“Nine-millimeter,” said General Rovirosa, tossing him a long cylinder barely thicker than a thermometer. As with many instruments of death, its designers tried to give it an appealing look, in this case by making it golden.
The turret lights on the patrol cars tinted the chief’s face red, then blue, then red again as he examined the evidence.
“Shot from a Luger Parabellum,” the general added, not needing to mention they were known as cop killers because they could pierce bulletproof vests.
General Rovirosa also chose not to mention that the holes in the sides of the vehicles were exceptionally large. In the crew cab truck where Margarito had been, the only way to tell which was La Tonina was the size of the mass hanging out the front window, as if he’d been trying to open the door from the outside.
With all the cynicism he’d developed over a lifetime dedicated to weapons, the general tried to wrap his mind around how Margarito could still be alive. One look at the constellation of bullet holes in the side of his truck was enough to make him wonder if the chief was in collusion with the attackers. Experience had taught him that the officer in question was capable of anything—except compliance with the law. He looked at the policeman, who, curled up in a ball while a paramedic examined his arm, didn’t seem to have heard him, and went off to examine the crime scene, leaning as he always did on his wooden cane and followed by the two soldiers who made up his personal security detail. The news had caught him off guard back at city hall; he hadn’t even changed out of his dress uniform. In his blue four-button jacket covered by insignias and badges, his cap emblazoned with three stars, his fair complexion, and his wooden cane, he looked radically different from the taciturn soldiers who hung on his every word.
The first things he examined were the bodies of the gunmen. One of them had fallen across the hood of a car, while the other, a young man with a goatee, lay on the cobblestones not far from the ambulance. The entry wound in his chest looked like Margarito’s handiwork. He’d seen others who’d run into that particular thirty-eight in the past. He turned to the nearest crime scene investigator, a man with almond-shaped eyes whose name he could never remember.
“Only three of the assailants were killed?”
“There are two more over there.”
The general nodded and stepped onto the sidewalk, where the shooter in the green hoodie was lying near another young man, who couldn’t have been more than five feet tall.
There wasn’t a single pane of glass left in the truck stopped nearest the gas tanker. It looked as if the front windshield had simply dissolved; not even a shard of glass was left at the edges. Where the new recruits had been sitting there was just a scattered, bloody mass mixed with tatters of clothing and car upholstery, as if a pack of rabid dogs had been let loose on them. The general almost lost his balance on all the shell casings.
In the middle, El Dorado was slumped on the pavement under the driver’s side door of the Suburban. There’d be no open-casket funeral for him: his remains were beyond makeup. Two white towels requisitioned from a store on the corner were tossed across the back seat. Under the first one was a young police officer and under the second—holy shit—what used to be Chief Margarito’s son. Things are about to get ugly around here, thought the general, raising his eyebrows. Then he turned and walked back to Margarito.
The first thing he saw was the chief’s muddy loafers. The paramedic was almost done treating the flesh wound to Margarito’s shoulder, and he must have been wrapping those bandages pretty tight, judging from his expression and the way his body tilted to the left. When he saw the general approaching, the chief growled, “What do you make of it?”
The investigators had gathered the weapons from the four dead men, or was it five, on a black cloth they’d stretched across the hood of a car with its windows blown out. They looked like shiny metal toys.
“Uzis,” said the general. “First time I’ve seen them around here.”
The police and the military usually found one of two kinds of weapons on criminals lately: the latest technology from the United States or the oldies but goodies from the former Soviet Union. The first could be purchased from any licensed dealer in California, Arizona, New Mexico, or Texas and brought back easily enough across the border. The second kind found their way into Mexico through guerrilla fighters and Central and South American criminals. But neither of these channels tended to traffic in Uzis.
Margarito looked the small, light submachine guns over: easily concealed under clothing, they were made for secret service agents and ministers’ bodyguards, but had come to be used in bank robberies all over the world. The perfect instrument for an ambush. They weren’t eye-catching or very heavy compared with similar weapons designed to be intimidating.
