More than fifty feet from end to end, the outer edges were decorated much the same as the foyer downstairs. Everything picked out by some expensive interior decorator, paintings lined the walls depicting ocean and countryside scenes, the type of things that are noticed more for their framework than the images they conveyed.
Beneath them were sitting chairs and end tables, none of the items ever touched save by the occasional maid that came through to dust.
In the center of the space was where Reyes’s personal influence began to be noticed. Modeled after countless images he’d seen of the Oval Office, he’d been insistent on a pair of sofas sitting across from one another. Both made of matching leather in a deep burgundy hue, the bodies of them were overstuffed, decorative nail heads lining the edges.
Separating them was a polished coffee table sitting atop a floor rug.
The proverbial greatest homefield advantage in the world, recreated right in his own office.
Taking a step to the side, clearing a view for Ruiz to see how business in the modern age was conducted, Reyes said, “As I’m sure you heard, we relocated here several years ago.”
Turning over a shoulder to see Ruiz taking things in, Reyes continued circling to his right. Moving out around the sofas, he headed for the back end of the office, the place where the bulk of his waking hours were now spent.
The main feature of the office - the part that Reyes had noticed the very first time he stepped foot on the property, solidifying his decision to purchase - was the rear wall. Made from a series of floor-to-ceiling glass panels, they had been spread wide for the evening.
Along either edge, gossamer curtains swayed with the soft incoming breeze. Beyond them, a balcony looked out over the grounds, an expansive view aided by lights blazing around the property.
The perfect summation of what he was trying to build, the image he was meaning to convey. A place where he could oversee everything that was occurring, a watchful eye on all aspects of the business.
Just as they could do the same, looking up and knowing he was there, working every bit as hard as they were.
Exactly six feet in from the track the windows normally sat in was the desk Reyes had had specifically designed. Cut from oak painted solid black, it measured eight feet across, a full two more than any other available for purchase.
Behind it, the high-backed leather chair he’d also had designed to fit the desk was pushed in tight.
Across from the chair was a pair of padded visitor seats. Both comfortable and of a high quality, the only difference between them and most others was that the legs had been cut an inch shorter by design.
A nominal difference, but enough to ensure that anybody sitting across from him was forced to stare upward. To subconsciously realize who was in control from the moment they arrived.
Another trick he had learned from studying various leaders around the world, this one coming from someplace on the opposite side of the globe.
For some – men like Ruiz, for instance – such purchases would probably be foolish. Unnecessary posturing. An obsession with minutiae.
To Reyes, they were so much more than that. Small details that, when added together, greatly enhanced the whole. Helped to take things further than anything Ruiz had ever managed to build on his own.
Every item, every placement, was done with an exacting eye, a means of maximizing whatever advantage he thought could be gleaned.
“Looks like you’ve done quite well for yourself,” Ruiz said.
A conscious sidestep of the opening comment, Reyes felt folds of skin form around his eyes.
Eight long years, he had wondered if this day would ever arrive. How far in the future it might be, how things may play out.
Never would he have imagined that it would come so soon, but that part he could do nothing about.
Stopping along the side of the desk, Reyes placed a hand on the corner of it. Turning back, he regarded Ruiz a moment, sweeping his gaze the length of him.
And making no effort to hide it.
He’d heard it said that prison years were hard years, and if the man standing before him was any indication, the maxim held true. Having passed from the tail end of his thirties to the back half of his forties, he appeared to have aged far more. His hair, once thick and dark, was now pulling back at the temples, threaded with gray.
Deep lines framed his mouth and eyes.
A small paunch pushed out the front of the blue dress shirt he wore tucked tight into a charcoal suit that was clearly pulled off the rack somewhere that afternoon.
“Could you blame us for making some changes?” Reyes asked. “After all, you were the ultimate cautionary tale. Adapt or die.
Get with the times or spend the rest of your days in prison.”
With each word that passed his lips, Reyes found an inability to keep his true feelings from rising to the surface.
So badly, he wanted to rush forward on the man before him. To pick up a chair and beat him with it or order in the guards standing outside the door and have them empty their rifles into him.
For years now, he had been fighting against the specter of Junior Ruiz. Someone that had been martyred that night, the stories about how he stared down a dozen or more government agents growing with each retelling.
When in reality, there was nothing of the sort. Nothing but the man now standing before him, out of shape and out of sorts, completely passed by.
“So that’s what all this is?” Ruiz asked. “Adapting?”
Opening his mouth to respond, Reyes pulled up. A thin smile graced his lips, his head tilting slightly to the side. “Not just adapting. Thriving.”
Glancing to the standing clock along the wall, Reyes couldn’t help but notice that already five minutes had passed. Three hundred seconds in the same space as the man he had usurped.
And still he had no idea why he was there.
“Join me for a drink? I’ll show you what I mean.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Junior Ruiz might have been surprised that Ramon Reyes was the one to rise up in his wake, but he wasn’t the least bit shocked to find out this way how he was running things. A child of fortune, someone that had never wanted for a thing in his life, had no concept of actual work, would fixate on the unnecessary.
