The Book of Ruth: Doing Ruth Pt. 03

Chatter overwhelmed the lone guitarist playing asymmetrical (unlistenable) twelve-tone improvisations. Personal space disappeared; all were up close and personal, touching, brushing, pressing hands to arms, torsos and legs; cordial intimacies promising much but delivering little. The usual games.

Attendees dressed mostly in black - sleek suits for the men, Little (or littler) Black Dresses for the women, Goth garb for the artistes. Flamboyant accessories were permissible. Studs and tattoos were discreet.

Dave was surrounded by hard-eyed folks seeking political favors. His lovely Lupe separated from the crowd enveloping his tall black form and sidled up to me sensuously. She wrapped a slim arm around my waist; her breathy lips brushed my ear.

"Take me away from here, oh wonderful man. Take me away before I scream."

"I don't know if we can get past this mob, Lu. They're pretty dense, and desperate, and the booze ain't all gone yet. And who could hear you scream? You'd barely penetrate the sonic meltdown." I gestured futility.

Lupe sighed and squeezed me harder.

"I know Dave has to listen to their greedy crap, but *I* don't need to. Buy me a drink and tell me where you and Ruth are going next. C'mon, querido, sweetness, show me a mercy, ¿por favor? Pretty please?"

Holding hands, we slid to the impromptu bar for refills of good Monte Alban mezcal. I toasted her beauty; she toasted my virility; we giggled softly. We had played innocent games for years. The Morelands and van Ronks had even shared time at nude resorts, but monogamously. No fucking around.

"So what's on your agenda? Dave and I go back to California tomorrow. Are you guys coming to visit anytime soon? You have other excursions planned?"

"We both have business in Costa Rica next week. Ruth gets to look at some ex-pat's modernist collection before it hits the art market; and by a happy coincidence, I'll be there to broker a minerals deal."

"Coincidence, huh? Or maybe you just can't stay away from her hot body."

"Yeah, well, there's that, too. Since I can't have yours, she'll have to do," I leered. Lupe pinched my neck.

"It's good to have a fallback plan, Ran. But back up too far and you'll fall alright, straight off the cliff, ka-pow." She pinched me again. "Where is Ruth, anyway? I haven't seen her for an hour."

"Y'know Lu, that's a good question. Last I saw of her, she was talking to those dorks from the Getty about the Orozco project. I wonder what she's up to now?" And I wondered if her invisible bodyguard had kept up with her.

I kissed Lupe's forehead and went off in search of Ruth. Lupe had not gone five steps before being swooped-up by sycophants hoping to influence the senator's wife. Good luck, hombres.

The crowd thinned slightly over the next hour - the journos mostly left when the snacks and drinks ran low - but I caught no sight of Ruth. I ran into Lupe again, and Ginny, Luisa, and even Sansón, but nobody admitted seeing her. I started to worry. Ruth rarely strayed from me for long.

I squeezed through the narrow hallway to the baños and released a long stream of used mezcal. Ahhh...

I was walking towards the gallery area past a storeroom when I heard a moan behind the closed door. Curious, I peered into the darkened room, but saw nothing. I fumbled at the wall and hit a light switch. Illumination came.

Storeroom walls lined with crates and canvasses overlooked a stained single mattress on the floor scattered with rags. No, not rags - torn clothes.

Ruth lay on the mattress. Naked. Bruised. Bleeding. Moaning.

I stopped and stared for just an instant before switches flipped in my head. I toggled from buzzed-and-worried to stone-sober-and-incandescent in about a half second. That was roughly how long it took me to reach her side.

"Ruth..." I whispered. I felt her pulse: thin but steady. I peeled back an eyelid: pupils reactive. No concussion, probably, but she was not conscious.

I reluctantly left Ruth and ran to the gallery area. I blew a police whistle I kept in my pocket and roared, '¡Lagarto!' (lizard), normally a cry to drive away bad luck, but also the code-word for our bodyguards. Where the FUCK was Ruth's protector?!

My shadow-shark Ramón appeared at my elbow almost instantly with a 9mm Beretta double-gripped before him. ""¡Señor!" he rasped, his eyes scanning the room.

"In the storeroom," I pointed. "Señora Ruth. Protect her. NOW!"

Ramón snaked away. I ran into Sansón's office and snatched the telephone receiver from the anonymous long-legged mini-skirted bleach-blonde beauty gossiping thereon. She scowled at me. Tough shit, bimbo. I punched the number of Servicio Protección Alvaréz.

