by Carmen Amato
It was at least a dozen miles to Punta Diamante, the picturesque spit of land where the rich and famous played. Along the way, la Costera became the coastal highway called the Carretera Escénica, winding high up the side of the mountain that guarded the most scenic bay in the world. It was a ribbon of tarmac carved from the face of the cliff, lanes without guardrails or a safety net. Far below, on Rucker’s side, the bay twinkled and shimmered under the night sky. A few cars passed heading toward Acapulco but for the most part they were alone on the road with nothing to spoil the dramatic scene of mountain curves and glittering ocean.
“You know the hotel entrance?” Rucker asked.
“Yes.” The Palacio Réal was part of an exclusive gated community built into the cliff face below the highway. From the huge privada gate a steeply pitched cobbled road led down to the water, linking private villas, a luxury condominium building, and the Palacio Réal hotel complex.
Emilia slowed to turn right into the gate entrance. Headlights blinked on in back of them and her rearview mirror filled with glare.
“Where’s the army checkpoint?” Rucker asked sharply.
All the major hotel entrances were guarded by the army as a deterrent to the cartels. But tonight there was no big green vehicle, no soldiers milling around, nothing.
“Por Dios,” Emilia gasped. She stamped on the accelerator, the engine groaned and the Suburban strained to pick up speed.
The headlights in her mirror zoomed in. As the Suburban passed the deserted privada gate a salvo of gunfire tore the night and something hit the back end with a dull thud. The heavy vehicle shuddered and slewed to the right.
Emilia broke out into a cold sweat as she fought the wheel, trying to keep the vehicle on the high mountain road. The tires on the right side lost traction along the cliff edge. Time stopped for a day and a year before the lethargic vehicle responded and rumbled toward the center of the road and then the rear window exploded, spraying shattered glass inward. Emilia and Rucker both instinctively ducked as shards rained down. Somehow Emilia kept the accelerator pressed to the floor.
The Suburban lurched around a slight bend. The glare in her rearview was refracted for a moment and Emilia clearly saw the vehicle behind them. It was a small pickup, with at least four men braced in the bed. They all carried long guns.
“They’ll take us out here,” Rucker said. “There’s nowhere to hide and we can’t outrun them.”
“I know.”
“Brake and turn it.”
“Madre de Dios.” Before she gave herself time to think, Emilia hit the parking brake and swung the wheel to the left.
The small truck shot by as the Suburban screamed into the oncoming lane, tires chewing the tarmac, engine protesting. The mountainside loomed out of the inky darkness so fast Emilia felt the vehicle start to claw its way upwards. But momentum and gravity won out and the vehicle continued to spin.
The landscape was lost in a dizzying blur. Like a hand racing too fast around a clock face, they were pointed toward Acapulco in the right lane, then at the center of the road, then at the other lane, then straight at the cliff edge. Far below, white lines of waves rolled gently toward the sand, hypnotic and teasing.
Suddenly Rucker’s hands were on Emilia’s helping to straighten the wheel. He reached across her body and released the parking brake. The Suburban shuddered and surged forward, wind coming through the shot-out rear window like a monsoon. Together they wrestled the vehicle back into the right lane.
They hugged the mountain as the Suburban plunged back down the highway toward Acapulco. Emilia nearly lost control several times as the heavy vehicle was propelled by its own weight. Next to her, Rucker kept a lookout for the truck.
“Maybe they tried the same thing and went over the cliff,” he said.
“No.” Emilia saw the welcome glow of the city and turned off the headlights in a vain attempt to hide. “They know where you live. They’ll just wait for you to come back.”
The night was very black. Once they hit town Emilia wove north through the narrow barrio streets she knew so well until she was sure they hadn’t been followed. The neighborhoods were deserted. She parked the Suburban in an alley, killed the engine, and found she couldn’t breathe.
“You did good out there,” Rucker said, his voice like a safe haven in the darkness.
Emilia nodded and sucked in air. Her face was wet.
“You okay?” Rucker asked.
