by Alex Ryan
Rex was back in the Tijuana motel, anxiously waiting for a call. That call finally came. The beeping electronic bell sounded. “Hello?” Rex answered.
“It’s not the right man.” Simon replied.
“What? You did see my notes right, the write-up of the conversation? It has to be!”
“Nope.”
“Are you sure?”
“We checked him out. He’s a dealer in antique and rare firearms. His clients are collectors. He’s one hundred percent legit.”
“But he’s... military.”
“Old habits die hard. Ex-military. Korea veteran. No known links whatsoever to anything that he shouldn’t have links to. Rest assuredly that will not be the case with the man we are looking for.”
Rex put the receiver down. Simon must be confident. He said all that in the clear. But he’s probably right. What a disappointment. The ball game was probably an afterthought. It was probably just a superficial excuse to get out of town for the night so he could screw Chi Chi’s girl.
Chapter 5 – Another Dead End?
Someone apparently never told El Rey about the powers of woman scorned. El Rey always assumed the powers of El Rey superseded woman scorned. Vanessa Garcia did not get that memorandum. She fumed in her thick dark plastic framed designer sunglasses as movers carried her things out of the furnished Ensenada apartment. The final payoff wouldn’t last more than two months there. She had to find a cheaper place.
She knew who it was. Isadora. The new girl. Practically a baby, and that was her replacement. Lupita Castillo, El Rey’s wife, knew about Vanessa. She knew about Isadora. She knew about all of them. The only thing different about Lupita compared with Vanessa, or Isadora, or for that matter, any of the others, was that Lupita had a permanent place. Well, and she didn’t have to have some fat, smelly pig sweating on top of her night after night.
Lupita was busy looking at video cameras in the electronics store. A quinceañera was coming up. Vanessa came up to her. “You have no control over your husband!” She screamed in a shrill voice.
“Don’t speak to me that way, you slut!” Lupita snapped, placing the video camera down on the counter and slapping Vanessa across the face with the back of her hand, as hard as she could, leaving a red mark. “I tolerate you for two years. You should have nothing but respect and appreciation for me!”
“So do you know who your husband is screwing now?”
Lupita swiveled, and with the other hand, delivered an even stronger backhand blow to Vanessa’s face, drawing blood and knocking her to the floor. The security guard ran to the counter. “Stop this now!” He commanded loudly.
“Leave, all of you, go back to your jobs. Mind your business. Go back to your shopping. There is nothing for you to see here. Go!” Lupita exclaimed angrily at the staff and bystanders. The small crowd disbursed quickly. She knelt down by Vanessa, who was sitting on the floor, nursing a cut in her face with a handkerchief, and spoke in a low voice out of earshot of the other people. “The only reason I didn’t kill you was because you were always going to be replaced. You have been replaced. Leave. Don’t come back.”
“I don’t understand why, after two years, he treats me this way. He no longer wants me. I don’t understand it, Lupita. I don’t understand it.”
“You don’t understand it? You really don’t?” Lupita grabbed a hand mirror off of the counter top.
“What are you going to do, hit me with that?” Vanessa asked.
“No, look in to this mirror. Look in to it. What do you see?”
“I don’t understand what you are asking.”
“Look in to the mirror. That is the answer to your question. Look what you have become.”
“What have I become?”
“Me.”
Three whole weeks had gone by. Chi Chi had produced nothing. They sat across from each other in the bar that comprised his meeting spot, drinking the local beer. “It’s been almost a month,” Rex said. “And nothing. And I’ve heard nothing. It’s like information has just stopped.”
Chi Chi was not sure whether or not the information should be shared, but at this point, there was little reason not to. “I think it’s over. The girl has sided with El Rey. She is now living in a fancy apartment, paid for by El Rey. Even your ten thousand dollars wouldn’t even please her at this point, if she got all of it.”
“Great,” Rex said.
“I’m out a lot of time and effort, and Isadora was my best revenue girl. You, you just didn’t get what you wanted. But you didn’t lose anything either. Me, not only did I not get the money you promised, but I lost an important revenue stream.”
