Just Deserts (Hetta Coffey Series, Book 4) (6 page)

La cárcel de Cananea Está situada en una Mesa Y en ella fui procesado Por causa de mi torpeza
.

(The jail of Cananea Is situated on a plateau And in it I was processed on account of my stupidity.)— Corrido (folk song) by Rubén Fuentes Written during the Revolution of 1910

I’ve dealt with commute nightmares in Tokyo, San Francisco, Brussels, and Paris, but nothing topped my first day on the road from Naco to Cananea.

Something, an accident I suspected, blocked the main highway, creating a backup comparable to a Los Angeles freeway. After two hours I finally realized the problem wasn’t the wreck I’d suspected, but a Mexican military checkpoint that sprang up since I’d passed this way yesterday. I dug out my passport, my Mexican tourist card, and car registration, the things they normally check. I didn’t have a work permit, but it would never occur to them that I needed one. After all, I am a Gringa.

Nearing a huge ALTO sign, I rolled down my window. When he spotted me, the uniformed inspector’s mouth fell open. With a look that said, what in the hell is this red-haired Gringa doing out here by herself, he gave me a flat-palmed stay right here sign, whirled, and strode to a nearby tent. I sat tight while another man waved others around me. Within two minutes the first one was back, with another officer on his heels. Neither looked amused.

Number two soldier leaned down, peered into the window, chuffed his cheeks, and demanded, “Why are you on this road?”

My first response would have been, “Because I prefer driving on pavement?” or some other smartassed comeback, but for once common sense prevailed. “I am on my way to Cananea.”

“Why?”

I didn’t think, because it’s there, would win friends, so I blurted, “To visit the mine.”

He did a double take. “Excuse me?”

“I consult at the mine,” I explained, then remembered I didn’t a have work permit. “Temporarily.”

Obviously having a problem wrapping his mind around the concept, he didn’t know what to say, so I explained further. “I am an engineer, and I was just hired by the mine.” I handed him
Señor
Pretty One’s business card. “You can call my
jefe, Señor
Orozco.”

He snatched the card and went back to his tent. I was sleep-deprived, hungry, and needed to pee, so the ten minutes he was gone seemed interminable. Finally, as I was eyeing a nearby bush as a possible
pissoir
, he strode back, gave me my business card, actually smiled, and said, “You may pass, but you must be careful on this road.”

“Can I ask what the trouble is?”

“Please, you go.”

“Okay, thanks, I think.”

I made a pit stop at the next Pemex station, paying their exorbitant five-peso bathroom fee. The military presence on the road was heavy, but no one messed with me again until I reached the mine’s main gate. The old man and dog who normally slept there were gone, replaced by soldiers.

Once again, I went through my song and dance as to why they should let me pass—don’t these people talk to each other?—and was told to wait. If this was the kind of commute I faced every day, the Trob and I were in for some serious renegotiations on my contract.

I waited, sandwiched between a line of what looked liked sullen fourteen-year-olds packing automatic weapons, and glowering miners hopefully packing nothing but attitude. Both groups eyed me suspiciously, making me feel guilty of something. By the time a bedraggled Maria arrived on foot fifteen minutes later, I’d broken into a light sweat despite the almost freezing temperature.

Maria convinced the military dudes that I wasn’t some kind of
norteamericana
subversive, and as we headed for the office in my car, she clued me in.

“When the troubles started yesterday afternoon,
Señor
Orosco told me to call you not to come here today, but you did not answer. I left a message.”

“Sorry, my Mexican cell phone doesn’t work in Arizona. I’ll give you my new US number. Did you call Mr. Wontrobski?”

“Yes, he said he would tell you. He did not?”

Crap, I’d turned off my cell after talking with Jenks and was so groggy this morning I flat forgot to turn it on. “He probably tried, Maria, but I missed his call. Oh, well, here I am. What is going on?”

