The Dead Women of Juarez (30 page)

“I will be back late,” he told the air. “Don’t wait up for me.”

E
NRIQUE CROSSED THE BORDER
early in the morning to avoid the worst of the bridge traffic. On the average day the lanes out of Mexico could be stacked a hundred deep and the Americans were slow to process the cars. There were drug-sniffing dogs and mirrors to look beneath frames and endless questions about where you were coming from and where you intended to go. It was worst for Mexicans, though it was not easy for returning natives.

Even at the hour he chose there was still a wait. When he got to the front of the line he showed his credentials to the uniformed man in the booth. This time there were no dogs, but the American broke out a long metal rod with a mirror on the end and walked around the whole perimeter of the car before asking that the trunk be opened.

Enrique answered the man’s questions. It was just a ritual. Both of them knew he would go through.

Once he was free Enrique passed into El Paso. The city was still half asleep. He drove down streets of still cars and dark windows, following directions he’d printed out from the internet.

Most of the border towns in Mexico served as shadows of their American counterparts. The relationship between El Paso and Juárez was different: Juárez was bigger than El Paso. Enrique almost felt as though he was driving through a small town compared to the complex, interlocking grid of Juárez.

Eventually he found the exit for US-180 and accelerated out of
the city. The highway would take him across the narrowest spoke of westernmost Texas and then up into New Mexico. The terrain was rough and flat the way it was for miles around Ciudad Juárez. There was no color except what the rising sun offered in red and orange. Once Enrique saw a jackrabbit break from the cover of a sun-blasted yucca plant. Its fur flashed white in his headlights.

It was not a long drive from Juárez to Hiatt. He could be there in a matter of six hours. To slow his progress he stopped in Las Cruces for an American breakfast of waffles, bacon, eggs and coffee. Enrique took his time over the food, but even with the delay he knew he’d be early to the prison.

Obtaining access to Marco Rojas was easier than Enrique had expected. When he called he introduced himself as a Mexican police officer and had thought he would have to go into great detail about his reasons for wanting to see the prisoner. That hadn’t been the case; in five minutes he was off the telephone with a date and a time to visit. The prison promised to extend Enrique every courtesy.

He reached the town of Hiatt with ninety minutes left before his time with Rojas. There was little to the town: it sat in the middle of a broad desert, a dozen buildings or so and roads leading off to ranches hidden by distance. Everything was closed. Enrique stopped by a large rectangle of fenced-in grass that he supposed was meant to be a park and closed his eyes for a little while, trusting in the alarm on his cell phone to wake him in time.

When he had thirty minutes left he followed signs out of Hiatt proper and to the prison. He reached the first fence before he could see the buildings at all. A guard was stationed in a dusty-colored box with dirty windows, operating an electric gate. Enrique showed his identification again and explained why he was there. He was allowed through.

After a mile Enrique encountered a cluster of houses with trees planted around them and neat but dry yards. A child’s swing set was stationed behind one of them, sentry in the early morning.

Finally he saw the prison itself. It was not very imposing,
consisting of long, boxy structures made out of concrete and cinder block, surrounded by triple rows of fencing and barbed wire. The yard and basketball courts were devoid of life.

He found himself a spot in a parking lot with twenty or so other cars and walked the rest of the way to the entrance. This time he showed his ID and was not waved through right away. Using a computer and an old printer, a law-enforcement visitor’s pass was made for him and laminated on the spot. “You can keep it as a souvenir,” the uniformed corrections officer joked. Enrique smiled.

Another corrections officer came to escort Enrique into the main building. They passed through a narrow corridor of hurricane fencing topped with barbed wire and locked securely at both ends. Enrique’s pass was checked before the officer at the far side would even unlock the gate.

“It’ll be a few minutes until they’re ready for you,” said the officer leading him. “Just wait here.”

Enrique was in an area scattered with chairs and couches upholstered in deep red vinyl. There was a coffee table peppered with magazines. Enrique didn’t sit down or read; he paced off the minutes while his officer went away to make some preparation.

After a quarter of an hour the officer returned. “Come on,” he said.

