Free Devil's Harbor by Alex Gilly

people come to the village. Enganchadores offering money to villagers to go and work in the United States. Felipe sees that with them is his son. He sees that his son is working for the enganchadores . He sees his boy offering money to the young men he grew up with, who he went to school with and to Mass with, to go to America and work. He is offering large sums, which many young men don’t resist. My cousin’s son tries one more time to reason with his boy, but again he is rebuffed.
    â€œEarly one morning, Felipe is on his boat preparing his nets, getting ready to leave with the first light. He sees a boat arrive at the dock. An expensive boat. He hides beneath his nets, because no one has that kind of boat in that part of the country except cartel men. From his hiding place, he sees the villagers who were recruited by the enganchadores go aboard the boat, along with his son, Felipe. He counts five of them. The boat heads out to sea.”
    Here, the old woman paused, lit another cigarette, and gazed out the window at a big sign that read CHECKS CA$HED and then at the mural on the wall next to it. A minute passed. The room got smokier. Finn slumped in his chair. He felt tired and frustrated. He wanted to open a window. He wished she’d get to the point. The woman turned back to Mona and continued her story.
    â€œFelipe never heard from his boy again. He went to the families whose sons had gone with the enganchadores . No one had heard from any of the boys who boarded that boat.
    â€œFelipe wanted to know what had become of his son. Even if the boy was dead, it was better to know. He learned from the other families that the boys had told their parents the boat was taking them first to Los Angeles, where a truck would be waiting to take them to the orange groves. When Felipe learned that they were to come here, he called to see if I had heard anything.
    â€œI asked everyone I knew if they had heard of five boys from Escondido arriving on a boat and going to the orange groves. But no one had heard anything, not in Los Angeles and not in the Central Valley.
    â€œThen last week I saw on Univision the news bulletin about the migra shooting that man on the boat.”
    The woman looked intently at Finn now.
    â€œI remembered that the name of the boat Felipe’s son and those other boys went aboard was La Catrina .
    â€œI called my cousin and told him I had seen this boat on television. He went on the computer and searched for the story. He looked at the photograph of the boat on the newspaper on the Internet. He telephoned me and told me the boat in the photograph was the same boat that he had seen at the dock. It was the boat that had taken away his son.”
    Finn was sitting up straight now.
    â€œThose boys never touched the shore of America,” said La Abuelita through Mona. “If they had, they would’ve contacted their families.”
    A moment passed. Finn looked out the window at the mural, at the Aztec god’s inhaling mouth. Five young men disappeared into the sea. He thought about the floater, the stumps.
    The old lady’s story confirmed that Perez was a bad guy, but it wasn’t evidence. Finn needed more. He turned to Mona.
    â€œWe need to find the cousin. I can ask Vega to send someone to Puerto Escondido, show him a photo of Perez. If he fingers Perez as a Caballero, we’ll blow the bullshit lawsuit out of the water.”
    Mona spoke to the old lady.
    The old lady shook her head.
    â€œShe says if you send someone from the capital, the cartel will certainly kill her cousin,” said Mona.
    In other circumstances, Finn thought, he could’ve played hardball. He could’ve brought up Mrs. Gavrilia’s immigration status, put pressure on her to give up the cousin.
    But he couldn’t bring himself to do that. Maybe Diego had been right: maybe Mona was turning him into a bleeding-heart liberal.
    He looked out at the mural again, deciding what to