The general signaled to the soldier standing nearest to him, who leaned over to pick up one of the guns and handed it to him. With a fluid movement punctuated by a sharp crack, the general removed the magazine and held it at eye level for a moment. He took out a thick pair of glasses, put them on, examined the object again, and then quickly put the glasses back in his breast pocket. He didn’t like to be seen wearing them.
“Son of a bitch.”
“What?”
“These are fifty-round magazines. You say they only found one per person?”
“That’s right.”
The general blinked.
“A strange choice, don’t you think? Who sends his men into combat with a single magazine?”
Margarito looked up for the first time and nodded.
“The one who seemed to be their leader carried a thirty-eight,” he said.
“Exactly,” said the general. “You don’t send someone into battle without real firepower.”
Margarito was starting to get annoyed. The general had a tendency to let his imagination run wild. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before he declared the attack an international conspiracy.
In the light ricocheting across the stormy sky, the chief’s face took on a greenish pallor. He was clearly in terrible pain, but he managed not to touch his sling.
“Why don’t you go get checked out at the hospital?” asked the general. “We can handle this.”
“No way in hell.”
It had stopped raining, but there was still a thick fog hanging over the city, and the streams flowing across the cobblestones from higher elevations made preserving the crime scene impossible.
Margarito looked up and saw General Rovirosa’s security detail. He didn’t like having those toy soldiers around but couldn’t say much about it. Military vehicles were blocking off traffic in both directions, and the rest of the barracks had gone out to patrol the city. He’d even seen a sharpshooter positioned on one of the rooftops nearby. But it was going to take a hell of a lot more than a bunch of soldiers and a tree-hugging politician to take control from him that day.
Forensics Agent Pangtay, a.k.a. El Chino, approached the three men. In public, Margarito always kept some distance from him. Even though he’d been the one who hired Pangtay, and even though the man was part of his inner circle, the chief had always figured that sooner or later he was going to have to arrest him for his side gig as a car thief. But the day of his retirement had arrived, and the scandal still hadn’t broken.
“If I may, boss,” he said, handing him a newspaper clipping sheathed in a plastic bag. “The one in the green hoodie had this on him.”
He took the clipping and examined the two photos that had been published side by side less than forty-eight hours earlier, when they’d announced his replacement. On the right was a picture of his son, taken back when he still worked at headquarters. On the left was a picture of him dirty and disheveled with stains all over his shirt. The chief scowled and Pangtay understood it was time for him to go.
Margarito passed the photo to the general, who took a close look at it—glasses on, glasses off again—and handed it back to the chief.
“I was the target,” said Margarito softly. “The primary target, at least.”
He thought back on the threat he’d received the night before. Your days are numbered, Chief. I’ve got bullets here with your name on them.
“The order could have come from anyone, even from one of our, ahem, associates. You haven’t had any trouble with them lately, have you?”
Margarito shook his head.
“Then look, my friend. While you figure out who did this, stay somewhere else for a few days. Change up your routine. They may not have gotten you today, but they’re going to be waiting for you. Maybe not in the next couple of hours, but a few days from now you’ll go home and find them there, or else it’ll be on your way to work. If you were the target and you walked away from the attack, these guys are going to be in a lot of trouble if they don’t complete their mission. But I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Do what you want. It’s your life. Would you like us to admit you to the military hospital?”
General Rovirosa owed Margarito one, and it was time to make good. But the chief of police shook his head.
“Send a detail to protect my wife and another one to keep an eye on my son’s funeral in case any of those shits turn up.”
“What are you going to do?”
Margarito and the general had been informants and accomplices of the local criminal organizations for years, but he’d have to be crazy to tell him anything, so he just grunted.
“Here,” Rovirosa said, offering him the gun one of his guards had been carrying. “Take this. For that time you helped me.”
“Did you forget? I have plenty,” said the chief, heading back to the scene of the crime.
