Their eyes locked briefly, then a little smile played on the major’s lips.
He nodded, turned, snapped orders to his men, demonstrated his good manners by taking formal leave of the household (but without apology), and in ten minutes the soldiers were gone. The Lynx in leaving collided with a large jacaranda tree by the gate, shaking down a blizzard of violet blossoms that briefly covered the road like an imperial carpet, until the following vehicles ground it into pulp.
“That was nicely handled, Marder,” said Pepa Espinoza when the door closed behind the last trooper. “I admire your skills at negotiation. It was not what I had expected from a book editor.”
“That shows how little you know of the New York literary scene. I would much rather face a Mexican intelligence major than a literary agent pushing for an unreasonable advance. And, in any case, you were the critical factor. Even the army quails before the power of the press. I’m sure he would have torn the house down and hauled us all off to prison had it not been for your presence. Now, for almost the first time, I’m glad I saved your life.”
She pasted an unpleasant aggrieved expression onto her face, which Marder thought was a relic of Mom, and then, to his relief, she laughed. He hadn’t heard her laugh much, so it was like seeing a rainbow, joyful.
“Are they all gone?” This from Skelly, who strolled in from the kitchen holding a cup of coffee.
“Yes, you missed our writhing under the military boot. Where were you?”
“At Chiquita Ferrar’s. I was stashing my cannon in her pigpen.”
“I’ve never heard that particular euphemism before,” said Statch. “Did you just make it up?”
“That was a literal description, dear. She’s a lady of the colonia, married, four children. Her husband is in our employ, and we ate some of her pigs last night.” He asked Marder, “How did you ditch the army?”
Marder told him, and Skelly gave Pepa an appraising look. “You’re going to be a useful guest,” he said.
“I’m not going to be a guest at all. I have to be back in Defe for a taping day after tomorrow. I’m going up now to get dressed and call a cab.”
“I wouldn’t advise that,” said Marder. “As you told me yourself, Cuello owns the cab company. I don’t think his drivers are going to take you to the airport.”
It was clear to him that she had never thought of this possibility, and he wondered how the woman had stayed alive this long. A look of panic started to gel on her face, so he said cheerily, “I have a much better idea. I promised Lourdes I would take her to Defe if she stopped being a pain in the ass, and she has—so far—so we’ll all go to Mexico City. We’ll charter a plane, preferably not one owned by La Familia. You, me, Lourdes, Skelly—Statch, you’re welcome too. We’ll take Lourdes for her shopping trip and to launch her career as a big star.”
“Sounds great, but who’s going to provide security?” said Skelly. “There’s a single two-lane from the foot of the causeway into town, and they have people watching it. You can see them from the roof. I mean, we could take your truck and maybe blast our way through, but that’s a little risky. Or we could buy that boat we were talking about and take it to the Cárdenas marina, but then we’d have the problem of getting from there to the airport. Cuello probably has the port sewed up and, as you just said, cabs are out.”
“So what do we do, security man?” Marder asked. “I defer to your wisdom.”
“My wisdom says we had some guys here yesterday offering us protection and we turned them down. Maybe we should reconsider.”
“You mean the Templos?”
“Why not?” said Skelly happily. “That’s their business, after all, and they’re already at war with La Familia. I think you should get in touch with Servando Gomez.”
Marder smiled at the reporter. “And I bet Pepa here can tell us just how to do that.”
“I can. But how are you going to get to where he is? Cuello will have hawks out watching the road.”
“He’ll have to make a house call,” said Marder.
* * *
A white SUV arrived at the casa by arrangement the following afternoon, and two men got out of it.
One was very large, over six feet tall, with a belly that must have made it hard for him to see his feet. His head was shaved bald, and he wore a rectangularly trimmed mustache so deep and wide that the thing resembled the working surface of a small shoe brush. He was in his mid-forties, Marder estimated, with eyes as black and unfeeling as a shark’s. Although he was fat, he did not look soft; rather, he seemed to be constructed of a dense solid homogenous substance, like beeswax, and, like old beeswax, he had a tawny smooth surface. He had two chins and jowls, but they didn’t jiggle like jowls.
