by A. J. Adams
So Kyle was wondering why I was dragging my feet. Kyle was deadpan as he always is when it comes to business, and Jorge was trying to imitate Kyle’s unconcern, but it wasn’t working; Jorge was visibly nervous.
“Arturo, we need to talk.” Kyle spoke softly.
There was no avoiding this. Security is his province, and there was no way in hell he could let this slide. I knew I couldn’t, either. If Solitaire was an informer… I didn’t want to think about it.
Jorge was examining the list. “This needs to be dealt with,” he announced. “I’ll get on it right away.”
He’s a good man, Jorge. He’d deal with the fallout and let us, his seniors, deal with evaluating the accusation. “I’ll call you later,” I promised him.
Jorge disappeared, and then I had to deal.
Solitaire was still as a statue. She didn’t look guilty; she looked empty. The lovely face was lifeless. “I don’t tell tales out of school,” she said distantly.
It was a strange way to put it, and the way she said it was even stranger. “If you did, I’d understand,” I heard myself say. It was an automatic response. Always seek the truth. Even if it kills her and you. “You hated Escamilla. Maybe you talked to the cops?”
“Split on someone to a plod? No way!” Solitaire said angrily. “Danjuma beat me up because McClutsky told him I’d talked, but it was a set-up. He couldn’t make me talk, so he screwed me over. Now he’s doing it again. I’m not a snitch!”
“You sold Escamilla out to us.” Kyle was watching her. “You helped with the E-field, and you knew the coke was hidden in his secret safe.”
“He held me hostage by blackmailing me just so he could rape me,” Solitaire spat. “He fucked me over, and I fucked him back harder. Got a problem with that?”
“No, but I have a problem with a security leak. You were on the scene.”
“I have no idea who was talking,” Solitaire snapped, “but it wasn’t me!”
“You had motive.”
“And I was locked up!”
“Escamilla didn’t lock down till a couple of days ago. You might have arranged to be taken and for a contact to visit.”
Solitaire glared at him. “You’re out of your frigging mind!”
“It’s been done.”
Kyle was silent, and I knew he was figuring out how he could get an answer.
We had an accusation, and we had Solitaire, but Christ, I didn’t want to hurt her. For the first time in my life I wanted to bury my head in the sand, pretend that accusation had never been made. But I couldn’t do it. If Solitaire was an informer, then she was playing a long game. That meant she’d not just bury me: she’d bury the whole family. And if she were clean, we’d still need proof, because Davis would talk. That meant that Solitaire’s past would come back to haunt her – with a bullet.
Most of her exes were small fry, but Miguel Fuentes was a player. We hadn’t met, but I knew him by reputation. The global economy isn’t just about smart phones and fast food, you know. In my business everyone above a certain level knows everyone else.
I didn’t need to look him up to know that Fuentes was an independent operator specialising in transport. He had strong connections with the Tarabin Bedouins in Egypt, the Guinea-Bissau gangs in West Africa and the Abergil crime family based in Israel. Given his contacts, he was probably in with a tonne of terrorist groups in the region, too – everyone loves a transporter who asks no questions.
I knew that if Fuentes thought Solitaire was Songbird, he’d hire someone to blow her away. In fact, it was odd that he let her walk in the first place. As administrator in his main office and his girlfriend, Solitaire must have seen enough to be dangerous. As he’d let her leave, Fuentes must have trusted her. That and the fact that he was still out there doing business might argue to some that Solitaire was clean, but I knew it didn’t mean much. The cops have a habit of letting time pass between getting the goods on someone and busting them. It protects their source, and by timing it right, they can haul in a raft of others, some of whom will talk in return for immunity.
If she was to survive, Solitaire had to be clean and be proven clean beyond reasonable doubt.
“Arturo, we must know.” Kyle insisted.
Kyle was taking the lead, because this problem was his speciality. If you’ve got a secret and Kyle wants it, you’ll be sharing. Trust me. Together we’ve gotten to some of the toughest bastards on the planet: Cartel, Mafia, Special Forces, narcs and spooks included. We’ve had reason to talk to all of them at one time or another, and we’ve always gotten the goods.
