“Ricardo. Welcome,” Chief Margarito stepped forward and patted his young replacement on the back. It’s not every day you get to see your child appointed to such a prestigious job, even if that job is rightfully yours. “I’ll take you to your meeting.”
His son nodded but didn’t say a word or make any attempt to hide his disdain. Luckily for him, he looked more like his mother. You could say he got her bone structure, the color of her eyes, her eyebrows, her athletic build and height, her thirst for knowledge, and her drive, whereas all he got from Margarito was the Y chromosome. There was even a rumor going around that the chief wasn’t his real father. How could someone who had tortured and killed so many people, maybe the worst cop on the Gulf, have such a kind and upstanding son? There’s that law about kids wanting to grow up to be the opposite of their parents, but Ricardo always focused on pleasing his mother: good behavior, good grades, mastery of English and Italian, graduating with honors, a nice honest job abroad. They knew the young man was ashamed of his father, that he wanted to sever all ties with him, which is why they chose him as the chief’s replacement. To add insult to injury. But instead of taking offense, Margarito saw the choice as an ideal solution. He preferred they name his son to the post rather than anyone else—that son of a bitch Bracamontes, for example—because at least his son might think twice before sending him to jail.
He’d been calculating every move since the newly elected mayor had sent his personal assistant to pay him a visit, a month before he even took office.
“We want a seamless transition. I want us to see eye to eye on this: what do I have to do to get you to retire?”
But there was no way they were going to see eye to eye. They wanted him to leave and offered him nothing in return. That wasn’t going to work. No one would’ve taken that deal. They spent four weeks negotiating his exit, and Margarito had insisted the only way he’d step down gracefully was if they announced his flesh and blood as his successor.
Now, there was his son, staring deep into his soul, trying to figure out just how many of the terrible rumors that had spread all over the country were true or if maybe there was some good in there, somewhere. For his part, Margarito wondered what had happened to the sweet, affectionate boy with a permanent smile on his face. It was as if the resentment fermenting inside him had turned him into a different person. The chief was just about to ask if he’d kept up with his karate in Canada when Dr. Antonelli burst through the wall of police officers.
“Ricardo!”
The young man hugged his mother as if they spoke often or had even seen one another recently and accepted a kiss on the cheek. Margarito didn’t like the situation one bit: the last time he saw his ex-wife had been more than a year ago, and the encounter hadn’t ended well. Watching her embrace their son, he was surprised at what good shape she was in, how muscular her arms and legs were. He could picture the evening salads, the intense regimen of diet and exercise. The mortification of the flesh in the pursuit of lasting health. He, on the other hand, kept needing to buy bigger clothes. If he ever actually made it into an operating room, the doctor would find a heart wrapped in layers of cholesterol.
The chief was uneasy. If he let himself get distracted by his wife, he’d lose the chance to speak with his son in private. But he said, “I’m taking him to his meeting. Come with us.”
His ex-wife jumped back as if he’d tried to touch her. “Absolutely not,” she replied. Then she added, “I’m sure you gentlemen have important matters to discuss. I’ll see you at city hall, Ricardo, and then at home for dinner, as we planned.”
Margarito was surprised by her relative friendliness: after their breakup twenty years earlier—or to be more exact, after she’d asked him to move out—Antonelli had harbored a complete and absolute hatred of the chief. She didn’t take his calls, she refused to see him when he tried to speak with her in person, and she hired a fancy lawyer who managed to win her the house he was still paying off. At first, she bombarded him with phone calls and yelled at him for hours on end. To get her feelings out, she said. For his part, he refused to sign the divorce papers until eight years had gone by and it wasn’t even legally necessary anymore. She’d almost killed him back when he’d invited their son to join the police force and didn’t speak to him again until Ricardo quit. So he couldn’t figure out her change in attitude. Did she turn Buddhist, or what?
The chief watched her hug their son.
“I’m so proud of you. Be careful out there,” she said and gave him another kiss. Then she turned and left without saying good-bye to Margarito.
“Well, well, well. Look at little Ricardo …” El Flaco was the first to shake his hand, which made things easier.