This must be El Gordo, Marder thought, and he could not suppress a thrill of fear. The man had committed, or ordered committed, countless murders and acts of torture, and Marder was entirely at his mercy just now. Then he recalled that his best friend had probably killed more people than El Gordo had and also (and this thought was never entirely absent from his mind) that he might die anyway at any moment when Mr. Thing popped, so what was he worrying about? He felt an idiotic little smile appear on his mouth.
The other man was smaller, a lot smaller than El Gordo, so that it was nearly comical to see them together, as in an old-time vaudeville act. He had a flat brown indio face with a scar under one of his dark eyes, and his hair was neatly trimmed into a military-style crew-cut, with faded sides. Marder thought at first that he had deep crow’s-foot lines extending out from his eye sockets, but then he saw that it was tattooing, a line of tiny teardrops that reached almost to his ears on either side. Both men were wearing dark suits and white shirts, and both wore heavy golden crucifixes on thick gold chains.
Marder met them at the door. “Don Servando, it’s good of you to see me. I believe I owe you an apology.”
Both men stared at him.
“Yes, when your representatives came to my house, I sent them on their way with a card, carrying the meaning that I was not a man to be trifled with or easily discouraged. I hope there won’t be any hard feelings because of this misunderstanding. I believe that we can in fact do some profitable business together, and I have two proposals in mind. Please come into my house.”
He led them through the living room to the terrace and seated them at a table under an umbrella. There was a big bucket full of ice and longnecks on the table. Marder offered, but they both refused.
“Coffee, then?”
“What do you want, Señor Marder?” said El Gordo.
Marder said, “You may have heard about the attack on my house the other day by elements associated with La Familia.”
El Gordo nodded. “Yes. I heard you used a cannon. I would have liked to see that.”
The voice was surprising, a soft, cultivated voice. Marder remembered something that Pepa had said, that Gomez had been a schoolteacher before being sucked into the general narcoviolencia of his region.
“It was an interesting event. And it has some bearing on the second of my proposals. But first things first. You already know that I’m not what I appear to be. If you were to check, you would find that I was a book editor in New York, mildly prosperous, a model citizen. But I am not entirely that person. During the Vietnam War I was involved in highly secretive activities in Laos and subsequently maintained certain contacts that I made there. Tell me, are you familiar with the name Van Mang?”
One of El Gordo’s bushy eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. “I’ve heard the name.”
“Yes, I thought you might have. So you probably know that General Van controls the production of heroin in the northern Laos area of the Golden Triangle. He gets his opium paste from Myanmar through Khun Sa’s old network and ships the refined product out through Bangkok and south China to be couriered by air to America and Europe. The general, however, now desires to avoid the many middleman fees and official payoffs required by this routing. He would like, for example, to transship his
product overland to Shenzhen, say, load it into a container, and deliver it to some organization in America. He has been shopping around for a distribution organization since the Chinese gangs were broken up over the last few years. So that would be the first opportunity—would you like to distribute General Van’s high-quality heroin?”
“How would it come in?” asked El Gordo. “It can’t come through Cárdenas port. Cuello has that tied up.”
“Yes, I know. But he doesn’t have Playa Diamante yet, and that brings me to the second part of this proposal. General Van also has a supply of weapons excess to his needs. I mean heavy weapons—ex-Soviet, ex-Chinese—and plenty of ammunition. This is the kind of machinery you can’t get through straw purchases in Arizona gun shops. I’m talking 12.7 machine guns, rocket launchers, assault rifles, grenades, even mortars if you want them. As I understand it, La Familia outnumbers the Templos three to one, not to mention the other cartels just waiting until you kill each other off so they can move in. If you had such weapons, no one would be able to touch you. The army would barely be able to touch you. So, does any of this interest you?”
Gomez nodded. The other man stared silently at Marder as if trying to look into his head.
