“I heard the security people talking about some of the workers after the septic tank exploded,” Veronica continued. “They talked to de Sarcena. I thought they mentioned you, but I wasn’t sure who you were until the party. Then it all came together for me. I realized who you were and decided to help you.”
“Thanks.”
“My grandmother reads your books,” she added. “You have more women readers than you think.”
I bowed my head.
“You are a bit full of yourself,” she added. “And sometimes you overwrite.”
Everybody’s a critic.
I got up and went over to the refrigerator to salve my ego with another beer. Veronica had done a great deal of work at huge personal risk. Her information would no doubt help put de Sarcena away for years—assuming she could find a prosecutor who was willing to take on the cartel. But unfortunately for her, the information she had would be fairly useless when it came to finding her grandparents.
Frankly, it wasn’t hard to guess what had happened to her grandparents. They had crossed the cartel somehow, and were dead. If they had been kidnapped for ransom—the only other logical possibility—Veronica would have gotten some sort of communication by now.
There was no way of helping her. I felt bad, but that was the way it was.
Besides, I was up to my eyeballs in damsels in distress.
“You’re not going to help, are you?” Veronica asked as I studied the different brands inside the fridge. I’d had my fill of Mexican beer. In fact, I didn’t feel like drinking anything foreign, including the Budweiser at the front of the shelf. I stared into the back of the fridge, trying to will a few bottles of Rogue Ale into existence.
When none appeared, I settled for a Coors Lite.
“Look. This is them,” said Veronica, unfolding a piece of paper for me to look at.
A kindly looking, white-haired grandma and a portly though distinguished grandpa grimaced for the camera on the main drag of the Mexican town next to Angel Hills. But it was the figure in the background, passing on the street maybe twenty yards behind them, that caught my attention.
He had a long shirt on, an extremely long shirt. The kind you see a lot on the streets of Lahore, Karachi, and practically every other city in Pakistan. It’s also extremely common in Afghanistan. In fact, you can see the long-sleeved, loose-fitting kameez in many Muslim countries.
“Man dress” is the politically incorrect term. Not that we would ever be politically incorrect in the Rogue universe.
III
When last we saw them, Trace, Tex, and Stoneman were escorting the Garcias to their home in south-central Mexico.19 The trip was long and hot, and took the better part of the day. The countryside was beautiful, but poverty was just as plentiful and nearly as obvious. Many of the houses they passed on the less-traveled roads were hovels; there were more than a few lean-tos. There were farms, but most were pretty primitive; the few tractors they saw dated from the early 1980s.
After several hours, they began climbing up the gentle slope of a mountain. Everything around them became deep green. Bushes edged against the road; trees hung down. Suddenly the branches parted and they were in the Garcias’ hometown, a village cut into the sides of a mountain.
While the buildings were mostly old, they seemed uniformly in good repair. Many had been painted within the last year or two in a warm rose color or a light wash of yellow. The small main street was a hodgepodge of buildings—garage spaces jostled vegetable stands in a large one-story structure, a motel that could have been right out of the 1950s stood next to a courthouse that could have dated from just after the Spanish Conquest.
The Garcias’ house was a small stucco building tucked into the hillside at the southeastern corner of town. There were chickens in the front yard … and a twenty-something man with no shirt in the back room.
The man turned out to be a squatter, easily dealt with—Tex took his arm, Stoneman his legs, and together they dumped him unceremoniously with the chickens.
They camped out against the front door that night, just in case he or his friends had any thoughts of coming back. Trace took the couch, sleeping as comfortably as she had in weeks.
The Garcias paid a visit to the local police station just as the sun was rising the next morning to make sure everything was in order. Trace tried to talk them out of bribing the police chief with what they euphemistically called a “thank you fee,” but Mr. Garcia assured her that was the way it had to be done.
“He is a poor man besides,” said Mrs. Garcia. “The government salary is very little.”
The chief’s office made exactly the opposite impression: it was at least the size of the Garcias’ entire house, furnished in finely polished wooden furniture, with thick leather chairs and various mementos and photos scattered around the room. Trace bit her tongue, remaining silent as the chief and the Garcias engaged in small talk about the village and things that had happened in their absence. The squatter was not mentioned, and the trouble with the cartel waited until the very end of the meeting.
“We have paid our debt to the boss,” said Mr. Garcia, sliding an envelope across the desk. “We expect no more trouble.”
“I’m sure there will be none,” said the chief pleasantly. He tucked the money into the top of his desk.
The Garcias got up to leave. Trace got up as well, and walked over to the chief. She bent over his desk. He gave her a quizzical look—until she grabbed his shirt and pulled his face into hers.
“These are my relatives,” she said in Spanish. “Anything happens to them for any reason—you will personally bear the consequences.”
Tex, who’d carried his rifle into the office, glared at the chief. Trace is part Indian and her accent is very Mexican, but Tex couldn’t pass for Hispanic in a roomful of white Russians. The combination unnerved the chief of police, who must have thought they were representatives of a rival cartel. He reached into his desk to give the money back.
