jellies. I would love to do small batches of organic corn and peas and beans as well, but they mostly do those at the processing center in bulk. Besides, those require the pressure cooker to process and more time than I have had since Rodrigo took charge. He is a dynamo, that man.”
“Pressure cookers make me nervous,” Glory began.
“We’ve all heard terrible stories about how they can explode,” Consuelo chuckled. “But this is a new age. They all have fail safe controls now a days. Anyway, we won’t use them here. Let me show you what we’re working on. It’s an easy job.”
EASY. THE WORK WAS. Glory’s hip pained her, and she spent some of her time on a heating pad. But Consuelo found her a stool and she adjusted to the new physical demands of her job.
Rodrigo, however, was not easy. He seemed to have taken an instant dislike to Glory and was determined to say as little to her as possible in the course of a day.
He seemed to think she was a useless person. He was impersonally tolerant of her disability, but he often looked at her as if he suspected that her brain was locked away in a fleshy cabinet and was only taken out occasionally to be polished. She wondered what he’d think if he knew what she did for a living and why she was actually down here. It amused her to consider his reaction.
One day, he brought a new man into the house and told Consuelo that he would be overseeing the men while Rodrigo had to be away over the weekend. Glory didn’t like the newcomer at all. He seemed to never look anyone in the eye. He was small and swarthy and he made a point of staring at Glory’s body when he spoke to her. Already uneasy around men she didn’t know, this one was causing her some real problems.
Consuelo noticed, and she got between the man and Glory when he became too friendly.
“I cannot imagine what was in Señor Ramirez’s mind when he hired that Castillo man as an assistant,” Consuelo muttered to Glory when they were alone in the kitchen. “I don’t like having him around here. He’s spent time in jail.”
“How did you know that?” Glory asked. She knew the answer, but she wondered if Consuelo was just sensing the man’s past or if there was a reason for the remark.
“The muscles in his arms and torso are huge, and he has tattoos everywhere.” She mentioned one particular tattoo that marked him as a member of one of the more notorious Los Angeles street gangs.
Glory, who knew about gang members all too well, was surprised and impressed by the woman’s knowledge.
“What is he doing here?” Glory asked aloud, pondering.
“I would not dare to ask,” came the solemn reply. “Señor Pendleton should be told, but it would be worth my job to mention it outside the house. We will have to trust that Rodrigo knows what he is doing.”
“There’s a strange bird,” Glory remarked. “Rodrigo. He’s very cultured and quite intelligent. I’m sure he could write his own ticket in management anywhere he wanted to work. He seems out of place on a truck farm.”
Consuelo chuckled. “I would not ask that one anything which was not necessary for the performance of my job,” she replied. “From time to time, something upsets him. He is eloquent with bad words, and he does not tolerate sloppy work or tardiness. One man he scolded for drinking on the job was fired the same day. He is a hard taskmaster.”
“Yes, I thought he seemed that sort of man. He’s not happy.”
Consuelo looked at her and nodded. “You are perceptive. No, he is not. And I think that he is not usually a moody person. He must have loved his family very much. I notice how he is with my son, Marco, when he visits me.”
“You have children, then?” Glory asked gently.
Consuelo smiled. “Yes, a boy. He has just turned twenty-one. I adore him.”
“Does he live nearby?”
Consuelo shook her head. “He lives in Houston. But he comes to see me when he can. Especially when there’s a soccer game on cable—he can’t afford it, but Rodrigo had it put in here so that he doesn’t miss the games.”
“Soccer?” Glory’s green eyes lit up. “I love soccer!”
“You do?” Consuelo was excited. “Which team do you like best?”
Glory smiled sheepishly. “Mexico. I know I should support our own team in this country, but I love the Mexican team. I have a flag of the team that hangs in my living room during the World Cup and the Copita.”
“I probably should not tell you that I am related to a player on that team.”
“You are?” Glory exclaimed. “Which one?”
Before she could answer, Rodrigo walked in. He stopped in the doorway, scowling at Glory’s radiance when she smiled. “What did I interrupt?” he asked curiously.
“We were talking about soccer,” Consuelo began.
He glanced at Glory. “Don’t tell me you watch it?”
“Every chance I get,” she replied.
He made a sound in his throat, like a subdued chuckle. He turned to Consuelo. “I’m going to be away for the weekend. I’m leaving Castillo in charge. If you have any problems with him, let me know.”
“He does not…” Consuelo began, glancing at Glory.
“He doesn’t bother us,” Glory interrupted with a speaking glance.
“Since you have no contact with him, I can’t imagine why he should,” he told her. “If you need me, you have my cell phone number.”
“Yes,” Consuelo said.
He walked out without another word.
“Why didn’t you let me tell him?” Consuelo asked worriedly.
“He’d think I was complaining to you,” Glory said simply. “If Castillo gives me any trouble, I’ll take care of him myself.” She smiled gently. “You shouldn’t think that my hip slows me down very much,” she said softly. “I can take care of myself. But thank you for caring.”
Consuelo hesitated, then she smiled. “Okay. I’ll let you handle it your way.”
Glory nodded, and went back to work.
CASTILLO DIDN’T BOTHER them. But he did have a long conversation with a man in a white van. Glory watched covertly from the kitchen window, making sure she wasn’t visible to him. The van was old and beat-up and the man driving it was as muscular and as tattooed as Castillo. She made a mental note of the van’s license plate and wrote it down on a pad, just in case.
She shouldn’t have been so suspicious of people, she told herself. But she knew a lot about drug smuggling from the cases she’d prosecuted, and she had something of a second sense about the “mules” who transported cocaine and marijuana and methamphetamine from one place to another. Many of the “mules” were in street gangs that also helped distribute the product.
She and Consuelo were
