Songbird

by A. J. Adams

  Solitaire was in the kitchen, not talking to Luz but making a pitcher of margaritas. She let me give her a hug, but I had to leave it at that because there were too many people about. I decided I’d talk to her later about it. Or maybe I’d get Chloe to have a word. When it comes to recovering from abuse, Chloe’s an expert.

  The rest of the party went with a swing. Mateo turning up caused a little ruffling of feathers, but Julia and Loli were determined to be nice, and he was on his best behaviour. He’d brought presents – a huge tub of dahlias for Solitaire’s office and a case of champagne, which was thoughtful – again, unusual. Then he kept his mouth shut and danced with all the girls.

  “I forgot,” Solitaire apologised. “I told him to come without thinking. Sorry, Arturo.”

  “It’s okay. He’s on his best behaviour.”

  I didn’t want to talk about that fucker Fuentes, but I told Solitaire what I suspected about Mateo and how I’d offered to send him to a city. “He’s all over the girls tonight though,” I pointed out. “I wonder if he’s bi?”

  Solitaire got the giggles. “Arturo, Mateo is all grown up. Let him do his own thing!”

  “Yeah, okay.” I watched Alexa dance with Rafa. “Do you think Alexa likes Rafa?”

  “Stop micromanaging, Arturo,” Solitaire ordered me. “Despite what you believe, you’re not responsible for everyone’s life decisions. Come and dance with me.”

  You know, I’ve been the head of the family since I was twenty-two, and even with Kyle back home I’m so used to being in charge that it’s become a habit to worry over every little detail. Thank God for Solitaire. When I’m with her, I feel like I can let go and be a normal person.

  When I look back at that party, it’s like those old war movies when people danced until they dropped and then went out to do battle. That night Solitaire and I were like one. Our talk had removed the last barriers between us; we didn’t just love, we also trusted. Everyone else was infected with our happiness, and for the first time in weeks, nobody mentioned Songbird. We ate, we drank, and we partied like there was no tomorrow.

  The next morning, though, it was straight back into the trenches. I was having breakfast, discussing the coca harvest with Luis, my transport manager in Lima, when my phone beeped. It was a picture of Solitaire, looking fucking awful with a bruise on her cheek and a fat lip. She was in that cage in Escamilla’s cellar, and the image was Photoshopped to give her canary wings.

  I was about to delete it when I saw Solitaire check her phone. Her face went blank for a second, and then she calmly turned to talk to Rafa. It was a class act, but I knew she’d been sent the same picture. I wrapped up my chat with Luis, and after breakfast I went into Solitaire’s office.

  “You get these, too.” I showed Solitaire the photo.

  “Utterly buggery fuck.” Her voice was flat but not despairing. “Fucking hell, goddamn it.”

  “I was thinking the same. When did you start getting them?”

  “At that first family party. You?”

  “About the same time.”

  Solitaire sighed. “I was hoping it was just someone torturing me. But it looks like this isn’t personal.”

  I was incensed. “Not personal? Jesus, Solitaire! Of course it’s personal!”

  “No, it’s not,” Solitaire said deliberately. “Put away your ego and think with your head, Arturo!”

  My instinct was to yell, but the steely look in her eyes shut me up.

  “Think, Arturo. We started getting them when you got back here, once you showed you were serious about me. The first few were just pictures of me, right? But recently they’ve all been Photoshopped to give me canary wings. This is not someone playing silly buggers. This is about rocking you off balance, about calling your judgement and leadership into question. I think this is Songbird. I think he’s hoping that upsetting everyone will shake something loose.” Her sapphire eyes looked into mine. “Arturo, Songbird is here.”

  The second she said it, I knew it was true. I sat there, looking at her dahlias, and reframing recent events.

  “The bugger of it is that it’s working,” Solitaire observed bitterly. “With these texts going round everyone is getting antsy. It’s me who’s being set up as the main target, and people will soon be demanding that you take action.”

  “Kyle cleared you.”

  “When people are scared, they don’t think. This is going to get rough.”

  She was right.