A smile flitted across the son’s lips when he saw his father’s men. He’d always had a good relationship with them, except for El Dorado, whose height and bushy mustache frightened him as a child.
“Pinche Flaco, I almost didn’t recognize you.”
“How are you, Richie?”
The young man didn’t answer. Behind him, La Tonina and El Dorado held their rifles and smiled. They remembered watching him play down at the station when he was just a brat; it was going to be strange to take orders from him now. Margarito stepped in to break up the tender moment. A bunch of sentimental crap—like we have time for this. He walked over to his son and pointed to the exit.
“We have to talk.”
Not seeming to care whether the reporters heard him, his son replied, “You and I shouldn’t be talking at all.” The chief’s face darkened as Ricardo went on. “I’ll tell you right now. I’m not sure I can do anything for you. The mayor hired me to bring peace to the area and told me to make an example of my own family, if necessary.”
Margarito tried to stay calm, just like he’d practiced.
“Listen, Ricardo. In any business, whenever there’s a changing of the guard, the old boss offers words of advice to the new boss, who listens, if only out of curiosity and so he can avoid surprises. I only need a few minutes of your time. These are sensitive matters. After that, you can do what you want.”
“I imagine the mayor’s office sent a car and someone to pick me up.”
“They didn’t. You’re the new police chief: you can’t go around without a security detail.”
The young man hesitated for a moment, then sighed and nodded. They crossed the airport lobby behind La Tonina and El Dorado and stepped into the morning heat, which was like walking into a lit oven. They got into the Suburban, which had seen better days but still got the job done. The two bodyguards sat up front, their boss and his son in the back. Looking out the window, the chief checked to make sure one of the new patrol vehicles was clearing a path for them and saw El Flaco climbing into his old bucket of bolts.
The last time he’d spoken with his son on the phone was six months earlier. When the young man moved to Canada, Margarito had started calling him once a month, much to the discomfort of his son and the daughter-in-law, who had always hated him. The chief had gone to impossible lengths, not all of them legal, to get his number. Annoyed at first, Ricardo chose to let his father do the talking. “Listen, son. There’s a great job opportunity here in the capital. I heard it straight from the governor. Why don’t you come back?” Or: “They say it’s fucking cold up there where you are. Is it really thirty below? Aren’t you freezing your balls off?” The calls usually came during the week from police headquarters or else in the evening, in which case the chief would sometimes hang up when he realized that he’d had a bit more to drink than he thought, his jokes were falling flat, and the alcohol was making his voice sound awful. They were all caught up on each other’s news, so there was no need to waste time on niceties.
“What was it you wanted to talk about?” the new arrival asked.
His son had been using that formal tone with him for years, so the chief cut right to the chase. He’d been planning this conversation for over a week.
“I want to ask you to look past our problems. The situation here is delicate. There are people you should meet, introductions I should make. I’ll need at least a week to bring you up to speed on who’s who.”
“I prefer to start from scratch. And let’s get one thing straight: if I find proof that you’re involved in any of this, be advised that I will proceed according to the letter of the law.”
“You be advised: the law is just an excuse to throw people in the can, especially in this part of the world.”
“That’s how it’s always been, whether we like it or not.” Margarito felt his patience thinning and tried to regain control. “Look. Dealing with these people hasn’t been easy. Have I gotten close to criminals? Fucking A. It’s my job. You put up with some of them, sit down with others: it’s the only way to keep the peace in this city. And if someone snaps a picture of me with some capo, I’m there because I’m doing my job. Maybe I was the one who suggested the photo op. Though I’m not surprised the new blood in the opposition party wants to use it against me,” he said, referring to a picture of him at one of Obregón’s weekly banquets, which Fearless Juan had published in a newspaper in Monterrey.
“Look. You and I haven’t seen each other since you moved to Canada, but keep this in mind: somebody has to do this job. No one else could. So they called me. The problem is now these assholes are lining up to screw me.”
“Like who?”
