The Devil's Elixir

by Raymond Khoury

  The last room we checked out was a third bedroom, the smallest of the three. It was set up as her study, with a dark wood desk, well-stocked bookshelves, and a deep sofa laid out with a bunch of velvet throw cushions. Again, framed photos were nestled among the books and memorabilia from Michelle’s past. I saw that, along with all the big novels and travel guides I remember she enjoyed, she also had plenty of the New-Agey tomes she was into, mind and spirit stuff I used to poke fun at. It was all warm and cozy and bathed in Michelle’s eclectic taste, and it drove home even more how much Alex was going to miss her.

  As I scanned the bookshelves, I also noticed a small, black wireless router that sat inconspicuously on top of a plastic storage box. I edged closer to it and saw that its green LED lights were on, indicating that it was broadcasting. I turned and saw a small inkjet printer on a low side table by the desk. It had a wireless logo on it. I swung my gaze across to the desk itself. There was no computer on it. There was, however, a small white cord that snaked down the side of the desk and led to a small, white power adapter with an Apple logo on it that was plugged into a wall socket.

  But no computer.

  I turned to Villaverde. “Did anyone log in a computer? A laptop, or maybe an iPad?”

  “Hang on,” he replied as he pulled out his phone.

  I looked around. I couldn’t see one anywhere. I went back and checked the master bedroom, the living room, and the kitchen.

  Nothing.

  Villaverde’s call yielded no positive news. The homicide detectives who’d worked the house hadn’t come across a computer. If they had, they would have logged it and sent it over to the crime lab.

  “She didn’t have one with her at the hotel,” I told Villaverde. “Which means it was probably still here when she ran out of the house.”

  I checked the router again. It was a Netgear device and not Apple’s own Time Capsule, which was a bummer. Apple’s box automatically backs up the household computers’ drives wirelessly, which would’ve been a boon in this case, but then again, maybe the guys who came for her would have taken that, too.

  “So the shooters took it,” Villaverde said.

  It wasn’t a huge help, but it told me something.

  The killers weren’t just after her.

  12

  YUCATÁN PENINSULA, MEXICO

  Raoul Navarro loved it here.

  Just standing there, on his favorite among the many shaded terraces of his hacienda’s casa principal, enjoying a fine Cuban and taking in the view as the lush moon teased the surface of the ceremonial pond, a soft breeze rustled the bougainvillea, and countless cicadas lulled his world to rest.

  Life was good for Raoul Navarro.

  Better than good, given that another fine Cuban, this one of the leggy female variety, was asleep, naked, in his bed. For although Navarro was single, he was rarely alone. He had a voracious appetite for all things carnal, and given his fortune and the handsome features that had been sculpted into his face by a very talented though sadly now deceased plastic surgeon, that appetite wasn’t hard to quench.

  His current playmate was the spa manager of a nearby luxury hotel who, to his great delight, had surprised him by proving to be more ravenous and adventurous in bed than he was, and as he looked out across his landscaped gardens, he craved being with her and tasting her skin between his teeth. He’d be doing that right now if it weren’t for what was taking place in San Diego, events that had consumed his mind all day and still required his close attention. For although life was better than good for him, if all went according to plan—his plan, for Raoul Navarro wouldn’t have it any other way—it was going to get a whole lot better.

  Raoul Navarro usually saw his plans through.

  Even after things had spiraled out of control five years ago, he was still around, living and breathing with a new name and a new face, free to come and go as he pleased, free to enjoy fine Cubans on a fine night such as this at the fine home that was his escape, an escape from the dangers of the past, an escape that had been forced upon him and that, as it turned out, was the best thing that ever happened to him.

  He’d bought the dilapidated estate around two years after his supposed death, and it had then taken another two years and several million dollars to bring the seventeenth-century estate back to its former splendor. Not surprising, given how huge it was, spread out over close to fifteen thousand acres. It had originally been built as a cattle ranch, then in the eighteen hundreds it was converted into a henequén plantation, where its rich fields of agave cactus—the “green gold” that created immense fortunes—were farmed and turned into the sisal fiber that ropes were made of. Almost all the haciendas in the Yucatán had fallen into disrepair after the twin whammies of the land reforms of the Mexican Revolution and the invention of synthetic fibers, but after almost a century of neglect, the last few years had brought about a renewed interest in restoring these magnificent estates, with some converted into small luxury hotels, others into museums, and a select few into private domains.

  The rebirth of the haciendas had coincided with his own.

  Navarro loved the symmetry of it.

  Standing there and basking in the serenity of his dominion, he knew he’d got it right. Given his situation and the savagery that was plaguing most of the country—a savagery in which he’d been not just a participant, but a highly innovative one at that—he’d thought about living abroad. He had the money and the squeaky-clean passport that would have allowed him to settle down anywhere, but he knew he wouldn’t be happy anywhere else. It had to be Mexico. And if he was going to live in Mexico, Merida was the place to be. Nestled in the Yucatán Peninsula on the southeastern tip of the country, the “City of Peace” was as far as one could get from the U.S. border, far from the orgies of blood the north of the country was drowning in. It was a place where the biggest concerns were aquifers that needed attention, overcrowded public schools, and a local cop who’d been bitten by a snake, and that suited the new, laundered version of him just fine.

