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Devouring Moon

By: RetMarut



Warm night in the Solipaz hills was less solid than Ransome Farrell expected. Stars spackled the velvet above far as eyes saw. From north relentless perimeter lights demarcated the maquiladoras and silhouetted the Mexican city's downtown.

Distant brightness aside, Farrell had been correct about area illumination. Those few working streetlamps half-heartedly chased darkness in crapshoot patterns. 

Random TV glow, weak houselights squeezed through hovel wall cracks or past puckered curtains, while opened and shut doors briefly spilled rectangular floods onto the dust. Almost 50, Farrell could still distinguish shapes from night.

Dark clothing helped obscure him. A black baseball cap, its insignia removed, covered his head. Lest its luminous face possibly reveal him, Farrell's timepiece bunched in his pants pocket. Besides a gun he also toted a walkie-talkie and flashlight. The weapon steeled the small of his back, while clips affixed communication against his belt. He carried a flashlight with truncheon heft and length. Farrell had silenced his walkie-talkie. Its lowest volume setting notwithstanding, any inadvertent squawk might surpass the clarity of the muezzin's call atop a minaret. No need to alert the devout. Or faithless.

If the killer or killers adhered to his, hers, its, or their pattern, tonight would be the strike date. First night of a new moon. A western progression from which a "U" developed then repeated. Celestial certainty determined death. All those numbing calculus courses and there he was playing shaman. 

Of all three variables in play he remained stationary. The second ascended in something of a straight line. The third, the wildcard, well, that could intersect anywhere between two fixed points. 

Farrell knelt against one of the barrio's few stockade-fence houses. An alley between plots offered a vantage perpendicular to the street. His arrival muted the cicadas' night songs. He didn't bother about roaming dogs sniffing him out. During his earlier daytime reconnoiter he saw no trace of strays. Obviously coyotes (the four-legged yipping kind, not the two-legged smugglers) had cleansed the immediate vicinity of canine competitors. Feral cats too. 

At the pocked street's lowest point the road's last working streetlamp. The killing zone sloped upward into a nebulous boundary some 200 yards distant. Although inhabited by the humilde, los narcos ruled past that part of the bluffs. Even the coyotes knew better than trespass. 

A young woman volunteered as the "attraction." Or rather, if matters went awry, sacrifice. 

Maria was her name. One more Mary in a remorseless country full of suspect virgins. When not working second shift, the 22-year-old serviced Grady the plant manager. 

Short, bird-thin, strong features intensified her broad brown face; necessary long jet-black hair included, Maria fit target profiles. For tonight, Farrell and a local tanner had sculpted body modifications which anticipating the assailant's focus should've prevented Maria's fatal victimization.

Merely as a courtesy, Farrell sounded out Grady about the prospective trap. His calculations satisfied the executive. Farrell's numbers added up and lineal thinking mollified Grady. Seeking to improve margins, the plant manager volunteered hiring several gunmen who'd salt the prospective kill zone.

Farrell refused his offer. The fewer people involved, the less likely their prey might get spooked. Also it would just be Farrell's luck that Grady's rented guns should cross the local narcos. Mexico already suffered enough free-fire zones. 

Moreover, Farrell already had assistance. Dependable assistance. As a lark he briefly considered dragooning Inez as his accomplice. She wouldn't be in much risk but the job would be crucial. Farrell wondered how she might've reacted had he invited her to be his "moll." 

Inez projected "adventuress." A modern-day version at least. All she lacked were pith helmet and jodhpurs. Designer pith helmet and jodhpurs. 

Convincing Maria to perform as bait was easy. Willingly as she agreed, payment could've derailed the scheme. Maria wanted more than money. She also demanded a green card. That was far beyond Grady's pay grade. However with company chairman Roderick Quinn off the administration's shit list, Maria's request became doable. One or two phone calls to New York and Farrell added the promise of that document to her pot of gold. Therefore not only did she have greater incentive to live, but collect as well. 

The unknown attacker tasked Farrell. Using Maria as chum ought have drawn a sooner than later response. During day both sides of the pitted road provided blinds from which to lunge. Now in the quiet darkness the whole street facilitated death. 

Such a lifeless night would've been better suited fucking Inez. The thought of her started a boner. 

After their first night together Inez let him sleep deep into day. Upon waking her hotel room's toasty atmosphere, the hot sheets especially, reminded Farrell of his tumbleweed Arizona boyhood. 

