T. Parker - The Jaguar

The song was a narcocorrido about a couple of young drug runners who die in a hail of bullets fired by American DEA agents in a dusty border town. It was upbeat but haunted by its inevitable catastrophe. She had heard that the narcos commissioned such songs to be written about themselves and their exploits, each cartel boss hoping for a bigger hit song than that of his rivals. Stories again, she thought: sing me a story. She’d also read that the Jaguars sorted through the thousands of letters that came to them or were thrown up onto the stage at each performance, every one a story, most of them true, and they chose the best ones and wrote their songs around them. Erin looked into the crowd and found Armenta and she saw his woebegone face looking up at Caesar as if he was hypnotized.

“He listens to music most hours of the day,” said Owens. “He sleeps to music. All that hair of his? He uses it to hide the ear buds. He’s always got an iPod hidden on him somewhere. He strolls around the Castle looking so intense and forbidding but he’s almost always listening to music. He wears elaborate disguises and attends concerts around the world.”

“He looks afraid right now.”

“His greatest fear is of being betrayed by his own men.”

“He scares me no matter how afraid he is. But he doesn’t scare me as much as his son does.”

“Stay far away from him.”

“He threatened to rape me.”

“Benjamin took his key. You’re safe in your room.”

“How can you be safe in a room where everyone knows where to find you? How hard is it for Saturnino to steal a key?”

“Benjamin rebuked him. Strongly. It’s not the key that stands between you and Saturnino. It’s his father.”

“The head of the Gulf Cartel.”

“Let’s go sit with him.”

“No. Stay here with me. I’m your responsibility, remember? And I can’t be that close to his son.”

By midnight the wind was slashing through the palm trees and the tent rippled violently to and fro against the tethers and the rain slanted through the open walls. The crowd roared just to be heard and for a moment the Jaguars huddled together back by the drum set, then they nodded and broke the huddle. Erin watched Caesar come back to center stage and peer into the lights until he found her.

— Erin, would you like to join us for some music? And please, we beg Benjamin to come up here and play the accordion for us! Come now, before the world blows away!

Another blast of wind and roar of voices and Erin found herself pushed forward by Owens and Armenta, then Caesar had stepped off the stage to offer her his hand and Armenta handed her up and followed.

Caesar unshackled himself from his splendid accordion and handed it to Armenta, then the Jaguars began their first huge hit, “Ballad of the Red Road.” This too was a drug story but it focused on a betrayal by alleged friends. Erin had first heard it twenty years ago and long ago committed it to her singer’s memory, a memory that was easily engaged and practically flawless. She laid back and sang harmony and tried to let the music get inside her. Caesar sang and Armenta played much better than Erin had expected, full bodied and melodic. Next they played Linda Ronstadt’s “Adios” sped up to the pace of a Mexican bolero, trading verses while Armenta chimed away happily with the accordion. To Erin’s ear it had a kind of daft charm but when it was over the crowd rose in ovation, though some of the first to rise with such appreciation were also the first to fall over drunk. Then the Jaguars burst into one of their new songs and Erin was utterly lost in it but she managed a harmony that fit the chorus nicely and the audience was beginning to rise for still another ovation when the wind finally ripped the tent off its stanchions and the pooled rainwater cascaded down through the lights, drenching everyone.

Erin crumpled under the weight of the soaked canvas. She rose to her knees and felt no pain so she swam forward through the clinging material until she reached an edge and lifted it, which allowed it to catch the next blast of wind and suddenly she was standing on the stage with the Jaguars, who were all emerging from the drenched sheet in their black-and-yellow blazers and black shirts with dazed smiles on their faces.

Then Caesar’s amplifier began throwing sparks. He dropped his mic to the watery floor and strode off regally as the amplifier exploded into a cloud of white smoke. Manny the guitar player shucked his instrument a second later and so did the bass player, then both of them ran off stage. Overhead the stage lights popped and the glass rained down and a moment later the generators in the basement offered a series of muffled explosions and suddenly the world was dark.

The crowd roared but Erin couldn’t tell if it was in disappointment or fear or even the spirit of adventure. She stepped off the stage and in the slight moonlight she could make out the politicians and their wives making for their vehicles and the policemen hustling off for their own and the media people seemingly uncertain what to do without cameras or microphones. Scores more were raiding the bar and the trash can full of cocaine and she saw the gaunt figure of Edgar Ciel gliding through the crowd, his four novitiates fanned out behind him. Armenta jumped onto the stage and started yelling. A group of armed guards detached and ran toward the Castle basement. Owens stood shivering with her arms around herself with the rain pelting down and she was looking up to the sky with a smile on her lovely face.

Erin stole down the walkway alongside the Castle, which in a moment brought her to the pigeon coop where the birds stood dry in the overhang and oddly unruffled by the storm. She walked by them and around a corner to the zoo and she could see that the grates were up and the big cats were visible in their shaded runs, the tigers pacing and the lions lying half awake with their tails twitching and the leopards sleeping big-bellied through all the excitement.

She cut across the clearing to the edge of the jungle and stood still. She saw the headlights of the vehicles crisscrossing in the darkness and she memorized the location, then ducked her way into the wet dark. The branches tugged at her hair and clothes, and the floor was covered with hard roots and some of them were exposed and grabbed at her boots. It was surprisingly cool. She pulled herself through in the direction of the headlights. The lower leaves and fronds dumped their collected rain onto her as she climbed along, lifting her feet high to keep the roots from dragging her down, and she imagined snakes waiting down there to strike and wondered if Jimmy Choo boots were snake-proof but bet not.

At the edge of the parking area she crouched behind a cluster of sea grape. She watched the cars jockey toward the one narrow exit road. Most of them had their windows down and the people sang and yelled and threw beer cans at each other while their stereos blasted away, mostly the Jaguars, but Erin could also hear Fabian Ortega and Los Tucanes de Tijuana and Ry Cooder and Luis Miguel and Julieta Venegas.

She stood on trembling legs, then stepped from the foliage into the parking area. Look calm, she thought. Look assured. Surely, someone will give the gringa singer a ride to town. She approached the SUV and held her hand against the door and saw that it was one of the mayors and his wife and she addressed them in her able Spanish.

— I need to go to town.

— You are a guest of Benjamin.

— I need medicine from the pharmacy in the morning.

— But he can have it brought to you.

— Please, can I get in?

— We cannot interfere. You must talk to the boss.

She grabbed the back-door handle but she heard the click of the locks going down and then the mayor’s window rose and closed and the vehicle jumped forward. The front tires dropped into a rain-filled pothole, which threw muddy water against her knees and she could feel the grit of the dirt as the water washed down her calves and into her boots.