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They’re picking up a shipment at a pit stop located forty-five minutes east of Phoenix when everything goes horribly wrong.
Since Guero’s death, Teresa has been getting increasingly ambitious with her deals. She no longer consults James outside of the few tense words they exchange every day, their only communication occurring by way of messages passed through Pote. Teresa can tell he’s not happy about it – hell, none of them are particularly happy right now – but Pote knows forcing her hand again like he had in the basement would result in the cold shoulder for him too.
She knows James thinks she’s being reckless, but she doesn’t care. A deal is a deal, and she’s nearly sure that this one will be successful.
The deal is important; it’s giving them almost as much product as their first shipment from El Santo, and although its source is unquestionably thorough in its privacy – Teresa had only gotten a code word, “paradise,” from the dark web link – the chemist who had tested the product had told them the sample was purer and finer than any other coke found west of Russia, northern and southern hemisphere alike.
On top of the hefty price, Teresa is paying an exorbitant amount to keep the details of both the transaction and the product as private as possible. El Santo has eyes everywhere, she knows, and if she seems unsatisfied with his product, he won’t be happy. She’s relying on the obscurity of the dealer to protect her business from him.
She had wanted to go to the pickup by herself; she “has it handled, James, I don’t need you to be there,” but James wouldn’t let her, adamant about coming as backup, because “I don’t want a repeat of Mexico, Teresa,” even though his face had twitched into the kicked-puppy expression that seems to appear more than she likes to see these days. And where James is concerned, Pote is too, because he’s not about to let them run off somewhere together, alone. God knows what could happen between them now.
So that’s how they all end up in a stuffy truck pulling a giant trailer, going to pick up a huge shipment from a guy named Carlos at some pit stop in the middle of nowhere.
The car ride is deadly silent, broken only by the occasional sniff or cough, or comment by Pote, and once by a call from Kelly Anne asking what Teresa thinks about hosting someone’s Quinceañera at the wine club next week. She replies, “Sure, Kelly Anne, whatever you think,” absentmindedly, and drops her phone into the cup holder next to her a little more aggressively than usual.
James spends the entire ride staring resolutely out the window. Although they haven’t spoken normally for several weeks, she doesn’t pretend not to notice things about him, like how the smudged rings under his eyes seem to grow with every passing day, and how he takes long hours to himself outside of work. He used to spend all of his time at the winery or at the house, but more often now, he misses dinner, coming back at two or three in the morning. His car is gone again by the time she wakes up, but he’s always at the wine club when she needs something done.
Dimly, she remembers one night last week when he came back at half past four in the morning. She was awake – she doesn’t sleep much either, a couple of hours every day on average – when she saw James’ car pull up, and a few minutes later he slipped back in, disappearing into his room.
When she passed by his door she noticed it was ajar, she could see him inside, sitting on the bed. His hair was mussed and she noted the faint outlines of bruises along the expanse of his neck. Her heart had twisted a little; he was seeing a girl, probably. It was good to know at least one of them was enjoying themselves in such a stressful time for the business.
Feeling the ugly bitterness resurface in her throat, she shoots a quick glare at James, which thankfully goes unnoticed by both him and Pote, and steps a little harder on the gas. She feels Pote look at her strangely as the truck lurches forwards, but by then she’s already pulling into the pit stop where the deal is supposed to take place. She parks near the gas station and pulls up the break.
To their left, they see another truck parked in the lot as well, sitting in front of a desolate warehouse about fifty yards away. Teresa rolls down her window a little bit and cranes her head to see what’s printed on the side. Block letters read out PARADISE INC. in black, and she nods at Pote and James. “That’s it,” she says shortly. “Let’s keep an eye on that building in the back.”
James slides out of the truck to go check out the product, with Pote keeping watch by the passenger door. Teresa can see the outlines of two pistols tucked into the waistband of his pants, and she knows Pote is armed as well.
She sees a man step out of the other truck. This must be Carlos. She thinks nothing much of it, merely keeping her eye on him as he walks towards James. Carlos passes off the keys nondescriptly as they bypass each other, but as soon as James’s back is turned, he draws a gun.
At the sound, James turns, but she knows it’s going to be too late. She’s reacting too late, hasn’t even released her seatbelt to get out of the truck when she hears the gunshot. Her heart skips a beat, but she sees the man crumple to the floor, blood spraying from his temple. She feels an immense rush of gratitude for Pote’s reflexes once she sees her friend sprinting towards the other truck, ready to fire again, but the relief is short lived as a dozen armed men dressed in black flood into the area from the warehouse behind the truck.
It’s a bloodbath, and they’re sorely outnumbered. James and Pote each take out one from the beginning, taking cover behind a set of dilapidated pallets. Their guns blaze as they shoot at the men, however the sheer magnitude of their enemy is too large. Teresa aims her gun out the open window of the truck, shooting one in the head on her first try, but has to duck quickly as the attention of the gunmen turn onto her. She sees James yell something to Pote, and Pote nod before James sprints for the door of the other truck.
