The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind (19 page)

Just then they heard footsteps. A tiny man with nervous eyes threw open the door. Mongo pushed past him without a word and climbed up the sagging stairs. He turned and looked impatiently at the two still waiting below.

“Do you want Rafael alive or not?”

“Let’s go.” Sonia rushed up the steps after him.

The man was named only Hector, and he was missing an ear. The hole in the side of his head was all Sonia could stare at as their host paced.

“So you’re back in town,” Hector said, smiling at Mongo. “It’s been a while since you’ve been in these parts, my friend. Lots of good old times, eh?”

Mongo sat down and put his feet up on the table.

“Some close shaves, you mean.” He picked his nails with the tip of a knife. “But let’s get to the point: I need to contact Iguana. He has something I want back. Well . . .” He pointed at Sonia with the blade. “Something of
hers,
actually.”

“Iguana?” Sonia repeated, staring for a long moment at Pancho. “You found out what that means?”

Pancho gazed at the ceiling for a moment, as if searching for the right words among the cobwebs and cracked plaster.

“Iguana is the man who has Rafael,” he said finally.

“¿Un pollero?”
she asked.

Hector slapped Mongo on the back.

“Iguana a transporter! Ha-ha! That is a fine joke, is it not?”

Mongo’s dark expression withered his joy on the spot.

“¿Entonces qué?”
Sonia insisted. “If Iguana is not a driver, what is he, then? And what has he done with Rafael?”

Pancho looked at Mongo helplessly.

“He’s not a driver. He waits in the valley and detains travelers coming through on the way north,” Mongo said. “Detours them, so to speak, by prior secret arrangement with Conchita Fo and others. When they pay him more money, he lets them go. Conchita gets her share of the extra sum.”

Sonia’s eyes widened.

“You’re telling me Rafael has been
kidnapped
?” Her words hung in the air like dark ash before settling on Pancho’s shoulders.

“Don’t look so surprised,” Hector said. “You can steal a boy as easily as you can steal a woman’s purse. Who’s out there in La Fuente to help? Ghosts?” He started to laugh again but thought better of it when Mongo shot him another glare.

“I don’t believe it.” Sonia crossed her arms. “Rafael wouldn’t have arranged something so risky. He told me he knew what to do. He’s smart; he’d never make such a deal.”

Pancho cleared his throat and shifted in his chair. “I took him to Conchita myself, Sonia. He asked me to do it. I saw him pay her with my own eyes. How would he know he was being fooled?” He reached for her hand. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. But I didn’t know he was walking right into danger.”

A long silence followed as the facts fell into place in her mind.

“And what if the traveler has no more money to pay?” Sonia asked slowly, looking from Pancho to Mongo. “He would have spent all he had just to get a driver.”

Mongo’s face darkened as he leaned toward her. “He hasn’t called to ask you for money? You haven’t heard from him at all?”

“Bad news,” Hector muttered.

Mongo stabbed the table with his dagger. “Shut up.”

Sonia was starting to understand everything now. Rafael would rather have chewed off his own hands than ask their father or anyone else for help. But what happened to boys who couldn’t find someone to pay for their escape? Did they end up dead like Luis?

“What do we do now?” Pancho asked. “How do we get him back?”

Mongo shook his head as he carved a number into the table with care.

“We pay, what else? There may still be time.” He jammed his blade into the tabletop. “If I remember correctly, this amount will do. Not a penny less, though. He’s particular about proper ransoms.”

He motioned at Hector, who was listening from the corner.

“What are you waiting for, imbecile? Get him on the phone at once! We don’t want him to do anything hasty.”

Sonia and Pancho gaped at the figure that Mongo had carved.

“I don’t have this!” Sonia blurted out. “It would take me months to earn it!”

“And I don’t have any money, either.” Pancho turned out his pockets as proof.

Mongo sighed with disappointment.

“Well, you’d better find it, friends. Without a ransom, your brother is a corpse.”

“Don’t say such things!” Sonia sprang to her feet. “There must be something else we can do! What you ask is impossible!”

Mongo shrugged. “Only if you decide it is.”

“Really, Mongo, this is no time for riddles,” Pancho snapped. “Tell us plainly what we can do.”

“I thought you two would be more clever.” He leaned back and then motioned at Sonia’s clothes. “I can see from your uniform that you work for a rich house.”

“For Casa Masón, yes,” Sonia admitted. “So?”

“So, that is very fortunate in a case like this. Katarina Masón is the wealthiest woman in the capital, except for the president’s wife, as you know.” Mongo smiled in satisfaction. “So you see, the situation is not hopeless. The answer is under your nose.”

Sonia shook her head in confusion. “I can’t ask her for money. Señora Masón barely speaks to us. Even her orders come through her housekeeper. She’d never do it, especially not for me.”

“No,” Mongo agreed. “She won’t
give
it to you. The rich never part with their money easily. But there are other ways to get what you need, no?”

Sonia held his gaze until his meaning became clear. “You’re telling me to steal money from Katarina Masón?”

“
Stealing.
That’s such an ugly way to put it. Redistributing is much better.”

“It’s no solution at all,” Sonia said sharply. “I am not like one of the patrons of Conchita’s bar. And even if I
were,
I don’t know where she keeps her money — only her jewelry.”

Mongo grinned like a shark. “Even better. It’s a very fine collection, I’m told. The envy of every woman in the capital — and the dream of every crooked jeweler across the continent.”

He paused and held up his hands as if they were scales in a balance. The indigo flames etched in his skin reached over his wrists toward his fingers.

“I’m afraid the choice is simple, Sonia Ocampo. Steal the jewels to pay the ransom. Or you keep your sweet honor — and your brother dies. Choose.”

