Little Deadly Things (20 page)

“At first the officials pretended to listen to me. They dismissed me with kind words, then with threats. They called my warnings incoherent accusations. Incoherent! Do I look like a lunatic spouting nonsesnse? I tried to talk to the experts at the universities and was arrested for trespassing. The Universidad Autonóma de Coahuila has three campuses and 41 schools but not one professor would take this seriously.”

“You were arrested? You never told me that,” said Marta.

“Hija, it was nothing. The judge gave me a piece of paper and sent me away.”

“What did the paper say?”

“Here, read it for yourself. I carry this with me for extra motivation.” Rafael handed his daughter a document on official stationary. Marta’s eyes widened as she read.

“This is an injunction! You can’t go back. It says, ‘Further actions by Rafael Cruz may be regarded as acts of terrorism.’ Dad, this is serious. You can’t go.”

“No. I cannot go to the universities. But I can still seek justice. I even have an appointment with a government official. This time will be different. This time I will be heard.”

“How can you make them listen now? What’s going to be different?”

Rafael was breathing hard and said nothing at first. Then his tone softened and he touched Marta’s cheek with one cupped palm. “When your mother died, I was lost. I could do no more than to weep and to wander through life. But I have found something that will give meaning to her death.”

Marta turned away.

Jim asked, “Where are you coming from now, sir?”

“From home. Where else would I have been, muchacho?”

“Did you come here all the way from Los Angeles just to say hello?” asked Marta. “You could have taken Amtrak from Los Angeles to San Diego and crossed into Tijuana.”

Rafael leaned over Dana’s sleeping form and kissed the child.

“I wanted to see you and this marvelous child.”

Marta looked puzzled. “That’s quite a trip. Three thousand miles from Los Angeles to Boston and then half the way back again to the Texas border.” Rafael continued to nuzzle Dana’s sleeping form.

Jim said, “Well, sir, we’re glad you’re here. What’s new in your life?” he added, probing cautiously and watching his father-in-law’s expression and body language.

“What could be new except a grandchild!”
Be careful with this one,
Rafael thought,
he looks soft but he sees deep. I trust Marta, but I will keep my own counsel.

Before the long bus ride east, Rafael decided to arm himself, convinced that agents of the maquiladoras were watching him, waiting for an opportunity to stop him. A search of his neighborhood produced a choice of three handguns: a Ruger .357, a Glock .32, and a .45 caliber Colt handgun. He chose the largest—the Colt pistol—a selection that would prove disastrous.

Marta broke the tension by announcing dinner. The family sat down to an impromptu meal of rice and beans with chunks of pork, and Marta’s lemon curd. Rafael kept his small bag clutched between his feet under the table. After dinner and coffee, Rafael prepared to leave.

“Hija, I am so happy to see you work so hard and to be so productive. And, you, muchacho, thank you for taking such good care of my daughter and my Dana.”

“Dad, are you leaving already?”

“Hija, I have to be in Saltillo in two days. The bus to McAllen will take most of that time. Then from Reynosa to Monterrey to Saltillo, more time still. I will visit again when I return and we will spend many days together.” Marta stifled a sob.

“And you, muchacho, you should keep authentic Mexican beer.” Rafael smiled without humor.

Then tears, embraces, and promises, and Rafael walked out of his daughter’s life.

He was tired and stiff when he reached his destination, McAllen, Texas, but he didn’t stop to stretch. He was eager to be rid of his unwanted companion, the annoying chatterbox that followed him off the bus and through the border crossing.

Rafael’s journey into the Mexican penal system started in an unreserved seat on a bus departing from South Station, Boston. He slept on and off, one arm looped through the handle of his travel bag. The bus was crowded by the time he reached Houston, less than six hours from McAllen and jail. He draped an arm protectively over the empty seat next to him. Passengers boarding in Houston looked inquisitively at the seat and then at Rafael. One glance at his hostile demeanor and the travellers moved farther back. Just as the bus inched away from the terminal, a tipsy California resident plopped down next to Rafael.

“Howdy, pardner! Name’s Bobby Jim Amendola, but everyone calls me B.J.”

Rafael grunted noncommittally.

Rafael would never be certain if bad luck or circumstance prompted his new companion to strike up a conversation. He wondered if capricious gods prompted the man, a salesman, to engage in the idle blarney of his trade. “How ya’ doing?” “Where ya’ headed?” “Come down here often? Me, I’m from California but I was in Houston for business.” The man pronounced it,
bidness.
“Figured I’d take the bus, see the sights. So, what’s your line of work?”

Rafael turned away. B.J. took no notice. A salesman, he was habituated to being rebuffed, and kept at his patter. At about the time Rafael was going to tell Señor Amendola to mind his own
bidness,
they arrived at the Anzalduas International Bridge in McAllen.

Customs officials paid scant attention to travellers into Mexico. There were no questions, no papers to produce and no inspections. Rafael was a strong man and the weight of the bag he’d carried from Los Angeles cost him no effort. It held a toothbrush and a sweatshirt wrapped around a box of ammunition and the ill-chosen Colt pistol.