Me, I’m the brute force type. Give me a knife, drill or hammer and some time, and I’ll have you begging to talk. It works ninety-nine percent of the time, but there’s always one hard son of a bitch who won’t fold. And that’s where Kyle comes in. Kyle always knows how to open someone up. But oh fuck, some of his methods make me throw up, and that’s saying something.
My heart wanted to say, “Forget it! It’s not fucking happening!” but my mouth opened, and I heard myself say, “Don’t hurt her.”
Kyle nodded. He lowered his voice and spoke quietly so that only I could hear him. “Totally painless. I guarantee it. Just a quiet, comfortable heart to heart.”
At his words my heart almost bounced out of my throat with relief. I knew what he was going to do. Thank God for a brother who is the world’s best black ops man. It was going to be all right.
“You’ve got your gear?”
“Yeah. Thought I might need it to find your coke.” Kyle got up. “Back in a sec.”
He disappeared, and I was so relieved that I completely and utterly fucked up. Seriously, I still can’t believe what I did next.
Solitaire was still sitting in that wing chair, back straight, ankles crossed and giving me a look that came straight from the North Pole. “Davis is a dirty double-dealing plod, and you take his word over mine?”
She had a point. “I’m sorry, but I can’t ignore this. You know that.”
“Half a second ago you were crowing because I let that wanker McClutsky slap me about rather than talk. Also, I could have dumped you in a world of shit with one word any time over the last few days. That now counts for nothing?”
I wanted to cry it wasn’t fair, that I didn’t want to do this, that I wanted to trust her, but I couldn’t say the words. “It’s not personal –”
She looked at me and shrugged. “Fuck you.” She said it quietly and without any emotion whatsoever.
“Look, you’ve got to see –”
“Sod off, Arturo. I don’t want to hear it.” She closed her eyes and switched off.
I wanted to hug her, shake her, beg her to forgive me for what I had to do, but then Kyle came back.
He was carrying a black bag. It’s a doctor’s bag, but the contents aren’t exactly regulation. I don’t know what Kyle has in there, but I know it works. I’ve seen him take apart men who’ve resisted days of beatings with just a couple of shots. He altered their reality, walked into their minds and took what he needed. It was brutal, and what was left wasn’t worth keeping around. It had never been an issue before, but now I was shit scared of what might happen to Solitaire.
“Kyle?” The words wouldn’t come.
“Relax, it’s under control.” Kyle opened the bag revealing a row of small bottles. A row of sterile pack syringes lay on top. Solitaire opened her eyes, glanced at the bag and swallowed. Then she pokered up again.
Kyle snapped open syringe and needle packs and then he was cleaning a spot on Solitaire’s arm. Her eyes went wide, and she jerked away.
“Hold still, this won’t hurt.” Kyle planted a hand on her shoulder and put the needle to her shoulder. Solitaire shuddered and then sat still. A second later Kyle had given her a shot. “Just give it a few minutes,” he said to her. “Just lie down and relax.”
“I’ll go out any way I damn well like!” Solitaire snarled. “And it’s not going to be lying down!”
And that’s when
I realised I’d forgotten to tell Solitaire what was going on.
Kyle turned his head and glared at me. “Arturo, you fucking bastard!”
He thought I’d done it on purpose. “Jesus, Kyle! I didn’t mean it!”
Kyle put his hand on Solitaire’s. “You’re not going to die, sweetheart. It’s just a muscle relaxant.”
She blinked and then shrugged. “Whatever.” She didn’t believe him.
“Sirena, he’s telling the truth.” I was trying to get close to her, to hug her but Solitaire leaned back and pushed me away. “It’s a debrief. You’re not going to die.”
Her eyes were filled with hate. She looked at me the way she had glared at Escamilla, and it was my own fucking fault.
“Arturo, go take a walk, okay?” Kyle spoke quietly but his eyes were hard. I could tell that he was fighting the urge to beat the hell out of me. To be honest, it would have been a relief. I couldn’t believe what I’d done.
