The Death Box (15 page)

All sound died. Seconds ticked past and Amili felt sweat break out on her forehead. Would she be killed for eavesdropping? Amili heard a door open.

“What did you say?” asked the unknown man.

“I was training to be a
contador
, an accountant. Let me do the job.”

“You are only a peasant girl,” the voice said quietly. “From a village made of mud.”

Amili drew every bit of courage to her voice. “How does that mean I cannot have the facility with the numbers?” she demanded. “How can you think so poorly?”

“
Caramba
,” Orzibel had whispered. “Fearless. Or maybe she has gone mad.”

Footsteps entered the room. “You are a beauty for sure,” the voice said. “And doggone, girl, can you ever handle English.”

“Because I am smart. Give me a test with numbers.”

Not a sound for a full minute. She felt a hand touch her face and resisted the impulse to flinch. “My goodness,” the voice had whispered. “Ain’t you just something in every direction.”

The footsteps retreated in a series of pauses, and Amili knew she was being studied with every pause. The door closed. Minutes later Orzibel returned and his rough behavior had turned to gruff disdain. Amili’s bindings were released, though the door remained locked. Two days later she was taken from the room. Expecting to be put into another parlor or forced to dance at a club, she found herself in a tiny apartment in Little Havana.

“What am I to do here?” she asked.

“I am no longer your keeper,” Orzibel had said, putting five hundred dollars on the kitchen table and departing.

A test
, Amili figured.
I’m being watched.
She wired three hundred dollars home and used another hundred for groceries. She went outside only during the day, staying in the neighborhood and talking to no one. After a week Amili identified two men who seemed always at the edge of her vision.

Amili wondered who her watchers reported to. The answer came in the third week of her freedom. She’d come from the
mercado
with arms full of tortillas and beans and plantains, dropping them to the floor when a voice said, “Welcome home, Amili Zelaya. Do the accommodations suit you?”

She had spun to a man sitting in her living room, legs crossed and a drink in his hand. He looked relaxed. There were boxes on the floor beside him. She recognized the voice.

“It is a dream to live here, señor.”

It was not a lie. There was running water, even
agua caliente
. An inside toilet. A bathing tub where water foamed in circles. Buttons that performed miracles: lights, cold air from the floor, fans spinning in the ceiling, flames from the stove … it was more than she had ever dreamed.

“I’m sorry to have startled you. Are you about to prepare dinner?”

“Yes, señor,” she said, swallowing hard. “I-I would be pleased if you would join me.”

“I thought we’d go out to dinner. To get acquainted, and perhaps to talk a bit of business. I know several very nice restaurants.”

“I am afraid I have not the clothes for such things, señor.”

“I’ve taken the liberty of selecting a few dresses. You’re a petite, right … about a size four?”

Amili still owned the dresses, four lovely gowns. And the jewelry. And – for almost a year – a job in the enterprise. Her job required little beyond basic bookkeeping. There were many different accounts, each with its own
income stream
, a phrase beloved by her benefactor. Money flowed out for supplies and suppliers, profits poured in. The second half of the equation was by far the larger.

Because of the nature of the enterprise, the funds needed close tracking. On the outflow side, one did not wish to pay a bribe twice, or get double-billed for necessities. On the inflow side, one had to be assured that money arrived in the correct amount and in a regular manner. If a payment was too low or late, Amili assessed a penalty charge. Or, in the case of Mr Chalk, the freak, itemize the various medical charges and add a handling fee plus the fees lost due to the downtime of the machinery.

It was time consuming, but quite simple.

Amili phoned for a taxi and watched through the window until it arrived. For eight months she had lived near the Burgos Medical Center in a three-floor Spanish-style apartment complex built in the forties and renovated in 2007, its walls solid and perfect for privacy.

Walking to her door she drifted her fingertips across a wave of red bougainvillea cascading over the wrought-iron fence lining the sidewalk and breathed deep the elegant scent. This was the only apartment building in a neighborhood of colorful houses shaded by palms, homes without grates on the doors and windows. There were no gang signs on walls. People raised children here, good children who went to college.