They had to go through two electric lockdown doors before reaching a gray room with a few plastic chairs dotted around. The windows were covered with tight metal grating that cut the morning sun into little pieces.

“He’ll be right in,” the officer said.

Another ten minutes passed until finally a prisoner in a white jumpsuit was escorted into the room.

Enrique wasn’t sure what to expect of Marco Rojas. The man was an American and so the Mexican police had no photographs or any real records concerning him. There was no family resemblance between Rojas and Rafa Madrigal, but then there wouldn’t be; he
was from Madrigal’s wife’s side of the family. He was short and blocky and full of muscles. He had a crosshatch scar on his temple, as if he’d been ground into something until the flesh peeled away.

Rojas had a waist chain and his feet were shackled. He shuffled ahead to one of the plastic chairs, led by the elbow and then urged to sit. Enrique watched Rojas watching him.

“If you need anything, just knock on the door,” said the corrections officer, and then he went out of the room. A bolt was shot. They were locked in.

“You are the Marco Rojas who’s cousin to Gabriel Madrigal?”

“I am.”

Rojas was still looking at Enrique. When he spoke again, he spoke in Spanish: “Did they send you to bring me back to Mexico?”

“I don’t have that kind of authority,” Enrique said.

“Good. You’re a Mexican cop, though.”

“How can you tell?”

“They told me before I came in. Don’t worry, I’m not a mind-reader,” Rojas said, and he gave a little smile.

Enrique was still standing. He dragged one of the plastic chairs around and sat with the back facing forward so he could fold his arms in front of himself. It also made him feel a little safer, though there was no way Rojas could rush him with all the chains he wore.

“If you’re not here to bring me back to Mexico, then what do you want?”

“I want to talk to you about the Madrigals,” Enrique said plainly.

“What about them?”

It occurred to Enrique that he didn’t know where to start. When he rehearsed his meeting with Rojas he had never gotten past the first few moments. The questions were all a jumble, each one as important as the next and finding no natural order.

Rojas made a face, as if he was impatient to be somewhere else.

“Let’s start with Gabriel Madrigal.”

“Okay, let’s start with him.”

“You were arrested for drugs and rape, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about that.”

Rojas shrugged his shoulders in a slow, rolling way. “Gabriel liked to party. It runs in his family. Cocaine, heroin… girls. He liked all of that.”

“There has to be more.”

“Maybe. Why should I tell you?”

“Because you have to tell someone.”

“Do I? I haven’t told anyone anything for years. Why should I start now?”

Enrique took a slow breath, let it out. “Because I’m asking.”

They were quiet a while. Enrique got the sense that Rojas was taking his measure the way convicts did in prison. Some things were the same in America as they were in Mexico.

“Gabriel liked to party,” Rojas said again, and then he was silent, thinking. “It started when I came down to Juárez to visit him. He would set things up.”

“Drugs?”

“Yes.”

“Who supplied you?”

“Different people at first. Then Gabriel got a steady source.”

“What was his name? Do you know?”

“Estéban.”

“Estéban Salazar?” Enrique asked, and his heart sped.

“I don’t know his last name. He was the one who started to bring in the
heroína
. Before that it was just cocaine, marijuana, that kind of stuff.”

“He got you hooked.”

“Not me. Gabriel. We used to get drunk and stoned and so did the girls.”

“Prostitutes?”

“Not always.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean they were whores, but sometimes they had to be convinced of it.”

Enrique tried to keep an expression from his face even though he felt himself twisting. There was a suggestion of something in Rojas’ eyes that he didn’t like, a black glittering as he remembered.

“We used to get help from a friend of Gabriel’s father. His name was Ortíz, I think. Sometimes he would party with us.”

“And at these parties you raped women?”

“Yes.”

“How long did this go on?”

“A few months.”

“How much did Estéban Salazar know about this?”

“I don’t know. Enough. He stayed once or twice, but he didn’t like it when things got rough. I told him not worry about it. Poor girls, who are they going to tell?”

Enrique swallowed.