James gets in and starts the engine, before he absolutely floors the gas and reverses straight into the fight. Some of the men go down, but still, others dodge the truck and continue firing.
Climbing out of the truck, Teresa shoots another man, and another, running closer to the centre of the fight. She thinks they’re finally down to the last few, when she sees two more dragging James out of the driver’s seat. He’s fighting vigorously, but there’s already blood blooming from a bullet would in his shoulder and streaked over his face. The two men pin James against the side of the truck and attack.
Teresa’s preoccupied trying to get to cover as soon as possible while taking down the rest of the men. She feels a hot burn in her left arm as shrapnel explodes around her, and she knows it’s going to hurt like a bitch later, but she’s so high on adrenaline right now that she can hardly feel it.
“TERESA!” She hears Pote bellow. “I got ‘em! Help James!”
Her adrenaline kicks into overdose, and she freezes as she watches James crumple to the ground. Everything decreases to slow motion as she watches one of the men pin James down by his wrists, while the other lifts his black-booted foot and yells, “Tell Teresa Mendoza that El Santo knows!” before he brings it down on James’ ankle with a deafening crack.
James howls in pain, and Teresa can feel it clawing on her heart. She wants to move, to go help him, but her feet feel like they’re glued to the ground. Her gaze drifts to the truck, door hanging open, its back doors still tantalisingly shut. For a brief moment, she contemplates going for the product. She didn’t pay all that money to keep a failed deal quiet. Assuming this means El Santo will be coming after her, they need product to stay afloat.
Her eyes shift back to James, then to the truck. Of course James. But the product. James. The truck. James. The-
Her thoughts are interrupted by Pote, who seems to have handled the remaining men and who bolts around to gun down the two men who are currently beating James into the ground.
Pote grabs James and drapes his arm over his shoulder, before quickly realising that James is a dead weight at this point. He throws James over his shoulder and begins running back to the truck.
Teresa’s legs can suddenly move again. She turns tail and takes off for the driver’s seat, throwing herself in and starting the engine. Once Pote and James are in the back seat, she grinds the gas pedal into the fucking ground and they fly out of the lot, leaving thirteen dead bodies behind them.
She can feel Pote stewing behind her, checking James’s pulse and also sending glowers at the back of her head. She can’t bear to turn around and see what the men have done to him, what losses they’ve suffered in addition to this deal and the El Santo product.
For an awful moment, she’s back in Imala, blood boiling as Guero gasps for breath in her lap. James is going to die, just like Guero did, in the back of a car on the way to safety, and this time she won’t be able to look into his eyes one last time to tell him what she wants to say either. And again, it’s going to be her fault.
She can hear Pote calling a doctor to their house in advance. He barks at her, “Make it twenty minutes,” and later, she even thinks she hears him talking to James, trying to keep him awake with aimless commentary about the merits of Taco Bell versus Chipotle, but she can’t hear a whole lot aside from the roaring in her ears.
Her face feels tight, and her eyes feel too-wide, but she can’t do anything, feel anything, except drive like hell. She makes the drive thirty minutes and parks the truck haphazardly outside James’ compound.
It’s too hard catch her breath or force a sound out of her throat and so her only option is to follow closely and watch in horror as Pote carries James into the house and deposits him onto the bed in a spare bedroom.
The doctor meets them at the door and promptly kicks Pote and Teresa out of the room. Pote immediately disappears into the kitchen to make something for when James wakes up, casting a dark look over his shoulder, and the gaping hole in Teresa’s chest seems to stretch painfully.
She can’t do anything except sit on the floor of the balcony, staring at the trees and trying her best not to think about what happened on the couch behind her, weeks before. She thinks she feels Kelly Anne’s presence at the door, but when no soft voices speak or interrupt her silence, she can’t find it in herself to go seek anyone out. She thinks she hears Guero’s voice at times, and other times it’s the Queen, but she feels so hollow that she doesn’t really see them at all.
The sun is just about setting when she feels the balcony door slide open behind her, and Pote’s gruff voice rings out. “Teresa.”
Teresa. Not Teresita, but Teresa. Pote’s mad. When she turns to look at him, he doesn’t say anything, only reaches for her arm so he can clean up the cuts left from the fight. She lets him bandage up her arm, before he steps back and eyes her. Then he begins to talk.
“What the hell was that, Teresa? You go and take us to some ridiculous death wish pickup? Where the cocaine is too good to be true and the price is more than we can risk? You thought that cabrón El Santo wouldn’t find out and send a pack of sicarios after us? And I tell you to get James and you stand there, como gallina en corral ajeno? You almost got James killed!” His voice softens almost imperceptibly. “You’re not the only one who’s lost someone, sabes? I have. James has. But you’re gonna let Guero’s death control you forever? No, Teresita. There are some things that hurt. And eventually they’ll stop hurting, but that’s a choice you get to make. One that you have to make.”