“What do these people want from you?” Emilia’s voice sounded harsher than she intended. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Is there something you didn’t tell us?”
“A better question might be who knew you were taking me to the Palacio Réal,” Rucker said.
Fear surged into Emilia’s throat yet again. “What are you saying?”
Rucker folded his arms and stared out the windshield. The neighborhood was nothing more than trash and cement and cardboard roofs that would only last until the next rainy season. “We’ve got twenty of these cars at the hotel for hauling luggage and guests,” he said. “Fully loaded, none of them handle this bad.”
“We could be sitting on a ton of cocaine,” Emilia managed. Everything connected. “Maybe meth. Somebody wants it and you’ve been the only link to the car since Ruiz got arrested and the Hudsons left.”
“Know anybody who can take a car apart?” Rucker asked.
Emilia swallowed hard. “Yes.”
☼
Three hours later they were staring at six million green Estados Unidos dollars piled on the floor in her uncle Raul’s auto repair shop. The rear body panels of the Suburban were off, exposing the ingenious system welded into the car frame to accommodate brick-sized packages. Even the four-wheel drive mechanism had been cannibalized to create more hidden hauling capacity.
“Money in, cocaine out,” Emilia said. “The Hudsons are mules.”
Rucker fingered one of the dollar bills, his forehead furrowed with thought. The hotel manager had worked side-by-side with Tío Raul as if he repaired cars in a greasy garage every day. His beautifully starched shirt had been cast aside, revealing a white singlet undershirt and muscular arms. Both the white undershirt and khaki pants were now as dirty and oil-spotted as Tío Raul’s coveralls.
“These are brand new bills,” he said.
“So?” Emilia got him a glass of water from the big jug of Electropura purified water. Tío Raul had gone to the one-bedroom apartment over the shop to tell Tía Lourdes to make them all some breakfast.
“A couple of years ago they changed the design of American money.” Rucker spread several bills on the tool bench. “Made the image bigger. Added a tint. New watermarks.” He took a swallow of water. “But these are the old design.”
Emilia ran her finger over the crisp paper. “You think it’s counterfeit?”
“Only way to find out is with one of those bank scanners.”
“Ruiz was arrested in front of the Banamex,” Emilia said slowly.
“I know the manager at Citibank,” Rucker said. “He’ll scan it for us and won’t say anything, either.”
He leaned against the tool bench as he studied the money, his norteamericano confidence undimmed despite the setting. Oil filters and alternator belts were stacked haphazardly on shelves, plastic jugs of used oil filled a corner, a garbage can overflowed and at least one rat had scurried away when a bleary-eyed Tío Raul had opened the door and waved in the Suburban. Then Emilia had felt as if the garage was a sanctuary. Now she wasn’t so sure she’d done the right thing.
“I grew up here,” she blurted.
Rucker looked up at her, eyebrows raised above the blue-green eyes.
“My father died in an accident when I was little,” Emilia heard herself say. “Tío Raul is his brother. My mother and I came to live here with him and Tía Lourdes and their two boys. Six people in a one bedroom apartment. I slept in the kitchen. On the table. Too many roaches to sleep on the floor.”
Rucker didn’t react.<
br />
“My cousins taught me how to fight. How to keep away from the cartel sicarios and the men who wanted girls to sell to the turistas.” She was challenging him for no good reason, throwing the barrio’s harshness at him as if it was his fault. “My mother wasn’t right after my father died. She didn’t work and we didn’t have any money. Most weekends I sold candy at the highway toll booths. Until my cousin Alvaro helped me join the police. That’s when my mother and I moved into our own house. I’m a detective now and the money’s good but I’ll never have enough for places like the Palacio Réal.”
Rucker pushed himself away from the tool bench, took out his wallet and slowly and deliberately folded several of the Estados Unidos bills inside. He replaced the wallet in his hip pocket, peeled off the stained singlet and picked up his dress shirt. Emilia watched the lean muscles of his chest and abdomen flex as he put on the shirt and buttoned it.