Despite the churning ceiling fan only desert summer air flamed through thrown open windows. Funny thing was until he matriculated in college in what he certainly considered a big city, Farrell never would've realized such conditions as discomforting. The campus' ubiquitous climate control not only cooled, it also spoiled him. 

Before he fully gathered his surroundings, Farrell mused about innocence just being perfumed ignorance. 

He'd been laying on his side. Farrell rolled onto his back and took stock. Facing him Inez sat at the writing desk. Legs crossed, she wore a shirt, unbuttoned, more as a sop to modesty, likely the one from yesterday, and nothing else. She hadn't brushed her bedhead into order yet. Lack of excessive vanity bolstered his esteem of her. A morning glory smile sold him completely.

Farrell asked the time. The late morning hour she gave was one more sign that when it didn't nip at his increasingly slowing heels, age occasionally taunted him from ahead. The prior day hadn't been so strenuous nor had he drank all that much. Had he? 

He stretched his arms. Warm between those walls limited his joints popping and cracking. Doing the same in his own cooled hotel room might've scared lumberjacks. 

"Did I talk in my sleep?" Farrell asked. 

"No," Inez said. "And you don't snore either."

"We should both be thankful for those little mercies." 

Farrell rolled upright and sat on the bed edge eying her. Spread on the desk behind Inez a clear pitcher containing orange juice, two glasses, an open laptop and her digital camera. Unbidden she filled a glass and passed him the beverage. While sips of the lukewarm juice further revived him, Inez unwound a curious string. 

"I took advantage of you," she said. 

"Did you?" he answered. "It was quite an enjoyable offense." 

Inez pondered momentarily. His true meaning became clear. 

"Ah, not like that," she said. "While you slept ... Has anyone ever told you how you look asleep?" 

"It's been a while since I've been close enough to a woman long enough to have her ask. Are we that close already? After one night!? My, you work fast."

Flustered, smarting from his tease, Inez clarified herself. "You may regard this as unthinkable, but while you slept I photographed you."

"Oh," Farrell said, "that's worse than unthinkable. It's unconscionable!"

Facetiousness escaped Inez. She became quite honest and forthcoming. Almost to the painful point where Farrell felt intercession necessary. Indeed Inez was a West Coast girl. She said his face had a lot of character.

"You mean it's lined," Farrell said. 

Still seeing him through the aperture, Inez continued. "Your body reminds me of driftwood. Long, hard, smoothed by waves."

Feeling far more impish than impressed, Farrell said, "So, I'm human flotsam? Is this bed the beach? Where's the seaweed?"

Inez smirked. "Hey, mister, you're really not helping the creativity process here. Come. Let me show you." 

She faced her laptop and booted up. Farrell's ass off the mattress, he clambered from its towel-empty side; the one their repeated screwing hadn't stained. He kneeled just behind her left shoulder. 

Inez' twist toward the desk let her unbuttoned shirt gape apart. Both benefited from her excellent posture. Plumb straight between the top of her birds nest into her coccyx. Though not gravity defying, Inez' large tits jutted pert and alert, their pink devilishly small nipples squinting outwards. Below her overhang a tight midriff. Tamed pubic curls sprouted between her lap. She'd hooked her feet around the chair's rear legs. 

Naked proximity and the damp clappers clinging between his own legs had Farrell tugging himself into comfort. No way she'd have known how good it felt to have free-dangling balls. Inez certainly pretended ignoring Farrell's steadily rearing meat. About the latter her simper and squirming bottom tipped him.

After Inez keyed in "my pictures" thumbnails filled the screen. He asked what she scrolled through. 

"Recent shots," Inez said. "On the set. Up in the hills." 

She randomly stopped and commented. Sometimes she even enlarged a thumbnail. Set pictures were candid, the accompanying commentary incisive. Pictures of young Mexican mothers, however, carried every indication of having been posed and lighted for highest emphatic effect. She emphasized contrast.

The movie shots typified insouciance. Her barrio frames were to elicit then magnify need. An affluent empathizer could expend his or her sympathies upon worthy downtrodden subjects at a safely removed distance. 

Inez' portraits couldn't have made any clearer that these women were impoverished and had few recourses for escape. Smudged continually needy infants and toddlers thickened their prison walls. Such were the images which compelled soft touches to dig deep and contribute out of First World guilt. 

