The Bourne Retribution (34 page)

“Down!” he ordered, and Maricruz slid low in her seat while Angél crouched on the floor. For a seven-year-old, she was remarkably adept at hiding herself, possibly the only positive consequence of her terrifying experience.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “The cops are only coming close enough to read our plate. They’ll soon see we’re not who they’re looking for.”

Moments later, proving his comment prophetic, the cruiser peeled off, making a right as they passed an intersection. Maricruz pulled herself up to a sitting position.

“If I had any doubts about what you’re proposing, they’re gone now,” she said in a low voice she hoped wouldn’t travel to the backseat. “I can’t keep putting her in danger.”

Bourne nodded.

“You’ll make the introductions, yes?” Maricruz seemed nervous, suddenly unsure of herself, in need of assistance, clearly an odd state for her to be in.

“There’s no need,” Bourne said. “My time is better served finding us a new vehicle. This white SUV is too conspicuous.”

“But I don’t know anything about her.”

“Then you’ll be on equal ground. Now, go on. She’s in apartment eleven. It’s on the second floor.”

Maricruz, in the Mexican-style clothes he had bought for her, opened the door and slid out. She was about to take Angél in her arms, but at the last minute thought better of it. Instead, she took her hand, so that the girl, in her pale yellow dress and patent-leather Mary Janes, walked beside her. A mother and daughter like any others one might see in Coyoacán, heading down the sidewalk. They entered number 23.

Bourne watched them until they were swallowed up by the building. Then he wiped down the interior of the SUV and exited. Unscrewing the license plates, he slid them through the bars of a nearby sewer grate and went in search of a vehicle that would better suit their needs.

35

A
nunciata opened the door and was stunned to see her father’s features repurposed in a beautiful female face.

“
Hola
,” the woman said with her father’s smile. She held out her hand. “My name is Maricruz.” When Anunciata, somewhat in a daze, took her hand, she said, “And you must be Lolita.”

“That’s right.” Anunciata produced a smile that flickered like a candle in the wind.

Maricruz moved the child in front of her, hands lightly on her shoulders the better to steer her. “And this is Angél. Her parents are dead—murdered—and her family—”

“I understand. Would you like to come in?”

The child pushed back against Maricruz’s legs as Maricruz attempted to move across the threshold.

Anunciata crouched down so that her eyes were on Angél’s level. “Well, you don’t have to.” She spoke directly to the child. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” Her smile brightened, steadied, as if a light switch had been thrown. “Tell me, are you good at keeping secrets?”

After a brief hesitation, Angél nodded.

“I thought so. You have a face that can hold secrets.” She cocked her head. “Did you know that?”

The girl, her growing interest beginning to overcome her shyness, shook her head.

“Well, you do. And not many people do. Because of that, I’d like to tell you a secret—if that’s okay with you.”

Angél responded slowly, still shy: She nodded.

“So this is a sad story, Angél, but you of all people will understand. My parents are also dead. They were also murdered. I have no family. So that makes us—I don’t know—birds of a feather. And if you like, we can flock together.”

Perhaps it was the rhyme, or it might have been the image of herself as a bird. In any event, the child began to laugh.

“I like birds, but I
really
like coyotes,” she said softly.

“Then coyotes we will be,” Anunciata said

As Angél clapped her hands, Maricruz pushed her gently forward. Anunciata rose and stepped back, allowing them to enter her apartment.

O
utside, Bourne was trolling for an old, beat-up vehicle to snatch when he became aware of two patrol cars rolling toward him from either side. He was one street over from Caballo Calco, moving in and out of the shadows thrown by the building facades. He needed to be mindful of being spotted, knowing that every cop car must have a photo of him taped to its dashboard.

As the cruisers moved closer, he turned into a building entrance, opened the door, and stepped into the darkened vestibule. A young boy was squatting by the bottom of the staircase, bouncing a filthy rubber ball off the lowest tread, catching it, and throwing it again in a repetitive motion that was almost mesmeric.

The boy, paying him no mind, continued with his solitary game. Bourne turned, peering out the thick cut-glass panels of the front door. He could see the nose of one of the cruisers, which had pulled over and was now stopped. Soon enough, several uniforms came into view. They seemed in no hurry to get anywhere. Rather, they lit up cigarettes and began to smoke. They seemed to be taking turns telling jokes. Every once in a while, they’d break out into laughter for no good reason Bourne could discern.

Then two plainclothes cops appeared in his limited field of view. They approached the uniforms who were smoking and the senior of the two spoke sharply to the beat cops. The uniforms stiffened, threw their cigarette butts into the gutter. The detectives gesticulated, the uniforms nodded and hustled across the street. They split up, out of Bourne’s sight.

The detectives consulted for a moment and then, clearly having decided on a course of action, also split up. One of them came directly toward the building Bourne was in. Bourne retreated up the stairs, stopping on the second-floor landing.

He heard the inner door open and sigh shut, then the sounds of the detective’s shoes ringing against the worn stone tiles, echoing up the stairwell.

Voices came to him and he leaned forward, listening as the detective spoke to the little boy.

“
Niño
, have you seen anyone come in you didn’t recognize?”

There was a long pause, then the boy answered: “I saw a man who doesn’t belong in the building.”

“When?”

“Just now.”

“Did you see where he went?”

“Up,” the boy said.

Without another word to his small witness, the detective began to climb the stairs. Bourne saw the flash of a handgun.

