“Even extending to entering Mexico under false pretenses?”
Marder said nothing to that, and after a pause, the man continued. “And I’m sure you don’t know that Patrick Skelly, under several aliases, has been deeply involved with the Khun Sa cartel in Asia and with gunrunning out of China. He deals with terrorists and drug smugglers and human traffickers, the worst of the worst. It surprises me that you should have a friend like that. Book editors don’t usually have international criminals as pals.”
“We were in the Vietnam War together. He saved my life.”
Marder had noticed this before, what happened when he mentioned that he’d been in combat in Vietnam to American men who hadn’t been there and were trying to act tough. A small deflation appeared in their faces, certainly involuntary. And, as now, they acted even tougher in compensation.
“Okay, Ricky, let me tell you what’s really going on. Your pal is setting up an operation here, maybe for some U.S. outfit, maybe for the Asians. The situation with the cartels is fluid, and this section of the coast is up for grabs. He’s using you as cover, you and your retirement and this stupid crafts bullshit you’re involved in. Crafts my ass! He’s training a private army to defend his drug operation, and I’ll bet my next three paychecks he’s got some kind of arms delivery on the way. Now, I don’t know how you feature in his plans, and I don’t care, but let me say this, and you can take it to the bank. From now on we are going to be all over your case. We are going to know who you meet and what comes in and out of that place. We’re going to be closer to you than that little chica you’re fucking, and you’re not going to get rid of us like you got rid of the bitch’s ex tonight. You’re dirty, Ricky, and I’m going to bring you down. You’re going to spend your retirement in a super-max cell with the other wiseguys.” He tore a piece of paper from his notebook, wrote on it, and stuck it in Marder’s shirt pocket. “There’s my direct number. If you ever want to stop your bullshit and stay out of jail, you’ll give me a ring.” He picked up his folder, said, “Hasta la vista, asshole,” and walked out.
Varela bent over and unlocked the handcuffs. He went over to the door and held it open and Marder walked through. Down the lit hallway again, Varela leading. He stopped at an unmarked door, knocked.
Gil opened it and they exchanged some words, speaking too softly for Marder to understand. Then Gil left the doorway, and for a moment Marder could see that he was not alone in the room. There was a young man in there, wearing a silky pale-tan suit over a white turtleneck with a gold-chain pendant. It was a memorable face, and Marder had seen it before: through the excellent optics of his rifle scope. It was the face of the man who had run out of one of the cars that Skelly had disabled when La Familia had attacked the house, the man who seemed to be in charge.
Gil returned and handed Marder the plastic bag with his wallet and cell phone. When Marder opened it, a burned smell floated free. He looked at the cell phone, sniffed it. He imagined that someone had popped it into a microwave for thirty seconds, turning it into a desk ornament.
Varela said, “You’re free to go.”
“How am I supposed to get back home?”
The policeman shrugged. “You could call a cab. Use your cell phone.”
“It’s dead.”
“Find a pay phone, then. There’s one at the end of the street. Just get out of here.” He made a shooing motion with his hand.
Marder left the office and walked down the concrete steps until he reached the small landing that led to the parking area. He switched the landing light off, opened the steel door a crack, crouched down, and peered out. The vehicle he had arrived in was still parked there. He dropped to the floor, shoved the door outward very slowly, just enough to pass his body through, and closed it as silently as he could. The click it made as the latch engaged sounded like a gunshot as he low-crawled down from the little platform in front of the door and squatted in its shadow, sheltered by the bulk of the SUV.
He chanced a look around the curve of its front fender. There were two cars parked at the curb, a dark van and a large sedan of some kind. They should have been illuminated by a nearby streetlamp, but the bulb had conveniently gone out. All he could see from his present location was the red spark of the cigarette being smoked by someone leaning against the side of the van. The plan was obviously to snatch him as he walked unwarily out of the building to look for the supposed pay phone, as he would certainly have done had he not spotted the La Familia honcho in the office with Gil.