Inez spared few techniques towards elevating her subjects' dignity. That was quite a feat in itself. Off the pedestal, in the everyday, Farrell would've regarded them casually. If at all. 

Mexico accelerated time's effects. Especially on women, after marriage, childbirth. How many young, sweet, sharp seductresses had he watched break, seemingly overnight? 

Without fail brown formerly slim, girlish bundles of sex became and remained hectoring two-legged baby-making barrels. Looking at them, their misbegotten, misbehaving squadrons of straggling children, Farrell troubled understanding how one-time lovely, light-stepping senoritas meekly abandoned allure and deserved attention for heavy-stepping stoutness. 

Prior to decline they were lusted after and justifiably hounded. Now tits flattening across torsos, pleasing curves vanished beneath cylindrical measurements, firm bodies forever cushiony, what stoked their husbands? Memories? Obligation? 

Farrell might've mentioned some or all his observations to Inez. However, after doing so she'd slander him as sexist. She'd find his objectification mortifying. Then worrisome because of her own body's future. 

His terrors remained unspoken. Harmony better than candor. Nor did he laugh at Inez' artistic myopia. Neither did he volunteer any hard-edged lessons about life below the border. Although having slept together, they were nowhere close enough to share honesty. Yet. Yet? Her scrolling reached him, her morning's work. 

Farrell wished he were vain. The missing attribute would then lend him a self-critical eye. Rather, he was too objective to appreciate himself. What aspect hadn't Inez captured of him? 

His image wallowed in rumpled linen. Such purity drew out the Argentine and Mexican sun upon his face, neck and arms. Her foreshortening lens transformed his lean muscle masses into monumental flesh. Morning sun's progress and his instinctive evasion of its rays gave Inez facial angles both peaceful and sinister. 

Unlike the female sex' mystery, the male member discouraged pleasant similes. Labia and flower petals were plainly exchangeable, if not outright complementary. Plenty of O'Keeffe's confirmed that.

The penis, though, fixed metaphorically, well, what paeans did it inspire? Beginning in Paradise the penis, its associations, despite protestations of compulsion, was disreputable. Inez had photographed his with incipient menace. 

Its calm repose fooled no one. Those misery scars streaking his hose indicated prior violence. Doubtlessly something it'd provoked. Probably something of the initially unspeakable excruciating variety. The kind which once they really thought about it might jar mindful viewers. 

Joking, Farrell asked, "These aren't going on the internet, are they?" 

Inez turned. Her voice carried severe prognosis tones.

"I'd hoped to speak to you about possible exhibition. In a gallery, not on some smutty web site. You see it's still in discussion, a preliminary phase actually. Um, a compilation of recent works ..." 

"Some of my ...?" he said. 

Hurriedly Inez said, "Not just yours. Work from the past year." 

The irony struck Farrell as complete. Months ago he shifted heaven and earth to maintain a low profile. Since then life rendered caution unnecessary. Her suggestion of public display -- in this case extreme public display! -- intrigued him. It also frightened him. The exposure, the judgments, could either be rewarding or offer ridicule. Confident as he was of himself, Farrell's was not the physique of some cut and buffed 20-something. Fit as he kept, his five decades lived-in body would be cropped, enlarged for minute evaluation. 

Indecisive, Farrell stalled. "Um, I notice you don't have any shots of my balls. Kind of incomplete without them, huh?" 

Inez shook her uncombed tumble of hair. "I hate playing down any part of the body but scrotums and what they hold rarely get good responses." 

He asked why not. 

"Damned if I know," Inez said. "Damned if anybody knows. Maybe they remind too many people of figs. Or maybe they're just ugly." 

"Figs ...?" Farrell said. 

"Figs," she repeated helpfully. "Or ugly." 

"I prefer 'ugly' to 'figs,'" Farrell said. "Even 'big figs.'"

Inez shrugged. "Who wouldn't?" 

Farrell chose risk. He allowed Inez use of his image. She squealed in delight and awkwardly hugged him. He nearly lost his balance. Finished smothering, Inez babbled something about "signing releases." He gently interrupted. 

"We don't need any. You have my okay. We shake on it and that's that." 

She looked at his hand as if it were an alien appendage. Her hand tentatively folded into Farrell's. 

