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People had told Kim that she would stand out in Mexico.
“There aren’t a lot of blondes down there, you know,” Howard had said casually when she’d run into him at his country club (not as if there was something pre-planned there, of course, and not as if the five-iron she was picking up wouldn’t have done an excellent job on Howard’s new Mercedes if she had been in the mood) merely by chance.
She’d given a ho-hum response, and she had considered dying her hair black.
She was glad she had ultimately not given Howard any more credence than she usually gave Howard, which was none at all. Because there were plenty of blondes in Mexico.
There were plenty of everyone in Mexico, in fact – it seemed like Juarez was filled with people walking around, going to one place or another with startling speed. She didn’t know exactly what she had pictured, but this wasn’t it, not quite.
And Lalo Salamanca wasn’t what she had assumed he would be, either. The first time she met him, she had fooled him, and maybe, in retrospect, that had made him seem easy to fool.
But he was smarter than Kim had given him credit for; that much was clear.
The phrase “crazy like a fox” seemed to describe him very well, as his head was continuously darting around as they drove south from New Mexico.
Kim thought that she would be plagued with doubts about her decision to work for him, plagued with worry about the dangers that might be awaiting her as soon as they crossed to the other side of the border.
But it hadn’t been like that at all, and maybe that was what scared her more.
Because as the street signs decorating Juarez popped up around her, she felt as if, in a way, she had come home.
***
Kim wasn’t sure exactly what she had expected, but she hadn’t expected Lalo to have an entire compound devoted to himself, members of his family, and various servants. She had never seen anything like it before.
She could remember being a child in Omaha, freezing in the cold, waiting for her mother to pay the electric bill, imagining her fingers shattering before her eyes the way she had seen liquid nitrogen shatter in some show she’d caught on TV, when they had had cable that was.
She would curl up under a blanket and suck in breaths, keep them in her lungs as if she was sucking in the heat too and keeping it.
Now, those memories seemed more and more distant, because if Albuquerque had been a world away from sneaking out of apartments in the middle of the night, then this compound was in an entirely different galaxy.
She wanted to ask questions, but she knew two things – one, that it would make her seem far too curious and eager (both bad things in the employ of the cartel) and, two, she would learn what she would need to in time, whether she wanted to or not.
“This will be your room,” Lalo said. “Up and to the right. You should find everything that you might be looking for. If you don’t see it, please ask about it.”
“I’m sure this will be quite sufficient. It’s very roomy,” Kim replied, then stepped inside. When the door shut behind her, she couldn’t shake the feeling of being shut up in a closet like Rapunzel.
Let down your hair – but who would be calling? Not Jimmy, not now, not after she had left without so much as a note, even as she wished she could tally every little thing she saw and report it back to him in a letter and see what he thought of it all, find out what his own mind would make of it. After all, they were often better together.
If she had written a note, what would it have said? “Sorry, I’ve got to go do this?” “Here’s my number in Mexico, hope you still have some of those cell phones from before, they have ones with a lot of international minutes?” or just simply “Adios”?
And why was she still thinking of Jimmy? Why was she always thinking of Jimmy?
She needed to focus. She could remember the way that Howard had spoken of Jimmy as if he was a distraction for Kim, or maybe some sort of a bad influence. But it was more as if he had been a tiny string that she had been wanting to pull for a long, long time. She had never had the chance, however, because it had never been an option for her. The only choice was to be a “good girl” and keep working until she worked herself to death. That had been her destiny.
Until Jimmy.
He hadn’t been a bad influence. He had simply pulled the cork and let her flow.
***
It had been five hours at the Salamanca compound when Lalo knocked on Kim’s door with a crisis that needed to be solved.
“There’s an attack,” Lalo began, “Our… neighboring… cartel demands that we negotiate or be wiped out. We could wipe them out as well but… that is a big mess, and more manpower than I really wish to extend, especially with my uncle still in the state that he’s in. Senorita Lawyer, what’s your idea here?”
On the right over, Kim had gotten used to being called “Senorita Lawyer”. Lalo seemed to mean it with affection. She sucked in a breath while she thought about it.
“We send an envoy as a sign of good will. If they want to negotiate, then we should negotiate. Otherwise, you end up with a pile of dead bodies when what you could end up with is territory. If he wants a deal, then he’s going to have to give as good as he plans to get.”
Lalo’s lip curled as he cocked his head to the side.
“There’s one thing I may have to catch you up on,” he said.
“What’s that?” Kim inquired.
“This rival cartel leader. Not a he.”
