Hard Luck

by Pascal Scott

  “And it is easy, it is so easy for them. Because what man can resist a beautiful young woman? I have heard tales that some of my Zorras do not let go of their Uzis even as they are making love. This is a thrill for some men. These men call my Zorras the hot chicks. Or so I have heard. Las Zorras are like the deadly spider that kills its mate. They make love to my enemies and then they kill them for me. Is this what you wish to be, little one? A Zorra?”

  “Sí, Padrino,” she answered. “This is what I wish to be.”

  “Very well, then. You will be trained like my men. And then you will work for me alone. Never for anyone else. Never again for your friends in California. Do you understand?”

  “Sí, Padrino.”

  His mouth formed a thoughtful frown. For a moment, she wondered: Is this a trick? A joke? Was he going to laugh now and take her life? Would the last thing she felt be a wire around her throat as El Ladrillo came from behind, slicing open her neck?

  But no, El Padrino said quietly, “Then you are free to go, my Zorra.”

  Down in the lobby with its gleaming marble floors and polished chrome fixtures, in a stall in the ladies’ room, La Pequeña made it to the toilet just time.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  In a city of more than eight-and-a-half million people, Elizabeth didn’t know how she was going to find Teresa Barrera. People like the Barreras didn’t make their addresses public for a very good reason. Kidnapping was epidemic in Mexico, happening every day, according to a feature story Elizabeth was trying to read in Spanish. She had picked up the rumpled Ahora magazine on a table in the lobby of El Presupuesto, a budget hotel in the Centro Histórico District and brought it upstairs to her fifteen-dollar-a-night room. The sons and daughters of Mexico’s elite were always in danger of being kidnapped and held for ransom, the article reported. Even narcotraffickers were not safe. Recently, the son of a well-known drug lord had been kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by a rival cartel.

  Elizabeth remembered that Teresa’s father owned a mass media conglomerate called Televisa Azteca. As a billion-dollar enterprise, the business was a perfect money-laundering operation. Elizabeth knew she could go to its headquarters on Paseo de la Reforma and explain her situation, saying she was an old college dormmate looking for Teresa. Oh, sure. Like that wouldn’t be suspicious, given all the kidnappings. No doubt the receptionist would call la policia, who would take Elizabeth off for questioning. No, that wasn’t a good idea.

  Still, Elizabeth needed to talk to Teresa. She needed protection. What if Denise had hired another hit woman? Elizabeth was already looking over her shoulder, getting more paranoid by the hour. After checking in on Sunday, June 2, Elizabeth had slept until noon the following day. Monday, she was sick as a dog. “El mal de altura,” said the maid who came to put fresh towels in the bathroom and clean sheets on the bed. Altitude sickness. “La ciudad de Mexico tiene 7,382 pies de altura.” It was 7,382 feet high here in Mexico City. But if the señorita rested, she would be fine.

  And she was. By Tuesday, Elizabeth was feeling normal again. And hungry. She left her room and ventured out, walking down Paseo de la Reforma until she found a café that served fried tacos and bottled water. After leaving the restaurant, she passed a pharmacia and then doubled back and went inside. She said “traveler’s diarrhea” in English and was asked, in Spanish, if she had it. She said no, she wanted to prevent it. She couldn’t remember the Spanish word for prevent, so she said that in English, too. She was going to have to improve her Spanish. The pharmacist gave her a bottle of Bactrim as a profiláctico, a prophylactic.

  Elizabeth continued down the Reforma, looking for a newsstand. She remembered how Teresa had complained about the unreliable mail service in Mexico. Newsstands thrived because residents didn’t trust delivery of their favorite tabloids. Elizabeth walked five blocks before she found one. Plastic-wrapped magazines and newspapers hung from brightly colored clothespins that had been clipped to the wire frame of what looked like a human-size chicken coop. Inside the coop on a stool sat a bored-looking vendor in a purple dress.

  All the publications were in Spanish except one called News Flash. Elizabeth bought it for three pesos and then walked across the street to a park bench. The front page covered local news. “Big cocaine haul found in shipment of frozen strawberries,” read one headline. “Between 30-50 percent of all crimes in Mexico involve organized crime” was another. “The cartel’s drug war in 1996: turf war clashes rage on,” yet another.

