by Mark Greaney
End of discussion.
Court had pressed his luck by sticking around, and now he was in the same boat as the rest of them. He leaned back against the whitewashed concrete wall around the Gamboas’ property, next to Laura. Ernesto and Diego had walked back into the house and gotten the bench from one of the backyard picnic tables, and this they put in the shade for Luz and Elena. The old woman and her pregnant daughter-in-law sat and fanned themselves with pieces of a newspaper they’d picked up from the gutter along the side of the road.
After a long speech by the black-clad cop, Laura, who had been standing at Court’s shoulder, leaned into the American’s ear. “Did you understand that?”
He hadn’t picked up a word of the men’s argument in the past minute. “No, what’s going on?”
“The federale says he is promising to tell La Araña that this army unit deserves a reward for detaining the family until he and his associate could come and take custody.”
Court thought for a moment. “La Araña? Who the hell is ‘the Spider’ ? ”
“Javier Cepeda.”
“Okay, who is Jav—”
“He is one of DLR’s top men. A Black Suit. They say he is the head of his sicarios. DLR’s assassins.”
“Perfect.”
“We are in danger, Joe.”
He wanted to say “no shit,” but he looked at the girl, down into her big brown eyes, and he caught himself. “We’ll be okay.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Then how can you say we’ll be okay?”
“I have three bullets. There are two cops. We go with the cops and we’ll be okay.”
Laura’s eyes widened. “Joe . . . Please do not kill them. We can disarm them and—”
“I won’t kill them unless they make me,” Gentry said, but he had every expectation that they would make him.
The federales’ bargain with the soldiers seemed to be working. It was an interesting dynamic to a man like Court Gentry—two lightly armed cops against nearly twenty heavily armed soldiers. The cops didn’t finger their weapons; they didn’t bark into their radios to summon reinforcements; they didn’t scream or threaten. He suspected the cops were older, more sure of themselves, intimidating to the young army lieutenant, and they pressed their authority and selfassuredness against him with polite words, like a thin glove over a metal gauntlet, to enforce their will.
Court was certain they were bad men, but he was rooting for them in this little battle.
And their browbeating worked. The lieutenant told his men to stand down, to get back in the vehicles. Within sixty seconds the three loaded army pickups disappeared towards the south, turning left off of Canalizo, behind a cloud of afternoon road dust.
The two federales watched them leave then turned around to face the family.
Instead they found themselves staring down the gringo’s pistol at a range of five feet.
The cop who had been doing all the talking spoke slowly as his arms rose in surrender. His English was excellent. “Get your gun out of my face, amigo.”
“If I was your amigo, I wouldn’t have my gun in your face, would I? Down on the street! Both of you! Facedown, arms out.”
“You need to listen to me very carefully, señor.”
“You don’t eat some dirt right now, señor, and I’m going to blow off your fucking head. Comprende?”
Both men went slowly to their kneepads and then down onto the hot, dusty street.
“You don’t understand. We are not regular federales like the men who killed the Gamboas.”
Court’s eyes furrowed. “Oh, sweet. You guys are just regular ole hit men. That makes killing you even less complicated.”
“No. We are el Grupo de Operaciones Especiales. GOPES. We worked under Major Gamboa. We came here to protect his familia from the Black Suits.”
Court held his revolver steady at the men on the street in front of him. “Bullshit. Everyone in Eddie’s team was killed on the yacht.”
“No. We survived. We went into hiding to protect our families.”
Court knelt over the talker. “So where did that blood on your pants come from?” Court had noticed a speckled splatter of red on the federale’s thigh.
The officer made to climb back up, but Gentry pressed the barrel of the revolver into the back of his head, made the man talk with his face in the dirt; his words blew a circle clean of dust and sand on the black pavement. “We were coming here in my car, but we heard a broadcast on the radio channel that the Black Suits use. Two sicarios federales were coming here to kill Elena. We killed them fifteen kilometers south of here, and then we took their bikes.”
