“We haven’t been able to make out the plates at all in this video,” said the technician. “The angle and the video quality aren’t doing us any favors, and the camera itself is terrible, one of the oldest models out there: we both know headquarters only buys obsolete equipment. As this section goes on, the trucks change lanes and stay behind a bus the rest of the time. See here? We’ve watched this thing several times. They’re too close together to see their bumpers, and then they drive under the camera and off the feed.”
Treviño watched the kid riding in the back seat of the red pickup pass under the camera, his face turned back toward the truck bed.
“And the next one?”
“I was just working on it. We were able to get the feed from a camera at the next light, but the trucks don’t show up in the video.”
“Are you sure?”
“Completely. They’re not there. Look.”
The passenger van and a few cars from the previous tape were on this second one, but the trucks were nowhere to be seen.
“They went into Colonia Dorada,” the consul said, clapping his hands. “They live there. We’ve got them!”
Treviño stood and walked over to a little table that held a plate of sandwiches and a pot with hot coffee. He studied the array as if it were a map of the city.
“If they turned off before reaching the next light, Colonia Dorada isn’t the only place they could’ve gone. There’s also Colonia Pescadores. There’s a dirt road behind the wall surrounding Colonia Dorada that leads to the river. In trucks with that kind of clearance, they could get down there with no problem.”
“Shit,” said the consul.
Pescadores was La Cuarenta’s base of operations. It wasn’t going to be easy to run an investigation down there.
Treviño looked around the room. “Where’s Mr. De León?”
“He went to bed. He was exhausted.”
“Do you have the transcripts I asked for?” the detective asked, pouring himself a strong black coffee.
“Here they are.”
“I hope you didn’t buy them off Bracamontes.”
“I know other people at headquarters, don’t worry.”
“Of course you do. How many cars does Mr. De León have out there?”
Williams looked over at the bodyguards, who did a quick calculation.
“Right now, two F-150 Lobos.”
“I see. Well, there’s also a black Grand Marquis parked at the entrance to the compound, and I think I see two of my former colleagues inside. When you get the chance, would you pay them a visit?”
“The black car?” The Bus reached for his walkie-talkie. “We’ll get rid of them.”
“Leave ’em, it’s just El Carcamán, the old geezer, and El Chino. Laid-back types, not too sharp. But be aware that Margarito’s got eyes on us. He wants to know who’s coming and going around here.”
“Do you think they saw you?”
“Not sure. But we have to proceed with absolute discretion. Can I steal a cigarette from you?” Treviño indicated to the consul that he should follow him to the terrace.
The gringo, confused, did just that. Treviño walked over to the farthest corner, lit the cigarette the consul offered him, and after exhaling a huge cloud of smoke said, “Now that you’ve looked into Cristina’s bodyguards, did you check out their homes?”
The gringo nodded.
“Moreno’s house? What about Rafita’s, and Bustamante’s?”
“We’ve been keeping an eye on them ever since this thing began. My driver went into each of their homes and didn’t find anything unusual.”
Treviño let out another cloud of smoke. “What can you tell me about Moreno?”
“He lives here. Mr. De León puts him up in one of the little houses on the way in. His things are all there.”
“And Rafita?”
“He and the Bus both live in apartments downtown, near the market. There’s no way they could have taken the girl there. There’s hundreds of eyes around, and no one saw anything suspicious. And just so you know, everyone who works here, even the gardener and the kitchen staff, had to take a lie detector test. They all passed.”
The consul’s driver, Larry, stuck his head out to let them know they had a call, and Williams returned to the library. The detective took a few more drags on the cigarette, stepped into the house, sat at the table, grabbed a highlighter, and marked three or four phrases in the police transcript. Suddenly, he stopped and leaned over a page, as though he couldn’t believe what he was reading.
“Do you have today’s papers?”
“What are you looking for?”
“I’m guessing,” said the detective, “that no one published anything about the three dead gang members that showed up in an empty lot in Colonia Pescadores. Am I right?”
The consul didn’t answer, so he went on.
“What would we do without government censorship?” He leaned over the papers. Williams sat down next to him and looked at the transcript.
“Look, there were three bodies,” said the detective, pointing at the document. “The operator sends patrol vehicles to investigate a firefight. Then later,” he continued, pointing to another page, “Officer Bolívar Arzate, a.k.a. the Block, one of the Three Stooges, reports finding an abandoned vehicle riddled with bullet holes and three corpses: boys around twenty years old, dressed like gangbangers. Each had multiple bullet wounds in his chest and a kill shot to the head. This was two nights ago, the day the girl disappeared, just … let me see here … one hour after she left the club.”
“Holy shit.”
“We have to talk to the guards at Colonia Dorada, ask them if they remember two trucks driving through there on Saturday night. And we need to examine the scene,” he said, pointing at the transcript.
They heard the unmistakable rattle of an automatic weapon somewhere in the distance. Just like the night before. The detective and the consul looked up as the Bus took out his handkerchief to dry his forehead.
