by AJ Adams
“You okay?” Quique asked.
“Yes.” I wasn’t going to risk pissing Rip off anymore. “It’s just a little hot.”
“Absolutely,” Quique agreed immediately. “It’s a real scorcher.” He was smiling, but I saw right away the Zeta’s eyes were a little worried. For a moment my paranoia soared but then he added, ultra casually, “I hear the girls went to see you this morning.”
I saw straight away Quique knew his wife and her friends were interfering in cartel business. This was tricky.
“Yes, we had tea,” Rip said. And then he just stopped.
I recognised the absent look and jumped in. “They came to make sure I was feeling better. We really appreciate it.”
Quique smiled, clearly relieved. “That’s great.” The dark eyes were looking me over. “Guapa, we really can help you.”
Into an early grave. He would not be smiling if he knew who I was. I found myself leaning into Rip. “Thanks. I’m happy where I am.”
Quique’s phone buzzed. “Excuse me.”
To my horror, I saw black leather jackets in the distance. Los Osos were prowling the streets. Sweat ran down my back. “Rip, let’s go home.”
He was still tense, with that blank robot gaze in his eyes.
“Rip, I feel sick.”
The leather jackets ducked in and out of view. My stomach heaved.
“Pobrecita!” Quique was off the phone and quick to sympathise.
Rip didn’t believe me for a second. But he didn’t let on. “Let’s get you home.”
Quique sighed. “A word with you, Rip?”
They stood aside, whispering. I was on tenterhooks, plastered against the wall, panicking that Neto would turn up at any moment. But Rip was taking me by the hand a second later. “Come on.”
Typical Rip, he moved at the speed of light. I was in the truck, shopping piled on top of me, before I could get it together. I was almost crying with relief when Quique patted my hand. “Sorry, guapa, but the jefe needs to see Rip. It’s urgent.”
“Tell him we’re on our way,” Rip said.
Spots danced in front of my eyes. I wasn’t heading for safety. I was being taken to Zeta central.
Chapter Nineteen: Rip
The little bitch! She smiled in my face, and at first opportunity she had run off, almost exposing me right in front of Quique and the Zetas. I wanted to beat the hell out of her, but I couldn’t, not with everyone watching. I couldn’t take her home, either, not with Arturo wanting to see me.
When we arrived at the mansion, Morgan was white with fear and actively shivering. I was glad to see it; she deserved to feel bad.
She took one look at the machine-gun-toting guards and tried to worm out of it, “I’ll wait out here.”
“Nobody hangs by the gate, Morgan.”
We went through security, stepping through the body-scanner before being led up to the office. Six efficient-looking women were closing shop for the day, switching off their computers and locking file cabinets. Before they could say a word, Arturo surged out. “Rip, am I glad to see you.” I got a hug, and then he was smiling at Morgan, saying, “Guapa! I’ve been wanting to meet you.”
Morgan looked as if her knees were folding under her, but she managed, “Mr Vazquez, it’s an honour.”
Arturo blinked at the force of her fear and rallied. “You’re not well. Pobrecita!” A second later, he was piloting her into a large wicker seat on the terrace, calling, “Luz, will you bring coffee?”
It took just a few minutes for him to have Morgan armed with magazines, coffee, and enough finger sandwiches and cake to feed a small army.
“Solitaire says you’re coming for lunch on Sunday.”
“Thank you. She was so kind. And you, too, Sir.”
Even shaking with terror, Morgan was saying all the right things because Arturo smiled and patted her hand, saying, “Rip and I are going to have a short chat, and then he’ll take you home.”
His usually pristine outer office was covered in drop cloths. Paint tins and ladders stood around, signs of redecoration.
“They said it would take two days, and it took five,” he sighed, “but in a few hours, they’ll touch up the cornices, and then they’ll be gone.”
“It looks nice.”
There was a babble of voices, and then his secretaries took off, high heels clattering down the path. Arturo threw himself into his chair and indicated I should sit down. “Morgan looks much frailer than I expected,” he said. “Quique said she was ill?”
“She’s still a bit delicate.”
