“He left something behind, Cortez. Something of great value that I now have.”
“Money?” he asked in a low voice.
“Negotiable financial instruments. When I saw on the news that he’d been killed, I confiscated them.”
“And why are you calling me?” he asked, his tone one of suspicion mingled with hopefulness.
“I saw your press conference. I thought you might be interested in,” she cleared her throat, “partnering with me to make sure these instruments are converted.”
“Madam, am I to believe that you are truly holding negotiable securities that were owned by the notorious gangster, Ernesto Navarro?”
“It’s the truth, and I’m ready to make a deal that will sufficiently compensate me for my trouble. After that, Cortez, I don’t care what you do with the remainder of the money. Understand?”
Redon’s response was thunderstruck silence.
Smiling because she knew she had him, Señora Moreno said, “I’m sitting a few blocks away from your office, Cortez. El Café de Limón. You will come alone, right now.”
“Why don’t we meet here?”
“I may be a widowed landlady, Cortez, but I’m not stupid. Now, let’s have a chat here in public, shall we?”
“Very well. In the interest of the good people of Catalonia, I’m on my way.”
Señora Moreno touched the screen, ending the call. Justina was adjusting the scissor jack under the car. When she turned, Señora Moreno pointed to her own eyes and motioned up the sidewalk.
Justina tugged her short shirt upward, then pulled her thong up into view over the waistband. Laughing, Señora Moreno gave her a double thumbs-up.
“Now let’s just hope your libido overrides your greed, Acusador Redon,” Señora Moreno whispered. Mineral water at her right hand, she leaned back to watch the show.
* * *
“Just play it straight, Cortez,” Acusador Redon murmured to himself, slipping his mobile phone and business cards into his pocket. He’d struggled for a full minute, trying to decide whether or not to wear his suit jacket. In the end he’d donned it, feeling it might make him look a tad more official, more formal. Breath mint clicking in his mouth, he stepped from his office, telling his assistant he needed to step out.
“What was with that woman?” his assistant asked with a sneer.
Cinching his tie he said, “Just another crazy. It seems we grow them here in Catalonia.” He popped his cuffs. “Grabbing a bite. Be back soon.”
Cortez was off, skipping the cramped elevator and padding down the stairs from his third floor office. If this woman was serious, and did hold negotiable financial instruments—negotiable being the operative word—once owned by Ernesto Navarro, Cortez would be in an enviable, yet precarious, position. Xavier Zambrano, of course, felt he was entitled to anything owned by Navarro and, in the unwritten code of the underworld, he did. But, as Cortez reminded himself as he shoved the stairwell door open, emerging on the cool morning sidewalk, Xavier didn’t have to find out about this.
“And that’s why we play it straight…at first,” he said to himself, setting a quick pace down the street. “Let’s allow her to make the indecent proposal and then let’s see if these are indeed negotiable instruments.” It had been quite some time since he’d brushed up on investment law. He began summarizing a list of negotiable instruments at the only crosswalk between his office and the cafe.
“Promissory notes, cheques, bearer bonds, warrants, debentures…” Acusador Redon muttered to himself while waiting at the crosswalk. Then his discourse was cut short when he noticed a tall, well-built blonde fumbling with a scissor jack beside her flat tire.
He glanced left, seeing the café just past where she was parked, but his eyes were drawn back to the bombshell struggling with the jack—and, of course, her pink thong panties jutting from the small skirt that contained her deliciously-proportioned rear end.
Feeling his neck flush at the ribald sight, he shuffled audibly to a stop, watching as she slumped, the jack lying impotently on its side with two narrow bars extending from its eye-hole.
She turned and looked at him and, in accented Spanish, said, “I hate days like this.”
Flashing his jury grin, Cortez motioned to the jack. “May I help you with that, preciosa?”
The woman stood. She was nearly half a head taller than Cortez and her frustration was evident. “Will you help? I’m clueless about these things.”