Aware of her trepidation, feeling hesitancy through her grip, he added, "But, uh, if you need something ironclad legal, I'll sign your papers when time comes. There will be no misunderstanding between us. It's just other people we have to look out for."  

Relief eased across Inez' face. She peered into his crotch. Although flagging somewhat Farrell's cock retained sufficient anger. Inez unhitched her feet off the chair legs and swiveled 90°. He straightened before her.

Inez cupped his nuts in her unsure hands. In consoling tones she addressed Farrell's testicles.

"Sorry, boys, but you do nothing for me." That said, Inez bent forward slightly, gazed at him from waist level, slid palms along Farrell's meat and coaxed bone from flesh. Stiffened, veins extended, scars prominent on skin, his dick in her grasp resembled a primitive weapon. Before sucking him, she rolled his rod against her cheeks and jaw. 

She mouthed him a little at a time. Each ingress got inquisitive tongue swabs. Her surveys were thorough. Towards the end they became sloppy and loud. 

Inez perched close-legged allowing him to inch closer while she swallowed farther. Her own hands rested on the mass above his gluts. Sometimes her fingertips pinched his skin. 

Before the pull that mashed his turtle into her throat, Farrell gently steadied himself upon her shoulders. His palms quickly moistened the loose fabric covering them. 

Her draws on his cock were deliberate. So much so Farrell's hot and heavy balls dripped sweat down Inez' chin. The insides of his thighs began trembling during the thoughtful synchronization of her tongue, teeth and timing. He liked she brought him along agonizingly.

Mouth open, eyes closed, head tilting back, the sound of his own breathing reached Farrell's ears. Her efforts matted drool on his pubic carpet. Trying to remain flatfooted he nonetheless arched towards Inez. 

She'd revved him enough. Time to drive. Inez strengthened her pulls, picked up the pace. Her bobbing quickened and she suctioned more insistently. 

Farrell squeezed his eyes shut, clenched his teeth and concentrated. Inez' sucking cock was first-time splendid. He rewarded himself when one when long second mounted another. But so immersed in the present he lost count. Prolong it as he tried, Farrell succumbed to inevitability. His reserve burst. 

Farrell's seed leapt into Inez' gratifying mouth. He groaned thankfully. Through his flood she maintained her fervor. Only when his spume weakened and his rigidity faltered did Inez slow her task. By the time her palms quit resting on Farrell's lower back his cock had regained pliancy. His hamstrings barked too. 

He stumbled backwards and opened his eyes. Sweat rolled off his forehead and stung sight. His fingers wiped away the wages of their exertion. Farrell looked down at Inez. She cleansed her mouth with sips of orange juice. Rather than spit she swallowed.

Farrell couldn't remember the last woman who'd blown him minus latex who hadn't spit. It'd been so long he figured either some high school homecoming queen or service time cooz angling for another really big tip last gulped his goo. Inez must've seen amazement in his face because she transformed tidying up into coquetry. 

Lashes of her copper eyes finished batting, corner of lips daubed, their mixture of jizz, perspiration and saliva back-handed off her chin, Inez insisted he returned the favor: 

"Now kiss me!" 

Joking as she was, hers remained the kind of request which had he been drinking would've spat through his nostrils. Even then crouched in night, dividing the unknown, Farrell grinned and shook his head at her precocity. 

He liked Inez was serious but didn't take herself with utmost seriousness. If she kept that up, she might could keep him interested. Scuffing feet along the street returned him to the present. 

If Farrell strained, weak distant maquiladora lights vaguely outlined Maria's head and shoulders. It must've been her. According to the plan, Grady dispatched her 30 minutes ahead of second shift change. Maria's head start meant less likelihood of another homeward bound worker possibly falling victim.

Maria's guardian himself had snuck into position an hour before her departure.

During preparations Farrell asked whether other hourly workers commonly used flashlights. Where the question never would've occurred to Grady, Farrell's esteem grew in Maria's eyes. He'd proven himself more than just another gringo. 

No. The local poor didn't carry flashlights. While such devices would've brightened journeys home, the money for batteries could've been better spent. Therefore, familiarity and sharp vision sufficed. 

Though this wasn't Maria's barrio she resided in similar circumstances. To lessen the strangeness or maximize the uncertainty of her new surroundings and heightened conditions, Grady fed her a greenie. Should matters pan out, the amphetamine ought have overridden any fearful immobility. Farrell wanted her hair-triggered wired.

