“People,” Milla said in disgust, lightly banging her head against her desk. “Why do they do that to their kids?”
“Because,” was Joann’s informative answer. Then she caught her breath in an audible gasp. “Guess who just walked in,” she said in a high, squeaky tone.
Milla raised her head, her heart already thumping as she watched Diaz walk toward her office with that catlike tread of his. Heads were turning, watching him, and conversation stuttered to a halt in his wake. Brian stood up, his attention on high alert as he automatically reacted to the presence of a predator in his group. He recognized Diaz, surely, from the search for little Max the week before, but that didn’t seem to make any difference.
Diaz stopped in her office doorway, turning slightly to the side so he couldn’t be approached unawares from the rear. “Let’s take a trip over the border,” he said. His face was set in its usual emotionless mask.
“Right now?”
He shrugged. “If you’re interested.”
She started to ask, “In what?” but he wouldn’t have been here if it wasn’t something that concerned Justin.
“I’ll change clothes,” she said, getting to her feet. She was wearing a sundress and sandals.
“You’re fine as you are. We’ll be in Juarez.”
She got her purse, checked to make certain everything she needed was in it, just in case, and said, “Let’s go.”
As they reached the bottom of the outside stairs, he said, “We’ll use my truck,” pointing her toward the dusty blue pickup.
“Are we driving across, or walking?”
“Walking. It’s faster.”
“Should I call and arrange for another car?” she asked as she gathered her skirt and clambered up into the high cab.
“No need. I’ve got another one on the other side.”
“What are we doing? Who are we seeing?”
“Maybe the sister of the man who stabbed you.”
15
They walked across one of the bridges and presented their drivers’ licenses, which was all that was required for tourists staying inside the border free-zone. He hooked his cell phone off his belt and made a brief call; within ten minutes, a grinning teenager drove up in a slightly rusted brown Chevrolet pickup. Diaz passed him a folded twenty-peso banknote, and the teenager tossed him the keys, then turned and took off into the crowd.
This truck sat higher than the other one did, and when she opened the door, she looked for a handle to help her pull herself up. Before she could manage the feat in a skirt, Diaz stepped behind her, put his hands on her waist, and lifted her onto the seat.
She settled herself in the seat and buckled up while he went around and vaulted behind the wheel. She was shaking inside, her nerves knotted. “Maybe the man’s sister?” she asked.
“I don’t know for certain. We’ll find out.” He leaned over and opened the glove box, took out a big, holstered automatic and laid it on the seat beside him.
“How did you find her?”
“It doesn’t matter how,” he said briefly, and she understood. His informants were his own, as were his methods. She didn’t want to look too closely at either.
He deftly navigated through Juarez’s noisy, crowded streets, going deeper and deeper into a neighborhood so rough she didn’t know whether to weep with pity or duck down in the seat and hide. She was glad Diaz was armed, and she wished she were, too. The streets were narrow and crowded, with ramshackle buildings and shanties pressing in on each side, and trash littering the ground. Sullen-faced men and teenage boys stared at her with unconcealed resentment and vicious intent, but when they noticed the man driving the truck, they quickly looked away.
She said, “I think your reputation precedes you.”
“I’ve been here before.”
And done considerable damage, judging from the way these people were reacting to the sight of him.
Battered and rusty vehicles lined the street Diaz drove on now, but he found a gap big enough to wedge the truck in. He got out, strapped the holster around his thigh, and checked how the automatic was seated. Satisfied, he came around the truck and opened her door. After he lifted Milla down from the seat and locked the doors, he made eye contact with a man sullenly watching them from ten yards away, and made a brief motion with his head.
Warily the man approached. “If my truck is unharmed when we return,” Diaz said in rapid Spanish, “I’ll pay you a hundred dollars, American. If it is harmed, I will find you.”
The man nodded rapidly, and took up his sentry position guarding the truck.
Milla didn’t ask if the precaution was necessary; she knew it was. The pistol, however—“Should you wear the pistol out in the open? What if the Preventivos see you?” They were the Mexican equivalent of regular beat cops.
He snorted. “Look around. Do you think they come here very often? Besides, I want it where everyone can see it, and where I can get to it in a hurry.”
The thigh holster made him look like some modern-day outlaw; even the way he walked—loose-limbed, perfectly balanced—seemed like a throwback to some rougher, more violent time. She could easily imagine him with bandoliers crisscrossed on his chest and a bandanna pulled up to cover the lower half of his face.
He set an easy pace as he wound through a warren of increasingly small and nasty alleys. She clutched her bag tightly in front of her and stayed close to him, but he must not have thought she was staying close enough, because he reached out with his left hand and caught her right wrist, pulling her to him. He tucked her hand inside his belt. “Hold on, and don’t stray.”