“After the judge in Mexico City ruled this strike illegal, the strikers are very angry because they can now lose their jobs and be replaced. They have control of some facilities, and would not allow us to leave last night. We slept here, but the soldiers have arrived to stop…
el alboroto
.

I grabbed my Spanish-English dictionary.
Alboroto
: uproar. “Why are they, uh, uproaring now? Haven’t they all quit work anyway?”

“Oh, yes, they do not work, but most still receive pay from the union. Now, they might never work here again. They have homes and family. Some have lived here for many years. And now there is a problem with the union. The leader left for Canada with all the money. It is very complicated.” She looked about nervously, moved closer, and whispered, “Poison.”

“Poison?”

“They say bad things are in this air, and maybe the water. We are not to speak of it.”

Poison? I looked around for a facemask and oxygen cylinder, but finding neither, went online to see what she was talking about. Between a Mexican newspaper article and the handy dandy Spanish translator program in my laptop, it didn’t take long to find out why I was hired to put together a list of equipment required for a quick revamp.

A volunteer group of occupational health professionals wrote a scathing condemnation, alleging the mine was deliberately run into the ground, with no effort made toward maintenance, repairs, or safe mining practices. I made a note to myself to ask for a copy of any purchase orders for items, like basic filters, that would at least denote someone tried, but one look at the dusty offices told another story. The health professionals claimed, as a result of gross negligence and downright greed on the part of the owners, workers were being exposed to high levels of toxic dust and acid mist.

Lighting the flame under an already volatile situation, a three-year wildcat strike, which shut down the mine, was deemed illegal by a court in Mexico City. Over seven hundred Mexican troops, with the assistance of the local, federal, and state police, arrived to quell the union uprising. Nevertheless, miners still blockaded the gates, a riot ensued, tear gas and pellets were fired, trucks burned, and some facilities on the other side of the mine were damaged by Molotov cocktails. About fifty miners were now holed up in key locations on site. What we had here was a true Mexican standoff.

And I thought this job was going to be boring. Gee, thanks, Wontrobski.

I checked the US news for reports of this situation. Mama would pitch a hissy if she flipped on the news and saw her daughter, once again, in the middle of a controversy, especially one that involved Molotov cocktails. And Jenks? I didn’t even want to think about what he’d say.

Maria, after whispering poisonous news in my ear, added, “Please let me know it you need anything,” and left the room.

My Net search garnered good news, not so good news, and extremely bad news.

Although the strike and escalating tensions were mentioned in some Arizona papers, it wasn’t important or catastrophic enough to catch the attention of big networks. They needed something bigger like, Hetta Coffey and Thousands Others Massacred by Mexican Police, details at five. So, in this case, no news was good news.

The Mexican press gave mention that one of their own had, several weeks before, written an article on the overall situation in Cananea. He reported that, exacerbating the loss of over two million dollars a day by the mine and a corresponding economic disaster in the area, drug activity and gang crime were on an alarming rise. Just weeks before two gangs clashed and dozens of
drogistas
were killed, but not before they kidnapped, tortured and murdered several ranchers and policemen. Again, the US news networks let it slide, probably because in Phoenix or just about any other city large in the US, this kind of story is daily fodder.

However, as I read the next article, I whispered, “Oh, boy,” to myself. Just yesterday, the reporter in the last article was murdered,  along with his entire family. Shot in their home, execution-style. AP was on the story, it was flashing on the home page of most every Internet user in the world, and would, of course, be news at five. It was probably all over FOX and CNN already. Sigh.

Oh, yeah, my parents and Jenks were gonna be mighty riled when news of riots and murder in Cananea hit the American media. I didn’t think  it  would warrant more than a blip, certainly not a crawler, but the  word, MEXICO, catches Mom’s attention now like PIZZA does mine.

They’d all demand I quit this job immediately. It would do no good arguing that Dad dragged his family all over the world, into some fairly unhealthy climates, both weather-wise and political, or that Jenks was now in Jihadist territory. Nope, they’d focus on the dangers of my situation, but I’ve never been a quitter.