The parts that were entirely stylistic, void of any actual merit or value. Things like an excess of guards. And a gold-plated front gate.
Even the outfit the man now wore – replete with fitted patterned dress shirt, vest, and crocodile skin shoes – that looked more like what a young child would believe a successful person in the drug business should wear than anything a grown man would actually put on.
Noting that the tone and delivery of Reyes’s last words were more directive than question, Ruiz watched as he turned away. Heading for the open windows behind him, he passed over the metal track where the glass frames normally sat, a shadow falling over him as he stepped outside.
Standing, waiting until the darkness swallowed him up, Ruiz followed suit. Taking in his surroundings, careful to miss nothing, he stepped outside just far enough to get beyond the edge of the inner lights before pausing to let his eyes adjust.
Not quite the full length of the interior office, the balcony ran more than thirty feet across. Extended ten feet out from the building, potted plants rested in the corners, some sort of grassy spray rising up from them. Filling the space between them and the rear of the house were bench seats, thick cushions resting atop wrought iron frames matching the railing from the main staircase.
Set up in the right corner, hidden behind the stack of window panels and curtains still moving softly in the breeze was a small table. Lined atop it was an assortment of alcohols, bottles of various heights, their tops capped with oversized stoppers.
Based on everything else he’d seen thus far, Ruiz hated to even speculate how much money had been wasted on the spread. A quick glance at the labels on display showed them to be some of the more high-end p
roducts he had ever heard of.
And even a few he hadn’t.
Standing beside it was a single man. Shrouded in shadow, he was almost hidden in the dark suit he wore, his hands clasped before him. Somewhere north of fifty years of age, his thinning hair was combed straight back, his narrow shoulders drawn inward.
Staring straight ahead, he kept his focus fixed on Reyes, not once so much as glancing at Ruiz.
“What can he get for you?” Reyes asked, bypassing any attempt at introduction. “Tequila? Rum?”
The last alcohol Ruiz had tasted was champagne. The very same liquid that had stained the suit he wore home the day before, an offering at the quinceañera he’d been hosting when arrested.
Without question, any of the offerings atop the table would be divine. Drinks that under different circumstances, Ruiz would attack with aplomb, relishing every moment.
But now was not the time, any desire for such things completely lost on him.
“I’m actually okay right now.”
“You sure?” Reyes pressed. “We’ve had some of the best stuff in the world flown in for occasions such as this.”
Already, Ruiz could feel his patience for the self-importance on display wearing thin. With it, his ability to keep such feelings hidden was dipping quickly.
Even if the last eight years had been a daily lesson in maintaining a neutral face at all times.
Ignoring Reyes’s questions, he took a step forward, heading for the edge of the balcony. Resting his palms on the wide stucco railing, he looked down at the grounds before them, the spread vast as it sprawled outward in every direction.
A near copy of the landscape he’d ridden through on the cart minutes earlier, it looked to be an unholy mash of jungle and orchard, the scents of various fruits riding in on the breeze.
Underpinning them were various other smells, all of it pushed forth with each puff of air.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Reyes said. No small amount of self-satisfaction permeated his voice, the words bordering on smug.
Stepping up alongside Ruiz, he assumed a similar stance. Just a couple of feet separated the men as they stared out, surveying the property before them.
“Far cry from what we were doing down in Baja,” Reyes added.
The nails on Ruiz’s fingers flashed white as he pressed his fingertips down into the railing before him. Clenching his breath, he felt his entire body go rigid, his gaze fixed outward.
Not so much for the barb about the previous operation, but for the use of the pronoun we, Reyes somehow insinuating that he had played any role in the operation there.
Or that what was now spread around them was a result of anything but the years Ruiz had put in before him.
If Reyes noticed in the slightest, he gave no indication. Intent on continuing the tour that had never been asked for, he extended a finger. Starting on the far edge of the horizon line, he pointed at a pair of outbuildings.
“The problem before was, things were too small. Antiquated. People wrapping bricks by hand? Drug mules? Tugboats going up and down the coast? Things of the past.
“Here, I’ve got spaces set up and dedicated to packaging, shipping, product design.”
With each category he rattled off, he jabbed a finger at a particular structure. Working his way inward, he went until his hand was held straight before him, culminating with the enormous warehouse sitting a few hundred yards from the rear of the house.
Despite the hour and even at such a distance, a quartet of guards matching the ones downstairs was plainly visible. All shuffling listlessly from side to side, none covered more than ten or fifteen yards of ground, all watching for an enemy they knew was never arriving.
“To say nothing of that,” Reyes continued, “my newest achievement, the thing that is about to make me the biggest name in the cocaine business for the foreseeable future.”
Clearly there was more he wanted to say. Gloating to be done over how much their respective fortunes had shifted in the preceding years.
Barely able to pull up short, he paused, his mouth still open to deliver his next lines.