The general was speechless. When a shipment of weapons fresh from the States had been stolen from one of his men a year earlier, he’d suspected the chief of being behind it and their friendship had cooled as a result. With him, anything was possible. Was Margarito actually admitting he’d had something to do with the guns that disappeared from Captain López’s luggage?
La Gordis walked up to the chief and asked if he needed anything.
“Hold on,” he said, doubling over. It felt like his arm was going to explode.
“If you don’t let someone take a look at that, you’re going to pass out,” she said, worried.
The chief hadn’t stopped moving since the emergency responders covered his son’s body: hauling himself around tirelessly, he’d examined different aspects of the crime scene, talked with the investigator in charge, reprimanded him halfheartedly, and had a look at the deceased.
But La Gordis hadn’t taken any breaks, either. She was the first on the scene, even though she’d come running from city hall, dragging Pangtay and the other officers behind her. The chief wouldn’t be alive if it hadn’t been for her: when they arrived firing into the air, they’d scared off the man in black and his thugs. After she’d taken in the horror of the attack, La Gordis located and interviewed the witnesses left inside the surrounding establishments, even though none of them could offer anything substantial. Basically, they saw the police officers start shooting after the attack began, mistook it for a battle between criminal organizations, and ducked for cover wherever they could.
It did not escape the general’s attention that the chief hadn’t exchanged a word with Bracamontes, who was also on the scene. Or that they were staring at one another like a couple of dogs who’d just been in a fight, the chief at the crime scene and Bracamontes sitting on the hood of an ambulance at the end of the street holding a gauze pad to the side of his face.
If anyone in that city deserved a prize, it was the paramedics. The first ambulance arrived on the scene before the police, and the paramedics proved to be the only compassionate human beings for miles around. When Margarito saw their vehicle approaching moments after the attack, he waved them over with his right arm.
“Over here!”
Two EMTs and a doctor ran toward him. As they approached, their faces reflected their alarm and dismay at the condition of the bodies they passed, but they didn’t stop: it was clear that no one could survive injuries like those.
“He’s still alive,” said Margarito.
Dr. José Luis Rodríguez leaned over the young man in the chief’s arms and scanned his chest visually. Then he put on his stethoscope and listened to his heart for what seemed like an eternity while simultaneously checking his wrist for a pulse. Meanwhile, drops of rainwater continued to fall from a few nearby awnings.
“When did this happen?”
“Twenty or thirty minutes ago,” La Gordis replied.
The doctor nodded and felt the other arm, then moved his stethoscope.
“There’s no sign of life, sir,” he finally concluded. “If you’re feeling a pulse, it’s probably your own. This individual is deceased.”
The chief’s eyes opened very wide, as if he saw something enormous approaching. It was the feral hound named Sorrow come to visit. She stood almost seven feet tall.
La Gordis furtively wiped away her tears two, three, countless times, until she was eventually forced to turn and move a few paces away. The chief also stepped back from the vehicle, to give the paramedics room to work. A little while later a second, unnecessary ambulance arrived. More people had begun to gather at the corner, asking what was going on. El Sony and Peralta brought them up to speed as best they could and kept them from getting too close.
After confirming there were no survivors in the Suburban, the doctor apologized to the chief.
“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t realize he was your son. If you’ll excuse us, we have to go see to the others,” Dr. Rodríguez said and went to check if there were any survivors in the first vehicle.
“Flatliners.” The two individuals in the truck were dead.
“Jesus,” one of the medics sighed. The victims were in such bad shape there wasn’t any point in checking their vitals.
“I’ve got one alive over here!” called one of the paramedics. The doctor ran over to the crew cab truck. To the chief’s surprise, El Flaco was still breathing.
“Entry and exit wounds in the right shoulder, multiple hits to the left arm. Let’s get him to the ambulance. He needs immediate medical attention.”
El Flaco was alive.
Margarito watched them put him on a gurney and load him into the ambulance.