“You couldn’t deliver.”
“What’s her name?”
“Isadora.”
“What is she like?”
“Originally from Brazil. Light hair, short, thin, looks under aged.”
“I need to find her. And speak to her.”
“Feel free. But you’re on your own. We’re finished. And good luck – she only speaks Spanish and Portuguese.”
Rex went back up to the motel room with a six pack of bottled Mexican beer he bought at the store on the corner. Chi Chi was lying. Probably not about her name or description, but he could tell he was lying about her language skills. No, that isn’t consistent with his story of how she got in El Rey’s inner circle to begin with. Yes, in reality, she is simply his semi live-in girlfriend, but, for her to be remotely useful for actual travel, she must have some level of English speaking ability. El Rey himself did. Hell, more do than don’t.
Ensenada was not that far away. It was an easy drive. He checked out of the motel and asked the desk clerk where to go in Ensenada to locate someone. After several iterations, the clerk understood the question. “Disco de La Casita de Palo, Calle Las Dunas.”
Las Dunas street was easy enough to find, it paralleled the coastal highway. The disco bar looked seedy, but it was probably where you go to get information. Ensenada is somewhat of a resort town, so the drinking establishments are generally going to be open during the day. This isn’t where tourists go, however. There were three or so men drinking Coronas at the large wooden bar, but the place was otherwise empty. It looked like a slightly upscale version of the place in Tijuana where they host the donkey shows. But only very slightly. The open air room didn’t reek of mule. That was a good sign.
Ensenada was still close enough to the border that Americans were common and lots of people spoke English. It’s pretty much that way up and down the whole Baja peninsula. Rex ordered a beer. The dark, Indian looking man behind the bar stuck his head in the back and spoke in Spanish, and a man with a handlebar mustache came out and served him. “We open for full business at seven,” the man said.
“I’m actually trying to find someone.”
He smiled. “You might have better luck finding someone after seven.”
“I mean a specific person.”
“Who might that be?”
“The current girlfriend of Ceasar Castillo. El Rey. Her name is Isadora.”
“El Rey huh. You know, it’s not a good idea to go asking about El Rey. And it’s really not a good idea to get involved with one of his girlfriends.”
Rex pushed a twenty dollar bill towards the man. “Does that make the idea any better?”
The man looked at the twenty and then pushed it back towards Rex. “No amount of money will make it a good idea, and the more of it I take from you, the less of a good idea it will be to share any information with you. But... I will tell you this. It is not uncommon knowledge. One of El Rey’s girlfriends got into an argument with his wife two days ago in a shop. The rumor is that El Rey kicked her out of the apartment that he paid for. I don’t know who this new one is, and I don’t want to either, but she probably lives in the same place. The Condiminio Los Laureles on Avenue Reforma and I think... Calle Ambar.”
“Thanks.”
“You did not hear that from this place, is that understood?”
“Per
fectly.”
Functional they were, fancy they were not. El Rey may have money to spend, but wealthy people don’t stay wealthy by spending money frivolously. While certainly, housing a side girlfriend was on the list of expenditures on which few would argue its frivolity, this was definitely not a top dollar place. It was a green painted, block wall, four story apartment block. Nothing fancy whatsoever. It almost had a tenement look. Back in the States, the poor people would live here. This can’t be it.
Coming up with a game plan proved to be difficult. Rex was used to hiding in the woods, or the jungle, and watching for the enemy. Although this was somewhat of a depressed urban jungle, it offered little seclusion and camouflage. A white person didn’t belong here, at all. With a hood pulled over his head in this hot weather he looked like a criminal. Without it he looked like some foreign DEA agent on a stakeout. He started the Isuzu pickup, and decided to head to the beach club district to figure out a strategy to blend in, and then he saw it.