“Your boss, for one. He talks about developing drug rehab programs, but whenever he throws a party he brings in mountains of blow. He talks about ending violence against women, but he has girls wandering around those same parties who were probably trafficked from Europe. What more could you expect from the douche bag who calls himself an environmentalist and publicly advocates for the death penalty? Anyway”—he took his time with this—“some people say he’s on the way out. That he’s only the mayor because they parked him here. By now he should be in congress or doing something on a national level, but it seems he rubbed someone the wrong way and the only job he could get was back here, where he started out.”
Rather than answer, his son stared intently out the window. As the highway brought them closer to the city, all kinds of businesses started to appear and the young man greedily took them in: a taco stand and a pharmacy, a nightclub called Brisas and the Seven Seas motel, a restaurant called the White Whale, repair shops, car washes. Then there was the Sagrado Refugio de los Pescadores and the Carmelite convent.
They said nothing as the convoy entered the city. After making sure there were no suspicious vehicles at the off-ramp or behind the trees, the first truck honked its horn and turned onto the main avenue. Margarito’s son turned to him.
“What else did you want to say to me?”
“That it’s worse than ever here. A new organization is throwing everything it has at the older generation.”
Murder wasn’t a crime of passion anymore: it was a matter of business that claimed dozens of lives with every attack. It was that way in most border towns. Once or twice a month, the bosses behind the biggest operations looked over their returns and said, No, no, this is no good. Then they decided they’d make more money if they did away with the competition. They’d kill ten or twenty at a time, but their competitors would hire replacements the same week. The last mayor’s strategy had been to tread water for his entire final year in office. He just stood there, arms crossed, with no intention of doing anything. He and Margarito had seen the violence coming long before it began, but they never thought the conflict would escalate the way it did. The working-class neighborhoods emptied out and people started arriving from who knows where to fill them back up, but they didn’t last long there either.
“These guys know La Eternidad is going to be as important as Acapulco and Vallarta, and they want to get in on the ground floor.”
When the first group of fifteen was massacred on the outskirts of the city, the mayor went to Mexico City to explain the situation and ask for federal support. He was carrying a thick file Margarito had prepared. He returned the same night. Margarito went to meet him and found him more taciturn than usual.
“They didn’t even hear us out,” he’d said. “They threw your report in the trash. They gave us one suggestion: pass every mass killing to the federales, because the crimes involved don’t fall under local jurisdiction. Translation: if you don’t find drugs on the bodies, plant some, and leave it for the attorney general.”
Over the next twelve months, the criminals grew increasingly cruel in their attacks, trying to outdo one another. Instead of driving out their competition, though, they created a spiral of hatred and revenge. And all the weapons coming into the port! Ten years ago, you had to order the standard-issue police sidearm from the state capital. Now you could buy one at your local supermarket if you were desperate enough to pay ten times what you would if you just drove to the gringo side of the border.
“I know,” said Ricardo. “I got the report. Your name is all over it. If you had any idea of the things you’re accused of … They even have statements from people close to you. If I were you, I’d be looking for a good lawyer.”
The chief bristled at this last remark. Could there be a traitor on his team? It took him years to find a few efficient, loyal men who couldn’t be bought. He could be proud of Macaria, the lawyer in charge of his paperwork; of Herminio, La Tonina, El Dorado, and of course, though to a lesser extent, El Flaco. Oh, and then there was Roberta Pedraza, a.k.a. La Gordis, fresh out of the police academy, a good officer with good attitude. They’d hit it off right away. So he leaned forward and said, “At the moment, there are two documents circulating that mention my name. There’s the Report on Criminal Activity in the Gulf of Mexico prepared by the US consul to La Eternidad, and the study that hack from the Commission on Human Rights put together. No one cares about the second one, so it’s got to be the first. Right?”
Noticing the surprise on his son’s face, the chief added, “The consul has no idea where his bread is buttered. Diplomacy’s great and all that shit, but we’re the ones who have to bail him out when his plans go ass up. Day before yesterday he stuck his foot way in it, and they asked for his resignation.”
“Maybe so, but the part about you is this thick,” retorted his son. “They even have statements from the DEA.”