Arturo hesitated, clearly dying to know more, but there was urgent business to attend to. He dropped the pleasantries and got down to it. “There’s a double-dealing snitch at work,” he growled. “I need a hunter.”
As always Arturo laid it out plain and simple. “One of our people, Ricky Alvarez, has a brother, Ronaldo, who was caught for a kidnapping last year in Texas. Ronaldo isn’t one of us, but he called himself a Zeta, you know, to scare his victim.”
“It went pear-shaped?”
“Yeah, the stupid fuck got caught,” Arturo sneered. “He got sentenced to twenty years, and he deserved it, the capullo.”
His anger surprised me, but Arturo quickly made his position clear. “We’ve got a policy: don’t fuck with us, and we don’t fuck with you. Ronaldo snatched a kid because he had word her papa inherited a couple of thou. The papa’s a straight up man, a schoolteacher, for chrissake. He should’ve been left alone.”
It was interesting and surprising. Every crime organisation I’d known would squeeze a kickback out of your birthday box of Ferrero Rocher chocolate. Arturo working to a code really surprised me.
“Some people would have had Ronaldo beaten, just to teach him not to use the Zeta name without permission, but I didn’t out of respect for Ricky,” Arturo fumed. “And now Ricky, the hijo de puta, is turning rat.”
Why criminals think their friends are honest and true always surprises me. But giving the right response was easy. “The ungrateful bugger!”
“Right!” Arturo flared. “Our information is that he’s putting together a package for the DEA. Once it’s complete, he and his brother go into witness protection.”
“I’ll find him. How long would you like him to suffer?”
He liked the idea, I could see that straight off, but he shook his head. “Me, I’d love for him to go out slow, but this has to end quick.” He handed me a folder. “The fuck’s based in Bogota, and he has homes in Beijing, Hong Kong, Kabul, and Lahore. Can you tell me where he is?”
Right. Hunting by proxy. Not fun like the real thing, but it made me valuable. Funny, nobody else had ever asked me to do this. It had always been a search and destroy mission. So this was new in a way, just doing the search, but I was enjoying the prospect of showing off my skills.
Arturo leaned back to watch, and I absorbed the file he gave me. Ricky Alvarez was a mid-level Zeta associate with more ups and downs than a whore’s knickers. He’d made a fortune, lost it, and made it again.
He lived rich, maintaining five homes, four ex-wives, a dozen permanent mistresses, and a black book filled with call girls. I could see Arturo’s problem: Ricky Alvarez must have dozens of willing arms and open legs waiting to shelter him. As for family, he had two sisters, a dozen cousins, eleven aunts and uncles, and a raft of in-laws.
Interesting.
I dipped into Arturo’s notes. Ricky was easy going, open-hearted, and generous. He was also a good linguist and moved easily between cultures. Frankly, I envied him for that. I had never felt at home in any of the cities I’d lived in. I’d even felt out of it going back to England, even though I grew up there.
“I’ve got a video of the capullo,” Arturo growled. “Want to see it?”
“Every little bit helps.”
It was Ricky singing ‘The Most Beautiful Girl in the World’ to a curvy girl with a crew cut. Another shot featured him proposing to a skinny one with a cloud of hair, “Be my h
eart—let’s be best friends forever.”
Ricky was a Romeo, but from his file, they were mostly gold-diggers. “Why does Ricky go for ho’s?”
“He loves women, but he picks the ones motivated by money,” Arturo shrugged. “He says it’s easier on the heart.”
I had enough to move into the zone. I was hardworking, socially adept, and picking up women the way socks collect burrs on a country walk. Money was no object, an abstract thing, a tool to get what I really wanted—love, warmth, companionship. But it wasn’t real. I paid for them to play the game.
Instantly my mind flew to Morgan. My girl who was playing my game. Not for money but for the higher stakes of safety. That rocked me. Once I’m in the zone, I don’t switch, and yet there I was, pulled away. It wasn’t right.
I forced myself back to being Ricky. Heartbreak. That was the key. I found it in the files. I took out her picture. “He’s with her,” I told Arturo.