“Keep it,” said Trace, letting him go. “Make sure you earn it.”
IV
Right about that time I was assigning Doc to escort Ms. Reynolds back to Austin, Texas, where she would wait for her father and they would collect our reward from her paramour. There was a surprising bit of teeth gnashing, not from Melissa—having heard Veronica’s story, I think at this point she had decided that she was lucky to have escaped the cartel without real damage—but from Junior.
Junior had apparently fallen in love with the comely Ms. Reynolds, and wanted very much to be part of the escort.
“Totally unnecessary,” I replied when he asked.
“Dad, please.”
I gave him a cross-eyed look. Clearly, he was thinking with an organ other than his brain.
“I think Doc can handle it just fine,” I told him.
He sulked away, head down and spirits lower. I felt bad, really—I don’t like to get between a man and his hormones. But I needed him to help watch over de Sarcena.
By all appearances, our honored guest was still feeling no pain, sleeping peacefully in the back room thanks to the continued administration of Doc’s Percocet. He had to be turned over to the authorities, but which ones? I knew the Mexican government would never prosecute him. Could New Mexico or some other state, armed with Veronica’s information, build a case? It was possible, but their track records were not the best.
As for the feds, their record was even worse. Not being a big believer in catch and release, I decided we’d hold on to him for a while. If we could find the right prosecutor or agency, then we’d hand him over. If not … Rogue justice might be the better way to go.
“Nothing happens to him, you understand,” I told Mongoose, who along with Junior was tasked to look after him. “You understand? No blindfolded walks down steps, no midnight swims.”
He gave me a sour-milk look. “You really take the fun out of life, you know that?”
* * *
If you look at the southern border of the U.S
., you’ll notice that the straight line that extends from El Paso makes a ninety-degree cut south once it reaches western New Mexico. The rectangle that results is because of the Gadsden Purchase; completed in 1854, it was the last big real estate buy Uncle Sam made before realizing it’s better to rent than own.
Some thirty-two miles east of that sharp line south is a small New Mexico town called Columbus. Columbus is a fine little city, that’s been very hospitable to me the few times I’ve had occasion to visit. It’s packed with history, not all of it the remembering kind. It played a major role in the undeclared border war with Mexico in 1916 – 17, first by being victimized by Pancho Villa, and then by hosting the so-called Punitive Expedition led by Black Jack Pershing afterward.
I’m a history buff myself, but its interest to me at this point in my Mexican sojourn was its location, directly north of a small border crossing that was about ten miles east of Angel Hills. This is fairly rugged terrain and, with the exception of Puerto Palomas on the border, relatively empty of people.
Not a great place for a retirement community, I thought as I drove out there with Shotgun and Veronica early in the afternoon after sequestering de Sarcena. But it would be perfect for a drug-running operation.
Not to mention a terror camp, to get hysterical now that I’ve been historical.
We stopped briefly in Columbus to pick up supplies—Shotgun just about bought out the grocery—then ambled over in a pair of rented Chevies, Veronica and I in the lead. I let Veronica drive; it was easier to observe the scenery from the passenger side.
I looked out the window, too. Occasionally.
The surrounding area was breathtakingly beautiful, though on the dry side. Once over the border and approaching Angel Hills, green became more plentiful, first in little pockets, then as the crown ringing the hills. It’s easy to forget, living in places where you can regularly curse the rain, how critical water is for development. Underground springs percolated in the rolling rifts where the condos were nestled; without them, the land would have been haunted by tumbleweed rather than bulldozers.
Not knowing what to expect, I had Shotgun pull off the road a few miles from the development, parking in the shade of a battered old billboard. The tattered remains of three different cigarette ads clung to the splintered wood. Shotgun sat in his car, munching Cheese Doodles. He was determined to answer what for him was a burning question: how many doodles are there in an average bag?
The road to Angel Hills ran through the small Mexican village of Villa Angela. More a hamlet than a village, Villa Angela was a collection of maybe three dozen buildings nestled around a short main street that zigged through a narrow pass in the hills. When I say that the main street was short, I mean it was no more than thirty yards long. The buildings were mostly white-washed adobe, with two exceptions, both in the exact middle of town: the hardware store was painted pink, and the bank was constructed of red brick and what looked like limestone to my untrained eye. At two stories high, the bank was also the tallest and most substantial building in town.
“Owned by the cartel, lock, stock, and barrel,” said Veronica as we drove toward it. “Opens only on Friday.”
“Why Friday?” I asked.
“Payday. They bring two employees in, and an armored car with cash.”
“Big payroll?”
“As far as I could tell, just the security and maintenance workers over in Angel Hills. The townies are too poor for the most part to bank. Or too smart.”
“They don’t work for the cartel?”
“Not directly,” said Veronica. “But it doesn’t matter. The cartel owns them, whether they know it or not.”
