He likes the feel of this operation, the speed at which it’s moving. It is something he learned in the streets at an early age. Move in quick, do it quick, get out quick. Everything is proceeding exactly as it should.
When the quartet segues into the heartbreaking second movement he gives it his full attention, then nurses his drink to the end of the work, sipping the last drops from his glass with a small sigh of satisfaction. He would normally have a second one before bedtime, but it has been a tiring day and tomorrow will be a busy one, beginning with his morning meeting with El Ingeniero.
He stands up and catches sight of himself in a wall mirror, smiles, and raises his glass to his image.
Then goes to bed and is asleep at once.
Within an hour he is awakened by a call from El Mago, so named because of his wondrous surgical skills. However, as result of a scandal some years ago involving black market prescriptions and the overdose suicide of a college-student son of an important local politician, he lost his medical license, and his practice has since been restricted to select clients like Galán. He is calling from his home in a working-class neighborhood, from the well-equipped back room where he plies his trade. He reports that a man who said his name was Fuego had arrived at his front door not twenty minutes ago, saying he had been sent by Galán. He had a serious gunshot wound in his side requiring urgent attention, but as they were going down the hall to the treatment room the man collapsed. Mago did his best to save him but the blood loss had been too great and the man died.
Galán tells him he will send somebody there right away to take care of things, then calls a service he has used in the past. He explains the problem and the man he speaks with says it will be attended to at once.
He ponders how this occurrence might affect tomorrow’s plan, settles the question in his mind, and uses the house line to call Espanto.
The phone rings only twice before Espanto responds, “Sí, jefe.”
Galán apprises him of what happened regarding Huerta and Fuego, and tells him to notify the Beta crew that they will have to function with only three members.
Espanto says he will do so immediately.
Galan goes back to bed. This time it requires almost five minutes for him to fall asleep.
El Mago has bagged the body by the time three employees of the service engaged by Galán arrive in a van. One of the men drives off in the Cherokee, which he will deliver to Loro’s garage. The other two men load the body into the van and bear it away for disposal in one of the fiery garbage pits that so often frightened Fuego with their aspects of hell.
8 — THE PARENTS
The three dozen guests yet in the Belmonte home are surprised by the return of the bridal couples’ parents, embarrassed to be found still drinking and dancing and keeping the orchestra at work. The parents pass by without pausing, the men with shopping bags under their arms, Mr. Belmonte giving the guests a curt explanation that they’re tired and have left the young people to their own fun at a nightclub.
Interpreting the parents’ grim faces as displeasure with having discovered them still here, the guests hastily call good-nights after them, retrieve their coats, and phone for their cars as they head for the front door. The housemaids are glad to see them go.
Mrs. Belmonte has coffee brought to Mr. Belmonte’s lower-floor office and then the foursome sit at the table in the middle of the room and talk and talk, going over everything Mr. X told them. They repeat his every word, making sure they all heard the same things and have the same understanding of them, each agreeing with one another that, Yes, yes, that’s what I heard too, that’s what he said, yes. In the course of these confirmations, there are bursts of outraged self-pity from the women. They dab at their eyes and ask how can such a thing happen to them, for the love of God? They’re rich! What’s the good of being rich if it doesn’t keep you safer than those who are not? There are instances of one man or the other slamming a palm or a fist heel on the table and cursing, both of them at times seeming close to tears himself.
That Huerta bastard son of a whore! Belmonte says. I’ll have his balls in a jar! He rarely uses profanity in the presence of women, but this time his wife does not reproach him.
