by Tim Green
A hand on her hip made her jump and let out a shriek.
"Jesus," she said.
Jose stepped in behind her and wrapped his arms around her middle, pulling her tight and resting his head on top of hers.
"Something about those three words," he said. "I lost my concentration."
"What three words?" she asked, turning to kiss him.
His lips grazed hers and his hands moved down the small of her back. In a whisper, he said, "Come to bed."
Casey woke with a start, sitting up in bed and feeling for Jose even as the sight of him back at the computer registered in her brain. The streetlight outside their window cast a trapezoid of pale light across the musty carpet.
"I'm guessing 'come to bed' doesn't work twice in the same night?" Casey said, sweeping the hair from her face and looking at the clock. "It's four o'clock."
"Can you come here?" he said, still hunched over, his voice laced with excitement.
Casey broke free from the covers and crossed the small room. She put her hands on his shoulders and leaned past his neck.
"Look familiar?" he asked.
Casey sucked in a breath of air at the sight of the black rooster painted on the truck's red cab.
"That's it," she said.
"Then we've got him."
CHAPTER 63
THE SUN WENT DOWN AS THEY DROVE SOUTH. THE RED CRACKS in the sky cast deep shadows across the east end of Nuevo Laredo, the Mexican sister to Laredo, Texas, just across the border. With the license plate of the eighteen-wheeler and some cash, Tony had been able to get them the truck's destination, but not the name of the facility. When Tony showed them exactly where it was on a map, they realized the eighteen-wheeler was headed for the same factory they'd passed on their way up from Monterrey with Isodora and her baby, the same place the federales had smashed Casey's camera. Jose and Casey had only been able to stare at each other and shake their heads.
While Casey argued to scope out the factory, Jose insisted that he make use of some old contacts before they made another move.
Heavy purple clouds roiled in the red light, dropping rain in sporadic sheets as they wound their way off the highway and into the city. TV antennae, water towers, and chimney pots stood out against the crimson light like sentinels atop row houses and tenements. Laundry drooped on sagging lines hung from one building to another like bunting.
"That's the place," Jose said, pointing down into a dark alley.
A green neon sign for a bar named Perro Rojo glimmered in the downpour. Garbage spilled from cans and an emaciated yellow dog trotted their way, ears flat, with a plastic bag in its mouth. A drunk peed on the crooked brick wall, steadying himself on the ladder of a rusted fire escape. At the far mouth of the alley, three men stood in dripping cowboy hats around an oil drum whose burning contents cast flickering light across their hardened faces. Jose recognized two of them, even from a distance.
"And I'm supposed to just leave you here?" Casey asked.
"I can't take you in," Jose said, "Machismo culture and all that. And no way in hell are you waiting around here. Just go back to the motel. I'll get a ride back with someone. You can watch one of those movies. I'll pay for it."
"Because you know these people," Casey said. "Right.''
"From my past life."
"I think you said something about some 'drug kingpin.'"
Jose opened the door and got out. "This side of the line, some of them are a little more reliable than the rest. Be careful backing that thing up. You gotta use the side mirrors to dodge the drunks. I'll see you back at the motel later."
He closed the door before she could say anything and turned in the rain. By the time he reached Perro Rojo's doorway at the end of the alley, the rain had stopped. Jose looked up at the thick slab of purple sky with its crimson glow, the light too weak to plumb the narrow depths or to allow Jose to read the face of the man who sat on a wooden stool just inside the yawning doorway.
"Doscientos pesos," the man said in a rough voice, holding out a large gnarled hand that glinted with thick rings until he turned it palm-up.
Jose dug into his pocket and handed the man an American twenty-dollar bill. The man snapped his fingers a few times and kept his hand out until Jose added a five. He then gave two quick double raps with his knuckles against the wood, and the door swung open. The smell of smoke and the pulse of Tejano music came from inside the building. Waves of bass and synthesizer cut through with an accordion and a twelve-string guitar. Jose let his eyes follow the counterclockwise spinning movements of the Tejano dancers in the room as he descended the long metal stairs along the far wall of the club.