Sonia stared at the imaginary scale. Her mind went to Luis and the dull thud of dirt hitting his coffin. The same could happen to Rafael.

She crossed to the window. Katarina Masón would be at her dinner for hours, enjoying oysters and champagne. The bedroom would be empty, and the jewels sitting safely in the bureau drawer where she’d left them. They were candies in a box, meaningless little trifles that a rich woman could easily replace. Wasn’t Rafael’s life worth more? She was already a fraud. She’d been called a hussy. Now she was considering stealing from her employer. But what did it matter when her brother’s life was at stake?

“I’ll do it.” She was already imagining the dresser key in her hand.

“No, Sonia —” Pancho began.

“I’ll steal the jewels,” she said.

P
ANCHO GAVE
S
ONIA
a sidelong glance as they hurried through the city. It would be a long walk back to Casa Masón without the trolley, such an intolerable distance to wonder whether she would ever forgive him for having taken Rafael on his errand and not told her. He did his best to ignore her wet cheeks. Even weeping, she was beautiful, but it seemed wrong to say so under the circumstances.

They had agreed to return to Hector’s apartment with the jewels at the appointed time. The Iguana had been unreachable by phone, and Mongo — making inquiries among his old cohorts — had decided he would wait for their return and ride all night into the valley to deliver the stolen jewels in person. Then he would return Rafael to them in Tres Montes.

“I’m making no promises, you understand?” he’d said. “Your brother has been missing for a long while, Sonia, and Iguana is not a patient man.”

It was already nearing ten o’clock.

“I wish I’d never taken him to Conchita Fo,” Pancho said. “I’m sorry.”

Sonia wiped the tears off her chin and turned to him.

“Me, too. But if it weren’t for you, I would never have known what happened to him — and had the chance to save him. He’d just be another one of those disappeared boys. . . .” She sighed heavily. “You are a true friend, Pancho.”

A friend?
he wondered, a bit crushed.
Only that?

He put his hands inside his empty pockets and walked on, lost in his thoughts.

When they reached the edge of the plaza, Sonia sat down on a bench facing the distant statue of the president. Under other circumstances, this would have been a perfect place to visit together. Pancho had spent his life longing to see it. Now it didn’t seem to matter much to either of them. Pigeons pecked around their feet expectantly.

“I’ve been thinking about things,” Sonia said. “If I’m caught, there will be trouble. My whole family will be shamed. I don’t want that to happen to you, too.”

Pancho thought of the mangled bicycle, and Marco’s ugly face as he’d tossed him from the train like rubbish.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” he said. “I’m used to shame.”

“Please, Pancho,” she insisted. “You’ve done enough for me already. Go back to Señor Pasqual. He’s probably crazy with worry.”

Pancho turned out a few crumbs from his pockets for the birds.

“You’re not going back alone,” he replied. “I’m going with you.”

“Pancho Muñoz, you are no criminal. You’re a poet.”

“And you are —”

Sonia put her hands to his mouth.

“Stop. Don’t say it!”

Pancho snapped his mouth shut just in time. He’d been about to say,
You are the girl I love.
He took in the scent of her palm and waited.

“Don’t say I’m special — that I’m magic! That’s the whole trouble!
Ay,
Pancho! You have no idea of the things that I am — or the things I am not.” Another huge tear rolled along her cheek.

Pancho sat quietly, listening to a distant rumble of thunder gathering somewhere on the other side of the mountains. A storm would make their errand even harder.

“I hate secrets,” Sonia whispered at last.

“They come with too high a price,” he agreed. “They can hurt people we never intend to hurt.”

Sonia gave him a long look. She took a deep breath and pulled the bag of
milagros
from her pocket.

“Then maybe it’s time to tell them.”

Every fiber in Pancho’s body twitched as she turned and slipped her hand in his.

“I have a story for
you
this time, Pancho,” Sonia began. “It’s about a girl who lived a terrible lie. When she was born, people said she had been sent to them by God to carry their burdens and intercede for them. They said she was magic. They loved her for the protection she gave them.”

Pancho blinked.

“The trouble is,” she continued, “she didn’t want to be their protector. It was a burden to carry everyone’s woes, and it made her afraid that she would fail them. And one day it happened. She was asked to save a boy, but it was useless. He died in the worst way, and after that it felt to her as if his blood was on her hands. She was too ashamed to tell her friends and neighbors that she couldn’t help them, that her voice was no more special in God’s ear than their own. She started to hate them for calling on her when they needed something. So she ran away like a coward, rather than telling them that they were wrong about her.”

For all the times he’d secretly longed to kiss her, Pancho had never imagined that it would be at this, the very worst moment of his life. But he took her face in his dirty hands and pulled her close until their eyelashes were brushing. He pressed his mouth softly over hers. When he was through, he wiped the tears from each of her cheeks and spoke in her ear.

“But you’ve forgotten an important part of your story, Sonia,” he whispered. “That the girl
was
magic —”

“No —”

“But magic in a different way altogether, and one that she never imagined. For the girl had a light so warm and kind that she could work miracles without even knowing it. She could comfort people just by being in the same room. She could even make a worthless orphan feel like he had something to offer the world.”

Sonia looked up at him in surprise. He gave her another long kiss, this time pressing her tight to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

Sonia wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Please tell me how this story ends, Pancho. I’m afraid.”

But, of course, he didn’t know, and time was running out. The church bells were tolling.

Sonia got to her feet, forgetting the satchel in her lap. Charms scattered to the ground.

“I’ll get them,” he said.

Sonia stared at the mess as if in another trance.

“What is it?” Pancho asked, noticing her staring.

“Why didn’t I think of this before?” Sonia fell to her knees and kissed his hands, his lips. “Hurry and gather them, Pancho! I think I know what to do!”