  It never failed to astound him how so many of his peers—ex-peers, really—just didn’t get it. The richer and more powerful they got, the lousier their lives became. Never sleeping in the same bed on consecutive nights, changing phones every day, constantly fearful of betrayal, surrounded by an army of bodyguards. Prisoners of their own success. Before them, the Colombian drug barons had all met bloody deaths. Pablo Escobar, the granddaddy of them all, had occupied the number seven spot on the Forbes rich list, but he’d still lived like a rat, scurrying from one grubby hideout to another before being gunned down in a shantytown at the ripe old age of forty-four. The Mexican narcos weren’t faring much better. It seemed like every week, the president’s damned federales were claiming another big scalp—although ironically, all it did was trigger more bloodshed and mayhem as violent succession struggles and territorial grabs played themselves out. The kingpins who hadn’t yet been killed or arrested were holed up in their fortresses, moving around like the fugitives they were, waiting for that unexpected bullet that would end their pointless lives.

  Lesson learned.

  He wasn’t going to end up like them, and his life certainly wasn’t going to be pointless. Not if everything went according to plan.

  The plan that was currently in the thick of play.

  He grinned inwardly at the thought of his fellow kingpins’ miserable, pathetic lives, and it gave him even more pleasure to think that it was them who had given him the way out, that the reason he’d bailed on the narco high life in the first place was that they had come after him guns blazing, all because of his trespass, because he’d dared go after what was rightly his, even if that involved some blood-soaked face time with the sacred and untouchable yanqui himself, the DEA’s head honcho in Mexico.

  Well, El Brujo had shown them.

  He’d managed to outsmart those two-faced maricóns and ride off into his palm-ringed sunset with three hundred million dollars of their money. In the meantime, the ill
iterate peasants were still busy amassing fortunes they’d never get to enjoy while slaughtering each other for the privilege. Then la providencia had smiled on him yet again. It had opened an unexpected door and presented him with an opportunity to finish what he’d started and claim his place in history.

  It wasn’t something he was going to let slip.

  He checked his watch. As if on cue, his untraceable, pay-as-you-go phone buzzed.

  It was Eli Walker, his man in San Diego.

  “Do you have what I want?” Navarro asked.

  The brief hesitation told him all he needed to know. Then came a flat and far-from-contrite “No.”

  Navarro said nothing.

  “The woman,” Walker fed into the pause, “she—”

  “Mamaguevo de mierda,” Navarro hissed. “The damn woman again? I told you about her. I told you she used to be a DEA agent. You knew she was trained.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “What did I tell you, after you screwed up at the house? What did I say?”

  “What is this, fucking kindergarten?” Walker shot back gruffly.

  “What did I say?” Navarro insisted, low and slow.

  Another pause, then his contact came back, sounding annoyed and impatient. “You said not to consider her a priority anymore. You said she was expendable.”

  “I said kill the puta if you have to, but get me what I asked you for.”

  “And your words were heeded, amigo,” Walker replied. “In fact, we’re pretty sure the bitch took a round in the chest.”

  Navarro felt a slight ruffle at the American’s use of the Spanish word. It wasn’t so much the word itself as the way he said it, which had a condescending, racist tinge to it. “So what’s the problem?”

  “She had someone helping her. Some guy she called after she got away from us at the house.”

  “She called someone?”

  “Yes. After we last spoke.”

  Intriguing.

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know yet. All I know is, she called him Sean.”

  Navarro’s pulse flared.

  “It seems he’s the kid’s dad,” Walker added, his words bathed in mocking contempt. “Something that asshole didn’t know, not until now.”

  The flare went red-hot, igniting every nerve ending in Navarro’s body.

  Sean Reilly, he thought. He didn’t know.

  He kept his tone measured. “What else? What else did they say?”

  “He gave her some instructions, to avoid detection. I’m thinking he’s a cop, or maybe another DEA agent.”

  Navarro didn’t bother correcting him. “And what else?”

  “He said he was flying out here to meet her.”

  Navarro felt light-headed.

  Perfect.

  He’d probably experienced a wider variety of highs and hallucinogenic trips than anyone on the planet, and yet, right now—this was right up there with the best of them.

  “So he was with her? When you found her, he was with them?”

  “Yep. It took us some time to track her down, and he was already with her by then. And this guy turned out to be a serious pain in the ass. I lost another one of my boys.”

  Navarro didn’t bother inquiring about that. His mind was busy elsewhere, processing the update and strategizing his next move, doing what it did best when it wasn’t busy figuring out new ways of inflicting pain to put down any challenges to his little world.

  “Well, I’m afraid your task just got significantly more . . . challenging, amigo,” he finally told his contact. “The man’s name is Sean Reilly. He’s an FBI agent. And I’d really like to meet him.”

  “Whoa whoa whoa, back up there. The guy’s FBI?”

  “Yes.”

  The man blew out a small whistle, then said, “That wasn’t part of our deal.”

  Hijo de puta, Navarro thought. Here it comes. “You want more money, is that it?”

