But Junior started getting phone calls. Junior went nuts, thundering downstairs bare-chested and coke-addled, Natasha hanging on him, looking like a frenzied colt. Pescatore thought Buffalo was going to slap her to shut her up, slap her and Junior both so Junior would explain why they had to get out of there right away.
But then the Diogenes Group had made its move. Pescatore, playing the dutiful henchman, didn’t know what to do. Start shooting? Tell everybody to get up against the wall? What if he messed it all up? All he wanted was someone else to fire the first shot. He didn’t want to take the lead, ruin everything.
Now he couldn’t shake the suspicion that he had ruined everything anyway. No showdown, no closure. He was trapped on this plane with his pathetic daydreams. He had imagined it so differently. Unscathed or dying, he had imagined it ending in Isabel’s arms, her whisper warm in his ear.
He awoke flailing at invisible assailants. His neck ached. His mouth was rusted shut, his eyes crusted over.
Buffalo regarded him from across the narrow aisle. He was listening to an iPod.
“I put it up for you,” Buffalo said as Pescatore groped around for his rifle in a panic. Pescatore scanned the overhead rack and the floor: The AK-47 was not in sight. He realized there was no engine sound. He saw Abbas in conference with the pilots in the open door of the cockpit. Sunlight was visible beyond them. The plane had landed. But no one looked ready to get off.
“Where we at?” Pescatore rasped. Give me back my AK, you bastards. Please.
Buffalo slipped the headphones down around his trunklike neck.
“Quito,” he intoned, eyebrows raised, savoring the exotic syllables. “Just a pit stop. You go back to sleep.”
Pescatore refrained from asking where Quito was. His panic at the loss of the rifle was tempered slightly by Buffalo’s easy rumble, his comfortable slouch.
“Whew, I was crashed,” Pescatore said. “That was rough last night.”
“Sí-mon.” Buffalo leaned confidentially toward Pescatore, who followed his glance toward the rear: Sniper and Momo looking out their windows, the flight attendant in her galley, the closed bathroom door. “Didn’t I tell you about Méndez, cabrón? Didn’t I tell you that fucker was gonna sweat us?”
Pescatore nodded.
Buffalo muttered: “Eso si, he’s got some cojones on him.”
“Somebody really saved our ass, huh?”
“Mexico City chingones, man. Junior got a tip, called some big shot and they showed Méndez who runs the fucking show once and for all.”
Pescatore wanted to know who the Mexico City chingones were. How much they knew. Why Junior was on the lam if he ran the show. But he did not want to push Buffalo; he had learned to pass up obvious opportunities and circle back later to ask questions. He gestured at the iPod. “Whatcha listening to?”
“Oldies, this and that. Santana. Plus this song they wrote about me in the pinta.”
“Everybody likes Santana, man. They should make him president of the world.”
“He’s el mero mero.”
“What’s a pinta?”
“The penitentiary in TJ.”
“A song about you? By who?”
Buffalo looked sheepish, but he was enjoying himself. “A banda group who was locked up at the time. Back when Robustiano Moran was in there. You heard of him?”
“Uh-uh.”
“This capo from Sonora. They used to call him Cirujano: He was like a surgeon with a gun, his aim was so good. Anyway, I was working for this other capo who hated his guts. I got in a big shoot-out with Moran and two of his cuates. Puro desmadre. Chasing all over. Cabrones threw a grenade at me.”
“In a prison?!”
“Hell, in that pinta they got every kinda weapon there is. Except bazookas. I was bleeding all over. But I did the two guys, wounded Moran. I ran outta ammunition. Hadda finish him with my hands.”
“Damn.”
Buffalo chuckled, pantomiming. “I’m pistol-whippin’ him, whaling on his skull, this and that. It was pretty funny. The whole yard is watching, I’m poundin’ on this dude way after he died. Some wiseass yells out: ‘Ya está bien, Búfalo! Ya lo mataste bien muerto, cabrón.’ I fell down and lay there for a while. A couple days later these guys in the band made up the song. A corrido.”
“What’s the name of it?”