Teresa can only look up at him, wide-eyed. There are so many feelings roaring inside of her that they all blend into one: regret. She can feel it, cracking open the numbness that has frozen itself over her heart since Guero died.
Pote beckons. “Vamos, Teresa.”
She pushes herself to her feet, joints popping from sitting in the same place for so long, and follows him through the house back downstairs to the main floor When they’re almost all the way down the stairs, she clears her dry throat and croaks out, “Is he okay?”
Pote says nothing, only leading her down the hallway to that spare bedroom. “Go see for yourself. You’re gonna go in there, and fix whatever happened after Guero died. Te puedes llorar, Teresita, but it’s gotta end now, or else before long, we’ll all be dead.” He disappears back down the hallway, presumably back to the kitchen to release the rest of his anger through culinary means.
She raises her fist to knock, before realising it’s a futile effort, so she twists the knob and lets herself in. Her throat closes up and her hands fly to her face when she sees how James looks, sitting half-propped up in the bed, and she stops in her tracks, pressing herself against the wall next to the door.
Most of James’ midsection is wrapped up in white gauze. There are bloodstained bandages wrapped around his right shoulder, and his ankle is encased in plaster. His face is still streaked with blood from various cuts, his jaw is bruised in several spots, and he’s sporting a purpling split lip, but still, he looks a million years younger in sleep when there’s nothing to draw lines of stress across his face. Her heart breaks because she knows she’s not seeing the stress that she causes him, and she can feel tears come to her eyes as she realises that this shit is all her fault.
She loses track of the time she spends staring at him, and she’s startled out of her thoughts by a cough and a wheeze from the bed. James’ eyes crack open hazily, before they finally focus on Teresa and widen. His eyes are filled with pain, and he blinks them shut after a moment.
The comprehension that maybe James doesn’t want to see her, that this time she’s finally hurt him too much for him to bear staying with her, too much for him to bear even looking at her, is what breaks her the most.
As she struggles to catch her breath, James whispers in a barely audible voice, “Teresa.”
She lets out a quiet sob and the only words she can muster up are, “You look like shit.”
James’ lips twitch, and that’s what pushes her over the edge. The tears start flowing freely, relentless no matter how much she wipes them, and she chokes on several sobs as she thinks about what she’s done.
Opening his eyes again, James repeats, stronger, “Teresa.” He beckons her over with his left hand. She complies, making her way over to sit on the metal chair next to his bed. He reaches up to brush a tear away from her cheek, before cupping her face and gazing up at her.
“I’m sorry,” Teresa cries, vision blurry. “This is all my fault. I let my ego get in the way, and I don’t even know why, and look what happened to-“ She cuts off, unable to continue. James reaches down to squeeze her fingers, and she takes a shuddering breath. “I fucked up, and you got hurt. And now we’ve lost the El Santo product, and it’s all my fault, James. I don’t know how to live with myself.”
Her voice drops. “I can’t ask you to stay after this. Everyone suffers working with me. Pote, and then Kelly Anne, and now you? I’m like a curse, James, and you’re all going to keep getting hurt, or worse, end up dead, because of me.” Exhausted, she lays her head atop her arms on the bed next to James.
James hesitates for a moment before reaching forward to touch her hair, running his fingers through the dark strands. “Teresa, you’re not a curse, okay? You changed all of our lives, and for the better at that. Pote chose you over the Vargases, and I know he hasn’t regretted it for a second. And Kelly Anne, after the stuff with Cole? Where would she be without you? And me?” He doesn’t quite know where to continue with his own story, so he pauses awkwardly.
Teresa lifts her head from her arms to look at him again. Her eyes are still full of tears.
“I’m not leaving,” James concludes firmly. He pats the area on the bed on his left. “Come here.”
She pushes herself back onto her seat and moves to sit in that spot, kicking off her boots and drawing her knees up to her chest. James leans against her side, shorter than her for once, and she takes his hand to twist his fingers between her own.
“We’re gonna figure this out, okay?” he says. She breathes in the smell of James, piney and cedar-y, and nods. “Together. It’s gonna be okay, yeah, Teresa?”
“It’s going to be okay,” she says, wiping her face again. “Okay.”
//
Later, Pote walks in on them in the same position on the bed. Their thighs are pressed close, their legs tangled together although staying clear of James’ bad ankle, and James’ head is resting on Teresa’s shoulder. Teresa has her nose buried in his hair, and their fingers are interlocked, resting on Teresa’s leg.
Pote’s face lifts into a smirk, and he backs out of the room quietly, shutting the door with a gentle thud.