The Governor's Wife (55 page)

"What is happening here?"

"Ah," the man in the middle with the machete said. "You must be Inez, the sister?"

Inez nodded.

"Well, Inez, your brother violated the code. I am here to dispense justice."

"Who are you?"

"I am Enrique de la Garza."

"I do not know you."

"Ah. Perhaps you know me as the world knows me—El Diablo."

Inez recoiled and sucked in air. She turned to her brother. He was crying.

"You work for him? You are a
narcotraficante?
"

"Yes, Inez," El Diablo said. "He works for me. Or he did. I have come to terminate his employment."

"You have come to kill my brother? Personally?"

"Yes. I always terminate employees personally. It is company policy."

"Why? What crime did Roberto commit?"

El Diablo turned to her brother. "Tell her, Roberto. Tell your sister how you disgraced God and your family."

"I did nothing!"

"But you did." To Inez: "Your brother gave heroin to a woman, a
Mexicana
."

"So?"

"So our code does not allow that. We do not push the filthy drug habit on our own people."

"That is a deed punishable by death?"

"She is a married woman. He gave her the heroin, and while she was under the influence, he raped her."

"No!"

"Yes."

"Roberto, is that true? Did you rape a woman?"

"No! She wanted sex with me."

"Her husband demands justice," El Diablo said. "So Roberto must give him justice." He turned to her brother. "Roberto Quintanilla, you have not lived a life with honor. Will you now die with honor?"

"No!"

The two men grabbed Roberto and held his arms back and pushed his head down. El Diablo raised the machete above her brother's head. Without conscious thought, Inez jumped between the blade and her brother.

"No! Please! He is my only brother!"

El Diablo paused in midair.

"I am sorry, Inez. But I must dispense justice. It is my duty. Please, stand aside."

Inez Quintanilla's mind raced, trying to find hope for her brother. Where she found her only hope—
and it was her only hope
—made her sad. But she had no choice.

"I can give you what you want most in life."

El Diablo lowered the blade, and Inez breathed a momentary sigh of relief. He looked her up and down and smiled as her father had once smiled at her when she was just a small child. When her parents were still alive.

"I can have pretty girls like you anytime I want. I can have you if I want. But I do not want you. And you should not offer yourself to a man, Inez, before marriage, in the church."

"I do not mean me."

"Then what do you propose to give to me?"

"What you want more than anything in this world."

"What I want most in this world." He thought a moment, and his eyes seemed to grow dark with his thoughts. "Well, Inez, can you give me the governor of Texas?"

Everyone in the
colonias
knew that the governor of Texas had killed El Diablo's son and that El Diablo had attempted several times to kill the governor. Such news did not come from the newspapers or the television, but from word of mouth.

"No."

"Then you have nothing I want. Stand aside. Please."

He again raised the machete, and her heart grabbed at her chest.

"But I can give you something almost as good."

He stopped.

"And what is that?"

"
La esposa del gobernador
. I can give you the governor's wife."

He again lowered the blade, and she felt the relief again.

"Can you now?"

"Yes. I can."

"How? How can you, little Inez Quintanilla living in this broken-down trailer in this
colonia
on the banks of the
Río Bravo
give to me the wife of the governor of Texas? Tell me, please, how can you do that?"

"I can tell you where to find her."

El Diablo laughed in a way that made her afraid, as if she had taken something away from him. His voice became louder.

"Hector here can tell me where to find her. I do not want her. I want the governor."

"But if you have her, he will come for her. He will come to you."

El Diablo nodded. "That is true, Inez. But it would be difficult to kidnap her in Austin and smuggle her across the river. Guns and cash we smuggle south every day, quite easily, but the governor's wife, that would be very difficult. The border is locked down."

"She is not in Austin."

"Then where is she?"

"She is here."

"Where?"

"I will tell you where, if you will spare my brother's life."

El Diablo's jaws clenched. His patience was running out.

"Inez, my child, it is not wise to toy with me, not about the governor of Texas. He murdered my son, and I intend to kill him. Between me and the governor is a dangerous place to stand. Now tell me what you know."

"No. Not so you can then cut off my brother's head."

For a moment, she thought El Diablo might slap her. Inez trembled like a leaf in the wind. But he blew out a breath and calmed.

"All right, Inez. I will not cut off your brother's head if you will tell me where the governor's wife is."

"You promise?"

"Yes. I promise."

Inez knew she had pushed him as far as she dared.

"She is here … in the
colonia.
"

"
Here?
In
Colonia Ángeles?
"

"
Sí.
"

"But that is not possible. I would have known. There is only one Anglo in this
colonia
, the—"

His eyes got wide with the knowledge.

"The Anglo nurse. Of course. I knew that she seemed familiar. She has the red hair, like the governor's wife."

"She
is
the governor's wife."

"But they said she was Irish."

"She pretends. Sometimes she forgets, and her voice is different."

"Thank you, Inez. You have made me a very happy man." He turned to the man named Hector and said, "Shoot him."

"Wait! You promised not to kill him!"

"No. I promised not to cut his head off."