Their angry indignation notwithstanding, they are agreed to do exactly as Mr. X has instructed. What other choice have they? The man was nothing if not precise in his instructions. They cannot even have their drivers convey them to the bank but must drive themselves there. Belmonte and Sosa debate whether to call their bankers at home right away to alert them to the large withdrawals they will be making. They decide not to, agreeing that they would only be raising troublesome questions and fears that could be difficult to deal with on the phone and at this hour. Besides, Mr. X said all communications to and from the house were being monitored, and while he did not say they could not call the banks, neither did he say they could. Best to wait until they talk to the bank officers in person. They curse the banks for their late hour of opening—that damned Indio Tierra and that Rosemonte bank still keeping the same business hours they did fifty years ago! The wait for them to open up will seem interminable, as will the wait afterward until four. Still, the sooner they have the money at hand, the better they will all feel until they can call Mr. X for their instructions.
There’s nothing they can do for now but reiterate assurances to each other that everything will be all right, that the kidnappers don’t want to hurt anyone, that they just want the money, that Mr. X bears no personal malice toward any of them and has no cause to harm their children as long as he gets the money and . . . dear God, it’s just awful, it’s despicable, it’s beyond vile, what some people will do for money! But that’s of no matter now. The only important thing is that the money will free their children from danger. There is that advantage to being rich.
They urge one another to get some sleep, there’s no sense staying awake, it won’t help anything. The husbands want the wives to go up to the bedrooms but the women refuse, saying they cannot sleep, and instead exhort their husbands to try to rest, they’ll need it for tomorrow. When the men also refuse to go upstairs, the wives plead for one of them to lie down on the couch in the office and the other on the large couch in the adjoining den where Mr. Belmonte sometimes retires for a nap in the course of a long workday.
Where Rayo Luna Wolfe has been standing with an ear to the door, listening to it all.
9 — RAYO
Rayo and Gregorio had danced and danced, writhing against each other, unmindful of the grins they drew from others on the floor. They sometimes whirled off behind the stand of potted palms in the corner for a kiss and fondle before spinning back out on the floor again, enjoying the dancing foreplay and the excitement of where it was headed.
When Rayo nipped his earlobe during a slow dance and said, Enough of this dry hump, buddy, let’s go somewhere and get naked, Gregorio laughed and said he knew just the place.
He’d many times before been a guest of the Belmontes and was well acquainted with the house. He led her around to a hallway off the other side of the dance floor and down to a room furnished with a small desk and bookcases, framed wall maps, and a long wide couch. They locked the door behind them and did not switch on the light, the room’s darkness eased by the bright screen glow of a large digital clock on the wall. To one side was a door to an adjoining room Gregorio said was Belmonte’s larger office, but they didn’t have anything to worry about, as the Belmontes would be at the after party for hours.
They flung off their clothes and tumbled onto the sofa and Rayo laughed at his eagerness and petted him and told him to slow down. She was delighted by his adroitness when he put his tongue to her, and she helped out with a shift of hip and a light directorial hand on his head. After a time, she wriggled herself farther under him and drew him inside her, Gregorio in such a state of excitement she was afraid he would come too soon, but each time he approached orgasm he was able to rest
rain himself, and they were at it for a good while before he finally could not hold back, and she praised herself for her sound intuition that he would prove a good lover. She bet him a peso she could raise him to readiness again in five minutes, and four minutes later said somebody owed her a peso. After that, they were much more leisurely about it, sporting into the deepening night, panting and giggling, now one on top and now the other, now face-to-face and now he behind her, at one point falling off the sofa and putting a hand to each other’s mouth to mute their laughter. She has always been quick to achieve release and able do so repeatedly, and she climaxed several times before he’d done so twice. He was making a heroic attempt at a third orgasm when he gave up and wheezed, Sweet Jesus, woman . . . I surrender.
She growled low and nudged him with her pelvis.
Then they heard the sound of someone entering the adjoining room, and various voices.
Oh Christ, what— Gregorio started to say before she put her hand over his mouth with a strength that should not have surprised him, given the torsions of her lovemaking.