There that Don Williams goes again, thought Margarito. Sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. His son looked him in the eye.
“Find yourself a good lawyer. It’s the only advice I can offer you.”
Margarito shifted in his seat.
“Look, Ricardo. All I want is for you to ask yourself if maybe, just maybe, they’re using you to get to me before throwing you out on your ass too when it’s over. No matter how well you do your job, you might find yourself in the same position I’m in after a few years. It comes with the territory.”
“No, I don’t think so. Two things make us different: torture, and the company you keep,” he said. “There’s no excuse for that.”
From the driver’s seat, El Dorado looked at his boss in the rearview mirror to gauge his reaction. The chief shook his head.
“Three years ago, while you were in Canada, we caught a guy who’d cut up six women with a chainsaw. When we brought him in, he was beaming with pride over what he’d done. He was a rich kid from a good family; he’d killed all those girls out at his parents’ beach house. There were reports of two other women who’d gone missing, and he told us he had them, that they were bleeding to death in some hideout. He wouldn’t tell us where. We searched the whole port and the surrounding areas and came up empty. You know how we got the clue that led us to them? I locked myself in with him for the night. And we saved the girls, even though one of them lost a leg. Gangrene had set in by the time we got there.”
“There are other ways to interrogate someone.”
“Sure there are, but tell that to those girls. And that goes for all the other cases, too. As for the other thing, the questionable company I supposedly keep: any asshole who gets hung up on that doesn’t have a clue what this job is.”
His son stared out the window for a moment before responding.
“You talk about the end justifying the means and all the good you’re trying to do, but the Chainsaw Killer was an exception, not the rule. What is an everyday thing, though, is the money you take from them and your abuse of suspects in your custody. What do you think you’re known for in the national papers? I know. I’ve seen the clippings.”
Now I see who turned you against me, thought the chief. His wife, who’d always saved every newspaper article that mentioned him. He stifled the urge to go off on her. Ever since Ricardo turned fifteen, his parents had been at war for influence over their only son. His mother, the eminent Dr. Antonelli—an Italian who decided to move to Mexico, the first woman with an advanced degree in the port, and the dean of its budding university—bought him books, CDs, foreign and art house films; encouraged him to study Italian and other languages; took him on trips to the capital and abroad; sent him to finish high school in the United States so he could perfect his English. In short, she always wanted him to have horizons broader than his father’s. On the other end of the spectrum, his dad: the man who’d sponsored and facilitated his first night of drinking, his first party with mariachis, and even his first experience with a prostitute—or would have, if Ricardo had let him. He’d treated him and his friends to endless banquets at trendy restaurants. The chief had thought he might be able to get closer to his son once he moved abroad, far from his mother, but that wasn’t the case. The wounds the boy had suffered as a child never did quite heal.
The chief had tried to put his best foot forward when they worked together and always sent Ricardo on interesting errands, but his son wasn’t blind; it didn’t take him long to notice how shady the people were who came to visit his father or how his meetings were always at strange hours and places, like a massive unfinished hotel, a ranch on the outskirts of the city, or yachts that never spent more than a couple of hours docked offshore. He was also quick to realize that his father had a safe house off the highway where he took the more difficult detainees, the ones it was better to interrogate in private. Once, after he hadn’t seen him in the office for two days in a row, Ricardo had gone looking for him in the cantina and found him there in a foul mood, with bandages on his knuckles, drinking tequila with El Flaco and El Dorado. The Commission on Human Rights had recently filed a complaint against his father for inflicting permanent damage on a suspect in his custody. Ricardo had asked if beating detainees was a regular thing for him, and Margarito replied, “Look. Sometimes we bring people in who just aren’t going to talk. Who have so much confidence in their connections and their resources that they figure instead of charging them, we’ll end up letting them walk and apologize to them, to boot. When you’re dealing with the real lowlifes you can’t just put them back on the street. You have to break their confidence. And the only way to break these guys is to go after them little by little, like cracking an egg without crushing it. You have to be patient and let it sink in that no one knows where they are and no one is coming to help them until they confess what they did and sign a statement. That’s how police do it across the country, how we’ve always done it. There are even classes on how to do it.”