  At the bottom of the page, she saw a line that caught her attention. “Two Americans on the run from U.S. authorities were arrested last week in San Pedrito,” it read. But no, it was a twenty-year-old case involving middle-aged hippies wanted for smuggling marijuana. The U.S. Marshals Service had them in custody, the article reported. After twenty years, Elizabeth thought. The feds just don’t give up.

  She needed an American paper. She returned News Flash to its plastic sleeve and left it on the bench, then walked back across the street to the vendor.

  “Pardóname. ¿Dónde está la biblioteca, por favor?” she asked. Where is the library, please?

  “¿La biblioteca americana?”

  Elizabeth didn’t know there was an American library in Mexico City.

  “Sí.”

  It was named after Benjamin Franklin, and like just about everything else in the city, it was located on Paseo de la Reforma. The bronze plaque on the brick entrance informed visitors that the library had been established in 1942 to “promote friendship and understanding between Mexico and the United States.” Franklin, Elizabeth thought. How appropriate. Because wasn’t the “friendship and understanding” between Mexico and the U.S. all about the Benjamins?

  The library was clean, bright, and comfortable. She went to the shelves and pulled out an encyclopedia of Mexican biographies. Flipping to the B’s, she found Barrera and stood, reading. Emilio Barrera Vásquez was the present owner of Televisa Azteca, the mass media conglomerate that controlled ninety percent of the programming in Mexico. Founded by Emilio Barrera Tapia in 1955, the business passed upon his death in 1972 to his son.

  Elizabeth skimmed down the page to the section called “controversies.” Among the controversies were rumors that the Barrera family laundered drug money through Televisa Azteca, although this involvement had never been proved. The most incriminating incident occurred in 1993 when six vans loaded with Televisa Azteca equipment were stopped at the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Nicaraguan customs agents discovered nine million dollars in cash and an undisclosed amount of cocaine. Don Emilio claimed ignorance, saying he had no knowledge of criminal activity on the part of any of his employees. A year later, a reporter investigating the incident for a Juarez newspaper disappeared and was never seen again.

  Elizabeth returned the book to the shelf. Teresa was the daughter of Emilio Barrera Vásquez and the granddaughter of Emilio Barrera Tapia. She was an heiress to the Televisa Azteca fortune and a daughter of an alleged narcotrafficker. If anyone had the power to help Elizabeth, it would be Teresa.

  From a display of newspapers, Elizabeth found a copy of Monday’s Los Angeles Times and took a seat in a padded armchair. She would have preferred the San Francisco Chronicle, but a bespectacled librarian with Coke-bottle lenses told her that because the Chronicle didn’t have a bureau in Mexico City, it was not available. The LA Times was the only California newspaper the library carried.

  Elizabeth was looking for two reports, the murder of Billy and the Brink’s heist. There was nothing about Billy, but maybe a murder in San Francisco was considered a local story and not worth a mention in a Southern California newspaper. But on page three, she found the other story. “Brink’s Thief May Be in Mexico,” read the headline.

  “Michelle Forrest, 32, the Brink’s driver who made off with $7.5 million in cash Friday may be hiding out in Mexico City. According to FBI Special Agent John Clegg, Forrest was part of a two-man crew sent to the San Francisco International Airport on Friday mo
rning to pick up a shipment of cash for the Federal Reserve. Forrest dropped her partner off and took the armored car, according to Clegg. The Brink’s vehicle was found abandoned in the parking lot of the Airport Hilton.

  “Clegg says Forrest may have used a stolen car to drive to the Mexican border. U.S. Customs surveillance photos show Forrest entering Mexico on foot. In Tijuana, an Aeromexico travel agent sold a plane ticket for Mexico City to a woman she identified as resembling Forrest. Forrest is believed to be traveling under the alias Heather Carpenter.

  “‘One of our employees seized an opportunity to remove a truck away from the surveillance of the other crew member,’ said Mark Douglas, vice president of operations for Brink’s.

  “Douglas said his company is working with the FBI in offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the indictment or arrest of the suspect or the return of the stolen currency.”