  On Monday I got a call from Cesar, head of security in Matamoros. “Boss, we know who Songbird is!” Cesar’s excitement made my phone quiver.

  “How? Who?” And why, I wanted to ask, why would the fucker be in a hole like Matamoros?

  “It’s one of the couriers,” Cesar yelled. “He’s been to London, and he knows all about Algeria because his aunt married one of their people.”

  “You mean Trejo Esternino?”

  “That’s him! That’s the fucker! We’re onto him, boss. We’ll take him out by lunchtime!”

  “Cesar, he hasn’t been in London in five years.”

  “Oh.” He was taken aback. “But the aunt?”

  “It’s not a crime to marry an Algerian.”

  “Right.” There was a short silence. “I guess we’re all a bit jumpy.”

  “No problem! I appreciate you looking into it. And don’t worry, we’re closing in on the fucker. It won’t be long now.”

  On Thursday there was bad news from Jorge in London. “Our first shipment to Istanbul got hit. Fifteen cops, all armed to the teeth, opened fire. One man dead, two in hospital, and the product went up in flames along with the car.”

  “Any ideas who talked?”

  Jorge sighed. “I’ve kept a list of those involved. Basically it’s me, Fuentes, the three who took the shipment, and whoever you told.”

  “Just me. Everyone else thinks it’s going down on Sunday.” It wasn’t true. Kyle and Solitaire had both known.

  “What if they got into your security system?”

  The way he said it, this was not just his idea. “Did Fuentes think of that?”

  “Yes, but he may have a point.” Jorge’s tone was distant, as if he were excusing himself in advance for what he was about to say. “The driver who got killed was Fuentes’ man. The other two are ours. One of them is El Raton.” I knew him. He was a good man and one of Jorge’s old schoolmates. “He’s gut shot and may not make it.”

  There was a pregnant silence. I knew Jorge was an inch away from accusing Solitaire. He didn’t believe for a second that she hadn’t known. My guts churned at the danger she now stood in.

  “Look, go to Istanbul yourself, Jorge. Sniff around, and see what the word is on the ground.”

  “I will, but Fuentes has gone back to Morocco. He was pretty cut up about this.”

  “Go to Istanbul. Check it out. Keep in touch, and when you finish, don’t go to London but come straight here. We should talk in person.”

  “Will do.”

  Jorge sounded his self as he said his goodbyes, but I knew he’d be wanting answers when he came to see me. That was a problem, because I didn’t have any.

  The very next day there was a fight in one of our meth labs in Santa Clara. They weren’t fighting over money or product; it was sheer nerves.

  “Boss, they had a pipe, and then they both got this crazy idea that the other one was Songbird.”

  “Fuck. Dead?”

  “No, boss. They were so far gone that they missed each other. But they knocked over a consignment, and a chunk of it fell into a barrel of solvent.”

  “Shit. How much did we lose?”

  “Not much. Three kis.”

  I said it was better to lose product than men, but in my heart I thought it wasn’t that clear-cut. Three kis might be worth more than those two bozos. Still, it’s not something you should say to the staff, although Solitaire said pretty much the same when she heard.

  “The crew’s getting antsy,” she sighed. “Those pictures of me w
ith canary wings are everywhere. Even Rafa and Chumillo are starting to avoid me.”

  “I’ll talk to them.”

  “It’s going to take more than that, Arturo. The crew is dividing into camps: those who trust you, and therefore me, and those who think your dick is overruling your head. If we’re not careful, we’re going to have a civil war on our hands.”

  “I’ll arrange for a scapegoat.”

  Solitaire stared at me. “I hope you have a handy corpse to blame?”

  She had me there. “Not yet, but there will be. We lose people regularly. I can arrange to plant evidence on the next one to go.”

  “But Arturo, the crew will take revenge on the family.”

  “I’ll forbid it.”

  “And that would send a great message, wouldn’t it? Traitors only risk themselves? How many would decide it’s worth the risk? You’d still not be rid of Songbird, and you’d open yourself up to assassination by every Tom, Dick and Harry who fancied your spot because they’d know their families would still be safe if they failed.”