  “No, I’m just not sure I want any of this,” Walker snapped testily. “Some broad and a kid, that’s one thing. This guy . . . you’re talking about a whole different ball game. FBI, ATF—last thing I need is those guys crawling up my ass. Especially when I don’t know what the whole story is.”

  Navarro fumed inwardly. “I thought you were someone I could rely on to get the job done.”

  “Yeah, well, what can I tell ya? There’s jobs and there’s jobs. Thing is, you start getting up close and personal with our federales, and things get real messy real quick.”

  Something Navarro knew well, from personal experience.

  He ruminated over it for a long second and realized he might have to get his hands dirtier than he’d expected.

  “Where are they now?”

  “I don’t know. We lost them after the hotel. We’ve got the scanners on and me and the boys were gonna recon some local ERs, but now I’m thinking maybe it’s time to pull the plug on this mother and call it a day. If she dies, this is gonna get red-hot. So maybe this is a good time for us to say vaya con dios, you know what I’m saying? And maybe we can do business some other time—like when it doesn’t involve a fucking fed and his family.”

  Navarro kept his fury bottled. He tried to remind himself that Walker wasn’t a useless worm. Navarro had hired him and his men on a handful of previous occasions, years back when he was still Navarro as well as more recently, in his new guise as Nacho, one of Navarro’s lieutenants “from the old days.” The American had always come through. Navarro needed to keep him on track just a little longer—at least, until he could take over himself, which he now realized he’d need to do.

  “All right, you want to pull out, I understand. But I still have the second half of your payment, which I’m sure you’d like to collect.”

  “And I have a package here I’m sure you’d also like to collect, amigo. Am I right?”

  Navarro bristled at the man’s insolence, but Walker was right. He had something Navarro wanted, something he wanted badly. “Agreed. How about this then? Do one last little thing for me, and you’ll get paid in full.”

  The man didn’t take too long ruminating over it. “What?”

  “Just find them. Find out what happened to the woman, and find Reilly. I don’t need you to do anything more than that. Just find them and tell me where they are. I’ll take care of the rest. Do we have a deal?”

  Walker demurred for a moment, then said, “Fine. I’ll have a lock on their location by tomorrow night.”

  SUNDAY

  13

  The pickup was, well, awkward.

  Tess’s plane landed pretty much on time, and I was there waiting for her after leaving Alex with Jules, who turned out to have the gentlest of manners with him, no doubt aided by a smile that should be designated as a global warming hazard, and spending most of the morning at SDPD’s shiny headquarters on Broadway, going through their mug shot database and working with a police sketch artist to come up some visual cues to put out there. Tess was one of the first off the plane, walking briskly and trailing a small roll-on, and although she looked like a summer breeze on legs in her light linen dress and with her bouncy hair, it only took our eyes to meet for me to see the tense undercurrent that was bubbling underneath.

  We hugged and kissed quite perfunctorily, like a couple whose marriage had passed its sell-by date. We limited ourselves to some superficial chit-chat about Nevada and the flight as we made our way out of the terminal, where I got hit by a combo of the furnace-blast midday heat and the memory punch of, yet again, treading the same sidewalk Michelle had died on less than twenty-four hours earlier.

  It was all still too raw for me. I’m pretty sure Tess caught the look on my face as I glanced at the pavement, but she didn’t ask about it and just stayed with me as I led her to the parking lot. The bureau had arranged a loaner for me to drive around in, a Buick LaCrosse that, if you could overlook its unfortunate name with its oh-so-idiosyncratic capital C, was a pretty decent car.

  I was stowing Tess’s bag into its t
runk when I felt her hand on my arm.

  “I’m really sorry for your loss, Sean.”

  Her hand slid up my arm and guided me around to face her. I pulled her close and kissed her, a sudden, deep, starved kiss that just as quickly felt a bit weird to me. I found myself pulling away gently and hugged her instead, avoiding her eyes and cradling her head against my shoulder. We stood there like that for a long moment, without saying anything, then I finally said, “I’m really glad you’re here.”

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way,” she half-smiled.

  I gave her another kiss, still too brief, and we were on our way.

  She asked me about Alex, about how he was doing. The kid was in bad shape. He’d spent the night next to Jules, waking up intermittently with night terrors every couple of hours, one of which had caused him to wet himself. Much as I was desperate to be with him and help him through this, I could still see his discomfort every time I tried to get close to him, and I’d decided to pull back and let Jules comfort him as best she could.

  The Hilton was easy to get to, perched conveniently at the crossroads of the Cabrillo and Mission Valley freeways. We walked past families with excited kids running around with SeaWorld caps and T-shirts and small huddles of conventioneers trying to look like they were happy to be there and made our way to the one-bedroom top-floor suite and the additional connecting bedroom that Villaverde’s people had booked us into.

  Alex was huddled in front of the TV in the living room, with Jules sitting next to him and being as attentive as ever. I wasn’t sure how Alex would take to Tess—yet another new face butting into his life at a time when the only one he wanted to see was his mother’s, but it all went down better than I expected. For her, anyway. Me, I was still on his boogeyman list.