The Wizards 1: Combat Wizard
Page 21
The last job had been a young woman, that much I could tell. They used no name, and maybe they had never known the name of the victim. One of the two hadn’t cared, but the other had experienced a kind of sexual excitement, as if he’d originally intended rape as well as murder. But that had been outside the scope of their instructions, so he had reluctantly abandoned the idea. They had collected money from someone I couldn’t identify, but who might have had something to do with the Gulf Cartel. I was picking up a little, but not enough; it was very frustrating.
It was all extremely tenuous, but the two men had mutilated the body of the victim after death in order to make the statement their paymaster wanted to make. Their thoughts had something to do with property, and a senior member of the cartel, whichever one it was. Their thoughts mentioned several of the Juarez cartels and I couldn't tell which one they had been paid by. Whichever one it was, they were clearly respectful of their employer. They had respect, and a certain amount of fear.
I waited. Eventually I picked up more, although I couldn’t have explained how I did it. There was something about a Juarez Cartel and something else about a Sinaloa Cartel. Perhaps they would be taking a job from one to operate against the other, or perhaps they were simply discussing the cartels as potential employers. I couldn’t be sure.
There were names too, mostly nicknames, but the identities flowed through the conversation, almost always El Something.
I decided the level of excitement among the young men in that apartment had something to do with what I was picking up.
As for the BCN family, as they thought of themselves, I couldn’t tell if they were an offshoot of Barrio Azteca or if they simply wanted to join that organization. It was frustrating, but finally I decided I’d heard enough.
It actually took about two minutes. That meant the two of them were still together. I wondered what her family thought of this; I had gotten the impression that they were fairly conservative; they wouldn't approve of their daughter staying with a norteamericano.
There was a short pause.
I stopped at a Chico’s Tacos and got a couple of beef stew burritos with green sauce. I was comfortably stuffed when I left to meet Ray.
I parked in the garage and locked the truck. I was beginning to feel the same way I had before going out on a patrol in the Rockpile; a bit excited, some anticipation, not a lot of worry, but a trace of that too. Still, I didn’t think I could use the bubble to protect myself if I ran into trouble over there. The problem with the bubble is that it will protect you, but you can’t move around much while you're inside and you can’t take offensive action. It’s why I doubt that the bubble is a separate Talent; instead, it's just a different manifestation of the PK ability.
I was waiting when Ray parked, and we walked out of the parking garage together. Neither of us felt like talking, so we just turned south and headed for the bridge.
Pass the US Customs and Border Patrol checkpoints; go through a one-way turnstile, then walk across the border. At the top of the bridge arch is a sign delineating the American from the Mexican side. There’s a huge Mexican flag flying a few blocks south of here to drive the point home.
Mexican peddlers accosted tourists just past the top of the bridge. We ignored them and kept walking, on past Mexican Customs. We had nothing to declare. There was a fat cop in a uniform with a peaked military-style hat and what appeared to be a bullet-resistant vest. He also carried an ornate M1911 Colt .45 in a stamped belt holster. He wasn’t interested in us, and I couldn’t tell if he was even interested in people crossing the bridge in the opposite direction. Did he actually have a job, or was he someone’s cousin? In Mexico, there’s no telling.
There was a military truck up ahead, Mexican Army, I thought. Open back, troops seated on wooden benches wearing helmets and body armor, and with rifles openly displayed. I had no idea what they were doing.
We found a bar on the main street and settled in to wait. The beer’s not bad in Juarez, but don’t trust the ‘whiskey’. Or, for that matter, the tequila.
I expected to see a lot of people on the street; this was, after all, a main artery between the two cities. But there weren’t very many visible. The drug wars have really messed up a once-thriving city. I guess the cartels are no more interested in bipartisanship than the US Congress is.
I soon picked up traces of two of the gang members, the ones I’d sensed earlier, as they crossed the border. We had just ordered fresh beers so we quickly drained those and I left my change on the bar as a tip. We walked out and turned right.
I spotted the two ahead of us, but very briefly. A car, an American Ford sedan with a Chihuahua Fronterizo plate, had stopped, and the two got into the back seat.
I recognized the yellowish color of the plates. Perhaps the car had been purchased in El Paso, or maybe it had been stolen, then licensed in Mexico. Mexican cops often end up driving cars like that. Whoever he was, the driver picked up our quarry and took them away, leaving us stranded on the sidewalk looking after them. The taillights flashed for a moment as the car turned right two blocks away, I lost the connection, and they were gone.
I didn’t know and said so. We stood there for a moment but we had no idea of where those two might be going. We finally decided there was nothing more we could do and headed back across the border. I got into my truck and Ray took off in his Volvo.
I went back to the apartment; there was still no sign of Shezzie. I wondered whether I should call her, but decided that it could wait.
If she wanted to call, she knew where to find me.
Chapter Twenty
I hadn’t bothered to set up the coffeepot this time. Shezzie woke me with a comm anyway; I guess she knew when I usually got up.
Two minutes later I commed her.
We said our goodbyes and I commed Ray. I was feeling much better after her comm; the feeling of being along again had weighed on me more than I wanted to admit, that feeling that we might be drifting apart.
He sounded defensive, I sounded mildly sarcastic; we broke the comm, and I got cleaned up and headed out for two breakfasts. And two of Mickey D’s large coffees; I guess that’s how they stay in business. It’s not that the food is so tasty, it’s just that people are too busy to take time for a better-quality meal.
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Ray came in, we ate, and then made sketchy plans. We would just go down, park nearby, then maybe walk around and see if we could pick up more information; for all I knew, maybe the gangers had found religion overnight. We could look around where I'd picked up the thoughts yesterday, then decide what to do.
We headed out, following the same route I’d taken the previous afternoon. I passed directions to Ray and he circled the block where I’d located the gang yesterday.