Bracamontes and the Block had shown up almost thirty minutes after the fact. Thirty minutes in such a small city is inexcusable, especially if you’re in a police vehicle and don’t have to stop for red lights—even more so if it’s your boss who’s under fire. They announced their arrival several blocks away with a blaring siren, came to a screeching halt, and got out to examine the scene of the crime in such a hurry they didn’t even notice that Margarito was alive and staring at them while Pangtay and La Gordis held him upright.
Bracamontes and the Block made no attempt to avoid the sea of shell casings covering the road as they entered the crime scene. It almost seemed as if they were looking for something. Or someone, thought the chief.
“This one’s alive!” grunted the Block.
He looked over and saw that the cholo with the goatee was still breathing. He had collapsed between two cars.
The paramedics rushed over immediately.
“Motherfucker!” grunted Bracamontes, trying to keep his balance. “Hold on, hold on,” he said, stopping the paramedics with a wave of his hand.
He flipped the cholo over with his foot and aimed his gun at his head.
“Who hired you? Answer me! Who hired you?”
But he wasn’t about to get an answer. The man was practically a cadaver. His skin looked like candle wax and his eyes kept rolling back in his head.
“Look,” Dr. Rodríguez interjected. “This man is in shock. Step aside.”
But Bracamontes didn’t move.
“Not talking, kid? Not gonna answer me?”
He lifted his handgun and brought it down hard on the man’s face. The cholo passed out on the cobblestones.
“You animal!” shouted Dr. Rodríguez.
Chief Margarito broke free of his assistants, drew his gun, and headed for Bracamontes; the Block alerted him with a movement of his jaw.
Bracamontes paused for a second but pulled himself together and called out to his boss.
“What are you so worked up about, cabrón? You didn’t expect him to walk out of here with a smile on his face, did you?”
For a reply, the chief raised his good arm, the one holding his gun, and fired at the ground. Everyone in the vicinity ducked and covered, including Bracamontes. Margarito leveled off at his face.
“Jesus, man!” shouted Bracamontes, but the chief didn’t answer, so he took out his piece between two fingers and held it as far away from his body as he could, as if to assure Margarito that he was unarmed and not about to try anything.
“Easy man, easy. You’re in shock.”
As he said this, though, he signaled the Block, whose hand slowly started to move toward his back. The chief caught this out of the corner of his eye and fired at the ground inches from the Block’s feet.
“Fuck!” exclaimed Bracamontes, throwing himself to the ground. If he was hoping to find safety there, he was out of luck: the chief didn’t waste a second in pointing his gun at him. Bracamontes went pale. “I’m unarmed, man. I’m unarmed.”
Right then, the second ambulance, which had just arrived from the direction of the waterfront, pulled up behind Bracamontes’s patrol vehicle. The driver stuck his head out the window and was about to ask a question when he saw the chief pointing his weapon at two police officers, who had their hands in the air.
“Wait a sec, hold on,” the doctor cautioned the driver. “We got here a little early this time.” Since the violence started, it was a good idea to show up as late as possible to avoid running into trouble.
Bracamontes, trying to reason with Margarito, insisted he was unarmed. “Seriously, cabrón. I swear.”
But La Gordis had to intervene, tugging on the chief’s good arm to get him to lower his weapon.
“Don’t, boss. Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”
She tried to pull him back toward the ambulance, but Margarito kept his gun aimed at his colleague, who eventually got to his feet.
“Get out of here and don’t even think about coming back.”
“You’re fucking nuts, old man,” Bracamontes growled.
The chief head-butted the policeman, who fell back down to his knees. Seeing the Block reach for his back again, he aimed his gun at him.
The Block froze. Bracamontes, meanwhile, was writhing on the ground with his face in his hands.
La Gordis wrapped her arms around her boss to keep him from doing anything worse and called the paramedics over, who ran to help Bracamontes.