  I knew she was right, and it made me furious. I was angry because I was frightened I would lose her. I knew it, but I was yelling anyway. “What the hell do you want me to do then?”

  “Shouting won’t help,” she replied coolly. “We need to fix this, and fast.”

  I love her to death, but sometimes I wish she’d lose her cool in a crisis. I knew I was being emotional, and it was fucking annoying to have a woman showing me up, even if it was in private. If only she’d scream a bit, it would have made me feel better, but Solitaire was incapable of it. It’s an English thing, I think. Stiff upper lip. I used to think it was a myth, but Solitaire has an upper lip of steel.

  “You can beat the hell out of me tonight,” she said softly, “God knows we both need to unwind, but for now we need a plan.”

  “Like?”

  “Like someone wanted London, but it didn’t work. They took a breather and decided they’d carry this on. That means they think they can profit from this turmoil.”

  “Kyle said as much when all this started.”

  “I wasn’t in on that conversation,” Solitaire reminded me. “Who do you suspect? The Gulf? Or maybe that Irish mob, those Rovers you met with?”

  No flies on my Solitaire. I decided there and then that I’d have to tell the others to start bouncing security ideas off her. “Actually, both came up as suspects, but now that we’re here, I think the Gulf are most likely. It would be a stretch, but they could take over if they wiped us out. Or at least they could take over a large part of our territory. The Rovers just don’t have the know-how to work it in Mexico. I can’t see them even trying it. But neither has a strong presence in Northern Africa or the Middle East.”

  “That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Solitaire sighed. “I’m the only one who has been with Fuentes, Escamilla and you. And I did go and see Red Serge. Fuentes cheated on me while I was away on that trip.”

  “Sirena –”

  She smiled at me. “It wasn’t me, and I know you believe that. I just thought it needed to be said.”

  “You know, I had everything triple-checked: no way did Fuentes ever meet Escamilla.”

  “You still don’t like him.”

  “Nope. But I don’t think he’s a snitch. He’s a transporter. He can’t even sell coke without us helping him with manpower. Even if he had been in England and met Escamilla, there’s no way he could take over the UK operation. Not by himself.” It was a shame, but it was true. Solitaire’s ex just couldn’t be Songbird.

  “You know, Kyle’s been looking into Fuentes’ operation,” Solitaire said slowly, “and his security is absolute rubbish. His contacts typically work for half a dozen different operators. The ones he lost in France and Algeria worked for the Turkish and Russian mafias, and they had ties to Al-Qaeda terrorist groups, too. Abdul Hassan, the man who was executed in Egypt, was ex-Hamas and ex-Mossad!”

  “So? It’s not unusual. They’re not strongly affiliated the way we are.”

  “True, but what if Fuentes’ Interpol man was screwing with him?” Solitaire asked. “I mean, he’s a good transporter, but he’s not the brightest bulb in the box. What if Interpol were trying to destabilise his organisation?”

  It seemed fantastic, but then again, “It was enough for him to kill Christopoulos.”

  “Right. So I was thinking, what if we leave out Fuentes’ leaks as potential red herrings and just focus on our own problems?”

  “All right.” It would simplify everything and maybe give us a working theory. Then we could always fit all the other facts into it. “So what have we got then?”

  “What we’ve got is a local,” Solitaire mused. “Songbird is working for another local cartel, the Gulf maybe. You’ve not taken on any Gulf people recently, have you?”

  “Christ no!” I stared at her. “We’d never trust one of those scum!”

  “There’s no bigger enemy than former family,” Solitaire teased me. She gave me a nasty grin, and when I refused to rise, continued, “Arturo, if a Gulf man offered you their whole territory, would you make an exception?”

  “Yes.” I hated to say it but it’s true. It would be too big to turn down. “I’d embrace him like a fucking brother.”

  Solitaire grinned. “Right, so the Gulf probably feel the same way about someone selling you out. The other option of course is that someone wants to get rid of you and take over your job without involving any other organisations. Songbird wants to be head of the Zetas.”

  It was a depressing thought. “I know.”