And using only her wiles and the gifts of nature, she, Amili Zelaya, had risen from pulling
pitos
in a filthy parlor to a fine apartment in a decent neighborhood.

Amili entered her apartment, the shades drawn against the sun and the air cool and smelling of the sandalwood incense she’d burned this morning. She turned on a small lamp in the corner, its blue shade cut with celestial shapes. When all other lights were off, the lamp painted the ceiling with stars.

She removed her clothes, a cobalt Kate Spade jacket and pencil skirt over a chiffon blouse, peach. Her hose were dark and ended in simple black flats. She put the blouse in the wash basket and carefully hung the jacket and skirt back in her closet.

“Why do you dress like a banker and not to highlight your many charms?” Orzibel had once asked, the usual leer on his face.

“One, because I am a business person,” she had replied coldly, thinking it obvious. “And two, because I do not wish my neighbors to think I am a whore.”

Amili changed into a silk nightdress, pink, the kind she had dreamed of as a child. She returned to the living room, getting on her knees to retrieve the small brown pouch tucked into the springs of the couch, unzipping it and removing a syringe, a platinum spoon and a glassine bag of white powder.

She reclined on the couch, tapping white powder into the spoon and adding a few drops of purified water. She held the mix above a butane lighter until the powder combined with the water. She loaded the syringe and put her foot on the coffee table, spreading her big toe from the adjoining digit. It was a poor injection site, but hidden from all eyes.

Amili slid the needle into her flesh and watched a tiny balloon of blood pump into the glass tube. The sight of her blood made her gasp. She pushed the plunger down. An electrical charge gathered at the base of her spine, then began to climb her vertebrae. When the charge reached the base of her skull it dissolved into a high and warm musical chord that kicked her head back and filled her brain like a symphony.

She reached behind her and turned off the lamp on the end table, leaving only the lamp in the corner. The room became roofed with stars. As the ceiling stretched into the night sky of her childhood, Amili stepped from within her body and flew through the
cielo
until sleep found her and tucked her safely beneath the dark horizon of the world.

Orzibel paced his office as he dialed his phone, the heels of his boots muted in the purple shag carpeting. One wall was fully mirrored. The street-side wall was painted black and the windows hung with plush scarlet drapes. The ceiling and two walls rippled with burgundy velvet, hundreds of square meters of fabric. Orzibel had taken the idea from Elvis’s game room in Graceland. Instead of Elvis’s Tiffany-style shade, Orzibel had opted for a cut-glass chandelier stolen from a silent-film-era theater in the process of restoration: six feet in diameter with three levels of dangling crystals. Luckily, the ceilings were tall, so he could almost pass beneath it without ducking.

He heard a pick-up on the other end and pressed the phone to his face.

“Miguel?”

“Ay … is that Orlando?” Miguel Tolandoro said, his voice at the edge of slurred. Mariachis played in the background and there was the sound of talk and laughter. “The connection is …”

“Get outside where you can talk. Now.”

“
Momentito, mi amigo
.”

A scraping of a chair and the scuffing of a phone in a palm. The sounds grew distant. “I am in the street, Orlando.”

“Do you never leave the
cantinas
, Miguel?”

A wet laugh. “I am a shark on the prowl, Orlando. There are young ladies here and if I am successful, they may soon be there, no?”

“I don’t want
cantina
whores, Miguel. I need—”

“There is a church festival here, Orlando. The nearby villages have emptied into the streets and I have approached many sweet and simple girls who yearn for a better life. You will soon meet several of them, I expect. Why do you sound so angry, my friend?”

Orzibel closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “My apologies, Miguel. The day has been difficult. Do you recall Leala Rosales?”

“How can one forget such a perfect treat? So pretty and yet so smart.”

“It’s the smart that troubles me.”

“Why, Orlando? What has the girl done?”

