"At first, I was excited about coming here," he said. "I'd read up about American Nogales and discovered that a lot of really cool people were born here, like Charlie Mingus. His music sounds like shit to me, but you know, he's famous and all. And then there's Roger Smith. Imagine banging Ann-Margret, huh! But the coolest is Movita Castaneda. I bet you never heard of her."
When Soraya said she hadn't, he grinned. "She was in Flying Down to Rio and Mutiny on the Bounty, but I only saw her in Tower of Terror." He mopped up the last of his beans. "Anyway, she married Marlon Brando. Now, there was one cool actor, until he blew up like a blimp, anyway."
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and smacked his lips. "It didn't take long for the shine to wear off. I mean, just look around you. What a fucking dump!"
"You seem to have a good job," Soraya pointed out.
"Yeah, you try it. It sucks."
"It's steady work."
"A rat makes more money than I do." He gave a wry, lopsided smile. "But that doesn't mean I starve to death."
"Which brings us back to my original question. I want to get into Mexico."
"Why? The place is a fucking shithole."
Soraya smiled. "Who do I see?"
alvaro Obregon made a show of having to think about it, but Soraya suspected he already knew. He looked out over the square. The lights had come on, people were on their way to dinner or heading home after some last-minute shopping. The air smelled of refried beans and other sharp, acidic scents of norteno cooking. Finally, he said, "Well, there are a couple of local polleros across the border." These were people whom you paid to guide you across the border without having to bother with customs and Immigration. "But really, there's only one to use, and you're in luck, early this morning he brought a family of migrants across from Mexico. He's here now and I can make the introductions. He's known as Contreras, though I know for a fact that's not his real name. I've dealt with him personally."
On that score Soraya had no doubt. "I'd like you to set up the meet with your compadre Contreras."
"It'll cost you. A hundred American dollars."
"Highway robbery. Fifty."
"Seventy-five."
"Sixty. That's my last offer."
alvaro Obregon put his hand on the table palm-up, and Soraya laid a twenty and a ten onto it. The bills disappeared so fast they might never have existed.
"The rest when you deliver," she said.
"Wait here," alvaro Obregon said.
"Save time and call him, why don't you?"
alvaro Obregon shook his head. "No cell contact, ever. Rules of the game." He rose and, seemingly in no particular hurry, sauntered off at the leisurely pace endemic to Nogales.
For just over an hour Soraya sat alone, soaking up the spangle of the night and the lilt of songs of a local banda, playing a form of brass-heavy music from Sinaloa. A couple of men asked her to dance; politely but firmly she turned them down.
Then, just as the banda segued into its second cumbia, she saw alvaro Obregon emerge out of the shadows. He was accompanied by a man, presumably Contreras, the pollero, whom she judged to be in his early to midforties with a face like a map that had been folded and refolded too many times. Contreras was tall and rangy with slightly bowed legs, like a lifetime cowboy. And like a cowboy he wore a wide-brimmed hat, stovepipe jeans, and a western shirt with piping and pearl snaps.
The man and the boy sat down without a word. Up close Contreras had the sun-bleached eyes of a man used to sagebrush, dust, and the scorching desert. His skin resembled overtanned leather.
"Boy tells me you want to go south." Contreras spoke to her in English.
"That's right." Soraya had seen eyes like his before in professional gamblers. They seemed to bore into your skull.
"When?"
A man of few words, that was all right with her. "The sooner the better."
Contreras lifted his head to the moon, as if he were a coyote about to howl at it. "Just a sliver," he said. "Tonight'll be better than tomorrow, tomorrow'll be better than the next. After that..." He shrugged, as if to say the door would close.
"What's your fee?" she asked.
He gazed at her again in a neutral way. "Can't bargain with me like you did with the boy."