“What? Can’t be!” Arturo was shocked. “His teenage sweetheart? She entered a convent in San Salvador.”
I tapped the Bride of Christ’s photo. “She was the last person he was sure who loved him for himself. The rest were all about the money.”
Arturo looked flabbergasted, but then he nodded. “Yes, I see. That makes complete sense. Thank God I’ve got people there.”
He made a brief call. “The convent school, Nuestra Señora de la Paz. Send a photo and make it absolutely plain that he’s not to disturb the sisters or the kids. I’m not fucking around here. Tell him that it’s a single-shot kill, and if he fucks up, he’ll pay for it with his life.”
Okay. Like the schoolteacher papa, nuns and kids were untouchable. It was interesting and really rather unexpected. The Zetas really were different.
“It’ll be over in an hour,” Arturo said. “Let’s have a drink.” He poured two glasses of white wine. “Casa Madero, a local label,” he said. “What do you think?”
“Delicious.”
It made him grin. “Do you know anything about our wine industry?”
“Not a thing. Tell me about it?”
He talked for ten minutes, while I nodded and smiled, and then he turned the subject again. “How are you settling in, Rip?”
“Great.” I liked Arturo, but I wasn’t sure if I should stick around. If I stayed to chat, I might fuck up. I didn’t want to risk that. I loved being with the Zetas. “Arturo, you’re busy. I should go.”
“Don’t you want to know how it ends?”
That confused me. “How what ends?”
“Ricky Alvarez! Don’t you want to know if he’s there?”
“Why wouldn’t he be?”
We looked at each other, and I could sense I was losing control of the situation. I wasn’t coming across right. He thought I was arrogant or disinterested. I wasn’t hitting the mark. Open, friendly, positive communication, my original strategy, was the way to go.
Without thinking about it, I was shifting. “Arturo, my friend,” yes, I got Ricky’s gravelly tones just right, “don’t you trust me?”
“María, madre de Jesús!” Arturo gazed at me, looking quite horrified. “You sound just like him.”
Fuck! I’d fucked up! I was going for irony, but I should’ve tried to see it from Arturo’s point of view. He was looking at me as if he’d seen a ghost.
I tried to settle myself, to try again but two things happened at once. Arturo’s phone rang, and Quique walked in, shutting the door behind him.
The phone call was confirmation. “Already?” His phone beeped. Arturo showed us a snap. It was Ricky, with a hole in his head. Arturo got straight back on to his assassin at the other end. “Thanks for the great job. Look for a bonus in your account tonight.”
Arturo scribbled a note in his file, and then he tapped on his keyboard, and I was certain he was updating my file too. He was super efficient; no wonder his records were excellent.
When he hung up, Quique sighed. “It’s done, huh?”
Arturo shrugged. “Yeah. All finished.”
“Oh shit,” Quique said bleakly. “Morgan is outside.” The way he looked at me made my heart go cold. “The girls must’ve opened the windows to air the place out. With this door open too—” he gestured outside. “She’s heard every word.”
Arturo was out in a flash. We followed on his heels. Morgan was sitting on a wicker sofa, pretending to admire the roses. I knew the second I saw her pale frightened face that she’d heard everything. I was also guessing that outsiders who could finger Arturo for murder had a lifespan of seconds.
Morgan took one look at Arturo and Quique, and then she was up on her feet and heading for me, moving faster than a speeding bullet. Luckily I was waiting for it. She rocketed into me and clung.
“Rip!” Her eyes were urgent. “Don’t let them hurt me!” Her voice was an agonised whisper. “Protect me!”
At first I couldn’t believe my ears. Me, protect her? When an hour or so ago she’d been set to make a run for it?
“Please, Rip. I’m your girl. Remember?”
Arturo and Quique were cautious, pensive. They’d liked me because of Morgan.
She was whispering, “Don’t let them kill me.”
I was staring at Arturo, knowing this was her death. Thanks to those idiotic secretaries, I was going to lose my girl.
“She’s a witness,” Arturo said softly. “Rip, she’s a threat. To you and to me.”