B
eing in the presence of her half sister unnerved Anunciata. Maricruz intimidated her, both by her elite pedigree and by her hauteur, which chilled Anunciata to the bone. The sole saving grace was the child. Angél’s presence was like a ray of bright light in the apartment. Everything she touched seemed to glow, as if the child were able to bring out the inner warmth of polished wood, spun silk, and thrown ceramic.

“You have a beautiful home,” Maricruz said as she strolled slowly around the living room.

“I don’t know about that,” Anunciata said. “It’s rather poor.”

“Poor?” Maricruz turned to her. “No, no. It feels comfortable, lived in. There are roots here.”

The comment struck Anunciata as curious, since she herself had been lamenting the lack of roots, a place she could come home to. She glanced at Angél. Maybe it wasn’t the things in the apartment that lacked the feeling she was looking for, because now that the child was here she could see that Maricruz was right. This
was
home.

From a shelf, she took down a wood carving of a coyote she had purchased in New Laredo, its head raised as if howling at the moon. Bringing it over to Angél, she crouched down, holding it out to her.

“You know, this coyote has been waiting a long time for a name,” she said. “Do you think you could give it one?”

The girl took the carving.

“Is the coyote a boy or a girl?” Anunciata asked.

With a serious expression, Angél turned the coyote around between her hands.

“A boy,” she said. “His name is Javvy.”

Maricruz looked at her for a moment, the ghost of a smile on her lips.

“Now that you’ve named him,” Anunciata said, “I think he wants to stay with you.”

The child hugged the coyote to her breast.

“Who is this beautiful woman?” Maricruz said.

Anunciata looked across the room to see her half sister holding a photo in a Oaxacan silver frame.

“Is she your mother?”

Anunciata stood up. All at once her heart was in her throat. It beat like a trip-hammer. “Yes, she is.”

“You’re a lucky woman.” Maricruz put the photo back on the shelf almost reverently. “To know your mother.” She seemed to say this last to herself, rather than to anyone else in the room. “You said she was murdered?”

“Poisoned.”

“Really? Who would want to do that to this beauty?”

“Shall I make tea?” Anunciata asked.

“Angél doesn’t like tea.” Maricruz turned, she had continued to stare at the woman in the photo. “You look just like her—your mother.”

“Thank you. She was a special woman—”

“But I suppose everyone tells you that.”

“—inside as well as out.”

Maricruz produced a smile that almost cracked her face. “Angél prefers coffee. And she likes it black, don’t you,
guapa
?”

The child, sitting on the sofa, legs straight out in front of her, hands clasped around Javvy the coyote, nodded. “With sugar.”

Maricruz laughed. “Yes.
Lots
of sugar.”

She followed Anunciata into the kitchen, watching her from the open doorway as she measured out the coffee and set a pot of water to boil.

“So many photos of your mother,” she said. “But not one of your father.”

Anunciata’s heart began to beat so hard it hurt. “My parents divorced when I was young. My father abandoned us.” Her hand was shaking so hard the cup rattled against its saucer before she had a chance to set them down.

“You don’t see him?”

“It was a long time ago.” Anunciata poured the coffee into the filter. “For all I know he’s dead.”

Maricruz continued her study of Anunciata’s back. “And you have no brothers—no sisters?”

Anunciata shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. She felt like she had let an enemy into her home, a venomous serpent who, loyal to their father, could destroy her if she found out who she really was. Why had Bourne done this to her? But she knew. It was the child. A child she longed for. He should have brought her himself. But again, she thought she understood why this was impossible. Maricruz—and Angél herself—might not have allowed it.

Finished making the coffee, she poured it into the cup. “Do you want to add the sugar?”

“Four teaspoons.” Maricruz came toward her. “You’d better get used to doing it.”

“Four isn’t healthy,” Anunciata said. “We’ll settle on two.”

“That’s the spirit!” Maricruz said softly.

Her voice was so close that Anunciata turned. Maricruz was a breath away, her eyes locked on Anunciata.

“Can you be trusted, I wonder?”

“There’s no real way for you to know, is there?”

“To tell the truth, I mean.”

At that moment, the distinctive crackle of gunfire sounded from outside.

B
ourne, holding his ground on the second-floor landing, heard the detective whispering into an earbud connected to what must be a wireless network that linked him to his partners. He retreated into the shadows of the door frame just to the left of the staircase.

He held his breath, watched as the detective, 9 mm drawn and ready to fire, eased up the last few stairs to the landing. Because it curved around to the right it was natural for him to look that way first. When he did, Bourne stepped out, slashed the edge of his hand down on the detective’s gun hand. When the 9 mm hit the tiles, it went off, the percussion unnaturally loud in the confined space. The bullet ricocheted and the detective flinched, his body all but doubled over.

Driving a knee into his chin, Bourne lifted him by his collar and struck him hard on the side of his neck. The detective’s eyes rolled up as he plunged into unconsciousness. Stripping off his ankle-length overcoat, Bourne put it on, dropped his own jacket on top of the body, which he dragged out of sight of anyone coming up or down the stairs. He relieved the detective of his badge, earbud, and ID case. Just then one of the apartment doors cracked open. He held up the badge and said, “Official business, señora.” He worked the electronic device into his ear. “Please step back into your apartment and keep your door locked until our inquiry is finished.” The door slammed shut, and he heard the locks being thrown.

At that moment the front door opened and the second detective stepped into the vestibule.

“Hernan?” he called. “Did I hear a shot fired?”

“Up here,” Bourne said into the wireless network. “I have subdued our target.”