The House of Wolfe

by James Carlos Blake

  When Espanto called late last night to tell him of Fuego’s death from wounds received in a gunfight with Huerta and that the Beta crew would have to operate with just three men, Barbarosa—who’d been close friends with Fuego and was angered by the news—had complained vehemently about the stink and the locked basement and the erratic electrical system. Espanto had expressed surprise. He said the house hadn’t smelled too bad when he’d looked it over last month, no worse than most slum houses, anyway. He admitted, however, not having bothered to check out the basement, since the Beta crew wouldn’t be making use of it. He said he would get in touch with the owner of the place and have him go there and see what he could do about the stink, but he doubted there was anything to be done about the flickering lights.

  The remainder of the night at the Beta house had been an ordeal. They had partly opened all the windows in an attempt to ease the stink and had only made the place colder and danker. The two women ­captives—Linda Sosa, and her cousin Francesca—sniveled even in half sleep, hugging each other for warmth. In the other room, the complaints of the bridegroom, Demetrio, and his cousins Carlos and Colón, two of his groomsmen, grew so tiresome that Barbarosa threatened to gag them again if they didn’t shut their snouts.

  Early this morning Espanto had called again, to check on things and report that he was having trouble locating the house’s owner, a man named Spoto—a slumlord from whom he has rented hold houses before and who knows Espanto only by a false name. Espanto said he would keep trying to get hold of him. He didn’t call Barbarosa again until late morning. He had located Spoto but the man didn’t have a key to the lock. Before Spoto rented the house to Espanto he had been letting his nephew use it, and the boy had confided that he and some pals were printing counterfeit government documents in the basement and swore to him they were being very careful to keep the activity secret. When Espanto rented the house, Spoto told his nephew he would have to stay away from there for a while, but he hadn’t known the boy would padlock the basement. Because the nephew had complained about rats, it was Spoto’s guess that he had set a bunch of traps before locking up and that a bunch of dead rats was the cause of the stink. He didn’t know where the nephew might be but said he would try to find him and have him go over there and open the lock. Espanto told him to forget it. It would be quicker to send a locksmith.

  I’ve called a guy who’s a maestro with locks, Espanto told Barbarosa. Right now he’s on a job that’s almost done, and then he’ll go straight to you. It’s amazing the things I do for you pansies just so you don’t have to put up with a little stink for a few more hours.

  Hey man, Barbarosa said, if you think it’s such a little stink, you come out here and wait till the payoff and I’ll sit in a nice warm café drinking coffee and making phone calls.

  Maybe next time, Espanto said, and they both laughed, but in different tones.

  Now it’s past midday and still no locksmith. Everyone’s tired from lack of sleep, still damp and shivering from the cold rain blowing through the windows all night. As Barbarosa is debating whether to call Espanto and give him hell, his phone buzzes.

  It’s Espanto, informing him that the locksmith had been on his way to the Beta place when his fan belt broke. He was now waiting for roadside assistance and figured it wouldn’t take long to get rolling again. He was only a few miles away from the hold house.

  Jesus fucking Christ, Barbarosa says.

  Hey man, the guy can’t help it the belt broke. He’ll be on his way again in a few minutes.

  Yeah, right, Barbarosa says.

  I’m telling you, the guy’ll be there, Espanto says. You might still get a few hours free of the stink. If you find what it is, and if it’s something you can do anything about. I mean, if it turns out it’s a body, there won’t be much you can do about getting rid of it. Even if you could, you know how that stink sticks around. Same for dead rats if there’s a bunch of them.

  Barbarosa hears the note of amusement in Espanto’s voice. Fucker thinks this is funny. It occurs to him that Espanto’s playing a joke, that he hasn’t called a locksmith, that he probably hasn’t talked to anybody about the stink. As the only one in the gang from a working-class family, Barbarosa is occasionally the object of mockery from the other members of Los Doce, all of whom come from the slums or the shanties and through a perverse turn of prejudice tend to view him as their social lesser. Barbarosa is so enraged he doesn’t trust himself to speak.

