“It will be my pleasure.”
Halfway through the second margarita, Nora was having trouble focusing. She looked at Rindo through the eyeholes of the mask, seeing two of him.
“You said you are working at Gulfstream.” His voice sounded far away now.
“What?”
“I want to buy a jet. How much does it cost?”
Nora knew she was in trouble, tried to get up, and Rindo reached over, pressing on her shoulder so she couldn’t move. “Hey, where you going?”
The bandits were enjoying themselves, laughing and drinking tequila.
“I really have to go.” The words came out slow and elongated. What did they put in her drink?
•••
Raylan had seen Nora at the bar talking to Zorro and then walking across the veranda with a man in a peaked cap, wearing a khaki military uniform. He looked in the club and saw her sitting at a table with three men. The plan: when Nora saw Rindo, she would walk outside and give a signal. He told himself to be patient. It would happen, or it wouldn’t.
Now twenty minutes later Nora was still at the table with the men. Big Country, wearing a zombie mask, was standing at one side of the bar. Memo, as the Phantom of the Opera, was just outside the bar, smoking a cigarette. Raylan, in a skeleton mask, wandered to the bar to get a beer. When he went back and looked in the club a few minutes later, Nora and the three men were gone, the table empty, and now he was worried. Raylan took off his mask, waved at Big Country and Memo. They rushed over to him.
“Where is she?” Big Country said, removing his mask now.
Memo said, “She didn’t come out this way.”
“Maybe she’s in the can,” Big Country said.
“Nora was sitting at a table with three men, now she’s gone. They all are.”
Memo said, “Come this way.”
They followed him into the club that was filled with tables. There was another stage, another band, a few couples on the dance floor. They followed him through the kitchen to an alley behind the restaurant, but no sign of Nora.
Big Country said, “Was it Rindo?”
“I don’t know. I only saw him from behind and he was wearing a hat. But let’s assume it was.”
“She saw him,” Big Country said. “she was supposed to signal us.”
“Well she didn’t or couldn’t.” Raylan fixed his gaze on Memo. “We don’t have much time. He’s gonna find out who Nora is and what she knows, and then he’s gonna get rid of her.”
“Or maybe he use her to bargain,” Memo said.
Raylan said, “Can we talk to your CI?”
“I ask him. He doesn’t know.”
Raylan said, “One thing I know for sure, Rindo likes the ladies, young and pretty. You know an escort service specializes in that?”
“No but I know a casa de citas.”
“What’s that?”
“A whorehouse,” Big Country said.
•••
Raylan showed the mug shot of Jose Rindo to the madam at the bordello called Baja Club. “You know this man?”
The heavily made-up woman, early fifties, shook her head.
“He’s a regular, isn’t he?”
“No lo entiendo.”
“She doesn’t understand,” Memo said.
The madam’s bodyguard, a tough-looking former middleweight—Raylan couldn’t think of his name—stood off to the side, staring at him, Raylan wondering what he was thinking. The woman sat behind an ornate desk in her formal, old-world office.
“How often do you see Señor Rindo? Man’s a sex fiend, can’t seem to satisfy his desires.” The woman stared at him without expression. “That’s right, you don’t speak English, do you? Let me try something else. Give us Señor Rindo’s address, we’re out of here. Let you get back to running your house of ill repute. How’s that sound?” Raylan glanced at Memo. “Tell her I want to talk to the girls. I want her to bring them in one by one.”
The ex-fighter kept his eyes on Raylan.
“Is not possible,” the woman who didn’t understand English said in her angry Spanish accent. “They are with clients.”
“Clients, huh? That’s what you call them. Get the ones that aren’t working, bring them in here,” Raylan said.
“I call the police,” the woman said.
“What do you think we are?” Raylan said. “We can put you out of business, lock your door, give all your customers the boot, drag this out, or we can talk to the girls and be on our way.”
“Do what the man say or I’ll will arrest you,” Memo said.
