Down Among the Dead Men (A Thriller)

by Robert Gregory Browne

  The Velvet Glove sat smack in the middle of the block, its darkened windows ringed in bright pink and purple neon.

  Vargas paid a cover fee, found a stool at the bar, and ordered a beer. And as the dancer onstage finished demonstrating her amazing muscle control—the ice cube now a puddle of water beneath her—he felt a presence on the stool next to him.

  “I’m supposed to be following you,” Garcia said.

  “Oh?”

  “Rojas wants to know what you’re up to.”

  Vargas nodded. “Further proof that Ainsworth wasn’t lying. He had a theory that the police were covering up about the American woman for fear of an international scandal.”

  “Had?”

  “He’s dead. Along with his son, a guy named Sergio, and a Border Patrol agent who was working with them. They were all part of some anonymous drug ring.”

  Garcia looked at him. “Is this the information you were keeping from Rojas? Your so-called bluff?”

  “More or less.”

  “You’ve been busy this week.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  Garcia signaled to the bartender, holding up a finger. The Velvet Glove was an upscale establishment, and the bartender reflected this with her perfectly coiffed hair and her crisp white shirt, showing ample cleavage. She took a bottle of Patron from the shelf behind her, filled a shot glass, and set it on the counter in front of Garcia.

  When she was gone, he said, “Rojas doesn’t give a damn about international scandals.”

  “Then why the whitewash?”

  “To cover his backside. He’s a powerful man and he uses that power to fatten his wallet. He doesn’t want anyone from the outside poking around in his business, and a dead American girl means federales and maybe even the FBI.”

  “Does that business have anything to do with drug smugglers?”

  Garcia snorted. “Smugglers, thieves, politicians, extortionists. Rojas gets a taste of it all and offers allegiance to no one. But there have been a lot of kidnappings here in Juárez and all across Mexico in the past few years. Young women disappearing. Mostly factory workers and prostitutes, but quite a few turistas as well. Rojas has been under pressure to solve these cases, but he’s as incompetent as he is corrupt. And his job is on the line. One more victimized turista is more than he can afford.”

  “The Ainsworths said she was alive when they found her.”

  Garcia nodded. “I’m surprised they said anything at all. Rojas paid them off to keep them quiet. Let them keep the treasures they’d looted and even gave them a few more.”

  Vargas thought of things he’d found in Junior’s treasure box. Had any more of those treasures come from the crime scene?

  “The Ainsworths didn’t strike me as particularly trustworthy people.”

  Garcia hadn’t touched his drink, but he looked as if he had just swallowed something hot and bitter. “That virus you spoke of? It’s about as virulent a strain as you’re ever likely to see.”

  “So what happened to her?”

  “I was only at the crime scene at the very beginning. So I only know the rumors.”

  “Which are?”

  “When they first went in, they thought she was like the others. But then she moaned and they realized she was alive but badly hurt. Two bullets in the chest. Rojas didn’t wait for an ambulance. He put her in the back of his car and drove her to the hospital. Except he never got there.”

  “Where did he take her?”

  “Across the border into New Mexico. Dumped her in a parking lot, in a pool of her own blood—another victim of those degenerate Americans. And someone else’s headache.”

  “Where?”

  “I’m not sure, but he was gone all night.”

  “Is she alive?”

  Garcia snorted again. “Rojas may be incompetent, but he’s thorough. The story goes that before he left her he finished the job her attackers failed to complete.”

  “He shot her.”

  Garcia picked up the shot glass full of tequila now and drained it, his eyes flooded with contempt.

  “He didn’t just shoot her,” he said, then tapped a finger against his temple. “He put a bullet in her brain.”

  50

  “SO, IN other words,” Vargas said, “Rojas is a thug.”

  Garcia signaled to the bartender for a refill. “A well-protected thug. But that protection is wearing thin and he’s worried. Which is why he ordered me to follow you.”

