Chapter 74

The priest's mobile phone rang. The number was blocked. Larios answered it. "Hola."

"It's me," Benetta Alvarez said.

"Why did you hang up?"

"I shot an American DEA agent in a car in the middle of the street," