“So who are you, gringo? What are you looking for?”
“I want to meet El Pozolero. I think I have something that might interest him.”
El Abalón sat on the chair behind the table and chuckled. “What could you have that would interest el Jefe?”
“Listen you little toad,” Ted grabbed the man by the collar and pulled him to his feet. “I need to talk to El Pozolero and you know how to contact him.”
He didn’t hear footsteps behind him. A hand grabbed his collar and flung him to the floor.
Ted bounced to his feet to be confronted by the biggest Mexican he’d ever seen.
This guy could play nose guard for USC. What’s he doing in a fight? He must be at least sixty.
The giant reached for Ted, but with his speed and maneuverability, Ted easily dodged the big hands. He danced back a couple of steps and took in his opponent.
Don’t go for the balls. That’s what Cat always says. They’ll be expecting it and be ready.
Ted took a step forward and lashed out with a vicious kick to the knee. The big man roared in pain and dropped to the floor.
Ted didn’t give him time to react. He followed up with a thundering kick in the ribs, then one to his jaw.
The giant rolled over, growled and rose to his feet.
Oh shit. That was my best Sunday punch.
The big man was hobbled by the knee. He lumbered towards Ted. Ted had no place to retreat.
“You get him, Juan,” El Abalón yelled. “Kill him.”
Ted couldn’t dodge the next blow. He’d never been hit so hard in his life. The world went silent, then he saw bright shining lights dancing around in his field of vision. He struggled back to his feet, but he was wobbly, in no condition to fight back.
Juan grabbed Ted around the waist and pulled him into a painful bear hug.
Ted rained blows on Juan’s head, but he didn’t seem to notice.
The big Mexican turned Ted in his arms and put his right arm under Ted’s neck and pulled tight in a choke hold.
Stupid move.
Ted had grown up on the streets of East L.A. Street fighting came as natural to him as breathing.
He wedged his feet against the shelves and gave a mighty push. The giant tumbled over backwards, taking Ted with him. He lost his grip on Ted and the younger man danced to his feet.
“C’mon, Juan. That’s all you got?”
Ted worked his way around the giant.
Juan rushed him but Ted swept out of his way with the grace of a matador. He planted a two-handed blow to the back of Juan’s head, the Mexican lost his balance and smashed into a shelf.
Ted grabbed at a shelf rail and pulled it down on his opponent.
The bottles crashed to the floor and broken glass and booze filled the room.
Ted picked up an unbroken bottle and smashed it on Juan’s head. The big man’s eyes glazed over for a moment, then he crawled back up to his feet.
What’s it going to take to stop this guy?
The big man was quicker than Ted anticipated. He grabbed Ted by the arm and leg and lifted him over his head. Ted tried desperately to kick his opponent, but couldn’t twist his body enough.
The giant hurled Ted into the mess of broken shelves and shattered glass.
Ted was stunned. His hands grasped for something to pull himself back up. He came in contact with a two by four. He grabbed it and jumped to his feet.
Juan charged him again. This time, Ted stepped back and put his best home run swing into the board. He met the big man’s jaw and straightened him up. The giant stared at Ted with hatred in his eyes.
Ted gave Juan a second blow to the head. He staggered. Ted moved in and launched a kick to his cajones. The giant screamed and bent over, his hands on his balls.
That was what Ted needed. He dropped the two by four and gave a mighty kick to Juan’s chin. The big man straightened up. Ted twirled and planted a kick to his solar plexus. The old man staggered back to the wall and slowly sank into a sitting position. Ted followed up with another kick to his head. Juan rolled over onto the floor.
Ted gave him several kicks to the ribs, for good measure, then another kick to his head. The big man’s skull jerked back and he was done.
Breathing hard, hurting all over, Ted turned to El Abalón. “Now we’re gonna see how hard that shell of yours is.”
The little man shrieked like a girl and made for the door. Ted was too quick. He grabbed the man’s shoulder and spun him around. He picked El Abalón up from the floor and smashed him into the table.
