Play the Right Cards

by M. L. Buchman

  4

  Estela watched Ramiro go and tried not to feel the ache in her heart. He had been so strange since his return that in some ways she no longer knew him. Where was the boy whose eyes had followed her even when he himself hadn’t dared? It had taken her until he had left to understand that perhaps the quiet boy was the good one and the ones who were so brash and confident—especially those waving about their drug wealth—were not so kind. But now?

  Now Ramiro would barely speak with her. And somehow, her seeking the protection of the Americans was yet another offense. She would have to do something about that—when she didn’t have a restaurant crowded with customers and Jesús to worry about.

  The dinner service ran by so fast as it always did when she was busy. She was outside in the soft twilight, cleaning up the dishes when a hand grabbed her wrist forcing her to drop a plate that shattered on the rough street. She knew it immediately by the long, thin cruelty of the fingers that her cheek still remembered from all those years ago.

  “It’s time, chica,” Jesús breathed in her ear as his other hand clamped about her waist from behind. “It is time you finally gave me what is mine.”

  She was helpless against his whipcord strength.

  His hand shifted over her mouth. She tried to bite it, but he was expecting that and merely wrenched her neck harder as he forced her to walk ahead of him down the street.

  He was going to rape her in some back alley. And she was going to fight until he was forced to kill her to do so. For all her struggles, she might as well have been a fly to be shooed away from a hock of raw lamb.

  Tears began to stream down her face. To end like this was too horrible for thought. If she could die right here, right now, shredded by a bomb like her mother, she would take that over what awaited her at Jesús’ hands.

  Then, by some miracle, it happened. She was slammed down onto the street. But she wasn’t dead. Her ears didn’t bleed from the blast of the bomb.

  At the sound of the snarl behind her, she rolled over and saw Jesús’ back. And beyond him she saw the two Delta men.

  “Looky here, buddy,” the blond one had his hands tucked into his back pockets. “We’ve got someone who isn’t playing nice. He’s trying to take away the chef before we get another one of her obleas.”

  “Doesn’t seem right,” the darker one agreed. There was a gun in his hand, but he was holding it oddly. More as if he’d snatched it out of Jesús’ waistband than if he’d pulled his own from some hidden spot. With three gestures so fast that she couldn’t follow them, he separated the gun into four pieces. He pocketed one piece, threw a pair of them into a garbage can, and chucked the last into one of the neighborhood’s brand new storm drains where it rattled away.

  Jesús yanked out a knife and flicked it open. She wanted to warn them, he was an expert knife fighter, just as his father had been when he was one of Escobar’s actual bodyguards. But the cry caught in her throat. She had scarred Jesús’ face with that knife when she was twelve. And now he was going to carve up these men whose help she needed but hadn’t had time to ask.

  And then he was going to carve her.

  “Aw, ain’t he cute,” the blond one had no idea the danger he was in. “He’s got a pig sticker.”

  “More like a guinea pig sticker,” the darker one answered.

  “Maybe it’s a mouse sticker.”

  Neither man had the sense to reach for a gun. If they really were Delta Force, they must have guns.

  The next moment happened so fast, she could never quite make sense of it.

  “Pitiful, dude,” the blond one sounded bored and walked by Jesús as if he wasn’t even there. He bent down to offer her his hand with his back to the most dangerous knife fighter in the barrio, perhaps in Medellín.

  Jesús moved to take advantage.

  Before she could scream a warning, the darker one stepped forward. One moment Jesús was lunging with his knife. The next he was pinned with his back against the wall, his feet off the ground, and the only sound in the night was his knife clattering down upon a stone. His knife hand was clutched tightly in his other hand as if it was in great pain.

  “Little boys shouldn’t play with knives,” the blond one winked at her as he helped her to her feet, only then turning to see what had happened.

  With no apparent effort, the darker one lifted Jesús clear of the wall, then tossed him into the same garbage can where parts of his gun had been thrown.

