He also can’t have her live.

Rosaria says, “Oh, and if I find later you’ve been lying to me, I won’t be happy. I’ll find out in a day, or a week, or a month.”

She takes the cell phone up, and there’s a whir-whir-whir, and she says, “By then, I’ll know who you are, and who your friends are, dead back at the house, and I’ll also know who you work for. You think he’ll be impressed if these pictures arrive to him, showing you being held at gunpoint? By a girl?”

Antonio says, “They’re dead? All of them?”

Rosaria says, “Now that’s something to say. Define all.”

“What?”

“How many were in the house besides you?”

“Three.”

“Two are dead,” she says. “That means one is missing. Who’s missing?”

Antonio is thinking things through. All right, he will work this to his advantage. So what if he tells her what has happened? She will give him the facts that he can use later to talk to the jefe and explain what happened…all to Antonio’s benefit.

“Was there an old man in the house?”

“No.”

“Then someone came in and took him.”

The bitch asks, “Who is the old man?”

The chicken is gone, Antonio thinks. It was supposed to be easy. A quick exchange. The old man was going to be peacefully turned over to an American who was to say a phrase, and then the three of them could go home over the border.

“Somebody that my boss wanted us to protect.”

“Who is he?”

“We don’t know.”

“What? For real?”

Stupid puta, he thinks. “Our jefe…our boss. If he tells us to guard someone, we guard him. It could be a priest, a child, a farmworker, a billionaire. We don’t care. We don’t ask. It’s…a chicken, that’s all. To be kept well and alive until the exchange.”

“But he is somebody important.”

“Quite. We were told never to hurt him, or cause him concern, and to protect him.”

“But you were to give him to someone else? Is that true?”

“Yes. We were told it would be peaceful. No need to be alert. No need to be suspicious.”

“But who were you going to turn him over to?”

Antonio is thinking through even more. Yes, if he reveals the details to this woman, then he can still find a way to use it to his advantage.

The deal was supposed to be peaceful.

It didn’t happen that way.

That certainly wasn’t Antonio’s fault. In fact, the jefe will be pleased to know that he has survived, to tell what really happened. Or at least what happened that would put Antonio into the jefe’s favor.

“A man,” he says. “We were to turn him over to a man, after he told us a code word. Then…we would leave and go back over the border.”

Antonio moves his hands a few centimeters. Close. He could still slap away the woman’s weapon and take charge.

“Who is the man? Do you know who he is?”