She clutched a whistle. The moment attack occurred reflexes should've prompted reaction, her alarm and his response. Unless of course this one night the killing method changed. 

Leavening the night's special situation, a boyhood friend of Farrell's collected Maria at the factory gate then deposited her below where Farrell waited. Company collectivos usually gathered and disbursed workers, but one dropping off a single passenger instead of disgorging many might've struck wrong notes all over the place.


Devouring Moon



Farrell had known Loy Voirin since infancy. How much hell had they raised? Both men shared a disruptive track until high school graduation. Seeing Voirin Farrell recognized what an alternate life would've bestowed. He wondered whether Voirin saw same. 

For the first time since returning above the equator Farrell entered the United States. He met Voirin in T-Town, a southern Arizona city midway between Solipaz and their hometown of Mallet. Two differing impetuses carried them from Mallet. Farrell's ultimately left him a rarely returning visitor, while Voirin's lured him back and seized him. 

Unlike Farrell's parents who stressed escaping Mallet and its mines, Voirin's people preferred itinerant existences. Whereas Farrell exhausted his rowdy phase and advanced, the Voirins used theirs as platforms into further shiftlessness. Eventually few Voirin males hadn't wound up in county lockup or state prison. Rarer was the Voirin woman who escaped slatternly designation. 

Loy Voirin barely sidestepped the complete expected because the judge presiding over his B&E case extended a choice: a three year commitment or five in Florence, the main Arizona penitentiary. Only basic math diverted and spared that skinny Voirin. 

Honorably discharged and possessing usable skills, he sunk back into Mallet. There, across the last three decades, Voirin married, raised children, toiled head down.

Until the first West Coast Baby Boomers sought relief from lives of their own indulgences, Mallet retained core small-town values. The kind pandering politicians love lionizing. Mallet was as hinterland America is often wont, stale, sour, and regularly unsavory. As Farrell well remembered. Voirin reflected all that and only smiled after effort. 

Unremitting Arizona sun hadn't just painted his face, but had thumbed in its harshest results. Where Farrell's face had character or worry lines, Voirin's dealt with seams which threatened becoming crevices. His blue eyes had dimmed so that new acquaintances could nearly mistake them for gray. 

Broke as Voirin's face was, his body showed worse. Resist as he tried, the Mallet resident stooped. He gestured carefully. Strides stuttered into shuffles. 

Voirin's early ravages horrified Farrell. Side by side it would've been hard believing these two were contemporaries. Peers for awhile. Farrell hid his surprise well. Or accustomed to astonishing, Voirin was practiced at ignoring it. 

After catching up -- Farrell's years purposely abridged -- they got down to the nitty-gritty. Voirin operated an auto salvage yard. Farrell required a trustworthy wheelman driving beaner-type wheels in Mexico. Risk was slight. However should matters fuck up, his accomplice also needed south of the border smarts as well as a vehicle whose abandonment wouldn't pain him. Several thousand cash dollars sweetened Farrell's offer. The money merely solidified a foregone conclusion. 

Voirin conjured the primer-swathed piece of shit that ferried Maria. Afterwards he was to park nearby, keeping ears pricked for Farrell's walkie-talkie summons. Despite Farrell's utmost confidence, he loaned Voirin his backup piece. A simple precaution because after all they rolled in Mexico. 

Maria scuffed onwards. Farrell followed her invisible progress until distance hushed her tracks. 

Had one minute or many passed when Maria's rescue whistle shrilled? Farrell launched himself into the street and ran towards clean noise. He clicked on his flashlight and squawk box then freed the gun against his lower spine. A knowing thumb released the weapon's safety. 

Quickly he trained his wavering beam on two people. Maria, who continued blowing lungs through the whistle, and her assailant. The second woman was short, her face wizened and sun-burnt, clothed in dirt-crusted rags. She also stood stock-still, befuddled and grasping a blood-smeared boning knife.

Farrell yelled Maria's name. Her whistle bounced on the ground. 

By the amount of blood drenching Maria's anterior, she should've been quite dead when Farrell arrived. Instead a thick leather-backed membrane pooled with sangre de la carnicería circled her tiny neck. Another larger piece of tough leather fashioned into a vest defended her torso. 

In Spanish he ordered the attacker to drop her knife. Likely confused, no, incredulous, the woman blinked between reprieved victim and armed rescuer. She also held onto the knife. Farrell didn't repeat himself. He aimed low and shot.