  “So we’re looking at someone who can come and go as they please. Someone who was in England and who is now here. Also, he’d need to have plenty of clout, because otherwise the rest of the crew wouldn’t accept him as the new jefe.” Those cerulean eyes were thoughtful. “It’s probably someone who feels slighted; someone who has a grudge against you. Arturo, who was pissed off that Escamilla got the English job?”

  “Practically everyone, except Kyle.”

  “Kyle is the only man who isn’t Songbird,” Solitaire said. “If he wanted you gone, Arturo, you’d be six foot under.”

  “No doubt about it. Problem is, it leaves everyone else a suspect. Except maybe Quique, who said he didn’t want to move, and Rafa and Chumillo, who were interested but who then decided they’d have more scope staying here.”

  “Before or after they realised you didn’t want them to take it?”

  She knew me so well. “After.” I hated saying it, and I could feel my temper rise. “But they’re my family, Solitaire. They’re not street scum out on the make. We’re tight.”

  Solitaire leaned over her desk and took my hand. “I don’t think it’s them,” she said. “I think your inner circle is solid, Arturo, but we have to be sensible. Songbird got to Escamilla, and he’s getting to us here. That means it’s one of us, someone who can move among us without suspicion. Someone who’s in the loop when it comes to our business. We have to work as if everyone is a threat.”

  It’s what I’d said all the way, but for some reason Solitaire’s practicality hit me wrong. “Kyle cleared everyone of us. And we’re looking at everyone else.”

  “Seeing what went down in Istanbul, we have to look again.”

  “We will, but it takes time.”

  “But we didn’t start from the beginning, did we? Maybe we should start at the top again. No exceptions.”

  God knows why, because Solitaire spoke nothing but sense, but half an hour later I was yelling. “I don’t give a fuck what you think, Solitaire! I’ve been with my people forever, and I trust them completely!”

  “So, you think I’m Songbird?” Solitaire asked. “You think I’m the one who split on you? After your own brother cleared me?” Her voice was cold, low and vicious. I heard the office outside quieten as people strained to listen in. “Why not shoot me, Arturo? Just to be safe?”

  “Who the fuck is talking about killing you?”

  “Everyo
ne!” Solitaire screamed. “Isn’t that what we do when we’re threatened? Kill?”

  She’d finally lost her cool. I stormed out and went straight to the Merc parked in the drive. It’s a lovely car, an AMG Coupe, and it has a 7.3 litre V12 engine, which means it moves at the speed of light. I got in, gunned it and left. I was so fast that I left everyone standing. It was the first time I’d been out alone in years, and if anyone found out, I’d have half of Mexico scrambling to gun me down. At least I did one thing right: I headed straight for Kyle’s place.

  Kyle and Chloe live about twenty miles down the road from me, in a house Kyle built himself, right along the side of the Rio Grande.

  When I got there, Kyle was waiting for me. “Solitaire gave me a heads-up about you ditching security,” he said grimly. “What the fuck were you thinking, Arturo?”

  “It’s falling apart, Kyle. Songbird is killing us.”

  Quique and Chema appeared, both looking serious.

  “It’s not Solitaire,” Quique growled. “I’d bet my life on it.”

  “That’s the point, isn’t it?” Chema said gloomily. “We are betting our lives, and what if we’re wrong?”

  Instantly, Quique was at his throat. “You miserable shit! She’s clean, I tell you!”

  “Knock it off.” Kyle didn’t even raise his voice, but the discipline he maintains is such that the two broke apart. “Go have a beer,” he told them. “This is when we stand together. We don’t quibble and fall apart like those Gulf scum.”

  “Right.”

  “Sorry.”

  Quique and Chema went off, looking ashamed but defiant. If two solid men like them were feeling the strain, something had to be done. Fast.

  Chloe was at the kitchen door trying to look welcoming, but there was a look of strain around her eyes. “Come in, Arturo. Go through to the deck. I’ll bring you a drink.”

  She brought beer, and the most amazing chicken poppers. She’s a great cook, Chloe. It’s a wonder Kyle isn’t the size of a house. I know I would be. Thank God Solitaire can’t boil water.