Marder received something of an illumination at this point. He thought he had come to terms with death, or at least with Mr. Thing, but he now found that he really, really did not want to be dismembered alive by the butchers of La Familia and his torso left in the plaza with an illiterate scrawl as his epitaph. It offended his editorial taste, for one thing, and he thought it would hurt his daughter and the community that had formed around Casa Feliz. I have a reason to live, he thought, surprising himself, or at least a reason to avoid dying in that particular way, which at present amounted to the same thing.
He heard scuffling sounds and a quick curse, and then the door behind him opened and a man came through. He must have stumbled on the darkened landing; Marder could not see who it was, but it had to be the man who’d been with Gil. He must be coming out all confident that Marder had already been grabbed and packaged by the men lying in wait over by the van. Marder watched him disappear into the dark and then heard someone being yelled at.
Marder made his move, hoping that the current distraction would cover any noise. Bent over low, he slid along the wall of the building until he reached its end. To his left was a blind alley that led to what appeared to be a delivery entrance; to his right was the street, the only way to go. If he was lucky, they wouldn’t be looking his way. The cars were pointed in the other direction, and to pursue him with the vehicles they would have to back and fill a couple of times on the narrow street. If he could cross unobserved, he could hide in the shadows of the buildings opposite and cut right down the first side street he came to. Then eventually he might come across a non-imaginary pay phone or a twenty-four-hour business.
He took several deep breaths, dashed out across the street, and was spotted immediately. He heard a shout and the sound of a big engine starting. He was across the street, running, a clumsy run: unhappily, he’d never been much of a runner. He was a swimmer like his daughter. But he tried to control his breathing and smooth out his pace.
He reached the end of a short street and cut right. It was a commercial district, full of machine shops, small factories, and mean little office buildings, all closed at this hour, lit intermittently by a stingy line of streetlamps with fluted metal shades. Marder heard someone running behind him—they must have sent someone on foot to keep him under observation. The person was undoubtedly armed, which meant Marder was doomed.
The steps behind him sounder closer, and he risked a look over his shoulder. His pursuer was maybe ten yards behind him, a man in a white T-shirt and dark trousers, twenty years younger than Marder, and running like a deer. Marder tried to increase his pace, but it was clear that the man could catch up anytime he liked; he had probably been told to keep his distance until the van arrived. They wanted Marder alive.
He kept running, his breath now burning and coming ragged into his chest. He heard the screech of a vehicle turning a sharp corner; its headlamps threw crazy shadows of two running men onto the street before him. An alley appeared on his right and he made for it. Perhaps there’d be an open building or a weapon—an old tool or a chunk of wood or even a bottle—so he could go down fighting and not slaughtered like a pig, screaming.
Marder had just ducked into the alley when he heard something unexpected: a long burst of automatic fire and then a crash, the kind made by a large vehicle driving at speed into an immovable object. Marder paused in the darkness. He heard a car or a truck roar down the street and another brief exchange of gunfire—a pistol and another burst of full auto.
Cautiously, he went back to the head of the alley and looked out. The van had crushed itself against a power pole; smoke and steam were coming off it. In the center of the street lay his pursuer, the white shirt now black with blood. Near him sat a pickup truck containing half a dozen men, all armed with automatic rifles. One of the men was Skelly.
Marder walked to the truck on rubbery legs, heaving breath into his lungs, shaking with the aftermath of terror. Skelly leaned over the dropped tailgate and helped him into the truck. One of the men rapped on the cab roof with the butt of his rifle, and the truck drove off.
When Marder had caught his breath, Skelly asked him how he was.
“I’m in one piece. Fuck! I’m too old for this shit anymore, you know that? I can’t run worth a damn.”
“You can still shoot,” said Skelly. “If you can shoot well enough, you hardly ever have to run.”
“Oh, let me write that down. I’ll add that to the wit and wisdom of Patrick F. Skelly, soon in your local bookstores. How in hell did you find me?”
