“You threatened my family,” I say again.
“Look. You’re alive. Usually, when somebody’s threatening me, beating on me with a hammer, I’m not going to duck. I’ll grab a machete, whack off his arms and some other parts. So. You know what I want. Fix it for me, your family will live.”
“I’m not threatening you in any way. Don’t bullshit me about why I’m here.”
“Reymundo,” she says, “am I not a woman of honor?”
“You’d have a sicario tell me about honor?” I say.
“Reymundo’s a lover, not a shooter.”
Rey nods without hesitation.
“He has no honor working for you,” I say.
“Then let’s get to business. You know what I want.”
“No, no,” I say. “You know what I want.”
“You want to live,” she laughs. “That’s entirely what this is about. We all want to live. I control you and your family; you control my future. I will trade one for the other. And money. Do you have enough of the proper equipment to find me a, how do you say it, a legend?”
I just shake my head, work at controlling my panic, searching for an edge. She sips the Diet Sprite, muscles flexing in her temples, a tectonic shift in her calculations as she nods. “You want a drink? Beer? Water? Tequila?”
“No. Just stop threatening my family.”
“How about some Ritalin?” she says and I freeze. She reaches under her chair, grabs a plastic folder, sets it on the table without opening it. “I know all about you, Miss Winslow.”
“I haven’t used Ritalin in years,” I say angrily.
“Fascinating.” She opens the folder and flips through a few pages. “You didn’t use, you abused. I wholesale thousands of pounds of methamphetamines. You once took methamphetamines. So in a way, we’re not all that different.”
I’m really furious now, the fury conquering my panic. “And your crystal meth has ruined a thousand lives. Ten thousand lives. You can’t threaten me. And if you threaten my family, I won’t help you in any way.”
“Okay,” she says. “Let’s try something else. Your Hopi name is Kauwanyauma. Butterfly Revealing Wings of Beauty. See? We’ve both got grand names. I’m La Bruja. The Witch. You’re a butterfly, with an arrest record and a drug-user record. Rey’s told me everything about you.” She finishes the Diet Sprite, opens another bottle, studies me carefully. “Okay.” Nods. “You don’t really get threatened, do you?” When I say nothing she turns to Dial. “Diablo, call Jesús.” Dial flicks open his cell, speed-dials a number, holds the phone aside after hearing a voice. “Tell Jesús to return.”
“Whoa, whoa,” I say. “Why would I believe you?”
“I offer proof of life,” she replies, holding up a small GPS unit. “Tell that man to leave his cell on, and give me his number.” Talancón nods at Dial, who flips open the cell to display the last number dialed. She punches it into the GPS, waits until the map screen shows Sedona. “His cell has GPS on it. He’s headed toward I-10 and Phoenix.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Don’t listen to this puta,” Dial says, but Talancón flicks her palm, shakes her head.
Twenty-five minutes later, the GPS shows the cell location — out of red rock country and headed south toward Phoenix.
“Now. I’ve guaranteed your daughter’s life,” Talancón says. She shrugs off her wristwatch, presses a button on the side, and lays it on the picnic table in front of me. “A Rolex Cosmograph Daytona. Diamonds, rubies, gold, twelve thousand dollars, I could care less. Right now, it’s just a stopwatch. Look at the numbers. Nine hours, fifty-eight minutes. That’s how much time you’ve got. I’ve arranged an out in Chicago, but I’ve got to get there first. So in nine hours, we’ll be headed for the Tucson airport for the early flight. You’ve got that long to set up a whole new identity.”
“Impossible.”
“Driver’s license. Social Security card. Let’s say four credit cards, whatever else you can provide.”
“Impossible,” I insist. “Not for a totally clean package.” She points at the chronometer dial, the seconds shrinking back toward zero. “We’re talking about special paper, special inks. Official seals, photographs, and bottom line, a Social Security number that’s absolutely guaranteed to be genuine.”
“You’ve got somebody who stores up these numbers, somebody who verifies they’re clean.”
“I don’t think you really understand,” I say. “I haven’t arranged an entire identity kit in over a year.”
“My personal motto of life,” she counters. “If you don’t ask for something, nobody says yes. I visit New York, the hottest Broadway show, I can get tickets anywhere in the house. Restaurants booked three months in advance. I can get a table. When they told me my son couldn’t get into a prestigious high school, I threatened a lawsuit on the basis of discrimination against Latinos. He got in. Nothing is impossible. So I’m asking you again, can you do this for me?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Come with me,” she says, turning sideways, a slight bow and nod into the house. “Let me show you something, Miss Winslow. Please. No harm, just come inside for a moment.”
I walk ahead of her into an entranceway. She gestures down a hall to the door of the main bedroom.
“On the bed. Look.”
Two bodies sprawl on pink and purple flowered sheets. A man and woman, bloodied, dead. One hand across my mouth, I freeze. Talancón spins me around, pushes me back outside.
“Okay,” she says. “Without hesitation, if you won’t do this, just as I killed them, I’ll kill your entire family. In front of your eyes.”
“You promised, you guaranteed their safety.”
“I lie. Usually it works.”
And there it is.
I have few bargaining chips. Nine hours, during which I can fake a process, hoping to convince Rey to get me out of this mess, or I can work what few contacts I still have, gambling that if I create a new identity Talancón will let me live.
“Okay,” I say. I mean, what else am I going to say?
Except I suddenly realize I have an edge.
“I think I’ve got you figured,” I say. She just waits, face set in stone, no flickers, no tells. “You’re on the run. You’ve been forced out of controlling your cartel. That means you’ll probably just go somewhere else, change your identity, use some connections, spend a lot of money, and start up again dealing drugs somewhere else. Thailand. Manila. Wherever.”
“Agreed. Okay. Your point?”
“I figure you’ll fly to Chicago, then jump around the country, or head outside the country to get plastic surgery. I’ll get you a perfect new ID on one condition.”
She cocks her head, her expression unchanged.
“Let me tell you a short story.”
“Don’t beg,” she says. “We’re well past that.”
“Up on the Navajo rez,” I say, “my husband’s mother is from the Start of the Red Streak People. The Deeshchii’nii clan. His sister married a man from the Jaa’yaalóolii. The Sticking-Up-Ears People. They had two sons.”
“Please,” Talancón says. “I know where this is going.”
“Both sons got totally bored with high school and turned to drugs. Both worked their way up the drug ladder to making crystal meth. They blew themselves up in their lab one day.”
“What’s the point, okay?”
“If I fly with you to Chicago, I figure there’s a good chance you’ll just disappear and let me live. I’ll take that chance if... what I want, what you’ll have to do... if you’ll give me a complete list of all the meth dealers on all Arizona Indian reservations.”