Miraculously, if one can talk about miracles at the end of a firefight, the military convoy arrived. The soldiers fanned out, securing both ends of the street. For a second, the police officers thought, They’ve come back to finish us off. But no: General Rovirosa stepped from their midst with an escort of half a dozen soldiers and headed straight for the chief.
“We’re here to secure the crime scene. What’s the situation?”
But the chief was in no condition to explain the situation. His eyes were glued to Bracamontes, who was still holding the piece of gauze to his right cheek while he cursed or spat at the ground behind his squad car, all without taking his eyes off Margarito. Then the chief saw him bring his cell phone to his ear.
At some point, the medics convinced him to let them take a look at him too. He got into the second ambulance so they could clean the wound in his shoulder.
“You’re lucky, Chief. It’s just a flesh wound.”
“I can’t move my arm,” he said. “It feels dead.”
Hearing this, Dr. Rodríguez left El Flaco in the hands of his colleagues for a moment and came back over to examine him.
Margarito flinched when the doctor lifted his arm.
“Oh!” exclaimed Dr. Rodríguez.
The chief, whose pain was getting worse by the minute, noticed one of the paramedics staring at him.
“What are you looking at?”
“Forgive him,” the doctor said, apologetically. “He’s never seen someone survive a firefight like this one. Good luck is so rare in this line of work.”
Dr. Rodríguez lifted the arm again, and the chief writhed in pain.
The young doctor helped him into the ambulance and asked him to lie down on the gurney. He could tell by the look on the chief’s face how much he was suffering.
“I’ll give you something for the pain,” he said. “And in a minute we’ll take you to the hospital. I have to cut your shirt in order to examine you.”
Before he even finished his sentence, he had already removed the shirt’s left sleeve and a good part of the front.
“Hard to believe, coming out of all this with just a flesh wound.”
“Should we give him an NSAID?” the paramedic asked.
“It wouldn’t do any good,” the doctor replied. “Look at him.”
The paramedic nodded.
“He’s going to need an opioid. The pain will be too much, otherwise.”
“Keta?”
“Probably, but first, the diagnosis. Write this down. Lateral and frontal contusions. Superficial lacerations on the elbows and forearms, plus the flesh wound on this shoulder, but that’s all. Incredible. Clean that up there. Yes, perfect.”
Margarito had groaned when the doctor touched his shoulder, but he almost shot through the roof of the ambulance when he lifted his arm again.
“Ufff! What is that?”
“Your shoulder’s been dislocated. I need to … Yes, I know it’s unpleasant, but I’ll get it set in no time.”
And, without giving him a moment to object, the doctor put the chief’s shoulder back in its socket.
“Mmmphf,” groaned Margarito.
“We’ve treated the luxation, but there’s a lot of swelling. If the arm stays that way, you’ll need to have it looked at by the hospital staff. We don’t want you losing it.”
“Why would I lose it?”
“If the swelling keeps up, it could necrotize. They’ll need to make a few incisions to relieve the pressure.”
“Is it absolutely necessary?”
“You need to keep an eye on this.”
“I don’t have time to go to the hospital. Give me something to help with the pain. I have to get back to the investigation.”
The medics looked at one another.
“We aren’t authorized. It would be illegal.”
“I’m the chief of police.”
“They’d take away our licenses. And anyway, I’m telling you that arm should be kept under observation.”
“If you don’t give me something,” the chief insisted, “the men responsible for this are going to get away. I can’t go to the hospital until I catch them.”
The physicians exchanged a look.
“I’m sorry, Chief, but I’m not doing anything illegal,” said the doctor. “Here’s an anti-inflammatory and an analgesic. If you’d like me to take you to the hospital, let me know. That’s all I can do for you,” he concluded, stepping out of the ambulance.
Once he was out of earshot, the paramedic approached Margarito.
“I’ve got this friend. I mean, I know this guy who might be able to give you something, if you can’t get to the hospital. He’s studying to be an anesthesiologist, and he does this. I mean, he’d do this, as like an exception to help you out. But it, you know, would be nice if you’d pass him a little something, a tip. Ask him for buprenorphine. That’s what you need.”