Main Street ran roughly west to east. The road was paved and in fairly good shape—not potholes or ruts, no trash or even piles of sand littering the sides. A hill jutted up sharply behind the buildings on the south, but to the north there was a small grid of houses. These were small and mostly made of stone or stucco, though I did see one with what looked like vinyl siding—rare in this part of Mexico.
We drove in slowly, eyes scanning the street. A pair of older men were sitting on a bench outside the barbershop, which announced with blue and red diagonal stripes on the whitewashed exterior. There was a little step up to the interior of the building, where the barber was cutting a customer’s hair. There was no one else on the street.
“Let’s get something to eat,” I told Veronica. “Get a better look at the place before we go up to the condos.”
“There’s only one place to eat in town,” she said. “A café. It’s a bit of a dump.”
“Sounds like my kind of place.”
The words “Cocina Juanita” were written across the plate-glass window, announcing the place as Juanita’s kitchen. Juanita herself greeted us as we walked in. We were the only customers: not surprising given the size of the town and the fact that it was around ten-thirty in the morning.
“You sit where you please,” she declared in English.
We did. The dining room was small, maybe twenty feet by thirty. It had a collection of small tables of different sizes and shapes—round, square, rectangular—with an equally mismatched set of chairs. A counter area separated us from the kitchen, which was a long galley with a stove wide enough to grill a hundred eggs.
Juanita remained behind the counter as we sat, working a dishrag around a drinking glass.
“You having?” she asked.
“Coffee for me,” I said.
“I would like a menu,” said Veronica in Spanish.
“No menus,” said Juanita, sticking to English. “Tell me you want, I’ll make it.”
Stubbornly sticking to Spanish, Veronica said she would have an egg sunny-side up.
Veronica had changed her hair, dying and cutting it, since she’d been here last, and she didn’t think she’d been recognized. Juanita cracked open a pair of eggs, got them sizzling on the griddle, then came over with two cups of coffee even though Veronica hadn’t ordered any.
“Maybe I’ll have some eggs,” I told the cook.
“How you like? Scramble?”
“I’m in your hands.”
Juanita smiled, then swaggered back to the stove, happy that her abilities were being trusted. Behind the counter, she fell to work, frying up some bits of onion and vegetables, swirling yolks, and furiously shaking a peppermill. A few minutes later, she came over with Veronica’s eggs—two bright suns, smiling up at her—and a plate of what turned out to be some of the best scrambled eggs I’ve had in a long time.
“Good?” the cook asked as I took my first bite.
“Very good,” I told her.
She folded her arms and smiled. I doubt Michelangelo looked more satisfied when he finished painting the Sistine Chapel.
“How are the condos at the other end of town?” I asked. “Nice place to retire?”
As soon as I mentioned condos, her face clouded.
“Angel Hills,” I added when she didn’t answer. “I was thinking I might look to see if one of them was for sale.”
Juanita remained silent.
“It’s only that I’m looking for a place to move to that’s inexpensive,” I added.
Still no answer.
“It’s only that I heard the place was pretty cheap,” I repeated. “So I asked my daughter here—”
Juanita bent her head toward the table.
“Never mind what you heard, senor. This is not a good place for gringos. Go to Cancun or somewhere else. Some nice place. Here—not very good.”
She took the towel off her shoulder, pretended to wipe something off the table next to us, then went back to the grill.
* * *
“That was the sales office, right there,” said Veronica, pointing out a corner condo as we drove into the development.
“Looks closed.”
“Exactly.”
There was no sales sign, or anything else that would indicate it was an office—or that there were even units for sale, for that matter.<
br />
A pair of children’s bikes were parked on the lawn of the next unit over.
“I thought this was a retirement community,” I said to Veronica.
“It was.”
I followed the road as it crested, then started down a hill to the south. The place looked very much like any of a million condo developments in the States, with two-story, pseudo-colonial units featuring peaked roofs, porches, and large bay windows—perfect in New England, I’d say, though about as appropriate in this landscape as a diving board. But the grass was well tended, and the small pond shimmered in front of immaculately white sand.
We drove down a hill and turned up the street. There were porches, but no people on them.
“Up there,” she said, pointing to a corner unit. “That’s theirs.”
We pulled into the driveway. There were curtains on the windows, and a quartet of flowers on the porch. Veronica, puzzled, yanked at the door and got out of the car. She strode briskly up the walk, putting a good crease in the new chinos she’d picked up across the border.
I got out of the car but hung back for a moment, scanning the development. There wasn’t anything overtly suspicious about the place.
Veronica stepped onto the small porch and rang the bell. She swung her head back and forth, glancing at the windows, then reached for the button again. As she did, the front door opened. A short, squat man in a button-down white shirt opened the door.
“¿Sí?” he asked quizzically, greeting her in Spanish.
“I’m looking for my grandparents,” said Veronica, also speaking Spanish.
“Where do they live?”
“They live in this house.”
“This house?”
“Yes, this house.”
Veronica took a step toward the door. The man glanced at me.
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