Don Winslow - The Power of the Dog

Either way, they keep working.

All that day and through the night.

Nora stops once during the night. Takes a break and gets a cup of tea and a slice of bread from a relief station set up in the park. The park is crowded with the newly homeless and with people afraid to stay in their houses and apartment buildings. So the park resembles a giant refugee center, which, Nora thinks, I guess it is.

What’s different about it is the quiet. Radios are turned on low, people whisper prayers, talk quietly to their children. There’s no arguing, no pushing or shoving for the small supply of food or water. People wait patiently in line, bring the spare meals to the old and the children, help one another carry water, set up makeshift tents and shelters, dig latrines. Those whose homes weren’t damaged bring blankets, pots and pans, food, clothing.

A woman hands Nora a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt.

“Take these.”

“I couldn’t.”

“It’s getting cold.”

Nora takes the clothing.

“Thank you. Gracias.”

Nora goes behind a tree to change. Clothes never felt so good. The flannel feels wonderful and warm on her skin. She has closets full of clothes at home, she thinks, most of which she’s worn once or twice. She’d give a lot right now for a pair of socks. She’s known that the elevation of the city is more than a mile high, but now she feels it as the night gets cold. She wonders about the people still trapped beneath the buildings, if they can stay warm.

She finishes her tea and bread, then ties her kerchief back on and walks back to the ruins of the hotel. Gets on her knees beside a middle-aged woman and starts to move more rubble.

Parada walks through hell.

Fires burn crazily, rampantly, from broken gas lines. Flames glow from inside the shells of ruined buildings, lighting the Stygian darkness outside. The acrid smoke stings his eyes. Dust fills his nose and mouth and makes him cough. He gags on the smell. The sickening stench of decomposing bodies, the stink of burned flesh. Underneath those sharp smells, the duller but still pungent scent of human feces, as the sewer systems have failed.

It gets worse as he moves along, encounters child after child, wandering, crying for their mothers and fathers. Some of them in just underwear or pajamas, others in full school uniforms. He gathers them up as he goes along. He has a little boy in one arm and he’s holding the hand of a little girl with the other, and she’s holding another child’s hand, who is holding another…

By the time he gets to La Alameda Park he has over twenty children with him. He wanders until he finds where Catholic Relief has set up a tent.

Parada finds a monsignor and asks, “Have you seen Antonucci?”

Meaning Cardinal Antonucci, the papal nuncio, the Vatican’s highest representative in Mexico.

“He’s saying Mass at the cathedral.”

“The city doesn’t need a Mass,” Parada says. “It needs power and water. Food, blood and plasma.”

“The spiritual needs of the community-”

“Si, si, si, si,” Parada says, walking away. He needs to think, to get his head together. There’s so much to be organized, so many people with so many needs. It’s overwhelming. He pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and starts to light one.

A voice-a woman’s voice-bites out of the darkness. “Put that out. Are you nuts?”

He snuffs the match out. Shines his flashlight and finds the woman’s face. An extraordinarily pretty face, even under all the dust and grime.

“Broken gas lines,” she says. “Do you want to blow us all up?”

“There are fires all over,” he says.

“Then I guess we don’t need another one, huh?”

“No, I suppose not,” Parada says. “You’re American.”

“Yeah.”

“You got here quickly.”

“I was here,” Nora says, “when it happened.”

“Ah.”

He looks her over. Feels the faint ghost of a long-forgotten stirring. The woman is small, but there’s something of the warrior about her. A real chip on her shoulder. She wants to fight, but she doesn’t know what or how.

Like me, he thinks.

He puts a hand out.

“Juan Parada.”

“Nora.”

Just Nora, Parada observes. No last name.

“Do you live in Mexico City, Nora?”

“No, I came down on business.”

“What kind of business are you in?” he asks.

She looks him square in the eye. “I’m a call girl.”

“I’m afraid I don’t-”

“A prostitute.”

“Ah.”

“What do you do?”

He smiles. “I’m a priest.”

“You’re not dressed like a priest.”

“You’re not dressed like a prostitute,” he says. “Actually, I’m even worse than a priest, I’m a bishop. An archbishop.”

“Is that better than a bishop?”

“If you’re judging solely by rank,” he says. “I was happier as a priest.”

“Then why don’t you go back to being a priest?”

He smiles again, and nods, and says, “I’m going to wager that you’re a very successful call girl.”

“I am,” Nora says. “I’ll bet you’re a very successful archbishop.”

“As a matter of fact, I’m thinking of quitting.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure I believe anymore.”

Nora shrugs and says, “Fake it.”

“Fake it?”

“It’s easy,” she says. “I do it all the time.”

“Oh. Ohhhh, I see.” Parada feels himself blushing. “But why should I fake anything?”

“Power,” Nora says. Seeing Parada’s puzzled look, she goes on. “An archbishop must be pretty powerful, right?”

“In some ways.”

Nora nods. “I sleep with a lot of powerful men. I know that when they want something done, it gets done.”

“So?”

“So,” she says, pointing her chin at the park around her, “there’s a lot that needs to get done.”

“Ah.”

From the mouths of babes, Parada thinks. Not to mention prostitutes.

“Well, it’s been nice talking to you,” he says. “We should stay in touch.”

“A whore and a bishop?” Nora says.

“Clearly, you’ve never read the Bible,” Parada says. “The New Testament? Mary Magdalene? Ring a bell?”

“No.”

“In any case, it would be all right for us to be friends,” he says, then quickly adds, “I don’t mean that kind of friends, of course. I took a vow… I simply mean… I would like it if we were friends.”

“I think I’d like that, too.”

He takes a card from his pocket. “When things calm down, would you call me?”

“Yeah, I will.”

“Good. Well, I’d better get going. Things to do.”

“Me, too.”

He walks back to the Catholic Relief tent.

“Start getting these kids’ names,” he orders a priest, “then compare them with the roll of dead, missing, and survivors. Someone somewhere must be keeping a list of parents looking for children. Cross-index their names against that.”

“Who are you?” the priest asks.

“I’m the Archbishop of Guadalajara,” he says. “Now, get moving. And put someone else to getting these children food and blankets.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“And I’ll need a car.”

“Your Grace?”

“A car,” Parada says. “I’ll need a car to take me to the nunciate.”

The papal nunciate, Antonucci’s residence, is in the south of the city, far from the most damaged areas. The electricity will be running, the lights on. Most importantly, the phones will be working.

“Many of the streets are blocked, Your Grace.”

“And many of them aren’t,” Parada says. “You’re still standing there. Why?”

Two hours later, Papal Nuncio Cardinal Girolamo Antonucci returns to his residence to find an upset staff and Archbishop Parada in his office, his feet up on the desk, sucking on a cigarette, snapping orders into the telephone.