The pounding blows of the Barbosas made her heart thud in her chest, and she twisted to look at the door. The brothers’ combined weight was almost six hundred pounds, and their strength was evident. The frame cracked loose from the walls, and Anda saw flakes of plaster and stucco falling to the floor with every booming collision.
She pulled herself up by the two hooks and used her feet against the wall, like running up a slippery incline, until she got one sandal on another hook.
The room thundered with the Barbosa’s efforts on the door, and the entire frame loosened from the cinderblock, punching inward two fu
ll inches.
Anda pulled harder with her arms to get higher.
The next blow to the door broke the top of the frame loose and it angled into the killroom. Anda could see one of the Barbosa’s hands moving on the other side of the crack above the door.
She tried to calm down and think, and with her cheeks still wet and her heart as heavy as a stone, she made sure not to look at Bobby. While the booming and yelling filled her ears, Anda worked and strained, raising her body until she could grab the top of the iron strap. She pushed up and placed her face and chest against the wall, then released the strap and ran her hand up along the wall as she placed her feet on the strap and stood straight up, toes pointed in opposite directions like a ballet dancer, balanced on the top of the narrow metal strap.
Another shot rang out and the doorknob twisted again, but still held. Anda scooted faster along the strap until the low end of the fallen I-beam was above her right shoulder. She grasped the top edge, put her toes against the wall and walked up it until she could hook one ankle and foot over the top, then she pulled herself up like she was getting on a tall horse. At last, she sat on top of the beam.
The next pistol shot made her jerk, and she saw the knob fly off the door, but the bolt above it still held. She heard the Barbosas and Godoy arguing, then several seconds of silence followed by a sudden Boom as the Barbosas resumed their destruction of the door.
Anda put her back to the wall, put her feet on top of the beam, and worked her way to a standing position.
The Barbosas slammed into the door again and the frame sagged further inward. A crack, jagged as a lightning bolt and following the outline of the cinderblocks, appeared in the wall near the doorframe and split a finger-sized crack halfway up the wall.
Anda walked heel-toe up the inclined beam, maneuvering through the debris hanging down from the ceiling. When she reached the top of the beam where it connected to the roof, she studied where to grab, then decided she would climb up close to the outside wall because of its added support. Before she climbed out, she took a final look at Bobby Mata. He lay on his side, with the ponytail fanned out behind his head. A sob broke from her, and her legs went weak. It took everything, everything she had to move again and leave him.
The next hit by the Barbosas made the rebar squeal as it pulled away from the doorframe. On their next push, the entire door and doorframe fell into the killroom and they followed in a rush.
Felipe looked around wild-eyed, his pistol drawn. Jesse and Johnny appeared bewildered. Two bodies lay on the floor. Cleto Holguin lay on his back, staring at nothing, with a piece of bamboo extending from his bare stomach like some oriental faucet. Bobby Mata lay on his side, two large metal hooks buried in his back.
The little Indian girl was nowhere in sight. “She vanished,” said Jesse, a little wide-eyed.
“She escaped!” Godoy yelled. He paced the floor, waving his gun and making the Barbosas nervous. Johnny moved away from the gunman to pick up his inner tube and Jesse’s blond wig from the floor. He joined his brother and they helped each other put their headpieces in place. They left the greasy socks used as bandages lying on the dirty floor.
Felipe stopped by the two bodies and kicked Anacleto’s corpse in the head, “You fat, ugly pig! You couldn’t wait!” Godoy kicked him again then stepped to Bobby and yelled, “I wasn’t through with you! I wasn’t through!” He fired three shots into the body. One round passed through and ricocheted off the concrete floor, making different sounding notes as it careened from floor to wall to wall before spending itself and ticking across the stained concrete to fall into the drain hole.
***
Anda lay on the dirty asphalt rooftop, crying in silence and wiping her face as she watched the men below. Any hope that Bobby might be saved was torn out of her when Felipe Godoy shot into his body. She felt his death all over again and had to bite her hand to stifle a sob. They were talking in English and she couldn’t understand them, but she knew she had to leave this place or they would kill her and her unborn child. She was a witness, she had been kidnapped, had seen them murder. They could not let her live.
But she would not make it easy for them to find and kill her. They would pay for killing this man who talked in her tongue, who was kind and wonderful and handsome and…and, she started to cry again and made herself stop. She must be strong now, stronger than she had ever been. She would do what the handsome man had said, what…Bobby had said. She felt a sudden intimacy by thinking his first name as if she had spoken it out loud, like with a boyfriend. Anda felt her face flush and feelings tickled in her stomach. They mixed with the terrible grief of his death. The rush of conflicting emotions almost overwhelmed her.
Anda crawled away from the hole, then stood up by the wall. She wiped her wet cheeks with the palms of her hands and blinked away the stinging in her eyes. Her face became an emotionless mask. She could not mourn him now, but there would be a time when she would. Now, she would escape and run to the place Bobby had said. She would go to Outlaw Road.
Her eyes scanned the flat rooftop. No way of getting down.
She stayed close to the support of the wall as she hurried to the far end of the roof. She hopped across several small holes, but found the going relatively sturdy. Upon reaching the end, Anda wiped her eyes again and looked over the side and down at the hard ground below her. It was a long drop, four times her height. There was nothing around, only another ragged hole two feet from the wall that exposed another I-beam.
She looked at it, then over the edge to the ground. She made up her mind and took off her skirt, leaving only the faded blouse whose ends barely reached the tops of her thighs. She wished for her shawl, but it was at the restaurant. It took Anda only seconds to tear the frayed skirt into long strips and with quick, expert hands, she plaited the ends together to form a slender rope. She finished, then tied one end around the I-beam and tossed the other over the side of the roof.
Looking over the edge, she saw the cloth rope stopped ten feet above the ground. Close enough, if only it didn’t break from her weight. Anda grasped the rope and crawled over the low parapet to dangle above the ground, body angled slightly out, toes touching the wall. She lowered six inches when she heard cloth rip.
***
Jesse covered his head with his arms as another ricochet skittered across the floor. Godoy was still in a fury and shot Anacleto in the neck. Jesse whispered to his brother, “Crazy bastard’s gonna kill us by accident if we don’t watch out.” Johnny nodded, watching Godoy for his next move.
Felipe looked at the two brothers and said, “We have to find the girl. With her gone, no one will know we were involved. If not, we’re dead. This won’t end here, Anacleto had too many friends”
“So did Mata,” said Jesse.
“How’d she get out?” Johnny asked.