South by Southeast (42 page)

She made the moaning sound again, more softly. She was waking and afraid.

“I will not hurt you unnecessarily,” he said. “That's a promise. But you must die.”

The girl's moaning and her sounds of motion ceased. She was one of the stoic ones. But she would not stay reasonable. She would wait for her moment and then try to scream to raise the dead. Her script would be the same, eventually.
No. Please. Stop.

“Perhaps you think this is a terrible dream, no?” he went on. “But
the dream is mine, not yours. You're a passing face. We weren't supposed to meet here, this way. We could have exchanged thoughts on so many subjects. But what's done is done.”

Her silence seemed to deepen. He could barely hear her breathing.

“I understand,” he said. “You're gathering your wits. Trying to learn. That's a very smart thing to do. You're braver than most, so rare. I wish it could make a difference for you. But you won't survive this night. Tennyson should see that in your face—that his presence means nothing. He should see in your eyes how he left you alone, April. He left you for me.”

She stirred with a nearly imperceptible whimper, valiantly fighting to keep her tears silent. She didn't want him to know she was crying.

“Bueno,”
he said. “Release it. For you, it's a tragedy of misplaced trust. He kept his daughter close to him, but you he sent away. I'll tell your story one day, on film, how the unspoiled suffer. But as I promised, I won't celebrate your pain. I only ask that when your time comes to die, don't look at me with betrayed eyes like you did in the parking lot. Don't pretend I never told you what I would do.”

That time, she couldn't hide the sound of her sob.

He visualized the scene to her music of misery. The actor arrives, helpless to save his true love. When she drowns, the actor begs him to spare the life of his daughter, only to be told that she will be next. And then the actor will die—slowly, so slowly. Flayed? Toothless? Castrated? Escobar would improvise on how to dispose of the man who had destroyed his life.

The daughter, Chela, would be a sweeter prize, but he would not come for her right away. He would savor the wait. Give her months, even years, of depraved dreams. Then he would climb out of those nightmares to take her. He would punish Chela and the actor both for the death of this innocent crying in his van.

“This may sound strange to you, but I'm very sorry for this, April,” he said. “It is, as people say, a necessary evil.”

The actor had stolen his life, but the Escobar name would live forever.

The memory of fear had followed April Forrest into the darkness, but then she had found a peaceful tunnel. She might have heard the engine's purr, felt the lulling starting and stopping of the vehicle, but she wasn't curious about anything during her deep, calm sleep.

Until she began to wonder:
Where am I?

The question awakened a barrage of terrible realizations, and cascading terror built in her. She had lost consciousness. She felt groggy and confused.
How? When?

She could not speak, even if she had the energy to try. Her mouth was snugly gagged with a bland fabric that stuck to her dry tongue. She fought the instincts to bite it or her throat's pulsing desire to expel it. The gag made her feel sick.

But it was worse than only that.

April pitched back to sleep, but a nagging feeling of urgency woke her quickly.

She was gagged in the dark. A chloroform-scented fabric lay draped lightly across her face, dense enough to warm her face from her breath. April spent long seconds telling herself to breathe and relax so she would not panic. It would be too easy to believe she couldn't breathe.

But she could.
In, out. In. Out.

But she could not move, she realized. She was lying on her side on a hard surface barely softened by some kind of cushion, her wrists bound behind her, feet bare. The binds were tight. April heard herself moan. When she moved, she felt hard, ordered
barriers against her arm. Tiny bars from a cage?
Sweet Jesus, please help me
.
Deliver me, Jesus. Deliver me.

Praying and breathing helped her fight the panic. Ten thought it was easier to face the world with deep breaths; he meditated like a statue for twenty minutes each morning when he woke. Breathing. In, out. Breathing was a kind of prayer.

“Are you awake now?”

A man's voice. The clarity of the voice clawed through her confusion, helping her pinpoint his distance, something tangible she could hold on to. The voice might be six feet from her. They were both in a vehicle, she realized. Moving.

She'd been at the supermarket, she remembered. The funny old man in the wheelchair had thrust a gun into her stomach, nudging deeply, and hard. He had hurt her.

“I know what you're thinking . . .” the man's voice went on, but she lost her focus as she wondered who would do this to her. Why?

“. . . when my mother drowned,” the man went on, as if they were old friends talking, and April knew it was Gustavo Escobar. Ten had been right. Escobar was alive! The realization awed her, dimming her hearing. Escobar seemed to murmur.

“. . . But you must die.” Escobar's voice came back, as if from a nightmare.

April's heart forgot its rhythms, pounding too fast, too hard.

“. . . He should see in your eyes how he left you alone, April. To
me
.”

Jesus Lord, please please please hear me.

April's sob surprised her. She cursed herself, because she couldn't hear Escobar when she was crying. What if a show of fear would trigger him? But she couldn't stop the next sob, either, which wrenched her stomach. Ten hadn't been able to stop Escobar in time, and she had walked into his trap. They had let each other down so badly.

Escobar soothed her with his lying voice, and April clamped
her mouth tight. Maybe he would keep driving if she were quiet; at least then she could catch a thought. Her body trembled as if she were packed in ice, but April kept as quiet as she could.