It was the same non-factory metallic green Lincoln Continental that he had seen in San Diego. He ducked his head. The driver did not see him, but who was in the car? El Rey? It turned onto a side street and stopped halfway down, at unit number seven. He saw what appeared to be a teenage girl with blonde hair get out. It was her. Isadora. She had been shopping. The Lincoln Continental drove off. Rex frantically threw the pickup in gear and turned on the street, slowing to observe her progress. The common staircase served two adjoining units. They were open air but still hidden from view by short block walls after the first level. He decided to make a command decision, and pulled next to the apartment, exited the truck and followed her. Hopefully, he was sufficiently out of the way and nobody would see him.
She walked up to the third floor, turned, and went down a short open air hallway, and fumbled with her keys. Rex carefully judged the time, and when he heard the door open, he walked across the stair landing to the other side, hoping not to attract attention, watching the door with his peripheral vision. She had her back turned to him, as she shuffled her way in with some bags, and shut the door. He noted the number on the door, 403.
Even the Lincoln Continental itself exuded some degree of cheapness. Twenty years earlier, the 60s Lincolns were classy rides, particularly the suicide door Continentals. Statesmen rode around in them. They were prestigious. Ten years earlier, the 70s models still had some status, but not like the earlier models. The quality started going downhill. Fast. The current models only have a following with pimps, drug dealers, and poor people trying to pretend to be rich people, similar to the classic Cadillac syndrome, but Caddys were better cars. The new Lincolns tended to fall apart and have cheap, gaudy trim. A Mercedes would probably be a more appropriate choice for someone with lots of money. But, again, the wealthy don’t stay wealthy by overspending.
She was easy to find. Stupidly easy to find. Chi Chi could have found her a lot more quickly. Why didn’t he come for her? That was a rather stupid question in Rex’s mind. She was now El Rey’s property. He wouldn’t touch that with a ten foot pole. But, Chi Chi has to live with El Rey. Chi Chi is within El Rey’s reach. Chi Chi is scared of El Rey. But I am not, Rex thought. El Rey didn’t look that scary. He may well have scary people working for him. Obviously, a reputation follows him.
The question now is what to do next. Right now, at that very moment, he was maybe thirty feet away from Isadora’s front door, and he had absolutely no idea what to do next. Simply following her around wasn’t a workable plan. In any case, he had established that, at some point, he was simply going to have to confront her, and try to get what he could out of her. He was, right now, in the best position that he would ever be in to do that. No El Rey, and he probably wasn’t going to be around that apartment, at least anytime soon. He doubted that El Rey would even show at the apartment, but, then again, you never know. On the other hand, the disco manager said his girlfriends’ location was known, at least on the streets. How would that be known? Probably because El Rey is frequently spotted coming and going from the complex. Plus he probably wants to check up on his goods, to make sure they aren’t being loaned to someone else.
Then there was the question of what the cover would be. There would be no cover. He would have to simply tell the truth, or he wasn’t likely to get very far. There was always the danger that she might alert El Rey that someone was looking into his affairs, but she had a lot more to lose by revealing she talked to a man in her apartment than Rex had to lose. So, the decision is final. Knock on the door, and see what happens.
“¿Quién es?” A female voice asked.
‘Me llamo Rex’ would have been the correct response, and he knew that much. But, in the spirit of testing his theory, he answered in English. “My name is Rex.”
The door made the sound of two deadbolts unlatching, and it opened backwards slightly, against a chain. “What do you want?” She asked in English.
“I need to talk to you. It’s important.”
She looked at him. He was an American. He looked like a slightly disheveled version of a college kid, with his short beard growth, but they all do after a week in Tijuana or Cabo. She didn’t recognize him, but then again she never remembers them. They’re all the same. Pigs. “Sorry, I have nothing to offer to you.”
“I’m a friend of Chi Chi.”
“Again, I have nothing to offer to you.”
“I don’t mean like that kind of friend. He’s working for me. I’m the reason why you were sent on this mission.”
She looked surprised. “You?”
“Are you going to let me in? People will see us talking.”
