2. / Bordello Business
The bedroom is done in early Brazilian bordello - leopard print sheets on the bed, baskets of orchids hanging everywhere. His own tastes are more ascetic, but it makes Dolores happy, so Lisiado indulges her. It's part of her flair for the dramatic; when they first met, she'd been playing at being a lounge singer. It wasn't until later - much later! - he'd learned she was the stepdaughter of his rival. He'd used her for his own whims, and she'd repaid him by saving his life...
Dolores wants to go with them to Culiacan, but Lisiado is firm. She must remain in Guadalajara; Ernesto expects his comforts, and won't be pleased if their housekeeper deserts him. "But I will take Ché," he says, as she sits brushing out her long rosewood hair before bed. His wife is still a lovely woman at forty; the act of achieving motherhood may have softened her a bit, but she still looks good in the lacy lingerie she knows he likes. "Don't worry," he soothes her. "Marisol and Philomena are going, too. He'll be fine. It's only for a few days." She is unconvinced, so he distracts her with a kiss. A series of kisses, until she is giggling and pliant.
"I'll miss you so much," sighs Dolores, snuggling against him. He puts his arms around her, stroking her flowing hair. As a younger man, he was cut from much the same ruthless pattern as Ernesto Gomez, neither considerate nor loving, and her continued devotion is a marvel to him. He can think of nothing he has done that should inspire such a thing. What can account for her adoration of him?
Inwardly, Lisiado sighs. He's a little surprised she's given in so easily - Dolores is a wildcat when it comes to her mate and cub. Smother love, he thinks of it sometimes, but he'll never say it to her. It has served him too well.
After so many years, he knows what gives Dolores pleasure. As he makes love to her for what may be the last time, it's difficult not to dwell on the past. "My sweet little songbird," he murmurs, nuzzling her neck.
Dolores is a wild woman tonight. It isn't until she begins groaning loudly - much more loudly than usual, that he realizes he isn't being as tender with her as is his habit. No, he's rough, still nursing seething resentment of Ernesto. Oh, how he'd like to grab that whelp by the throat and bitch-slap him until his sneering face is a swollen mess. Kick his ribs until they splinter, til he can't even breathe to beg for mercy. Cause him so much pain that he'll do more than respect Lisiado, he'll worship at his feet just to be put out of his misery...grovel...wretched...the thought of Ernesto, completely humiliated and moaning brings him sweet release.
His wife cradles his head against her bosom, stroking his salt-and-pepper curls and crooning to him. "You will miss me," she purrs, sounding pleased. "That was...mmm." She gives a satisfied little mew and yawns. Gradually, her tender hands grow still, the rise and fall of her chest growing slow and regular as she drifts into slumber. He will miss her - she brings a peace to his life that he's never known before.
Dolores saved his life, there's no doubt of that. She brought him, near death, to the Gomez compound. It was only then that he learned her true identity. Nestor took him in. Lisiado is alive only because his woman cared for him, and because her stepfather could afford the best doctors and was willing to pay for his resurrection. The months she spent tending him round the clock through one crisis after another...multiple gunshot wounds, both lungs collapsed, shock, pneumonia setting in - he went from being a strong, confident man in his mid-thirties, to a wheezing, limping old man in a single afternoon. When he was recovered enough to offer his chagrined fealty to the other man, Gomez accepted his pledge of service and said no more about their years of acrimony. His only condition was that Lisiado marry Dolores, "to make an honest woman of her". And in return, he has a place. He is family, not to be sold out to the other cartels, or the Federales, or worst of all, the Colombians, who think him dead. Or so it was until Nestor's absence.
More old memories come back in the night. Sleep has become difficult, lately, broken by exciting, disturbing thoughts. He is fourteen, his voice cracking like a young rooster first learning to crow. He lies in bed, thinking of Barbara who works in her father's pharmacia, when the door to the bedroom swings inward, and his mother stands there. She walks into the room without turning on the light. She beckons him to get up with an impatient gesture, and he slides out from under the sheet, moving quietly so as not to wake his younger brother. The eight-year old is curled up on his side of the bed, fast asleep, and the boy, now grown to a man called Lisiado, knows he will never see that expression of innocence again. When he takes in the two battered suitcases in the hallway, he stops and looks at her, but his mother's glare is fierce. A snore issues from the other bedroom: Father, for once at home and sleeping in his own bed. What will he do when he finds out his wife and oldest son are gone, leaving him with the baby of the family to raise? Lisiado doesn't know; he never had the opportunity to ask the question of either of them...
That night happened more than thirty years ago, and repeats several times a month, more often in the last few years, now that Lisiado has a son of his own. He thanks Dolores even more for the gift of Ché than for saving his life. Lisiado and Dolores have a roof over their heads...and Ché. During the year after their arrival, Dolores gave him the news. At the time, he didn't much care that his wife was pregnant - their marriage seemed as much corporate merger as romance - though he was properly deferential to her 'delicate condition'. Perhaps a baby to love would make her a little less zealous about her passion for him. Sight of his son, wailing and vigorous in the doctor's hands, changed his life between one heartbeat and the next. His family...his blood. That which he long dismissed as 'too complicated' has proven to be as necessary as breathing...and after what Lisiado has survived, he knows that that, too, is not something to be taken lightly.
Ché is the hope of his heart. There were complications during delivery; he is the only child they will ever have. Lisiado often feels unworthy of tending such a pure, trusting soul. Staring into the abyss of death during his lingering recovery left him with no illusions about what kind of man he has been. He has resolved to redeem himself and steer a course less fraught with hatred during his remaining years, to raise his son to be a better man than himself.
He will bring Ché with him to Culiacan because he will not give his son over to Dolores's keeping in case he should not return. Better that his blood die with him than to loose another fatherless boy upon the world, or another boy admiring the wrong father-figure. The thought wrenches his heart. If only there was another way, someone he could send him to, and keep him safe. But no, there's no one. Even his little brother is dead now.
Esteban doesn't seem to have figured out the danger he's in yet, although after the women left the office, he'd questioned his brother about why he couldn't have more of an entourage. Ernesto had plausible reasons, and Esteban seems to be placated. How could he grow up so innocent in such a family, the older man wonders.
Restless, Lisiado gets out of bed, careful not to awaken Dolores. Ché's room is just down the hall, and the boy looks content. What do ten-year old boys dream about? The middle-aged man no longer remembers, but the past has written itself on his child's face: Ché bears a painful resemblance to his lost uncle.
Shying away from the memory of their one bitter confrontation as adults, Lisiado's deepest regret is that he will never be able to reconcile with his brother. He and his family died at the hands of an evil-doer years ago, and he doubts they will be reunited in the hereafter. His own destination, he expects, will be much warmer.
Ché smiles at some dreaming, and his father watches him, wondering what the boy's future will be. If Nestor survives prison, and the treachery of his new heir-apparent, Lisiado is promised an education for the boy. The child delights in tinkering with model robots - brightly colored plastic contraptions with names like 'Transformer' or 'Bionicle'. He puts pieces of things into other things--he somehow fixed his mother's broken toaster, which no longer ejected toast, with parts from a video player that died after a power surge. Where this unlikely talent came from, his father has no idea, but it points the way to an honest living for him someday.