“ ‘La Ley del Búfalo.’ ” He lifted off the headphones and passed them across the aisle. “Wanna hear it?”
“Yeah.”
“This band’s got talent. I helped them get a contract with Junior’s label last year. I owed them. A song, that’s special. Something for my son to remember me by.”
Pescatore looked appropriately reverent as he slipped on the headphones. The introduction was a sweet three-voice harmony, then drums kicked in like a call to battle.
But he didn’t hear much else. There was movement in the back of the aisle. A blast of cologne preceded Junior as he appeared between the seats, faked a punch at Buffalo and then pivoted and fired a fist at the center of Pescatore’s forehead. Pescatore flung up a block, flinching badly, the headphones askew. The full force of the odor nauseated him: Junior’s cologne interspersed with waves of vomit, sweat and alcohol. Junior grinned; he was just horsing around.
“Think fast, gabacho, I got you now.” Junior thumped Pescatore’s biceps and forearms, nothing playful about the pain searing through his arms. Junior drummed the tops of their seats. “Qué onda? Everybody good?”
“Oh yeah,” Pescatore stammered, hating himself. “Kicking it in the Learjet. First class all the way.”
Junior looked revived. His skin-straining grin was back. He cupped his belly where it pushed at the buttons of his shirt. His words slid over each other. “I know Buffalo is mad because we didn’t smoke Méndez last night, no?”
“No señor,” Buffalo said. “You handled it just right, patrón.”
“Pinche Méndez. He thought I don’t have no psychology.” Junior put a finger by his temple. “But we played smart. Checkmated him. He looked like a maricón last night. And he signed his death warrant, didn’t he?”
“Así es.”
“El Buf will take care of it,” Junior exulted. “Will you waste that motherfucker for me? Cut off his ears and make him eat them?”
“Con mucho gusto, jefe,” Buffalo scowled.
“How about you, gabacho?”
“A todo dar,” Pescatore drawled in his best Tijuana cadence.
Buffalo winked at him behind Junior’s back. Pescatore grinned.
Mr. Abbas and Junior resumed their places at the table. Abbas told him they had reached Khalid by radio, everything was arranged. Another refueling stop and they’d be there soon.
“Khalid looks forward to returning your hospitality,” Abbas said in a proper accent that sounded British and French at the same time. He crossed his legs in the swivel seat. “He is delighted to have you as his guest. You may stay with us as long as necessary.”
Junior studied the bearded man with sudden wariness.
“Khalid is a gentleman,” Junior said slowly. “A wise man. That’s why we work together so well.”
“He has the same sentiments about you.”
Junior leaned across the table, not listening, eyes wide and finger jabbing. “But I do not want you to have the wrong impression. I could turn around and go back right now, Abbas.”
“Of course, I—”
“I appreciate Khalid’s help. But I am not running. I have no need to run.”
“Good heavens, no.”
“My uncle and me have the situation under control. I want to make this trip. Lower my profile at home. Spend time with Khalid, develop our projects. That’s what this is about. A business vacation. Am I clear?”
Junior was getting wound up. Abbas pacified him with some supersmooth ass-kissing. He waved over the flight attendant and had her pour drinks.
Pescatore lost interest. Through the window he could see a corner of an airport terminal in the early m
orning light. It looked like a glorified bus station. A Jeep with four helmeted soldiers, maybe military policemen, guarded their plane. Beyond the Jeep, a crowd of people behind a chain-link fence. Could they be here for Junior? Did people know who Junior was in Quito?
Pescatore decided they weren’t interested in the Learjet. Their attention was focused on the runways where commercial planes maneuvered. Pescatore first thought they were travelers, but there wasn’t much luggage in evidence. He saw women with big goofy hats, bowler and stovepipe contraptions. The women ambled like wrestlers, fireplug builds beneath wool sweaters and petticoats. Except for some vendors and street punks, the men were old and grave; they wore suits the color and texture of cardboard. The children had flat, sun-blackened cheeks. They slept, played, chewed mechanically on pieces of bread and fruit that the adults handed them. The gathering seemed ritualistic, unhurried, as if these people came to this fence often and planned to spend the day there. Compared with Mexicans, the people were pure-blood-Indian-looking. But the faces and the stances, the strength and patience and wariness, reminded him of The Line.
