Border Crossings: A Catherine James Thriller (22 page)

Yesenia was beginning to get used to her new surroundings.  While Ceci and her family were settling into a house they had rented on the other side of Mexico City, Yesenia was also settling into the little frame house in Dallas.  She unpacked her bag and cleaned the house for Armando and Ricky from top to bottom.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he told her with a smile when he came home.

“It’s the least I can do,” she said.

“Hey,” said Ricky, looking around and then flopping himself on the couch.  “This is pretty nice.  The place cleans up pretty good.”

“You would, too, you know, if you didn’t always wear those baggy pants and sweaters,” Yesenia offered.

“Hey, don’t start cramping my style, woman,” Ricky teased with a grin.  “Unless you got a hot friend you want to hook me up with or something.”

That made Yesenia smirk.  Her new gal pals from the compound could certainly show Ricky a thing or two.

Yesenia had been too afraid to go out of the house for the first couple of days, but finally Armando convinced her to come with them to the Super Wal-Mart so she could pick out some more clothes.  It was the most amazing thing she’d ever seen.

“I can’t believe how much stuff they have,” she told him, marveling at the endless aisles of wares.  “And all the clothes!” she walked through the clothing department like it was Tiffany’s.  “It’s like an entire market back home all in one building.  Two markets, even, with air conditioning.”

“It’s really not that special,” he tried telling her.  “There are Wal-marts all over the place, and they all look like this.”

She seemed in disbelief.  “Papa was right.  Americans are rich.”

Armando laughed.  “Trust me, we aren’t.  Some, maybe, but not us,” he added, pointing to Ricky.

That night, for the first time, she lay with a man because she wanted to.  Part of her did it because she felt it was expected, but another part of her because she genuinely had developed an emotional attachment to Armando.  It was different being with him that night.  She had a choice for one.  She knew his initial infatuation with her had been purely physical, but she felt they were genuinely starting to have something together.  He was different than any other guy she knew.  He worked hard, took care of his brother, watched out for their mother the best he could, and all the while was still warm, caring, and even funny.  She still wasn’t sure exactly how long she was going to stay with Armando, but she knew she was beginning to like him more than she ever planned on liking him.  She was feeling safe for the first time in a long time and it felt unbelievably good.  She felt as though she might actually be able to put that hellhole behind her. 
No,
she told herself. 
You can’t forget about Silvia and the others.  They’re still there.  I have to do something. 
But what, she still could not say.

Catherine met up with Matt just outside of the city behind an old gas station and they transferred the unconscious man to the rental car.  The vehicle was a Ford Taurus with a trunk release latch, which Matt promptly pried off with the car’s lug wrench.

“God, nobody’s ever going to rent me a car again,” said Catherine, watching as he threw the pieces on the ground.

“Well, we can’t have him jumping out of the trunk like a stripper out of a cake at a bachelor party, can we?”  She helped him load the guy in and they slammed the trunk shut.

“You think it’ll hold?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah,” he said.  “He’s not going anywhere.”

“They must have been tailing Ramirez,” said Catherine as they were back in the car cruising down the road.  She’d been pondering how they found them at the hotel.  “At least, I hope that’s it.”

“Either that or he sold you out,” said Matt.

She thought about Juanita and Anna.  Could it all have been a lie?  A ruse to gain her trust, find out how much she knew, only to have her tailed back to Julio?  She didn’t want to believe it.  “If he was lying about that story he told me, then the man missed his calling because he’d make a genius actor.  But if he’s not in on it, then they’re following him.  That doesn’t bode well, either, if he is actually on our side.”  She thought about the implications of either being true.  “This sucks.”

Matt only nodded, “Yep.”

She looked at him.  “Thank God there’s at least one guy I can trust around here.”

“Two,” said Matt with a smile.  Catherine looked confused a moment until Matt gestured at Julio in the back seat, who smiled brightly when she turned back to have a look at him.

“You’re right,” she smiled.  “Two.”  As they rode along, she thought of more things in her favor.  “I’m glad I used a different name for the room.  I don’t think all the permits in the world would help me explain that one.”

Julio sat back in his seat watching the gnarled trees along the road as they went.

“Well, that solves one problem,” said Matt.

“What’s that?”

“We don’t have to go looking for them anymore now that they’ve come looking for us.  I’m sure we’ll get a lot out of Pedro back there.”

Julio only caught the one word and could only wonder who Pedro was, but he decided if the adults were talking in English they probably had a good reason.  He was happy to leave the planning up to them at this point.  It was twice now Miss Catherine had saved him, and if she wanted a little privacy to talk to Mr. Matt, he certainly wasn’t going to complain.

