King of Swords (Assassin series #1)

by Russell Blake

  “I know the kind.” Cruz cursed inwardly. “Lieutenant, do you think you could describe his features well enough for a sketch artist to do a rendition?” he asked.

  “Sure. I think so. But why…?”

  “I think it might be important. You may have just been one of the only living people to have ever seen El Rey.” Cruz sighed.

  “You’re kidding me…you aren’t, are you? Shit – sorry, sir. Okay, I’ll try to remember everything I can, but the sooner the better. You know how details get lost the longer you wait and the more distractions that take place…”

  “Call headquarters and get Arlen down here, and have her bring her pad. I want a face today,” Cruz ordered.

  “Will do.”

  Cruz hung up. He could envision the satchel in his mind’s eye. Sitting on the counter.

  So a call comes in after Tortora has opened his little shop at nine a.m., telling him that a bag full of something important – money, maybe – had been left in the apartment for him to deal with, and to do so immediately. Tortora ducks out of the shop, knowing that there won’t be any customers at that time of day, and goes to his apartment. He doesn’t have to ask how the satchel got there. The killer is a man for whom locks present no problems, or who has a key. Doesn’t matter. Tortora opens the door, closing it behind him so he’s not disturbed. He sees the bag where he was told it would be, walks to inspect it, and before he knows what’s happened, is cut in two by the trusted caller, who he had no reason to suspect or fear. The killer grabs the satchel, goes to the bathroom to clean it off, wipes it down with one of the towels, then sheds the raincoat. Perhaps he also wiped off his face, which might have gotten some blood on it. Cruz made a mental note to warn the crime scene unit to check the towel and the curtain for hairs or other DNA trace materials. It was worth a shot.

  So then what does the killer do?

  Cruz swung around, considering. He probably does a cursory search, and then grabs the keys to toss the shop office as well. Presuming he was looking for something. If that was the case, it would explain why he was in the alley. He had just completed his search of the office and was leaving the scene of the crime.

  The timing suggested that he knew Tortora had a meeting at ten. Again, could be coincidence, but he doubted it. The scenario that made the most sense was that Tortora had contacted the assassin to alert him that he had another gig available, and El Rey decided he wasn’t going to be needing Tortora or any more jobs, so elected to eliminate the only way to trace him. It all meshed together. Especially if he was going to take out a couple of presidents – he had to know that at that point it would just be a matter of time until someone rolled and they got to Tortora.

  The puzzle pieces gelled and he saw the whole picture.

  Only problem being that it wasn’t proof. It was circumstantial evidence that a skeptic could explain away a dozen different ways. So they were still screwed on securing anything they could use to sway the arrogant pricks at CISEN, much less the NSA.

  Cruz had seen enough.

  He returned to the foyer, drawn by the sound of Dinah crying, and decided it was time to show his cards.

  “Dinah, I’m Federal Police. I came to have a discussion with your father about a matter I thought he could assist us with. I’ve ordered a forensics team, and they’re on their way to process the crime scene.” Cruz’s heart fluttered when she looked up at him, eyes huge and streaming tears, the minute amount of mascara she’d worn streaking her face. “I’m deeply sorry for your loss. Believe me that we will do everything possible to find your father’s murderer. But I need your help. Can you open the back of the shop for me so we can process that area as well? I didn’t see any keys upstairs, so it’s possible that the killer did this to gain access to his office,” Cruz said.

  “Police?” Dinah was in shock, her skin now the color of alabaster. She wasn’t really with it, speaking as though from a great distance. “Yes. I’ll open it…” She grabbed at the door handle, nearly collapsing in the process. Julio attentively held her elbow, helping to steady her.

  “Did your father have any enemies?” Cruz probed, as they proceeded to the shop next door. “Do you know anyone who might have a grudge or a reason to kill him?”

  “Enemies? No…no, everyone got along with him,” she replied absently as she fumbled with her keys. Julio held the front door of the pawn shop open for them, and they eased through it. Dinah approached the back office door with the key held out, but couldn’t steady her hand sufficiently to insert it into the lock. She extended an arm and supported herself against the wall, holding the key ring out to Cruz, silently seeking his help.