She put her finger to her lips to keep him hushed, eased out of bed and wiped herself with his shirt, tossed him his clothes and picked up her own and went to listen at the door, stepping into her thong and slipping the minidress on and sliding her feet into her shoes. She recognized the voices of the Belmonte and Sosa parents, heard Mrs. Belmonte tell someone to please set the tray on the desk, heard the door shut. She wondered what they were doing back here and if the whole bridal party had come back. Whatever the case, it was time to depart, and she was just about to signal Gregorio to hurry up when she heard Mr. Belmonte say something about “rescate de los jovenes.”
Rescue? Young people?
She kept her ear to the door and heard everything they talked about and understood the sort of “rescate” they were referring to was a ransom. Gregorio finished dressing and started toward her, but she motioned sharply for him to stay where he was. He grinned and kept coming and she turned and grabbed his arms, pressing her thumbs hard into the crooks of his elbows, and drove him back to the couch, her mouth at his ear and hissing through her teeth for him to sit the fuck down and keep quiet. She pushed him onto the couch and slipped quickly back to the door.
Now she’s heard all of it, everything they have repeated to one another about the kidnapping—from the security chief’s participation in it to their driver’s spike haircut, from Mr. X’s explanations and warnings and instructions for tomorrow to Mr. Sosa’s agreement to pay the ransom for his daughter’s American friend.
Of all she’s heard, that’s the most important item. The bastards took JJ.
Now the parents are telling each other there’s nothing to be done until the banks open in the morning, and they begin a mild squabble about getting some rest, the women urging one of the men to make use of the couch in the neighboring room.
Rayo heads for the door without giving Gregorio a glance, but he swiftly follows. They hurry down the hallway to the guest-deserted ballroom and past the knowing looks of the tidying maids. She stops at the checkroom to get her shawl, and then they’re outside and stepping lively down the driveway toward the gate, Gregorio practically giddy, gabbing without pause, saying it was damn sure a close one and what if they’d been caught going at it on the couch and he doubts he’d ever have been invited to the Belmontes’ again and he’s known some daring women but she’s right up at the top.
She pays him no mind, her thoughts elsewhere.
The attendant grins at the sight of them and opens the gate and gives Rayo an appreciative ogle as she strides by with her shawl around her shoulders, high heels clicking. Their cars are parked blocks from each other and in opposite directions, and as she starts away from him Gregorio grabs her arm and says, Wait a minute, wait, give me your phone number.
She jerks free of his hand and points a warning finger in his face, then turns and stalks off.
He watches her go, admiring her flawless ass with a sickening certainty that he’ll not have access to it again.
Bitch, he says.
But not loudly.
In her restored TR3 roadster, the canvas top up, she reviews the situation as she makes her way to the beltway and merges into it, then thumb scrolls her phone’s directory of contacts and taps on her Uncle Rodrigo’s name.
“Tío Rigo,” she says. “Es Rayo Luna.” Forgive my calling at this hour, sir, but it’s truly important. Someone of ours is in serious trouble.
Tell me, he says.
After she relates to him everything she overheard between the Belmontes and Sosas, Rodrigo softly says, Oh Christ. Then says he will inform his father, Plutarco, and his Uncle Juan Jaguaro. The Texas family must be notified, but courtesy demands that the notification come from a patriarch of the Mexican side of the house.
Regardless of our own efforts, he tells Rayo, the Texans will send somebody down here immediately to look for their girl. It’s how they are. Furthermore, they will want to speak with you, since you’re the source of the information. It’s convenient you’re the one of us they know best.
But if they try to rescue JJ, Rayo says, won’t that just put her in greater danger? Why not pay the ransom and get her back, then hunt down the fuckers who took her? Oh God . . . forgive my language, Uncle.
And your presumptuousness. We’ve spoken about that, miss.
I’m sorry, Uncle. I—
They won’t trust the fuckers not to kill her even if they’re paid, Rigo says. Neither would I. Now listen, I’m going to have Mateo himself handle this, and you’ll work with him. He’ll contact you shortly. Be ready.
Yes . . . yes sir, I will.