Piercing as the whistle had been, his gun was solid thunder. The woman buckled from the bullet and her knife clattered away. Farrell shone his light on dancing metal. He ordered Maria to stand over it. She dumbly complied. That done he refocused on their prisoner. Wound shock immobilized her. Feeling safe, Farrell tucked the flashlight under an arm, unhitched his walkie-talkie and summoned Voirin. 

No chatter, just "Roger!" from the driver. Re-hitching the device, Farrell swung light on Maria. Her shock had deepened. She shivered. He flashed back on the prostrate woman. The stain on her calf-length skirt hadn't spread much. Twiggy as she seemed Farrell couldn't imagine the lucky shot that singed muscle and missed bone. It was better this way. Fewer possible complications like her dying on the ride towards Solipaz' hospital. 

Curtailing other two-legged complications, Farrell shot twice into night sky. His first discharge surely roused the barrio's curious. His next two ought discourage them until morning. If not forever. 

Headlights kicking up dust approached. Voirin's pickup truck lamps disclosed an unusual tableau. Blood-splashed Maria numbly stood off in a corner, an ancient deflated woman sprawled at black looming Farrell's boots. What this weird desert scene lacked was Inez there to photograph then tweak it into art. Too bad. 

The pickup stopped rattling. Voirin cut the motor but kept the headlights on. 

He asked, "Did I hear some shooting?"

"Sure did," Farrell said. "Cans." 

The driver laughed and almost stepped out. Farrell froze him in the cab by asking whether his beaner wagon contained any paper bags. Voirin rummaged, found one. Farrell instructed he walk towards Maria. Using finger and thumb pinch the knife at her feet by its butt end then drop it in the bag. Afterwards escort shaken Maria into the truck cab. 

"But first toss me your rope out of the bed," Farrell said. 

Voirin's boots finally hit dirt. He underhanded a coil of rope and followed earlier commands. While Voirin retrieved weapon and woman, Farrell gave Maria's assailant one fast frisk. Satisfied her threadbare tunic and skirt held nothing more lethal than vermin, he twisted the woman on her stomach and commenced tying. He left generous slack between tightly bound wrists and ankles. He ignored her whimpering. She was a light bundle. One he dumped in the truck bed. Finished, Farrell sat inside with Maria and Voirin. 

On the quaking return to Solipaz Voirin offered Farrell a beer. He'd squirreled a six beneath the bench. Four cans of which remained. 

Farrell should've admonished his friend. The beer, no, drinking beer while waiting, could've jeopardized this evening. It was a bonehead play Voirin ought have outgrown. ... But Maria came out unscathed. Someone dangerous had been thwarted and captured. So why not a cerveza or two towards the hospital? Probably his night's sole reward. 

"Say, Bryce, you can pass me one too," Voirin said. "Be much obliged. As usual." 

They parked just beyond the hospital emergency room entrance. Noisy as their arrival was, it attracted no attention. While Voirin aided Maria, Farrell slung her attacker over a shoulder and lugged inside. 

They proceeded past a thin, mild, balding priest. One apparently lost in contemplating another's eternity. He smoked a cigarette oblivious to their short caravan. By his somberness, the raiment covering his clerical black, Farrell assumed he'd recently finished giving last rites. 

The night admitting nurse shook off tired disinterest when she saw Maria. Under fluorescence their bait resembled a cheesy horror movie's fatal victim. The nurse, whose name tag read "Vega," hardly noticed the skirt and huaraches dangling over Farrell's chest.

He rapidly explained zombie-like Maria only suffered shock; that the bundle he hefted required urgent care. Sister Vega ultimately grasped a human filled those rags. She directed Farrell to a gurney where he unloaded her face down. Voirin helped Maria settle onto an unoccupied cot. 

While Sister Vega paged a "Doctor Bernal," Farrell untied Maria's attacker then flipped her face up. Beneath stringy white hair dried tears had etched tracks on her dusty cheeks. Hateful black eyes stared murder at him. Farrell almost wished he'd aimed higher. Like right between those pinpricks. 

The doctor appeared. He absorbed the scene and demanded a fuller explanation. Farrell replied tersely. Compact and freshly shaven, Doctor Bernal wasted no time on Maria. He simply told Sister Vega to sedate her.

