CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTA YOUNG GUY, BETO CRUZ, OLDER THAN ME—IN HIS THIRTIES, I guessed—met me at the airport in San Salvador. He had dark hair and eyes and was emanating intensity from across the scuffed miles of linoleum that separated us, holding up a makeshift sign with CALY FLANAGUN written in black Magic Marker.His English was fluid, and he spoke with almost no accent—turned out he had lived most of his life in Canada with his mother. He’d been home for only a few years.“You’ll be staying in a hotel tonight here in San Salvador, and then tomorrow we’ll drive to the Pacific coast. I’ve got something I want to show you,” he said as we drove, me riding shotgun in an old VW van, his arm stretched across the top of the seat, fingers almost touching my shoulders.“Oh, I thought we were going to . . . Where’s the convent? In the north?” I said.“Yeah, yeah, it’s on the way. I’m taking the scenic route,” he said, smiling, lighting up a cigarette, the tips of his fingers stained with nicotine, looking away from the road and over at me.
