Prayers for the Stolen

The day after Rita shot Maria, Mike picks Ladydi up in an expensive car to take her to Acapulco for her first day in her new job as a nanny. Mike does not talk about what happened to Maria and, while he drives, she notices a tattoo of the letter Z on his finger. As she notes to herself, “Z stands for the most dangerous drug cartel in Mexico” (112), the Zetas. Ladydi reflects that the construction of the Sun Highway from Mexico City to Acapulco destroyed her community in Chulavista. The highway cut in half the community that lived on the mountains there and also means that many of the men can use the highway to leave for jobs in the United States.

On the way to Acapulco, Mike takes a detour down a dirt road, stopping at a dilapidated shack. There, he is confronted by a tall, skinny man carrying a machine gun. Mike tells Ladydi to stay in the car while he and the man go inside the shack. Ladydi sees a little girl’s dresses drying on a cactus. When Mike emerges from the shack, he is carrying a parcel, and when he gets back in the car she notices that his jeans are covered with blood.