by Jeff Buick
“Thanks for the purse,” Pedro said as they settled in. “I never expected anything like that. It was most generous.”
“Not a problem. But five thousand dollars is just the start.” He waved to one of the men dressed in black. The man was by his side in an instant. “Find Alfonso and get ten thousand dollars in fifties and twenties. Bring it here.”
“Yes, sir.” The man was gone as quickly as he arrived. That he carried a Thompson sub-machine gun and six extra clips on his belt was not lost on Pedro.
Javier sipped his iced tea and ran his fingers through his long hair. It fell into place, like every strand had its own spot and knew exactly where to go. He cupped his hands behind his neck, and said, “I’m thinking about taking on a few fighters, promoting them on a fairly high level. I’m not sure what sort of fights I could arrange, but I’m thinking Las Vegas, Atlantic City, that sort of thing. I’m not Don King, but I’ve got a few connections. I might be able to get you on a championship card as one of the opening bouts. Anyone interested?”
“Yeah,” Luis said, leaning forward. “I’d fight for you, Mr. Rastano.”
“Sure,” Pedro said. “But I need time to get in shape. A twelve- or fifteen-round match is a far cry from five.”
Javier nodded appreciatively. “Good point. It’ll take me a few months to set this up, so that should give you two enough time to tone up. Luis, you’re definitely not a welterweight are you?”
“No, I’m over by about fifteen pounds.”
“Good, then I’ve got two different weight divisions. I like that.” He turned his shoulder as the guard returned to the patio from the house. “Ahh. Here comes your first payday.” He took the money, split it in half and handed one pile to each fighter. “Go buy yourselves some nice clothes, maybe a gold chain or two, and give some to your families.” He addressed Pedro. “Where are you staying?”
“Hotel Villa Florencia,” Pedro said.
“You like the action of El Centro, do you?” Rastano said. “Well, it’s a little quieter here, but there’s no mold in the bathrooms. You’re both welcome to stay on the estate if you wish. It’s entirely up to you.” Both men nodded, and Javier smiled. “Then it’s settled. I’ll have one of the men show you your rooms and the gym. There’s a few cars here if you want to drive to Galerías to shop, but don’t touch the Ferrari.” He stood up. “I’ll see you later,” he said, and disappeared into the house.
Luis thumbed the stack of bills and let out a low whistle. “Holy shit, amigo. We hit the big time.”
“Yeah,” Pedro said, his eyes roaming across the patio to the grounds, then back to the house. “I think we got what we wanted.”
An hour later Pedro was driving through the congestion of El Centro, more than shopping for new clothes on his mind. He needed to get his guns onto Rastano’s estate. The Mercedes SL 500 attracted some attention and, in retrospect, he wished he had chosen a slightly less conspicuous car. He parked in front of his hotel and ran up to his room. He gathered his meager belongings and tucked them into his gym bag. He wrapped the three guns in with the clothes, shouldered the bag and checked out.
There were a few decent shops just outside the central region of San Salvador and he stopped in, looking through the racks and buying something in each shop, to help the shop owners more than anything else. He paid cash and didn’t barter. Eventually he ended up at the sterile Galerías shopping mall where he dropped a substantial wad of cash on more clothes, and jewelry that he felt Javier Rastano would approve of. It would raise suspicions if a barrio rat came into a ton of money and didn’t spend it foolishly. Almost four hours had passed when he returned to the estate and pulled up to the front gate.
“What’s all that?” the guards asked, pointing at the stack of bags in the passenger’s seat.
“Shopping,” Pedro said. “Javier told me to get some new clothes.”
“Okay,” one guard said, opening the gate and waving him through. The other looked like he wanted to poke through the bags, but Pedro was long gone, up the driveway and out of sight. He parked the Mercedes and hustled upstairs with his purchases and his gym bag. Once in his room he dumped the new clothes on the bed, grabbed a couple of beach towels from one of the El Centro vendors and wrapped the guns in the towels. He stuffed the towels in the gym bag. Then he changed into his bathing suit and headed for the pool, gym bag in hand.
