Read Online The Queen of the South by Arturo Pérez-Reverte - Free Book Online

suggested she go to Colonia Chapultepec, near his house, but that meant crossing the city and a bridge over the Tamazula. Too risky. And although she didn't mention any details about what had happened, just that she was running and that Güero had told her to get in contact with him, he understood immediately that things were bad, or even worse than that. He tried to reassure her: Don't worry, Teresita, I'll come to see you, just calm down and don't move. Hide and tell me where to find you. He always called her Teresita when he saw her with Güero on the malecon, in the restaurants on the beach at Altata, at a party, or eating mussels or shrimp ceviche and stuffed crab on Sunday at Los Arcos. He would call her Teresita and give her a kiss, and he had even introduced her to his wife and children once. And although don Epifanio was an intelligent, powerful man, with more money than Güero had ever had in his life, he was always nice to Güero, and he kept calling him his godson, just like in the old days. And once, around Christmas, the first Christmas that Teresa was Güero's girlfriend, don Epifanio sent her flowers and a pretty Colombian emerald on a gold chain, and an envelope with $10,000 inside, so she could buy her man something, a surprise, and with the rest buy herself whatever she wanted.
    That was why Teresa had phoned him that night, and was intending to give him that notebook of Güero's that was burning a hole in her gym bag. Santa Virgencita. Santo Patron. Because don Epi is the only one you can trust, Güero had always told her. He's a gentleman, and a stand-up guy—he was a good boss when he was boss, and he's my godfather. Pinche Güero. He'd said that before everything went to shit and that telephone rang.... Now she knew she couldn't trust anyone, not even don Epifanio. Which was probably why she'd asked him to come there, almost without thinking, although actually thinking about it pretty well.
    The chapel was a quiet place she could get to by skulking along the train tracks that ran along the canal. From here, she could watch the street on both sides in case Güero had been wrong in his calculations and the man who called her Teresita—and who gave her $10,000 and an emerald at Christmas—didn't come alone. Or in case she got cold feet and—in the best of cases, if she was still able—took off running again.
    She struggled with the temptation to light another cigarette. Santa Virgencita. Santo Patron. Through the windows she could see the candles that threw flickering light across the walls and pews of the chapel. During his mortal life, St. Malverde had been Jesus Malverde, the good bandit who stole from the rich, they said, to help the poor. The priests and church authorities never recognized him as a saint, but the people canonized him on their own. After his execution, the government had ordered that the body not be buried, as an object lesson for other would-be Robin Hoods, but people who passed by the place would put down stones, one each time— religiously, you might say—until they'd given him a Christian burial. The chapel grew out of that devotion. Among the gruff people of Culiacan and all of Sinaloa, Malverde was more popular and had done more miracles than God Himself, or Our Lady of Guadalupe. The chapel was filled with little signs and ex votos placed there in gratitude to Malverde for the miracles: a lock of a child's hair for a successful childbirth, shrimp in alcohol for a good catch, photographs, kitschy religious prints.
    But above all, St. Malverde was the patron saint of the Sinaloa narcos, who came to the chapel to offer their lives up to him, and to give thanks, with offerings and hand-lettered signs after each successful return and each profitable deal. Gracias for getting me out of jail, one might read, stuck up on the wall next to an image of the saint—dark-skinned, moustached, dressed in white with an elegant black neckerchief. Or Gracias for you know what. The toughest