Twenty minutes later, the Bus honked the white Maverick’s horn to announce his presence. The detective crossed the street, then the nightclub’s parking lot, and got in.
“What’s up?”
“Turns out you were right: the Perkins kid’s shirt was missing a white button.”
Treviño didn’t like what he’d heard. He studied the driver’s face.
“And the other thing?”
The Bus looked at some notes he’d jotted down on a napkin.
“The marks on the asphalt are from the most expensive brand of tires on the market. Conquerors. They’re imported and used mostly in the countryside on all-terrain vehicles. They’re good on sand and dirt. They say the design is unmistakable, very rugged. Not just anyone’s going to be using them here in the city. An expensive tire for a heavy-duty luxury truck.”
“You sure they’re not full of shit?”
The driver put away his notes. “That’s what the expert told me. He works in one of Mr. De León’s tire shops.”
“A tire for drug runners, then. This is going from bad to worse.” The detective looked at the Bus. “We need a contact at the precinct.”
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me, Treviño!” the driver exploded. “You’re begging them to come fuck with us.”
While the Bus drove along the main avenue, Treviño called the consul. He picked up on the first ring.
“Any news, Treviño?”
“It was some guy they call El Tiburón. He may be working for one of the criminal organizations, and he’s probably set up somewhere outside the city. We shouldn’t rule out the possibility that he does manual labor, or did, before he started running with a gang. He’s probably not any older than twenty or twenty-five.”
The Bus stared at him, slack jawed. On the other end of the line, it took the gringo a minute to respond. “And your source can be trusted?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Can they put us in contact with this person?”
“No, he’s just a witness. I’ll find another way. Still no call about the ransom?”
“Still nothing. What else do you know about this … Tiburón?”
“I’m working on it. I’ll tell you everything in person.”
“All right.”
“I need you to do something for me while I’m on my way back.”
“Name it.”
“We have to tap the precinct’s frequency.”
“But Treviño … that’s illegal.”
“Well, it’s what we need to do if you want to find the girl. We also need to get our hands on the receptionist’s report.”
“The what?”
“The receptionist’s report. There are three girls who answer the phones at the precinct. Each one has an eight-hour shift, and they always sign a report detailing all the calls they took from officers or citizens before they leave. They take the complaints by phone and then pass them along to a sergeant, who puts the first available officer on the case. It’s a form they fill out in shorthand.”
“And why do we need that?”
“We need to know what violent crimes were reported over the past few days.”
“Look, Treviño, I’d never do anything illegal, especially not if you call me from a cell phone to ask me to do it. But lots of people show up at my office with things I never asked for. Maybe I know someone who could help.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. I’ll be there soon, but I have to see someone first.”
“Deal. We’re thrilled to have you working with us on this.”
“Go to hell. You said the same thing when I was looking for that chainsaw asshole.” He hung up, knowing Williams had no comeback.
Seeing that Treviño was in a bad mood, the Bus took the opportunity to say, “That’s one good-looking wife you’ve got, man.”
The detective looked at him out of the corner of his eye but didn’t answer. A minute, minute and a half, later, the Bus added, “She’s not from around here, is she? I don’t know why, but she reminds me of one of those immigrants from Colombia or Central America—illegal, yeah, but hot—who come here trying to make their way to the United States but then things go bad and they decide to stay.”
Treviño turned slowly and stared at the Bus. The driver felt the detective‘s eyes boring into his right temple, but before he could complain, Treviño said, “You’re not from around here, either, are you?”
“Sure am.”
“No. You’re not.”
The Bus looked at him with something resembling disdain. The detective went on.
“No, you must be from Nuevo León or Coahuila. If you pressed me, I’d say Coahuila. But your last name isn’t common around there.”
“I’m from Piedras Negras.”
“Aha,” the detective continued. “And when did you get here?”
“Three years this February.”
Treviño did the math. “I’ve been gone longer than you’ve been here. Did you know the girl well?”
The Bus looked suspiciously at the ex-cop.
“As well as anyone in the family.”
“What’s she like?”
“What do you mean?”
“How did she spend her days?”
Distracted by the road, the driver took a minute to respond.
“She loved exercising. When she lived here—she’s been living in Switzerland for the past six months—she used to go to the gym every day. She took jazz and aerobics classes, plus French and Italian.”
“Who took her?”
“I did. Her father had me keep an eye on her.”
“Where did she take those jazz classes?”
“At her father’s club.”
“And she went to the nuns for language instruction. I bet you had to be careful when you parked around there, so as not to upset the ladies. And then the shit hit the fan and they sent her to Switzerland. They didn’t happen to send her there to keep her away from a bad influence, by any chance?”
Curious, the Bus turned to look at the detective.
“What do you mean?”
“Does she do drugs? Does she know any dealers? Have any friends with ties to the narcos? Don’t tell me she didn’t have vices.”
Before answering, the Bus took a sharp turn to the right. “Every now and then she’d sneak a glass of wine or a Baileys, a Midori, but always as dessert and always at home. I never saw her drink when she was out.”
“Did they ever get any threats about her?”
“No.”
Treviño reflected for a moment and smiled. “Lucky for the kidnappers, the boyfriend’s in a coma. What can you tell me about him?”
“What do you want to know?”
“What was his relationship with the girl like? Aside from that nightclub, where people go to buy drugs, what other kinds of places did he take her to? Do you know if he took pills or did coke?”
The Bus mopped his brow with his handkerchief.