His son’s face darkened and he’d walked out of the cantina. He never set foot in headquarters again, not even to tender his resignation.
The theory of the egg wasn’t the only thing that had put distance between Ricardo and his father. There were also the rumors accusing him of protecting Los Nuevos, all those mysterious meetings, and the fact that he so obviously lived above his police officer’s salary: a house in the city and one on the beach, trips to the border, a new car and a younger lover every year, jewelry, watches. For as long as Ricardo could remember, especially in middle and high school, his classmates had either beaten him up or avoided him entirely. His mother got him a scholarship to study in Montreal. He hadn’t spoken to Margarito much since then, and when he returned to La Eternidad, it had been two years since the last time he’d seen him.
“We can go case by case. But I need you to hear me out, and you should meet the players you’ll be dealing with. These guys mean business.”
“You mean your friend’s competition? I know a thing or two about the individuals in question. They defected from the Mexican military.”
Margarito nodded.
“They’re military, yeah, but not just Mexican: we’ve picked up guys from the Guatemalan armed forces too, and even a few Kaibiles. Then there’s the little gang that went to the United States and came back as La Cuarenta. Keeping them from shooting each other or killing anyone else is a tough job.”
“Not that you’ve been all that good at it.”
He opened the local newspaper, which had been on the seat next to La Tonina. The headline read: TWENTY MASSACRED. Below the words was a photo of a pile of corpses in a vacant lot on the outskirts of the city. The killers had set fire to the bodies and left them out in the open, making it clear they had no intention of burying them. Though local residents had been tipped off to their presence by the unusual number of buzzards circling, it had taken them two days to find the bodies or maybe to gather the courage to report what they’d found. Somehow twenty people were murdered out in the open, and there were no witnesses or forensic clues. According to the article, all had been shot execution-style. A professional job, the kind Margarito knew all too well: it took only a crew of three, maybe four, highly trained individuals to round up that many unarmed civilians, bring them out to the lot, and execute them. He’d told these guys over and over: “Rob them, run them off, but don’t kill them. That’s no good for any of us.” But they didn’t listen. Ever since war broke out between the two organizations, at least ten people would disappear every two weeks or so, which was how long it would take either group to kidnap the men who divided up their competition’s product for sale on the street. At first, the victims would just vanish, buried out on some ranch. These last two months, though, they’d been turning up whole or in pieces at key locations around the city. The twenty they killed this time broke all the records. At the press conference, Margarito said only that the investigations were ongoing, per his agreement with the cartels.
“It’s very convenient, washing your hands of all this by bouncing it up to the federales.”
“I can’t give you all the details on the fly like this, but it’s a temporary situation. It’ll be over soon.”
“When they finish killing each other off, you mean?”
“When they reach an agreement. Did you hear about what’s going on in La Nopalera? Do you know how long the new chief of police lasted? An hour and a quarter. An hour and a quarter,” Margarito repeated.
The conversation ground to a halt just as they pulled up to a red light.
“What are you going to say at the press conference?” Margarito asked. “Think carefully, because there are going to be reporters there from Proceso and La Jornada, and they’re going to ask you some tough questions.”
“Such as?”
“Such as what are you going to do about all the mass killings we’ve seen this year.” The chief gestured toward the newspaper that rested on the seat between them. “How will you respond to that?”
“That solving those crimes is a top priority, even if they did occur on the outskirts of the city. In fact, I plan to handle those cases myself.”
“Are you fucking crazy? That’s a fight you can’t win. Let those assholes kill each other off and stay the hell out of it,” Margarito bellowed as his son watched him with something like pity. “Think about La Nopalera. An hour fifteen.”
As they waited for the light to turn green, Ricardo said, “I heard they kidnapped Mr. De León’s daughter. And that you were behind it.”
Margarito shrugged.
“Day before yesterday I brought a suspect in, a guy from Veracruz. I’ve got him in custody and we’re preparing his statement. Looks like he’s about to confess.”