Court did not know what to believe, but the man’s tone was extremely convincing. Even though their conversation was in a mixture of two languages, Gentry detected a tone of truthfulness. But he wanted to get an impression from the other man. He knelt next to the other masked federale, the one who had not yet spoken. He placed the revolver’s barrel on the back of his neck. “Do you speak English?” The man shook his head. Court switched to Spanish. “Bueno, so what do you have to say for yourself, cabrón?”
The man did not answer, but he looked up towards Court, turned his head slowly to do so. His right hand scooted along the hot asphalt to his face, and he pulled off his helmet, his sunglasses, and then his mask.
His right cheek and jaw were black and blue, an ugly fist-sized contusion. Court thought about the man in the building under construction across the street from the Parque Hidalgo. The masked man he’d knocked out with a punch to the jaw.
“Did I do that?”
“Sí,” said the officer; with the swelling his voice sounded like a tennis ball was lodged in his mouth.
“Huh . . .” Court thought it over. Could the man have really been there to provide protection for the family? There was no way for him to know; he had knocked him out cold before the fighting had begun.
Court just said, “Sorry.”
“No hay problema.” No problem, responded the man, but Gentry imagined the man’s jaw would be a problem for him for a few days.
“What’s your name?”
“Martin. Sergeant Martin Orozco Fernandez.”
Looking back to the first officer, Court asked, “How ’bout you?”
“I am Sergeant Ramses Cienfuegos Cortillo.”
“Where did you learn to speak English so well, Ramses?”
“As a boy I lived for six years in El Paso, Texas.”
“You are American?”
“No.”
“Got it. You were an illegal alien?”
Ramses looked up at the American kneeling over him. “I prefer the term ‘undocumented immigrant.’”
“I bet you do.”
The Mexican smiled behind his mask. Said, “And what about you? I saw what you did today. You are an assassin.”
“I prefer the term ‘undocumented executioner.’ ”
Ramses nodded. “You are with the American government?”
“No. I’m just an old friend of Eddie’s who stumbled into the middle of all this bullshit.”
“And you stayed to help?” Ramses spoke in Spanish to Martin for a moment, then directed his attention back to the gringo with the gun. “Do you mind if we get up?”
“Slowly.” This time Court let them both rise to their feet, but he kept the pistol on them. They brushed the grit and dust from their black uniforms. “What were you doing at the memorial?”
Ramses explained. “We suspected there would be trouble. We just came to watch over the families of our colleagues. Martin took overwatch; I stayed down in the crowd. I saw the gunmen standing around, known operatives for the Black Suits. Then de la Rocha himself appeared.”
“And?” asked Court. He thought he knew the answer.
“And . . . I shot him. Twice.” Then he added, an unmistakable tone of confusion in his voice. “I did not miss. I don’t know how he survived. Then the massacre began.”
Court believed him. This dude’s eyes, his voice, his body language, it all indicated that he was as confused about what happened as Gentry. Court slid his revolver back in his pants and told the federales to follow him back inside Eddie’s house. Everyone else had already moved back inside the gate; the Gamboas were finished loading the F-350 now, and once again, Laura was leading her family in prayer, thanking the Lord for the end to the standoff outside.
Court asked the cops, “So you guys are just playing dead, hanging out? Doesn’t sound like much of a plan.”
“We can’t go to our homes; we don’t want it revealed we survived. If it were known . . . our families would end up just like the others today. We are dead men—we know that—but our families are safe. And if we can help protect Major Gamboa’s family, that is a death we will be honored to die. If you all are leaving now, we’ll go with you on the bikes to clear the way ahead. We’ll have to dump the motorcycles at some point, but for now I think we are safer using them.”