  Hey, man, still there? Espanto says.

  Yeah, Barbarosa manages.

  I was afraid maybe you’d passed out. Bad stinks have been known to do that to people with a sensitive nose. Anyway, buddy, the guy will be there soon.

  Barbarosa grunts and cuts off the call, wishing the phone had a receiver he could slam.

  20 — ESPANTO

  Ensconced in a rear booth of the Casa Toltec restaurant a few blocks west of Chapultepec Park, Espanto smiles as he puts up his phone. Jesus Christ, so much carping about a little stink. Barbarosa’s a good man, reliable, you damn well want him with you in a fight, and he’s rarely one to complain. When he does, though, it can be about the most trivial thing. He deserved to be kidded about it. A bad smell! Like he’d grown up in some flower garden. It could be, Espanto has to admit, that by now some bad smell may have cropped up, but a stink is only a stink. It won’t kill them to put up with it for such a short time.

  The staff of Casa Toltec know Espanto only by an alias and are fond of him for his free hand in tipping. He has on occasion spent the better part of a day here with no company but his phone and laptop, and he will do so again today. The staff will take care to see that he is undisturbed and to keep other patrons seated at a distance from him.

  He is monitoring all communications to or from the Belmonte house and overseeing the operations of the hold houses and the two street guys, Chino and Chato, and he will relay information to Galán as necessary. He had managed to get four hours of sleep before coming here just after the place opened its door and he’d had a breakfast of coffee and a sweet roll. The restaurant is almost equidistant from the hold houses, both of them just outside the city perimeter and more than twenty miles from each other on a north-south line.

  He beckons the waitress, Betina, who takes his lunch order of three chicken tacos, nothing on the side, and another cup of coffee.

  Eating so little today, handsome, she says.

  Watching my weight, he says, patting his lean midsection.

  You? she says. I’m the one who needs to trim this fat ass.

  He reaches out and pats her bottom fondly and tells her it’s just right. She beams and says she’ll be right back with his tacos and retreats to the kitchen, its entrance flanked by the waitress station—a short counter and some stools, the counter holding a television tuned to an old Pedro Infante movie, its volume turned low.

  On the table before him stands an open laptop computer. Any e-mail sent from or received at the Belmonte home will appear on the screen as it is transmitted or received. In his coat pocket is an audio receiver with an ear bud connection. Any phone call made from or to the Belmonte place will vibrate the receiver and automatically trigger the receiver’s recording function, as it did thrice in succession this morning. Espanto each time listened to the call and then relayed the recording of it to Galán. Who then made a call to Belmonte.

  The whole thing is going so smoothly he has to check an impulse to whistle.

  21 — JESSIE

  Pain is only pain, Aunt Catalina once told her. If it hasn’t killed you, it hasn’t beaten you.

  Lying on her back with her eyes closed in pretense of sleep, hearing Cabrito and Gallo at their card game, her body aching, Jessie’s thinking of her great-great-grandaunt, one of the oldest living persons in the world—and, who knows, by now maybe the oldest. Not long ago she had asked Aunt Cat how she felt about that distinction, and she had said, A little lonel
y. Jessie has written a book about her, though she doesn’t feel she’s actually written it so much as simply transcribed it. Except for a few of Jessie’s expository passages, the book is in Catalina’s own words. She had agreed to be interviewed and narrate her life story into a tape recorder on the condition that the book would not be published—nor any of its details revealed—until after her death, and Jessie had so promised. That condition, some in the family have joked, might ensure the book never sees print, since Aunt Cat is now 113 years old and in better health than some of her kin less than half her age. The family is well acquainted with the larger incidents of Catalina’s life—her killing of her husband perhaps the most sensational—but only Jessie knows the full story of that event and of many others besides. She is privy to details of Catalina’s life unknown to anyone else, and admires her great-great-grandaunt above everyone else she’s ever known.

  So . . . what would Catalina do?