At this early hour, he had his pick of several stools at the bar. Behind the shelves of liquor, fogged glass changed colors, fading from one to the next, completely out of sync with the music from the stage. Jose got himself a beer and asked the bartender if Flaco had arrived yet. The bartender, a small-breasted brunette in a spandex top, cowboy hat, and jeans, nodded toward a velvet booth in the far corner, then turned away. Jose took his beer with him. Eyes adjusted now to the low light, he became aware of the three men stationed on the lighting catwalks twenty feet above who carried, not the short-barreled MAC-10s or TEC-9s he'd come to expect from drug dealers, but what looked like M24 sniper rifles with laser sights.
One by one, as Jose closed the gap to the booth, he felt the guns swing his way.
CHAPTER 64
CASEY MISSED A TURN AND ENDED UP IN A NEIGHBORHOOD where people milled through the lightless streets like phantoms, reaching for her car with worn hands, knocking on windows and pleading. Casey locked the doors and checked to make sure the windows were up all the way. The burgundy sky burned down to the color of charcoal ash. The few other vehicles on the street rolled slowly forward, some tooting their horns, some rocking with loud thumping music.
Casey looked out at the dark faces from the seat of her Mercedes, knowing that if they stopped her and yanked her out, there wasn't much she could do. Some of the men wore straw hats and carried sticks. Others held machetes alongside their legs that glinted like the bellies of fish in the light of tiny gutter fires. Casey felt for the guns Jose had left beneath the seat and kept her eyes ahead, trying not to let the car stop moving.
When she finally found the main highway, it was for the southbound lane. She got on it, anything to get clear of the neighborhood. She didn't know if the idea to go to scout out the factory on her own sprang up because of the direction she traveled, or because of the anger she felt at being left behind by Jose and his code of machismo, or from being lost in the slums and scared. Whatever the reason, she knew that she wanted to regain her sense of control. So she kept heading south, knowing twenty minutes away was the factory where the eighteen-wheeler from the quarry was bound, the same factory they'd seen only weeks before. A place rumored to conduct experiments with human beings. A place people went into by the truckload, but apparently never came out of.
When she reached the plain south of Nuevo Laredo, she sensed the open space around her, even in the darkness. She knew from before that the hilly banks of the Rio Grande lay off to her left, and straight ahead lay the distant mountains guarding Monterrey and the land to the south. Her eyes scoured the empty roadside.
She actually passed the gated factory entrance before she noticed the guttering of a greenish chemical flame, venting from a distant smokestack off to her left. She stopped and looked hard into the darkness, seeing what she knew was the high metal fence a hundred feet or so off the road. She turned around and backtracked, slowing when she came to the wide gravel road, flattened nearly smooth from the weight of heavy truck traffic.
At the gate, two uniformed guards approached her from opposite sides, neither moving with any kind of urgency, both with submachine guns slung over their shoulders. She put her window down and let her voice take on a ditzy Texas drawl.
"I'm so glad I found someone. I'm nearly out of gas."
The man looked at her blankly.
Casey looked at him blankly, then smiled and said, "See? I told my husband, you can't just take me down to Mexico when I don't speak the language, but no. He don't care nothing. No hablo. No hablo espanol."
The other guard rounded the hood and stood with his compatriot. They wore a dark blue uniform Casey didn't recognize, probably from a private security firm, but were armed with weapons beyond those of normal security.
The second guard chattered at her in Spanish and she gave him more of the same dummy talk. When he leaned into the window and realized she was pointing at her gas gauge, he motioned for her to get out.
"I'm not going anywhere," she said, shaking her head and smacking the wheel. "I want to speak to someone who speaks English. Hablo ingleses. You understand?"