El Abalón shrieked and tears ran from his eyes.
Ted grabbed him and pulled his jacket down, restraining his arms.
“Okay, cabrón, now we’re gonna have a little talk.”
Ted picked the small man up and pinned him to the wall. “Where is El Pozolero? How do I get a hold of him?”
“I don’t know, señor. That’s the truth.”
Ted smashed a punch into his belly.
“Noooo . . . I’m telling the truth. No one knows where he is. I can’t contact him, he contacts me.”
Ted sensed that the little man’s fear overcame his survival instinct. He didn’t know anything.
“The next time El Pozolero contacts you, you tell him that Ted Higuera is coming after him. If he’s harmed Maria, there’s no place on earth he can hide.”
Chapter 30
It was a beautiful spring day in Seattle. Candace prepared for what she had to do. She’d rehearsed it in her head a hundred times.
Looking out her window, she saw thousands of workers leaving their offices and heading to buses and garages on their way home. This was it. She’d waited until the end of the day, when no work, no calls, no other workers could interrupt her.
Harvey Bernstein’s office on the next floor.
Candace rose from her chair and looked in the mirror. Everything was in place. Her makeup perfect, her long silky black hair just so. She straightened out her black power suit and patted down the wrinkles on her trousers.
It’s now or never.
The tall attorney quickly made her way up to Harvey’s office before she had a chance to change her mind.
“Harvey, we need to talk,” she said, as she entered without knocking.
Harvey was standing at his windows, gazing out with a glass of Scotch in his hand.
He turned slowly. “What do we have to talk about?”
“Chris and I are leaving. We’re taking your fifty-percent bonus offer.”
Harvey laughed. “That was a one-time offer. I’m afraid it’s no longer valid.”
Candace caught her breath. Was this bastard trying to weasel out of his deal?
“When you made us the offer, we told you we needed time to think. Well, we’ve thought about it and reached a decision. If you’ll pay us the bonus, we’ll leave.”
Harvey walked to his desk and sat down. “Poor Candace, so innocent, so naive. That’s the problem with women in business. You just don’t understand. I’m sorry, Candace, it doesn’t work that way. You see, I hold all the aces in this game.”
She flashed her most ferocious look at Harvey. “You may have bought Harry’s partnership back, but you aren’t through with the Hardwicks yet. Let me tell you how it works.” She put both hands on his desk and leaned in toward him. “I’ve talked to six of the management committee. They agreed with me. They want to offer me a partnership and a seat on the committee. If you don’t do this, you miserable bastard, I’ll make your life a living hell.”
****
Hope was right. The border crossing was painless. They slowed as I-5 neared the border. They pulled into a line with a green light. The crossing guard didn’t even give them a look. Catrina pulled forward into a concrete-barrier-separated lane, a light turned green and the barrier barring the road opened. She drove through and they were in Mexico. No fuss, no muss, no bother.
“Shit, Hope,” Catrina said over her shoulder. “Now I wish I’d brought my trusty Glo
ck and at least my little Beretta.”
“Told you so,” Hope answered. “I’ve been over this border a hundred times. We’ve never been stopped or searched.”
“So much for porous borders,” Catrina said.
“Wait until we have to come back,” Chris said from the passenger’s seat. “They’ll have drug-sniffing dogs, they’ll walk around the car with mirrors on sticks checking out the underbody. They’ll put us under a microscope.”
“You don’t know how to play the game,” Hope answered. “You hope you get a guy, or at least a bull dyke, checking you in. Then bat your eyelashes and act all dumb and innocent. It works every time.”
“I guess I don’t have the requisite parts,” Chris said.
The road through Tijuana was familiar to Hope. She spent many a summer’s weekend at her aunt’s house in Ensenada. They took the highway south, with the border fence on one side and dusty, dirty, broken-down houses on the other. There was no zoning in the city. Nice restaurants sat alongside auto mechanics shops and sequndos, second-hand stores. As they passed out of town, ghettos of plywood and cardboard shacks appeared.
