Long after Graciella’s phone call ended, El Pescado sat alone in the dark, thinking and despairing. He was an old man. He had worked all his life in hopes of leaving something behind for his children—and yes, even his grandchildren. Manny’s little daughter, Alicia, was the apple of his eye. But now, just when it was almost time to turn the reins over to the younger generation, Pablo was busy going off the rails. That was hardly surprising. He had always been the weakest link.
Seeking reassurance, he logged onto his laptop and called up the feed to Graciella’s condo and scrolled through the material he hadn’t watched since learning of Christina’s death. The feeds worked fine, including one time-dated Saturday morning that showed several young men marching back and forth through the frame, sometimes carrying boxes, sometimes lugging furniture. Then, suddenly and without warning, the feed ended. Why? he wondered. Had someone unplugged the TV or had his equipment simply quit working?
Shaking his head in frustration, Felix closed the computer. Then he got up, walked over to his bedside table, and retrieved the Colt .45 revolver he kept there. It was an antique and an heirloom, given to him on the occasion of his twenty-first birthday by his uncle, Manuel Duarte. A year later he had given one to Felix’s younger brother, Ricardo, in honor of his twenty-first. It had been Hondo’s signature way of welcoming his two nephews into the family business.
El Pescado kept the weapon cleaned and loaded, but he hadn’t fired it or even carried it for a very long time. For one thing, living inside a family compound that was in actuality an armed fortress, there was very little need for self-protection. On those occasions when Felix ventured outside the family compound, he was usually flanked by a team of professional bodyguards. They were the ones who carried weapons, not Felix.
When he slipped the Colt into the pocket of his bathrobe, the weight of the gun pulled the robe open. Closing it tightly around him, he retied the belt, then he set off to do what had to be done.
Manuel and Pablo had been in their early teens when Felix had hired an architect and a trusted contractor to build the family compound. Looking into the future and knowing—or at least hoping—that his sons would be at his side, he’d had all three houses erected at the same time. The large one, the main house, was for him, while the two matching but slightly smaller houses were positioned on either side.
Back in those days—before the dark Web or cryptocurrency—the drug trade had been a cash-only business. In many ways it still was, and that called for storage spaces—lots of secure storage spaces—some for holding money and some for stashing product. As a result, Felix had directed his architect to create basement storage facilities under each of the dwellings with underground passages that linked one house to the next. Turning on the light in his closet, Felix sought out the release that opened the sliding door concealed behind the clothing.
Cool air greeted him as he set foot on the stairway. His knees pained him as he made his way down the stairs. Years ago he wouldn’t have given the stairs a second thought. Motion-activated lights lit the passageway ahead as he limped along. At the Y, he turned to the right. When he reached the end of the passage, the stairway up was even more daunting.
Pablo was divorced. There was always a chance he’d have someone up in the bedroom with him, but Felix doubted it. These days Pablo was more likely to take a bottle of tequila to bed with him than he was some stray woman. That was why Ramona had taken José and left—because of the drinking—and Felix didn’t blame her.
Felix paused at the bottom of the next stairway, long enough to catch his breath and prepare himself for both the climb and the confrontation that would follow. He didn’t plan on coming out of the closet in Pablo’s room with the Colt blazing. Felix’s intention was to have a talk with his son—a civilized talk, if possible—and ask Pablo what the hell was going on. Had he allied himself with someone else, and if so, with whom? And why? El Pescado’s situation with law enforcement was already complicated. Having his organization accused of and investigated for crimes that were none of their business was not to be tolerated. Would not be tolerated.
The architect and the contractor, both sworn to secrecy, had done outstanding work. A slight touch on the pressure pad at the top of the stairway was enough to make the door slide open. The stench that assailed Felix’s nostrils—secondhand tequila, piss, and stale cigar smoke—made him want to vomit. In the glow of a bedside lamp, Felix saw his son lying flat on his back with his mouth open. He was passed out cold and snoring like a locomotive. A mostly full bottle of Jose Cuervo lay on the bed beside him. Next to that a half-burned cigar spilled ashes onto the bedding.
The room was a pigsty. The floor was littered with dirty clothes and empty bottles. Standing next to the bed and staring down at his son, Felix was overcome by a flood of bitter disappointment. How was it possible that this man—someone who had once been his favorite son—had turned into this useless mess? Manuel was at least trying to carry his weight, but how could Pablo, once his pride and joy, have fallen so short? And how could it be that Graciella—the daughter Felix had never wanted and who didn’t even bear his name—had turned out to be so much more like him than either of his cherished sons?
Felix’s own father, Joaquín, had died of lung cancer when Felix and Ricardo were in their early twenties. Had Joaquín lived, would he have felt the same kind of deadening defeat when Felix and Ricardo had declared war on each other as El Pescado was feeling now? Probably, Felix decided. Perhaps the gods of karma were having the last laugh.
Felix stood for a while longer, thinking. There was no way to have a discussion with Pablo about this and ultimately no need. All that would come out of his mouth would be lies and excuses. The man was a useless wreck, and Felix didn’t tolerate uselessness.
He didn’t bother with the gun. Using the bottom of his robe, he upended the bottle of tequila, spilling it onto the filthy bedding and making sure that some of it came within reach of the trail of ashes. An open box of matches sat on the bedside table. Using a tissue to keep from leaving fingerprints behind, he lit a match and tossed it into the pool of tequila. The liquor instantly caught fire. Flames shot up from the bedding, but Pablo didn’t stir.
Turning his back, Felix went to the closet. After pressing the door pad, he rubbed it clean with the skirt of his robe. Just for safety’s sake, he didn’t want to leave behind any fingerprints. Perhaps his DNA would be found, but since he lived on the premises, the presence of either one would mean very little in terms of an investigation.
Felix hustled down the stairs and then hurried back down the passageway. Lupe and he no longer shared a room. She was a light sleeper, and her quarters were closer to Pablo’s house than to Manuel’s. If she awoke and sounded the alarm, it would be important for Felix to be found in his bed ostensibly fast asleep.
The stairs back up to his room almost did him in. Had some of the smoke traveled back down the hallway with him? He hoped not. Just to be sure, though, he threw open the patio door and let the night air billow in through the curtains.
He put the Colt back where it belonged. He pulled off the robe and dropped it on the floor, then he crawled into bed. He lay there with his head on the pillow, remembering that other time he had set a fire and how, when he had gone to bed the night his brother had died, he had felt . . . nothing. This was exactly the same.
Lupe’s frantic scream sounded the alarm half an hour later. Standing on the patio, Felix saw reflections of a raging inferno burning on the far side of the house. As the fire brigade turned up to battle the blaze, Felix understood that they were too late to save either Pablo or the house.
No great loss, Felix told himself. When Graciella turns up, she’ll want a place of her own.
As the owner of the burned-out property and the father of the victim, it was only fitting that El Pescado dress and make an appearance. That mattered as far as his family and employees were concerned. It also mattered to the firefighters. Once Pablo’s body was discovered, Felix personally met with the group of responding police officers and detectives who arrived at the front gate of the compound. To Felix’s knowledge, it was the first time cops had ever been welcomed inside, but as a grieving father he greeted the homicide investigators and crime scene technicians with a suitable display of emotion. His son was dead, and he wanted them to find out how and why that had happened.
All things considered, it was a solid, Oscar-worthy performance on Felix’s part. No one seeing him or hearing him that night doubted the depth of his quiet but dignified grief or the sincerity of his terrible loss. Ironically, Lupe’s shocked, over-the-top hysterics, while probably less believable, were, at the same time, far more real.