She hears his soft sigh before he says, I know you’ll do well and exactly as you’re told.
Yes sir. You can depend on me.
“And remember, chica,” Rodrigo adds in English. “Like our gringo cousins like to say . . . watch your ass.”
“Yes sir, I definitely will.”
She’d been hoping Rodrigo might assign her to a part in this because of her close relations with their Texas kin—but to work with Mateo! He’s Rodrigo’s younger brother and the head of the family’s enforcement squad. She almost bounces on the seat in her excitement.
Then she thinks of Jessie and rebukes herself for such selfishness.
10 — JESSIE
They haven’t been on the road very long when she hears the chirp of a phone and then the blond man’s voice saying, “Sí?” Then he says, No, no problems at all. The cargo’s on the way to the warehouse right now. . . . I understand. Until tomorrow.
Let me guess, says the voice of the ponytail man. Espanto.
Who else? Mother hen, that guy.
Fucking toady, the ponytail says. Always sucking up to Galán.
He’s not sucking up. He’s the number two man doing his job.
Again the phone chirps. The blond mutters, Now what? And then says, Yeah, what is it? in an acerbic tone that makes Jessie think it very unlikely he’s talking again to the one called Espanto.
There’s a silence and then the blond says, Jesus Christ. Well, tell him to do it fast, God damn it. I want it ready when we get there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just tell him to do it fast.
Who was that? the ponytail says.
Cabrito. Water pipe busted on the lower floor. Flooded the place. He’s got a guy working on it but it may not be fixed before we get there.
Fucking slums, man, the ponytail says. Pipes always busting, roofs always leaking. Walls and floors full of holes. Why the hell use those rattraps?
Because, the blond says, out there nobody ever sees anything, hears anything, knows anything. Galán tells Espanto to find houses out there and then checks them himself before giving the okay. You want to argue with Galán about his choice of hold houses?
The ponytail doesn’t answer.
It’s a slow drive a
t first, with numerous stops at traffic lights, with constant sounds of proximate vehicles. The bare metal floor jars them at every bump and pothole. It hadn’t taken long for Jessie to accept the impossibility of working her hands free of the cuffs, but she’s been slowly rubbing her left cheek on a rib of the metal floorboard and, bit by bit, she’s managed to push that side of her sleep mask upward until its lower edge is on her upper eyelid and she can see.
The whole time she’s been working the mask up, she’s feared that one of the bastards is watching her, enjoying her effort, waiting to see if she’ll succeed in uncovering the eye. Ready to bust out laughing and smack her for her trouble if she does. But she’s done it . . . and still no laugh or punch.
She’s on her side between two other captives, so all she can see in the intermittent light of passing lampposts is the dark form of someone lying in front of her. A man’s back. Aldo, she’s pretty sure. She very slowly squirms partway onto her back until she can discern the two men in the front seat. They stop for a red light at a loud, bright intersection and she cranes her head around and sees no one else in the back of the Suburban besides other captives, all lying motionless, hands bound behind them. The ones from her Town Car, she figures, plus Luz. The rest of the party must’ve been packed off in the other Suburban. They’re being taken to hold houses, she’s sure of it. She’s had it explained to her by cops. Two houses, maybe three, it’s how they sometimes work it with more than one captive. Parcel them out to different holding places, so that even if one place becomes known, a rescue won’t be attempted for fear of getting the captives at the other places killed.
The sound of traffic becomes sporadic and gradually lessens to almost none. They enter a part of town with fewer stoplights. The road is bumpier. They go straight for a long way without streetlights or stops or turns until at last they make a turn to the right. It’s straight ahead again for a distance and then she feels the light centrifugal pull of a long curve and then they’re moving straight but more slowly and over a still rougher surface. There are streetlights again, but dimmer and fewer than before. They move slowly for block after block and then pass through a flashing green cast of light and she glimpses a raised sign reading “Chula’s” and bordered with green lightbulbs.
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