  He took the keys from Dinah and put his arm around her, opening the door with his other hand. She was going to crash hard soon, he knew from harsh personal experience, and would probably need months of counseling and medication to make it through this ordeal in one piece. Cruz still vividly remembered the period following his family’s murder; a Kafkaesque, surreal odyssey of catastrophic collapses punctuated with valleys of despair and rage, and occasional moments of compassion and hope – regrettably, all too few.

  “Dinah, was your father afraid of anyone? Did he have any suspicious dealings or any secrets he might have been keeping?” Cruz was now fishing, but it couldn’t hurt.

  “Secrets? No. He owned a pawn shop, for God’s sake. What kind of secrets could he have had? He didn’t even drink, didn’t have any girlfriends…” she trailed off, remembering her father, lost to Cruz for a time.

  This wasn’t going anywhere. He surveyed the back room, which was neat and organized, with new inventory Tortora had taken in on one side, and files on the other. A simple mahogany desk sat at the far end of the room, near the rear exit door, and a large gun safe stood open near it. Cruz moved to the gaping strongbox, which had been equipped with a number of shelves, upon which sat more valuable trinkets; watches, a few gold chains, other treasures of nominal value that had been traded for ready cash.

  “Is this the only safe?” Cruz asked Dinah.

  “No. There’s a floor safe under that rolling file cabinet–” she gestured in the direction of one of the cabinets lining the wall behind the desk.

  Cruz moved it and found the safe, which seemed large for the size of the establishment. He grabbed a blank sheet of paper from the desk, bent down and tried the handle, but it was locked.

  “Señora Tortora. I need you to open this, please.”

  “It’s Señorita, and you can call me Dinah. I’m sorry…I don’t remember your name. And I can’t open it. I don’t have the combination,” Dinah explained.

  “It’s Romero. Or Cruz. Everyone calls me Cruz.” He avoided introducing Julio, and motioned with his head for him to make himself scarce. They wouldn’t have to explain his identity if he wasn’t there. “Don’t worry about the safe, then. I’ll just need your permission to drill it open. It’s not a big deal, and we’re going to be here for a while, anyway…”

  “Do whatever you have to do, Señor Cruz. Whatever. I mean, what kind of animal can do that sort of thing?” She shuddered. “Just find who did this to him. Please. I’ll help in whatever way I can. He was such a good man, a gentle, good, sweet man…” Dinah was fading fast. He wasn’t surprised.

  Taking the hint from Cruz, Julio slipped quietly through the door, leaving them alone. Dinah didn’t notice. She was still fighting to get her sobbing under control, the sight of her beloved father sliced in two winning that battle so far. Cruz pulled one of the chairs from in front of Tortora’s desk and offered it to her. She accepted it gratefully, and he swung the other one around, resting his folded arms on the back, leaning his chin forward on them, facing her.

  “So what do you do for a living, Dinah?” Cruz wanted to try to get her onto something besides replaying the horror of the sight of her father, over and over again like a tape loop in her head. He knew that was the tendency, and he also remembered how destructive it was to one’s psyche. If he could break that pattern early, it
wouldn’t be a magic bullet, but it might help her later. The sooner she started focusing on something else, the better.

  “I teach school. Second grade.”

  “Why aren’t you working today?” Cruz asked.

  “It’s Saturday.”

  That’s right. He’d been so caught up in the El Rey thing he’d forgotten that normal people remembered the days of the week. Cruz was often taken by surprise when his calendar showed it to be Sunday, though he spent most of those in his office as well, catching up.

  “Ah. Sorry. In my line of work you sometimes lose track…how do you like being a school teacher?” Cruz tried again.

  “It’s rewarding. The pay isn’t great, but I don’t do it for the money. I always wanted to be a teacher ever since I was a little girl, so I guess I’m living my dream,” she said.

  “I always wanted to be a policeman, so same here,” Cruz confirmed.

  She drifted away again, the brief sojourn into normalcy having lost its appeal.