Playa del Carmen was only an hour’s drive from Cancun, and when they arrived Matt’s friend greeted them warmly.  “
Hola, Amigos
!” he yelled from the porch of a small hacienda.  He had bushy red hair thinning on the top and didn’t stand to greet them.  He had been pale once upon a time and was covered in freckles, but had apparently spent most of his recent days out in the sun and was now dark orange, similar to an Oompa Loompa right out of the chocolate factory.  As they walked up Catherine noticed further that he had a couple of terrible black spots on his shoulders and when she couldn’t help but let her eyes fall on them, the man answered her curiosity.  “Basal cell carcinoma,” he said with a shrug.

“Cancer?” asked Matt, grasping the man’s extended hand and shaking it while giving each other a half hug.

“Oh, it’s harmless,” said the man.  “Just ugly as sin.  Wife hates it, though.  She’s always on my ass to go get it taken care of, but you know how I feel about those damn doctors!  Can’t afford it, anyway.  Disability only goes so far.”

“You know the VA hospital back home could probably help,” offered Matt, “and it’d be free.”

“Yeah, I know.  But this is home, now.  I’ll be fine.”

Catherine hadn’t noticed the man’s missing left leg until she was already on the porch being introduced.  “Catherine, this is Patrick Reynolds, one of my old marine buddies from back in the day.”

She shook hands with the burly man.  “It’s nice to meet you,” she told him, making sure not to stare at his missing limb.

“Pat, this is Catherine James.”

“
The
Catherine James?” Patrick asked.  “Oh, I’ve heard about you, I have,” he told her with a big grin.

“Yeah, Pat. 
The
Catherine,” Matt said sarcastically, but a little flushed.

“Matt tried to talk me into giving you a ring some years back.  Said you might be a good somebody to help me find a job.  I told him he was fucking crazy if he thought I was going to babysit a bunch of rich oil pussies.  No offense.  So I went back over for another tour.”  He pat his leg, “Guess I should have babysat instead, huh?” he said with a laugh.

“No offense taken,” said Catherine with a half-hearted laugh.  “We do get some whiney ones now and then.”

“And this is Julio,” said Matt.  “Julio,” he addressed the boy in Spanish, “This is my good friend Mr. Patrick.  He and his wife are going to look after you for a couple of days while Miss Catherine and I try to fix things so the bad men will leave you alone.”

“Hello,” Julio told the man.

“Hello, yourself,” Patrick answered in Spanish.  “I got a boy about your age.  He’s in the house playing.  You want to go play with him?”

“Okay.”

“How do you have a boy his age?” asked Matt.

“Step kids,
amigo
.  But I treat ‘em like my own.  Pretty good kids unless they feel like being little shits for fun,” he smiled.  “Their father left ‘em when they was just babies, so now I’m their dad.  Pretty fucking amazing, huh?” 
It's
g
oing to be an interesting childhood,
Catherine thought.  But at least he seemed to be really attached.  “Just go on in and tell him his daddy said you’re gonna be staying with us for a while,” he told Julio.

He ran into the house with a pronounced limp, his leg still bandaged.

“What happened to his leg?” asked Patrick.

“He got shot,” said Matt.  “It’s a long story,” he added quickly, cutting off Pat before he could ask.  “Needless to say he’s had a hard time.”

“Well, hell!  A boy after my own heart already, I see,” he grinned.  “At least he got to keep his.  We’ll try and take it easy on him, then,” said Pat.  “Well, bring your asses on in here and have a beer with me!”  He started to get himself up on his one leg.  “I got a prosthetic in the house but I hate that damn thing.  Rubs the shit outta me.”

Matt stopped him from getting all the way up, “Actually, Pat.  We really can’t.”  Pat looked dejected.  “We ran into a little trouble earlier.”  He whispered, “We’ve got a gang banger in the trunk of the car.”

“Oh,” said Pat, his eyebrows rising.  “For a minute there I thought it was me,” he let out a laugh.  “Well, we’ll make it a quick visit, then.  I see you all got a lot going on.  Aracely!” he screamed towards the house.  “Bring us out some beers, woman!  And bring my leg out while you’re at it.”

A moment later a woman in her early 30s came out of the house carrying three bottles of Carta Blanca beer in one hand and a metal pole with a shoe on one end and a blue receptacle on the other where Pat’s thigh would rest when he wore it.  Pat handed both Catherine and Matt a beer.  “This is my wife,” he said proudly.  “Wife, meet some friends of mine.”

