Hat Dance (Detective Emilia Cruz Book 2)

by Carmen Amato

  Silvio walked up the rearmost aisle, passed a second set of concession windows, and pushed open a door marked STAFF ONLY. A uniformed security guard stepped in their way. Silvio gave a slow, easy grin. “Looking for El Rey Demonio and his trio.”

  The guard jerked his chin at Emilia. “Who’s she?”

  “They know she’s coming,” Silvio said with a wink. Some money changed hands and the guard pointed to the right.

  “Did you have to let him think I’m here to give the guys a pre-fight lap dance?” Emilia whispered furiously.

  “You want to talk to this guy without a big fuss or not?” Silvio asked. “Puro Sangre and El Rey Demonio are big names. Keep your badge in your pocket and don’t even think about pulling a gun in this crowd. There are probably arrest warrants out for half of the people in this arena tonight. All you want is some information about that little girl.”

  “Fine,” Emilia grumbled. They were still on only the barest of civil terms with each other and hadn’t really discussed strategy on the way over.

  It was the end of their so-called partnership, she reminded herself. Someday, when she didn’t loathe Silvio so much, she’d see their few months together as a great learning experience. And he was doing her a favor; the Lila Jimenez Lata Missing Persons case wasn’t officially theirs, and he didn’t have to help her out by coming tonight. Nonetheless, she’d talk to Lt. Rufino on Monday and knew Silvio would as well.

  They passed through another set of doors into a wide hallway and found a kid with towels willing to accept Silvio’s money in return for telling Puro Sangre that someone needed to speak with him outside the locker room.

  The hallway seemed to function as an anteroom for the various acts. A big exit door was propped open, keeping the space cool with a fresh night breeze, as men who looked like they could be managers or promoters came and went. Half a dozen scantily clad women with unbelievably taut breasts flirted as they carried various banners and placards, likely for the parade that kicked off each Saturday night extravaganza. Technicians with headphones around their necks passed through after evidently resolving a bit of business about the timing of the acts or the lighting for the events. A couple of fighters, already in costume, talked to the business types.

  The kid did what he’d been paid to do, and three big luchadores, all in striking red costumes, came up to Emilia and Silvio, accompanied by two men in rumpled suits. Old Tinoco shuffled in back of them.

  The trio was imposing, Emilia had to admit. Each was as broad as Silvio but more meaty looking. All three men were bare-chested, their heavily muscled chests outlined by tattoos which ran the complete length of both arms from shoulder to wrist. Their traditional luchador tights were red with silver insets at the knees, and their boxing footgear was silver as well.

  Only their masks set them apart. Emilia recognized El Rey Demonio from the posters; his mask was red with black borders around the openings for mouth, nose and eyes. It had red vinyl triangles that stuck up on the sides of his head, giving him a look somewhere between the devil and Batman. In that getup, he certainly didn’t look like anyone simply named Alberto Soares Peña.

  “Kid says you’re looking for Puro Sangre,” El Rey said. The other two luchadores flanked him, one on either side. El Rey was the tallest and obviously the leader.

  “I’m Silvio and this is Cruz,” Silvio said. “We’re looking for a girl. Heard he might know something about her.”

  “Lila Jimenez Lata,” Emilia added. “Met her over at Mami’s.”

  “He doesn’t know nothing about a girl,” El Rey drawled.

  “Hey, Silvio’s all right,” Tinoco said from the side. “This is Franco Silvio. Used to be a boxer. Runs a clean book now.”

  “Franco Silvio?” One of the other luchadores stretched an arm across his chest, shoving the elbow up until his shoulder cracked. The words Puro Sangre rippled amidst the other tattoos as his bicep swelled and his pectorals bulged. “I’ve heard of you.”

  Silvio held out his hand and they shook. “Heard of you, too,” Silvio said. “Tinoco tells me you put on a good show.”

  “More than a show,” Puro Sangre said. His mask was solid red except for silver drops of blood that formed a zigzag design across the forehead. “You watch. We’re like killing machines in that ring.”

  “Maybe we’ll stay for the show,” Silvio said. “Put some money down, you know?”