“She remains an independent spirit and has become a danger. I need you to make an example of her mother, and quickly. Then I will arrange a call where the mother can tell the girl what her foolish behavior has caused, and what will further happen if little daughter does not behave.”

“Fingers, Orlando?”

“An eye. Not pricked, removed.”

“
La mamacita
is in a tiny village thirty kilometers distant. I will pay a visit tomorrow.”

“
Gracias
, Miguel. It will save me much trouble.”

“
De nada
, Orlando. It is a simple task.”

22

It was time to explore the basement. Leala let what she felt was an hour elapse. Judging by the increased volume from above it was late. The paper plate beside her bed held the day’s ration of cold
frijoles refritos
and uncooked
tortillas de maiz
. Needing strength for what lay ahead, Leala forced the tasteless food down her throat.
The
discoteca
above me is very large
, she thought.
The basement will be very large as well.
One could not gauge its size because, behind the heavy door of fence that prohibited escaping upstairs, the basement had been chopped into many tiny rooms. There was the central hall that was two meters wide, but from it were many tight passages, like tiny dark alleys. Sometimes the alleys led to other alleys, sometimes they stopped at a wall.

It was a
laberinto
.

She headed deeper into the labyrinth, where there was no light. Light came from bulbs in the ceiling, you pulled a string and could see. Leala waved her hand in the dark, found the string and pulled. She saw a dead end filled with fast-food bags and beer cans. An expired rat decomposed on the floor.

Leala inspected every passage that fell from the main hall, finding walls made of bricks, and walls of
concreto
. The latter would be the true walls of the foundation, the others added to make the little prisons. A passage from the basement to the outside, she reasoned, would go through a concrete wall.

Leala returned to a section of the foundation wall. The alley between it and the brick wall was as black as the bottom of a well. She took a deep breath and entered the dark, hands feeling both walls as she stepped down a path barely wider than her shoulders.

She was stepping ahead when her left hand fell into air, the wall no longer there. Leala touched ahead and to the right: walls. The path turned left. Leala followed it another several steps and nearly screamed when something touched her head. It went away, returned. She tentatively reached into the darkness.

A string. She tugged it and a bulb high in the joists came on. Another door of the heavy steel mesh was ahead, but the lock was hanging loose. The door swung open to a lit room. Against one wall were boxes labeled
Frijoles Refritos
and holding large cans of the dismal refried beans she was fed twice a day. A bin beside the boxes was over-filled with empty cans, tortilla bags and water bottles, the refuse spilling across the floor. Leala imagined the mean-eyed men filling plates with beans and tortillas before taking them to the prisoners.

The room smelled of fresh cigarette smoke. Someone had been here recently.

On the other side of the room was an opening and Leala stared down a tunnel twenty meters in length. At the far end was a series of concrete steps rising four meters, with a small platform at the top. And on the platform …

Yet another door.

Leala’s feet moved lightly through the tunnel. The door atop the stairs would be at street level, she knew. She crept up the steps and tried the handle. The door opened to the huge, windowless room of a brick warehouse. To her left was a small room with an open door, a toilet and sink inside. Several large crates were on the far side of the room, the nearer floor was cement and open save for a big white van, the words on its side saying
A-1 Window Treatments
. Behind the van a tall door reached to the ceiling.

Leala remembered the vehicle from the day she stepped onto America, when the others rode in the van but Orzibel flattered her into the big black car. She staunched anger at herself and stepped into the room. If there was a truck door, there must be a people door. She stepped forward.

“Voy a abrir la puerta!”

A voice froze her in the center of the floor. There, to her right, a man sat inside a little room with big glass windows. He was on the phone and if he turned but slightly, would see her. Leala stepped back behind the door with her beating heart so high in her throat she feared choking. The man in the windowed room had almost turned her way, but when the big door opened he had looked toward the portal.

She watched a neon green pickup truck pull next to the van, its bed stacked with brown cartons. Two men exited and Leala recognized one of them as the gangster type who brought the plates of miserable food. The men began unloading the cartons onto a two-wheeled cart. The other returned to his little office.