Turning from the computer, I decided since I was probably going to be out of a job one way or another, I’d rack up some billable time. I compiled a master equipment and operating spares list. Maria brought me a boxed lunch a little after noon. I thought this was great service until I realized the delivery meant we still couldn’t leave the premises. She did, however, assure me that by quitting time everything would be under control, and we could go home. I was not assured.

On the bright side, my lunch included the best carne asada burrito I’d had in a long time, served with—and this was totally foreign to any office I’d ever worked in—two ice cold beers. How could anyone be expected to quit a job with those perks?

I was happily munching away, proving once again that good food and booze can temporarily take my mind off anything, when a harried, but still handsome
Señor
Orozco strode in and caught me in mid-bite. He was flanked by two burly uniformed men, both sporting flattop haircuts and swarthy scowls. Arm patches indicated they were something federal. Now what?

“Miss Café, I must ask you to leave at once.”

“Gee,
Señor
Orozco, I’ve been bounced off better sites, but you haven’t even given me a chance to screw things up yet.”

His frown softened, then he grinned. “Ah, a joke. I am not dismissing you, it is that we simply cannot have you crossing the strike line again.”

I pointed to the files and drawings I was working on. “So, then, how do you expect me to do the job you hired me for?”

“You may take what you need home with you. Maria will help pack as many records as you can carry today, then these officers will escort you to the border. When you need more files, fax a list and we will bring them to you. And please, call me Juan.”

“As in Don Juan?” My flirt made them all smile, so I added, “In that case, Juan, you can drop the Miss and just call me Café. Can I get more of these burritos thrown in with those files you’ll send?”

“Café, I will deliver them personally, if that is what you wish.”

¡Carumba!
Burritos and Don Juan?

A deal like that could turn a girl’s head.

By three in the afternoon the day I was dropkicked out of the mine’s offices, my car resembled a college prank scenario from the sixties, as in, how many people can you get into a Volkswagen? Except this time it was how much paperwork.

My escort, the two
federales
driving an unmarked, slightly battered, Crown Victoria, instructed me to stay close on their tail as they led the way off the mine premises. Even knowing the Crown Vic’s propensity for bursting into flames when rear-ended, I hugged my bodyguards’ bumper as they threaded us through a vociferous mob on the other side of the gate. We bogged down occasionally, coming to a halt until men in combat gear pushed back the throng. A couple of times I heard something bounce off my roof, but once through the line of scrimmage, a black and white with flashing lights fell in behind me and my convoy picked up speed.

The entourage made me feel downright presidential until an innate paranoia set in.

What if this was all a ruse, and I was on my way to the Cananea jail? Had the authorities somehow linked me to at least one of those drug cartel types involved in a shootout in their fair city only weeks before? Nacho’s cryptic message to mind my own beeswax and to stay away still rankled. If he meant I was to stay away from the mine, I was golden.

Jan and I were never certain just who Nacho worked for, but we suspected he was either a drug lord, DEA, or both. I was fairly certain he was somehow a part of a showdown between the cops in Cananea and unruly gang members just weeks before. Many gang members died, but accounts were sketchy on the who, what, where, when, and why details. I’d pored over online articles, looking for clues to someone who might be Nacho, but found nothing.

Other than kidnapping Jan and me, threatening to shoot me, then actually aiming in my direction and pulling the trigger, Nacho was an okay guy in a handsome, criminal sort of way. As one might surmise, my expectations of men are abysmally modest.

A sharp pain shot across my shoulders. Lighten up, I told myself, there is no way this cop escort can make any connection between Hetta Coffey, engineer, and a cabal of methed-out gangsters. I relaxed my death grip on the steering wheel and shrugged my shoulders, but minutes later found myself once again performing a strangle hold. After what seemed an eternity, but was probably only forty minutes, my escort turned around, and I was in line at the border. I exhaled long and loud.

