"It began in the early days of television with an American show called 'The Millionaire,'" Donner said.
One of Consuela's sisters clapped her hands together. "Oh, yes! Our uncle's friend in America wrote to him about it before he died. A rich man gave away money to strangers."
"Is that what this is?" Consuela asked. "A gift from a millionaire?"
Donner shrugged. "I can say no more. Just bear in mind that there are many, many wealthy people in the Untied States."
"It is the land of opportunity," Miguel said stolidly. "In America, it is every man's right to be rich. Even if a man does not work, the government gives him a hundred times more money than we make here, just so he can be rich. It is called welfare."
"You'll do even better than the folks on welfare do if you come with me," Donner said.
The family went into a huddle again, switching back to the local dialect. Donner's stomach pitched and heaved. He really was going to have to get some fresh air soon. The bullcrap he'd been handing out was piling up so thick and fast, he could barely see his way through it. "The Millionaire," for God's sake, he thought. These dodos would believe anything.
A hovering jijene landed on his arm. Donner crushed the sand fly with a slap and then flicked the miniature corpse away with a snap of his fingers. What in hell was taking them so long? As if to make the waiting less tolerable still, the family dog sauntered in, hoisted a leg, and decorated the wall with an aromatic yellow stream. Donner suppressed an almost overpowering urge to reach out and snap its scrawny neck.
He shifted his attention back to the family. Consuela and her mother were talking in a barely audible whisper. The old woman's face remained expressionless. She looked more Indian than Mexican, with angular features and hooded eyes that never stopped looking at Donner. It gave him an uneasy feeling. The old lady almost looked as if she knew what he was up to. Maybe there was something in the blood, he thought, something passed on from that long-ago time when the first conquistador slipped the short end of the stick to one of her ancestors.
Out of long habit, Donner slid his hand beneath the table just to make sure that the Ruger Blackhawk was still nestled comfortably in his ankle holster. He liked to play things safe, to always have an edge, even though he rarely had to use it. Donner gave his Rolex a meaningful tap. "It's getting late," he said good-naturedly. "I don't want to rush you, but…" He grinned and spread his arms. "If you're not interested, I'll have to get some other family. The rules, you understand."
"We're coming with you," Consuela said firmly. Her mother continued to eye Donner suspiciously, but the old man squeezed Donner's shoulder and exposed two yellowing teeth in a smile. The two younger daughters started giggling. Miguel's eyes brightened at the prospect of unlimited Ring Dings. Even the dog looked pleased.
"I applaud your good sense," Donner said. "You're really going to love it in America. I'll be waiting outside." He rose unsteadily to his feet. "Don't take too long packing. And no saying good-bye to the neighbors," he warned them. "They would only be envious of your good fortune and might tell the wrong people." With that final cautionary note, he groped his way out of the shack, gulping down air to quell his heaving stomach.
He leaned against the van, smoking a cigarette while he kept a watchful eye on the Maderas' shack. Three in one, he congratulated himself. Consuela was perfect, just what his employer demanded. The face of a queen, and the body of a harlot. It was a damn shame she was Mexican.
For as long as he could remember, Donner had hated all things even remotely Mexican. Just looking at a bag of Doritos nauseated him. He cringed every time he drove by a Taco John's. Mexicans were, as far as he was concerned, the scum of the earth. This negative national bias was particularly unpleasant for Wally Donner because he was, in fact, half-Mexican himself. Even his real name was half-Mexican. José Donner. He hated it.
He had no real memory of his father, a gaunt, smiling blond man who disappeared one night a few months after Donner's birth. For years the man's silver-framed portrait sat on top of the TV. José's mother began each morning by dusting the portrait, after which she started on her ironing— shirt after shirt after shirt, all belonging to the wealthy men who lived up on the hill. While she ironed, Donner's mother spoke to her infant son in a constant flow of softly accented Spanish. She told him stories and legends, bits of folklore and gossip, anything to relieve the tedious repetition of her work.
Young Donner never played with the neighborhood kids. Few visitors came to the family's peeling stucco bungalow. It was rarer still that mother and son ventured outside. As a result, Donner was a full five years old before he found out that English wasn't just a language spoken on TV. He learned the lesson the hard way— on his very first day at school. He looked so American, with his blond hair, blue eyes, and rosy complexion, but all that came out of his mouth was "beaner" talk.
The white kids hated him. The Mexican kids hated him. The handful of blacks and Chinese just thought he was too funny for words. Young Donner spent the whole day fighting one kid after another. At the end of the day, he dragged himself home determined to learn American even if it meant that he never spoke to his mother again.