Catrina had seen it before, but she still shook her head in dismay. How could a country as wealthy as Mexico let their people live in such conditions?
The toll road from Tijuana to Ensenada was new, empty and offered an unparalleled vista of the ocean as they drove south.
“Let’s stop at the fish market for lunch,” Hope said.
“Works for me.” Chris added, “I’m dying here.”
Following Hope’s directions, Catrina drove the Explorer to the waterfront. Her luck held; she found a parking spot not far from the market.
“There’s several good places here,” Hope said, as she led the way through a warren of fish stands.
Hope was always impressed by the array of fresh fish. She recognized the clams, mussels and oysters. There were a few species of fish she knew and bunches of fish she’d never seen before. She was most impressed with the shark and rays for sale. The octopus looked exotic, but she’d eaten it before so it held no mystery.
She led them to an open-fronted stall with long picnic tables covered in red, white and green oil cloths. Strangers sat next to one another and chatted about politics and futbol.
“Are they talking about the Mariners?” Catrina asked.
“Ensenada’s baseball team is named the Marineros. They’re talking about baseball, just not American baseball.”
A kindly-looking abuela brought one plastic-covered menu to the table and handed it to Chris. He gave it to Hope; it was all in Spanish.
Catrina ordered the shrimp cocktail, Hope and Chris both ordered ceviche tostadas. Hope and Catrina asked for Coca Light while Chris had his standard cerveza.
Back on the road, they headed south on Highway 1. The two-lane road took them through dry areas with little ranchitos scattered here and there and finally came to an area of vineyards. Fields of grape vines stretched as far as Catrina could see.
They climbed a low pass through some hills and descended into a valley crisscrossed with vegetable farms. Some of the fields held dairy cows.
“Boy, this is not what I expected in Baja,” Chris said. “I thought we’d be driving through a thousand miles of desert.”
“Don’t worry,” Hope answered. “You’ll get your desert soon enough. First we have to go through the saguaro forest and the rock piles.”
“Saguaro forest?” Catrina asked.
“Yeah, you know what a saguaro cactus is, don’t you? Those big cactus with lots of needles and arms reaching up towards the sky.”
“Sure.”
“Well, you’re going to drive through a whole forest of them. Standing next to each other all the way up to the mountains. It’s really eerie driving through there at night. They look like some kind of alien life forms.”
Chris turned in his seat and faced his sweetheart. “What about the rock piles?”
“That’s what we call them. There are these gigantic piles of boulders. Almost nothing grows in that area. These fields of boulders can be as big as a Costco and twice as high. It looks like some giant stacked them in neat squares and rectangles.”
After the boulders, the road twisted and turned up the mountains. The outside air grew chilly and the sun dropped low on the horizon. Finally, Catrina drove down out of the mountains onto a vast desert plain. A couple of hours later, she again spied the Pacific Ocean. The sun was just disappearing into the dark sea.
“We don’t dare drive at night,” Hope said. “Livestock and other critters sleep on the roads, we could have a bad accident. We’ll stay in Guerrero Negro tonight, it’s just ahead. I know a nice little hotel on the road into town.”
The hotel was pleasant enough. Catrina pulled off the main road into the dirt parking lot and parked under a grove of palm trees.
A good-looking man roughly the size of a Mack Truck met them at the hewn-wood front desk. The building itself, like almost all buildings in Baja, was made of concrete blocks. The entry way was filled with old-time photographs and indigenous art. On the front desk a large poster in a plastic frame invited guests to go on a whale-watching cruise.
“We need two rooms,” Chris said as they walked up. The three knew the rules in Mexico. No one would pay any attention to a woman when a man was accompanying them.
Catrina liked dining on the restaurant patio. A tile roof supported by heavy posts covered the dining room. The view was of a garden area with the dirt parking lot in the background.
Catrina had been in Mexico before, but always stayed in touristy hotels. She got her first taste of the Mexico Mexicans see. Her bed was a concrete slab covered by a thin mattress.