I left them, but I didn’t go far. I couldn’t. My stomach was churning, and I had a bad case of the shakes. I sat on the bed in the room next door, cursing myself.
I’d been so caught up in the fact that I might lose Solitaire that it hadn’t occurred to me that she had no idea what was coming. All she knew was that she’d been accused, and that I wasn’t taking her at her word. She’d heard me tell Kyle I didn’t want her hurt, and then he’d stuck a needle into her. A needle. And I’m Mexico’s biggest coke trafficker.
She must have thought that I’d decided not to take any chances. Solitaire sat in that chair believing that needle held an overdose. And she’d not begged, cried or fought. She’d told us to fuck off, and then she’d sat there waiting for death.
I’d meant to save her life, and I’d put her through hell instead. There’s me, a Princeton graduate boasting about his people skills, and I can’t get it together to have a simple conversation. Jesus fucking Christ, someone ought to shoot me again.
I could hear Kyle talking. “An overdose would lead straight back to us. If I was taking you out, I’d snap your neck and put your body at the bottom of the stairs. A simple accident nobody could lay at our door.”
As reassurances go it sounded brutal, but from Solitaire’s murmured response, she was accepting it. Thank God. Part of me wanted to go out, to tell her I was sorry, but I knew it would be the worst thing I could do. Kyle needed her calm and cooperative, and if she saw me, she’d want to whack me. Deservedly so. So I sat tight and listened.
“It’s a muscle relaxant with a little feel-good juice,” Kyle was saying. “It’s already working, so just make yourself comfortable and talk to me. Tell me: did you enjoy that trip on the Eye?”
I couldn’t hear Solitaire’s reply, but I heard everything Kyle said, and that’s how it was for the next half hour. From Kyle’s questions, she was going under nicely. I knew he’d give her a boost soon, and then she’d be half asleep. That was when the real debrief would start. I sat and waited, and when I heard Kyle tell her to take a sip of water, I gave it five minutes and went to join them.
Solitaire was curled up on the wing chair, propped up with cushions and looking half asleep. Kyle was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of her, his face close to hers.
Solitaire was completely out of it and didn’t notice me sliding into the room. Her pupils were so large that her eyes looked black, and she was giggling softly. Kyle hadn’t been kidding about the feel-good juice. The people I’d seen him dope in the past had looked like zombies. This wasn’t like that at all. Whatever he’d done this time, my girl was feeling no pain.
“It’s weird,” she was saying. “I’d completely forgotten about it. It’s just come back to me. Miguel hates it when I tell this story.”
She was talking about Fuentes, telling Kyle about a time they’d gone to pick up a consignment in a desert somewhere. Their meet was at an oasis, and Fuentes had unwittingly disturbed a rutting camel who’d turned on him. As Solitaire told it, Fuentes had set a land-speed record unrivalled by Dakar Rally drivers.
“He really got the hump,” she giggled. “Didn’t see the funny side of it at all.”
“Tell me about the consignment,” Kyle invited her.
“Let’s not,” Solitaire said. “I don’t like to talk details. Safer, see?”
“Sure. So who was he meeting?”
“I forget. Let’s talk about something else.”
There was a long silence, and Kyle said, “You met them in the desert, right?”
Solitaire frowned. “Right. Blokes all dressed in white. You know, those long dress-things. Thawbs. Very smart-looking. Very clean. Like a Persil ad.”
“Where were they from?”
“The desert, I guess,” Solitaire said vaguely. “Dunno. Didn’t ask.”
“How big was the consignment?”
“Let’s not talk about that. You’re very good looking. Let’s talk about you.”
“Tell me about the time you were in Amsterdam. Tell me about Molenaar.”
“Who?”
“You ran a topless manicure business for him in Amsterdam. He had an opium den, remember? Tell me about that.”
“Let’s not talk business,” Solitaire said again. “Let’s talk about you.”
Kyle handed her a glass. “Here, have another sip.”