With the attacker Bernal skimped bedside manner. He attended her briskly. No one spoke. His treatment reminded Farrell of military sawbones weeding malingerers during sick calls. 

Farrell's shot perforated her thigh. In spite of the caliber, his bullet surprisingly didn't leave a catastrophic exit wound. Even if it had, Farrell doubted Bernal would've done any more than poke, swab and bandage. All without anesthesia. Done, he angrily ripped off his gloves. At the basin, washing hands, he spoke bitterly.

"If she is who you claim, you should've killed the witch. I performed some of the postmortems. Then I had the professional misfortune of consoling distraught relatives, friends. People who identified their sisters or daughters or close acquaintances. A mangled body of someone you know is an unpleasant thing to see, eh."

Bernal dried his hands with no less vigor than he'd scrubbed them. He continued. "I must report her to the police. After all your beast is a criminal. Maybe on the way to jail she'll try escaping. That'll settle everything once and for all. Allow the living and dead to go on in peace."

Leaving them, Bernal ignored his patient. Farrell followed him outside though not for more conversation. The night's fortune held. The priest still thoughtfully drew on his cigarettes. Emphasizing urgency, Farrell accosted the smoker. He introduced himself to Father Campos. In merciless terms he summarized years of ritual murder ending in that night's capture. Assuming the woman driven by irrational religious belief, Campos' proximity while he, Farrell, quizzed her just might smooth his interrogation. 

"Local police won't bother with any real investigation, padre. They'll do enough so that it will justify how she mysteriously dies. We both know how they operate." 

Campos demurred. "I can't coerce a confession. She must release her conscience voluntarily." 

Farrell wondered 'Where's fucking Pat O'Brien or fucking Barry Fitzgerald when you fucking need them!?' He checked his temper.

"Padre ..." Time was short. Farrell decided to transform this ecclesiastic exercise into a business transaction. He dug into a pocket, withdrew his street wad, and began peeling hundreds. The crisp lucre dazzled Campos. Detaching 10 bills, Farrell crushed them into the priest's soft hands. 

"Surely, padre, there must be something at your parish requiring financial intervention." 

Conflicted as he maybe hoped to have been, those large denominations vanquished Campos' reservations. So much so Farrell profanely thought another 10 and this holy messenger wouldn't hesitate to dye his remaining hair red and offer to sit on Jesus' left side.

Campos sighed convincingly. "What will you have me do?" 

"Just stand there and look stern. As if you personally know God won't forgive." 

Grimacing, Campos trailed Farrell into the emergency room. Their two-man procession crowded Maria's attacker. Voirin hovered close. Even Sister Vega moved within good eavesdropping range. 

Spying Father Campos revived Maria's assailant. She began mumbling prayers. Farrell cut her salvation. 

"You haven't got long," he intoned. "It's time for you to speak. Unless you tell us everything, your pitiful self will be here alone long after we're dust and forgotten. You'll wander forever restless as the wind. We need to know." 

Maria's attacker looked at Campos. His face granted no refuge. Trapped, frightened, she fixed beaten eyes on Farrell. Her voice seemed that of a particularly indulgent grandmother. 

Like many of her victims she too had migrated from Mexico's south. There weren't any factories lining the border 40 years ago. Just dirt. Solipaz should've been the last pause on the obstacle course into El Norte. Ambitious, having bravely trekked half the country, she still exhibited country-girl naivety. She'd hoped crossing with a group into America. Timing collapsed. Penniless, without prospects, the missed chance rendered her distraught. 

Some American soldiers on furlough from Fort Huachuca recognized her plight and the opportunity presented. They exploited the moment. She shyly admitted to having been pretty then. Nor had any man had touched her "there" yet. Those two statements delineated her life's "before" and "after." 

The soldiers beguiled her under the disguise of consolation. They plied her with alcohol while promising to help devise a way into America. 

Soon this group found itself removed from Solipaz' busier districts. Cracked pavement had become brittle fields under her their feet. Where neon once colored only distant headlights flared through moonless night. 

Easily overpowered, the Americans took their time taking turns. Blessed numbness eventually ceased her conscious agony. 

When she awoke it was morning. The soldiers had abandoned her in that field. She moved with painful effort, the secret between her thighs raw. Dried blood streaked her legs. Shit flecked her ass. Nonetheless loss of dignity wasn't the worst. 