“By the time I was six I was the best milker in the family,” Rucker said. “On a dairy farm everybody milks the cows twice a day. Cows don’t care if you’re sick. If it’s freezing cold. They still need to be milked.”
He rolled up the shirt sleeves, hiding the monogram. “When I was 18 I’d milked enough cows to last me a lifetime and I enlisted in the Marine Corps. Fought in the desert war and a couple of other places, too. When I got out I went to college. Studied hotel and restaurant management so I’d never have to go back to that farm. Sent my parents a couple of tickets last year to come visit. But they’d rather stay with the cows.”
They looked at each other. An awkward silence was broken by the sound of footsteps and rattling pans overhead.
Rucker gestured at the dismantled Suburban. “Well, Detective, the bank will be open in about an hour. How do we want to get there?”
“I think that you could call me Emilia,” she said.
“Kurt,” he said in return.
☼
They took an anonymous green and white libre taxi to the bank. Kurt Rucker’s friend was the manager, a polished Spaniard who swallowed a comment about Rucker’s appearance when Emilia displayed her detective badge.
Ten minutes later, the currency scanner confirmed Kurt’s theory. The money was counterfeit.
“Excellent fakes,” the bank manager said. “And given that there are just a handful of currency scanners in Acapulco for this high a denomination of American bill, quite a clever scheme.”
“You never saw us,” Emilia said. “You never saw these bills.”
☼
By the time the libre taxi brought them back to the garage, Emilia had made up her mind. She didn’t tell Kurt until they were alone in Tía Lourdes’s kitchen. She could tell he didn’t like the idea. But he didn’t have anything better to suggest.
“If we don’t let them find the car and the money,” Emilia insisted. “They’re never going to leave you alone.”
“How are you going to explain losing a car?”
Emilia rubbed her eyes. Last night’s adrenaline had ebbed, leaving her tired and shaky. “We won’t lose it. They want the money, not the car. We can pull a spark plug to make sure they leave it and pick it up later.”
“We’re letting them win,” Kurt said.
“We’re making sure you stay alive.” Emilia opened her shoulder bag and pulled out her notebook and cell phone. “We’ll copy the serial numbers from the bills to trace the money. That way we might even catch who’s passing it.”
Kurt slumped in his chair and nodded. “All right.”
She dialed Rico.
“You sure you trust him?” Kurt tossed out.
Emilia heard Rico’s voice grunt “Bueno?” For a wild moment she wondered if Kurt was right. But if she couldn’t trust Rico there was no one to trust at all. Kurt Rucker looked away as she told Rico what had happened and what they needed him to do.
☼
They reassembled the Suburban and its counterfeit load and abandoned it on a little rocky outcropping along the Carretera Escénica about two miles past the gate to the Palacio Réal. Kurt broke the spark plug just as Rico drove up at the wheel of an old libre taxi. Emilia and Kurt jumped in the back and then they were gone.
The taxi was one of thousands and attracted no attention as it puttered up to the privada gate. The army checkpoint was in place. The sergeant studied Emilia’s badge before gesturing to his corporal to open the gate. Rico chafed in the small vehicle but maintained his taxi driver cover.
The brakes on the old taxi strained against the steep pitch of the road as they passed the carefully manicured foliage of the luxury villas. All of the villas cost tens of millions of pesos, Emilia knew. Several Hollywood stars had homes there, as did many of Mexico’s entertainment and business elite. Every meter down the road was another light year away from Kurt Rucker.
His arrival at the Palacio Réal confirmed the distance. As Kurt climbed out of the taxi in his stained khakis and rumpled shirt the uniformed doorman and bellhops swarmed around him. More staff materialized, all smartly dressed, the women in blue print dresses, the men in stone-colored slacks and coordinating print shirts. Señor Rooker, we were so worried . . . Señor Rooker, we had a problem with . . . Señor Rooker, you need to call . . .
Kurt stepped away from the throng for a moment and met Emilia’s eyes. She smiled tightly. He gave her a little salute and went into the hotel.
