The Jaguar Read Online Free PDF

Mexico City.”
    “Does that buy him a place in heaven too?” asked Erin. She saw the pain pass across the face of the priest. In that moment he reminded her again of Father O’Hora back in Austin, the way his emotions were always so ready and readable. A good and decent man, she thought. He had married two of her brothers and sat with her father for hours at the hospital and finally buried him. “Forgive me. It’s been a long day.”
    He smiled. “Saturnino is not permitted to have a key. It will be taken from him.”
    “Can you make Benjamin let me go?”
    “I will speak to him. I do not control him. But I can watch over you while you’re here. And pray for your safe return.”
    “Why thank you so much, Father. When my husband gives Benjamin the million bucks he wants, maybe Benjamin can give it to you.”
    “Keep your heart pure and your thoughts clean.”
    “I was never a very good Catholic.”
    “Neither was I until the Lord opened my heart.”
    “I can’t believe you and your Lord let these people get away with this.”
    “The world is complicated.”
    “So that makes kidnapping okay?”
    “Benjamin will be here in a moment.”
    Ciel removed the card key from his pocket with a guilty smile. He swiped it through the lock, then ushered out his two charges and let the door swing shut behind him. Erin listened to the buzz and the clunk of the deadbolt thrown home.
    She already hated those sounds.
    He was not what Erin was expecting. Into the room pushed a large and disheveled man with a head of wild gray-black hair and a hang-dog expression on his face. He wore a Cerveza Pacifico T-shirt and shorts and he was barefoot. He had a beer belly and stooped slightly, as if it were pulling him over. His complexion was pale for a Mexican and he had at least a two-day growth of whiskers. His eyes were black and shiny. She guessed him to be fifty years old.
    He stopped and stared directly at her face. “Do you have everything that you need?”
    “Everything but safety and freedom.”
    “That is up to your husband. He has ten days.”
    “Saturnino has a key to my room.”
    Armenta pulled two card keys from a pocket in his shorts, fanned them for her like playing cards in his thick fingers. “No more.”
    “How could you threaten to skin me alive?”
    Armenta looked at her matter-of-factly and said nothing for a moment. “They tell me you are Erin of Erin and the Inmates. I believe I heard you on the radio.”
    “It’ll just be the Inmates if you do what you’ve threatened to do.”
    Armenta raised a hand and waved it gently, as if shooing away a slow fly. “I love music of all kinds. We have performances here. I recordmusic also. Many important people come here to listen and dance. Do you know the Jaguars of Veracruz?”
    “Everyone knows the Jaguars of Veracruz.”
    “Do you like them?”
    “I saw them in Los Angeles. Fantastic show. They played so long the fire department made them quit.”
    “They will be here this week. To perform.”
    “And do you skin them alive if they don’t bring you millions of dollars?”
    He smiled at her bleakly. “I grew up with them. I have been cruel in my life but I have never lacked compassion. I am strongly loyal.”
    “Your son threatened me.”
    “I will discipline him. Sometimes he has large ideas that are bad ideas. You don’t worry.”
    “When I looked in his eyes I saw that he could do bad things and enjoy them.”
    Armenta nodded slightly. “This is his way. He will not hurt you while you are here.”
    “You seem like a good man. Let me go. Fly me home. I’ll
mail
you the million cash if you really need it all that badly.”
    He studied her again and she studied him back. His hair stood out from his head, an unbrushed nest. His face was morose and his eyes looked exhausted and suspicious and piggish. She wondered if his paleness was from prison or illness or just from being inside all the time.
    “Your husband has taken hundreds of thousands of my