  “Tinoco says you’re a cop.” This from El Rey Demonio. He indicated Emilia. “Her too?”

  Silvio didn’t acknowledge the question as he kept his eyes focused on Puro Sangre. “We’re looking for a girl named Lila. Heard you knew her.”

  The big luchador shook his head. “Nah. I don’t know a girl named Lila.”

  “You met her at Mami’s nearly two months ago,” Emilia said, trying not to sound nervous. She felt encircled by none-too-friendly men, with only Silvio as a barrier. The three luchadores alone were like a pyramid blocking her view to the other side of the wide hallway. The two men in suits looked to be promoters, with little interest in the conversation.

  “We’re here to fight, not talk to cops about cheap girls at Mami’s,” El Rey Demonio rumbled. He clenched his fists and Emilia’s eye was drawn to a mark on one finger. It was the same ring-style tattoo that Julieta Rubia had.

  “Lila came to Mami’s looking for her mother,” Emilia said. She tried to stand a little taller but still felt trapped and uneasy. “And ended up staying for Puro Sangre here. White dress. Short dark hair. You took her upstairs.”

  “The night Julieta got arrested.” Puro Sangre pointed a finger at Emilia. “I remember her. She was like a fresh jitomate.”

  “It’s time to go,” El Rey said and mimicked punching an opponent.

  “Two minutes,” Emilia stalled, still focused on Puro Sangre. “Just tell me what happened that night with Lila. When did you see her last?”

  “She told me her name was Yolanda,” he said. “Not Lila.”

  “Out of time,” El Rey boomed. “They’re starting the show.”

  “Later,” Puro Sangre said to Emilia. He pressed forward and tipped up her chin. “You and me, we’ll talk after. I’ll tell you what you want and then it will be my turn.”

  Even through the mask, the man made it clear that his eyes were undressing her. Emilia pulled away from his hand, annoyed to feel herself flush with embarrassment at being handled by a half-naked giant. She could see why he was so popular with the girls at Mami’s; he was well-built, not afraid to show it off, and made it clear that he liked women and liked sex with them.

  A distorted voice came over a loudspeaker. El Rey swung his arms over the shoulders of his teammates, and they turned as one. Emilia watched them go and again was reminded of a pyramid: El Rey in the middle, an equally broad but slightly shorter man on either side of him.

  “Madre de Dios,” she murmured.

  “If we gotta stay here all night,” Silvio said. “I want to lay down some bets.”

  “Wait a minute,” Emilia said. The hallway was gradually emptying out and she pulled Silvio back down the way they’d come in.

  “Nobody’s forcing you to make a bet, Cruz,” he said, irritation thickening his voice.

  “Forget the betting for a minute.” Emilia pulled him to a stop before they turned the corner and ran into the guard. “The three luchadores. Didn’t they remind you of anything you’ve seen lately? Maybe something on a video?”

  It only took him a moment. “Los Matas Ejercito,” Silvio said.

  Emilia nodded excitedly. “The way El Rey was the tallest and in the middle.” She pressed her fingertips together to make a pitched roof of her hands. “His voice sounded a little familiar, too.”

  “Could be,” Silvio said.

  “Should we call it in?” Emilia asked.

  “They still haven’t done anything,” Silvio said. He leaned against the wall, his face wearing its usual grim expression. “You want to arrest them on suspicion of making videos? Right here in the Co
liseo during a full house?”

  Emilia folded her arms as she considered the mayhem that would ensue if they tried to arrest three luchadores on suspicion of making videos. “I guess not.”

  Silvio gave her a curt nod of agreement. “We’ll tell Lt. Rufino on Monday. He can do what he wants with it.”

  “All right,” Emilia said.

  Silvio heaved himself off the wall. “If they got the balls to take on the army with those videos, maybe they’ll make me a little money tonight. You gonna put down a few pesos on your boy Puro Sangre? Bet that he’s livelier than Rucker?”

  “Just shut up and go place your bet,” Emilia snapped. Every time they had a halfway decent exchange, Silvio could always be counted on to screw it up with something totally offensive.

