Fields of Wrath (Luis Chavez Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

clerk reached under the counter. Coming back with a stack of cards rubber-banded together, he stripped one off the bottom and slid it to Luis.
    “Ten dollars gets you four hours, though I’ve had some customers tell me they’ve gotten days out of these. You know the country code and area code?”
    Luis nodded, handing over a ten. He took the card, chose a chair, and scratched off the latex backing. As he did so, the clerk took a cell phone from his pocket and dialed.
    “Bueno?”
    Luis had expected Zapotec, so he was surprised to hear Spanish.
    “Hello,” he answered in Spanish. “My name is Luis Chavez. I’m a priest in California. I—”
    “Oh no!” the voice sputtered back. “Odilia?”
    “No, she’s okay,” Luis said. “She’s at my parish. She gave me your number, asking me to call. She wanted you to know she’s okay.”
    “Thank God. Is she coming home?”
    “She wants to.”
    “Is she in trouble?”
    “Yes,” Luis replied. “I’ll have her get in touch with you as soon as possible.”
    “You have no idea how worried we’ve been. You hear nothing for so long, hoping she’s doing well, terrified she’s not.”
    “When did you last speak to her?”
    “Oh, it’s been nine, maybe ten—”
    “Months?”
    “Years.”
    Odilia couldn’t have been more than twenty years old.
    “Thank you for calling, Father. Please help my daughter get home. Promise me.”
    “I will.”
    After hanging up, Luis headed back to his car with even more questions now. He had a lot of things to go over with Odilia. He was halfway to his car when he heard his name. A heavily tattooed man emerged from a bright-orange Charger parked at the curb.
    “Luis Chavez! It is you, isn’t it? My God!”
    The larger-than-life presence of Oscar Beristáin de Icaza hopped onto the sidewalk next to Luis. Over six feet, with a chiseled physique, Oscar enveloped him in a hug. Luis gasped. When they were coming up together, Oscar had been the first in the neighborhood to hit the weights hard. Now that Oscar was all grown up, his embrace was akin to being stuffed into a stack of tractor tires.
    “I’d heard about the collar, but I didn’t believe it,” Oscar said, sizing Luis up. “Looks like it fits.”
    “How are you, Oscar?”
    “Good, man! When’d you get back to town?”
    “Six months ago.”
    “You couldn’t call?” Oscar retorted, feigning offense.
    “You think I didn’t know who Remberto would call the second I walked in?” Luis jutted his chin in the clerk’s direction as he stood in the doorway of the phone room, trying to look as unobtrusive as possible.
    “I suppose not. Who have you seen?”
    “Nobody,” Luis said. “The archdiocese likes its priests to hit the ground running.”
    “What do you do? Other than fuck altar boys, I mean.”
    Luis knew Oscar wanted a tolerant sigh in return for his caustic remark and gave it to him.
    “But seriously, do you give the sermon? I’d come see that.”
    “No. The first six months is for learning the ropes.”
    “Picking up the choir robes from the dry cleaner’s?”
    “Close,” Luis chuckled. “We have members of the laity who do that, but I have to order new ones soon.”
    “ Wow. They already trust you with that shit, huh?”
    “That and preparing communion, replacing candles, helping the pastor organize the service and research passages, minor repairs, and upkeep of the nave.”
    “What about confession?” Oscar interrupted. “You listen to little old ladies’ fantasies about fucking Carlos Ferro or something?”
    A passerby grunted in disgust but then saw the large men who’d emerged from Oscar’s car as well and hurried along, keeping further comments to himself.
    “No confessions yet. A couple of home and hospital visits, a few counseling sessions, a few drop-bys on Bible study groups.”
    “The excitement never stops,” Oscar scoffed, now meaning the insult.
    “At the beginning it’s about establishing yourself into the ritual and