Solitaire drank it with an unsteady hand. “I think I’m a bit sloshed,” she confided. “This vodka’s neat. I’ve mine with tonic usually.”
“We’ve run out,” Kyle said. “I’ll go and get some if you like. But first, tell me again about Molenaar. You were saying he was dealing?”
“Was I?” Solitaire asked sounding vaguely surprised. “Amsterdam. Right. I remember that, I think. I was topless. Is that right?”
Kyle kept at it, going over the same things over and over, but it was clear that Solitaire had a strict policy of not talking about business, ever. It took him an hour to get her to open up, and even then she was ducking and weaving, constantly trying to shift away from talking shop.
What was odd was that Solitaire seemed disconnected from everyone she’d worked for. In fact, half of the names Kyle threw at her drew up a complete blank. When he prodded her with suggestions, she remembered a little more, but it really wasn’t much. I’ve gotten more intel from CNN, and you know how useless those bastards are.
However, when Kyle brought up Danjuma, Solitaire became upset. It took him twenty minutes to calm her down, and even then all she would say was that he’d beaten her.
“Beefy set me up. He wanted Danjuma. I got picked up. That was bad. Very bad.”
Solitaire was confused but another sip of juice had her talking.
“Almost talked,” Solitaire mumbled. “Almost. Taser, that’s what it was. Burned me. Burned and left no marks. They kept me all night. Almost talked but they had to kick me before I did. Close thing, though. And the fucker beat me up. Bastard. Should have talked. Should have put him in the slammer. Should have gone back after and shopped him. But I hate plods. Hate them all. Never telling them anything. Hate them!”
Solitaire was very hazy about her time with Escamilla, but the bits she did talk about had me raging. If that fuck had been alive, I’d have boiled him all over again. Kyle kept digging, and although she didn’t seem to know much, she had kept her eyes and ears open. She was half asleep at that point, and so out of it that she didn’t even remember at first that she knew about the coke and the security system.
Kyle gave her a sip from a different bottle that brought her back, and she remembered talking to me about the coke. She didn’t know any of the names on the list, though, and she didn’t even know the name of the record label. Careful questioning about the rest of our operation, the money laundering, race fixing and counterfeiting also drew a blank. That, and the fact that security had been so tight that it had prevented her from learning her mother had died made it clear that Solitaire wasn’t the leak.
She was running down again, finding it hard to keep her eyes open. When Kyle told her t
o take a nap, she breathed deeply and was unconscious seconds later.
Kyle turned to me. “She’s clean,” he said quietly.
Relief flooded through me. Everything would be all right now. Davis could point fingers for evermore, and nobody would believe him. Not after Solitaire’s passing Kyle’s tests.
The debrief had taken all afternoon and most of the evening. The night on the town I’d planned was busted, but I didn’t care. All that mattered was that Solitaire was all right.
She’d be mad at me, but I’d deal with that. The sapphire necklace would be a peace offering. I know, I know! I deserved a kick in the nuts for thinking it would be that easy. I had it coming all right.
Kyle sat staring into space, and then he made a few calls. Fifteen minutes later he turned to me, frowning slightly. “She’s clean, but she’s got a problem,” he said.
“What problem?”
“She’s got memory gaps. Lots of them. From the way she was talking, she lost it when she was electrocuted. She’s getting some of it back, but there’s a lot missing.”
It didn’t sound good. “But she’s clean?”
“Yes. You heard her, she won’t cooperate. They tasered her, tortured her, and she didn’t talk. And she thought about informing on the one who beat her, but she didn’t. That hatred is old and deep. Too old and too deep for even the memory loss to erase.” Kyle was frowning at me. “She doesn’t remember, but seeing as you said you’d be keeping her around, I put out some feelers this morning. I got the reports in this afternoon, and I’ve got us a better picture of her background.”
“Tell me.”
“Solitaire got screwed big time,” Kyle said bleakly. “The courts froze the family assets, accusing her father of insider trading. She petitioned them to try the case, pleading her mother needed special care. When they refused, Solitaire decided to go her own way.”