The second guard said something sharp to the first one and raised a walkie-talkie to his mouth, speaking quickly and getting an immediate response. In the distance between them and the plant, Casey saw the lights of a vehicle turn onto the road and speed their way. A tall blond man with a crew cut jumped out of the jeep and strode through a small opening in the gate. His uniform was different from the guards' and he wore no gun.
"Problem?" he demanded of her, his English sounding perfect.
"Thank God," Casey said, splaying her fingertips against her chest, sighing, and pouring on her Texas accent. "I'm lost and almost out of gas and my daddy works for one of these plants in Texas. This is SmithKline Labs, right? We Americans got to stick together, especially south of the border, if you know what I mean."
Casey flicked her eyes at the two Mexican guards.
"This is a private facility," the man said coldly. "You have to leave."
"My daddy probably plays golf with your boss, so don't be a pain. Okay, sweetie pie?"
The blond man rolled his eyes. "This is not an American company, and I don't work for your daddy. Turn around and take this vehicle back onto the highway. If you run out of gas, the police will help you. I can't."
Casey glared at him and said, "How about telling me the way to Nuevo Laredo? That too much for you?"
"Make a right when you get back to the highway and keep going," the man growled, leaning toward her. "That's my advice to you."
She now saw that the patch over the breast pocket of his shirt read KROFT LABS.
Casey swallowed and averted her eyes. She nodded her head and put the car in reverse, backing out and checking on them in her rearview mirror. She checked the mirror several more times as she raced up the highway, then tried her cell phone. The phone had no service. By the time she closed in on the lights of Nuevo Laredo, she was able to ring up Sharon.
"Catch you at a bad time?" Casey asked.
"Where the hell are you?" Sharon asked in a whisper. "Hang on. I just put the kids down."
Casey heard Sharon 's breathing and a long pause before a door closed and Sharon spoke in a normal voice. "Did Jose kill those women?"
"Of course not, one was his aunt," Casey said.
"They're making it sound that way," Sharon said.
"They," Casey said in disgust. "Listen, I need you to do some research for me."
"Now?" Sharon asked. "Wow, okay. I haven't pulled an all-nighter since college. Steven's in Miami and Matthew's got the croup, but what the hell."
"It's a company called Kroft Labs," Casey said. "Everything you can find, but specifically anything they've got going in Mexico in Nuevo Leon. They've got a facility here. I don't think it's American. If I had to guess, I'd say European."
Sharon paused for a moment, then said, "Their offices should open over there any minute now. I'll get on it."
" Sharon?"
"Yeah?"
"I want to know what they could be doing with a couple hundred people."
"People?"
"They disappear at that place.''
CHAPTER 65
FROM THE LOUNGE CHAIR ON THE MASTER BEDROOM TERRACE, Mandy watched the red sun melt into the inky tips of the live oaks to the west and fanned her face. She swirled the shavings of ice in the bottom of her glass, then sucked out the remnants of diluted Grey Goose before rolling an olive around the inside of her mouth with a tongue she could barely feel. In the bowels of the master suite behind her, she heard her husband's cell phone ring and his impatient answer. Something about the tone of his voice, which seemed secretive and furtive with an edge of desperation, pricked her ears.
He had no way of knowing she sat there, drinking away the sunset. He'd expect she'd left for her scheduled dinner with three women from the SPCA, which had begun half an hour ago at a downtown restaurant. Right now she was supposed to be listening to their concerns, which she would then report back to the assistant of her husband's chief of staff. She allowed her husband's people to schedule her for one such dinner a week. She considered such things to be part of her penance, and one way to pay homage to her mother's unforgettable words upon learning Mandy was pregnant.
"You made your bed. Lie in it."
She tipped some more vodka into her glass, the ice no longer necessary.
"If you're here already, then get your ass upstairs where we can talk," her husband said, raising his voice and coming her way. "They'll wait. I'll be on the terrace."