She took a deep breath, and nervously looked around. The door closed, and then Rex heard the sound of the chain unlatching. “Okay. Quickly.”
There was a kitchen/living room area, a bedroom, a restroom with a bathtub, and a closet. The furnishings were fairly basic and utilitarian. And there was... no way out. No way out except through the front door. A balcony would have been nice, although it was on the third floor. What’s the probability that El Rey would show up in the next, say, hour? Probably not very, as his driver just left. His ranch is supposedly somewhere in the hills, which was quite a distance away from this part of town.
“Do you know who I am looking for?” Rex asked.
“You are looking for some American that is working with Senor Castillo,” she replied.
Senor Castillo. Mr. Castillo. Not Ceasar. Not El Rey. He must be on some sort of daddy power trip or something. “Do you know why?”
“No.”
“That man is running guns through Mexico to Central America, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. He’s supplying the Sandinistas. They are our enemies. All of our enemies. Americans are being killed. Contras are being killed.”
“That does not concern me. I am not involved.”
“Of course not. You are Brazilian. But you should be concerned.”
“Why?”
“Right now, the American government is only concerned with finding and stopping this man working through El Rey. Rather, Senor Castillo. That could change in an instant, if the Mexican government steps in, which would mean the end to Castillo and everyone around him. Including you.”
“He is powerful.”
“Not that goddamn powerful, I assure you. I absolutely assure you. And, there is more.”
“What is that?”
“There is evidence this man is trying to build a bomb. A nuclear bomb. One that can destroy whole cities. If he succeeds, do you want that on your conscience?”
“This is too much. Go. Go now. I...”
Her speech was interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps. Hard soles. Dress shoes. They were nearing the doorway. “Shit, who is that?” Rex whispered.
“Oh god. It’s El Rey.”
“I thought his driver just left twenty minutes ago?”
“He usually drives himself here.”
“Damn.”
There was a knock o
n the door. “Solo un minuto!” She responded. “Quickly, in the closet,” she whispered. She gently shut the door. It was agonizingly small and there was nothing to hide behind. He heard the flush of a toilet, and thirty seconds later the door opened.
There was some small talk in Spanish for several minutes, and then the footsteps went into the bedroom. For the next thirty minutes, heavy grunting and fake sounds of ecstasy could be heard, eventually terminating to a voluminous conclusion. More small talk was made, then there was the sound of dressing, and then the door closing behind him as El Rey made a hasty exit.
Rex emerged from the closet, latched the deadbolt on the front door, and walked in to the room. Isadora was sitting on the bed, still undressed, cleaning up herself. The stench was horrid.
Under other circumstances, the sight of the naked girl would have been arousing. Rex could only feel pity. The girl had the face of shame and sadness. A tear streamed down her face. “The fat pig comes in, has his way, and leaves. He doesn’t talk. He doesn’t want to talk. He never wants to talk.”
“Well I’m sorry for that.”
She could detect his condescending tone. “You don’t understand what it’s like to be alone on the streets, with no family to take care of you. No government to take care of you. No husband to take care of you. No job to earn you money. You do this or you starve.”
“Back on the subject at hand, are you going to help me or not?”
“Help you? Why should I? What are you going to do, take me away from this place and give me a happy life?”
She had a point. Probably not. Even if Rex was in a position to do such, what was known could not be unknown, what was seen could not be unseen, and what was heard could not be heard. Sure. He’s no saint. He had paid before to dip his wick, like the rest of his buddies. He wasn’t proud of it. But that was a bit of a double standard, wasn’t it? Virtuosity isn’t an absolute, it’s a matter of how much, and with how many.
Then it dawned on him as he watched Isadora put her lingerie back on. He was starting to feel soft. Way too soft. Soft is inadequate. Soft gets you killed in combat. Same thing with So-Young. He felt things for her he never should have had to start with. Maybe the situation should be considered differently. Consider it an opportunity for physical release, which had not been available for quite some time. The fact of the matter was that his loins were a ticking time bomb, and there was a damn lit fuse standing ten feet away.