“Bu … pre … ? You call him.”
“All right. Hold on.” The young man walked to the corner with his cell phone in hand and returned almost immediately.
“Okay. He’s on his way to buy the stuff now. Where—”
“Tell him to wait for me in the Parque de la Petrolera. By the theater. I’ll call him when I get there. What’s his number?”
“Whatever you say, Chief.” The paramedic leaned forward, wrote the number on a crumpled sheet of paper, and handed it to Margarito.
The general was nearly done surveying the scene when he discovered none other than Flaco Ibarra on a gurney in an ambulance, lying in a pool of his own blood. Rovirosa popped his head in to take a look.
He’d run into El Flaco several times over the years the man had spent as secretary, assistant, partner, and accomplice to Margarito. When their contacts in the trade were feeling appreciative, they would sometimes send a bag of money from the chief’s offices to the military base. Sometimes the direction was reversed, but Flaco Ibarra was always the bag man. A loyal, efficient, and discreet individual. Too bad he never enlisted.
“How’s he doing?” he asked the doctor, noticing that either death or medication had closed El Flaco’s eyes.
“Multiple gunshots, not all with exit wounds. We’ve tried to stop the hemorrhaging, but we’ve got to get him to a hospital right away,” replied Dr. Rodríguez. With the stocky, headstrong EMT who’d earned himself the nickname Speedy González behind the wheel, his was the only ambulance that still made it to every call on time. They threatened his life on a daily basis and blocked his way into certain neighborhoods, but Dr. Rodríguez had become a specialist in firefights over the course of a harrowing three years. Which is why he looked at the general and said, “The chief should go with you. There could be complications if he doesn’t get his arm looked at.”
When he realized the general wasn’t going to do anything to convince the police officer either, the doctor snapped, “Well, then, if you’ll excuse me, this man requires immediate attention.”
Just as the general was about to step out of the ambulance, El Flaco reached out and grabbed his arm. Terror welled in his eyes. It was fairly common, after a shoot-out, for the gunmen to go after their target in the hospital and finish him off.
“Don’t worry,” said the general, understanding his fear. “I’ll make sure you have a bodyguard. You”—he pointed to one of the men with him—“don’t let him out of your sight. Not even in the operating room. And you”—he pointed to the other—“go tell Sergeant Domínguez to set up a security detail at the hospital and to give the ambulance an escort.”
To the paramedic’s surprise, the first soldier climbed into the ambulance and stood in one corner of the vehicle. The general noticed that El Flaco seemed to have no idea what was going on, so he nodded his good-bye. Dr. Rodríguez banged twice on the vehicle’s roof to let the driver know it was time to head out and closed the ambulance door from inside.
Once he was certain the Jeep was clearing a path for the ambulance, General Rovirosa went back to the chief, who was standing next to the Suburban. As he got closer, he noticed that Margarito’s cell phone was ringing, but the policeman seemed to have no intention of picking up.
“That one over there,” he said quietly, pointing at a soldier who was staring at them intently, “has a package of the usual on him.” Meaning coke. “Say the word and we’ll slip it in with the gunmen and leave the rest to the attorney general.”
In other words, their usual technique for washing their hands of a crime. They’d been doing things that way for years. But the policeman shook his head.
“Don’t even think about it.”
“Are you sure?”
The chief nodded.
His ears were still ringing, and the pain in his arm had gotten worse.
The general’s phone rang. Rovirosa answered, grunted his agreement two or three times, and turned to the chief.
“It’s the mayor, for you.”
Before he could do anything, the phone was in Margarito’s hand.
“Chief, how are you?”
“Alive,” he answered, his voice sharp with pain.
“I’m so sorry about what happened. It’s a tragedy. They tell me you’re badly injured. You have the full support of city hall: If you need to go to a private clinic, we’ll cover the expense. I told Bracamontes he should see personally to your safety. Go get some rest.”