Only two cars, and bare minutes stood between me, the good old US of A, and a cold beer on my verandah. Or so I thought.

Although my two-car escort had turned around, they’d stopped a short distance away and continued to watch my back. The black and white left his lights flashing, just in case no one had noticed him. This,  quite naturally, piqued the interest of several uniformed types at the border crossing, who were more than a little curious as to why I was escorted out of Mexico in the first place, and what all those papers were in my vehicle.

I have to admit that what sounded like a perfectly logical explanation to me might not have been so clear to Customs. I was waved into secondary by a polite but firm young woman. She took my car keys and passport, then escorted me into a small room. As she was shutting the door, I saw a canine officer trotting toward my VW.

Resigned to a long wait while my car got ransacked, I plopped down in one of the two plastic chairs in my jail cell. Okay, so it wasn’t really a cell, but I was locked in, and worse than that, I had been here before. I knew my car was clean, unless you count a dusting of toxic materials, but were these folks savvy to my previous pissing off of their precious officialdom, and were now getting even by taking my car apart for spite?

My friend Marty Martinez, a retired Oakland Police Department officer who has bailed me out more than once when the caca hit the prop, assured me last month that I was no longer a fugitive from US justice, but being tossed in a holding tank had put me a lit-tle on edge.

Should they get around to my past alleged crimes, I’d explain that I did not steal Trouble, my parrot, they had deemed an illegal avian and condemned to death. Poor Trouble was awaiting execution in this very room when he miraculously escaped  his cage and flew to freedom in Mexico. Of course, this was shortly after a visit from me, so there could possibly be suspicion of cage tampering on my part, but prove it, copper. Maybe I needed to reword that defense.

Hopefully the men and women now crawling all over my VW simply didn’t like the looks of my cargo, and held no personal grudge against me. As far as I could remember, none of these officers were on duty the day of Trouble’s escape, but who knew for sure? I’ve really got to learn not to return to the scene of my alleged crimes.

I was released after almost an hour of fretting. Judging by the disappointed looks and grumpy behavior, the officials had come up empty. A half-eaten burrito lay on my car seat, and the dog-in-training,  a German shepherd the size of a small pony, strained his sniffer fondly in that direction, but the search had produced only a pile of moldy old blueprints, none of which was a schematic for building a nuclear bomb. I was free to go, but as a parting shot the frustrated fido peed on my tire.

Probably a good thing I’d be working from home in Arizona, because these customs guys could make a daily commute a nightmare if they wanted to. I vowed to get to know a few of them. Maybe make them cookies?

Back at the house after the border shakedown, I couldn’t rid myself of a niggling disquietude over events at the mine. As much as I liked the idea of working from home, I suspected my expulsion from the jobsite had something to do with being female. Having fought the good fight in a historically man’s profession for years, my hackles rise at any hint of sexism in the workplace. Being dispatched to safety in the States roused suspicion. I called the Trob.

“Hetta, where are you?”

“Back in Arizona, as if you didn’t know.” Silence.

“So, lemme ask you this,” I snapped, “if I were a man, would they have sent me away from the front lines?”

“Yes.”

That man really knows how to fizzle my fuse. “Oh, well, then,” I mumbled. Properly defused, I added, “I’ll need a bunch of office equipment.”

“Okay.”

“A copier, fax, scanner combo.”

“Okay.”

“I have to upgrade the house phone service to long distance.”

“Okay.”

“And a Xerox 2510 drawing copier.”

“Okay.”

This was too easy, so I added, “And a new BMW.”

“Nope.”

“Just making sure you’re listening.”

“Call Allison.”

“Oh, crap, I forgot. I will. Give her my phone numbers, will you?”

“Yes.”

“Gosh, it’s been grand having this little chat. Ta ta, Chatty Cathy.”

“Bye.”