I looked at Morgan, glued to me in her terror. I’ve always dealt with threats in one way. All it would take was a pinch in her neck. The carotid artery can be shut down with a touch. She’d be gone in a minute.
“Rip.” Arturo was telling me it had to be done.
Her eyes were wide and frightened. They were so dark that the gold flecks were invisible. It’s how she’d looked that night after the barbecue. The night she’d brought true feeling back into my life.
I couldn’t kill her.
“Arturo, I want a favour.” God knows where that came from. “I want the girl.”
Morgan gasped and clung tighter. I prised her hands off me. “Stop that, Morgan. I can’t help if I can’t breathe.” She was gasping, half relief, half disbelief.
“Rip, my friend,” Arturo was going to turn me down. “Think what you’re asking.”
“I know I have no right. I haven’t earned it. But I will.”
At this Arturo’s interest sharpened. “What are you saying?”
“I’ll work for you without reservation. No more vetting of assignments. Anything you like, I’ll do. My total loyalty, always.”
He was tempted, that was clear. “But Rip, all that for one girl? We don’t even know who she is.”
“I do.”
At that Morgan was shaking again. I held her close and faced Arturo. He needed to understand my talent for the hunt. I’d show him what made me the best. It would expose Morgan, but she was already dead anyway. This way I might save her.
“How do you know who she is?” Arturo asked.
“It’s very simple,” I told him. “Her ex beat her, right? She was purple, with cracked bones, but she didn’t have any internal injuries. He knew how to keep her conscious while he hurt her. He was even careful not to break her cheekbones and her jaw. It tells me that she was beaten professionally. That suggests her ex is like us.”
At that Arturo made a mouth, but he knew I was right.
“She understands how the cartel works. She’d heard of the Zetas, and she knew your name. That means she’s connected somehow.”
Morgan was barely breathing.
“Her accent is Texan, so she’s fairly local.” I remembered how she’d made her offer I can be anything you want while the news anchor had talked of gang violence. “She’s particularly afraid if you mention the Los Osos bombing in Templado.”
At that, Morgan gasped. Every breath she took was telling me I was hitting the spot.
“Gangs like Los Osos don’t accept female members, and if she had worked for them as a whore or couri
er, she’d probably have a record.”
Arturo was fascinated, staring at Morgan. “Maybe someone close was an associate?”
Morgan was shivering again.
“No, if they were family, she’d be suggesting we hand her back in return for a ransom. Morgan is very certain she doesn’t want to do that.” I looked at the small hands with the callused palms. “Most girls can’t wield a hairdryer without instructions, but Morgan is happy fixing taps and stripping down engines.”
Arturo and Quique were gazing at Morgan, but they weren’t getting the point yet. All they saw was a frightened girl; they couldn’t see the steel inside her.
“Los Osos went up because of an explosion in the vents, they said. I think Morgan arranged that.”
There was a dead silence. Arturo and Quique were looking sceptical, but Morgan was staring at me in total horror.
“She can’t go home, and moreover she says there’s nobody left. I think she took out Los Osos for revenge. A family matter, I’d say.”
At that, Arturo stiffened. He knew what was coming.
I gazed into Morgan’s frightened slate eyes. “You’re terrified because you’re from enemy territory,” I said to her. “Isn’t that right? Gulf cartel or perhaps Sinaloa?”
She was silent but Arturo’s attention was sharper than knives. “Well,” he said to Morgan. “Who are you?”
At that, she stood tall. I knew she was terrified and shaking, but you’d not guess it from her face. “My name is Isabella Maria Franco.” The pride in her voice rang out. “My father was Louis Franco.”
Arturo frowned. “Louis Franco, the champion racer?”
“Yes,” Morgan answered simply.
“Fast Louis,” Arturo said. “Yes, I remember. He worked for Don Valentine.”
“He was a bookie in his early days,” Quique was remembering.
“He was more than a bookie,” Arturo said dryly. “He was a lieutenant.”
I could see by Quique’s face this was trouble.
Arturo was frowning, remembering the past. “He was killed during a negotiation; it set off a war.”
Morgan winced but was silent.
“Yeah, didn’t the whole family die out?” Quique asked.