"You asshole!" I yelled when Alvaréz took the line. "This is van Ronk. We're at the Frías gallery. Ruth was beaten and raped. RAPED! Where the fuck is that Muñoz shithead who's supposed to watch her? Why the fuck do I pay you for protection? Shut up, cabrón, fucking dickweed! Get guards and medics here, NOW!"

The bimbo stared as I slammed the phone down and ran back to the storeroom. Ramón had covered Ruth's naked form with a thin canvas for some modesty. He crouched before her, his pistol pointed at the half-open door.

I knelt beside still-dazed Ruth and chanted quiet reassurances while I put my thoughts in order.

First: Care.
Next: Inquiry.
Then: Payback.

=====

Alvaréz and his crew appeared seven minutes later. Seven agonizing minutes of cold fears and violent fantasies. Yes indeed, there would be payback.

Alvaréz's goons formed a pistolero cordon around me and the medics tending Ruth. Nurses checked and robed her. Attendants carefully placed her on a stretcher and gently carried her outside to a waiting van, unmarked, but with an ambulance's interior. BMW sedans with darkened windows formed a box around the van for the short drive to the elite Aztlan clinic. I rode behind the armed guard in the van's shotgun seat.

Medics (and guards) rolled Ruth on a gurney through one door at the clinic. Alvaréz drew me through another door to a small, luxurious office. Our conversation was brief and bitter.

"Señor van Ronk, lo siento, I am very sorry-"

"Sorry, horseshit!" I yelled. "Your guys fucked up. Fucked up royally. I don't want to hear any excuses. I only want to hear that you know who did this. Then we'll talk about retribution, for the rapist, and for your fucking incompetent animal Muñoz. Understand?"

I controlled myself. Calm down, I thought. Be icy calm, coldly rational. I need revenge. Revenge should be served cold. Be poised now. Explode later.

I glared at ex-cop Alvaréz. "Answers. Tomorrow. Don't fuck up." I turned on my heel and left the office.

Dave and Lupe, and Ginny and Luisa, sat in the clinic's bright waiting room. Lupe jumped up and ran to me; the others quickly followed. All hugged me.

"Even for Mexico, this is way over the line," Dave growled. "Anyone know just what happened?"

"I don't know a fucking thing. Ruth wasn't conscious when we got here. I don't know if she's said anything to anyone since I found her."

A stiff young redhead wearing a sharply tailored navy skirt-suit and carrying a slim leather case strode into the waiting room. Her clothes and bearing screamed 'official'.

"Mister van Ronk? Senator Moreland? I'm Caitlyn Reilly. I'm with the Legal Attaché's office at the US Embassy."

That means FBI under diplomatic cover. We exchanged further handshakes and introductions. Ms Reilly cut us off before anyone could talk.

"Yes, senator, we got your call. We have a forensic team in the gallery's storeroom right now, a group of our people with a DF cop as liaison. I'll express my personal and our official sympathy, Mr van Ronk, but I'm sure you don't want to hear niceties. With your permission, we'll put a team around Mrs van Ronk too. Our agents have dealt with similar cases before. We'll want to talk to your protection service people - Hernán Alvaréz, right? Don't worry; we'll find who did this. Crimes against US citizens anywhere in the world are under our jurisdiction. We'll get the perpetrator."

Confident words. Fuck that. My past encounters with embassy and consulate drones did not inspire my confidence. And I certainly had not enjoyed my interviews with FBI and numerous other agencies after Katia's death when they tried to link me to the Russian mafiya.

I did not reply to the agent; I merely nodded curtly at her, tight-lipped. I am sure she read my expression but she did not comment.

Dave broke the cold silence.

"We expect your people to do outstanding work, Ms Reilly. Thank you for your assistance. When can we get word of Ruth's condition?"

The FBI woman waved at a small group walking past the waiting room.

"Screening team's here. Psychological, medical, and criminal investigators. They should have an initial evaluation before long."

"And when do I get to see my wife and talk with her?" I fumed. The answer came quickly.

A short woman in medical scrubs entered the waiting room and approached us.

"Señor van Ronk? I am Doctor Mendoza. I oversee our clinicians caring for Señora van Ronk. She is conscious now, and calling for you. Your embassy's people are examining and questioning her, and I know this is very important, but so is your touch and voice. She needs you - but do not talk for more than a minute. Reassure her of your love, hold her hand, look into her eyes; do not wear her out. She is exhausted and will likely sleep soon."

Dr Mendoza led me to a clinic room.

"I should have said that your embassy staff are trying to question your wife. She is not talking to them. She will only talk to you. Be gentle and brief, ¿sí? She is very delicate right now."