They talked to them one after another, cute, innocent young girls with dark hair tied in pigtails and ponytails, wearing plaid skirts and white knee socks. The girls were shy, nervous, eyes on the floor as Raylan showed them the wanted poster of Jose Rindo, and Memo spoke to them in Spanish. “This man is a murderer wanted by the police. Do you know him? Do you know where he is? This man has kidnapped a woman. If we do not find her, she will die. Look at me.” And now the girl would meet Memo’s gaze. “Will you please help us? Someone must help us or the woman will die. Do you want this on your conscience?” Memo putting a guilt trip on them. The girl would eye the wanted poster a second time, shake her head, and say no. Memo gave each girl a card and told her to call if she remembered something.
Thirty-Five
Raylan woke up to someone calling his name and touching his shoulder, opened his eyes, and saw Memo standing next to the bed in his underwear like the little guy was trying to jump in the sack with him.
“Raylan. Sylvia, a girl from the Baja Club, call asking did we find the woman? I tell her no and ask can she help us?”
They were in a bedroom at Memo’s house, ten to six in the morning.
“The girl say she don’t know where Señor Rindo is. But had a customer that works for him. The man’s name is Eduardo Meza, but is called Lalo.”
“Where does he live?” Raylan said, rubbing grit from his eyes.
“The girl doesn’t know. Lalo came to see her later, after we go.”
“Did she tell him we were asking about Rindo?”
Memo shook his head. “I am going to check has Lalo been arrested.”
He woke up Big Country, who was asleep on the couch in the main room, his big Tony Lamas on the floor next to him.
Raylan made coffee, eggs, and toast, and the three of them sat at a table in the dining room, eating breakfast.
Memo, drinking coffee and looking at his laptop screen, said, “Meza was six years in the state penitentiary at El Hongo. Armed robbery. Now he work for Rindo.” Memo turned the laptop around so Raylan and Big Country could see him, a Mexican with dark eyes and a bandit mustache.
At 6:47 a.m., they were parked on Avenue Puenta de Calderon, Eduardo Meza’s last known address. Nora had disappeared eight hours earlier and Raylan could feel the stress to find her building. They still hadn’t told the Marshals Service they were in Mexico, or that Nora was missing. Big Country had called the office and said he didn’t feel well and wasn’t coming in, buying them more time.
The single-story stucco house and open garage were behind a five-foot-high wrought-iron fence. They went through the gate, and Big Country went around to the back with a shotgun. Raylan, gripping a .380 Beretta, stood next to Memo at the front door.
“You going to tell him we’re the police?”
Memo gave him a puzzled look. “You want him to know we are here?”
“We do it a little different in the US.”
Memo picked the lock, opened the door, heard the squeal of rusty hinges, and entered a tile hallway, Raylan behind him, the morning sunlight, a filtered haze coming through grime-covered windows. To his left was the living room that had a couch and flat-screen but was otherwise empty. Raylan followed Memo down the hall to the first door, turned the han
dle, and went in, two hands on the .45.
Eduardo Meza, in bed, was reaching for a gun on the side table. Memo said, “Policia,” and something else in Spanish, and Meza raised his hands. Memo rolled him over, cuffed him, picked up his gun, and set it on the top of the dresser.
Raylan said. “Where is Nora Sanchez?”
Eduardo Meza shook his head. “Don’t know any Nora Sanchez.”
Memo stepped toward the bed and punched Meza in the face. “Answer the man.”
“No lo se,” Meza said, trying to duck as Memo swung the .45 into the side of his head and now blood was streaming down his cheek.
Raylan said, “Where’s Nora Sanchez? Give me an address, we can end this.”
“She is with Jose. He say something about giving her as a present to a friend.”
Memo, standing next to the bed, grabbed a pillow, covered Meza’s face with it, pressed the barrel of the .45 against his head, and pulled back the hammer. “Where is Jose Rindo?”
“Ir a la mierda.”