  The blond one picked up the blade and inspected it carefully.

  “A gift from Escobar to his father,” she told him.

  “A custom Terzuola. One of his early designs. Make for a good souvenir.”

  “He was generous with his men.” There were still people who worshipped Escobar. He had brought the first lights to a Medellín soccer field so that the locals could play at night. He gave gifts to his adherents so that they lived like kings. And threw lavish parties for “his people”—the Paisas of the barrio.

  “And lethal to his enemies.” The blond folded the blade back into the handle with a practiced flick then offered it to her.

  She shook her head. “I want no part of the past. Medellín is better with his death. The narco-tourists—they should all live as I did. All die as my mother did. Then we would see if they think it is so fascinating.”

  He nodded, instead tossing her the deck of brightly cheerful cards they’d been using to play Truco. “Could you make sure these get back to Ramiro?” They walked her back to her restaurant, waved, and disappeared into the night.

  Estela was done with the past. In so many ways.

  She looked in, saw that Cara was almost done cleaning the restaurant. When she waved through the window, she received a cheery wave back. No one was the wiser for tonight’s events, which was a blessing.

  The bright lights still streamed out onto the rough pavement from Restaurante de Medellín. She stepped into that bright light, then into Ramiro’s restaurant. She had never actually been in here. She didn’t understand the stark colors and sharp edges, but she’d seen his prices and his clientele dressed in their expensive clothes.

  “Is this the future?” She wondered aloud.

  Ramiro twisted around from where he was resetting a last table, making sure the linen tablecloth—an actual tablecloth—was arranged just so.

  5

  “One version of it.” Ramiro could feel the bitterness in his voice, but it was hard to feel it when he looked at her. She wore the simplest of clothes, a voluminous red skirt in her grandmother’s village’s pattern that she made beautiful rather than mundane. Her white blouse, its collar and sleeves embroidered with tiny red roses, hung loosely over her generous figure until it gathered in the skirt at her trim waist. Her long dark hair framed a face so lovely that Prieto might have painted it, if Estela hadn’t so brought so much life to it herself.

  Her eyes seemed a little wider than usual, as if she’d just been running and was surprised to find herself breathless.

  “Feed me your food, Ramiro. Show me what it is you do.”

  In a dream, he pulled aside a seat for her and held it out.

  She shook her head, her hair now loose rather than in the generous ponytail he’d seen earlier, she moved up to the counter facing the kitchen to sit at one of the stools. She made a show of placing two napkins—one in front of her and one at the stool beside her, then set down the deck of My Little Pony playing cards.

  “They’re gone?”

  She nodded.

  He searched for anger, but couldn’t seem to find it.

  He started with the soup he had rebuilt from scratch. It was still young—two more days simmering and the broth would truly meld—but the salt and the sweet, the fruit and the cheese were finally in the right balance.

  She tasted. With her soft sigh as encouragement, he moved on to rock shrimp steamed in hearts of palm with a pineapple foam. Shaved New York strip served on yucca bread with liquid nitrogen crystalized guacamole shards and seared d
iscs of chicharón. She said nothing, but she finished everything down to the last fork-clattering scrape of the plate. The meal stretched long into the night as he made only one course and two plates at a time, then sat to share it with her. Only when they were done, did he rise to start the next course.

  Finally he made dessert—his version of an oblea.

  The wafer was seasoned with fine-grated candied ginger and the tiniest shreds of dark-roasted habanero and red bell pepper so that it almost sparkled with color. He had deconstructed the elements of salt and sweet, savory and umami, crema de leche and merest slivers of aged ham. He had stayed up through the night using all of his skills to create it, to win the Americans back from Estela. Never in a thousand years had he imagined that he would be making it for her instead. He served it on a clean white plate in neatly sliced pie sections rather than the traditional full round wrapped in foil.

