by Tom Wood
She didn’t blink. “Why?”
“Your sister needs to understand that a deal’s a deal. I keep my side only if the other side keeps their own. I could kill you, collect my fee, and be gone across the sea before sunrise, second killer or not. But that’s not the point.”
“You broke onto my yacht just to tell me this?”
“I wanted you to know what Heloise hired me to do. I’ve spent the past few weeks getting to know you, Maria, and there was no other way to get close to you, let alone explain the situation. I could hardly have driven up to your ranch to talk about it over iced tea. I like the pattern on your parasol, by the way.”
She said, “I think I get it now.”
“This was the best way to prove the veracity of my claim.”
“And there was I, thinking you were just showing off.”
Victor said, “Well, I do like to make an entrance.”
She gestured to the nearest bedside table, on which rested a glass of water. “May I?”
“Be my guest.”
She shuffled closer to the table and took a sip from the glass. Her gaze never left Victor. Whatever her claims, she didn’t feel safe. He hadn’t killed her, but he was still an intruder with a gun.
Victor said, “You can put some clothes on if you like.”
Maria glanced down at her nakedness. “I’m fine like this.”
“Your choice.”
“Have you killed any of my men?”
“Fifty-fifty,” Victor said.
“What does that mean?”
“It means we’ll find out soon enough. I’m afraid I had to crush your boyfriend’s nose. It’s going to be a long time before he’s handsome again.”
She shrugged. “He’s replaceable, and it’s not his nose I found so captivating.” She set the glass of water down again. “I should probably still be enraged at this intrusion, but I find I can’t be. I feel I should thank you for what you’ve told me tonight. I’m very grateful you’re not going to shoot me.”
“How grateful?”
“Whatever Heloise promised to pay you for killing me, I’ll pay you double if you kill her instead.”
“Deal,” Victor said.
“Spoken like a true mercenary. You would betray my sister so easily? You’d turn on your employer just for hiring someone else?’”
Victor nodded. “To forgive one sin is to invite another.”
“And what of your own sins? Will they be forgiven?”
“We’re not here to talk about me, Ms. Salvatierra.”
Maria smiled, then laughed. “That’s what you came here for, isn’t it? You wanted to switch sides. Which is why you knew for certain you’d get off this boat alive.”
He nodded. “This is a good strike point, as we are bearing witness, but it’s a lousy place from which to escape. I had no interest in getting shot while swimming back to my boat. That’s no kind of plan.”
Maria said, “It’s funny, because Heloise always said mercenaries can’t be trusted, that they will always betray when a better deal comes along.”
“I’m an assassin, Miss Salvatierra. I’m not a very nice person just off my job description, but I was sticking to my agreement with Heloise. But my agreement with your sister was null and void the second she hired someone else to do the job she hired me for. It would be naive of me to believe the people I deal with will honor the terms of my employment, which is why it never comes as a surprise. The kind of person who hires a killer isn’t the kind of person apt to stick to their word. Hence, it’s necessary for me to show them the error of their ways. Plus,” he said after a pause, “if I’m going to forfeit my original purse, I might as well get paid for it.”
“I wish I’d had the foresight to hire you in the first place. Maybe this war would be over by now.”
“It’ll be over soon,” Victor said, “but before I go, I need something from you. If I’m going to kill your sister, she needs to think you’re dead.”
“Why?”
“She’s a well-connected and intelligent woman. It’s reasonable to assume she will learn an intruder came aboard your yacht, and if we both live to tell the tale it won’t be hard for her to deduce the reason why. If she knows I’m coming for her, there’s no guarantee I’ll be successful. Her casino is a fortress as it is.”
She processed this, then reached to the nightstand and scooped up a fine silver chain that she tossed Victor’s way. He caught it, and saw there was a small pendant in the shape of a horse on the chain’s end.
Maria said, “A gift from my father. Heloise had one too. She despised it because I loved mine. She threw hers away after he died. Show it to her and she’ll be convinced. I would never give it up.”
“Yet you are giving it up. There’s no guarantee you’ll ever see it again.”
“I can let it go if it means Heloise dies.”
There was a casual abruptness in her tone that Victor hadn’t expected.
He said, “You’re really not fond of one another, are you?”
“The strongest love breeds the strongest hate.”
He nodded that he understood, but didn’t. He didn’t hate anyone.
Victor looked at the pendant. “As good as this is, it’s conceivable that I stole it, or had a copy made.”
“Did you bring a knife with you?”
He nodded. It was sheathed at his belt. He drew the weapon in his left hand.
“Hand it to me.”
He approached the bed and presented the knife to Maria. She took it by the grip and closed her other hand around the blade.
“This is how much I want Heloise dead.”
She squeezed.
There was only the faintest flicker of a reaction in her eyes despite the horrendous pain she was inflicting upon herself. When she opened her hand again, the palm was red. She presented it to Victor, who lowered the horse pendant into the fresh blood.
Maria said, “Will this suffice?”
