Chapter 6 - The Broken Bell
In the underground visitation wing of the Bexar County Adult Detention Center, the fluorescent lights hummed with a sickly yellow glare. The air smelled of industrial bleach, floor wax, and human misery.
Fernanda sat behind the thick polycarbonate glass divider, wearing a dull orange scrub suit that hung loosely on her frame. Her hair, which she had spent hundreds of dollars every week maintaining, was greasy and tied back in an untidy knot. Her nails were chipped and raw from clutching the cold steel bars of her cell.
The heavy steel door on the visitor’s side buzzed open.
Fernanda gasped, her heart leaping into her throat as she saw a tall figure in a tailored black overcoat step into the small booth. For a fleeting, delusional second, she thought it was Santiago. She thought he had finally realized he couldn't live without her, that he had come to rescue his elegant girlfriend from this nightmare.
“Santi!” she cried, grabbing the heavy plastic telephone receiver off the wall.
The man pulled back his coat and sat down. It was not Santiago.
It was Don Ernesto Mendoza.
The patriarch did not pick up the telephone immediately. He sat with his hands resting calmly atop his ivory-handled cane, his dark, ancient eyes studying her through the glass like a scientist examining an insect pinned to a board.
Trembling, Fernanda tapped on the glass, pointing frantically to the receiver.
Slowly, deliberately, Don Ernesto lifted the heavy black phone and pressed it to his ear.
“Don Ernesto... please, I beg of you,” Fernanda wept, pressing her forehead against the scratched plastic divider. “Look at me! I’m rotting in here! The women in this cell block... they know what I’m charged with! They throw things at me! They threaten to kill me in my sleep! Tell Santiago to get me out! Just post the bail, and I swear to the Virgin Mary I will leave Texas! I will move to Europe! You will never see my face again!”
Don Ernesto listened without a single flicker of emotion on his weathered face. When she finally ran out of breath, sobbing into the plastic mouthpiece, the old man spoke.
“My granddaughter slept through the night for the first time yesterday,” he said, his voice smooth and ancient, untouched by her desperation. “She woke up crying because of the pain in her cheek. She asked her mother if she had been a bad girl. A three-year-old angel, asking if she deserved to be beaten.”
“I didn't mean to—!”
“You did mean to,” Don Ernesto interrupted, his voice dropping into a register that made the hairs on her neck stand straight. “You saw an innocent life, and because that life received the love and devotion you craved, you tried to break it. You believed the Mendoza family was merely wealthy, Miss Delgado. You believed our power came from money that could be sued, negotiated, or settled with an apology.”
The old man leaned closer to the glass.
“You forgot that we are cattlemen from the old frontier. We do not negotiate with wolves that bite our lambs. We hunt them down, we burn their dens, and we leave nothing behind for the scavengers.”
Fernanda shook her head, tears flying wildly. “My father... what did you do to my father?”
“Your father is currently filing for Chapter 7 liquidating bankruptcy,” Don Ernesto said with absolute, clinical detachment. “The trucks have been seized. The contracts have been reassigned to our loyal partners. By the end of this month, the house you grew up in will be auctioned on the courthouse steps. Your mother has moved into a rented two-bedroom apartment in East San Antonio, living on government assistance.”
Fernanda’s jaw dropped. A strangled, animal sound tore from her throat. “No... you can’t do that! You destroyed my whole family over a slap? Over a slap on a toddler?!”
“A slap on a Mendoza,” Don Ernesto corrected her. “A slap that will cost you seven years of your youth in a state penitentiary. Arthur Vance has already informed the court that you will be pleading guilty without a deal, because if you dare take this to a jury, my legal team will introduce evidence that will ensure you serve every single consecutive day of the maximum sentence.”
May you like
Don Ernesto slowly hung up the telephone receiver, resting it back on its cradle with a quiet, final click.
He stood up, adjusted his coat, and turned toward the exit. Behind the thick glass, Fernanda beat her bloody fists against the plastic, screaming silently as two burly female corrections officers grabbed her by the arms and dragged her kicking and shrieking back into the dark corridor of the cell block.