  When he served it on the single plate and set it between their places, it felt as if all the life had gone out of him. He couldn’t even find the energy to lift a slice for himself. Instead, he sat and watched as Estela bit off the end of one of the slices with her perfect white teeth. She closed her eyes as she chewed and, he hoped, savored.

  She set it down after only the one lone bite.

  “You don’t like it.” She had always been the best cook he’d ever known. They had sung his praises in Bogotá, but none of that mattered. What mattered was what Estela thought. And she had set it down after one bite.

  Then she slipped a finger under his chin and forced him to look up at her. It might be the first time they had ever touched.

  “How?”

  How had he failed? He didn’t know. “I was trying—” foolishly “—to impress you. That was always why I cooked. You remember how my father would beat me, but I never let you know why. It was because I wouldn’t join a cartel and take the easy drug money, instead I cooked. For you.”

  Her thumb brushed his cheek so gently.

  If he was any less of a man, he would cry. But he had his pride, and that didn’t include crying in front of Estela. He would leave. He would take the remains of his meager savings and go back to Bogotá. There he would open a restaurant in the finest neighborhood where they understood him, rather than some barrio where he no longer belonged.

  Her kiss was flavored with his oblea.

  Estela’s lips were softer and warmer than he’d ever imagined. They were like her cooking, so complete and perfect that he didn’t know why he’d ever even tried to compete.

  She eased back ever so slightly, but still her hand was on his cheek.

  “It was amazing, Ramiro. You captured the flavors of the Paisa—the flavor of the people—but somehow you brought it a new life without losing the heart of the food. And I will never make another oblea when I could have one of yours instead.”

  “It was all for you, Estela. You’re the only thing I ever wanted.”

  She smiled. “I understand that now.” And she leaned back in for another kiss.

  He closed his eyes just as their lips met and—

  A hand grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and tossed him aside. He crashed into the line of stools and landed in a painful tangle on the floor.

  “Don’t be taking what’s mine, Ramiro. You know better than that.”

  Jesús Rivera tipped up a stool and dropped into it beside Estela. He reached out with a hand and grabbed a fistful of Estela’s hair, but hissed with pain as if she had spikes in it.

  “Hand hurting, Jesús?” Estela’s sarcasm earned her a sharp slap across the jaw with the back of his other hand.

  “No Americano here to protect you now.”

  And Ramiro understood.

  Estela hadn’t been trying to steal his Americans. She had recognized Delta Force operators and gambled that they were the only ones skilled enough to take on Jesús. He had not become the leader of Pablo’s Domingo Guerrilleros with his gentle ways—he’d left a trail of the scarred, the crippled, and the dead in the wake of his success.

  But they weren’t here now.

  Ramiro tried to move silently, but was too tangled in the stools.

  “Get me something to drink.” Jesús didn’t even bother to turn. Neither did he release his fistful of Estela’s hair.

  Ramiro could feel Estela’s eyes on him as he stepped through the gap in the counter and found a bottle of Aguardiente. Ramiro of the past would have served it in a glass. Would have scurried away and tried not to think about what Jesús did to his women.

  But that was a Ramiro he no longer knew. Estela had kissed him. Had told him without words that she loved his food. And that maybe, just maybe she had real feelings for him.

  He uncorked the bottle and set it on the counter by Jesús. He could see Estela’s eyes die a little as Ramiro backed away. As Jesús would expect.

  Backed away, while Jesús twisted Estela’s head cruelly one way and another. Backed away until his hand landed exactly where he intended, on the ten-inch chef’s knife that he always put in the same precise spot on his counter.

  By shifting behind Jesús, he blocked Estela’s view of him. Then, lunging through the server’s gap in the counter, he plunged the knife into Jesús’ back. It was like plunging it into stone. The shock slammed up his arm as Jesús roared in fury. He spun on Ramiro as the small stream of blood ran down from his shoulder blade.

  Stupid. He should have thought about a man’s anatomy. Where were you supposed to stab a man? How would he know? In the kidneys might have been good if he had thought of it in time. Instead his knife had bounced off Jesús’ shoulder blade and only infuriated him.