  “This will sound trite, but I’m going to say it anyway, Dinah. I know exactly what you’re going through, and there’s nothing worse in the whole world.”

  She seemed surprised, and also angry. That was good. She had every right to be angry. Anger could be good. It had certainly sustained Cruz through some dark times.

  “Do you? How could you? Watching people who have had their loved one killed is different than being the one who lost, officer. All due respect, it’s not close to the same,” she spat.

  “I know that, Dinah. I’ve been through the same kind of thing. I know what it feels like. Nothing anybody says will help. You have to find something inside of yourself, a reason to keep getting up every morning, and focus on that. Maybe it’s to teach some youngsters, to pass on knowledge that will form them as human beings. Whatever it is, you’ll need to find that thing, and cherish it. After you finish grieving, which will take some time,” he offered.

  “Easier said than done,” she replied, embittered.

  “I know. It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do. But you’ll need to, or you’ll lose yourself and make your life about grief and horror, and that’s no way to live. I’ve been there. Trust me on that,” Cruz stressed.

  They were interrupted by the arrival of the crime scene investigation team. Soon, a pair of technicians were upstairs in the taped-off apartment, sorting through the site’s contents, dusting for prints and scouring the area for DNA, while another pair efficiently did the same in the office – much easier given there wasn’t a gallon of blood to negotiate. Cruz walked Dinah to the front of the store and brought the chairs there, where they could stay out of everyone’s way while they worked.

  After an hour, one of the technicians processing the office came out and addressed Cruz.

  “Sir, you can have the safe drilled now. We dusted and lifted seven sets of prints, and we’ll run them once we get back to headquarters. But the hard disk for the surveillance camera has been wiped, and there’s no CD in the machine. Either it was removed, or there never was one,” he explained.

  “No, he always recorded everything to CD and backed it up,” Dinah assured them. “I know. I set up the system for him. He wasn’t great with technology, but he’d learned to operate it, and it was the first thing he did every morning…”

  Cruz nodded at the tech. “Note it in the report. And send in someone to open the safe,” he ordered, rising and taking Dinah’s arm. “You may want to plug your ears, but I want you to be here when it opens and we inventory it, so nothing walks off. It’s rare, but it has happened.”

  “All right.” She had finally run out of tears, but was distant – the shock was still there in force.

  “Do you know what’s in it?” Cruz asked casually, watching her carefully to gauge her reaction.

  “Not really. He told me once he kept some dollars and pesos in there, and some critical paperwork, but mostly it was for cash.”

  “Any idea how much?”

  “No. I wish I knew more, but I don’t. It can’t be that much. My father was comfortable, but he was far from a rich man,” she said.

  A heavyset man entered with an industrial drill in one hand and a case in the other. He wore safety goggles, and moved past them directly to the safe. He gave it a cursory glance and nodded his head in the negative. They had many master keys for safes, but not for one this large and of this vintage. He plugged the drill into the wall, and the clamor started.

  Twenty-five minutes later, the driller stepped back, finished. He cranked the stainless steel handle and lifted the door open, then packed his drill and case up and moved away from the work area.

  Cruz approached the open safe, noting that Briones was now standing guard in the doorway. He’d been so involved with Dinah and the crime scene that he’d forgotten about the lieutenant, who had arranged for the personnel to secure the area without interrupting him. He stared down into the safe, and then with a sigh, began pulling out stacks of thousand peso notes. By the time he was done, there was easily a million pesos sitting neatly on the desk – at thirteen something to the dollar, around a hundred thousand dollars. A lot of money, but nothing that couldn’t be explained with the shop, he was sure.

  But there were no dollars. And other than a few business-related files and the title to the car and the house, no documentation that could help them. Peering into the safe, Cruz calculated that there was room for a lot more, which if even half of it had been dollars, and somehow El Rey had gained access, it could have amounted to at least a million U.S.. Unfortunately, whatever else it had contained would remain a mystery to them.

  Dinah seemed surprised by the stack of pesos, but lost interest once they were accounted for and recorded – one million six hundred thousand. He signed a receipt for the pesos and handed it to her, cautioning her not to lose it. With his signature, that was as good as a deposit slip. The Federales would take the cash into holding, and release it once the investigation was over.