I saw Ruth in a hospital bed surrounded by scrubs-clad medics and suited investigators. Two seated suits spoke softly to her. One guy with 'cop' embossed in his grey persona stood and waved me to his institutional chair.

"Mr van Ronk? I'm Special Agent David Ross. Your wife has not been very cooperative. Maybe you can persuade her to tell us what happened, and with who. We need leads."

Ruth stretched her hand to me.

"Ran, Ran, you're here! Oh Ran..."

I pulled close to her and whispered.

"Oh baby... Whatever happened, it'll be alright. Oh Ruth... you've got to talk. Tell these guys what they need to know. But tell me first - what happened? Who did it?" Our heads nestled together.

"It's no good, Ran. Nobody can do anything. He can't be touched. Nothing is going to happen."

"Who was it, Ruth? Who did this? Can you give me a name?"

Ruth was almost inaudible. "Javiér. It was Javiér. It's no good." She turned her head away. Tears ran silently down her pale cheeks.

Javiér Leís Montoya. That shitweasel. That arrogant bureaucratic turd. I did not care what the Embassy or FBI or DF cops or anyone official was or was not going to do. I would get that fucker. I vowed he would not escape punishment.

Dr Mendoza touched my shoulder.

"You must leave now, Señor van Ronk. Your esposa needs care and rest. You also need to rest, to be strong for her. Por favor, please return in the morning. Go now."

I stood and walked with agent Ross to the clinic door.

"What did she say?"

I gave him the name.

"Oh shit. Excuse me, but that Leís character... he'll be a really tough nut to crack."

"What? Want to tell me about it?"

"Mr van Ronk, your wife is not the first. Leís has targeted American, Canadian, and European women before. He thinks he's untouchable, and maybe he is, because he's VERY connected, politically. His loving uncle is one of the dinosaurs, that's the old guard who run the ruling PRI party. I don't think the law can get close to him."

"Not the first? Who else has he raped?"

"I can't release any names. I can only say you'd recognize some of them. They and their families and friends may be prominent at home but... they have no power in Mexican politics. The PRI dinosaurs run Mexico and nobody gets in their way, not and survive. Have you heard of Iraq and Saddam Hussein's two sons, Uday and Qusay? They get away with kidnapping, rape, torture, murder, huge thefts. They do whatever they want and they're immune, invulnerable. Can't be touched. This Leís asshole isn't quite in their league but he's a contender and he's protected. That's the ugly truth."

Dave caught me and my grim expression when I returned to the waiting room. I think my face frightened him.

"I'm gone," I told him. "I'll be back in the morning, like the doctor said."

Lupe, Ginny, Luisa hugged me and expressed their hopes. I hugged back, and left. Yes, I should try to sleep, try to be strong tomorrow. But I knew the night and the upcoming day held no rest for me. I had plans to devise.

=====

One of the Alvaréz driver-bodyguards sat smoking on the hood of his BMW in front of the clinic entrance. His eyes tracked me as I approached.

"Take me to Alvaréz. Now."

He nodded and tossed his smoking butt; it sizzled in the gutter. I was in Alvaréz's office three minutes later.

"Who fucked up? Talk."

Alvaréz sighed. "Even though he is new to us, I assigned Muñoz to Señora van Ronk. That was a mistake. He does not have the proper attitude. Come, you will see."

He led me down a stairway into a moldy-smelling basement. With Mexico City's high water table - the place is build on lake mud - all basements here are moldy and usually overgrown with fungus. These concrete corridors were well-scrubbed but the odor remained.

The bare corridor was lined with closed steel doors. Alvaréz led me into a room holding only a raw table and chairs, a metal rack in the corner bearing a VCR and TV, and a large window into the adjacent room, similarly spartan but with no visible electronics. Muñoz sat smoking at that room's table.

Alvaréz gestured at the window. "One-way mirror." He switched on the TV and VCR. Muñoz appeared on the screen. An off-screen voice questioned him.

"And why did you allow Leís near Señora van Ronk?"

Husky, languid Muñoz flicked an ash from his cigarette and sneered.

"Hey, that Javiér, he's helped me a lot, y'know? And he's really good with those foreign putas. That's all the bitch is, a rich gringa puta, the kind of stuck-up foreign whore that puts out for anyone with a real man's dick. Yeah, she's just a whore. No hay pedo, no big thing, huh?" He dragged on his cigarette again.

"It is not your job to judge the clients, just to protect them. You did not protect this client."

Muñoz shrugged. "There's plenty other clients. Give me someone to protect who's not a whore. Or give me a whore and I'll fuck her myself."

Alvaréz switched off the VCR.