The two men blended into a sea of travellers on the pedestrian bridge into the Mexican town of Reynosa. A group of Policía Federal idled near the border crossing. At that moment, B.J. again asked Rafael what he did for a living. Without waiting for a reply, B.J. told Rafael, the last man on earth with whom he should have shared this confidence, that he was an auto parts salesman. “My first time south of the border, amigo. I’m heading for a trade show in Saltillo. I hear there’s good Mexican food there. Got any recommendations?”

Auto parts manufacture in Saltillo? Finally B.J. had Rafael’s full attention. He turned on the stunned salesman and shouted. All of his frustrations poured out in an incoherent bill of particulars that included his wife, his mother, cancer, water pollution, air pollution, black vines, Jamaican ale, selfish restaurant owners and houses on stilts.

The police overpowered Rafael and detained B.J. for good measure. They discovered the gun and ammunition in Rafael’s bag. He was thrown to the ground, handcuffed, picked up, and thrown down again. They dismissed the terrified salesman who, forsaking the conversational arts upon which his profession is built, returned home and took to his garden where he silently raised prize-winning bonsai trees until an untimely death six years later when struck by lightning in an elfin forest near San Luis Obispo, California.

The disposition of Rafael’s case hinged on Mexico’s revised gun laws. In 1998, the Mexican House of Representatives reduced the penalties to as little as a fine for an illegal handgun less than .380 caliber in size. But punishment was severe for larger weapons. Rafael’s Colt was a .45 caliber pistol, a fraction of an inch larger than the .380 caliber limit.

His day in court arrived after seven months’ pre-trial incarceration. “Your honor, the facts are incontrovertible!” the prosecutor boomed. “This man sneaked a weapon into our sovereign nation with the sole purpose of disrupting economic life through murder. Why else would he bring such a large gun?” The prosecutor laced his charge with the term, “economic terrorism” and swept aside any consideration of leniency. “And given the defendant’s long criminal history”—one arrest for trespassing—“I must beg this court to protect the people of Mexico and impose the maximum sentence.”

The magistrate complied and awarded the prosecutor a thirty-year sentence. Rafael’s new home was Penal del Altiplan. His new social circle included drug lords, corrupt officials, murderers, and political assassins. Three-foot reinforced walls, armored personnel carriers, and air patrols ringed the maximum-security facility.

When Marta learned of his confinement she appealed to her Congressional representatives and to the State Department. Their responses were uniform, crisp, and curt. Rafael Cruz had been convicted of a serious crime in a foreign country. The mighty resources of the United States would not be brought to bear on behalf of a terrorist.

Eva Rozen’s resources were another matter. She worked in secret, not only to keep her role from being discovered, but because the severity of the sentence affronted her private sense of honor. Her skills at jacking into secure databases and ghosting through foreign legal systems were not yet fully ripened and she could not set him free. She did, however, effect a transfer for Rafael to Isla Maria Madre, a minimum-security prison with a focus on genuine social rehabilitation.

This became Rafael Cruz’s home until the Great Washout.

___________________________________________

HARVARD

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
AUTUMN 2030

M
arta Cruz was eager to begin the work-study project and ended her maternity leave and returned to Harvard a week earlier than expected.

She carried Dana in an infant carrier strapped to her chest as she walked across a green swath of grass to the columned entrance of the science building. Marta turned her face up to the sun and breathed the fresh morning air. Every leaf, flower, and blade of grass before her was in sharp focus. Marta felt that invisible tendrils emanated from each green point of life to touch her. It was a sequel to her parents’ vision, the twinned vines with a golden stalk emerging. The child she carried at her breast was the focus of this new transcendence. Dana gurgled in happy affirmation of Marta’s walking meditation.

Her reverie was short-lived. She entered the building, took an elevator to the fourth floor and found her way to the office that she would share with Eva. She’d planned to arrive before Eva and review her colleague’s work. Instead she found Eva lost in a holographic display of Marta’s own research files. How did Eva get her notes?

The office door snicked shut and Eva spoke without turning. “Didn’t expect you for another week.”

“What are you doing, Eva?”

“Harvesting data. Your research is central to our work and I need the notes.”

“But how did you get my notes?”

Eva turned and peered at Marta. “Nice baby.”

“A darling, although now I understand what sleep deprivation is all about. But—what are you doing with my notes?” Her voice took on an edge. The meditation in which she’d been wrapped was displaced by a growing annoyance.

“Just getting things organized. Soon as I finish, I’ll bring you up to speed. Good that you’re back early. There are a handful of flowers and plants that have properties that are hard to isolate but might be perfect for molecular assembly. Good stuff here, Mom.”

“But my notes were in my dataslate.” She spoke quietly so as not to disturb Dana but she felt her face flush with irritation.

“I copied your slate when we were on the way to the hospital. Didn’t take too long with the changes I made to my datasleeve.” Eva grinned, “I can jack just about anything with it.”

“You jacked my slate? Eva, that’s private. All you had to do is ask for my work and I’d have linked it to you. You didn’t have to jack me.”