When he shook his head, she said, “Lifesaver.”
He chuckled. “Salvavida. That’s my Spanish word for the day.”
“I thought you’d like that. She also called you capitán.”
His dimple appeared. “So you’ll take the case?” he said.
“Of course. Your wish is my command, Captain Lifesaver,” said Mona. She took another sip of wine. It left a tingle on her tongue. She was starting to relax.
Mischief flashed across Finn’s eyes. “Well. I just hope she realizes how lucky she is, getting the best legal counsel in California,” he said. Casually adding, “Best-looking, too.”
About then, Mona had an urge to walk over to her husband and straddle his lap. Instead, she stripped meat off a drumstick with her teeth and gave him a look that said, You’re next.
TWO
SHORTLY after nine the next morning, a Tuesday, Mona was at her desk at the Juntos office in Boyle Heights when Joaquin Vargas walked in.
Joaquin wore an open-collared dress shirt, dark pleated trousers, smart shoes. He’d recently started dyeing his hair, according to Natalie, the legal aide who also worked the reception desk part-time. “I think he does it himself,” she’d whispered.
“How was your trip?” said Joaquin.
“Long and hot,” she said. She pictured rattlesnakes but didn’t mention them.
Joaquin smiled. “And the girl Finn rescued?”
“They’ve got her on illegal reentry. Arraignment’s on Monday.”
Joaquin settled into the seat across from Mona’s desk. “Talk me through it,” he said.
Mona thought for a moment. “She grew up in a slum in the capital, but she’s been living in Tijuana for the past five years. She’s smart and tough. She’s also terrified. She got involved with a guy who turned out to be a psychopath. An enforcer with the Caballeros. She ran away, got stopped at San Ysidro and sent back. To punish her, he poured battery acid on her.”
Joaquin’s features clustered into a knot of revulsion.
“The boyfriend’s name is Salvador Soto,” continued Mona. “He’s pretty high up in the organization, according to Carmen. She says he can reach Oriel whenever he wants.”
Joaquin raised both eyebrows, impressed. Oriel, the head of the Caballeros de Cristos cartel, was the most wanted man on earth.
“You know Forbes put him on their rich list?” he said.
Mona said no, she didn’t.
“He’s worth, like, two billion,” said Joaquin.
“They give a figure? Forbes did an audit on Oriel?”
Joaquin scratched the back of his head. “Good point. Who the hell knows how they came up with the number.” He went quiet for a moment. Then he said, “From what you’ve told me, I don’t see much of a case.”
One great thing about working for a not-for-profit, the hierarchy was flat. Though Joaquin was nominally her boss, he never actually pulled rank or vetoed any of her initiatives. But he liked winning, and if a case appeared hopeless to him, he always argued against taking it. She’d often heard him say that he’d worked too long in the not-for-profit sector to charge at windmills, and she’d had many robust discussions with him about various cases she had taken on. Now she leaned back in her chair and waited for him to say his piece. When he leaned forward, she noticed his gray roots.
“Illegal reentry’s a felony, not a misdemeanor,” he began, “which means federal court, not immigration, which means you won’t be fighting just to keep her in the country; you’ll be fighting to keep her out of jail. Right there, you’ve tripled your workload. On top of all that, she has criminal associations. The court won’t like that.”
“She’s a torture victim. If she goes back, Soto will kill her.”
“You’ll have to prove that. You’ll have to prove they were in a relationship. How are you going to do that?”
Mona spun her computer monitor around.
“She gave me her Facebook password,” she said. She pointed at a photo on Carmen’s page. It showed Carmen in a bikini, standing on a beach next to an unsmiling, fully dressed man with a black mustache. Carmen had an arm around his shoulder. Her other hand was on her hip. She was arching her back, thrusting her breasts forward, posing. The photo had been taken before Carmen’s boyfriend had poured acid on her.
“You going to show this to the court?” said Joaquin. “She looks like a hooker.”
Not a word Mona used, but she let it go.
Vargas looked up. “Is she?”
Mona shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“It will to the judge. He’ll cry moral turpitude.” Joaquin looked dubiously at the photo again. “She’s smiling. She looks happy.”
Mona shook her head. “She’s not smiling because she’s happy. She’s smiling because there’s a camera. In the picture, she’s seventeen.”
He sighed. “I don’t know, Mona.”
“She says he’s killed dozens of people. He’s crazy, she says. He would lock her in the closet and leave her there for hours. And that was before the acid. He threatened to kill her.”
“Have you got any evidence? Anything at all?”
Mona picked up her phone and keyed a code into the screen.
“She gave me the PIN to her message service. Listen.”
She held up her phone toward Joaquin. A man’s voice played from the phone: “Voy a matarte, puta. Lentamente, para que sufras. La víbora te va a besar.”
He made a hissing sound.
“‘The snake’s going to kiss you’? What does that mean?” said Joaquin.
“He’s threatening to put her in a box filled with snakes. That’s what he’ll do to her if she goes back. She says he’s done it to others before.”
“Look, I feel for her. I really do,” said Joaquin. “But I just don’t think you have a case, Mona. That’s the cold hard truth.” He tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair. “Nothing I’m saying is making the slightest difference, is it?”
Mona smiled.
“No,” she said.
* * *
Mona didn’t see Joaquin again until the end of the day, when he said a quick goodbye and disappeared into the elevator with Natalie, leaving Mona alone in the office. She swiveled around to the window and watched the last of the light slip down the glass faces of the skyscrapers downtown. Her thoughts turned to her parents, to how, like Carmen, they’d also crossed the border, drawn to the work and the opportunity for a better life this nation had provided them. Mona was born in the United States and knew no other country. But she also honored her parents’ experience; what it had cost them to leave their homeland, and the efforts they had made once they had reached their adoptive one. She knew she’d gotten into college thanks to the solid foundation her parents had laid for her. They’d worked hard and taught her and her brother to do the same.
The sun dropped below the horizon, and the sky turned bruise purple. She thought about her older brother, Diego. She remembered how angry she’d been when he’d gotten out of the navy and promptly joined the border patrol’s air and marine unit at Long Beach, which her college-student self had insisted on calling la migra out of a sense of solidarity. Diego justified his action by saying there weren’t many jobs for ex-navy personnel that allowed him to stay close to home. “It’s either that or the coast guard,” he’d said. “And I’m done with the military.”