"Like I said, the wrong attitude. Further on the tape he talks about the details of how, when, and where he let Leís get to your esposa. A transcript is being typed up for you right now. But let's play out the final act here." Alvaréz picked up a slimline telephone beside the VCR.

"End it," he said. He looked at me. His expression was neutral. "I do not tolerate failure by my operatives."

Alvaréz punched buttons on the TV. Its screen showed Muñoz in real-time; its loudspeaker emitted the sound of the room's door opening to admit a tough-looking man whose dark suit bulged over his muscles.

Muñoz turned to face the newcomer.

"Hey there Peña, what's-"

Peña interrupted. "You've been bad, Muñoz. You being bad is bad for business. The boss doesn't like that. El Jefe has this for you."

Peña's hand held a gleaming icepick. Muñoz flinched. Peña grabbed his head and slammed the icepick flat-on into one ear. Muñoz spasmed and collapsed. Peña bent, shoved the icepick up the other man's nose, wriggled it, wiped it clean on the twitching corpse's clothes, straightened, and left the room without closing the door.

"As I said," Alvaréz repeated, "I do not tolerate failure."

My lingering rage mixed with nausea at the killing and... more emotions than I could label. Hot-and-cold flashes washed over me. I suppressed a dizzy surge and looked at the security man.

"What now? When can we get Leís? What happened to him," I waved at the now-motionless body, "happens to Leís. That is a necessity."

Two men in starched coveralls slipped Muñoz into a canvas sack and toted his remains away. A woman in peasant whites, carrying a bucket and mop, cleaned the surprisingly small blood pool from the floor.

Alvaréz shook his head 'no'.

"That is a problem, Señor van Ronk. One of the FBI people told you about Leís, yes? He is what you call 'connected'. My service did not have contracts to protect his earlier victims but I know how those ended. Leís is free to do whatever he wants. I cannot touch or even harass him. Nobody can. As long as he does not piss-off any of the PRI's dinosaurs, he is immune."

I left Alvaréz. His driver took me home where Dave and Lupe awaited me.

Dave asked, "Did you-?"

I waved him to silence. Lupe glared at me. I glared back at her.

"I know who. I know what to do. I just don't know how. I need to sleep now. Guys, you're the greatest, but I... I'll see you in the morning, okay?"

Lupe stopped glaring and hugged me.

"You know we love you like crazy, Ran. Anything you need, anything we can do, just ask."

I squeezed her and released her. "I know. But I do need sleep."

They left. I drank. I think I eventually slept. I was not rested when the 9:00 AM alarm tortured me into something like wakefulness. A pot of Chiapas coffee tortured me further but at least I was ambulatory.

I returned to the Aztlan clinic. Two of Alvaréz's gunsels perched outside Ruth's private room. She sat in a padded chair; the Embassy psychologist sat beside her, talking. Ruth's face brightened when she saw me.

"Oh baby..." she whispered, "oh Ran..." Her voice faltered. I leaned to hug her. The shrink excused herself and left.

Our conversation was private. We exchanged love and fears and hopes and sorrow and love. That is all you need to know.

And I left with even more determination.

=====

Remember Señor Delgado a.k.a. El Naco? The guy whose office staff gave him blowjobs during meetings? I had not forgotten him.

El Naco was not reassuring.

"That dog? He's scum but he's powerful scum. I can do nothing. You can do nothing. Nobody can. None of the brothers," (cartel thugs) "will go against him 'cause he's just too close, y'know? We don't fuck with PRI heavyweights. That's bad for business and for survival. Lo siento, I'm sorry, my man. Let it go. Get over it. That's my advice. Ahhh..."

He spurted into his fluffer's mouth. I stood to leave.

"Of course, you could get him yourself. Ha! You up for suicide? Chorro, good luck, hombre. Ahhh..."

El Naco was just one of Señor Guzman's unsavory clients. I met a few others. They all said the same thing: "Es no possible."

So Mexican cops could not get the scumbag Javiér Leís Montoya. The Embassy and FBI could not get him. Cartel heavies could not get him. Did that only leave me to get him? What the fuck were my options?

But first, what were my drives?

As I said before, what I felt for Ruth was not exactly love, not like "being in love" or anything romantic - not soulmates. So what was she to me? A great friend, a great partner, a fine lover, totally not boring, and I know she loved me insanely, completely - she had proved that over the years.

So, if it was not love that drove me, what was it?

Maybe it was macho Neanderthal genes. Whatever else, Ruth owned me, and I owned her. She was mine - my private property, dammit, just as I was her personal property. And I held this ancient, primal caveman notion that nobody messes with my property and gets away with it.