His son looked at him, trying to gauge if his father, who was an excellent liar, was telling the truth.
“They say you’re asking for three million dollars,” Ricardo added.
Margarito smiled at his son.
“If someone wanted to give me that much cash, I certainly wouldn’t stop him. Now that I’m retired and all.”
“And what do you have to say about the Three Stooges?”
Bracamontes, El Gori, and the Block were always popping up in El Imparcial de la Sierra, and Fearless Juan had written about them in Proceso.
“The mayor forced those guys on me. I have to put up with them.”
Ricardo shot him a disgusted look.
“How can you stand to have those psychopaths on your team?”
As they reached one of the city’s shopping centers, the light caught beautifully on the mist rising off the street, but the chief didn’t seem to notice.
“You like what you see here?” he asked, pointing at the car dealerships and restaurants that so fascinated his son. “You might be surprised to learn how many of these places, even the ones run by folks you know, have ties to the trade in one way or another. You can’t get around it these days.”
His son said nothing.
“Have you heard anything about Treviño?” Ricardo asked eventually. Margarito shrugged and looked out the window.
“Not a word.”
Technically, it was true. But he’d hear something soon enough.
That was all he said. If there was one thing he knew, it was that his son was going to try to get Treviño back on the force. The chief wasn’t surprised they’d gotten on well when they’d worked together, but he couldn’t stand Treviño.
Margarito looked at his son and saw the hatred in his eyes. After a few moments of silence, he added, quietly, “Do me a favor. Keep El Flaco, El Dorado, and La Tonina around. They’ve known you your whole life. If anyone can keep you safe, it’s my men.”
“The boss wants me to bring in a new team, fresh from the academy. A team that isn’t crooked.”
“Then make sure they get early retirement. Don’t leave them hanging.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Margarito watched his son stare out the window at a few grubby children washing cars nearby. This man was nothing like the son he’d raised, that generous, understanding person who never had a harsh word for anyone. Something had killed his compassion. If only he knew, thought the chief, the metric ton of shit that’s waiting for him. Come see me in three or four years and tell me this job is easy.
“Yeah, see what you can do,” he said, still following his son’s gaze.
It wasn’t even ten in the morning yet, but the malecón was already full of trios, soloists, nomads, masseurs, tai chi instructors announcing their services on sandwich boards, hairdressers braiding cornrows on the sand—droves of tourists, beggars, and vendors walking up and down the beach selling rosaries and other religious paraphernalia, blankets, rugs, crafts, beach attire, sandals, embroidered blouses, grilled shrimp on a skewer, silver jewelry.
Two guys walked past dressed like thugs. Police instinct cut through Margarito’s reverie and he sensed the heavy, dark energy criminals give off.
“Pass me the radio,” he ordered La Tonina. “See those guys over there at nine o’clock?” he asked El Flaco as soon as he had the microphone in his hand. “Go see what they’re up to.”
“Yes, boss.”
“But don’t go yourself. Send a squad car.”
“I’ll get out here,” said Ricardo. They’d reached the parking lot of city hall. Margarito knew there was something important he still had to tell him, but the Suburban had pulled up to the front gate. Before his security detail got out of the vehicle, the soon-to-be chief of police looked at him and said, “See you, Pop. These were tough times you had to deal with.”
The minute his son stepped onto the pavement, picked up his suitcase, and headed for the stairs, Margarito grabbed his walkie-talkie and ordered his men to keep an eye on him.
“Flaco, go with him. Don’t let him out of your sight.”
“Are you coming too, boss?”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
He turned to La Tonina and El Dorado.
“You go keep an eye on him too. And leave the keys.”
When they stepped out of the vehicle, Margarito got into the driver’s seat and ran every light until he got to El Santo Refugio de los Pescadores.
For a long time already, nothing calmed him like visiting that church and its adjoining convent. He parked the Suburban next to an immense ceiba tree and hurried inside. The novices, who had just finished their morning chores and were getting breakfast ready for the senior citizens they cared for there, saw him come in.
“Will you be staying for breakfast, Chief?”