  Vargas thought about this. If Rojas was directly connected to Mr. Blister and friends, this conversation wouldn’t be taking place and Vargas would likely be lying in his motel room just entering the early stages of rigor mortis.

  But it didn’t hurt to ask.

  “So tell me,” he said. “Have you ever seen him hanging around with a guy with a burnt face? Six-one, Hispanic, long black hair?”

  Before answering, Garcia waited for the bartender to pour his refill, his gaze lingering unapologetically on her chest.

  When she was gone again, he said, “Not that I remember. Is this someone I should know about?”

  “A person of interest for the casa murders. If he didn’t do them himself, he’s definitely connected to the people who did.”

  Vargas took a folded square of paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to Garcia. He had written down the license plate number of Mr. Blister’s car.

  Garcia unfolded and read it. “This is his?”

  “A Lincoln Town Car. Probably stolen, but you never know.”

  “Maybe you should be the one wearing the badge.”

  “Just dumb luck, amigo. A matter of being in the wrong place at the right time.”

  “We should all be so lucky,” Garcia said, then picked up his drink and drained it.

  As he set the glass on the counter, a spotlight flashed onstage and Spanish rap music began to blast over the speakers. The curtain parted and a woman of about twenty stepped into the light wearing only flimsy lingerie—on a body that should have been declared illegal.

  Turning, Garcia grinned. “Carmelita,” he said. “You see a creature like that and suddenly the world doesn’t seem so bad after all.”

  Vargas said nothing. Just nodded as Garcia’s girlfriend launched into her act, a combination of dancing and acrobatics that put the ice cube girl to shame.

  When Carmelita was done, Garcia whistled and clapped loudly, and she gave him an appreciative smile as she gathered up her discarded clothes and a mountain of hundred-peso notes and dollar bills, then disappeared behind the curtain.

  “Let’s find a booth,” he said to Vargas. “I have something I want you to see.”

  Sliding off his stool, he reached to the floor and picked up a cheap leather satchel. Nodding toward the far side of the room, he gestured for Vargas to follow, and they moved to a dark booth.

  They slid in and Garcia placed the satchel on the table, then quickly unzipped it. He reached inside, pulled out a manila envelope, and handed it across to Vargas.

  Vargas turned it in his hands, then unfastened the flap and opened the envelope, taking out its contents:

  Three photographs.

  There was a domed candle on the tabletop. Vargas slid it over close and studied them in the flickering light.

  Crime scene photos. Shots of the Casa de la Muerte bedroom, overlooking the blood-soaked mattress where two bodies lay, one of them a woman in a USC sweatshirt.

  Angie.

  Vargas took out the pieces of the passport photo he’d retrieved from Rojas’s restaurant floor and laid them next to the crime scene photos.

  Was it the same woman?

  Hard to say. They looked similar, but the one in the crime scene photos was slightly older. Of course, the passport photo could be old, and two bullets in the chest had a way of aging you. Hell, a couple raps on the head had done a pretty good job on Vargas.

  He looked up at Garcia. “Have you tried to identify her?”

  Garcia shook his head. “Rojas does
n’t even know I have these. If I start digging, asking questions, he’s bound to find out, and I’d just as soon keep them to myself. My own form of protection, you might say.”

  He gathered up the crime scene photos, returned them to the envelope, then zippered it inside the satchel and slid it across to Vargas. “My gift to you.”

  “I assume you have copies?”

  “Digitized and stored on three different thumb drives. Rojas is computer illiterate, so they’re safe.”

  “I take it this case will stay cold forever.”

  “Only as long as Rojas is running things. But nothing is forever. He may be worried about you, but it’s me and my thumb drives he should be watching for.”

  Vargas nodded.

  “Just one last question,” he said. “Something I overheard that I’ve been curious about ever since.”

  “Okay.”

  “Have you ever heard of someone called El Santo?”

  Garcia looked at him blankly, but as the name sank in, his face began to drain of color. He said nothing for a long moment as another dancer took the stage and started stripping off her clothes to the cheers and applause of the regular patrons.

