“Yes, jefe.”
“Excellent!” He takes another sip of the cold, biting, and so satisfying drink. The two mothers and their children are still moving as slow as a turtle carrying a cement block on its back.
He says, “Tell me…you’re in that room, day in, day out. How do your coworkers feel about working here, about working for me?”
Alejandro smiles. “We all love it. The pay is generous, the working conditions are fine…We know you are strict in your rules, about women, about the drink, about the drugs. But that is to be expected…to be so high up, to be working for such a man with such a future.”
Pelayo puts his bottle down on the railing. He looks over. The mothers and the children are gone.
He says, “Young man, there is one more thing you must know, and that is the role of the king. The king must be above it all, must be seen as all-knowing, all-powerful, and to be respected. Especially the respect. Otherwise words will be muttered, rumors will spread, and plots will commence.”
Alejandro’s eyes grow frightened, and Pelayo decides to show him mercy.
By not making him wait in fear anymore.
Pelayo leans in, punches Alejandro in the groin, making him double over and gasp, grabs the man’s shirt collar with his left hand, and pushes him up and over the balcony railing using the strength of his right shoulder and his hand on Alejandro’s waist.
A brief yelp, a heavy thump that he can almost feel in his feet, and it’s over.
Pelayo picks up his glass bottle, gives the ground one more glance.
Good.
The two mothers and their children weren’t there to witness what has just happened.
Mercy, he ponders, can show many forms.
CHAPTER 51
THE LITTLE mantra of We’re out of time, we’re out of time, is marching through my mind, but then it stops as I see what’s just happened. I’m hunkered down near a low and wide bush at the rear yard of the target house, binoculars in hand, gathering intelligence, and then there’s a little roar of an engine, and the big Ford pickup with the extended cab pulls out and goes down Linden Street, connecting with North School Road, and then it’s gone. I spot one bulky guy behind the steering wheel.
Well.
I’m in a dry field of low grass and scrub brush, with some trees scattered here and there. It’s good cover, about one of the few breaks that I’ve gotten on this heartrending mission to Texas. There’s a soft whir of insects flying around me, and I do my best to ignore them.
Think, intelligence officer, think.
The home is one story, like most of the homes scattered up and down the street. Probably a small living room right off the front door. There are propane tanks facing me, meaning the kitchen is right there, to the right of the living room. Bathroom, not more than two bedrooms. Even though I’ve never been in that house, I can visualize the floor plan.
How many people can you fit in a house like that?
Person being held, that I need to steal away. That’s one.
Three, maybe four guards, but four is pushing it. That’d be five people in that small house. Where would you put all of them? And five people eat a lot. I can’t see these guys trucking to the local supermarket every other day to stock up. Too many eyes and ears in this small town.
So they’re hunkering down.
Waiting.
Not for me, I hope, but waiting for somebody else.
All right.
Let’s call it four guys in that house, one being the guy I need to grab.
That leaves three armed guards, watching over things.
And one has just left.
The firepower in that house has just decreased by 33 percent.
The guy that’s gone…maybe he’s out for a grocery run, or a beer run, or maybe he’s off to church. But I don’t know how much longer he’s going to be gone.
Time to move.
I slip the small binoculars into my coat pocket, take out my SIG Sauer 9mm, make sure there’s a round in the chamber, and off I go.
I have no illusions.
There are armed men in that house, and there will be shooting.
But I have surprise on my side, and one other thing.
Almost all armed men who do bad things can never see a woman as a possible threat. It’s just not in their DNA or in the way they think or how they’ve learned.
And I’m about ninety seconds away from giving them one hell of a lesson otherwise.
CHAPTER 52
PEPE TORRES is struggling with a certain phrase of St. Paul’s in his letter to the Romans when Ramon Hernandez walks in, face red, wearing a tight black tank top and black shorts, peeling off white workout gloves. There’s a small weight set in one of the bedrooms, and he’s been dedicated to his daily workout routine. Ramon’s head is shaved and most of his body is covered with badly inked tattoos he got while in prisons like La Mesa or El Hongo. He picks up a dirty towel from a chair and wipes his hands and face.
“How goes it, Christian?” he asks.
Pepe says, “I’m working…working very hard. How is our guest?”
“Snoozing. I don’t know anyone who can sleep so much. I envy him. His mind must be very innocent to be able to sleep with no worries.”
Pepe scribbles one last note. “I need to go to the bathroom. Can you stay here for a few minutes?”
“Sure, just don’t stink up the place, all right?” Ramon plops down on the couch next to Pepe and slaps his knee with his hand. “Where did Antonio go?”
“He was hungry. He went to the new McDonald’s to get something to eat.”
“Oh, the jefe won’t like that.”
“Well, I won’t tell him.”
“Neither will I,” Ramon says. “That Antonio, he needs to chill, am I right? Here we are, we don’t have the best food or bedding, but hey, we don’t have to worry about some chicos coming by, strafing us with iron bananas.”
Pepe puts his notepad to the side, carefully closes the Bible, thinking, Yes, Ramon is right, even using the slang for AK-47s, iron bananas. His bladder is full and he needs to go, and as he stands up, Ramon says, “Hey, did Antonio say he’d bring anything back?”
“No,” Pepe says, walking out of the living room.
“Figures, that stingy bastard. Hey, you taking the Good Book to the crapper?”
Pepe says, “Why not?”
Ramon laughs, picks up the control for the television. “I don’t know, it just seems…bad, bringing the Bible into the crapper.”
Pepe moves along. “Jesus is everywhere, even in the bathroom.”
As he goes into the bathroom and closes the door, he thinks he hears a knock but pays it no mind.
Ramon can handle anything out there.
CHAPTER 53
RAMON HERNANDEZ checks the telenovela DVD playing on the old color television and frowns. It’s a good one, La Reina del Sur, starring that knockout actress with legs that go on forever, Kate del Castillo, but he’s seen this series at least twice. That chica Kate plays an innocent woman who gets involved in cartels and smuggling, and Ramon loves that shit, and—
Ah, no harm in watching it a third time.
There’s a knock on the door.
He pauses the DVD.