fallen and frantically lapped at the ground. She got a few sips, along with a mouthful of dirt, before the liquid disappeared. Coca-Cola, or maybe it was Pepsi, had never tasted so good.

The smell of smoke was strong now. Ann’s eyes were watering. She heard loud popping sounds and shouting. The ceiling shook. Back on her belly, Ann frantically wormed her way toward the desk, to the only place she could think to hide. The popping grew louder. Someone was banging on the door into the room. The shouting voices drew closer. There was a boom and then a ground-shaking crash.

The impact slammed Ann’s head into the dirt. She felt a ripping pain in her backside. Then nothing.

C
HAPTER
13

Friday, October 12

12:30 A.M
.

A
nn opened her eyes and saw darkness. She tried to move her neck but it hurt. “Is anyone there?” A strong hand gripped hers. Turning, she saw him. He leaned over and kissed her forehead. Relief engulfed her. “Thank goodness it’s you.” She struggled to sit up. “Travis?”

“No.”

“Jesús?”

“No.”

She sank back down. “Turn the light on, I have to see.” The room lit, Ann breathed easier. “What happened? Where am I?”

“Hillcrest Hospital,” Richard said. “They took a bullet out of your arm and one out of your leg. You were caught in the crossfire when they stormed the tunnel. You have a concussion, Ann, you need to rest.”

“My head feels so heavy.” She tried to sit up again, but a stabbing pain shot through her back. She looked down and saw that both arms were heavily bandaged. Under the blanket, she touched her legs and her back. Bandages and tape everywhere. “I went through hell down there, Richard. Why are you looking at me like that? What happened?”

Something in her husband’s eyes made Ann pause. She had gone through a hell of her
own
making. She reached for his hand. “I really believed that finding Jesús would lead us to Travis.”

Richard shook his head. “I don’t know what else to say to you, Ann. If you haven’t learned by now that you can’t just run off and do whatever you want, I don’t know when you will. You were within minutes of losing your life. And as it stands, several people did.”

She felt a rush of guilt. People died. Because of her.

“If you hadn’t gone down there in the first goddamn place none of this would have happened!” Richard said.

“I didn’t plan on going there.”

“Bullshit! You
chose
to go there, Ann.”

She just wanted to know what happened. “Did the police save me?”

Richard shook his head.”

“Was it the FBI?”

“I might as well tell you because you’ll never guess.”

“Who was it?”

“Kika Garcia.”