  “Where did you hear this?” he asked.

  “From the man with the burnt face. He said, ‘El Santo will bless him.…He blesses us all.’ And then there’s this.…” Vargas reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the rawhide string with the ring attached. “Ainsworth’s son told me that the American woman was wearing it when they found her. It’s only a cheap trinket, but it might have some significance.”

  Garcia looked at it. His color didn’t return. “La Santisima. What the hell have you gotten yourself involved in?”

  “I’m not sure. That’s why I’m asking.”

  Garcia was quiet again. Then he said, “You probably already know this, but worship of La Santisima is pretty common down here.”

  Vargas nodded. His own parents, who were both Catholic and emigrants from Nuevo Laredo, had spoken of her. Known by many different names—La Santisima, Santa Muerte, Dona Sabastiana—she was a grim reaper–like figure that many Latin Americans believed could perform miracles. All throughout Mexico you could find shrines to Saint Death, hooded statuettes surrounded by offerings of beads and flowers and bottles of tequila.

  And while the Catholic Church frowned on such worship as counter to its beliefs, this didn’t stop many of its followers from praying to her.

  As far as Vargas knew, there was nothing sinister in any of this, but the discovery of this ring, coupled with Mr. Blister’s mention of El Santo—or the Holy One—had raised a red flag.

  It might be nothing. But then again, it might be everything.

  “Most of the time, this stuff is harmless,” Garcia said. “Simple people praying for their health or their dying loved ones. But El Santo…that’s a different matter altogether.”

  “So who is he? Some kind of pagan god?”

  “We’re dealing in rumors again. Rumors that are far less reliable than the ones about Rojas. But it’s said that there is a cult of La Santisima’s followers, a cult that has distorted these simple beliefs and offers blood sacrifices in her honor. Led by someone known only as El Santo.”

  “Blood sacrifices,” Vargas said. “These don’t sound like friendly people.”

  “Just the opposite. El Santo is believed to be a messiah—the direct descendant of their God. And his followers will do anything he asks of them. Including kill.”

  “Shades of Charlie Manson.”

  “Some say they’ve been trafficking in drugs, but if that’s true, they’ve managed to avoid territorial disputes with the other cartels. Not an easy thing to do.”

  “Does this cult have a name?”

  “I’ve heard it called by many different names. But the one that seems to stick is La Santa Muerte.”

  The Holy Dead.

  Vargas felt his gut tighten. The words triggered a memory. Something Junior had said.

  You’re a dead man.

  You’re one of the dead men.

  Vargas thought about this a moment, then looked at Garcia.

  “Thanks for your hospitality,” he said, “but it’s time for me to go.”

  51

  IT TOOK HIM nearly two hours to find it.

  It was little more than a paragraph in the August 14 edition of the Albuquerque Examiner, a short blurb about the body of a female being discovered in the parking lot of a Taco Bell.

  No identification, no description, but she’d been found by a security guard who was making his rounds.

  The victim had “multiple gunshot wounds” but was still alive and had been taken to Burke Memorial Hospital.

  Albuquerque was close to a four-hour drive from Juárez but not beyond the bounds of possibility. If Rojas had been concerned enough about his career to commit murder, he surely wouldn’t have hesitated to make the drive. The farther away from his jurisdiction, the better.

  There were no follow-up stories. Nothing more about the victim—which, in Vargas’s experience, was not unusual. There was a time when multiple gunshot wounds would have been big news, but nowadays such things were an everyday occurrence. Fresh new stories of violence popped up so frequently that the old ones were quickly forgotten.

  Vargas stared at the computer screen and wondered what his next move should be.

  He sat in an Internet café located in a strip mall on Triunfo de la Republica. After leaving the Velvet Glove, he had gone back to his motel and slept fitfully through the rest of the night, dreaming about Mexican wrestlers who looked like Rojas and Mr. Blister and Charles Manson.