  She ponders the situation from every angle. Could be there’s really no reason to fret. The exchange will go smoothly and that’s that. All she has to do is keep calm for the next few hours, wait it out. They get their money, they turn them all loose, end of story.

  But what if the exchange doesn’t go smoothly? What if something goes wrong? There’s always that possibility. If that should happen, what will this bunch do?

  For that matter, what will they do even if nothing goes wrong?

  She’s heard the stories. What if they decide on no witnesses?

  Maybe they’ve already decided.

  Maybe is way too risky. She can’t assume they’re going to set her free. Can’t just hope they will.

  Catalina wouldn’t.

  She’d use the window.

  22 — BELMONTE AND SOSA

  Following the surprise call from Mr. X, the parents tell each other how good it was to hear from him that their children are well and safe. How good to have had the opportunity to tell him there are no problems with the other relatives of the wedding party, and how good that he had known it for the truth.

  After sharing these comforting words, they revert to sitting in silence, all of them haggard for lack of sleep but none of them sleepy. The house servants have been given the day off—in honor of the previous day’s celebration, they were told—and the four parents have been sitting without breakfast or any desire for it. Watching the antique clock on the mantel. Listening to its ticks.

  At 9:30 Belmonte and Sosa take leave of their wives, saying they will return as soon as they can. Under their umbrellas, they go out to the garage, each man carrying a pair of folded gym bags and each with his special phone, just in case. The wind has relented but the rain continues to fall through the cold grayness.

  So uncommon, this rain, Sosa remarks. It falls lightly, then hard, then lightly, but does not stop. The wind, as well. It comes, it goes.

  Yes, Belmonte says. He suggests that Sosa take the yellow Cadillac, which stands nearest the garage door, and Sosa says that will be fine. Belmonte retrieves its keys from the garage office, as well as those to the black BMW that’s next in the line of cars.

  They drive out along the curving driveway and past the front courtyard and around to the front gate, where the attendant has seen them coming and is already opening the barrier.

  23 — THE GATE ATTENDANT

  The gate attendant, Arturo, smiles and raises a hand as they exit onto the street. Then he takes out his phone and a small piece of paper with a number on it and calls the number.

  A man answers, Tell me.

  Mr. Belmonte just now left, Arturo says.

  What kind of car? the man asks.

  BMW. A black BMW 335 Coupe.

  Anyone else leave?

  Yes. Mr. Sosa. In a Cadillac. Yellow CTS.

  Was anyone else in either car?

  No. No, sir.

  The connection goes dead. Arturo pockets his phone and tells himself he has done nothing wrong. Only told a stranger that the patrón has left the premises and the make of the car he is driving. Mr. Sosa too. If any of that was supposed to be a secret, no one ever told him so.

  A few nights ago in a cantina called Angelito’s, the stranger—a stocky man with a broad flat nose—had squeezed through the crowd to stand at the bar next to Arturo’s stool and asked him the score of the soccer match on the back bar TV whose audio was inaudible in the boom of the jukebox and strident babble of the customers. Not ten minutes after that, the man surreptitiously gave him an envelope containing a thousand pesos and a scrap of paper with a phone number on it. Gave it to him with the understanding that Arturo was to call him at that number on this particular morning as soon as Belmonte departed the house. And with the further understanding that if he failed to call at exactly that time, Arturo would see him again and regret it. Arturo promised he would call and the man laughed and clapped him on the shoulder in the manner of an old pal, telling him to take care of himself, then vanished into the night.

  A thousand pesos. For telling the fellow something that anyone on the street could have seen for himself. Who can say he has done anything wrong? It was not wrong.

  Then stop thinking about it, he tells himself.

  Peering through a telescope from a third-floor window of the rented house two blocks from the Belmonte residence, a Jaguaro lookout phones the ops center and says, They’re on their way. Yellow Caddy sedan. Black BMW Coupe. Drivers only, but can’t tell who’s in which car. Nobody following.