“No thank you, my dears. I’m in a rush. I’ll just be seeing to something.”
He crossed the atrium, where the three nuns in charge were seating the convent’s fifty or so residents in chairs around the garden.
“Coming to pray at this early hour, Chief?”
“If you only knew what time I woke up this morning,” Margarito replied, without slowing down. “Very busy these days.”
“Goodness! And you’re going to the chapel?”
“May God bless you.”
The nuns smiled and watched him head toward the chapel. The chief walked in—there was no one inside but a cripple in a wheelchair—and out again through the back door. He reached the four-foot wall at the edge of the property and, after making sure that no one was watching, hopped into the empty lot on the other side.
No one had cleared the weeds from the lot, or from his soul for that matter, in at least twenty years. The underbrush was up to his knees, but he advanced confidently along the path he himself had worn over the past few days. When he reached the run-down structure, on the outside barely more than a few stacks of cinder blocks and exposed metal support rods, he gave the metal door three rhythmic knocks. A forty-year-old woman peeked out and, when she was sure it was Margarito, slid her gun into her waistband. The main room was empty except for a cot, a patchwork quilt, and a small television set resting on a chair.
“How are we this morning?” Margarito asked, glancing at the two heavy black metal doors on the far wall.
La Muda, who still wasn’t over losing the Bus, nodded several times to indicate that the girl had slept well and everything was under control. He had to admit it. La Muda was an asset: there she was, doing her job, even after they killed her boyfriend.
“She slept?” the policeman asked, a bit surprised.
The woman signaled to him to hold on and showed him a glass vial that contained a powerful sedative, indicating she’d given a dose to the girl, who immediately dropped like a ton of bricks.
“Go easy, that stuff can do some real damage,” said the chief, and the woman shook her head furiously as if to say, I’d never do something like that, not in a million years.
Margarito crossed to the far wall and looked through a peephole in one of the metal doors at the gorgeous sixteen-year-old blonde lying half naked on a mattress on the floor. The cherry on top. If he hadn’t asked La Tonina to tap Mr. De León’s phones, Treviño would have made off with her, and good-bye retirement plan. With what he was about to get for her, he could finally think about taking a break. But you really had to see the girl. It was true what everyone said. She really was the most beautiful thing in La Eternidad, which is saying a lot in a place known for long-legged women with tiny waists, fine features, and blue eyes. To keep her from running, they’d taken her clothes and left her in just a pair of white underpants and a pink cotton T-shirt. The chief admired, as usual, the long blond hair cascading cheerfully across the mattress. He pounded on the door until the girl stirred.
Once he was satisfied she was alive, he turned back to La Muda, who threw her hands up to ask what they were going to do with her.
“It’s almost over. Don’t worry. This will all be behind us tonight. Yes, tonight. Hold on.”
He hurried to the other door and looked through the peephole to make sure Treviño was still here, hanging by his wrists from a chain attached to the ceiling. Margarito told himself he could afford to be a little late to the event and opened the door. He walked over to the man and gave him a quick succession of right hooks to the ribs. Treviño writhed in pain.
“I know it hurts, but relax. You’re not going to die. At least, not in the next two weeks. I’ve been looking for you a long time, and I plan to enjoy this little reunion. I’m in no rush. In case you hadn’t heard, I’m about to retire.”
The chief took off his shirt, hung it on a nail, and turned to give his prisoner another round of right hooks. He paused only to mop the sweat from his face.
“Those were for the Bus. He was one of my favorite associates. If you had any idea how long it took us to plan this kidnapping … I trusted him completely. It wasn’t easy getting him a job with De León. You made it harder for me to collect when you took him out, but things are running smoothly again. When Daddy didn’t hear from you, he gave you up for dead and agreed to pay not just three, but four million dollars for his little girl. A pretty penny, no? I consider it a donation. To my savings account. But if that runs out, it’s no skin off my back; my son Ricardo is about to take over at police headquarters. So you see, it’s all in the family.”
Blood had started to pool at the prisoner’s feet.