“If she knows your blood type.”
Maria used a pillowcase to wrap up her hand. “We shared the same doctor before this war began. His loyalty is to Heloise now.”
“Then yes,” Victor said. “It’ll more than suffice.”
A yell for help sounded from somewhere else on the yacht. Maria stiffened.
“What’s that?”
“I threw one of your men overboard,” Victor explained. “Sounds like someone’s spotted him.”
She wasn’t sure if he was serious.
“Give him a pay rise if they fish him out alive,” Victor said. “The water’s cold.”
• Chapter 66 •
The office’s air-conditioning was broken. It had been broken from before Alamaeda had arrived and no one seemed to know when, if ever, it would get fixed. Windows were left open all the time. Fans were on every desk. Everyone was hot and sweating for every long minute. Alamaeda had learned to take off her jacket before she was even inside the building. She knew which guys to stay clear of and where to sit to stay in the draft.
It was bad from an operational perspective to keep windows and doors open—it increased the risk of eavesdropping by outside entities or internally by corrupt cops—but if it was too hot to work, then that was even better for the bad guys.
Alamaeda stared at the huge whiteboard that covered one wall of their office, where she and Wickliffe made notes, stuck pictures and reports and random thoughts and musings. She stared at a section relating to the Miguel Diaz murder, with crime-scene photographs, memorandums, and a sticky note that read Foreigner?
Routine is what killed you, Alamaeda knew. She had seen it happen, in both the figurative and literal capacities. You couldn’t help it. Sooner or later you repeated an action, and before long it became habit, forming a pattern. A routine. Normal people had them and so did criminals. So had Diaz, an
d it had gotten him killed. Or had it?
She stared so hard at the word foreigner, the letters shifted out of focus.
Wickliffe said, “Where are you, Jo?”
Alamaeda blinked herself back to reality. “Lost in a daydream.” Wickliffe had her hands tucked behind her head. She’d had lunch, and Alamaeda could see a patch of pale skin at her stomach where the blouse was pulled taut, opening a gap between buttons.
Alamaeda said, “I told him.”
“You told who what?”
“The new guy. Ryan. I told him I’m DEA.”
“I see. And how did Mr. Canadian take it?”
“He was surprised, naturally. He made out that it wasn’t a big deal.”
“And was it?”
“I don’t know exactly. I guess we’ll find out if he calls me again.”
“If he doesn’t, he’s an idiot.”
Alamaeda paused to change the subject. “You ever think about retirement?”
“Yeah, all the time. I figure I won’t. I’ll go back into law, but small stuff. You know, getting people out of parking violations.”
“You’ve got it all worked out.”
She nodded with some enthusiasm. “You need a dream, Joanna, but not a fantasy. Something realistic. Something that can be obtained. If you shoot for the stars, all you’re going to do is hit the whole lot of empty blackness around them.”
“Never let it be said that you’re not bursting at the seams with wisdom.”
“You need to make the most of me while you can. Once we part ways you’ll be filled with regret for wasting this opportunity.”
“Then tell me this, Oh, Wise One: should I—”
Alamaeda didn’t get to finish the question because her phone rang.
It was Gabriel Hernandez.
She met him in the old town. He was so nervous his knee couldn’t keep still under the table. It made the cups rattle on the surface.
“You have something for me?”
He nodded. “I was with Maria Salvatierra over the weekend.”
“At her ranch?”
“No, on her yacht. She had a party of sorts. A lot of people I didn’t recognize were there. I didn’t want to go, of course, but you don’t say no to a request like that.”
“Yeah, I get that. But why did she invite you along too? I thought you told me you hadn’t had any direct dealings with her for years now.”
“Because of Diaz. Because he’s dead.”
Alamaeda understood. “She offered you his job.”
“Not exactly,” Hernandez was quick to answer. “But some of it. She wants to set up a new fund to launder more money. A lot more money.”
“That’s great.”
Hernandez shook his head from side to side. “No, it’s not. I want to get out of this, not be pulled in further.”
“I get that too, Mr. Hernandez, but someone killed Diaz over a game of cards. I’m grateful you gave me his name, but it went nowhere. As I told you at the start of all of this, if you want a new life for you and your girlfriend, then you need to work with me.”
“I have. I did that already.”
“Diaz died before he could be of any use, but now you have a second chance. Take the job. Be the new Diaz and you’ll be more useful to us than even Diaz himself.”
“I want guarantees.”
“Take the job, and I can give them to you.”
He wiped away some sweat and nodded. “Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“Good, you’ve made the right decision. Now tell me who else was at this boat party.”
“I don’t know who they were, but something happened in the night.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, but one of her guards fell overboard and had to be fished out of the water, and another one had a broken nose.”
“Sounds like your standard cerveza-fueled punch-up. Forget about it, but not about the guests. I’ll get you some pictures to go through, see if you recognize anyone.”
“If I have to.”
“Yes,” Alamaeda said, “you have to.”