“The weapons interest me more than the heroin, to be frank,” said Gomez. “And what interests me more than either of them is your property here on Isla de los Párajos.”
“Yes, you want to build a casino here. But the fact is, I don’t care to vacate the property at this time. I intend to develop it.”
“As a casino?”
“As a craft cooperative, shipping ceramics, metalwork, textiles, and paintings to the U.S. market. You might be interested in participating in such a venture. I’m sure it’ll be highly successful. Michoacán crafts have not been well-represented abroad, I’m afraid. I’m sure they’d sell like tortillas in a famine.”
“I don’t think so. I would prefer to have the casino. In fact, I think I will have to insist on it.”
“Don Servando, with all due respect, I believe a certain flexibility is called for here. There are any number of half-legal casinos along this coast, in Acapulco, in Puerto Vallarta. Buy one of those if you need a casino. What I am offering you is, first of all, the assurance that Cuello will not have Isla de los Párajos and, second, the opportunity to make a good deal of money in heroin and, third and most important, the means to dispose of your rivals and defend yourself against all comers, now and in the future. It’s the chance of a lifetime. I need not mention the fact that, should you turn me down, my principal will likely order me to make representations to La Familia, or to the Sinaloa cartel, or to the Zetas.”
“If you live.” This came from the thin indio.
Marder slammed his hand down on the table. “Oh, shit! If I live? You still seem to believe you’re dealing with one of your little local businessmen or some small-town mayor. All right, go ahead—shoot me, or chop off my head, or whatever you like, but within a week after you do, a rocket-propelled grenade is going to come through your door, and a heavy machine gun is going to spray the wreckage. Have some flexibility of mind, Don Servando!”
A little staring contest here. Then El Gordo said, “What was your general thinking for the product?”
“Forty a kilo. This is the quality that’s going for two hundred in New York and L.A.”
“Still, forty thousand’s too high. I’d have to pay ten a kilo to the Arellano Felix organization to move it across at San Ysidro, and beyond that they usually lose at least ten to twenty percent to the narcs.”
“You wouldn’t have to use Arellano Felix or any other transporter.”
A small smile appeared on the waxy face of El Gordo. “I’m not sure you understand the complexity of moving product in bulk. The Arellano and the other transport contractors have networks they’ve built up over many years: mules, drivers, vehicles, payoffs. That’s why they’re used, and that’s how they earn their ten thousand a kilo.”
“Yes, but you would have our craft cooperative. Every week, trucks would depart carrying pots and boxes of fabrics and statues, metalwork, whatever. Brightly painted trucks, with indio drivers. At odd times, the crafts would be packed in bags of your product. You wouldn’t need mules swallowing condoms, and you wouldn’t need Arellano Felix. Or the casino.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, let us say that Juan the potter ships forty pots a month and gets paid for forty pots, but we invoice four hundred very expensive pots to fictitious merchants who send the organizers of the cooperative nice clean checks from American banks. And what is more innocent than helping poor Mexican craftsmen sell their work on the world market? Whereas, everyone knows that a casino in Playa Diamante would be a money laundry. You would have the fiscals in your hair from the first day.”
“An interesting proposal. I will consider it.”
“Good. And I’ll send you a list of the weapons we can supply, although I believe General Van would prefer to do business exclusively with the buyers of his China White. Be that as it may, I have another item of business that would be a personal deal between the two of us.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Right now you provide protection for various parties in the region, and in the normal way of your business you are protecting them from yourself. I understand that, but what I would like to propose is that you provide actual protection to me and my associates. None of these good things that we’re discussing will come about if I’m assassinated or if I cannot move freely about the area. Obviously, I would pay any reasonable amount for this service.”
The other man spoke up. “Five thousand a week. Dollars, not pesos.”
Marder looked at the man. “And you are, Señor?”
El Gordo said, “I should have introduced you. This is Mateo Reyes. Señor Reyes handles security matters for our organization. I presume you have an associate with similar duties?”
“Yes,” said Marder, hiding his elation now. “His name is Patrick Skelly.”
“Well, then, we should arrange for Señores Reyes and Skelly to meet.”