He passed a couple of guards making their rounds, but they hardly looked his way. The two boxers were Javier’s personal guests and that carried a lot of weight. He bypassed the pool and took the series of winding paths through groves of mango and eucalyptus trees until he arrived at the far reaches of the Rastano estate. A shed, perhaps twenty feet wide by forty feet long was tucked up against the walls that delineated the Rastano estate from the neighbors. Pedro glanced up, noticing the cameras mounted on top of the wall. They were on swivel bases, and could monitor the grounds and the wall. But the shed itself blocked the camera as he approached, and he entered the hut without being photographed.
It was a gardener’s shed. Inside were all the implements necessary to maintain acres of perfectly manicured grounds. Two riding tractors and numerous gas powered hand mowers were lined up against one wall, edgers and trimmers as well. Bags of fertilizer were piled near the back, along with equipment that was in pieces and in the process of being fixed. The shed had a strong odor of freshly cut grass and potassium fertilizers.
Pedro quickly found a place to stash the guns, behind and under some equipment that appeared to have been sitting in one place for a substantial length of time. He stood back and had a good look. It was impossible to tell where he had stashed the guns. Then he noticed a phone on the workbench, half hidden beneath a pile of rags used to clean garden equipment. It was an old model, one of the first with push buttons, bulky and covered with dust and grime. He picked up the receiver, not expecting it to work. A dial tone hummed through the line, and he replaced the handset thoughtfully. He covered the phone with rags, thinking it might come in handy at some point. He retreated from the shed and walked leisurely down to the pool. The water looked inviting, and he dove in and swam a few laps. Occasionally, a guard sauntered past, but it was business as usual. He had managed to get the guns inside the estate—and though he hoped he wouldn’t have to use them, having the weapons close by felt good.
Now he just needed to find the women.
Chapter Twenty-four
Jorge Shweisser crossed the Bahnhofstrasse with his shopping bags, wary of the heavy Sunday morning traffic. A Renault darted around him and he resisted the urge to give the driver the finger. Now on the east side of Zurich’s main shopping artery, he had his choice of many medieval alleyways, most of which led to the Limmat River and ultimately to Zurichsee. He wandered into one of the narrower alleys, which opened, after two blocks, into a small square encompassing St. Peters Kirche. The clock face on the parish church showed eight minutes after eleven. He felt relaxed as he entered Thermengasse, one of his favorite streets in all of Zurich, with the excavated ruins of ancient Roman baths underfoot. He was a romantic, and he liked to imagine himself in that period.
Shcweisser wasn’t a strong man, nor was he vibrant or charismatic. He was a mouse in man’s clothing, only five- seven and one hundred and forty-six pounds. And he only weighed himself while clothed. He wore glasses, and that alone probably would have meant an early death had he lived long ago. He couldn’t see ten feet without his spectacles. In modern times, there were glasses or, if he’d wanted to go that route, contact lenses or laser surgery, to compensate for this inadequacy. But what did the nearsighted do in medieval times? It was a thought that plagued him every time he walked over the baths and thought of ancient Rome. He brushed a wispy strand of hair from his face and continued past the guildhalls toward the lake.
But these were modern times. And he was well educated and very well paid, and thus had status in Zurich society. Shweisser liked hiring large tradesmen to work on his luxurious three-story home in
the Altstadt. Once he had them on-site, he berated them, finding fault with the smallest error in the woodwork or the tile, demanding it be fixed before he’d pay the invoice. Money was the master. And he had money.