Memo fired into the stained naked pillow, blowing out a cloud of feathers that floated in the air, Raylan’s ears ringing from the thunderous report.
Big Country walked in the room with a Glock in his hand, glanced at Raylan and then at the bed. “Whoa.”
Memo continued to hold what was left of the pillow over Meza’s face. “Su última oportunidad.”
“Avenue de la Paz,” came the muffled sound of Meza’s voice.
“The number,” Memo said.
“Dos mil seiscientos sesenta dos.”
“He’s not there, we come back.”
Raylan was thinking: so that’s how you question a suspect.
“Okay, let’s go,” Memo said.
“What about him?” Big Country said.
“My friend, you want to shoot him?” Memo swung his arm toward Meza.
“Por favor...”
“Why don’t we take his phone, cuff him to the bed frame,” Raylan said. “Let Lalo contemplate his future.”
When they were outside, Big Country whispered, “Mex kills another Mex, know what it’s called? Misdemeanor homicide.”
•••
They sat code on Avenue de la Paz, a couple doors from where Rindo was staying in a wealthy part of Mexicali. There were trucks parked up and down the street, landscapers cutting grass, trimming trees at 8:12 a.m. “Let’s wait, maybe we get lucky, Rindo leaves to run an errand.”
“What do you think?” Big Country said to Memo.
“I do whatever you want. Get tired of waiting, break down the door.”
They didn’t have to wait long. One of the three garage doors opened, and a Lexus sedan with blacked-out windows turned on the street fifty feet in front of them. Memo followed it to a convenience store a couple miles away.
Raylan was leaning against the driver’s side door when Thunderbird, in a pork pie straw, came out carrying a grocery bag ten minutes later. “Thunderbird, I thought that was you? What’re you doing in Mexicali? You’re not running from those warrants we’ve got, are you?”
Thunderbird approached the car, grinning. “Motherfucker, you got no authority down here. The fuck you doing?”
“I don’t, but he does.” Raylan pointed to Memo coming up behind him. Thunderbird glanced over his shoulder and back at Raylan.
“What you want?” T-Bird was high, eyes barely open. Must’ve been an effort to get his brain in gear.
“Who’s in the house with Rindo?”
“He gonna wonder where I’m at, suppose to be getting milk for the dude’s cereal.”
“Three murder warrants against you, that’s what you’re worried about?”
Big Country took the bag out of Thunderbird’s hands and Memo cuffed him.
Raylan said, “Where’s Agent Sanchez?”
Thunderbird seemed lost in his buzz now, eyes closed, then blinking open.
Big Country said, “What’re we gonna do with him?”
“Got to have him picked up,” Raylan said, “taken into custody.” Memo, on his cell phone speaking rapid-fire Spanish, was making arrangements.
•••
Rindo was at the kitchen table, bowl, spoon, box of Cheerios, and a Colt Python in front of him, watching Deep Throat, the original, on a flat-screen with the sound off. The star Linda Lovelace wasn’t much to look at but she had one major talent. Cost thirty grand to make, he read somewhere, and grossed $600 million. Maybe that’s what he should do—switch to porn. Less risk, more fun. He heard the garage door open, watching Linda go down on the doctor, and then she saw fireworks. He heard Thunderbird come in the house. Still watching the movie, he said, “Man, where you been, can’t find milk?”
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
He knew the voice, eyes on his gun next to the cereal bowl, and turned, looking at the crazy marshal, Stetson low over his eyes, a pistol tucked in his waistband, right side. The man, cool as always, in control.
“Show me your hands.”
Rindo hesitated, waiting to see what the marshal would do.
“You think I’m playing?”
He raised his arms over his head. The marshal cuffed him, turned off the movie and turned the chair around, Rindo facing him. Now the marshal was looking at something on the counter, walked over, and opened the woman’s ID. “Where is she?”
“Not here.”
“You better start talking.”
“What do you give me for her?” His gaze held on the lawman. “Problem is, you got nothing I want.”