His teacher was the television set. In a way, it became his home, too. Every evening he escaped into the ordered, happy world of "The Donna Reed Show," "Father Knows Best," and a dozen other similar shows. People had whole families on TV. They lived on pretty, tree-lined streets and washed their hands before dinner. The mother, regardless of the show, always wore earrings and high heels. Best of all, nothing really bad ever happened on TV sitcoms. Sure, the characters had their problems, but no matter how dire they were, everything seemed to turn out all right before the last commercial.
Donner's favorite was "Leave It to Beaver." No one on earth was more wholesomely American than Wally Cleaver. Wally was a charmed soul. Donner could remember thinking that Wally Cleaver could have beaten an old lady over the head with an ice axe, and everything would still have been all right as long as he shuffled over to his father, hands in pockets and looking toothy and cute, and said, "Gee, Dad."
So Donner watched, and learned. The years passed quickly, undistinguished by their sameness. Young Donner continued to fight by day and watch television by night, tuning out his mother's incessant babbling as he concentrated on the tiny flickering screen. It didn't take him long to learn American. He knew even then that the language had always been inside him. It was just a matter of getting his tongue to shape the words. He tried desperately to forget Spanish at the same time, but he just couldn't force it out of his mind. He finally had to admit defeat. It was with him for life, like some hideous birthmark that only he could see in the mirror.
At fifteen he left home, slipping quietly away one Sunday morning while his mother was at church. It wasn't anything he'd planned. He just woke up that morning knowing that it was time to go. He packed a few things in his gym bag and headed up the street, not bothering to close the door behind him. He didn't bother with a note, either. His mother would know he was gone for good when she saw the shattered picture frame on the TV and the smiling blond man's face torn and distorted under the shards of broken glass. And if she was dumb enough to think that was an accident, she only had to check the old Whitman's candy box where she kept the household money. Once she looked inside it, she'd know the truth for sure.
That very first night on his own, Donner got a lift from a lady in a Cadillac Eldorado. He remembered her even now, that bright and brittle blond hair, the folds of tanned, wrinkled skin around her neck, the way her carmine-tipped fingers drummed a nervous tattoo on the steering wheel.
She asked him what his name was. His lips started to form the sound, "José," but what came out instead was "Wally."
"Wally. That's cute."
"Gee, Ma'am, thanks," Donner had said.
It was the beginning.
She told him she felt sorry for him, a big, healthy-looking boy like himself all alone in the world like that. Her sympathy took the form of an invitation. She thought it might be nice if Donner stayed with her for a few days.
The few days turned into a month, and Donner spent it learning some new and interesting things about his body, things he'd only just suspected before. In retrospect, he figured the old hag had gotten more than her money's worth. The three grand that Donner fled with worked out to a hundred a day. He knew he was worth that and a whole lot more besides.
He kept moving from town to town. He found there was always someone willing to help him out, to put a little folding green in his jeans for the right kind of services rendered. Still, there were those rare times when the pickings got lean. So, like any good businessman, Donner branched out into another line of work. Armed robbery was what they called it in most places.
He killed for the first time in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, when a liquor store clerk made the fatal mistake of going for the sawed-off under the counter. The memory was still vivid, like some cherished instant replay. The thunderous sound of the gun, the funny pattern the blood made as it spread across the clerk's faded plaid shirt, and the look of surprise on his face before he pitched over backward into a display of discount wines.
"We're ready," Consuela called out, interrupting Donner's thoughts. He forced a smile. "Then what are we waiting for?" He tossed away his cigarette and slid open the Econoline's passenger door. The interior looked comfortable and inviting, with shag carpet on the floor and plush-covered captain's chairs instead of the usual seats. All the side and rear windows had amber-tinted glass. If any of the Maderas thought that was a little odd, no one mentioned it.
"Let's go," Donner said, beckoning them. "It's a long way to the border."
With one fleeting backward glance at the shack, Consuela led her family across the litter-strewn yard. They carried their few possessions in cloth-wrapped bundles. Miguel had made an unsuccessful attempt to hide the family dog in the voluminous folds of his shirt, but the animal's slat-ribbed body kept squirming while its pink tongue lapped playfully at the Mexican's pudgy face. Donner decided to let it go. Why make a fuss now, when he could just as easily take care of it after they cleared the border? The Maderas filed into the van in respectful silence. When everyone was seated, Donner slid the door shut and turned the key in the lock.
He concentrated on his driving as he eased the van down the narrow, winding mountain road. There weren't many street lights or signs in this part of Chihuahua. Some of the out-of-the-way villages he'd been in didn't have so much as a single paved road. It was amazing how out of touch these people were, he thought, as if the twentieth century had passed them by without even bothering to wave. Still, it made his job easier. He'd tried the border towns when he'd first started. But they were too Americanized, too wary and hard-assed, too used to running their own cons with little time left over to listen to his. Donner quickly realized that if you wanted to peddle a dream, you had to go where people still believed in them.
When he finally nosed the van onto the highway, Donner pulled out a bottle of tequila from beneath the seat. Behind him the Maderas were singing like a bunch of kids on a camping trip. They sang songs about love, revolution, death, and the Blessed Virgin. The constant rise and fall of their voices was beginning to grate on his nerves.
"Here's something to shorten the road a bit," he said, passing a straw-wrapped bottle back to the old man. Donner grinned as he heard the cork pop. "Let's drink a toast," he suggested, "to a new and better life in America."
"I'm sorry," Consuela said apologetically, "but spirits disagree with me. And my sisters are not yet old enough for such things."
"But you must," Donner insisted. "Surely your stomach is not as delicate as that. After all, this is a toast, an occasion of great honor and seriousness. Of course, if it means nothing to you…" He fell silent, as if he were suddenly overwhelmed by disappointment.
"All right," the girl conceded. "Just this once, in honor of the occasion."
Donner watched them pass the bottle in the rear-view mirror. It worked every time. All you had to do was appeal to a Mexican's sense of pride, and you could get him to do anything. By the time the tequila had gone full circle, the old man's head had slumped to his chest. The rest of the Maderas passed out a few seconds later. Donner heard the bottle hit the carpeted floor with a thud. The skinny yellow dog rose off his haunches and lapped up the last few drops before they soaked into the rug. A moment later he toppled over, too, his big brown eyes glazed and shining.
"Potent stuff," Donner chuckled. "Didn't anyone ever teach you shitheads not to drink with strangers?" Laughing, he goosed the van up to sixty. He was on the main highway now, only about an hour and a quarter shy of the border. Considering how much chloral hydrate he'd put in the tequila, it looked like the Maderas were going to miss their arrival in America.
Donner leaned back in his seat. It felt good to have the wind on his face and nothing but the clear, empty road up ahead. He teased a Winston out of the pack, lit up, and took a long, satisfying drag. His life had really changed a lot in the past few months. He could still remember how surprised he'd been when the first letter came. The way the thick wad of bills had spilled out of the envelope to form a ragged green pile across his threadbare living room rug. It was more money than he'd ever seen at one time, and the letter promised a great deal more.
The letter itself was short, simple, and businesslike. In return for all this sudden wealth, all he had to do was supply his anonymous employer with women. 242 women, to be exact. Specifications were given as to age and general physical attributes, but the type required would be very hard to find. Basically the guy wanted pretty women. That wasn't too difficult to understand.
There was only one catch to the deal. Donner couldn't take women whose sudden disappearance would cause a big stir. In the letter his would-be employer suggested that he do most of his recruiting in Mexico, as they tended to be a bit more lax down there in the matter of missing persons. He informed Donner that arrangements had been made for him to cross and recross the border without the hassle of having his vehicle inspected. The final page of the letter gave detailed instructions on crossing points, times, even what lane to get in so that he could always be sure of connecting with a simpático border patrolman. Obviously, a great deal of money and time had already been spent on smoothing the way for this cross-border commute. Donner was even more impressed when he found the keys to a brand-new twelve-passenger van taped inside the envelope, along with a registration and a bill of sale, both in his name.
Donner had gone to the window and lifted the curtain slightly to peer outside. The van was parked right out front. He checked the license number against the registration. That was it, all right. What made these people so damned sure of themselves? Why had they picked him out of the thousands of people who lived in Santa Fe?
Another thought occurred to him. What was to prevent him from taking the money and the van and splitting for parts unknown'? The thought gave him a warm feeling. Why not'? Anyone trusting enough to give a stranger wheels deserved to be ripped off.
The whirlwind of ideas in his brain was interrupted by the shrill ringing of the telephone. Donner hesitated for a moment, annoyed, then lifted the receiver.
"You've read the letter?" the caller asked. The voice was dipped and cool, devoid of emotion.
"I read it," Donner said.