Again, the forced smile appeared.
“But enough about me.” As fast as it had arrived, the smile faded, Reyes’s features hardening. His hand dropped to his side, his body turning.
Placing a hip against the balcony rail, he folded his arms before him. “I want to hear about you. What you’ve been up to these last few years.”
Leaning forward an inch, he added, “Why the hell you think we have a single thing to parlay about.”
Pulling his focus from the grounds around them, from the gleaming warehouse structure designed to draw attention, Ruiz shifted his gaze to Reyes. Moving slow, he allowed the mask he’d been wearing since arrival to peel away.
The malevolence he felt for the man before him settled behind his eyes, one side of his nose rising in a bit of a snarl.
“You know, I’ve had eight years to think about this moment. More than two thousand nights lying awake, imagining exactly what I would say if I ever got this chance.”
Matching the pose and seemingly the wrath that Ruiz felt, incredulity flooded across Reyes’s features, his nostrils flaring.
“But now that I’m standing here, you know what I realize?” Ruiz continued. “I don’t have one thing to say to your sorry ass.”
His focus so intent on Ruiz, on the venom flowing through his system, Reyes never noticed the man step away from the makeshift bar in the corner. Not once did he hear a sound as the man unbuttoned his suit coat and slid a revolver from the small of his back.
A look of surprise never even got the chance to cross his face as the gun was placed to the back of his head and the trigger pulled.
Making no effort to pull back, to distance himself from the spray of blood and bone and brain matter that exited above Reyes’s right temple, Ruiz stood completely still. He watched as most of the face of the man that had tried to take his place was removed, spray cascading over the rail of the balcony and down the side of the house, a red streak atop the white stucco.
Ignoring the blood that striped the front of his suit, the few stray droplets that landed on his cheek, Ruiz waited as Reyes’s body pitched forward onto the top rail. As gravity slowly won out, muscle memory unable to keep him upright.
Even as he slid down to the floor, landing in a twisted heap.
In the quiet of the balcony, the shot seemed especially pronounced. Echoing out over the grounds below, it spread quickly, reverberating onto the treetops before returning in a faint echo.
Standing so close to the explosive sound, a faint buzz sprouted in Ruiz’s right ear, though still he remained still.
His gaze fixed on the remains of Reyes, he slowly raised his focus to the man before him. To the way he remained with the gun extended at arm’s length, a twisted curl of smoke rising from the end of it.
Regarding him for a full moment, a hint of a smile played at the corner of his mouth.
“It’s good to see you, Arlin.”
Slowly, the gun was lowered. Falling against Mejia’s right thigh, he matched the thin smile.
“Good to see you too, El Jefe.”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Even at ten minutes before seven in the morning, traffic was already starting to line up heading into San Diego. Beginning on the outer edge of the urban sprawl that had steadily worked its way outward since I moved away six years prior, it was obvious that within a half hour the place would be a veritable parking lot.
My only hope was that we made it to the tipping point and were heading opposite the heaviest flow by then.
Sitting in the passenger seat, a pale blue folder rested atop my lap. Stamped with the same DEA logo that they seemed so intent on imprinting onto every office supply in the building, I peeled back the cover to find the face of Junior Ruiz staring back at me.
Dressed in a pink dress shirt and tan suit jacket, he glowered at the camera beneath disheveled hair, disdain seem
ing to ooze from every pore.
A stance I could attest was pretty accurate, having been standing right beside the photographer when it was taken.
One more image, one more memory, I would just as soon do without.
Sliding the paperclip away that was holding it in place, I shifted the photo to the opposite side of the folder, flipping it over so as to not have to look at the man another moment.
Already, my hostility was running high. It wasn’t like a visual staring back at me was going to do much good.
Beneath the photo was more than a dozen sheets of paper, standard writeup for closing a case. Beginning with the top page, there was a basic overview, the name of the target, time, date, and location all noted.
Flipping the sheet back, the next several in order were all detailed transcripts of what had taken place. Arranged in a chronological timeline, they walked through the various steps of the investigation, beginning with what first put him on our radar and continuing through everything that secured the need for action.
“Eighteen months,” I whispered, riffling through the sheets. One item after another was detailed in order, some I was an active part of and remembered clearly, others I had only been appraised of after the fact.
“What’s that?” Diaz asked. Most of her features hidden behind thick sunglasses, she looked my way, early morning blaze reflecting across the lenses.
“A damn year and a half we tracked this bastard,” I said, matching her gaze for a moment. “Look at this.”
Lifting the stack of pages, I let them pass against the pad of my thumb, all falling back into place.
“And they just let his ass walk out after eight years?”
“Oh, I can do you one better than that,” she replied. Shifting her focus back to the freeway, she worked her way between a pair of semi-trucks, leaning on the gas to get by them.
“You know how generally when somebody gets out of jail, there is a specific sequence? They have a parole officer assigned, put down a name and address where they can be reached, said officer goes and checks out the place...”
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