Suffering gang rape had marooned her in Solipaz. Aspire as she intended, she couldn't achieve America. Nor could she retreat home. Solipaz now held her fast. There would be no release. 

Where she'd previously guiltily enjoyed men's attentions, their post-assault nearness intimidated her. Her withdrawal to society's margins was a short walk. A move either instinctive or ordained. 

Years later during Mexico's presidential election season pandering she availed herself to a mobile clinic's free services. Her body frequently rebelled in those years following that night. Tests revealed one or each attacker had left a strain of rugged venereal disease. Intense antibiotics reduced the scourge's more debilitating effects. However lengthy neglect had left her barren. Should she ever find a man to trust, she could never bear his children. 

For a Mexican woman that proved more devastating than death. Though faultless, seen through her own and society's eyes, she'd become useless. 

What might've remained unexpressed openly festered when American manufacturers sought and exploited cheaper locations manned by more docile employees. Paid coolie wages by gringo standards, amounts Mexicans saw as minor fortunes, lured young, healthy, vulnerable women to the border.

The one-time victim regarded present-day women's grasps for emancipation as dangerous. Her own striving for better decades ago, its calamitous result, had run rotting loops through her mind. She acted to prevent as many as possible from sharing her misery. 

Farrell regretted his understanding of her trauma. Committing these acts on new moon nights recreated and expiated her own violation. He likened it to cleansing with dirty water. 

In the perfect clarity of insanity this woman reasoned she'd spare her successors by killing them. Dead none could endure rape. Therefore no shame or communal irrelevancy. 

Sister Vega spoke for them all when she said, "Shit! Now I've heard it all!" 

She left the emergency room and resumed her post at admittance. Campos moved closer to the gurney. Vocal salve poured from his mouth. That spiritually damaged woman absorbed his reassurance faster than water into parched earth. 

Farrell had caught a vicious yet well-meaning killer. Which was how he summed up his Mexican task to Roderick Quinn.

Late next afternoon on a conference call inside Grady's office, Quinn received an oral report. Although written description would've delivered greater detail, when possible he preferred succinctness. Having often sat in Quinn's west and south facing 53rd floor office, Farrell envisioned him sitting behind his polished acre of ebony. While high and blazing still in Mexico, setting sun at Quinn's back steeped New Jersey orange; midtown lights would be winking awake through dusk. 

"Mex cops raided her shack," Farrell continued. "Ragpickers who knew her from the dump sent them there."

A speakerphone transmitted Quinn's. "What? She worked at the dump?" 

Farrell cleared his throat then answered. "No. Not work. She'd been leading a substance into subsistence life. Recyclables for a few pennies, meals from food scraps." 

After a decent interval, Farrell said, "Cops found indisputable proof linking her. Hers was the blade, all right." 

"As opposed to the usual local killers," Grady interjected. 

"Like what?" Quinn said. "What'd they find that makes hatchet granny a lead pipe cinch?" 

Grady and Farrell cut eyes at each other. Grady's twitching mouth must've matched the bile taste filling Farrell's own. 

Again clearing his throat, Farrell said, "They collected mummified and mummifying body parts from scores of victims. Female parts she'd removed and taken home."

Quinn's East Coast silence sounded uncomfortable. Grady increased the revelation's awkwardness. 

"The air is extremely dry down here, Mr. Quinn. Between that and the heat those things wouldn't retain moisture long enough to really rot or get maggoty."

"Grady," Quinn said, "do you mean putrefaction? ... She did this because? Souvenir hunting? She was more nuts than nuts?" 

Grady warmed to his enlightenment. "Think more along relics. You know like Middle Age pilgrims hunting saints' remnants. She'd turned her shack into an absurd reliquary of, um, ambitious girls." 

Quinn sighed. "That's wonderful, Grady. I'm still trying to get over her killing them in order to save them, much less her worshipping their distinctions. ... This is fucked up! Any idea about the trial, Bryce?" 

Flatly, Farrell said, "Won't be any trial. Plenty of her victims were strangers, but more than enough were local girls. Some had cop relatives or were badge bunnies. With that I know personally how her case will be resolved. Arid conditions or not, after those boys settle 'honor' you can be sure she'll be fertilizing an untended patch somewhere." 

More disturbed silence from Quinn's end. His long arriving conclusion sounded ambivalent.

"Uh-huh. It is a Mexican affair after all. I suppose they know their side of the line best." 

-30-