“Eventually he stopped coming and he stopped selling
chinaloa
to Gabriel. That made him mad.”

“What did he do?”

“He complained to Ortíz. Ortíz had the muscle to solve problems.”

“But he didn’t kill Estéban.”

“No. Gabriel said Estéban had a sister. Even
narcos
have soft spots, you know?”

“She would be harassed?”

“Sure.”

“Killed?”

“I couldn’t say.”

Enrique continued: “Then you went to the United States?”

“I had to get back to my business in Santa Fe. Gabriel, he had money to burn, but I had to earn a living, you know? I couldn’t just party all the time.”

“Gabriel came with you?”

“Not right away. Eventually.”

“Did you have… parties again?”

“Why the fuck do you think I’m in here now?” Rojas said loudly.

“You were found out.”

“Because Gabriel was an idiot. He was strung out half the time and didn’t know left from right. He didn’t have his daddy’s friends no more. And things are different here. The poor girls, they go to the police. You can’t get them to shut up unless you kill them… and I wouldn’t do that.”

“Gabriel would?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Enrique pressed, “You know Gabriel killed women?”

“That never happened at our parties.”

“When did it happen? Did he tell you he’d killed someone?”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it!”

Rojas looked down at his cuffed hands, secured to the belly chain. He would not raise his eyes. Something heavy lay mantled across his shoulders. For a burly man, he suddenly seemed weak.

Enrique’s mind raced. The connection between Estéban Salazar and the Madrigals was established, but Gabriel Madrigal was long dead before the murder of Paloma Salazar. The hot link was Ortíz, and Rojas had confessed that Ortíz partied with Gabriel and him more than once.

Estéban could have told Paloma. Paloma could have endangered Ortíz. And then…

“Did Carlos Ortíz ever commit a murder?” Enrique asked.

Rojas was silent.

“Just tell me this, Marco.”

The quiet stretched on. Rojas did not look up. And then he nodded.

Enrique felt flushed. “He killed one of the girls at a party?”

“I saw him do it. At first I thought he was just choking her while he fucked her. But then he didn’t stop. He didn’t stop.”

Rojas wiped an eye with the back of his hand.

“You don’t get to cry,” Enrique said. “You don’t ever get to cry for this.”

He got up from his chair and went to the door. He knocked twice and the guards came. Behind him, Marco Rojas sobbed.

“I have everything I need here.”

“Wait,” Rojas said suddenly.

“What?”

“There’s more.”

T
HE
PALENQUE
WAS A DIFFERENT
place after dark and when the cocks were fighting. Where the dusty parking lot had been mostly empty during the day, it was packed so fully that trucks and cars were parked all along the roadside leading up to the place. Even if he had tried, Sevilla would have been hard pressed to find Ortíz’s black pick-up among all these others. In the end he saw it in the space nearest the entrance, unwatched by even one of the bodyguards, who must both have been inside.

Cigarette smoke layered against the ceiling and condensed like rain clouds. Sevilla fought his way to the bar, bombarded by loud music, upraised voices and the occasional explosive reaction of the crowd around the fighting arena. He had to shout his order to the bartender.

The alcohol was good, but Sevilla allowed himself only one. After that he pushed to the highest rail overlooking the arena. The concrete seats swirled down in a vortex to the center of the action, the cocks facing each other. Men were betting with the official bookmakers and paper slips from previous fights were everywhere, even on the floor of the battleground itself. Other men were betting with bookies down in the crowd or even with the men sitting around them. Sevilla ignored this and watched faces, looking for the one he needed.

Ortíz was not as close to the fighting as Sevilla expected; he was halfway up the far side of the arena seating. The bodyguards on either side of him carved out a comfortable space so that he was not
pressed flesh to flesh against other men. He wore a white suit jacket and slacks and a striped shirt of bright colors made brighter by the stark arena lighting. He didn’t carry betting slips, but made a note of each fight on a pad with a pencil.

Hot breath boiled out of the arena from shouts and curses. The fighting circle was stained with blood that between-match soakings could only partly eliminate. Cocks jumped and clashed and there were feathers and death.