“I didn’t like that one of my most trusted men left me swinging in the breeze five years ago, right when we were about to make some real money with our contacts in the trade, but that was your call. What I can’t stand is that you won’t stay gone, given everything you know about yours truly.”
Margarito banged on the door. Within a minute La Muda stuck her head in and he told her to bring him a length of hose. She gestured to ask him if he wanted water.
“No, not water, just the hose. For the gentleman,” he said and made a whipping motion with his arm.
La Muda nodded and closed the door. The chief walked over to the dangling mass and spun it around so they were nose to nose.
“I told you I was going to break every bone in your body, and here we are. You see? I’m a man of my word.”
The door opened and La Muda handed him the length of hose. She also pointed to her watch: it was almost nine.
Margarito squinted at the prisoner.
“Aren’t you lucky. But don’t think I’m done with you. I’ll be back soon to finish my workout. Exercise does a body good.”
He thought about how, in just a few hours, he was going to be filthy rich and Treviño was going to be behind bars or dead, after taking the fall for kidnapping the girl. Working for the law in La Eternidad had always been a lucrative gig, but he had a lot of overhead—the ex-wife, the son at school in Canada, and Los Nuevos. Those bastards just loved collecting dues. But Mr. De León was going to be generous or he’d never see his daughter again. God damn, he hated that guy. Margarito was going to make sure he got what was coming to him. He had to deliver the girl safe and sound if he wanted his ransom. But sound is a relative term.
He needed to hurry. He mopped the sweat from his forehead and put his shirt back on.
“Enjoy your last moments on earth. Hope you like the smell of piss.”
La Muda closed the door behind him and the chief hurried back to the living room and put on one of the two hoods they kept on top of the television. Then the woman, who was already wearing the other one, stepped out of the room for a moment and came back dragging the girl by the hair.
“No, please no. No more.”
“You’re prettier when you’re quiet,” Margarito growled. “Now let’s say hello to Daddy.”
The pressure of La Muda’s gun against her skin kept their guest from bursting into tears. Her knees buckled. She didn’t have the strength to run.
The chief took the cell phone the woman handed to him and dialed the only number stored in its memory, holding a distortion device to his throat. A man picked up after two rings.
“Hello?”
“How are we this morning, Your Excellence?”
“I want to talk to her. Put her on the phone!”
“Not so fast. Do you have what I asked for?”
“It’s been here for two days. How is my daughter? I demand to talk to her!”
“You’re not in a position to demand so much as a scrambled egg, Your Excellence. Shut up and listen.” He turned up the volume on the phone and brought it close to the girl’s face.
“Say something.”
The girl broke down in tears.
“Daddy? It’s me … I can’t … Please come get me … Please.”
“Sweetheart!”
“A sweet fucking pain in the ass is more like it,” interrupted the chief. “She won’t eat, so she doesn’t’ have to piss. You’d better hurry. She’s not looking too good.”
“Honey, are you there? What was your first pet’s name?”
“Oh, for the love of …”
“Bugs Bunny,” said the girl, between hiccups.
“And where did you used to think Santa Claus lived?”
The hiccups kept her from responding for a moment.
“At Grandpa’s.”
The policeman pulled the phone back.
“You’ll receive instructions at noon today. Do as you’re told or you’re all fucked.” He hung up.
La Muda dragged the girl back to her windowless room, locked her inside, and approached the chief. They took off their hoods.
“Good, right?”
She nodded without much conviction. She’d heard a few calls of that kind and this wasn’t the most inspired, but it was fine.
“Stay focused. Don’t open the door for anyone but La Tonina.”
La Muda nodded again. I get it. I get it. There’s no need to yell.
The police chief closed the door carefully behind him and retraced his steps. After checking that there was no one nosing around on the other side, he hopped the wall and walked back through the chapel, passing the man in the wheelchair and exiting the way he’d come.
The mother superior was waiting for him as he reached the main entrance.
“May God bless you, Chief.”
“And you as well, Reverend Mother.”
As the Suburban drove off, the mother superior looked at the smiling, blue-eyed nun at her side.
“The world could use more men like him.”