• Chapter 67 •
Lavandier was troubled. He was troubled by something he had believed had ceased to exist long ago: his conscience. Not for betraying Heloise, but because he had been the one to suggest hiring the Wraith in the first place. Had he suggested hiring a professional just so he could betray Heloise, to force his hand? He could not be sure. Perhaps at some subconscious level the innate drive to survive and thrive had compelled him without his knowledge, but it had taken time, it had taken a great deal of time to come to terms with the idea of betrayal, the idea of losing Heloise. He had wanted to end the war, to see Heloise become sole patron, but he could not get the image out of his head of a loyal man’s tongue in her bloody claws. Lavandier dreamed of himself in that chair. He dreamed of his tongue in her hand, her cruel laughter echoing through his mind in the middle of the night.
The situation had become untenable; he had told Heloise and meant it. The whole cartel was on borrowed time. There would be no peace because there would be no winner. Even in the best-case scenario, with Maria dead by the Wraith’s bullet and the war over, the cartel would still be fractured. Sicarios who had been killing one another would not forget those grievances. Traffickers who had grown rich under Maria would not welcome any loss to their income. Lavandier knew how these things worked because he understood ambition, he understood desire, and he understood weakness. He had mastered his own by not overcoming them or even fighting them, but accepting them. If people could just recognize their own limitations and embrace them, there would be peace and prosperity the world over, but ambition trumped all. There was no limit to human greed.
He knew that better than anyone.
He sat on one of the couches in the massive open-plan lounge area of Heloise’s suite. She reclined on a chaise longue, reading a book, and his heart ached just to look at her. He couldn’t love her or hate her anymore.
A crackle of static interrupted his thoughts as a transmission came through to El Perro’s radio from the guard hut at the entrance to the compound. The volume was dialed down so as not to be a nuisance, and only El Perro could hear. Nevertheless, he took a few steps away to answer it discreetly, so as not to disturb the room. From the corner of his eye, Lavandier saw something was wrong. El Perro’s expression changed about as often as Heloise’s did. He shared a brief exchange with the sentry, ended the call, and approached Heloise.
Like Lavandier, she saw it was something important.
“What is it?” she demanded.
El Perro took a moment to find the words. “A package has arrived for you. From the Wraith.”
Lavandier said, “Safe?”
El Perro nodded. “My men have checked it. It’s just a box. There’s . . . jewelry inside.”
There was far more to it than that, Lavandier could see, but El Perro was reluctant to elaborate. Heloise was impatient, and instructed him to have the package brought to her with haste.
A sicario arrived a few minutes later and presented a small gift box to El Perro. It was a pleasant little item with a black ribbon. El Perro checked inside the box, ordered the sicario away, and brought the box to where Heloise and Lavandier waited. He presented it to them, lid in one hand so they could look inside. Lavandier was eager to see what the box contained but didn’t dare go first. Heloise did and he watched her, transfixed.
Her perfectly constructed face faltered and her shoulders sagged for a moment, as though all the strength flooded out of her. There could have been a hint of moisture in her eyes, but then she blinked, and when her eyes snapped open again they were clear and her poise returned.
“What is it?” Lavandier asked, desperate.
She handed him the box and he peered inside to see a small, clear zip
lock bag containing a silver horse pendant smeared with blood. He didn’t know the significance of the pendant, but he could guess easily enough.
“Is this what I think it is?”
Heloise nodded, her gaze far away.
Lavandier said, “We should have the blood tested.”
Heloise said, “That won’t be necessary. The pendant was made to order. There were only two of them. Now one.”
“What should I do with it?” Lavandier asked.
“Whatever you wish to do. Give it to one of your whores, if you like.”
There was an edge to Heloise’s tone despite the flippancy. Lavandier would do no such thing. He gave the box back to El Perro, who didn’t know what to do with it either, so put the lid back in place and went to set it down. Heloise stopped him with a shake of her head. She didn’t want to be near it.
Lavandier’s phone rang. It was the Wraith.
“Congratulations,” the Frenchman said.
“I’d like to get paid.”
“Naturally.”
“I want cash.”
“As you wish. I’ll have it ready by tomorrow.”
The Wraith said, “I’ll collect it from the casino,” and hung up.
• Chapter 68 •
The alley that Ikal called home ran along the back of a row of bars, restaurants, and fast-food outlets. In the daytime he stayed clear of them because the big Mexicans who ran the cantina would chase him away from their Dumpsters if they caught him foraging for scraps, and he was too damn old to be chased anywhere. So he wandered the neighborhood, pushing his shopping trolley full to capacity with worthless possessions and trying not to get in anyone’s way while hoping to collect a few quetzals from city folk.
When the sun fell, Ikal came back to the alley behind the bars to collect his dinner from what the restaurants threw away. He had to be careful, because sometimes they would mix the leftover food with broken glass and other hazards to discourage him and others like him, but he always managed to find enough to eat so that these days he didn’t spend the nights clutching his stomach in hunger.