Beyond This Point Are Monsters Read Free Page B

southeast corner of the field. It was an elegant little knife with a double handle which opened like a pair of wings and folded back to reveal the blade in the middle. One of Jaime’s friends owned a butterfly knife. If you got the hang of it and practiced a lot in your spare time, the blade could be brought into striking position almost as fast as a switchblade, which was illegal.
    Jaime was delighted with his find until he noticed the brownish crust around the hinges. He put the knife care­fully down on the ground, wiped his hands on his jeans and went to tell his father.
    south of boca de rio the road met the main highway that connected San Diego and Tijuana. The two cities, so dissimilar in sight and sound and atmosphere, were bound together by geography and economics, like stepsisters with completely different backgrounds forced to live to­gether under the same roof.
    Within a matter of minutes Estivar and the station wagon were lost in the heavy flow of traffic. Leo Bishop drove in the slow lane, both hands so tight on the steering wheel that his knuckle bones seemed ready to force their way out of his skin. He was a tall thin man in his early forties. There was about him an air of defeat and bewilder­ment, as though all the rules he’d learned in life were, one by one, being reversed.
    If Dulzura’s youth was camouflaged by fat, Leo’s age was exaggerated by years of sun and wind. His red hair was bleached to the color of sand, his face was scarred over his cheekbones and across the bridge of his nose by repeated burns. He had light green eyes which he pro­tected from the sun by squinting, so that when he moved into the shade and his facial muscles relaxed, fine white lines appeared below and at the corners of his eyes where the ultraviolet rays hadn’t reached. These lines gave him a curiously intense expression, which made some of the Mexicans whisper about mal ojo, evil eye, and azar, bad luck.
    After his wife drowned in the river the whispers in­creased, he had trouble with his crews, equipment broke down, frost killed the grapefruit and damaged the date palms . . . mal ojo . . . demonios del muerte. He suspected Estivar of encouraging the rumors, but he never men­tioned his suspicions to Devon. She would have trouble believing that evil eyes and demons were still part of Estivar’s world.
    â€œDevon.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œIt will soon be over.”
    She stirred, unbelieving. “What time is it?”
    â€œTen after nine.”
    â€œMr. Ford said nothing would be settled today. Even if he manages to question all the witnesses, there’ll still be a delay while the judge goes over the evidence. He may not announce his decision for a week, it depends on how much other work he has.”
    â€œAt least your part will be over.”
    She wasn’t sure what her part was going to be. The lawyer had instructed her not only to answer questions but to volunteer information whenever she felt like it, small personal things, homely things, that would help to show Robert as he really was. “We want to make him come alive,” Ford said. He did not apologize for the ill-chosen phrase; he seemed to be testing her composure to see if it would hold up in court.
    The road had turned west toward San Diego Bay. Sail­ boats moved gently in the water like large white butter­flies that had dipped down to drink. At the edge of the bay a thin strand of beach, wet from the ebbing tide and sil­vered by the sun, held back the open sea.
    â€œYou’d better let me off half a block or so from the courthouse,” Devon said. “Mrs. Osborne thinks we shouldn’t be seen together.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œPeople might talk.”
    â€œWould that matter?”
    â€œIt would to her.”
    They drove for a while without speaking. In the bay the sailboats gave way to navy vessels, the white butterflies to gray steel waterbugs with