Kim blinked.
“I thought cartels were all about machismo.”
“There are plenty of women running cartels. Haven’t you ever heard of Teresa Mendoza?”
“I mean, who hasn’t? I keep up on my telenovelas. But I assume that’s not who we’re negotiating with?”
Lalo looked down.
“Unfortunately not. This woman… they call her the Queen of Souls. And she’s not one to be trifled with.”
“That doesn’t sound promising,” Kim replied. “Give me some time to do some research, and then I’ll come up with a plan.”
Lalo left the room, and Kim began to pace. Of course, she would do research. She would come up with a plan.
She would face off against the nefarious-sounding Queen of Souls, and she had no doubt that she would come out on top.
Then why did she feel, not afraid, but suddenly cold, as if someone had sucked all the heat out of the room?
She wondered what would happen if she were to call back to Jimmy’s apartment. Maybe he would roll over and put the phone to his ear and… then what? Would he be happy to hear from her?
She could hear his voice in her head, after all. He’d been such a constant in her life.
Maybe that was too much of the problem. If she was always turning back to look at Jimmy to see how he was and make sure he didn’t stumble, then she never would have broken free.
And so she avoided the phone and opened her laptop, looking to see all she could on the Queen of Souls.
Looking for a silver bullet.
***
“I hope you’ve got something,” was how Lalo greeted her an hour later.
“Well, I have a deal,” Kim replied, laying out the papers over her desk and biting on her fingernail for just a moment as she made sure that each component was in order.
“I hope so,” Lalo replied, “Because you’re the one she wants sent as an envoy.”
Kim blinked.
“Me? Why would some cartel boss want to negotiate directly with me?”
Lalo shrugged.
“Apparently she heard about you. ‘Fancy Lawyer Woman’, she called you. But, you know, in Spanish, so it all sounded a lot grander. But I think you will do okay.”
Kim sighed and looked over at him once more. If she was going to be in for a penny, she was going to be in for a pound – or maybe here they had the same phrase and it started with “in for a peso”.
She was in for whatever she was in for, and it should have felt terrifying – she should have been counting each of her fingers and each of her toes and wondering if she was ever going to see any of them again – but instead, her heart was like the low hum of a radiator.
“Sure, I’ll meet with her,” Kim replied. “How’s her English? Because my Spanish is a little rusty.” There was a difference, of course, between being able to ask for directions, order off a menu, and get on the right bus… and convincing a drug lord that she shouldn’t kill you on the spot and also getting a good deal out of it all. She hadn’t considered until now how much of the lawyer wheeling and dealing hinged on the best use of language to connect. She might be a little bit doomed.
Lalo smiled.
“She’s fluent in four languages.”
“Oh? What are the other two?”
“Albanian and Latin. I think there’s a story there, but I’m not sure what.”
Kim’s lips twisted into a small, worried smile. She would find a way out of this, however. She always did.
***
They met the Queen of Souls in the middle of town, at a falling-apart bar where the only other customers were a pair of men who looked as if they had walked straight out of a cowboy movie and never looked back, flicking coins in the corner at a table and drinking out of mugs as big as their heads.
The woman’s hair was as long as her back, and Kim couldn’t stop looking at her as she moved to the side – just a little – and then cocked her head – still, only a little, as she looked over Kim and seemed to be sizing her up.
Kim wondered what her ultimate appraisal was but knew that she couldn’t ask. Well, not yet, at least.
The woman reached out and took one of Kim’s hands between two of her own, and then she smiled at Kim. An unnerving sight, if Kim did say so herself.
“I’d like you to come work for me,” the woman said.
Kim thought about it.
“I’m loyal to Lalo,” she explained, “If some harm were to come to him, that would be a serious issue. For me, personally. And I may not look it, but…”
“No, I get it. You got your morals. For now.” The Queen looked at her and smiled. “We’ll be open about it. Buy you out. Not give Lalo any reason to have a problem with it.”
“Is that an expense… you can afford?” Kim inquired.
“Well, of course it is,” the woman replied, then turned behind her and gestured for someone to come in.
Jimmy McGill walked into the room and let out a sigh, but not a particularly surprised one, as he saw Kim.
“Kim,” he began, and Kim shook her head, eyes going slightly wide. What the hell was Jimmy doing in Mexico?
“It appears that you two may already know each other, that’s good,” the Queen said and extended her hand, “But don’t worry about expense. Mr. McGill is here with information on a whole new revenue stream. You’ll be working together, of course. Get ready, both of you - we’re about to make a lot of money together.”