Court nodded. For a moment he considered using this as an excuse to leave again. Now Elena had friends, capable men who would protect her and her family. But no, Court recognized he was only trying to help himself with this line of thinking; these guys were probably better than any half dozen regular dirty cops or cartel assassins, but there were a shitload of dirty cops and cartel assassins running around. Court could not just wash his hands of this entire situation because the Gamboas had a couple more guns on their side.
No, he’d stay alongside them as long as they needed him, and he’d work with these men.
But, he told himself, he’d keep an eye on them. Trust was not on the table.
TWENTY-FOUR
It was after nine when they reached the hacienda. They’d made it on one tank of gas; Court hadn’t stopped at all, and the big 4×4 had proved invaluable on the rocky mountain roads. As Laura had promised, this hideaway of hers was secluded, wrapped in a tiny valley that sheltered it from all sides. The little convoy had rolled through the town of Tequila thirty minutes earlier, then had driven through miles and miles and miles of agave farms to get here, but the terrain around the property itself was overgrown forest and uncultivated fields. Court followed Laura’s directions, leading the way in Eddie’s truck as the two Suzuki bikes followed, and they turned off the one-lane road, onto a gravel track that ended at a rusted iron gate under an arch made of whitewashed stones. On both sides of the arch a white stucco wall ran off into the evening darkness. Court assumed that it encircled the property. Ramses stepped off his bike and cut off the chain lock with bolt cutters he found in the toolbox in the back of Eddie’s truck; he pushed open the gate, and Gentry could hear the protesting screech of the rusty hinges even though his windows were rolled up to ward off the cool mountain air.
The cops got back on their bikes and led the way now; the three-vehicle procession followed a long, hilly driveway whose cobblestones had been pushed up out of the undulating earth. Weeds grew in fat sprigs between the loose uneven stones, and the unkempt landscaping on either side of the drive brushed against both sides of the truck as they ascended towards the main building. The property looked as if no one had lived here in years; the view illuminated by their headlights showed nothing but wild flora, fallow hills overgrown with pine and cacti and cypress and lime and orange trees, flowing vines, and tall grasses.
Laura explained that all the property, both within the walls and for miles around outside of the walls, had once been a massive hacienda, an agave plantation built back in the 1820s. The walled compound was at the center of the farm, and she pointed out several ruined stone buildings back in the woods, overgrown mostly by vines and geranium and azaleas.
Soon they arrived at the casa grande, the main house in the hacienda complex. Gentry thought it looked haunted in the dark with its broken masonry and aged whitewash and pink walls. Moneda, a green ivy that grew fast and thick, wove up the structure, wrapped around columns along the long arcaded front porch, and made its way through the ironwork on the second-floor balcony, where it integrated itself into the architecture. The truck and the two bikes parked in a round gravel driveway that had an old fountain as its centerpiece. A stone angel, probably half the size of a woman, stood above the fountain; her wings were broken, and her white eyes stared Court down through the windshield of the car. He turned off the engine and the headlights. Below the angel the fountain, even in the moonlight, looked like it was full of algae and trash.
A single light appeared suddenly in a window on the second floor. It was faint and it flickered like a candle.
“Someone is here.” Court said it looking back to Laura, and her eyes widened in surprise.
“Impossible. That cannot be. No one has lived here in three years.”
Gentry stepped out of the truck and began crunching across the gravel drive. Laura climbed out as well, chased up behind him, and grabbed him by the arm. Her fingers felt tiny yet strong. Insistent. “We need to leave. We cannot put anyone else in danger.”
“Where are we going to go? Elena has been lying in the back of the truck for four hours on bad roads. She needs to rest. We have to stay here, at least for tonight.”
Laura winced in concern, but she did not continue to argue. She followed “Joe” and the two Mexican officers up crumbling steps to a huge oak and iron door. Gentry knocked, his right hand hovering over the butt of the pistol stuck in his pants.
Laura stepped up beside him. “It might be a caretaker or some farmer from the nearest pueblo who snuck in. Let me talk to them.”
“Go for it.”