His position at Banque Suisse de Zurich was cushy and covered the expenses, but his gravy money came from the unknown owner of the billion-dollar account, as he liked to call it. For twelve years he had been receiving regular payments to watch the account for the owner. And although he wasn’t one hundred percent positive of the owner’s name, he suspected it was one of the Colombian drug lords. And he suspected he knew which one, although it hardly seemed possible. But recently he had been double dipping. A second client, one he knew to be Mario Rastano from Medellín, had come to him a few years back and offered him a great deal of money to report any activity on the account. And although the account had remained dormant, collecting interest for the better part of twelve years, there was now activity. Twice this year electronic withdrawals had been processed and the cash shipped via satellite to some offshore Caribbean bank. He had done his job and reported the withdrawals to Mario Rastano. And in return he had found five hundred thousand euros in a briefcase in his car one afternoon. He liked working for the Rastanos. Risky, but lucrative. And what the owner didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
Schweisser strolled down Stadthausquai until he reached Zurichsee, the beautiful lake that borders the southern portion of Zurich. The boat docks were busy with locals and tourists queuing up for rides on the tranquil waters. To the south were the Alps, still encrusted with winter snow, their peaks rising above the lake like a postcard. Jorge Shweisser sat on a bench and set his shopping bags next to him. He loved Zurich in the spring.
A woman passed him on the path and took a second glance. She was younger than he by a few years, perhaps in her mid-thirties, and reasonably attractive. Her short hair was dark, almost black, and she wore little or no makeup. Her skin was pale from the long winter and she wore a baggy sweater that covered her top and hung down to mid-thigh. She stopped and backed up, pointing at the bags next to him.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” she said, her voice even and smooth. It seemed to match her appearance perfectly. “But I’ve always wondered about that store.” She was now quite close to him and he could tell she was interested in the bag from En Soie. “I think it’s maybe too expensive for me, so I’ve never gone inside.”
He smiled at her and nodded. “It is expensive. I don’t shop there very often. Usually just for gifts.”
She smiled back. It was a nice smile, although a couple of teeth were slightly crooked. “Your wife is a lucky woman,” she said, and waved as she moved on.
“It’s for my mother,” he said.
She stopped again. “A man who shops for his mother. My God, I thought those were all dead centuries ago.” She was a few feet away, but facing him. “What did you buy her?”
Jorge dug in the bag and pulled out a scarf woven from raw-textured silk. The colors were muted, but it shimmered in the spring sunlight. “A scarf.”
“It’s beautiful,” she said, moving back to him and touching the material. “And it’s silk.” She glanced away from the scarf to his eyes. “You have excellent taste. Your mother will be very pleased.”
He grinned like a schoolboy who just got the highest grade in a surprise exam. “Thanks. It was tough picking it out. I think it would be easier to shop if I had a woman to help me.”
“Take your wife when you go shopping,” she said.
“I’m single.”
The woman eyed him for a second, then said, “This may seem a little forward, but nice guys are tough to meet, and I’d like to have a coffee with you. Do you have some time?”
“Actually, if you’re hungry, we could have lunch.”
“That would be nice,” she said. “I’m Elsa.”
“Jorge.”
They passed Bahnhofstrasse then cut north and strolled along Talstrasse for two blocks until they reached Baur au Lac Rive Gauche, a gastronomic jewel set in the heart of Altstadt. Fifty euros convinced the maitre d’ that reservations were not really necessary, but a nice touch for those who liked planning ahead. He rewarded Jorge’s generosity with a table next to the window that had a great view of the neo-gothic street. They settled in, ordered and quite enjoyed themselves for the next hour. When the check arrived, Jorge paid and left a substantial tip for the attentive waiter. They walked out together into the cool spring air.
“That was wonderful,” Elsa said. “Thank you very much for lunch.”
“You’re welcome. Which way are you heading?”
“I live between the river and Bahnhofstrasse, close to St. Peters Kirche. It’s not so far from here.”
“I know exactly where it is. I love that part of Old Town. In fact, my favorite part of Altstadt is the Roman baths. I find the history fascinating.” He paused and wet his lips with his tongue. “I’m walking that way. Would you mind if I joined you?”
“I’d be delighted,” she said, slipping her arm through his and pushing against him lightly. “Now who would have guessed I’d meet such a nice man while out for a walk.”