She stood in his space, her large breasts straining against her tight shirt, close enough for him to smell her scent, making him forget why he’d even left the office. Cortez looked up at her and said, “I must say you’re quite beautiful. And what’s your accent?”
“Polish,” Justina replied. “I’m visiting Spain and, as you can see, not doing too well.”
Cortez shed his jacket, hanging it from the Volvo’s mirror. He lifted one of the tire irons. “What brought you to Barcelona?”
“I came down for the summer to visit my sister and her husband. This is their car.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Couple of weeks.”
“Do you like it?” he asked, seating the jack and looking up at her.
“I guess I like Barcelona but I don’t like my brother-in-law. I don’t think he wants me staying with them.” She glanced away. “I’m just lonely.”
Cortez squeezed his eyes shut. In his mind he screamed “gracias!” to the God he didn’t believe in, because this was going to be too easy.
“Well,” he said, “let’s see if we can’t get you fixed up.”
Not having much experience with changing tires, he consulted the diagram on the black vinyl bag that had held the tire tools. After loosening the lug nuts, he positioned the jack just in front of the tire and elevated the right rear corner of the car from the sidewalk. Reading the diagram he said, “Now, all you do is finish taking off those nuts, then pull the tire off and replace it with the spare. Twist the lug nuts back on, lower the jack, then tighten the lug nuts in a star pattern.” Smiling, he handed her the diagram. “Can you handle it or do you want me to stay?”
“I can do it,” she replied, again standing in his space. “Being here, in a different country, knowing hardly anyone, is more difficult than I’d thought it would be. But then someone like you, a new friend, comes along.”
“Is that what I am, a new friend?”
Her face took on a rueful expression. “With my luck, I’m sure you’re married.”
Ignoring the comment, and in a practiced motion, all while feeling the throbbing, elevating arousal between his legs, he pressed a business card in her hand. “I’d like you to call me, darling. Perhaps you’d let me show you around a bit.”
She read his card. “Acusador…you sound important.”
He made a shooing motion. “Don’t be intimidated, my beauty.” He tapped the card. “Just call. Call soon.”
With no nod of agreement, the frustration coming back to her face, the girl placed his card on the ground as she went back to work on the tire.
Cortez watched her for a few seconds, finding himself struggling to swallow. Finally, cursing the deadline imposed by the woman on the phone, he grabbed his jacket, said goodbye again, and walked away.
The girl didn’t respond.
Feeling suddenly dejected, he crossed the side street, turning left as the door bells jingled at El Café de Limón. Sitting to the left, the only patron in the café, a diminutive woman with a beehive of black and gray hair climbed off her high stool and headed to him, her right hand extended.
“Acusador Redon, I am Maria Herrero and I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”
After glancing through the window, able to see only the taillight of the Volvo, Cortez forced a polite smile as he shook the woman’s hand. “Please understand, Señora Herrero, that I’m only here in the duty entrusted in me by the people of Catalonia.”
This seemed to throw her, as a troubled expression briefly crossed her round face.
“I see,” she said distantly. “I guess I probably shouldn’t ask you what I’d planned, then.”
Between two forces of gravity, lust and greed, Redon felt himself transferring from one field’s pull to the other. He clasped the older woman’s hand, sandwiching it with his left. “Let’s don’t be hasty. You suggested a chat, and a chat we shall have.”
She tugged her hand away. “But I don’t want to get myself in trouble.”
“What trouble?” he asked in a breezy tone. “We’re just two acquaintances having a friendly discussion.” Signaling the young man behind the counter, Redon asked for another mineral water. He took Señora Herrero’s water and led her to the sitting nook in the corner. Once they were both seated, Cortez leaned forward, clutching his hands together.
“Now, please tell me, dear lady, without fear of consequence, what you wanted to tell me.”
* * *
Perusing the feed on Facebook, Mara, Cortez Redon’s assistant, heard the ding of the elevator out in the hallway but paid it no mind. They shared the third floor with an engineering firm and the firm’s early workers would be heading out to lunch.