“Well, obviously, our Templos followed you and those federales out of our place and to where you were taken. Then Reyes called me and sent this truck by to pick me up. We saw the crew waiting for you and laid low and waited for developments. We thought we’d have to yank you out of that van, but you made a break for it, and the rest is history. An uncharacteristically smart move on your part. How did you know La Fam was waiting for you?”
Marder explained about the guy and the rifle-scope memory, then described the man.
“That sounds like the junior Cuello, El Cochinillo. You’re an important man, boss, to bring Numero Dos into action personally. He usually has his people do that shit.”
“I’m flattered. But how did you know that the federales would turn me over to La Familia?”
“Oh, Gil and Varela have been in Cuello’s pocket since forever. It’s well known.”
Marder was shaking his head. “No, it wasn’t just that. There was a DEA guy there, in the building. He interrogated me, mainly about who you were. He thought we were starting our own little cartel.”
“Well, that’s not good. Was it an enhanced interrogation?”
“Somewhat enhanced. The main thing he wanted to impress on me is that he had our number and was going to be all over us henceforth, with his gang of tame federales. I wanted to tell him he was wasting his time, but I forbore.”
“Yes, but it’s going to be hard to set up our own little cartel with him breathing down our necks. I guess you would be opposed to direct action?”
“You meaning whacking him?”
“Like that.”
“Skelly, quite aside from the fact that we don’t whack people who are not actually firing weapons at us, killing a DEA agent would bring a forty-man DEA strike force into the area, with ten helicopters and a light aircraft carrier. We’ll have to figure out some other way of getting him off our backs.”
“In that case, I’m open to suggestions. What’s this asshole’s name, by the way?”
“He didn’t offer it,” said Marder. “It wasn’t exactly a social occasion. By the way, what did you mean about setting up our cartel?”
Skelly ignored this and turned to one of the men in the truck. “Crusellas, what’s the name of the DEA guy who works with Gil and Varela and them?”
Despite the darkness, Marder recognized one of the men who had paid that extortionate visit to Casa Feliz on the day after their arrival. And the other one, Tomas Gasco, was there too, glaring at him.
Crusellas answered, “Warren Alsop.”
“Thank you,” said Marder, and to Skelly, “Our cartel?”
“Yeah, I explained this to you already. We need to supply some product to the Templos along with the weapons. It’s part of the deal.”
“You can’t do that. I thought I had made myself clear.”
“Don’t worry about it, Marder. You’ll have full deniability. You won’t know a thing.”
“I don’t want deniability. I want it not to be an actuality.”
“Hey, did you just get rescued or not? You’d be losing vital body parts right now if these guys weren’t doing their jobs. What we pay them is chump change; it’s not even a rounding error on their monthly take. They’re in it for dope and weapons. I hope my fucking boat isn’t delayed. It should’ve been steaming into Cárdenas about now. Uh-oh, what’s this?”
The truck had been traveling along the coast road north out of Lázaro Cárdenas, heading for Isla de los Pájaros and home, but now it slowed as it came to the junction with Route 37 and pulled to the side of the road. Crusellas shoved the muzzle of his AR into Skelly’s side, and the man sitting across from him lifted Skelly’s weapon. The other three men in the back of the truck pointed their rifles at Marder and Skelly. Marder could see the flash of their teeth as they smiled.
They heard the door of the cab open, and in a moment Mateo Reyes appeared and dropped the tailgate.
“What’s going on, Reyes?” Skelly asked.
“A change of plans. The jefe is concerned about the weapons and product you promised us.”
“Jesus, man, I told you, they left Hong Kong twenty-five days ago. They should be here any day.”
“Twenty-three days is the normal transit time between China and Lázaro Cárdenas.”
“So? It’s not like driving a car down a highway. There are winds and currents and shit, or things break. They’ll be here.”
“I’m sure, but in the meantime you’ll be our guests.” With that, he put up the tailgate and went back to the cab.