Aracely smiled politely, “Nice to meet you.”  She turned to her husband and said, “Here, love, I’ll help you with your leg.”  And she knelt down and slipped Patrick’s leg on for him, rolling up the overly large sock on the top that came up to his hip.

“Ah, thank you, dear,” he told her.  “I’ll be in, in a bit.”

“It was nice to meet you,” said Catherine as Aracely disappeared back into the house with a polite wave.

“Good woman, that one,” he told Matt.  “She’d have to be to put up with my ass, right?  Sweet as an angel, cooks like a chef, and screws like a . . . oh, sorry,” he remembered, looking to Catherine.  “Well, she’s a good woman.  I’ll just leave it at that.  Now why don’t you tell me a bit about what’s going on?”

Catherine decided that if Matt trusted Pat, then that was good enough for her, so she didn’t protest when Matt basically summarized everything that had happened up to that point.  “Yeah, I heard about that girl,” he said.  “Damn shame, that.  And you think these fucking gang bangers . . . what do they call themselves, Barrio Boys?”  Catherine nodded.  “So these Barrio Boys are the little sons of bitches who did it, the kid saw, and now they’re trying to off all of yah?”

“That about sums it up,” said Matt.

Pat laughed.  “Well, hell!  They just don’t know who they’re fucking with, do they?”

“No,” said Matt.  “But they’ll be finding out soon enough.”

“We’re just trying to find the ones who did it,” said Catherine, not overly pleased with the way Matt had said that.  “We need closure for the family and to clear Taylor’s name of the false accusations they are claiming contributed to her murder.  We’re not on a vendetta.”

“Right,” Matt said, reservedly.

Pat looked at Matt, then Catherine, then back at Matt.  “Uh, huh.  Well, don’t go letting one of them gang bangers get a lucky shot on yah.  You haven’t gotten rusty, have you?” he asked Matt.

“Oh, he’s not rusty,” said Catherine.

Pat laughed again.  “And what about you, Ms. James?  Are you up for this kind of stuff after sittin’ on your ass all day in your fancy office?”

Catherine wasn’t offended.  She had known men like Patrick Reynolds before and knew he meant well, even if he did curse like it was going out of style.  She smiled and told him, “I’ll do what I can.”

“Well don’t go getting my friend here killed,” he said, still laughing.  “Then I’d have to start killing me some gang bangers and it’d really turn into a cluster fuck.  I can still move the ole stump around if I have to.”

“Don’t you worry about me,” said Matt.  “This is just the kind of vacation I’ve been needing!”

“You would say that!  By God, you’re still a crazy son of a bitch, aren’t yah, Matt?”

“He jumped off a three
-story balcony into a pool earlier today,” added Catherine.

“Was that before or after you killed the other three gangbangers?” Pat asked.  Just hearing it out loud made Catherine cringe.

“After,” said Matt.  “Nearly broke my ass doing it, but the guy had a head start on me.”

Catherine found the direction of conversation troubling and Pat seemed to get a bit more serious for the first time in the
ir conversation.  “You two be careful.  This is some serious shit you’re caught up in.  If I didn’t think the missus would have my ass, I’d probably go with you.  You sound like you could use the help.  I got the family now, though.  And this leg thing does slow me up a bit.”

“We know,” said Matt.  “Watching Julio is a huge help.  He’s a good kid.”

Pat’s severity waned and he chuckled again, “Barrio Boys . . . what kind of stupid name is that, anyway?  Sounds like a boy band or something.”  Catherine smirked in spite of herself, as she remembered Ramirez saying there had been such a band.  “Hell’s Angels, now that’s a name with some meat to it.”

They finished their beers and made their goodbyes.  Catherine made sure to explain about the necklaces the Barrio Boys wore and about how dangerous they were.  “We made sure we weren’t followed,” said Catherine.  “And I can’t thank you enough for looking after Julio.  We certainly don’t want to cause you or your family any problems.”

“Oh, hell.  Quit kissing my ass, woman.  I don’t mind one bit.  And if any of those gangbangers do show up around here, don’t you worry.  I got something for their ass.  I may be getting fat and lazy in my old age, but I’ll still drop a sonofabitch before he knows what hit him, one-legged and all.  You just remember about what I said about being careful.”  And despite his antics and the beer belly jiggling over his Bermuda shorts, something about him told Catherine he was probably telling the truth.

As Catherine and Matt pulled out and onto the street he asked her, “Ready to have a chat with our friend, Pedro?”  The man in the trunk was conscious now and they could hear his movements as he tried to untie himself.

“Yes,” said Catherine.  “It’s time we got some answers about what the hell started all this to begin with and who killed that poor girl and Julio’s little friend.”