The chief felt a bitter taste rise in his throat.
“I just gave Bracamontes a different assignment,” he retorted. “Thank you for your concern, but until you say otherwise, I’m still the chief of police around here.”
“What? No, no, none of that. Get to a hospital. Get yourself checked out. We’ll find a replacement for you.”
“No, sir. I’m going to handle this myself.”
The mayor didn’t answer right away. He needed to weigh his options, determine the most politically advantageous move. Would he win more support if he forced Margarito’s resignation?
“Let me think,” he said. “I’ll call you back in five minutes.” And he hung up.
That’s when Margarito’s arm really started to hurt. He called over La Gordis, who knew his family, and handed her his cell phone.
“Call Dr. Antonelli and tell her what happened. Tell her we’re going to get him out of here as soon as we can. Then have El Carcamán ask Robusta for some money from petty cash and start making arrangements at the funeral home.”
And then he went off to yell at the crime scene investigator who was still busy sketching the victims.
“How much longer, cabrón?”
“I’m almost done.”
The general joined them.
“How many do you think there were? How many got away?”
He thought about the guy in black athletic gear and all the footsteps he heard to his left, toward the stores.
“Three, at least, plus the dead ones. Maybe four.”
Rovirosa did the math.
“That makes nine or ten gunmen. You were eight. Ten against eight? That’s no strategy: no one would plan an ambush with such a narrow advantage unless they were desperate. You might have better weapons and the element of surprise, but you need more people for a classic three-on-one.”
A little light went on in the policeman’s mind.
“They shot at the vehicle up front first, then came for us at the back of the convoy. They went after the Suburban last.”
The general dried his forehead and went on.
“They didn’t expect you. If you hadn’t been here, it would have been ten on five: two shooters per target. Now, that would have been a workable ambush.”
The chief looked toward the end of the street where the fog was still rolling in and said nothing.
“In that case, we can draw one conclusion,” the general continued. “The crew might have been improvised. No army would ever enlist these fucking runts. But whoever planned the attack had military training.”
To Margarito, this explained the efficiency of the ambush and the stance of the man in black as he approached. He saw it all in front of him, as if the attack were happening again: the man took two steps, paused, and fired; then took another two steps as he readied his weapon, aimed it, and fired; it at the Suburban.
“Anyway,” said the general, shaking his head, “what are you going to do?”
“I haven’t turned in my resignation yet. I’m still the chief of police.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m going to lay down the law.”
The general thought to himself that he was talking to a corpse, but he nodded solemnly and said, “We’ll be in touch, then. One squadron will stay here to secure the crime scene.” With that, he gave a military salute and left.
Margarito looked out over the scene and thought, What a fucking farce.
As soon as the general was gone, the chief opened his left hand and noticed that he’d been holding the nine-millimeter casing the whole time.
Conversation in the dark
“Did you hear?”
“Yeah, I heard. That’s why I came. But I didn’t have nothing do with it.”
“This is the first time something like this happened here in the port.”
“It’s unbelievable: how could they screw up like that at such close range?”
“His plan was shit. Or his hand shook.”
“He choked. Or he’s getting old.”
“The bastard’s going to pay, though. Imagine, screwing up a close-range job like that? This thing just got personal.”
“They say there’s a reward for anyone who can finish the job.”
“Sure, they say that. They also said they were going to retire Margarito, but he’s still kicking around.”
“The problem was the crew. Why use outside guys? You can’t trust them. Our guys, though, you know where their family is, who their parents are, what school their kids go to. You can hold them accountable.”
“It doesn’t work like that anymore. All of a sudden, we had to start hiring from other states, sometimes even from other countries, to keep the locals in check. It’s all because of the competition. That’s why he hired guys from outside, and they’re all dead now.”
“And Margarito’s still out there.”
“Not for long. They’re warming up the pits of hell for him.”
“We’ll see.”
“Yeah, we’ll see. One thing’s for sure, though: someone’s going to pay for his sins.”