Cantina Man and Esteban looked at each other.
Holy fuck.
Esteban let go of the gun like it had just burned his hand. His ears were ringing from the deepboomof the shot.
Cantina Man walked over to him and kissed him on both cheeks.
“I just wanted to see my mother.” Esteban was shaking. He couldn’t believe he had just killed a man. “I just wanted to see my mother.”
Cantina Man picked up the gun and wiped it down. Then he put it back in Juan Pablo’s hand. “I will take you to your mother,” he said.
He made a couple of calls. A few minutes later, a dark car pulled up to the curb.
“Where is your mother, boy?” Cantina Man asked. He ushered Esteban into the back seat.
“Valdemoros. But they won’t let anyone in at this time.”
A police car screeched to a halt outside the cantina. Two uniformed officers got out.
Cantina Man rolled down his window. “Look after it.”
As the car pulled away, Esteban saw the police men line the back seat with garbage bags and throw three dead bodies in the car.
“Juan Pablo . . . Camila . . .” Esteban’s voice no longer sounded like his. He felt like his body and soul had been snatched. His friends were dead and he had just killed a man.
Cantina Man didn’t say anything. He tapped the glass partition between him and the driver with his cane. “Valdemoros.Vámonos!”
Valdemoros was even more imposing at night. Without the noise and activity of vendors and visitors, it was like a massive ghost ship stranded in the middle of nowhere. Spotlights were trained around the perimeter and someone from the tower beamed one straight at Cantina Man’s car.
The driver got out and summoned one of the guards. “Concha!”
She walked over to the car and greeted Cantina Man.
“Escort this young man inside. He’s here to see his mother,” he said.
“Si, Señor. Please come with me.” She banged her baton on the heavy, metal gate. It lifted with a loud thunderous rasp.
And just like that, Esteban was in. No waiting in line, no lunch money, no logging in.
“What’s your mother’s name?”
“Maria Luisa Alvarez.” Esteban’s heart was racing. He wished he had a comb. He wanted to look good for MaMaLu.
“Is my shirt clean?” he asked the guard.
Can you see any blood? Please don’t let there be any blood. I don’t want to shame my mother with the blood of the man I just killed.
“Maria Luisa Alvarez!” Concha shouted as they exited the short tunnel and stepped into an enormous outdoor compound. Various rooms surrounded the prison yard: dormitories, workshops and prison cells. Almost nobody was locked up in the cages. Women and little children, dressed in shabby street clothes, peeked out from the dormitories.
Concha conferred with a woman in dark military garb. She disappeared into an office and started rifling through the cabinets.
“You are looking for Maria Luisa Alvarez?” asked one of the prisoners.
“Si,” said Concha.
The prisoner took a long look at Esteban before calling them into her dorm.
The women had constructed their own little rooms in the giant space, using stick frames attached to blankets. Some had narrow bunk beds, some had cooking equipment and shelves for clothing, but they were all crammed on the rough cement floor like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Babies suckled on their mothers’ bosoms while others slept on makeshift mattresses. The air was stale with the odor of confinement and hair oil and piss and sweat.
