T. Parker - The Jaguar

Ciel beckoned her to him with his pale hands. She went to him and he reached his arms around her. She rested her cheek on his chest just above the crucifix. He felt bony and hard. His heart was beating strong and slow and he smelled of soap and vanilla. “‘Whither has your beloved gone, O fairest among women? Wither has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you?’”

“I loved the Song of Solomon when I was a girl.”

“‘Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one; for my head is wet with dew, my locks with the drops of the night.’”

“Some of it’s kind of graphic, though.”

“Let me be what you need me to be.”

“I haven’t had a good cry in an awful long time,” she said.

“Cry to me, my child. Cry your tears upon me.”

Cry to me, my child, she thought. That’s what I want. She let go.

Seconds after Ciel left, Erin heard a tap on the door and Owens Finnegan’s voice. “I’m coming in.”

“You and everyone else.”

Owens stepped into the room and motioned for Erin to come with her. “I got you a hall pass. You’re free for a few minutes.”

“He’ll kill me,” said Erin.

“He knows I’m here and he thinks he knows what I’m doing. Pronto, girl. Gift horse and all that.”

But Erin didn’t move. It came as a dismal truth to realize that she actually felt safer inside the room than outside it.

“Don’t be afraid,” said Owens.

And Erin followed her out. She had never felt stranger or more displaced than she did walking through the Castle as a free woman, even momentarily. The monkeys watched her from the curtain rods and a large red macaw on the landing rail called Finnegan! Finnegan! as Owens strode boldly along in front of her, black hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing a simple black tank and jeans and sandals. She spoke briefly to the servants in perfect Spanish and they smiled at her and stared at Erin. Erin could see the scars that ringed the woman’s wrists beneath her colorful woven bracelets and for the first time she was not disturbed by them. She wondered if she should have brought the Cowboy Defender.

They took the stairs down to the ground level and walked away from the zoo and into the commons where workmen were erecting a big white tent for the party and the early delivery trucks and vans were arriving with food and drinks and barbecues fashioned from fifty-five-gallon drums. The stage was almost complete and the roadies were muscling the monitors into place and a team of boys lugged in armloads of folding chairs and argued about their placement. Men with weapons slung over their shoulders stood in a loose perimeter watching intently. Others with long-handled mirrors inspected the delivery vehicles for bombs. Erin and Owens stood in the shade and watched.

“Benjamin’s parties remind me of your wedding,” said Owens.

“I was thinking the same thing.”

“They’re all about the music. You’ll be surprised by the people who come tonight.”

Erin thought back to her wedding day. Hard to believe it was two years ago, but she could picture it in fine detail-a carnival of live music and dancing and feasting and absinthe and joyously dubious behavior; no children at this event. At Bradley’s insistence they’d even rented a bullring and bulls to ride, and they weren’t beaten-down animals at all but the real thing and Bradley had nearly killed himself trying to ride one and later someone let them out of their pen to roam the party at will and they’d ended up in the pond to beat the heat. All of her friends and family were there and Bradley was handsome as a man could be and she wore the special dress and looking at herself one last time in the mirror as her maids fussed over her she had conceded that she was, at this one moment, beautiful in the world. She thought of Bradley now and her heart went cold.

“I can see it. But it seems like forever ago.”

“Life is slow, then sudden, isn’t it?”

“It can turn on a dime.”

Erin looked out at the steep green hills that seemed to quarantine the Castle from the rest of the world. The thicket growing on the hillside vibrated in the growing breeze. “Are you here because you want to be or because you have to be?”

Owens looked at her. Her eyes changed with the light, and now in the storm-threatened evening they had the color and shine of a newly minted nickel. “I am free to go and do what I want. That’s the first agreement I make with anyone.” She held her wrists out for Erin to see. “This made me free. It was supposed to make me not at all, but it made me free instead.”

“Why did you do it?”

“I couldn’t find anything to live for.”

“Not even for the next day or the sunset or to hear a beautiful song one more time? Not one friend you wanted to see again?”

“No, Erin. Not even those. Mike found me. It took him some time, but he made me not want to do it again.”

“Then what do you live for now?”

Owens looked out at the compound. “This world is enough.”

“I never believed you were his daughter.”

“I’m not. It’s a thin story but most people don’t see through it because they don’t want to.”

“What’s your real name?”

“Owens Finnegan is nice, don’t you think?”

“Why not just tell the truth about yourself?”

“Because the truth is harder to understand than a father and a daughter.”

“Are you lovers?”

“Oh, no. But I do love him. You can sure be direct when you want to, girl.”

“Mom was that way. Partners, then?”

“Sometimes. We help each other.”

“Do what?”

“I can act. I have a gift for it, and ambitions. I have had roles. He supports me.”

“What’s your part of the partnership?”

“I help him in different ways. Some are very small, such as making a phone call to pass information. Some are much bigger, such as influencing someone to do a certain thing. I don’t always know why. I persuade men easily. Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing, in terms of consequence.”

Erin tried to make clear sense of this, but she couldn’t. “What are you to Armenta? How long have you been here?”

Owens looked at her, then away, and Erin thought she saw a slight blush come to her face. “I’ve been here often enough for the house birds to learn my name.”

“Why did you and Mike come after Bradley? You got to know him for your own reasons. I could tell. You befriended me in order to get close to him.”

Owens gave her a hard look. “Mike knew Suzanne. And he wants Bradley to do well in life. He’s very loyal to the people he befriends, especially to their spouses and children.”

A quick shot of alarm went through her and was gone. She wanted to tell the Finnegans to stay away and never come to another one of her shows. But she realized that they now held the only line of communication she had with Bradley and with the world. A small capsule. A piece of cloth. A bird.

She watched the men winching up the big canvas tent. A moment later a large colorful tour bus climbed toward them from the direction of the guard gate. It was painted a shiny yellow and an enormous black jaguar was depicted along its flank, stretching from the nose to the end of the bus. It was not snarling but it looked alert. There were white jungle flowers and toucans and leafing vines and below the cat were the words Los Jaguars del Veracruz.

“They’re really here,” said Erin.

“Erin, I want to ask you to perform tonight. It means more to Benjamin than you can know. And by now you understand that he becomes very angry when he doesn’t get what he wants.”

“Like that little disagreement with the reporter.”

“And others.”