17
brick red
THE WHITE TOYOTA COROLLA TAXI SQUEEZED into a spot along the curb, directly in front of an elderly man with his wooden cart full of sea green Chinese fingernail clippers and long tubes of Colgate toothpaste. Alejo paid the taxi driver in a hurry, then nearly took out the corner of the elderly man’s decrepit cart as he yanked open the back door on Wara’s side and tried to help her out. She stared at his outstretched hand as if it were a poisonous millipede and he staggered back, nearly tripping on the cart’s metal wheel.
Wara frowned at him and eased herself out of the taxi, obviously in pain and very angry. They both headed for the steps of the Hostal Salta.
The place was just as Alejo remembered it, back when his dad’s friend from church used to run it. Three unlit stars sagged on a brick red wall splattered with graffiti. The hostel was six skinny floors, straight up, smack dab in the center of the market.
It was now sundown, and despite the chill, Alejo felt feverish.
If something happened to his family, he would never forgive himself.
Inside, Wara veered off towards the sofas in the waiting area, just like he’d instructed her in the taxi. They needed to not call attention to themselves, and walking into a hotel with a swollen, purple nose was a good way to make someone remember you.
Alejo signed the check-in papers and got the key, making animated conversation about the latest soccer game with the kid at the counter, all the while dying inside. “Got the keys, honey,” he called to Wara, throwing her one of his best grins. “Ready to go upstairs?”
The guy behind the counter must think he was the cheapest guy in the world, bringing his date to a dive like this. But cheap hostels didn’t ask for copies of your ID.
Alejo slung an arm around Wara’s shoulder and pulled her into his side as they made for the stairs, hoping it looked romantic instead of like he was trying to hide her. Wara panted right behind him up three flights of stairs. He had gotten them the room right next to Pablo Martir. Alias Pablo Rojas.
His family had made it here.
And he was going to have to face them.
Alejo stopped in front of room 303 and rapped on the door, blinking away a bead of sweat that ran through his lashes and into his eye. A hurried grinding noise sounded inside as the door quivered. “Si?”
Wara whispered loudly through the door, shoulders sagging with relief. “It’s me. We’re here.”
The door opened with a soft whoosh, revealing an entire clan of people, gathered behind Alejo’s father in a nervous cluster. Alejo blinked. And stared. Pablo Martir looked the same, except for the sprinkling of silver in his jet black hair. He was a little shorter than Alejo, but the square jaw that the pastor clenched as he stared at Alejo was the same one Alejo saw in the mirror every day.
“Hello,” he stammered. Then, “C’mon, we should get inside”. Head spinning, he guided Wara by the arm through the doorway as his parents and all the children scuttled out of his way. Alejo closed the door with one foot and slid the deadbolt into place.
His mother stood there, older but still beautiful.
Had he really not seen his mother in so many years?
Noly Martir was staring at him as if she were seeing a ghost.
“I-I’m glad that you’re here,” he said hoarsely. Next to him, Wara sunk onto one of the room’s many beds. The room was large and lined with about eight single beds, all with pink pinstriped sheets. Alejo paced to each of the windows, making sure they were secured and not easy to open.
“Anyone following you on your way here?” he asked them. “Any strange cars outside your house?”
Everyone shook their heads no, staring at him with wide hazel eyes that mirrored his own.
“Everyone left behind their cell phones?” Alejo was relieved that they all nodded. He had a couple of implanted tracking devices, in case anyone needed to track him when he was on assignment. They wouldn’t be a problem now, though, because the things had to be activated at close range by whoever was going to track him.
The teenager who must be his little brother Nathaniel watched him with something like awe, never leaving his mother’s side. When Alejo left Cochabamba to live with his uncle, Nathaniel had been two and toddling around the patio in soiled Pampers.
Nareth, Nadia, Nestor, and Naveli huddled on one of the beds, not recognizing him even a bit. They had all been little babies when he stopped by his parents’ house for the only time after running away. He only went home to get some of his clothes and CDs. Just a quick stop before he headed back to Santa Cruz and his uncle on the bus. No time to spend with a preachy old preacher and a mother who constantly prodded about how he was doing and a house-full of raucous little Martirs who kept multiplying like rabbits.