* * *
“What happened then?” asked Skelly. They were sitting by the pool after Gomez and Reyes had departed. Chickens clucked in the streets of the colonia. Green parrots were making a racket above and dropping fruits from sapodilla trees onto the tiles of the terrace.
“I said I would arrange it, and then we all had a drink. Reyes said something about security services being payable in advance, and I pulled out my roll and peeled off five large. Then Gomez stood up—Christ, the guy is a truck! He must be six-three, three twenty at least. And he shook my hand and said he’d be in touch, and I asked him if he had my number, and he nodded and said, ‘You’ve already sent your card, Señor Marder.’ And then walked out.”
“Good, then it’s all set up. I get the impression he was more interested in the guns than in the dope.”
“Probably he has enough product of his own.”
“Yeah, but nobody doesn’t like China White; it’s like Sara Lee. He’ll go for it.”
“He’ll go for it? Patrick, I agreed to this scheme because you said it was the only way the Templos would provide security and let us move around freely. I asked you at the time about how we were going to handle the fact that we have neither weapons nor China White. Now we’ve promised a gangster we’re going to get him guns and high-end heroin. And our next move is…?”
Skelly gave him a strange look. “Our next move is to obtain the dope and guns, what do you think?”
“I mean seriously.”
“I’m being serious,” replied Skelly. “And don’t look at me like you’re a girl who just saw her first dick. How did you expect to survive in this place and do whatever it is that you came down here to do? Which, by the way, we haven’t had a discussion about yet. You wanted me to arrange security. In my professional opinion, this is the best way to do it.”
“Right, but I thought we could just pay for it.”
“You m
ean like the pool service? It don’t work like that, chief. Why the hell did you think I gave you all that stuff about General Van and the weapons and dope?”
“I don’t know,” said Marder, “to generate an air of authenticity, to come on as a tough guy?”
“And it never occurred to you that this gang of mass killers would be, let’s say, annoyed with us if we didn’t deliver?”
“So you’re suggesting that you can actually deliver this stuff?”
“Oh, yeah. I can deliver the dope. You wanted to set up this crafts deal anyway. As far as the weapons go, we’ll see.”
“Oh, Gomez won’t like that. His beady eyes were shining when I talked about the weapons.”
“Marder, think this through. If I have the kind of stuff I’m talking about in hand and the time to train enough of our colonia guys to use them, I couldn’t give a shit about what Señor Gomez likes.”
“You’re starting a war.”
“We’re in a war, boss. I’m only escalating it so we can scare off the big dogs, make it more trouble than it’s worth to get rid of us. Or we can just pack and go back to New York—your choice.”
“I’m staying.”
“Wonderful.” Skelly finished his beer and rose. “Meanwhile, I got to get busy on the sat phone and set up contacts for the Mexico City trip. And find a plane. And buy a boat.”
10
By that afternoon, there were two Templo trucks at the foot of the causeway, and when Marder drove his pickup out, they fell into formation, one in front and one behind. The Las Palmas Floridas Hotel was smaller and dingier than Marder remembered, but whether that was time, or neglect, or the absence of the bright varnish of youthful romance, he could not say. The flame tree at the entrance still stood, but now without its pool of bloodred petals. The fountain that had played and sparkled in the front courtyard was now dry and littered with food wrappers and plastic cups.
The lobby was dark and cool, as he remembered it, but there was a musty, greasy smell that his wife’s parents would not have tolerated when they ran the place. A fat youth sat behind the desk with his feet up on a crate, reading a fútbol magazine. He looked up without interest when Marder walked in, then returned to sport. The tables in the little restaurant were the same, even in the same positions on the floor, but what he recalled as a softly glowing polished hardwood floor had been covered with cheap tiles in an annoying chemical blue. The brass wall sconces were still in place but bulbless, smeared with greasy cobwebs, their light replaced by a long fluorescent fixture screwed into the plaster ceiling. The dining terrace was deserted except for some small yellow birds picking crumbs off the unswept tiles.
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