“He’s from a good family, pretty low-key. He never raised his voice to us, not like some of the young lady’s other friends, who were impossible. The kid spent all his time reading. He sent her handwritten letters. He was a poet.”
The detective examined the photos that had been taken of the boy’s personal effects and paused when he got to the short-sleeved Lacoste shirt.
“Did he wear a lot of pink?”
“He liked light colors. She brought that shirt back for him from Switzerland.”
“Did you ever see him take liberties with her?”
The driver, uncomfortable, shook his head.
“Were they sleeping together?”
“No way.”
The detective didn’t say a word, so he added, “They didn’t let her go out without her friends.”
The detective nodded and went back to looking at the photo of the pink shirt.
“A poet in a country of machos. That’s bravery for you. Was she a virgin?”
“Look, man. We all showed the young lady respect. That was our job. We aren’t like the old drivers, that pair of deadbeats the girl called Uncle and who quit as soon as the shit hit the fan. We’re here to take a bullet for her.”
“Did you ever see her naked?”
The Bus stared at the detective, his jaw set, and didn’t answer.
“You have a criminal record?”
“What’s your problem, asshole?”
“You spent some time locked up. What did you do?”
The Bus didn’t answer. They were driving along one of the city’s main avenues.
“Drunk and disorderly? Robbery? Assault? Drug trafficking?”
The driver slammed on the brakes, turned, and grabbed Treviño by the guayabera. “Look, man. I’ll say this once and only once. Don’t even think about giving me shit.”
Treviño gave a nod and added, “Bar fight.”
The Bus’s face turned beet red, like something was about to boil over inside him. Then he heard a click and realized that Treviño’s Taurus PT99 had been pointed at his belly the whole time. Their eyes locked for a moment while the car’s engine sputtered and popped. Then the driver let go of the detective and took a deep breath. Treviño slowly put the Taurus back under his shirt and smoothed the wrinkles in his guayabera.
“You’re not the only guy in this fucking city who’s been locked up over a fight. And if Mr. De León hired you, it’s because you come recommended. Who put your name in for this job?”
The Bus took his time in responding.
“Representative Campillo.”
“I know him,” said Treviño. “He’s the one who owns those tortilla factories. Good guy. Where’d they lock you up?”
The Bus didn’t answer right away.
“Laredo. Just forty-eight hours.”
Treviño nodded and the two were silent until they reached the next light, at which point the Bus said, “Why the fuck are you asking all these questions?”
“Because when a woman like Cristina is kidnapped, it’s usually someone close to her, or at least someone who has at least one point of contact with her, and plenty of opportunities to make her disappear. There are two profiles: the psychopath who wants to satisfy his base urges and the businessman who’s in it for money.”
The Bus looked straight ahead and didn’t respond. Then the detective asked,
“Do you find her attractive?”
They drove the rusted white Maverick down the Avenida de las Palmas toward a restaurant called the Grand Vizier. As they crossed the city center, they saw Chief Margarito’s precinct office in the distance and Treviño said, “That’s where it happened. It’s a miracle they didn’t kill me.”
The Bus stole a glance at the scar Treviño had on his left parietal and discreetly stepped on the gas.
While they waited for a convoy of trailer trucks to let them cross the avenue, the detective phoned the consul.
“Did they call?”
“No, still nothing. I just wanted to remind you that the clock is ticking. If this is a kidnapping, the risk that they decide to get rid of her goes up every minute they have her.”
“You don’t have to remind me. Do you have what I asked for?”
“The transcription’s ready, but there’s some shorthand we can’t make out. You’ll have to come decipher it.”
“And the videos?”
“We don’t have tape from around the nightclub, since all the cameras in the neighborhood are pointed toward Avenida Hidalgo. We do have a video that shows the moment Cristina drives up to the club with her boyfriend at exactly eight fifteen, but that’s all.”
“Got it. Write this down: I want you to check to see if sometime after nine, maybe around nine thirty, any of the nearby cameras captured two new pickup trucks driving at full speed, maybe changing lanes or flashing their high beams at the other drivers or making any suspicious moves. One red and one black. See if you can make out their plates.”
“This is good. We’re making progress. We’ll take a look right now,” said the consul, and they hung up.
They finally made it across the avenue and Treviño signaled to the driver that he should turn left onto a tree-lined street.
“Here?” asked the Bus, and Treviño nodded.
A moment later, the Bus was parking the car grudgingly in front of a strip mall on its last legs.
“It’s a bad idea to go in there,” he advised. “That’s where the cops hang out.”
“Don’t worry. It’ll be a relaxed little chat. Intimate. Wait for me here. I don’t want you scaring my contact.”
Treviño got out of the car, slamming the door, and walked away.
The Bus chewed it over for a moment but ended up getting out of the car and running after Treviño. The detective stopped him cold.
“This is a private conversation, partner. Wait for me here,” he said, indicating with an unequivocal gesture that the driver should beat it.
The detective wasn’t messing around, so the Bus sat down on one of the two benches on either side of the entryway of the ice-cream shop next door. He calculated which one would best accommodate his enormous haunches, grabbed what was left of a newspaper from the seat, and collapsed into it.
In the distance, the Bus caught sight of a man with sideburns and a mustache. He was wearing a rumpled green military jacket and standing next to a newspaper kiosk reading, or pretending to read, a magazine. When he saw Treviño he gave a little nod, paid for the magazine, and entered the restaurant.
Treviño walked up to the entrance, and—after making sure none of his former colleagues were inside—headed toward the table where his contact was sitting.