Paul Levine: The Road to Hell

The four stories in this anthology have something in common in addition to the word “hell” in their titles. The heroes travel dark and dangerous paths as they confront devilish and powerful villains. The journeys are by land, by sea, and in one case, perhaps only in the mind.

“ El Valiente en el Infierno” (The Brave One in Hell) is an original short story inspired by a tale I heard in Mexicali, Mexico while researching “Illegal,” my border-crossing thriller. Several people swear the harrowing story is true. After his mother dies, a 13-year-old Mexican boy crosses the border in search of his father, a migrant worker in the United States. The boy’s courage is tested when he runs into two gun-toting American vigilantes, and the confrontation will change all of them forever.

“ Development Hell” is a well-known term in Hollywood. The phrase symbolizes the purgatory where books and screenplays are stuck while being “developed,” rather than being made into films. The story first appeared in the anthology, “On a Raven’s Wing: New Tales in Honor of Edgar Allan Poe” (2009), edited by Stuart Kaminsky. “Development Hell” imagines a “pitch session” in which a bedraggled Poe squares off with a slick Hollywood producer who wants to make a cheesy slasher flick out of “The Pit and the Pendulum.” This one provides a dose of humor with your horror.

“ A Hell of a Crime” presents a dysfunctional family of lawyers. An insecure prosecutor exists in the shadow of his more prominent parents. His father was a revered District Attorney, his mother a powerful trial lawyer in her own right. So just why does the mother interfere when her son prepares to prosecute a murder trial? And how is the prosecutor’s enigmatic wife involved in the case? It’s a mystery with a punch to the gut at the end.

“ Solomon amp; Lord: To Hell and Back ” features two of my favorite characters. The ethically-challenged Steve Solomon and the very proper Victoria Lord are mismatched Miami law partners. Steve says he’s going fishing with Manuel Cruz, a sleazy con man. Victoria knows that Cruz embezzled a bundle from Steve’s favorite client and is an unlikely fishing buddy. So just what is Steve up to now? Something between mischief and murder, Victoria figures. To protect Steve from himself — and Cruz — she hops aboard the boat, and the three of them head for deep water and dark troubles. The “Solomon and Lord” novels have been nominated for the Edgar, Macavity and International Thriller Awards, as well as the James Thurber Humor Prize. This story is an inviting introduction to the novels.

“ The Road to Hell” also contains an excerpt from one of my novels featuring Jake Lassiter, the linebacker-turned-lawyer, a tough guy with a tender heart.

“ Mortal Sin” finds Lassiter with a dangerous conflict of interest. He’s sleeping with Nicky Florio’s wife…and defending the mob-connected millionaire in court. Florio has hatched a scheme deep in the Florida Everglades that oozes corruption, blood, and money. One false move, and Jake will be gator bait. “Recalling the work of Carl Hiaasen, this thriller races to a smashing climax.” — Library Journal. “Mortal Sin may not be better than a trip to Florida, but it’s the next best thing.” — Detroit Free Press

This warning sign is familiar to drivers in Southern California near the Mexican border.

I am not afraid.

That is what I tell myself.

Just after midnight, five hundred meters from the border fence, I keep still, squatting on the ground beneath a mesquite tree. Buried in the sand are motion sensors and infrared cameras.

My name is Victor Castillo. I am 13 years old.

Back home, in my village, a man warned me not to do this.

You are looking for el cielo. Heaven. But you will find only el infierno. Hell.

Still, I am not afraid. In a matter of minutes, I will be in the United States. By breakfast time, I will be with my Aunt Luisa in a little California town called Ocotillo. She is a nurse, but an even better cook. The best huevos rancheros in the world. Homemade tortillas, the eggs not too runny, the red sauce spiked with jalapenos. We will have a cry about my mother, then mi tia will put me on a bus to Minnesota, where my father works in the sugar beet fields.

But first, there is the fence. It slithers down a rocky slope and disappears between distant boulders, like an endless snake. We move from the cover of the trees to a ravine filled with desert marigolds. I hope the golden flowers are a good omen. We climb out of the ravine and up to the fence, the links glowing like silver bullets in the moonlight. The man who calls himself El Leon — “The Lion” — snips at the metal with wire cutters. He wears all black and his long hair is slick with brilliantine.

In the States, they would call El Leon a coyote. In Mexico, he is a pollero, a chicken wrangler. Which makes the rest of us — Mexicans, Hondurans and Guatemalans — the pollos. The chickens. Hopefully, not cooked chickens. If we are caught and turned back, I don’t know what I will do. All my mother’s savings are paying for my passage

The wire cutters fly from El Leon’s hands, and he curses in Spanish.

This is taking too long.

Above us, a three-quarter moon is the color of milk. Under our feet, the earth is hard as pavement. Somewhere, on the other side of the fence, La Migra, the Border Patrol, waits. I listen for the whoppeta of a helicopter or the growl of a truck.

El Leon, please hurry!

He keeps snipping and cursing. I sit on my haunches, inhaling the smell of coal tar from the creosote bushes. From a pocket in my backpack, I take out a photograph of my mother, her face pale in the moonlight.

El Leon works quickly now, the links cra-acking like bones breaking. Finally, he says, “You first, chico.”

I duck through the opening, then hold the wire for a Honduran girl. Maybe I should say a Honduran “woman,” because she is pregnant, her stomach a basketball under her turquoise blouse. But she is probably only sixteen or seventeen and is traveling alone, and she looks too young and too scared to take care of a child. On her feet, huarches, sandals made from old tire tread. I hope she can keep up with us. A selfish thought, I realize, and immediately feel ashamed. My mother taught me better.

The pregnant girl places two hands on her stomach, bends over, and squeezes through the fence. Following her are two campesinos from Oaxaca who smell like wet straw. The men wear felt Tejana hats, cowboy boots, and long-sleeve plaid work shirts. Then the rest, fourteen in all.

Ten minutes later, we are climbing a dusty path, moonbeams turning the arms of cholla cactus into the spiny wings of monsters.

Los Estados Unidos. I am here!

Do I feel different, changed in some way? I am not sure. The rocks on the ground and the stars in the sky all look the same as in Mexico. Maybe mi mami is looking down at me from those stars. Her weak lungs gave out five days ago, and I recited the oraciones por las almas over her grave.

“ Let me see her again in the joy of everlasting brightness.”

The stars have “everlasting brightness,” so yes, I pretend she watches me, even though I never believed half of what the priests said.

I travel alone to find my father. My two older brothers have been with papi for nearly a year, carrying their weeding hoes all the way from our village in Sonora to a town called Breckenridge in Minnesota. Beets, strawberries, cabbage. Melons, corn, peas. Whatever is in season and requires hands close to the ground. The work is hard, but the pay is good, at least by Mexican standards.