  “Don’t be wandering around,” Silvio said, ignoring her tone. “Get in your seat and stay in it. I’ll be along in a couple of minutes.”

  They’d bought tickets in order to get in and had ended up with some of the worst seats, on the ground but all the way in the back near the entrance. The seats gave them a partial view of the raised ring, but a better view of the backs of heads in the seats ahead of them or of the people traipsing up and down the aisle.

  Once inside the main part of the arena, they split up. Silvio headed for wherever the bookies congregated, and Emilia plunked herself into her seat after buying a drink at the concession stand. The place was packed and the crowds were raucous as the loudspeaker blasted music, getting everyone spun up for the kickoff spectacle. It was a far cry from an evening at a nice restaurant with Kurt. Or a night on the beach with him.

  The loudspeaker boomed again, this time with the announcer’s voice asking the crowd if they were ready, if they wanted to see El Rey Demonio and the other headliners. The place erupted into cheers and screams, and Emilia couldn’t help getting caught up in the excitement. She yelled with the crowd.

  More music swelled as the announcer kept talking and the parade started. The crowd rose to its feet, and Emilia stood on tiptoe to see a blaze of color and glitter resolve itself into four women in sequined bikinis and long capes carrying tall torches at the head of the parade. The announcer called out the names of the luchadores who followed the women out a set of wide double doors and down a carpeted walkway to the ring. Each of the luchadores gestured, beat their chests, or raised their arms over their heads to get the crowd to cheer for them. El Rey clasped his hands over his head and shook them in the classic champion’s gesture while Puro Sangre spread his arms as if on a cross. The third man in their trio, El Hijo de Satán, pointed at the audience as if choosing his evil minions.

  More scantily clad women pranced alongside as the roll of at least 30 luchadores went on, and Emilia realized just how long a night it was going to be. The parade circled the area in front of the ring and started back to the double doors.

  Capes fluttering, the bikini-clad torchbearers fitted their torches into the tops of tall pillars on either side of the wide doorway, creating four man-sized birthday candles topped by gas-fed billowing flames. Colored spotlights circled around the doorway, turning the flames into a Technicolor light show. The crowd whooped and applauded. All but two of the luchadores marched between the pillars and disappeared back into the bowels of the arena. The two remaining luchadores climbed into the ring with the referee. The announcer introduced them with dramatic language.

  That’s when Emilia saw Aguilar, General Becerra’s aide from campo militar. She didn’t know why her eye was drawn to him; it might have been the pop of red from the sports drink in his hand, or it might have been a sixth sense, but there he was, standing in the aisle not two meters from her, surveying the place. He wore jeans and a yellow plaid shirt instead of his army uniform, but it was the same man.

  Emilia found herself holding her breath. It could not be a coincidence. Aguilar had to know the three luchadores were Los Matas Ejercito.

  She didn’t move, hoping that her black jeans, denim jacket and old sneakers let her blend into the crowd. He moved on down the aisle, then backtracked a step and entered a row several seats ahead of hers. Emilia watched the ripple of movement that indicated he was climbing over people’s knees. When the ripple stopped, she could see the shoulder of his yellow shirt through the crowd. No one appeared to be with him.

  Emilia dug her phone out of her hip pocket and texted Silvio. She kept an eye on Aguilar as she waited for a reply. Three minutes later, it popped up on her screen: Meet at rear concession in 5.

  The first fight started and the roar of the crowd swelled. Emilia watched the two men charge at each other, one in blue tights and mask, the other in black. They grappled, bare torsos gleaming, and one of them was flung into the ropes. The voice over the loudspeaker competed with the cheers, and Emilia wondered if she’d be deaf by the time the night was over.

  She found Silvio at the concession stand. People were still milling about and she had to shout so he could hear her. He said something back, but the place was too noisy.

  Emilia gestured to her ear. He nodded, and as the noise from the arena blasted in response to a particularly exciting lucha move, he led her around the side of the concessions back toward the area where they’d talked to the luchadores. This time, however, instead of heading for the STAFF ONLY door, he turned the other way and took them down a narrow hallway running in back of the concession windows to an unmarked exit.