  24 — CHATO

  Parked at the end of a side street abutting the lightly trafficked two-lane junction road at the perimeter of Belmonte’s neighborhood, flat-nosed Chato waits in the gray van, engine idling, wipers beating. He wears a waterproof jacket and a black San Francisco Giants cap.

  The Cadillac comes around a corner six blocks away, and then the BMW. Chato closely watches the road behind them, the adjoining streets they pass by. No other vehicle appears behind them. He waits for both cars to go by, and then wheels onto the junction road and follows them.

  He keeps checking his mirrors all the way to the entrance ramp to the beltway, then taps a finger on his phone and puts the phone to his ear.

  We’re getting on the belt, he says. Nobody behind us.

  Very good, Espanto says. Let me know when Sosa starts back from the bank.

  “Muy bien,” Chato says.

  Even in this miserable weather, the Monday traffic is as dense and swift as always, but Chato has no problem staying one or two cars behind the BMW. In the opposing lanes the lines of vehicles have slowed considerably as they pass a clutch of flashing lights of police cars and ambulances attending to a multicar accident. A few miles farther on, the Cadillac eases over to an exit lane and Chato does the same. He knows that Sosa’s bank is the closer one to the Belmonte home and only five blocks beyond the coming exit. Belmonte’s bank is near the heart of town.

  At the Banco de Indio Tierra, Sosa turns in at the main entrance of the parking lot, but Chato keeps going to the end of the block and there waits for the traffic light to let him turn into a street flanking the bank. He drives halfway down the street and enters the lot of a small eatery named Tonto’s Taquería across from the bank and parks in a space under a row of dripping trees. Through the rain-streaked windshield he can see the yellow form of the Cadillac parked in the rear lot and close to the bank’s back doors, which Chato knows are kept locked and are for use only by employees or in an emergency. He knows, too, that a guard stands just inside the door at its little window. Sosa is already on the walkway leading around to the front of the bank, hunched into his coat, one hand holding an umbrella and the other clutching the folded gym bags tucked under his arm.

  Chato switches off the van’s motor and turns down the radio, then moves his seat back for greater comfort during what will probably be a long wait.

  25 — MATEO AND RAYO

  In a dark blue Ram pic
kup with dark-tinted glass, parked in the front lot of the Banco de Indio Tierra, Mateo and Rayo see the yellow Cadillac enter the lot and vanish past the end of the building as it heads for the rear lot. Presently a man comes around on the walkway. Mateo clicks the wipers on for one swipe to get a good look at him, and they recognize Sosa from his photos. He pauses at the front door to collapse his umbrella, then goes in the bank.

  Mateo phones Rigo and informs him of Sosa’s arrival.

  He listens, then says, Yes, he did. Pair of bags, just like she said. He looks sidewise at Rayo, who looks away but cannot suppress her smile of pride.

  We’ll move around to the side where we can keep an eye on the car, Mateo tells Rigo. Odds on they’ll let him out the back way with that bag of cash. . . . All right, then, he says, and ends the call.

  They’ve been parked alongside the bank for an hour, Rayo a little chilly now despite her sweatshirt and Windbreaker, when she sees a man in a black baseball cap get out of the driver’s side of a van parked near a taco café across the side street and go into the place. He’s out again in minutes with a sack of takeout food and a paper cup of coffee and gets back in the van. She points to it, saying, That gray van over there—

  I know, he says.

  You’ve noticed? she says. What do you think? It’s been there about half an hour.

  It was there when we parked here.

  It was? You think he might be—

  I think that if he is, he could be wondering about us.

  Mateo cranks up the engine and drives around the front of the bank and to its other end, out of sight of the van. He stops and tells Rayo to get out and position herself where she can watch the Cadillac in the rear lot without being seen by the van guy.

  I doubt Sosa will come out for a good while yet, but call me if he does, Mateo says.

  Before she can ask what he’s doing, he wheels around and drives out of the lot’s main entrance, in view of the van. At the first corner he turns right and then into the lot of a small shopping plaza and parks and phones Rigo.