When the roar of a diesel engine broke the desert silence, Diego Morales looked up from the engine he was repairing and saw a cargo truck pull up in front of his shop, a cloud of steam billowing from its radiator.
A young woman with black hair pulled back and wearing grease-stained overalls got out of the truck, her face bearing the worried expression Diego had seen a thousand times on the faces of stranded truckers. She approached with purposeful steps, but there was something different in her gaze, a mixture of desperation and determination that made Diego feel this repair wouldn’t be like the others.
“How much do you charge to check the radiator? My truck can’t go on like this. It died halfway across the road.” My name is Diego, and in 20 years fixing engines on this border, I thought I’d seen it all. But when that woman stepped out of that blue Kenworth, her hands trembling and her eyes the greenest I’d ever seen, I knew my routine was about to change forever.
“Take a good look at the radiator, please.” I need to get to Mexicali before dawn. Her voice had that urgency I knew so well. Truck drivers hauling sensitive cargo always talk like that. But there was something else. She kept glancing at the road as if she expected someone to appear at any moment.
I opened the hood, and the problem was obvious. The radiator had a crack that had leaked all the coolant, a repair that would take at least four hours, and the part would cost me 300 pesos. “That’ll be 500 pesos, miss, 300 for the part and 200 for labor.” She closed her eyes and sighed deeply.
When she opened them, there was something new in her expression, a vulnerability that hadn’t been there seconds before. “Diego, I don’t have any cash on me right now.” Normally, I would have refused the job immediately, but something in the way she said my name, like a plea disguised as a confession, made me hesitate. “My name is Elena.
And I can pay you another way if you’re willing to listen.” “What kind of work do you do, Miss Elena?” Elena hesitated for a moment, biting her lower lip. Her green eyes scanned my workshop as if assessing whether she could trust me. “I transport special cargo. Sometimes I see things I shouldn’t see.”
It wasn’t a complete answer, but on this border, you learn not to ask too many questions. Elena was transporting something that had her racing against time and without money for repairs. “I have information worth much more than 500 pesos, Diego. Information that could change your business.” Elena’s proposition left me frozen. On this border, information can be worth a fortune or cost you your life, depending on who has it and what secrets it contains.
But there was something about the way Elena looked at me that made me feel I was about to cross a line from which there would be no return. “What kind of information?” Elena moved closer, lowering her voice until it was almost a whisper. The scent of her perfume mingled with the smell of diesel and motor oil.
“I know of an illegal operation that’s affecting your competition.” The Salazar brothers aren’t winning customers by low prices. The Salazar brothers, those bastards who had stolen half my customers in the last six months with impossibly low prices. I always suspected they had outside financing, but I could never prove it.
How do you know that? Elena smiled, but there was sadness in that smile, as if sharing this information hurt her as much as it would help me. Let’s just say I’ve been to places where certain businesses operate, and I saw things that can help you get your customers back. I accept the deal. Give me the details while I fix your truck. As I began to remove the damaged radiator, Elena told me about nighttime cash deliveries, specific routes the Salazars used to avoid checkpoints, and contacts who handled suspicious financial operations. Every word that came out of her mouth was
another piece of the puzzle. But every word also made me wonder who Elena really was and why she had access to such specific information about criminal operations. When I finished installing the new radiator, Elena handed me a small notebook with handwritten phone numbers and addresses.
“This information is worth more than 1,000 repairs, Diego. Use it carefully.” But as Elena climbed into her truck and the Caterpillar engine roared back to life, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d made a deal with someone whose true story I was only just beginning to learn.
Was Elena a government informant, a former employee of the Salazars, or something else entirely? For the next three days, I couldn’t get Elena out of my mind, not only because of the information she’d given me, but also because of the way she’d vanished so abruptly, as if leaving Tijuana was more important than ensuring I held up my end of the bargain.
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