“It’s going on too long to be an execution or a confrontation,” said Treviño. A minute later, the gunfire started up again.
“We heard something similar yesterday,” said the consul. “At around the same time.”
“It happens every so often,” the Bus interjected. “It’s La Cuarenta, marking their territory.”
“Marking territory? Those guys are pissed,” said the detective.
Mr. De León, who was just entering the room, noticed that the color had drained from the consul’s face. He leaned over the transcript.
“What’s going on, Treviño?” he asked.
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” replied the detective, and he set his coffee down on the table.
An hour later, Treviño discreetly handed an envelope full of cash to the guards stationed at the entrance to Colonia Dorada and headed back to the pickup. In order to avoid his former colleagues, the detective had needed to abandon the white Maverick, predisposed as it was to stalling out and generally inappropriate for this kind of mission, and travel in one of Mr. De León’s armored trucks. When he saw him, the Bus lowered the driver’s side window.
“What’s the word?”
“They didn’t come this way. No residents match their description, and no one saw the trucks drive through. Looks like our next stop is Colonia Pescadores.”
“I’m not about to go down there alone. Let’s get Rafita and Moreno to back us up.”
The detective thought about it for a moment and nodded. “We’ll wait for them over by the gully that leads down to the neighborhood.”
The Bus started the motor, grumbling the whole time, and Treviño climbed in.
After they had circled around a bit to shake the agents tailing them, a second truck carrying Rafita and Moreno pulled up next to them. Treviño explained the mission: they needed to get in and get out as quickly as possible; they should be efficient and respectful, but ready to throw their weight around if necessary. Right then, his phone
rang, and the detective stepped away to hear better.
“Yes, I’m still in La Eternidad … No, no, I didn’t get arrested. If I had, I couldn’t have picked up my phone, right? Those guys who came for me weren’t police. They were bodyguards. They work for Mr. De León. They came looking for me because Mr. De León wanted to interview me for a job. That’s why I’m still here … I’ll be back soon … No, come on … Don’t make me say it out loud … Okay, I love you too. Talk to you soon.”
He hung up and turned to the Bus.
“All right, let’s get going.”
And they headed down the gully, toward the river.
It was a vacant lot about 250 feet long by 100 feet across, just barely marked off by a few stakes and some barbed wire. In spots, the bushes and weeds grew more than three feet high.
One armored pickup could go unnoticed in the city, but a caravan would always stick out in Pescadores and could mean only one of two things: rich people to rob or rivals in the trade who would need to be checked out.
“Step on it,” said Treviño. He noticed the Bus was sweating, despite the air-conditioning.
They saw a few groups of three or four residents sitting in front of a shack, huddled around a little battery-powered television—the men drinking beer around a plastic table, and the women holding babies and herding other children. Invariably, they’d fall silent and turn to watch them pass. Treviño was surprised by the complete absence of old people: there wasn’t a man or woman there over forty years old. Was that the life expectancy in the neighborhood? Then there was the constant barking of the dogs that escorted the vehicles through town. On two occasions, small groups of teenagers smoking marijuana around a garbage can bonfire or in the back seat of a charred car stripped of its tires stared at them suspiciously. Treviño watched them through the tinted windows and remembered growing up not far from there.
“Son of a fucking bitch.” The Bus was a nervous wreck. “Just try and get us back here again.”
“You’re pretty jumpy for a guy who runs a security detail, man. What’s the matter? Cat got your balls?”
“I’ve got them right here, thank you very much, and I’d like to keep it that way. Why take this risk?”
The Bus carried only the Colt .45 that Mr. De León gave to all his bodyguards (an ostentatious firearm with wood grips and shiny chrome plating, suited to a millionaire), but he knew Rafita and Moreno were packing, respectively, a sawed-off Colt twelve-gauge and a Steyr TMP compact submachine gun, a souvenir from his European coursework. For his part, Treviño had the Taurus tucked away in his pants and was holding only a flashlight.
“This is it.”
They parked the two vehicles on the dirt road. The detective was the first to get out. A length of reflective tape blocked access to the lot. When the bodyguards caught up to him, Treviño lifted it and walked underneath, followed closely by Moreno and the Bus. Rafita stayed behind to keep watch.
“They don’t waste time around here.”
The windows of the dark-colored pickup were broken, and its left side had several bullet holes in it. The hood was up, and the motor and battery were gone. They’d also taken the tires, leaving the vehicle on four cinder blocks.
“Motherfuckers. I bet you a tow truck tried to get in here, and they wouldn’t let it get close enough to haul this thing out.” Treviño would have liked to compare the tracks they found outside the nightclub with the tires on this truck, but it was both impossible and unnecessary now. The crime scene investigators had already removed their plastic cones, but Moreno tripped over an evidence marker, number 66, that had been placed near the truck in line with the driver’s side window.
“All right, detective, what do we have here?”
Treviño observed the flattened grass and ants around the marker.
“That’s where the bodies fell.”
He picked up a branch and fished a sneaker splattered with blood and covered in ants out from under the truck.