As she read a thinly-veiled posting by a friend, clearly an insult to another girl they both knew, Mara’s phone buzzed. It was the front receptionist.
“Yeah, Pilar?”
“There’s a man here to see the acusador.”
“He’s out,” Mara said, already refocusing on the snide comments below the posting.
The front receptionist, Pilar, a heavy, middle-aged woman who liked to live vicariously through Mara’s nocturnal adventures, lowered her voice to a whisper. “Let me send him back anyway. I’m flushed all over…you’ve got to see him.”
Mara hit the red X at the top right of the screen. Pilar might have been a frump, but she had an unerring instinct in men. “Okay, give me thirty seconds and buzz him through.”
Grabbing her purse, Mara quickly applied fresh lipstick and powdered the shine from her nose. She glanced down at her cheap department-store blouse, unbuttoning another button and spreading the collar. A moment later, the buzzer buzzed, the handle turned, and in walked a gorgeous specimen of a man, prowling forward with the rippling confidence of a Bengal tiger.
He was tall and lean, but muscular in the right places. Complementing his rich tan, his dark hair was flecked with spots of light brown, burnished by the sun. His clothes were casual but chic and appeared tailored—probably from a fine fashion designer. He oozed superiority, infused with animal sexuality. Despite his chiseled face, his alluring body, and his fashion-magazine wardrobe, the most prominent of all the visitor’s features was the large tattoo of a smoking pistol on the side of his neck.
Mara knew, as soon as she saw the tattoo, that he was a member of the notorious Leones gang.
Not that she cared.
Moving around her desk without invitation, he took Mara’s hand and kissed it, saying, “Buenos días, beautiful lady. My name is Xavier Zambrano and I am here to see the acusador.”
Addled, Mara blurted something about the acusador having stepped out.
Xavier stood his ground, glancing at his large, expensive-looking wristwatch. “He doesn’t take el dinar this early, does he?” he asked, having switched to Catalan.
“No, he just said he was stepping out.”
Stepping forward so his body actually made her chair wheel backward—the action nearly caused Mara’s heart to burst…she thought he was making an advance—Xavier leaned over her, allowing her to smell the tastefully faint citrus scent of his cologne or lotion. When he straightened, she ruefully realized he’d not been making a pass. As Mara dipped her head, he slowly sounded out the message she’d just taken from the woman on the phone. Mara used a modified shorthand—“medium-hand,” she called it—because the acusador liked to be able to decipher her notes.
He stabbed the paper. “When did this call come in?”
“Just fifteen minutes ago,” she replied, her voice sullen as she was still fretting that he wasn’t coming on to her.
“Did he leave to meet the person who called?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it a man or a woman?”
“An older-sounding woman,” Mara answered formally, disliking this man’s mounting intensity.
“Did he tell you where he was going?”
“He said he was going to pick up a bite to eat.”
“Where?” he barked.
She glanced away, finally shrugging. “He didn’t say.”
Xavier leaned down again, veins visible at his temples and on his neck. “Think! Are you certain?”
“I’m quite certain.”
“Tell me everything about the phone call from that woman,” he loudly demanded, “then tell me exactly how long it was before Redon left.”
Mara touched three digits on her phone, leaving it on speaker.
“Yeah, Mara,” came a man’s voice.
“I have a troublemaker up here, Roberto.”
“On my way.” The line clicked dead.
Feeling a measure of vengeful satisfaction, Mara narrowed her eyes. “The acusador doesn’t answer to a León, Señor Zambrano, and neither do I. Roberto is a very large security guard and he’ll be here in a few seconds.”
Xavier straightened, nodding once as he backed away. “What a pity.”
“A pity?”
“I apologize for my intensity, but the acusador and I are actually acquaintances.”
“Yeah, right,” she replied.
“But that’s not the pitiful part. I was going to suggest drinks after work. Dinner and drinks.” Xavier Zambrano turned as Roberto, the obese security guard, burst in from the hallway door, breathing like he’d just run with the bulls in Pamplona. Xavier, smirking, put his hands up innocently as he showed himself out, pausing at the door as Roberto, huffing his way through the query, asked Mara if she was okay.
