Donnally looked at his watch. Twenty-one hours left.
But then he realized that the press conference was irrelevant and the police were irrelevant and a warrant was irrelevant.
Jago was aiming to kill him, or die trying.
The only relevant thing was whether he could get Janie out of White Sands first.
Donnally stopped pacing and looked out of the kitchen window. A birdcage hung from a porch rafter. The parrot, pressed against the bars, glanced over at Donnally, then down at the dirt floor below. The bird’s unblinking eyes locked on a lizard standing poised to strike an ant crawling into its range.
“I need to know whether Janie is still inside White Sands,” Donnally said, turning back toward Lalo. “And I need to know the layout of the place.”
Lalo stared down for a moment, then rose and stuck out his hand. Donnally reached out with his phone. Lalo waved it away, then rubbed his thumb against his fingers.
“It is not for me,” Lalo said. “I know a boy at White Sands.”
“Tell him not to ask directly, but see if he can find out whether Janie is still there.”
Donnally handed his wallet to Lalo, who took out the pesos, leaving the dollars behind. He returned it and ran out the door.
Turning again toward the parrot, Donnally imagined what the lizard saw, looking up at the caged bird watching him.
The parrot fluttered its wings and then grabbed the bars with its beak and claws and spun itself upside down as if preparing to dive. The lizard darted away.
Donnally reached for his phone and called the West Hollywood telephone number of someone who had connections he didn’t have. His father’s groggy voice answered on the third ring.
“I need your help.”
Donnally described where things stood.
“What can I do?”
“The only way Janie is getting out alive is if we shine a spotlight on White Sands, but the Mexican press won’t touch it. Can you get a U.S. news network down here?”
There was silence on the other end of the line. Finally his father said, “Hold on.”
Donnally heard his father get out of bed, then the sounds of fumbling.
“I know somebody at NBC in New York,” his father said. “Let me give you his number. You’d be better at explaining everything than I would.”
“That won’t work. The press already thinks I’m a lunatic, and Sherwyn’s lawyer is about to go on the attack. Even if they sent someone down here, they’d yank him back as soon as they heard what the lawyer’s got to say about me.”
“I’ll take care of it. I didn’t spend my life becoming a legend for nothing. If they move fast, they might be able to get down there by late this afternoon.”
Chapter 59
“A ny luck?” Donnally asked Lalo after he got back to Uncle Beto’s house from White Sands.
Beto still hadn’t returned with the gun, and Donnally was worried that he’d sold them out, either to Sherwyn for money or to Jago for a future favor.
Donnally glanced out the kitchen window toward the back gate, then looked at Lalo.
“Don’t worry,” Lalo said, pointing toward the yard. “ Mi tio won’t let you down. He hates men like Senor William and the police who protect them. The problem is that only the narco traffickers have good weapons, but to get to them he needs to use un intermediario, too. So it takes time.”
Donnally nodded.
“I talked to a boy who lives at White Sands,” Lalo said, handing Donnally a crude diagram of the hacienda. “There is tension. He heard a rumor that a woman is there, but he hasn’t seen her. The foreign men have all left and moved into hotels along with the boys, but Jago has brought in more police. Senor William is still there, in his office on the top floor. Not eating. Just drinking. He stands at his window looking down at the front gate and street and out over the city. A few times, he has telephoned someone the boys only know as El Mandamas.”
Donnally knew the phrase from a Mexican gang seminar he’d taken years earlier. It was a colloquial expression meaning The Man with the Last Word.
A squeak of the gate drew their attention to Uncle Beto striding toward them, carrying a backpack in his hand.
Beto laid it on the table and removed six items wrapped in oily cloth. Two were small Smith amp; Wesson revolvers. Two were large Beretta semiautomatics. Two were boxes of ammunition,. 32 cal and 9mm.
Donnally picked up one of the pistols and asked the price.
Beto grinned. “ Alquilar o comprar? ” Rent or buy?
Donnally knew that he meant, Va a vivir o va a morir? Will you live or will you die?
“I think I had better buy,” Donnally said. “I don’t want you getting into trouble with your source.”
“ Trescientos cincuenta dolares para la Beretta, dos cientos cincuenta para la Smith amp; Wesson. ” Three hundred fifty dollars for the Beretta and two-fifty for the Smith amp; Wesson.
Beto smiled. “ Las balas son gratis. Una oracion que usted mata a Jago. ” The bullets are free. A prayer that you will kill Jago.
Donnally selected one of each type of gun, loaded both, then wrapped them in separate cloths with a box of bullets. He withdrew his wallet and gave Beto six hundred dollars.
Beto took the money and then placed the two weapons into a paper bag and handed it to Donnally.
“ Vaya con Dios. ”
“T ell me about the boy you talked to,” Donnally asked Lalo as they walked the unpaved street toward the center of town.
“We were in school together. I think maybe he was molested by his father. That’s why he went to White Sands.” Lalo giggled. “He likes girls, but there’s no money in it.”
“Can he come and go as he pleases?”
Lalo nodded. “He’s a carterista.”
“A what?”
“A wallet boy. A pickpocket. He spends most of the day at the beach in the Zona Hotelera stealing from tourists.”
Donnally stopped and withdrew the diagram from his back pocket and examined it. He pointed at the box marked office.
“Did he say how this room was laid out?”
“He said it was like a biblioteca. Shelves on all the walls. Senor William always warns the boys not to touch his books. Many are very old.”
“Can you trust him to go into Sherwyn’s office and steal something for me?” Donnally asked.
“Trust him? No. Can I buy him for a day? Si. What do you need?”
“A book from Sherwyn’s library. Any one, as long as it’s this big.” Donnally framed his hands in the size of a hardcover, then held a thumb and forefinger four inches apart.
Lalo nodded.
“And I’ll need a more detailed drawing of his office.”
“ No hay problema.”
Donnally glanced back the way they’d come.
“Would your uncle be willing to help?”
The spot between Lalo’s eyebrows wrinkled. Donnally couldn’t tell whether it was caused by concern for his uncle or by some internal conflict.
“If he can’t, that’s fine,” Donnally said. “He’s done enough.”
“He is a good man, mi tio, but he has to live here after this is over. So do his wife and their daughters. If he can help without looking like he’s helping, then he will.”
Donnally thought for a moment, his mind drifting over the deadly game of snakes and ladders that was about to begin, then nodded.
“That may be good enough.”
Chapter 60
D onnally slid down in the driver’s seat of his rental car as he watched Brother Melvin and a flak-jacketed immigration agent step out of the entrance to terminal one of the Cancun airport. The agent gripped Melvin’s elbow and steered him to the edge of the sidewalk.
Melvin shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun setting behind wind-combed clouds and scanned the parking area. He looked dead-on at Donnally’s car, then over at the agent, shaking his head, seeming to say, He’s not here.
As they turned away, Donnally reached for his phone.