The Paper Swan(35)

“Look at what Se?or Sedgewick gave me to look after you.” He had a stack of cash in his hands. “Come, my little jackpot. Come hug your tío.”

Esteban walked past him. He hated everything about Fernando’s place—the dankness, the cold cement floors, the memories of him and MaMaLu cowering in their room. Why had Warren sent him here?

“Where’s MaMaLu?” he asked Victor.

“Your mother should have accepted my proposal, but she didn’t think I was good enough for her. And now she’s exactly where she deserves to be, with no one to protect her.” His smile gave Esteban the chills.

“Tell me where she is!” Esteban shouted after him as he drove off.

“Shut your mouth.” Fernando put his hands to his ears, nursing his perpetual hangover. He folded up the wad of cash Victor had given him and started heading out. “Go to sleep. Your mother has been taken to Valdemoros and there’s nothing you or I can do about it.”

Valdemoros.

Esteban was horrified. Valdemoros was a women’s prison, a few miles north of Paza del Mar. Esteban had no idea why they’d taken her there or how long it would be before she got out. He opened the door to the spare bedroom and sank into bed. The mattress was thin and the sheets were foul. He doubted if Fernando had washed them since he and MaMaLu had left for Casa Paloma. MaMaLu’s new job had seemed like a blessing at the time, but now Esteban felt like it had been the start of a disaster neither of them had seen coming.





VALDEMOROS WAS AN ENDLESS CONCRETE wall, topped by rolls of razor wire and punctuated by sentry towers. In the center was a heavy metal gate that opened to let armored cars in and out of the facility. At the far end was an adjoining structure—a sad, diminutive visitors’ entrance. It looked like a misplaced wheelbarrow trailing a giant gray train.

Esteban felt small and helpless as he stood in the shadow of the ominous wall. Correctional officers with sniper rifles manned the towers. At the main gate, armed guards patrolled the windowless barricade. MaMaLu was somewhere behind this impenetrable front and Esteban had to find a way to get her.

Esteban stood in a long line at the visitors’ gate. The guard overlooked him several times when it was his turn.

“Excuse me,” said Esteban, after he’d let yet another man through, “I’m here to see my mother.”

But the guard pretended not to hear him. Esteban spent the whole day getting shuffled around, but he wouldn’t give up. When the guards changed, his hopes soared, but the next one ignored him too.

“Here.” A man who’d been waiting there almost as long as him gave him a paper cone filled with roasted peanuts. “They don’t let you in unless you pay them.”

Esteban looked at him blankly.

“Go home, boy.” The man dusted off his pants and got up. “You’re wasting your time.”

In the evening, when the lines dwindled, Esteban tried again. He was sure that if he waited long enough, one of the guards would let him in, but the next one was just as mean and chased him out with a baton.

Esteban returned the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that. Finally, one of the guards acknowledged him.

“Name of inmate?”

“Maria Luisa Alvarez.”

“Your name?”

“Esteban Samuel Alvarez.”

“Did you bring me lunch?” asked the man.

“Lunch?”

The guard crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes. “I’ve seen you around. Haven’t you learned yet? Who’s going to pay for my lunch?”

Esteban suddenly understood how it worked. “How much is . . . your lunch?”

“Three hundred and fifty pesos, amigo. You can see your mother every day for a month.”

“How much for just one day?”

“Same.”

“Please. I don’t have any money. Just let me see her. Tomorrow I’ll come back with my uncle. I’ll bring your lunch and—” said Esteban.

“No money, no madre.” The guard shooed him away.

The next person in line replaced Esteban. He watched as she handed the guard something discreetly. Apparently, everyone knew the drill. Esteban thought of the big bundle of cash that Victor had handed Fernando.

When he got home, he found Fernando passed out in a pool of his own drool.

“Tío Fernando.” He tried to rouse him, but he knew there was no point. Esteban patted him down. He found a few coins in his pocket, but Fernando had drunk his way through whatever money he’d had.