A minute later the door opened slowly; a man stood back away from it in a dark tiled hallway, and the long double-barreled shotgun in his hand was pointed at Court Gentry’s chest. Moonlight reached into the building, illuminating the old man like a gray ghost.
Gentry did not draw his pistol. He understood the man’s suspicion; he just hoped like hell Eddie’s sister could quickly explain the situation to this old coot’s satisfaction.
Laura gasped in shock, put her small hand to her small mouth. She recovered, spoke softly, “Buenas noches, Señor Corrales. It’s me, Laura. Guillermo’s wife?”
“Guillermo?”
“Yes. Guillermo. Your son.”
This dude was ancient; this much Court could tell. Much older than Ernesto. He wore a white mustache that hung low on either side of his face. By the look of it, he’d been sleeping facedown, the bristly hair shot out in random directions.
“Sí, Señor Corrales. ¿Cómo está Usted?”
“Guillermo is here?” The old man asked.
Laura responded softly, “No, señor. Guillermo is not here.”
Just then another ghostly form appeared behind the old man in the shaft of moonlight let in by the open front door. The figure moved towards the doorway from the recesses of the house.
“Lorita?” The voice of an old woman.
“Inez. How are you?”
“I am fine, little one.” The old lady shot out into the moonlight and hugged Eddie’s sister tightly. “Luis, put down the gun and let them inside.”
The old man lowered the weapon, stepped forward, and embraced Court. He spoke in Spanish. “Guillermo, my son. I have missed you.”
It was immediately apparent, by Señor Corrales’s words and actions, that Laura’s father-in-law suffered from some form of dementia.
Five minutes later all eleven residents and guests sat in a massive candlelit sitting room. A stairwell led to a second-floor landing that wrapped around the dim room, but it was too dark for Gentry to see past the banisters. Inez, Laura’s mother-in-law, brought a bottle of fresh but lukewarm orange juice and poured it into broken cups and plastic tumblers, laid the offering out on a long wooden coffee table. A bottle of tequila was placed next to it, there for the taking, but only sullen and silent Ignacio spiked his OJ.
This casa grande was huge, but it seemed quite literally to be falling down on top of the elderly couple. Thick cobwebs hung
in the darkened corners of the sitting room, the floors were caked in dust, and the old furniture, though sturdily built from big oak and cedar logs, creaked under pressure.
The ceilings were high, the floors were stone tile, the smell of candle wax, dust, and mold was prevalent in the dim air. Voices echoed when raised above a whisper. There was a monastic feel to the interior of the big home; Gentry could not imagine living in a creepy place like this.
Thin black and green lizards streaked along the walls and ceilings, appeared and disappeared in and out of the long shadows cast by the candlelight.
Court did not want to ask, but he had the distinct impression that there was no electricity in the home other than a small gas generator that rumbled outside the kitchen. Inez had a little flashlight that she used to make her way to the sconces in the blackened corners of the large room. These she lit with wooden matches, giving a little more light and a spookier glow to the scene.
Luis Corrales sat in a large wingback chair, his eyes darted around the room, watching his late-night guests. Gentry could tell his mind was clearly someplace else. It didn’t take Court long to realize the old woman seemed slightly off as well. Nevertheless, as Laura carefully and honestly explained the reason for their appearance, Inez seemed lucid enough to understand the predicament her daughter-in-law had put her in.
Inez Corrales invited everyone to stay for as long as they wanted, proclaiming everyone present to be in “God’s hands,” and then she led the entourage into a dim hallway, asked the group to join hands around a nicho, a niche built into the wall where a Cristo, a small wooden statue of Jesus, had been placed between a circle of votive candles. She took a few minutes to light them, a red glow illuminated the miniature shrine as well as everyone’s faces, and then she asked Laura to lead the group in prayer. Court didn’t understand much of it, probably wouldn’t have been familiar with a lot of the words even if the prayer had been in English, but everyone else seemed to know the tune. He heard varying levels of conviction in the voices around him.