Mandy groped for the bottle and glass and swung her legs off the chair, finding the floor and swaying to her feet. She made for the bronze sculpture in the corner and would have been caught but for the sound of her husband stopping to clip the end off his cigar and the hiss of the butane flame. She crouched down behind the statue's base in the depth of the shadows, stuck hiding now for the duration of his stay. She listened as his footsteps strode to the railing's edge, then peeked out between the bronze centurion's legs at him as he gazed out at the bloody-looking sunset.
He exhaled, wreathing himself in a rich blue smoke she could smell from her corner. From this angle, in this flattering light, she recognized a sliver of the man she'd worshipped for a short time so many years ago. As if he sensed her, his back stiffened and he turned, destroying the image, the distended middle pushing through the gap in his tuxedo jacket, the aquiline nose gone bulbous with indulgence in drink and whores, and the bags of distrust and greed weighing on the skin beneath his eyes, jowls, and chin. He narrowed his eyes and took a step her way. She ducked down and, except for the pattering of her heart, she froze.
The voice of Jeff Macken, her husband's chief of staff, let her breathe. At the sound of Macken's subdued greeting her husband turned away, growling for him to spit it out.
"They're down in Mexico," Macken said. "She fucking showed up at the Kroft gates. I saw the surveillance tape."
"Where is she now? Did they let her go?"
Macken gripped the railing and leaned into the darkness. He shook his head and said, "They had no idea. She acted like some hick, said she was lost."
"She's bluffing," Chase said. "Desperate."
Macken nodded.
Chase scowled at him and removed the cigar from his mouth. "Where's Gage?"
Macken shrugged.
"That idiot," Chase said. "He's not paid to fucking sleep one off when we need him. When I call, he better come in a sprint."
Macken shook his head. "He had a shipment the night before last."
"The woman and her child?"
Macken nodded. "With the rest."
"And you spoke to Gage afterwards?"
"No, but I didn't hear anything went wrong," Macken said. "The truck made it."
Chase replaced the cigar, whipped out his cell phone, and punched a button before plastering it to his ear. He waited, then said into the phone and through his cigar, "Chief Gage, someone took a shot at my herd from the road, call me when you can."
He hung up and dialed another number.
"Dolly?" he said, working the cigar into the corner of his mouth. "Yes, it's me. I'm looking for Dean."
Chase made a fist and pounded it silently on the railing.
"No, I'm sure it's fine
," he said into the phone. "You know how he gets if he's onto something, like a goddamn bloodhound… Okay, sure, I'd love some pecan pie. You are too sweet, darlin'."
He snapped the phone shut and twisted his lips. "Have Ells track him down and call me. I still don't believe it. Christ, did he chase O'Brien down to Mexico?"
Macken cleared his throat. "That would be his style."
"His style is dry-fucking the goat,'' Chase said, shaking his head. "She was at the Kroft facility? How?"
"No one has any idea," Macken said. "She just showed up."
"Alone," Chase said. "Which means that fucking Mexican leprechaun is up to something. When you find Gage, see if you can't get him to talk to that outfit he uses. If we can put those two out of the game down there, it can be done clean, no more PR battles over my hunting accident if they don't come back.''
"Senator?"
"I said, 'Do it,' boy. Get that done."
Mandy peeked up to see her husband curling his lips, baring his teeth so he could mash the end of the cigar between his molars.
"We've all made a lot of money on this," Chase said. "Maybe it's time to pull out. Even if we're rid of them, we don't know what all they've said to anyone."
"But the real payday, the big big money…" Macken said, his voice drifting off.
"It's no good if all you can buy with it are jerk-off magazines and protecting your cornhole," Chase said.
"What do we do?"
Chase looked out over the darkened ranch, his hands white-knuckled on the wrought-iron railing, and chewed the cigar.
"Simple. Get rid of them all. Then there's nothing for anyone to prove."
"Like, ashes to ashes?"
"Yeah, something like that," Chase said, drawing hard and exhaling a fragrant plume. "When things settle down, we'll get Kroft more spics."