“He didn’t do anything wrong,” Mara murmured sullenly.
Xavier winked at her, then stepped away. The last thing she heard was the stairwell door being yanked open, followed by the shuffle of the gangster’s feet as he hurriedly descended.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Having ducked under the cold shower for a few seconds, Gage donned the guard uniform and moved Angelines into the running water. She was yelling that there was no time but he ignored her, having witnessed the amount of airborne drain cleaner that had soaked her body. Still wearing her clothes, she ran her hands through her thick hair while he dumped shampoo over her. She made a sudden hissing sound.
“Clamp your eyes shut,” he whispered, taking care not to allow the captive guard to hear them. “You’re getting mild chemical reactions but it’ll all wash away. You might look sunburned for a few days, but that’s it.”
Shutting off the water, Gage pulled her from the bathroom and handed her a towel. “We’ve gotta go, but you should make another call. Remember, you’re in charge here. Your guards don’t yet know what you’re up to. Until then, you call the shots.”
Gage watched as her uncharacteristic timidity seemed to evaporate. She looked away for a moment, nodding. Then, pulling away from him, her clothes still dripping, she stalked across the office and grabbed the handheld radio.
“Where’s my headcount? And I want a status update from each unit.”
Feeling slightly emboldened, Gage stepped to the rear door of the office, the remaining greenish smoke having settled on the lower half of the room. She told him to wait as she listened to the status reports coming in.
“Salvador’s bombs caused all sorts of commotion. There’s a host of fires in the main bay. No one mentioned the bomb in here.”
“Good. How long?”
“They’re getting the last of the stragglers in their cells. We need to be gone in two minutes.”
“Will the guard at the garage door be in his station?”
“Yes, but I’ve got a better idea than you driving.”
“What’s that?”
&
nbsp; “Let me drive. I’ll tell them I got burned by an acid bomb and I’m rushing to the doctor. Given what just happened, they’ll believe me. It’s all they’ve been hearing on their radios.”
“But when they find the guard and El Toro, they’ll determine that you’re in on things,” Gage protested. “And the headcount will show me as missing.”
“They’re going to figure that out anyway. And it beats being shot on the way out.”
She had a point.
Hoping he could pass muster as a guard, Gage opened the rear door of the office, seeing an empty, brightly lit hallway that led to a T-intersection to his left. Holstering the AutoMag, he stepped into the hallway, obscured by the riot shield. Angelines would follow a moment later.
It was time to escape this hell known as Berga.
* * *
Acusador Cortez Redon placed his mineral water on the table, swishing the water in his mouth before swallowing it. He was deliberately taking time to digest the fantastic story, trying his best to poke holes in it, but overwhelmed by the possibilities in the event the woman’s tale was true.
For what it was worth, she seemed quite genuine. There was a grandmotherly quality about her but, in a matter of minutes, he was able to discern the fact that she was certainly moneyed and the twinkle in her eye suggested that she would like to keep a portion of Navarro’s money, with his help, of course.
In Redon’s experience, wealthy people were among earth’s greediest.
“So,” Redon said, drawing the word out. “You’ve got what were allegedly Ernesto Navarro’s bearer bonds.”
“Yes,” she replied, unblinking.
“I’m not a lawyer who specializes in finance or banking, but I thought bearer bonds were an anachronism.”
“Whether they are or aren’t, these are genuine. They don’t expire for a few more years.”
“And you found them when you determined that he wasn’t coming back.”
“When I saw you on television commenting on his death, I went to the home to see if Navarro’s…person…had come for his things. Nothing had been touched and then, when I read the paper, I saw that Navarro’s right-hand man had been killed along with him.” She patted the back of Redon’s hand. “Cortez, the only other people they ever brought to that house were young women...prostitutes. So, in my thinking, no one knew where to look for the money once he’d been killed.”
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