  She woodenly put the receipt into her purse, thanking him, and then looked around the office, lost. Cruz called Briones over and had a brief discussion with him, then handed him the keys to his car. Cruz lifted one of Tortora’s cards from the holder on the desk and scrawled his police headquarters number and name on it before handing it to her.

  “This is my contact information, Dinah. Please don’t hesitate to call, for any reason. This has been a horrible day, and again, I’m deeply sorry for your loss. Hold onto it, if you think of anything that can help, or you need anything. This is Lieutenant Briones. He’ll give you a lift home,” Cruz said, slipping the card into her purse.

  Dinah seemed out of it by now, and mechanically thanked him for all the help. As they walked out the front door, she turned to him and fixed him with a desperate stare.

  “Please find whoever did this to my father, Cruz. Please.”

  Cruz returned her gaze without wavering. He nodded.

  “I will. I promise.”

  Chapter 10

  Fourteen Years Ago

  A young man pulled himself up on the steel bar mounted in the doorway of his bedroom, his hundredth chin-up in the set of three he did every morning as part of his workout. Three hundred pushups, three hundred chin-ups, forty-five minutes of running, seven days a week, without fail. Sweat poured from his flushed face as he groaned an exhalation, counting the final one and then dropping onto the balls of his bare feet.

  He’d completed his run, and also his pushups, so now it was time for his shower, and then he’d begin his day. He padded across the saltillo tile floor to his bathroom, stripped off his sweat shorts and turned the water on – always cold, regardless of the temperature outside. Like everything in his life, the cold water was a ritual, and rituals were important. Rituals had sustained him and given meaning to his life. Rituals meant he was in control, and as the grueling workouts and his straight-A schoolwork underscored, he was always in control – that was his rule, his promise to himself: always maintain control.

 
He soaped up, noting the six pack abs and professional athlete-level arm and leg muscles with satisfaction. It had taken years of work to create this body, and nothing had come easily. That was fine. He didn’t mind effort, and had developed formidable levels of fortitude and commitment. Without commitment, you gave up, and if you quit, you didn’t have control. Whatever you’d quit had won, and you lost. In his mind, it was polarized. Black and white.

  The boy had grown into an impressive young man, with a quiet intensity and a brilliant mind, as his teachers could confirm. The private school he attended had skipped him ahead two grades, and he still found the work to be laughably easy. Whenever he was bored, he would read math and engineering books, with the occasional physics textbook thrown in for diversity. He had a seemingly insatiable thirst for knowledge, and devoured books like most teens went through sodas.

  His life had taken an auspicious turn since that night in the cannabis field. The man who’d saved him had raised him like a son, and provided for him in ways he’d never imagined existed. In return, he’d demonstrated absolute loyalty, and had invested hundreds of hours practicing at the estate with every manner of weapon, in preparation for moving into an active role in the family business.

  ‘Don’ Miguel Lopez was a tough but fair master over his empire, which had grown powerful during the twelve years the boy had lived with him. It now included most of the marijuana crops in Sinaloa and a substantial cut of the cocaine trafficking business. He was respected and feared by his subordinates, as well as his enemies, and had evolved into a legend in the trade – one of the longer-toothed of the cartel heads at fifty years old. He made more in a day than most of his countrymen ever dreamed of making in an entire lifetime, and yet he remained simple, eschewing the ostentatious fast money lifestyle of the new crop of traffickers, as evidence of their insecurity and inferiority.

  The boy had learned his lessons well. He inspected his reflection in the mirror and liked what he saw. Girls found him pop-star attractive, although his interest in them was limited to sex, and nothing more. He was a loner, and didn’t want or enjoy the company of others, preferring to be alone with his books and his thoughts. He’d avoided the traps of youth – shunning the temptations of drugs, and had only taken alcohol on a few occasions, and then only token amounts in accord with the setting. Altering one’s state meant surrendering control. He wasn’t interested. Likewise, sharing one’s thoughts or anything more than some anonymous physical pleasure also involved relinquishing control.