After an hour or so, she felt better. Then she bought new clothes in a store on Plaza Kennedy, and they went to get something to eat.
“I’ll drive you to Puerto Peñasco,” Antonio said.
Soraya popped the last bite of her chilaquiles into her mouth. “I think you have better things to do. You’re no longer making money off me.”
Antonio made a face. On the ride back into Nogales he had told her his real name was Antonio Jardines. He’d taken Contreras as his business name. “Now you offend me. Is this how you treat the man who saved your life?”
“I owe you a debt of thanks.” Soraya sat back, contemplating him. “What I can’t understand is why you’re taking such a personal interest in me.”
“How to explain?” Antonio sipped his café de olla. “My life is defined by the space between Nogales, Arizona, and here, in Nogales, Sonora. A fucking boring strip of desert that’s been known to drive men like me to drink. My only concern is the fucking migras and, believe me, that’s not much of anything.” He spread his hands. “There’s something else, too. Life here is full of neglect. In fact, you could say that life here is defined by neglect, the kind that rots the soul and infests all of Latin America. No one gives a shit-about anyone, or anything, except money.” He finished off his café de olla. “Then you come along.”
Soraya considered this. She took her time because she didn’t want to make a mistake, although she could hardly be certain of anything here. “I don’t want to drive into Puerto Peñasco,” she said finally. She had been thinking about this all through the meal. Antonio finding out that Arkadin had a cigarette sealed the deal. “I want to arrive there by boat.”
Antonio’s eyes glittered. Then his forefinger made a bobbing motion. “This is what I’m talking about. You don’t think like a woman, you think like a man. This is what I would do.”
“Can your compadre at the marina arrange it?”
He chuckled. “You see, you do need my help.”
Bourne struck a second blow. He had been shot with blanks by Ottavio Moreno and was covered in pig’s blood from a plastic bag he’d punctured. Coven, who didn’t react one way or another to the blows, drove the butt of the Glock down onto Bourne’s forehead. Bourne grabbed his wrist and twisted hard. Then he caught one of Coven’s fingers and broke it. The Glock went flying across the living room floor, fetching up beside the cold grate.
Bourne pushed Coven off and rose on one knee, but Coven kicked his leg out from under him and Bourne toppled backward. Coven was on him in an instant, driving his fist into Bourne’s face, landing blow after blow. Bourne lay still. Coven rose and aimed a kick at Bourne’s ribs. Without seeming to move at all, Bourne caught his foot before it could land and wrenched the ankle to the left.
Coven grunted as the anklebones snapped. He landed hard, immediately rolled over, and scrambled on elbows and knees toward where the Glock lay beside the grate.
Bourne took up a brass sculpture from a chair-side table and threw it. The sculpture slammed into the back of Coven’s head, driving his chin and nose into the floor. His jaws snapped shut and blood gushed from his nose. Undeterred, he grabbed the Glock and, in one fluid motion, swung it around and squeezed off a shot. The bullet struck the table beside Bourne’s head, toppling it and the lamp on it onto Bourne.
He tried to fire again, but Bourne leapt on him, wrestling him onto his back. He grabbed a fire poker and swung it down hard. Bourne rolled away and the poker bounced against the floor. Coven stabbed out with it, catching Bourne’s jacket, piercing it and pinning him to the floor. He rammed the end of the poker into the wood, then rose painfully over Bourne. Taking up the ash shovel, he brought the long brass handle across Bourne’s throat and, using all his weight, pressed down.
It was 123 miles from Nogales to Las Conchas, where an associate of Antonio’s compadre had driven the boat they would pick up. She had asked for a big boat, and an ostentatious one, something to catch Arkadin’s attention and keep it until he got a good look at her. In the Nogales Mall, before they had set out, she had bought the most provocative bikini she could find. When she’d modeled it for Antonio, his eyes almost popped out of his skull.
“¡Madre de Dios, qué linda muchacha!” he had cried.
Because of the aftereffect of the scorpion sting, she bought a diaphanous cover-up, also some beach towels, a pair of huge Dior sunglasses, a fashionable visor, and a fistful of sunscreen, which she lost no time in slathering on.
Antonio’s friend was named Ramos, and he had brought exactly the right kind of boat: big and flashy. Its diesels thrummed and gurgled as she and Antonio boarded and were shown around below by Ramos. He was a small, dark, rotund man, with curling black hair, tattoos on his massive arms, and a ready smile.
“I have guns-pistols and semi-automatics-if you need them,” he said helpfully. “No extra charge, except for spent rounds.”
Soraya thanked him, but said weapons wouldn’t be necessary.
Soon after returning above deck they got under way. Puerto Peñasco was just over five miles due north.
Over the rumble of the diesels, Ramos said, “We have a couple of hours before sunset, when Arkadin usually takes out the cigarette. I have fishing gear. I’ll take you to the fifty-one-mile reef, where there’s plenty of halibut, black sea bass, and red snapper. How about it?”
Soraya and Antonio fished off the reef for about an hour and a half before they packed it in and swept in toward the marina. Ramos pointed out Arkadin’s cigarette as he cut the speed rounding the headland and nosed in toward the docks. There was no sign of Arkadin, but Soraya could see an older Mexican preparing the boat to get under way. The Mexican was dark-skinned, with a face fissured by hard work, salt wind, and scorching sunlight.
“You’re in luck,” Ramos said. “He’s coming.”
Soraya looked in the direction Ramos indicated and saw a powerful-looking man striding down the dock. He wore a baseball cap, black-and-green surfer’s bathing trunks, a torn Dos Equis T-shirt, and a pair of rubber sandals. She slipped off her cover-up. Her dark, oiled skin gleamed sleekly.
The dock was long, jutting out into the marina, and she had time to study him. He had dark hair, cut very short, a rugged face that gave away nothing, very square shoulders, like a swimmer, but his arms and legs were more like a wrestler’s, long and muscular. He looked as if he had every reason to be confident, walking with a minimum amount of effort, almost gliding, as if his feet were made of ball bearings. There was a source of energy about him, like a ring of fire, that she could not comprehend, but it made her uneasy. She thought there was something familiar about him, which made her unease almost painful. And then, with an electric jolt that frightened her to her core, she knew what it was: He moved just like Jason.
“Here we go.” Ramos steered the boat in front of the cigarette and put it in idle so that they drifted in toward the slip.
Arkadin was saying something to the Mexican and laughing when Ramos’s boat caught the periphery of his vision. He looked up, squinting against the oblique sunlight, and at once saw Soraya. His nostrils flared as his gaze took in her aggressive, exotic face, her body, which in the tiny bikini was as good as being naked-even better, Soraya felt, because it left the tiniest bit to his imagination. She raised one arm, as if to keep her visor on her head, but really the gesture accentuated the sensuality of her body.
And then, just like that, he turned away and said something to the Mexican that made him chuckle. Soraya was disappointed. Her fingers gripped the railing as if she wanted to throttle it.