  They had done it. Denise and Mickie had stolen seven-and-a-half million dollars. No wonder Denise wanted Elizabeth dead. Split three ways, that would have been two-and-a-half million each. Halved with Mickie, it would be three-point-seven-five million, minus the cost of the hit on Elizabeth. Denise had done the math.

  Or maybe Denise had gone even further. If she were plotting the murder of Elizabeth, why stop there? Why not kill Mickie, too, and keep everything for herself? That was a reasonable question. What had La Pequeña said? When a woman wants you dead, she won’t stop until you’re dead. Elizabeth realized suddenly that she didn’t know Denise at all. Until last Friday, when a hit woman shoved a gun into her back, Elizabeth had no idea what Denise was capable of.

  Back in El Presupuesto, Elizabeth was unlocking the door to her room when she noticed a youngish white guy coming down the hall. He smiled as he inserted a keycard into the door of the room next to hers. Something about his squared shoulders inside a blue polo shirt tucked into nondescript khakis and his steady blue eyes made her uncomfortable. She hadn’t thought more about him until she was safely inside her room. He could be just a tourist, traveling on the cheap. But what if he was a hit man? What if someone had followed her from Belize?

  She would need to find Teresa. She would need the help of the Barreras.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Denise’s dealer in San Francisco was a low-level twink who supplemented his drug sales by hustling on Polk Street. Ziggy was skinny and twitchy and had darty eyes that made Denise nervous. But he promised to deliver a hit man to do the job in Mexico.

  “No,” Denise corrected. “It’s gotta be a hit woman. Somebody who can go into the girls’ clubs and blend in.”

  Ziggy was still in bed when Denise had buzzed his apartment on Polk Street to let her inside. He answered the door wearing only a pair of tighty-whities.

  “Nice,” Denise said sarcastically.

  Ziggy had lowered his thin frame into a sitting position on the edge of his unmade bed. A red and black checkered bedspread thrown back revealed vomit-stained sheets. Jesus. But without the Angels, Denise didn’t know where else to turn for a contract killing.

  “If she can’t find Lizbeth through Mickie at the Hotel Rosa, then she’ll need to look in the clubs,” Denise was saying now. “Lizbeth is bound to show up at one of them sooner or later. Your hit girl needs to take them both out. Mickie and Lizbeth. I want them both out of the way. You got that, Ziggy?”

  Ziggy’s pinpointy gaze shifted away and then came back. Denise pulled his limp right hand away from the bony, pale knee on which it rested.

  “There’s five hundred dollars now,” Denise said, counting five Benjamins into his palm, “and there’s five hundred when it’s over.”

  Ziggy nodded toward the money.

  “And here’s their pictures.”

  She set Elizabeth’s Omega ID on the bedspread along with a glossy snapshot of Mickie on her Harley.

  “You trust this girl? Your hit woman?” Denise asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Denise didn’t and wasn’t feeling too sure about Ziggy, either, but she had run out of options.

  “How soon can she go down?” This was Monday, June 3. Mickie had been in Mexico City since Friday night.

  “Soon.”

  “Just get it done, Ziggy. Just get the job done.”

  “No problem,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  On Tuesday morning, Elizabeth turned on the small TV inside her hotel room to check the weather report. And there on the blue screen was Teresa Barrera, Televisa Azteca Meteorologa, standing in front of a seven-day forecast. MX Min 59 Max 80. JU Min 54 Max 79. VI Min 55 Max 81. Each day was marked by a bright egg-yolk-orange dot cut in half by a horizontal line. Below the line were rain-dropped diagonals that indicated afternoon showers. Standing beside the yolk was Teresa in a tight-fitting red dress, speaking so rapidly that Elizabeth could catch only an occasional word. Mañana. Solamente. Caliente. How was Elizabeth ever going to understand this language if the speakers didn’t slow down?

  Teresa Barrera hadn’t changed. The last time Elizabeth saw her was nine years ago at UC-Santa Cruz when the four friends from Cowell Hall—Elizabeth, Teresa, Emily, and Karen—had posed for a graduation photograph in their caps and gowns. Teresa still had the same pretty round face, the same full lips, the same flawless brown skin and gleaming white teeth. The only difference now was her hair. She had lightened it from black to ash and streaked it beige-blond.