Naveli had been born several years after he had last seen his family. Now he picked her out right away, a little seven-year old hanging on one of Pastor Martir’s legs, whimpering.
Alejo sank down onto one of the unmade beds and planted his feet firmly on the floor, determined not to be sick. “There are definitely some things you need to know,” he swallowed hard, “now that I’ve gotten you in this mess, but first…” he stood up stiffly from the bed and fought the urge to pace.
“We need to get Wara to a doctor,” Pastor Martir interrupted with concern, staring at Wara and surely thinking about the fact that she had been in a near-fatal bus accident. Alejo held up one hand.
“I know that she’s in some pain, but she’ll be fine. I asked the guy downstairs to have a taxi sent over with some anti-inflammatories from the pharmacy. The nose is probably broken, but I won’t be able to tell for forty-eight hours if it needs to be set. The swelling has to go down first.”
Noly and Nazaret audibly gasped as they swung around toward Wara, noticing for the first time her puffy, bruised face. Crusty patches of blood had dried around her violet and yellow nose. Alejo felt low as a dog, knowing everyone was looking at Wara and assuming this had happened to her in the bus accident.
The accident that he had caused. Before punching a girl in the face and knocking her to the ground, then dragging her away with a knife to the throat.
“Oh dear Lord! The accident!” Noly gasped, catching her hand over her mouth. “I still can’t believe…we heard on the news that everyone was dead, even though SAR search and rescue has just begun to bring up the bodies. And then you chatted with Nazaret…” Noly’s pale face flashed back towards Alejo. “And she said you were with Alejandro. Wara…” Nazaret’s mother hesitated, then tentatively asked, “Noah was with you. Do you know…?”
“I don’t know…what happened to Noah,” Wara said, expression clearly saying she wished Alejo would slither away like the snake that he was. “I was thrown out of the bus. He was sitting right by me, but I couldn’t find him.” Her lip shook, and she visibly forced herself not to cry. “These guys,” she jerked her chin over Alejo’s way in the Bolivian style of pointing, “say that no one else but me survived. I passed out, and then was picked up, by the killers.”
Nazaret’s blond ringlets appeared next to her mother, eyes full of tears. Alejo remembered her, the sister closest to him in age. And suddenly he knew he’d missed her. “Wara…” she said, “they say on the news it will take at least another day to continue the search for survivors and…bring up the rest of the bodies.” Her voice choked and she grabbed onto her mother for support. “The bus fell more than a thousand feet down the ravine, and then it—it exploded. I just can’t believe you’re alive!” Nazaret was sobbing now, and Alejo felt as if he were in another world, a twilight zone that could not be reality. Never in his worst nightmares had he imagined being reunited with his family like this.
“Wara,” Noly Martir’s tear-stained voice continued, “A man from Noah’s mission told me today that Noah’s parents will be in La Paz by tomorrow night. Your parents were still waiting to see what happens. The SAR search and rescue haven’t…found any one who survived the crash. Everyone from the bus is presumed dead.”
Alejo felt his fists clench hard at his sides, the words hitting him like a load of bricks. Franco Salazar must be dead.
And Wara and Noah paid the price for the man’s sins.
Everyone was crying, well at least it seemed like it. His mother, his sister Nazaret, several of the little kids whose faces he didn’t even recognize. Alejo’s chest began to constrict, and he tried in vain to be rational. He had thought this out. Salazar needed to die, whatever the cost. Of course it was possible there could be other casualties.
I am a murderer.
“Alejo.” The broken voice of his father sliced through his heart. Alejo turned towards him as if in daze. Pablo Martir’s eyes were red-rimmed as Alejo managed to meet them, steeling himself to do the right thing and give whatever it took of himself to make this right, as much as possible.
I, Alejandro Benjamin Martir, am a murderer, and it’s time to pay.
“Son,” Pastor Martir began, “Wara said that she was found by the killers.” Alejo’s father placed one protective hand on his wife’s shoulder, moving in front of her and Nathaniel as he spoke. “And that she was with you.”
The unspoken question hung in the air, surrounded by children’s shuddering sobs. As if in slow motion, one by one, the other members of the Martir family moved up next to their father, warily, staring at him with those hazel eyes. The little one, Naveli, sniffed loudly and cried, “Noah!”
“I’ll tell you everything,” Alejo promised hoarsely. “But not in front of the children.