“If this is how they work a crime scene, I hate to imagine what the city must be like.”
The detective stared intently for a moment at the sneaker and the evidence marker, then looked up and said, “This is where they were shot. They were standing here in front of the truck when they were hit by one, maybe two gunmen.”
Moreno nodded and took three big steps backward. Treviño shone his flashlight at the grass near the bodyguard’s feet, and the two of them combed through the underbrush until Moreno found casings that must have come from the assailant’s gun. He picked up one of them: an elongated golden cylinder with a notch at one end. After studying it for a moment, Moreno tossed it to Treviño. “Seven sixty-two,” he said.
“Hey-o. That’s an AK-47.”
Treviño slipped the bullet into his breast pocket, scratched his chin, and fell silent until the Bus approached him.
“Are we set?”
“Hold on a minute. There’s something strange here.”
“Strange? Come on, man. They did these guys, and that’s that. What’s strange?”
Treviño stood and scratched his chin again.
“Guys in the trade usually settle their scores with traitors and enemies with a bullet to the temple. Before, they used to bury the bodies on ranches way out there in the sierra where they’d never be found. But ever since they declared war on God and everyone else, they’ve been throwing the corpses in front of one of the competition’s businesses with a sign explaining why the guy got killed. Sometimes, if they really want to go all out, they’ll leave a flower or a fruit on the body to announce which organization just executed a rival or where they were from.
“Los Nuevos dismember their victims and like to leave the heads lying around. They drag the bodies to public places and, just to make sure their trophies don’t go unnoticed, they tend to fire a few shots in the air when they leave them, to get the neighbors’ attention. As a finishing touch, they leave calling cards with messages directed at their enemies or the authorities. La Cuarenta doesn’t go in for calling cards, messages, or any other niceties. Ever since they got their hands on assault rifles, they’re content to riddle their victims with bullets, whatever group they happen to be from. They don’t do extra work.
“Here, though, there’s no banners strung up, no flowers or fruit, no signs of a fight. They seemed to trust their killer or killers. They were caught off guard, facing their attackers and on their feet, judging by the height of the bullet holes in the side of the truck. That’s what I meant when I said there was something strange about the scene. Smells like a double cross to me.”
The Bus swallowed hard.
“We shouldn’t stick around here too long.”
“Goddamn it, Bus, you can’t rush a crime scene investigation. How do you know we don’t crack this case with a careful examination of the evidence here. It’s tubs of lard like you that keep this country from making any real progress.”
Treviño walked over to the truck and scrutinized its interior with manic intensity. They’d already taken the stereo and front seats; it seemed like they’d been planning to take the back seat, too, since it was no longer attached. On closer inspection, the passenger door was a little loose, too, as if someone had tried to take it off its hinges.
A sound in the bushes brought their guns out.
“Freeze!” shouted the detective. “Come out of there or I’ll blow you to hell.”
No one responded, so Rafita racked a round. When they heard the unmistakable sound of the weapon, two skinny, grease-flecked boys stepped forward with their hands up. They were barefoot and their shorts were in tatters.
“Don’t shoot, boss.”
The one in threadbare denim had three types of screwdrivers tucked into his waistband. Treviño aimed the light at their faces.
“All right, boys. What gang are you from?”
“None.”
“Uh-huh. And that tattoo there, asshole?”
The young man raised his hand to his shoulder as if he needed to
scratch it.
“If you weren’t with La Cuarenta, you couldn’t be here, so don’t bullshit me. Hold on. Aren’t you Doña Marta’s son? The one who used to sell fish tortas with her?”
The boys let out a nervous laugh. They didn’t know where to look. The thing is, this had been Carlos Treviño’s beat back when was a police officer. There’d been a time when he got along with guys who passed the time lost in clouds of weed and mosquitos, when he made friends with a fisherman and even lent him money so he could get a little cart to sell his wares. But the fisherman died, and his wife had been running the business since then.
“Seems sandwiches aren’t where the money’s at these days. What was your name, again? Huicho?”
They answered with another nervous laugh.
“Lucho, sir.”
“Your mother still alive?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, don’t break her heart, then. Tell me two things, and I’ll keep this between us. Who’s your chaka? Is it still El Carnitas?”
“No,” the other boy scoffed. “They got rid of him, like, two years ago.”
“Shot him in the eye,” added his companion.
“El Toribio?”
The boy with the screwdrivers gave a nod.
“Toribio Villareal. He ran things around here for a bit, but didn’t last long. Loved that Colombian.”
“You don’t say. So, who’s your chaka, now?”
Both boys smiled, but neither answered the question.
Just then, Rafita walked over. “There are trucks coming this way. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Treviño looked up and could see three or four pairs of headlights in the distance. Even so, he gestured to the bodyguard that he didn’t want to be interrupted.
“One minute. What’ll it be, boys?” The two of them just kept smiling, so he added, “I see they’ve taught you well. We’ve got two choices here, fellows. Either I arrest you for robbery or you answer three questions. Deal?”
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