The man named Hector raised a gun and shot her brother in his head. The bullet blew blood and brains out the back of his head. Hector shot him again in his heart. Her ears burned with the noise and her nostrils with the stench of the gunpowder, and her brother lay on the couch, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling, the teardrops still resting on his brown cheeks. Her only brother was dead. Inez Quintanilla was now alone in this harsh world.

"Now, where is the governor's wife? At the clinic?"

Inez stared at her brother's bloody face a moment longer, then she bolted out the open door and ran down the dirt road toward the clinic. She must warn the
señora
. She must save the
señora's
life as she had failed to save her brother's. She heard the men yelling behind her and the loud engines of their trucks come to life. Coming after her. She cut between houses and under clothes hanging on lines and around morning cook fires until she finally arrived at the clinic. She burst through the door only to find the clinic vacant. The doctor's truck sat outside, but neither he nor the
señora
were there. She must be on rounds. Her body teemed with adrenaline. She had never before felt so alive, perhaps because she was certain she would soon be dead. She ran down the dirt road and screamed, "
¡Señora! ¡Señora!
"

But there was no answer.

Of every woman and child she encountered, she asked, "Have you seen the nurse?"

One woman pointed down the road. Inez ran faster, calling out, "
¡Señora! ¡Señora!
"

Finally she heard the
señora's
voice.

"In here."

Inez pulled the blanket door aside and stepped into the home. The
señora
was kneeling on the dirt floor tending to a child.

"
Señora
, you must run away! You must hide!"

Inez tried to catch her breath. She felt the panic on her face.

"Why?"

"They come for you!"

"Who?"

"El Diablo! And his
hombres
."

Lindsay Bonner fought not to panic—because what she did in the next few moments would determine whether she lived or died.

Think, Lindsay, think!

A few minutes later, she had hidden her cell phone, and she stood alone, waiting for them to come for her and take her across the river and into Nuevo Laredo—and praying her husband would. She had not gone to him when he had needed her. Would he come now that she needed him?

Yes.

Bode Bonner would come for her. They no longer shared their lives, but he would give his life for hers. She knew that. And at that moment, she realized how much that meant—to know that he would always come for her. She heard the trucks stop outside and the sound of heavy boots on the ground. The blanket door was thrown aside, and a man now stood there. He held a black machete. He was tall and lean with jet-black hair and a goatee. He was the same man she had seen in the clinic that day.

El Diablo.

She knelt before him, her body trembling, and recited the Lord's Prayer.

"I am also Catholic," he said. "I am not going to kill you."

She stopped praying and looked up.

"Then what do you want with me? I am just a nurse."

He reached out and gently pulled her hat and scarf off, releasing her red hair.

"You are the governor's wife. He will come for you. And when he does, I will cut off his head with this machete. I will avenge my son's death. I will have justice."

He held a hand out to her. She stood without taking his hand.

"Remove your clothes."

"Is that what you want?"

"I want your husband's head on my desk. But I must ensure that you have no gun or knife or phone, and I prefer not to pat you down. Now, your clothes. Please."

She removed her lab coat then unbuttoned her yellow dress and let it fall to the dirt floor around her pink Crocs. He waited. She unhooked her bra and let it drop. Then she pushed her panties to her ankles. She stood naked before him. His eyes took her in. He inhaled as if smelling a flower. Then he nodded.

"Yes, he will come for you."

"How do you know?"

"Because I would come for you."

He lifted her dress from the ground with the machete.

"Please. Get dressed."

The governor of Texas sat in his office in the Governor's Mansion staring blankly out the windows at the State Capitol. He sipped his coffee. He had awakened early that morning; it was still before nine when the phone rang. He grabbed the receiver but realized that no lights on the console were lit. The phone rang again. It was his cell phone.

"Hello."

"He took her."

A man's voice.

"Who is this?"

"Jesse Rincón. Governor, he took your wife."

"Who?"

"El Diablo."

"When?"

"Not an hour ago."

"Where?"

"Nuevo Laredo."

The Mexican drug lord who wanted him dead now held his wife. It took Bode a moment to get his mind around that reality. He tried to think out his options.

"Governor, if you go public, he will kill her. If you call in the Border Patrol or ICE or the Mexican military, he will kill her. If you do nothing, he will kill her. We must go into Nuevo Laredo and take her back—before he kills her."

Bode sat still for five minutes after he disconnected the phone call. He considered his next steps. Perhaps his last steps in his life. He would change clothes. He would pack his weapons and ammunition. He would fly to Laredo in the Gulfstream. He would cross the border into Nuevo Laredo. He would find El Diablo. He would kill him and save his wife.

He would not come back.

Two hundred thirty-five miles south, El Diablo said to the governor's wife, "Does your husband really believe that he will be elected president? Another Texas governor?"

"Apparently."

He grunted. They had just driven through tall gates leading into a white compound. Lindsay sat in the back seat of the Hummer with El Diablo. His driver and a bald man named Hector sat up front. She did not like the way Hector had looked at her. Her body still had not stopped trembling. El Diablo must have noticed. He reached over and patted her hand.