  She remembered Teresa almost bragging to her dormies that her father was a narcotrafficker. So what if he is? was her attitude. So what if the Barreras supply coke to rich gabachos, why blame the Barreras and not the gabachos? There was no supply without demand and until norteamericanos stopped buying, someone was going to sell them product. It might as well be the Barreras.

  Elizabeth conceded that Teresa had a point. Richard Nixon’s War on Drugs had been fought against brown people to incarcerate black people, and every American president since the 1970s had gone along with the program. The CIA did secret deals with drug lords while the talking heads in the White House assured the American people that their tax dollars were not being wasted. There was plenty of blame to go around.

  Elizabeth left a message for Teresa with the station XHDOS-TV. It wasn’t Teresa but her assistant who returned the call Wednesday afternoon. Teresa was free for lunch Thursday, the pleasant voice said, would that be good? It would. It would be very good.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Special Agent John Clegg had jowly cheeks and a weak chin, dark beady eyes, and hair cut short with sideburns above his ears. He wore a white Oxford shirt with a maroon tie, tan khakis, and a black belt on which he had holstered his Glock 22 and pinned his FBI badge. When he had tracked her down Tuesday afternoon, Denise had let him inside her apartment, even offered him a cup of coffee, which he had declined. There was nowhere to sit except the bed, so he stood. She stood, too, and then realized she could still smell the morning’s marijuana in the small room. While he flipped the pages of a pocket notebook, she moved to the window and opened it.

  “Ms. Forrest’s co-workers at Brink’s told me you and she dated. Is that correct?” he asked.

  “No, we didn’t date. We were friends, that was all,” Denise lied.

  He made a note. “How would you describe Ms. Forrest?”

  “Mickie? Oh, Mickie is a sweetheart. Mickie is just an all-around nice person.”

  “Any drug usage?”

  No sense hiding it. Especially since he could probably smell it in the air. “Yeah, sometimes, we smoked a little dope together.”

  “Do you have any marijuana here now?”

  Fuck.

  “Yeah.”

  “Would you mind getting it for me?”

  “Why? So you can take it back to your car and smoke it?”

  “Just get it, please.”

  She went to the dresser drawer, removed a baggie, and handed it to him. He confiscated it without saying a word, slipping it into a side pocket of his khakis.

  �
��Was that a test?” Denise asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Was that some kind of test?”

  He smiled. She thought he looked like a hamster. “Actually, it was. I was seeing if you were going to tell me the truth. You did.”

  “Gee, lucky me. I passed the test.”

  “Do you have any idea where Ms. Forrest might have gone?”

  “No. Maybe Canada.”

  He looked surprised. “Why Canada?”

  “She has a Harley. It’s a nice ride, I’ve heard.”

  “Ms. Forrest rode her Harley to work on the morning of the thirty-first, but it seems to be missing.”

  “There. See?”

  “You’re saying she could carry eight bags of cash on a motorcycle?”

  “She had saddlebags.”

  He jotted another note. “Would you be willing to take a lie-detector test?”

  “No,” she answered.

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “You know, Ms. Holland, when you fail to cooperate, it makes you look like you have something to hide.”

  “Is there anything else, Agent Clegg?”

  He closed his pad. “No. We’ll be in touch.”

  He started for the door. “One more thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re not planning on leaving the country any time soon, are you?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “Because that might not be advisable.”

  “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Goodbye, Ms. Holland.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  At exactly 2:00 p.m. Thursday, Elizabeth was sitting at the power table of Besos, a trendy dark wood and mosaic stone restaurant on Paseo de la Reforma. Elizabeth had learned enough about the food industry from her stint as a dishwasher for the Omega Café to know that high-profile guests like Teresa Barrera were always seated in a private booth with a full view of the floor—the better to see and be seen. The best tables in the house were round like this one, so that no one would be forced to sit at the head. Power brokers and stars had big egos, and restaurant owners knew better than to give them an excuse to feel slighted even before the meal began.