“You’re a striking man, I bet,” she finally mused, looking satisfied. “All these parts that shouldn’t work together but do.”
I raised my brows and she gently took her hand away. “You could just call me handsome. Everyone else does.”
Once we were back in the house, I told her to go get Armand and pack up everything important. Penelope started asking questions, panicking. I knew she’d either shoot me or stop them, so I stopped her before she could. It was just a sleeper hold of sorts, something to knock her out long enough until Luisa’s parents were safe and on their way to Puerto Vallarta.
I quickly slid the body into the kitchen, making sure she wasn’t visible to anyone passing by, and left her a great wad of American hundred dollar bills, knowing that it was worth more than she’d get in a few month’s pay. It might buy her silence—there was no way Penelope wanted to own up to being the one who let Luisa’s parents escape. It also bought Raquel peace of mind.
Armand was a bit more cantankerous than I thought, and even though he drifted in and out of confusion, he was willing to go wherever Raquel was telling him. Soon I was driving them to the docks and helping them onto a fishing boat that one of my men operated. It paid to have my workers everywhere.
Once on board, Raquel looked up at me and smiled. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t creep me out a little, the way she knew where you were, the way she seemed to see into you without seeing you at all.
“Good luck,” she said. “I trust that you’ll do everything you can.”
I nodded. She was right about that.
After I watched them leave, and their ship faded on the horizon, I put in the call to Alana. If she wasn’t willing to help out, I had a few people on that end that would. Still, I didn’t trust them quite the way I trusted her.
“Hello?” she answered, sounding short of breath. “Javier?”
“Alana,” I said. “Is this a bad time?”
“No, no, I was just doing my workout video, it’s fine.”
I’d forgotten that Alana was a bit of a health nut. I hoped happy endorphins were running amok.
“Yes, well, so here is the thing.” I launched right into it, telling her only what she needed to know—mainly that she needed to take care of two ailing parents for a few days. She tried to get out of it, telling me she’d get fired from the airlines for taking time off. I told her I would ensure that not only would she not get fired, but that I’d pay her three times what she’d miss. She told me she wasn’t equipped to act as a nurse, and I told her I’d give her money to hire a short-term nurse if needed. I had an answer for everything, and I was very persuasive. I was also an expert in the art of guilt-tripping.
After she reluctantly conceded, she asked, “Who are these people, Javier? Why are you doing this?”
“Their daughter is important to me,” is all I said.
“In what way?” she asked suspiciously.
“In ways I don’t even understand. Thank you, Alana. I’ll be in touch.” Then before I almost hung up, I quickly said, “Oh wait. They’ll have a cooler with them. There’s what looks like a head of lettuce in there. Can you put in your freezer at home? I want it there for safe-keeping.”
“Is it a head of lettuce?”
“It’s something I promised to get.” I cleared my throat. “A gift. But for fuck’s sake, don’t peek at it.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” she said dryly, then hung up.
I sighed and put my phone back in my pocket. I walked away from the turquoise waves and the fishermen, back to the car, back to the airport, back to Mazatlán and back to The Devil’s Backbone. When I left again, there’d be no guarantee I was coming back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Javier
“You’re fucking crazy,” Este spat at me, grabbing the ends of his hair and pulling on them. It was surprising to see him acting like a teenage girl, even for him.
“We all know I’m crazy,” I agreed. “This should not be new information. It takes crazy to run this business.”
“No, Javi,” he said, sitting down in his chair in a huff. “What you’re talking about isn’t running a business, it’s ruining a business.”
I gently pulled at the ends of my shirt, making sure they were even. “And it also has nothing to do with the business. I go in and get her. End of story.”
He narrowed his eyes, taking me in for a moment. Then he shook his head. “If you come back dead, that will affect the business.”
I gave him a hard look. “And then you’ll take over. That is what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it? Me out of the picture.”
He scoffed at that. “If I wanted you out of the picture, Javi, I would have made that happen a long time ago.”
“No,” I said, smiling slowly. “You wouldn’t have. You can’t. And you know it. No one gives a flying fuck about you because you haven’t had to do anything to get where you are except just show up. People respect me. I worked for everything I’ve got. You’d last a few hours if you were ever to usurp me and you know it.”
He rolled his eyes. “Point taken. You don’t have to be so mean about it.”
“If I wasn’t mean, I wouldn’t be me.” I leaned forward, hoping he saw how serious I was. “And if I wasn’t crazy, I wouldn’t be me either. I know what I’m doing, Este.”
All right, well that was a complete lie. I had no idea what I was doing or if it would work. I was guessing the odds of getting Luisa out—if she was still alive—were fairly high, but the odds of me surviving, or not being hauled off to prison again, were very low. But for once in my life, the odds were worth the risk.
Two days after I returned from Cabo San Lucas, I finally heard from Lillian Berrellez. She had been my absolute last resort, but I was at the point where I could admit that not only did I need special help in getting Luisa back, but I needed to shed a few points from my moral compass.
In old Mexico, the Mexico I aspired to be a part of, the cartels all operated around each other with an air of respect. Bargains were made—I give you something, you give me something. There were no ruthless, pointless killings in the streets. There were no innocents being raped, murdered, tortured. There were no 16-year-old versions of myself being taught to fire AR-15s. There were no gangs of punks running amok and killing people over fifty dollars worth of stolen cocaine.
We did our business to better ourselves and to better the country. We were vicious and violent but elegant and discreet. There was a dance to all of this, one that kept all things flowing in the right direction, a circle that ensured the smartest and brightest would stay on top, not the man with the most guns and the smallest dick.
And in this dance, there was a code. We are born as Mexicans and we die as Mexicans. Our problems stayed our problems. We never get the States involved in our affairs. The DEA, the FBI, the CIA, they were our enemies, and as cartels, we needed to unite against an enemy that thought they knew what was best for us yet had no idea how our business worked. The USA had no right to tell us, citizens of another country, what we could and couldn’t do. They didn’t live here, they didn’t know. They only knew their privileged, fat, wasteful society while they pointed their fleshy fingers at us and blamed Mexico for all their problems.
When I was let out of prison, it was because I struck a deal with the DEA, an agency that was sometimes more corrupt than we were. I had promised to provide intel when it was needed—something I never wanted to do, something that went against my morals. I also paid a shitload of money.