“I hope you believe my sorrow for you is sincere,” Escobar said.

If not for her gag, April would have told Escobar that if he were sorry, he should let her go. It wasn't too late, she would have said. April trembled so much that her cage
clank
ed against the side of the vehicle with her shivers.

“Don't waste your strength on knots and bars,” Escobar said. “I've done this a time or two. My advice is to stay calm. You'll only be sleeping.”

More ice water flushed April as she remembered how many women he had killed. Killing was a sport to him, a compulsion, and it came easily. The darkness paled. Was she slipping back to sleep again?

“You have a phone message,” Escobar said, snapping her to alertness. “Both of us, actually. It's only fair that you hear it, since the first part is for you.”

In the next instant, she heard Tennyson's recorded voice on her speaker phone over the engine's hum. “April, I'm coming, baby,” he said. Tennyson's calm words and voice helped to slow her wild heart. His voice reminded her how much she loved him, and he loved her. His voice became her world. His voice and words rocking her like an infant in his arms. “I'm coming. I'm so sorry I wasn't there. But I'm coming now. I'll be there soon.”

Yes,
she thought.
He'll be here soon.
April sobbed with gratitude.

Tennyson's next words were for Escobar, not for her. All kindness left his voice.

“Don't hurt her,” Tennyson told the killer. “I'm doing what you asked. I'm coming alone.”

That time, Tennyson sounded like death. His voice had come, and then he was gone.

April sobbed for what she swore would be her last time. Her last indulgence.

“Such a tragic love story,” Escobar said. “To die over something so senseless.”

While April fought her tears and terror, Escobar drove on.

April came to full wakefulness when the van lurched to a stop.

Not a stoplight. Escobar changed gears. He was parking.

When Escobar stopped the engine, April held her breath. For the past hour, she'd told herself she would be fine as long as the van was moving. Until the van stopped, he could not touch her. He could not hurt her. At any moment, she might hear a siren. Rescue. Freedom.

But now Escobar opened his door. The van bounced from his weight as he hopped out. Footsteps fell on the pavement as he walked toward the van's rear door. He was in a hurry.

April's heartbeat matched the pace of his footsteps, outraced them. Her heartbeat filled her ears, mouth, and throat. Keys jingled, and the rear door gave a warning squeak as Escobar flung it open. April clenched her knees together, pulled her body into a ball. She swallowed back the whimpers trying to rise in her throat.

He probably gets off on scaring people. Don't give him the satisfaction.

Sound, defiant advice. But the whimpers tried to surface, humming from her voice box. Escobar liked to scare his
victims
. That was the true word for her. She had seen the women's faces in the tabloids and the news, their features blurred, their deaths irreparable.

More keys, and the door to her cage opened.

“I know you're awake,
negra,
” Escobar said, so close to her, too close, and frozen feather tips traveled from her scalp to her
toes. April instinctively moved away from his voice, trying to coil her body, bending her neck against the unyielding corner of the cage.

If he touched her, she would scream. She wouldn't be able to help herself.

“Yes, I understand,” Escobar said, sighing. “I've felt helpless like you. My sister, Rosa . . .” He sighed. “My mother gave her life for us—her life. And when Rosa came here, she was always with the same friends, doing nothing, expecting me to give her money for clothes, for shoes, for trashy movies. She was my only sister, so I did it for love. She was beautiful, and I spoiled her too much.” He paused and took a breath.

“And then I found her, April. With my own eyes, I saw her. She was standing on Atlantic Avenue selling herself to men, twitching her ass. A common street whore like the
grillas
in Havana. My father's blood, my mother's sacrifice, meant nothing to her. Pride and family name meant nothing. She had no decency in her, not like you and me.”

He sighed so heavily that April felt his breath on her bare legs. She'd been wearing a skirt when she went to the police station with Ten, so professional, and she felt naked to Escobar's stare. Where were her shoes? Her shoes were gone.

April's whimpering grew louder. She wouldn't be able to control it soon.

“And do you know the true crime?” Escobar said softly. “For cleansing the streets of her filth, and the others, they call
me
a monster. What a world, no?”

April wished she could laugh. Ten had told April a story about how he'd tricked captors into removing his gag by pretending to laugh, because they wanted to know what was so funny. April wanted to tell Escobar how misunderstood he was, how she would never tell anyone she had seen him, how he knew in his heart that she didn't deserve to die.

But she couldn't laugh. She tried, but her throat was frozen with smothered screams.

A smooth, cool palm stroked April's calf. She bucked away, hitting her head on the side of the cage. One of her screams clawed free, made muffled and useless by her gag.

“Shhhh,” Escobar said. “That was a loving touch, April. I promised not to hurt you unnecessarily, and I won't soil you—soil myself—that way. I'm not an animal. I'm sorry if touching upsets you.”

April's breathing came in hitching gasps; she tried to calm herself and keep her thoughts clear.
He's calling you by name, humanizing you. Talk to him!
She struggled to form word sounds to follow Ten's example, to make Escobar curious enough to remove the gag, but she sounded as if she was hyperventilating. Maybe she was. The air in the pillowcase was hot and thick, with a new odor that clogged her nose.