Marder and Skelly had their wrists bound with cable ties, flour sacks were placed on their heads, and the truck drove off north on 37.
Marder leaned his head next to Skelly’s and said, “Well, this is a fine kettle of fish.”
“It’s no big deal,” said Skelly. His voice was muffled but clear enough to understand. “It’s a normal business practice with these guys. Don’t worry. We’re not going to be in a cell. We’ll hang out by the pool a few days, play cards, and then the boat will get here and we’ll be golden. Also, it could’ve been worse.”
“How worse?”
“Oh, you know—they could’ve snatched your kid.”
* * *
The unsnatched kid spent the start of the day after the night of her father’s arrest swimming laps in the pool, hoping that the endorphins produced by grueling exercise might help to calm her excoriated nerves, but no luck. Of course she was worried about her father’s fate, but what made her grind her teeth and curse was the way that Skelly had manhandled her the previous night. When Skelly explained that Marder had decided to get arrested for shooting the boyfriend, Statch had flatly refused to countenance it and had immediately tried to run out of her bedroom to stop the outrage. And Skelly had grabbed her, restrained her as she had not been restrained since the age of six, a degrading, insulting restraint. She had screamed like a cat, had used all her curses in two languages, to no avail. He had held her in one of his famous Special Forces grips with contemptuous ease, until both the ambulance and the police car had gone. Now Skelly himself was gone, God knew where, leaving her alone—no, not in the least alone; alone would have been fine, but she was far from that. All the problems of this ridiculous establishment had fallen on her shoulders.
And this fucking pool was too short for proper laps, an absurd eight meters in length, a pool suitable only for the sport of children with inflated animals. She stopped swimming with a curse and slithered up to sit on the tiled rim of the pool. She could see them now, despite Amparo’s efforts, gathering like abandoned pets on the edges of the terrace. They were terrified, the poor bastards. The sun that had illuminated their lives for the past few weeks had departed, who knew where? Off with the police, into a black hole, and what would become of them all? This was what they wanted her—La Señorita, perhaps the new patrona—to tell them, and she hadn’t any idea.
However, eighteen years of high-quality American education had given her suff
icient expertise at impromptu bullshitting, so she dried herself off, slipped into a terry-cloth robe, and addressed the little crowd. She said she had heard from her father and that he was fine, that he would be back soon, and that everything would remain as it was. He had promised them, and he was a man of his word. She saw nods, hesitant smiles. These people wanted to believe, even in the land of no importa. The group dispersed, with some of the women coming up to her with little touches, as she were a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe in a church.
To her surprise and relief, she found that she didn’t mind it. Her mother had something to do with this; maybe this was the unlived life of the mother sprouting in her child, like a seed long buried in unsuitable earth, turgid, bearing spines, hungry for the light, irresistible. Or maybe old D. H. Lawrence was right about Mexico; maybe the chthonic powers still ruled at some deep level, because what else would explain what had happened to her father and what, obviously, was now happening to her. Of course, Statch had never exactly been ashamed of being a Mexican, but she hadn’t advertised it either. It was like the label on the back of a blouse: no need to tear it out, but you tucked it away when it popped out and tickled your neck, a label like those worn by everyone in America’s diversity-obsessed anomic society, ultimately of slight importance compared to talent and looks and money.
Still, she was enough of an American to want to cause an action, to generate some change. She fished through her bag and found Major Naca’s card. She called him on her now-functional (five bar!) cell and he answered, with a lightness in his voice that told her the call was not an imposition. She told Major Naca what had happened last night, leaving out the business of who had really fired the shots. The point was that Richard Marder had been picked up by the federales and she wanted to know what had happened to him.
Naca listened, asked no irritating questions, promised he would check and get back to her as soon as he knew anything.
Statch waited. She fired up the laptop, played a little solitaire, read her Facebook and LinkedIn pages, declined to update her hundreds of friends (“Guess what? Dad arrested for shooting Mexican gangster—arrested by federal cops!!!! LOL!”).
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