  At one point, Carmelita entered the dream, buck naked, carrying a wad of cash in one hand and a tray of ice cubes in the other. But before she got three feet into the room, she morphed into La Santisima, a grinning skull in a red satin hood and, like something from one of his brother Manny’s ghost stories, said, “I want my ring. Give me my beautiful ring.…”

  Vargas had awakened at the crack of dawn, relieved to discover he was still in his motel room. He took a quick shower, checked his head wound and found it healing satisfactorily, then pulled on some fresh clothes and his baseball cap and started driving, looking for an Internet café that opened early.

  He’d found this one almost immediately.

  After paying his fee, he went to a cubicle near the back, then fired up the computer and began his search. He had accounts with several newspaper archival services—an expensive but professional necessity—and after two hours of searching had finally struck gold.

  At least what he hoped was gold.

  Pulling out his cell phone, he cycled through his address book and found the number of a guy named William Brett, a reporter he’d met back in the old days who—if he recalled correctly—worked for the Albuquerque Examiner.

  He got him on the phone, reminded him who he was, and discovered that Brett didn’t need reminding.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  As with many of Vargas’s colleagues these days, there was unmistakable resentment in the guy’s voice. Vargas had, after all, betrayed their profession and had tainted everyone in the process—much like Rojas had tainted the Chihuahua state police.

  “I need a favor,” Vargas said.

  “Please don’t tell me you’re looking for a job.”

  Vargas paused. “No, I need information on a story your paper carried back in August. No byline.”

  “You’re actually working again?”

  There was just enough incredulity in Brett’s voice to irritate Vargas, but he kept his cool.

  “Strictly freelance,” he said. “The story is dated August fourteenth of this year, a woman with multiple gunshot wounds found in a Taco Bell parking lot. She was taken to Burke Memorial.”

  “Doesn’t sound familiar.”

  Vargas hadn’t expected it to but pressed on.

  “I’m hoping you can find out who worked it and see if they have any follow-up notes. She may be co
nnected to a story I’m working on.”

  “That’s a tall fuckin’ order,” Brett said. “What’s in it for me?”

  “If it pans out, I’ll give you first shot. An exclusive. Drug smuggling, murder, and the possible involvement of a Mexican religious cult. I’m working on a book, so anything you print is bound to help me down the road.”

  “Yeah? And how do I know you aren’t making all this shit up? I mention your name to my editor and he’ll laugh me out of his office.”

  “Fuck you,” Vargas said. “You don’t have to source me. You want in or not?”

  There was a pause on the line as Brett thought it over.

  “I’ll call you back,” he said, then hung up.

  The call came forty minutes later.

  Vargas was on the road again, traveling back along Highway 2, this time headed toward Columbus, New Mexico, where he hoped to cross the border without incident.

  Grabbing his phone from the passenger seat, he clicked it on. “Hey, Bill. Any luck?”

  “Your victim was a Jane Doe. Spent seven hours in surgery for gunshot wounds to the head and chest, almost died twice on the table. She was comatose for three days, but finally managed to pull through.”

  “Jesus Christ. She’s alive?”

  “Isn’t that what I just told you?”

  “Right, right,” Vargas said. “So what happened to her?”

  “Don’t know, didn’t ask. And that’s all the charity work you’re getting out of me.”

  “What are you talking about? I told you you could have an exclu—”

  “Dream on, Nicky boy. You’ve got about as much chance of anyone taking you seriously as I do of getting a blow job from an Argentinian whore. So I’m giving you this one because I’m a nice guy, but that’s it. Don’t call me again.”

  Then he hung up.

  Vargas dropped his phone onto the seat, feeling heat rise in his cheeks, wanting to put a fist into the dashboard.

  Fucking prick.

  But the sad sorry fact was that Brett was right. Getting anyone to take him seriously would be an uphill battle.

  But then he’d known that for a couple of years now and that hadn’t stopped him. Might even have fueled him.