character. What if she failed to find him? What would she do then?
She pushed herself to enter one last place—a restaurant nestled in a picturesque courtyard. The manager contemplated her with unabashed suspicion after she showed him the pictures of Kika and Travis. When she ventured Max Ruiz’s name, the man excused himself for a few minutes. When he returned, his eyes were hooded and his face shut. He walked her to the door. “The streets aren’t safe for women these days. Especially American women,” he said. “You should go home.”
As if her own safety mattered when her child was missing.
Walking on, Ann noticed that there were more people on the streets than there had been in the morning. Groups of men, mostly, had gathered on the street corners. A surprising number of them wore black shirts and jackets stamped with images of Santa Muerte, Mexico’s patron saint of drug dealers, the dispossessed, and the dead. She had once read about the saint in a newspaper article. She recalled being struck by the notion that people could revere something so ghastly.
Moving past the growing crowds, Ann wondered if there would be more street fighting. It seemed that there was a lot of it these days in Tijuana. The images of Santa Muerte made her think of Max Ruiz again. The Ruiz family apparently had connections to the narcotics trade. She had read that kidnapping was part of the drug business, one of the many weapons rival cartels used to fight each other.
Ann had a vague feeling that she was becoming obsessed with Max Ruiz. She imagined him running a factory at the top of a shantytown whose residents were supplementing their meager incomes with drug money. The money earned in the narcotics trade, she surmised, not only provided a living to its participants, it supported those who were not active in the business by virtue of being circulated back into society. She imagined that the Mexican government was having such a hard time eradicating the cartels because a large part of its citizenry was benefiting from their lucrative, though illegal and deadly efforts.
Realizing that making a nuisance out of herself was the only way she could get anyone to pay any attention to her, Ann started shoving Travis and Kika’s pictures in front of pedestrians in this new area she foundherself in: the Zona Norte. She had deduced the area’s name from some signs. A policeman, one of many who seemed to have suddenly appeared in the streets, stopped and asked what she was doing.
The policeman’s presence kindled Ann’s cynical thoughts.
Everyone knows the Mexican police collude with the cartels. Drug dealers assassinated Max Ruiz’s uncle. Maybe this guy could take me to the Ruiz family
. “Please,” she said to the policeman. “I’m trying to find Max Ruiz. You must have heard of him. He’s a big businessman. His uncle was killed a while back, here in Tijuana.”
The policeman was an older man with a brown weathered face. He shook his head. “Don’t make me arrest you, Señora. Go back to America. There’s nothing for you here.”
Fearful the officer would make good on his threat to arrest her, Ann hurried away. Her mind kept pace with her legs; past the thickening crowds in the street, past the leering faces of idle men. Her husband, Señor Sanz, the bar man, the police officer, had all said it: go home, go home. Could they be right? Was she really on a wild goose chase? She shook her head to try to clear the fog.
Blocks from the growing crowds, Ann stopped in front of an empty lot to catch her breath and get her bearings. Even after the soda, her mouth felt like cotton, her head a heavy lead ball. The sick feeling in the pit of her stomach had become more acute. All of her efforts to find Kika Garcia and her son had come to nothing. She couldn’t bear the thought of returning to San Diego without any leads.
Ann noticed a boy of about eleven or twelve on the sidewalk down a ways kicking discarded boxes into the street.
She pushed herself to enter one last place—a restaurant nestled in a picturesque courtyard. The manager contemplated her with unabashed suspicion after she showed him the pictures of Kika and Travis. When she ventured Max Ruiz’s name, the man excused himself for a few minutes. When he returned, his eyes were hooded and his face shut. He walked her to the door. “The streets aren’t safe for women these days. Especially American women,” he said. “You should go home.”
As if her own safety mattered when her child was missing.
Walking on, Ann noticed that there were more people on the streets than there had been in the morning. Groups of men, mostly, had gathered on the street corners. A surprising number of them wore black shirts and jackets stamped with images of Santa Muerte, Mexico’s patron saint of drug dealers, the dispossessed, and the dead. She had once read about the saint in a newspaper article. She recalled being struck by the notion that people could revere something so ghastly.
Moving past the growing crowds, Ann wondered if there would be more street fighting. It seemed that there was a lot of it these days in Tijuana. The images of Santa Muerte made her think of Max Ruiz again. The Ruiz family apparently had connections to the narcotics trade. She had read that kidnapping was part of the drug business, one of the many weapons rival cartels used to fight each other.
Ann had a vague feeling that she was becoming obsessed with Max Ruiz. She imagined him running a factory at the top of a shantytown whose residents were supplementing their meager incomes with drug money. The money earned in the narcotics trade, she surmised, not only provided a living to its participants, it supported those who were not active in the business by virtue of being circulated back into society. She imagined that the Mexican government was having such a hard time eradicating the cartels because a large part of its citizenry was benefiting from their lucrative, though illegal and deadly efforts.
Realizing that making a nuisance out of herself was the only way she could get anyone to pay any attention to her, Ann started shoving Travis and Kika’s pictures in front of pedestrians in this new area she foundherself in: the Zona Norte. She had deduced the area’s name from some signs. A policeman, one of many who seemed to have suddenly appeared in the streets, stopped and asked what she was doing.
The policeman’s presence kindled Ann’s cynical thoughts.
Everyone knows the Mexican police collude with the cartels. Drug dealers assassinated Max Ruiz’s uncle. Maybe this guy could take me to the Ruiz family
. “Please,” she said to the policeman. “I’m trying to find Max Ruiz. You must have heard of him. He’s a big businessman. His uncle was killed a while back, here in Tijuana.”
The policeman was an older man with a brown weathered face. He shook his head. “Don’t make me arrest you, Señora. Go back to America. There’s nothing for you here.”
Fearful the officer would make good on his threat to arrest her, Ann hurried away. Her mind kept pace with her legs; past the thickening crowds in the street, past the leering faces of idle men. Her husband, Señor Sanz, the bar man, the police officer, had all said it: go home, go home. Could they be right? Was she really on a wild goose chase? She shook her head to try to clear the fog.
Blocks from the growing crowds, Ann stopped in front of an empty lot to catch her breath and get her bearings. Even after the soda, her mouth felt like cotton, her head a heavy lead ball. The sick feeling in the pit of her stomach had become more acute. All of her efforts to find Kika Garcia and her son had come to nothing. She couldn’t bear the thought of returning to San Diego without any leads.
Ann noticed a boy of about eleven or twelve on the sidewalk down a ways kicking discarded boxes into the street.
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