“Fucked-up country,” Buffalo muttered, leaning over him toward the glass.
“What’re they doin’?”
“Some of ’em are saying good-bye to relatives. Some of ’em are getting ready to go themselves. Probably where we came from. Or Europe. Looks like half the country’s gettin’ outta Dodge.”
Pescatore remembered that Quito was the capital of Ecuador. It occurred to him that the fence was a place to hook up with smugglers, buy documents, arrange trips. He spotted well-fed hustler types, distinguished by sunglasses and cell phones on the hips of designer jeans, working the crowd.
Pescatore said: “I once caught some Chinese guys in Imperial Beach. They came up from Quito. There was intel about whole neighborhoods of Chinese in Ecuador getting ready to go to the States. And we were catching Ecuadorean aliens too. Going to New York, New Jersey, paying fifteen to twenty thousand a head. That must be what a house costs around here.”
“Yeah,” Buffalo said. “Those are hill and mountain people, look at ’em.”
Pescatore decided Quito was a hub in the OTM smuggling racket Junior ran with his South American partners. The Learjet’s destination was no doubt the Triple Border Isabel talked about so much, somewhere in Brazil or Paraguay.
The long-haired flight attendant hovered over him in a cloud of coconut perfume, offering a cup of orange juice. He accepted, and nodded again when she raised a vodka bottle over the cup.
“Thanks,” he mumbled. “Any chance of breakfast? Or lunch?”
She told him she would serve food once they were airborne. Her heavy makeup creased into a pained smile. She moved on quickly, thigh flashing in the short skirt. She didn’t seem too comfortable with the clientele. Hard to blame her, what with Junior ranting and spitting and everything. Though she no doubt encountered her share of lowlifes working for Abbas.
Pescatore tried to calculate how long it had been since his last bona fide meal. Isabel would have given him all kinds of shit: You’re surrounded by bad guys. You’re on a one-way flight that could be your last. And you’re worried about stuffing your face.
Yeah well, gotta keep my strength up, baby. The vodka and orange juice gave him a tangy jolt. Breakfast of Champions, he thought, and drank more. He tried to catch the flight attendant’s eye, maybe score a bag of peanuts or something. He raised his cup in a silent toast to the Ecuadoreans pressed up against the fence. Go with God, folks. Right now I’m stuck with the devil.
16
THE SMELL IN HIS HOUSE had gotten worse.
The smell was moldy and dank. Méndez had noticed it the last time he was home. But he hadn’t had the time or inclination to investigate. At first he had thought the smell came from outside, from the construction site of the high-rise that would soon obstruct the last vestiges of his view. When the Méndez family had moved into the narrow town house in Playas de Tijuana, the front windows offered a panorama of the ocean. Five years had brought an eruption of mini-malls, narco-mansions, half-empty condominium towers built to launder money. Now Méndez had to stand in a corner of his second-floor balcony and lean to the left for a glimpse of the surf.
Méndez watched Porthos reach a prodigious arm across the kitchen table and refill his mug with exaggerated care. Méndez, Porthos and Athos were drinking from the only clean glassware he had found: three of his son’s mugs. Méndez’s mug was decorated with a killer whale from SeaWorld.
No, the smell definitely came from inside the house. Probably a burst pipe. Another sign, like the grime illuminated by sunshine on the formica table, the stacks of dishes and glasses in the sink, that the house had gone to hell in his family’s absence. The house and everything else had gone to hell.
Méndez raised his mug.
“To Junior,” he said. “To Junior and his uncle, and Mauro Fernández Rochetti, and the state police of Baja California Norte, and the federal police of the United States of Mexico. Fuck all their mothers.”
“Amen, Licenciado,” Porthos said, and drank.
Athos’s pointy, nicotine-stained teeth appeared inside his goatee as he raised a Fred Flintstone mug.
A flame of tequila expanded in Méndez’s chest. They were sitting around the kitchen table. They were still wearing their raid jackets.