  His punch slammed Ramiro back against his stove; the pain such an explosion that he could only collapse to the floor.

  Jesús was also screaming in pain, holding his hand close to his chest. But his face was almost black with rage. Jesús bent down to pick up the knife that the force of Ramiro’s attack had knocked out of his hand. There was no question he was about to die on his own blade.

  Unwilling to witness his own death, he squeezed his eyes shut against the coming blow.

  Then he heard a deep voice. “Thought we told you that little boys shouldn’t play with knives.”

  Jesús’ roared with fury. Ramiro opened his eyes and managed to lean far enough to look through the counter’s gap. The Americans caught Jesús’ charge as if he was a butterfly on one of the My Little Pony cards.

  “Didn’t realize you were Jesús Rivera,” Chad continued. “Been looking for you for a bit. Might have saved these folks some trouble if you’d bothered to introduce yourself earlier. Excuse us.” He offered both Estela and him pleasant nods as if they were passing each other on the street.

  They marched Jesús out the door and into the night.

  Rumors sprang up of magnificent final gun battles or dark American prisons, but no one ever saw Jesús Rivera again.

  Ramiro and Estela had kept their thoughts to themselves.

  Months later, Ramiro could only wonder at Estela’s brilliance. She had been right as usual. He had wanted to cut a wide arch between their restaurants, but Estela had only let him cut a window between their kitchens. It was enough of an opening that he could see her cooking whenever he wanted to, but not so much that their restaurants would merge as their lives had.

  She’d insisted that what he did was art compared to her simple food. But he never doubted that comfort food was what kept a Paisa happy. “To protect your art, there must be a wall between us,” she’d insisted. But it was the only part of their lives that stayed separate. She had married him and soon they would have their first child.

  And the Americans had come. Sometimes to one restaurant, sometimes to the other. They often brought their friends, which had attracted others, both military and from the city center. Their restaurants had thrived.

  But there were only two things that ever passed through the small window between their kitchens.

  Estela had insisted that he provide a constant supply of
his “magnificent” obleas for her customers as well as his own.

  And the deck of My Little Pony playing cards, depending on which restaurant the Americans came to eat and play wild games of Truco.

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  Wild Justice (excerpt)

  The low hill, shadowed by banana and mango trees in the twilight of the late afternoon sun above the Venezuelan jungle, overlooked the heavily guarded camp a half mile away. But that wasn’t his immediate problem.

  Right now, it took everything Duane Jenkins could do to ignore the stinging sweat dripping into his eyes. Any unwarranted motion or sound might attract his target’s attention before he was in position.

  From two meters away, he whispered harshly.

  “Who the hell are you, sister? And how did you get here?”

  “Holy crap!”

  He couldn’t help but smile. What kind of woman said crap when unexpectedly facing a sniper rifle at point-blank range?

  “Not your sister,” she gained points for a quick recovery. “Now get that rifle out of my face, Jarhead.”

  Ouch! That was low. He wasn’t some damned, swamp-tromping Marine. Not even ex-Marine. He was ex-75th Rangers of the US Army, now two years in Delta Force. And as an operator for The Unit—as Delta called themselves—that made him far superior to any other soldier no matter what the dudes in SEAL Team 6 thought about it. That also didn’t explain who he’d just found here in the perfect sniper position overlooking General Raul Estevan Aguado’s encampment.

  It had taken him over fifteen hours to scout out this one perfect gap between the too-damn-tall trees that made up this sweaty place and, with just twenty meters to go, he’d spotted her heavily camouflaged form lying among the leaves. It had taken him another half hour to cover that distance without drawing her attention.

  Where was a cold can of Coke when a guy needed one? This place was worse than Atlanta in the summer. The red earth had been driven so deep into his pores from crawling over the ground that he wondered if his skin color was permanently changed to rust red.