Great for someone with a bad back.
There was a small analog TV which played three Mexican stations.
A sign in the bathroom, in English, asked patrons not to put toilet paper down the toilet. The plumbing was too fragile.
The shower was heaven on earth. The open, tile covered stall would have accommodated a party of six. The shower head was high on the wall and the water pressure was much better than the flow-control shower-heads in Seattle.
The next morning Catrina drove across the Baja Peninsula and crossed a tall mountain range. The Explorer, with all of its extra horsepower, had no problems climbing up the slope. Occasionally they passed a Japanese auto or a Kenworth truck laboring its way up the hill.
A snow-capped peak dominated their view to the north.
“Look at that. Snow in Baja.” Chris pointed out the window.
“That’s Tres Virgenes,” Hope said. “The second highest peak in Baja.”
After they reached the summit, the Sea of Cortez was visible miles away and thousands of feet below. The highway was one of the most torturous mountain roads Catrina ever encountered, two lanes carved out of mountainsides with no shoulders and no guard rails. A car going over the side would fall two thousand feet to the valley below.
Catrina held her breath and headed down with a foot on the brakes.
They reached sea level at Santa Rosalia and stopped for lunch. The next couple of hours followed the coastline of the beautiful azure sea.
“This reminds me of the Aegean Sea in Greece,” Chris said.
Rich boy, Catrina thought. Neither she nor Hope had ever been to Europe.
The last leg of the trip brought them through another mountain range until finally, they saw the lights of a large metropolis below them.
Chapter 31
Ted slept fitfully. Maria’s big bed was missing something: Maria.
He rose in the early morning hours and went for a swim. Upon returning to the condo he showered, shaved and prepared to face another day of fruitless searching.
He hadn’t turned up a single clue. El Pozolero had the populace of La Paz so scared, no one would talk to him.
Then there was that pesky contract. Ted’s head was mounted on a swivel, constantly checking his back-side for any trace of someone pursuing him.
It was a tiring, exhausting day. His frustration mounted then his cell phone rang.
“Higuera.”
“Hey, amigo, we’re here.”
“Chris! You guys made good time.”
“Cat drives like a maniac. She hardly let anyone else touch the steering wheel. I think we averaged ninety miles an hour on the way down.”
Ted let out a deep breath. “Man, am I glad to hear from you. Where are you?”
“We passed a little area called Centenario a few minutes ago. We’re just coming into town.”
Ted gave him instructions on how to reach the condo and raced for the kitchen. After that long drive they would be tired, hungry and thirsty, not necessarily in that order.
He rummaged around in the fridge and found some carne asada, tortillas, cilantro, salsa and onions. That would have to do.
He checked the drinks. There was plenty of beer for Chris and a pitcher of iced tea for Catrina.
Okay, he was ready.
Chopping onions when the door bell rang, Ted dropped the knife and ran for the door.
“Hermano.” He threw his arms around Chris. “It sure is good to see you.”
“What am I, chopped liver?” Catrina asked.
He grabbed her in a death grip. “Good to see you too, boss lady.” Then his eye caught Hope.
“Hope! What are you doing here? I told you to stay home.”
Anger flared in Hope’s eyes. “What do you think I’m doing here? I came to drag your sorry ass out of trouble again.”
“You can’t be here. It’s too dangerous. Does Mama know? It would kill her if something happened to you.”
Hope pushed hard against Ted’s chest with both hands. “What do you think it would do if something happened to you?”
Hope blew past Ted and entered the condo. “Nice digs.”
“Sis, you can’t stay here. I’ll get you a ticket on the next plane out.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, you big baboso. I’m here and I’m staying. I was a lot of help last time.”
She headed into the kitchen and checked out the refrigerator. Coming out with a Diet Coke, she said, “That’s settled. What do you have to eat, I’m starved.”
The Cartel Strikes Back: The Ted Higuera Series, Book 5 Page 19
