Do Not Become Alarmed(80)

“That’s terrible also.”

They sat together in silence.

“Can I tell you something?” Gunther asked, and Oscar noticed that he was calling him vos now. “Two police officers went to the Herreras’ house. Before my daughter was raped. They could have stopped everything, right there. But Raúl Herrera paid them, and they went away. And we got a report that no one was at the house.”

“Oh, shit,” Oscar said.

“If I had a time machine, I know I should use it to kill Hitler, but I would go back one week from today and shoot those three men in the head.”

“Did the detective know?”

“Not then,” Gunther said. “She knows now. You see, no one protected my daughter. No one, in this whole fucking place. But I think these kids are very smart. And I think, with their lie, they’ve made it so you, Oscar, can protect them, like everyone failed to.”

“By saying I killed someone,” Oscar said.

Gunther was silent.

“But I didn’t!”

“Okay,” Gunther said, studying a spot on the far wall. “So it all comes out. The children say you killed a man. You say my daughter did. But you didn’t say anything to the police about this terrible murder, when you were questioned. So you aren’t the rescuer and protector anymore. You’re this strange kid who stole some children with his mom.”

Oscar flinched.

“And then,” Gunther went on, “you either killed an innocent man for no reason and tried to pin it on a girl, or you didn’t say anything when the girl killed him. That looks really fucking suspicious to me, my friend.”

“Are you threatening me?” Oscar asked.

“No, I’m explaining to you,” Gunther said. “I’m telling you the future, like a fortune teller, except I am telling the truth.”

“That guy was helping us!” Oscar said. “And Isabel cut his throat wide open, with the knife I used for cheese!”

“I believe you,” Gunther said. “But if you tell this story, it won’t end for my daughter, and it won’t end for you. It will be a hell on this earth. I’m trying to help you. I promise you, my boy, I am.”

Oscar chewed the inside of his cheek.

“I suppose your fingerprints are on the knife,” Gunther said.

“Yes, because I sliced some cheese.”

“I will get you the best lawyer,” Gunther said. “I believe our detective is sympathetic to my daughter. You will back up the children’s story, and the death will be a justifiable homicide. There will be no prosecution. I will make sure.”

“Can I get that in writing?”

“We will shake hands, like gentlemen.”

“But you’re not in charge!” Oscar said. “This is my life! I’ll never get a job!”

“You will,” Gunther said. “People will think you’re a hero, very brave. They will seek you out.”

Oscar shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“If not, come to Argentina, and I will hire you.”

Oscar studied Gunther’s long, tanned, rich man’s face. “What about Noemi?”

Gunther shook his head. “She isn’t a reliable witness. Out of her mind with fever.”

“I mean what will happen to her?”

“She’ll go back to her grandmother. Her parents are illegals in New York.”

“She was trying to get to them.”

“Do you know what happens to these children when they cross into Mexico?” Gunther asked.

Oscar thought of that tiny girl appearing out of the dark, so brave and unafraid when he’d been paralyzed with fear. He was ashamed of his fear, of his inability to act, of his many mistakes. “If you can get the girl to New York, I’ll do it.”

“That’s U.S. Immigration,” Gunther said. “Out of my control.”

“You’re rich, you can pull something. The Americans can.”

“I don’t know.”

“What if her grandmother tries to send her again? Her uncle is dead. She could die.”

“Do you know how many children are on those trains?” Gunther asked.

“She’s the one I know,” Oscar said. “And your daughter killed the guy who was taking care of her. So you owe him.”

Gunther sighed. “I don’t know what I can do.”

Oscar crossed his arms over his chest, trying to look brave. “Then I don’t know either.”

The nurse knocked and pushed open the door again.





59.



BENJAMIN WANTED OUT. Just out. He wanted to hand his family’s passports to immigration and go home.

They’d finally escaped the purgatory of the hospital, extracting a reluctant Penny from a new friendship with Noemi. She’d been visiting Noemi in her hospital room, learning songs in Spanish. Penny seemed to be picking up the girl’s accent, using words Benjamin had never heard before. They were amiguis, the two of them, and Penny had started saying simón for yes and calling him taita.

But then Kenji got them out, arranging flights to LA through Miami. Miami! Benjamin wondered aloud, in the car to the airport, why Florida was on their way home. What had happened to their simple boat ride south from LA?