  Silvio pushed open the door and they were in a loading area next to a dumpster and piles of empty boxes that had probably once held frozen French fries or tubs of processed cheese for nachos.

  A chain-link fence encircled the area which was dimly lit by a mercury lamp mounted on the wall over the door. Most big businesses that needed a trash area had a setup like this with a tall fence to keep out vagrants and drug addicts who otherwise would pick through the trash on a regular basis, leading to robberies, fights over the pickings, or even a nearby shantytown.

  Beyond the perimeter of the blue-tinged light, Emilia made out a few cars parked inside the fence. Silvio found a piece of brick and wedged it so the door could not fully close.

  “How’d you know about this doorway?” she asked. A pile of cigarette butts on the uneven pavement suggested that this was where the concession workers stepped out for a smoke.

  “Not much changes,” he said. “Are you sure it’s Aguilar?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. He stood next to me in the aisle as if he wasn’t sure where to go and then sat in a seat three rows ahead of ours.”

  “By himself?”

  “All alone,” Emilia confirmed.

  “You think he’s here for Los Matas?”

  “Maybe to warn them because we came sniffing around?”

  It was still noisy by the door. They moved away from the doorway, out of the immediate circle of light from the overhead mercury lamp.

  “But what’s Aguilar’s dog in the fight?” Silvio asked. “If your buddy Puro Sangre and his friends are making Los Matas videos, how is Aguilar getting anything out of it?”

  Emilia peered into the gloom. This side of the arena was poorly lit, a prime spot for rapes and robberies. The chain-link fence reminded her of the lot at the police station and the scary encounter with Castro’s brother. Madre de Dios, but she’d been spending a lot of time in parking lots lately. No wonder her life was such a mess.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Could it be some joke Aguilar is playing on his army buddies? Getting these guys to dress up, sound scary?”

  Every investigation she’d ever encountered in more than two years as a detective had money at its core. But Emilia couldn’t figure out how Los Matas Ejercito’s videos involved money. Or how, if Aguilar was involved, he was making any money off them.

  She turned back to Silvio, but he was staring past her, into the darkness. “What if they’re more than Los Matas,” he said softly.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Silvio didn’t answer but walked ahead, nearly getting swallowed up by the n
ight. Against her better judgment, Emilia followed him to the short row of cars at the far side of the fenced-in area.

  A moment later, Silvio whipped a tarp off the back of a large vehicle, exposing a battered club cab truck.

  “Madre de Dios,” Emilia sputtered. In the dark, she could just make out a big panel of plastic stretched over the space where the rear window should have been.

  Silvio squatted down, took out a clasp knife, and scratched at the truck’s tailgate. Big flecks snowed off the metal. “They filled in the holes with bonding compound and painted over them,” he said as he counted the holes. “You hammered it. Too bad you didn’t take out a tire.”

  “What’s it doing here?”

  “Whoever the extortionists are, they have a friend who works here,” Silvio said.

  Emilia could barely breathe as suddenly the pieces fell into place. “El Rey,” she murmured. “Tinoco said he’d won a set of wheels.”

  Silvio stood up, face softened by moonlight. “You think the truck belongs to El Rey Demonio?”

  “If he won it, how long would it take the paperwork to transfer to his name?” Emilia asked.

  Silvio nodded his understanding. “Not a standard process. Six months at least. Nobody will know how to get it registered. Take a couple of trips to city offices, maybe a little money changes hands. In the meantime, he’s driving a vehicle that doesn’t come up in any of our searches.”

  “Wearing a wedding ring,” Emilia said, her thoughts tumbling over each other, competing with visions of Julieta in the prison clinic with her tailored shift, flawless skin, and ring tattoo.

  “What?” Silvio reached into the truck bed and felt around. “Stay on topic, Cruz.”

  “Guetta had on a wedding band in the video.” Emilia’s words raced to keep up with her thoughts. “But the video quality wasn’t good, so we thought it was real. But it’s a tattoo. Julieta has the same thing.”