They moved up Fraumünster, just another couple out enjoying a spring walk in one of Europe’s most romantic cities. When they reached Münsterhof, just south of the church, she pointed to one of the many narrow alleys dating back to medieval times. They moved into the narrow cobblestone street, the buildings shielding them from the sun and throwing a chill into the air. It was darker here, and deserted. She pressed up against him a little harder, then stopped walking. It took him a fraction of a second to respond and he spun slightly on his heels and ended up face to face with her. They were very close.
“Do you mind if I kiss you?” she asked. Her voice was intoxicating, her lips perfectly formed and moist.
“No,” Jorge said. “Not at all.”
She touched her lips to his ever so lightly, then pushed harder as he responded. Her left hand encircled his waist and her right hand caressed his neck. He felt a prick on his neck and jerked back, his hand instinctively moving to the spot where his nerve endings relayed pain to his brain. His hand came away sticky and red. Blood.
Elsa shoved off him and moved away quickly to her left. He staggered from the strength of her push, spinning away from her. He saw a trail of blood on the cobblestones and wondered where it had come from. Then another trail and another, and he realized the blood trails were coming from his neck, spurting across the dirty cobblestones. He looked back at Elsa, but she was already twenty feet away and moving quickly toward the main street. He tried to stop the bleeding but the blood just kept pumping out. He felt cold. His vision was going fuzzy and for a second he wondered what was wrong. Then, in an instant, he knew. He was dying. He had been murdered. The woman had cut his carotid artery, and he was quickly bleeding to death in an alley. He tried to call out, but his strength was gone. The blood flow was slowing, but he knew that was only because there wasn’t enough blood left in his body to create pressure at the break. He fell to the ground, one hand clutching his neck, the other still holding his parcels.
Slowly his eyes closed, the last vision in his life that of an old woman leaning over asking him what had happened.
Chapter Twenty-five
Julie Escobar worked the metal clip she had removed from the back of the fridge into the screw head and turned. Hours of relentlessly reshaping the piece of metal on the rough backing of the DVD player paid off as the clip fit into the screw head perfectly. The screw groaned for the first quarter-turn, then spun almost effortlessly. Julie left it and started working on another of the eight screws holding the face plate that covered the air conditioning duct. Shiara, at the door listening for the sounds of anyone coming, whispered to her mom.
“Did you get it?”
Julie nodded, then added quietly, “Yes. I’ll loosen all eight screws now, and then we’ll have a look inside the duct later, when everyone’s asleep.”
Standing on a sturdily b
uilt teak dresser, she worked on the other seven screws for the better part of an hour before she finally got all of them turning. What would have been a relatively easy job with a proper screwdriver and a can of WD-40 was an arduous task, and her hands were cramped and sore when she finished. She hid the impromptu screwdriver and settled onto the couch with her daughter for the nightly check. Promptly at ten o’clock the door opened and two guards, dressed as always in black with sub-machine guns dangling on straps over their shoulders, entered and poked about. They were polite but businesslike and gave the series of rooms a close look before exiting and locking the door behind them. Julie waited ten minutes then got to work.
She popped the grill off once all the screws were completely out, revealing a rectangular hole in the wall about fourteen inches high by twenty inches wide. Julie and Shiara piled a couple of cushions from the couch on top of the wall unit and Julie stuck her head and shoulders into the hole. It was an extremely tight fit and she backed out, shaking her head.
“I don’t think I can do it,” she said. “It’s too tight. I won’t be able to move forward very easily and I certainly won’t be able to back up. Unless there’s some place in the system that’s big enough for me to turn around, I’ll be stuck.”
Shiara glanced at the hole and said, “Let me try, Mom. I’m smaller than you.”
Julie shook her head. “No way. I’m not letting you go in there without knowing it’s safe.”
Shiara grasped her mother by the arm. “Mom, we don’t have a lot of options here. We’re not getting out through the door, and that’s the only way out except for this duct. We need to try. I think I’m small enough to fit.”
“It’s getting back I’m worried about,” Julie said.
“I’ll go a few feet into the duct, then see if I can back up. Okay?”
Julie thought about it for a moment, then said, “All right, but you stay in the main shaft. No branching off into smaller ones. Understand?”