Through the glass doors Emilia could see a wide lobby open to the ocean. A long bar angled along one side. A mosaic façade spelled out Pasodoble in shiny blue tiles. People in clean, white clothes carried cool drinks as they walked by the grand piano.
“Not your kind, chica,” Rico said. He put the car in gear and they started the long painful drive up the steep road to the highway.
Chapter 3
Emilia woke up slowly. Her muscles felt like a train wreck as she lay in the narrow bed under the rough wool blanket. She flopped over on her side to check the time and groaned. It was 7:00 am and Rico would be there in an hour to pick her up.
The bed creaked as Emilia rolled herself upright, got her feet on the terracotta, and rubbed until her face felt warm. She’d blithely said that they wouldn’t lose the car and had convinced Kurt and Rico that offering it up to those seeking the counterfeit was the right thing to do, but in the cool morning air, she wasn’t so sure. What if they managed to take the car? What if they didn’t come back and find it? Would they keep stalking Kurt? More importantly, who had set up the ambush on the highway?
Emilia and Rico had cooked up a plausible story to use in case the car was gone. Emilia was to say that the car had broken down late at night after dropping off Rucker. She hadn’t been able to get a tow truck because it was too late and too far out of town so she’d called Rico for help. He couldn’t figure out what was wrong so he’d driven her home. They’d come back to get the car with a tow truck in the morning, but the car was gone. If Lt. Inocente decided they’d displayed poor judgment and referred their case to the union for arbitration, both Emilia and Rico could lose their jobs.
She pulled on a sweatshirt and jeans, unable to shake her growing anxiety. The story sounded like so much bullshit. Emilia hastily kissed the fingertips of her right hand and pressed them to the crucifix above her bed. “Jesu Cristo, ayudame,” she murmured.
The water coming out of the bathroom faucet was cold and splashed away the last vestiges of sleep. As Emilia headed downstairs she heard her mother’s voice. Sophia invariably was up early, talking to herself as she made coffee and chilaquiles or sticky rolls for breakfast.
Emilia crossed the small living room, feeling the familiar shiver of pride at the color television and upholstered sofa and loveseat that had all come from the Liverpool department store. She pushed open the door to the kitchen. The yellow concrete block house was small and neat, with two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs and a front room, kitchen, and extra toilet on the main level. There wasn’t a lot of furniture but what they had was the best quality that Emilia could afford and there was a real stove wit
h an oven and hot water whenever she or her mother Sophia turned on the faucet. “Good morning, Mama,” she said.
Sophia was at the counter, slim and attractive, her long dark hair roped into the usual braid down her back. She wore plastic flip-flops and a flowered apron over a dress with an equally cheerful print. Most people assumed Sophia was Emilia’s older sister rather than her mother and her smooth, unlined face wreathed into a smile as she handed Emilia a mug of hot coffee. “Good morning, niña.”
“Thanks, Mama.” Emilia was about to raise the mug to her lips when she realized there was a third person in the kitchen.
A strange man was sitting at the table drinking coffee. There was a plate next to him as if he’d just finished breakfast. He was probably in his mid-50’s, with a defeated look in a turned-down mouth. His clothes were old and worn and not very clean. Emilia knew without asking that he’d been sleeping on the street.
“Who’s your friend, Mama?” Emilia asked softly.
Sophia moved to the table and put her hand on the man’s shoulder. “You don’t know?” she asked.
“Mama.” Emilia kept her voice even. “Who is this?”
“This is Ernesto!” Sophia exclaimed, her smile widening with pride.
“You must be Emilia,” the man said. His diction was uneducated, his voice was raspy and he had a lower tooth missing. He gestured at the coffee maker on the small counter. His hands were calloused from a lifetime of manual labor. “Thank you for inviting me into your home.”
“Mama?” Emilia pressed.
“We were at the mercado,” Sophia said.
Emilia swallowed down her impatience. Any pressure invariably made her mother cry. “You already went to the mercado this morning, Mama?”
“Yes, that’s where I found Ernesto,” Sophia said, emphasizing the man’s name. She took his mug and scurried to the coffee maker to top it up.