After Junior’s getaway, Méndez had stayed away from headquarters. He had ignored the messages from the Secretary, turned off his radio and cell phone. He intended to communicate his resignation from government service only when he was good and ready.
“Junior surprised me,” Méndez said, staring at the killer whale. “He knew the state police would have started shooting, fucked up everything. So he brings in Peralta and the federal police. And the Secretary and the attorney general drop their pants.”
“What I want to know is, who tipped them off?” Porthos said.
“If you ask me, the gringo,” Méndez said. “Isabel says that doesn’t make sense. She says it had to be someone in our unit.”
“A traitor?” Porthos said.
“Isabel says the Secretary must have gotten word of the operation before we started. She has a point, the federicos showed up very quickly.”
“Maybe Mexico City called Junior to warn him, not the other way around,” Athos said.
“Maybe.” Méndez thought about working up the energy to pull off his bulletproof vest. “I still think the gringo played both sides. Isabel is not objective when it comes to Pescatore. Her only weak spot, as far as I am concerned.”
“She looked good out there last night,” Athos said. “A real lioness.”
That observation amounted to an outburst for Athos. It was perhaps the only sign that he had been drinking. Along with the repeated tapping of his fingers on his temple beneath his receding hairline.
“A very attractive lady, Agent Puente,” Porthos said in his earnest proclamatory way. “I was surprised about her and Pescatore. I thought she didn’t… I thought she preferred… well, you know.”
“What?”
The big man rubbed his beard uneasily. “Well, Licenciado, I thought she had an, eh, alternative lifestyle.”
“Epah, maestro,” Athos said, raising his eyebrows. “Where did you learn that term?”
“In a debate on the radio, I think.”
“A complicated way to say she likes women.”
“I know it’s difficult for you to comprehend, Commander, but I was being delicate.”
“You’re delicate alright. Listening to radio shows like a comadre.”
Méndez reached slowly across the table for the bottle and filled their mugs. When Athos and Porthos went into their put-down ritual, they were like bears taking lazy swipes at each other. They were performing for his benefit, trying to cheer him up.
“Her lifestyle is perfectly normal—except she has the bad taste to prefer that yanqui hoodlum to one of us,” Méndez said. “In any case, she never quits. She went back to San Diego becau
se she thinks the task force can track the destination of the plane.”
“South America, no?” Athos said.
Méndez stared out the window, feeling the tequila rekindle his anger. “We had him, Athos. I hesitated. I let you all down.”
“No sir.”
“Once the federal police showed up, I…” The alcohol was jumbling Méndez’s thoughts. “Even if we had held them off, what would we have done? I thought…”
“You protected your men,” Athos said. “You let no one down.”
“That’s right, Licenciado,” Porthos said.
“There’s only one thing I regret,” Athos said, the lines around his eyes crinkling mischievously. “I wish you had let Porthos lead the charge. I really wanted to see him knock down the door with that big fat gut of his.”
“As you bravely gave orders from the rear,” Porthos growled.
They chortled and drank, comfortable with the silence and one another. Méndez considered Puente’s theory: If there was a traitor inside the Diogenes Group, Athos and Porthos were the only ones he could trust. Here we are, on our own at last. The Three Musketeers.
“What really infuriates me is Mauro Fernández Rochetti,” Méndez said after a while. “The jailbreak, the Colonel, Araceli. He has manipulated everything.”
“What he did to Doctora Aguirre is the ugliest thing I’ve seen in seventeen years as a policeman,” Porthos declared. “And I’ve seen ugly things, believe me. Ugly ugly ugly.”
Athos nodded.
“Repugnant son of a bitch,” Méndez said, sipping from his mug.
“A real beast,” Porthos said.
Méndez bit his lower lip. “After what happened with Junior this morning, Mauro thinks he owns this town.”
“He’s probably sitting in Café Bumpy right now,” Athos said quietly. “Laughing about it.”
“Now?” Méndez reached for his mug.
“He has breakfast at El Bumpy every morning.”
“He thinks our arrest warrant is worthless, we’d never dare touch him,” Méndez said, draining the tequila.
Triple Crossing Page 24