“I’m gonna deport you,” the crazy marshal said, “take you back to Detroit.”
“I am a Mexican citizen. I have a Mexican wife and a Mexican son. The mayor of Mexicali is a friend of mine. I call, ask for his assistance. Tell him US law enforcement is forcing me out of the country against my will. You don’t see it, but the one in trouble is you. Go while you can, leave Mexico and don’t come back.”
“Nobody else in the house,” the big man said, coming in the kitchen with the Mexican cop. “But I found this.” It was his backpack filled with money.
The big man said, “Numb nuts here tell you anything?”
“He’s saying how important he is, claims to know the mayor.”
“No shit,” the big man said. “I’m impressed. What about Agent Sanchez?”
The crazy marshal said, “Memo, what should we do with this fugitive, won’t cooperate?”
The Mexican cop walked out of the room and returned a few minutes later with a piece of black cloth. It was a hood. The cop, trying to scare him, fit the hood over his head. “Donde esta el agente Americano?”
Rindo knew he wouldn’t do anything in front of the marshals.
“La última vez que pido.”
The cop was giving him an ultimatum.
“Put him on the counter,” the Mex cop said.
They lifted him, one holding his legs, the other holding him down. What was this? He heard someone move to the sink and turn on the faucet, and now the water was soaking the hood. He was having trouble breathing, water filling his nose and mouth. He was losing consciousness, drowning, and then it stopped. He coughed out water and sucked in air through the drenched cloth.
“Donde esta el agente Americano?”
Still trying to draw a breath, he didn’t have time to answer before it started again and happened the same way, and just as he was starting to fade, the water stopped and he heard the voice.
“Donde esta el agente Americano?”
And knowing they would keep doing it, he said, “Okay.”
The hood came off. He spit water out of his mouth and snorted it out of his nose, trying to breathe, thinking of what he was going to say. “The FBI woman is with El Yiyo,” he said, eyes holding on the crazy marshal. “Better hurry. You might be too late.”
Thirty-Six
When they were in Memo’s car, speeding through the neighborhood, Raylan said, “Who was Rindo talking about?”
“El Yiyo, the stew-maker’s apprentice.”
“You’ll have to explain that.”
“The stew-maker, El Pozalero, was an assassin for the cartels, responsible for the death of three hundred people—maybe more. They call him the stew-maker. He dissolve his victims in drums filled with acid—his stew—leaving only bones.”
“He did this to them when they were alive?”
“Alive or dead, it did not matter to El Pozalero. The stew-maker was arrested years ago and is in prison. El Yiyo, a young apprentice who worked for him, now carries on the business.”
They were in an industrial area, streets lined with warehouses and repair shops. Memo turned left on Avenida 29 de Junio, pulled over, and pointed to a nondescript building. “Is that one.” There was a pickup truck parked in front.
Raylan got out of the car and followed Memo to an alley behind the warehouse. There was a loading platform. They climbed up on it and heard music coming from inside.
“They listen to Los Lobos,” Memo said, “while they kill people.”
There were half a dozen blue plastic chemical drums spaced apart on the warehouse floor. Raylan didn’t see anyone. There was a pulley attached to a metal bar in the rafters and a length of rope attached to a pulley that extended to the concrete floor. It wasn’t hard to imagine how the system worked. One drum had bubbling liquid in it, El Yiyo was getting ready to dispose of a body.
There was a young guy, maybe twenty, eating beans and rice in a makeshift kitchen. They surprised him, entering the room with guns drawn.
Memo said, “What is your name?”
“Refugio.”
“Are you armed?”
“No.”
Memo patted him down and shook his head. Then cuffed Refugio’s hands behind his back.
Raylan said, “Who else is in the building?”
“A woman.”
Raylan said, “American?”
Refugio nodded.
Memo said, “Where is El Yiyo?”
“En su camino.”
Raylan Goes to Detroit Page 22
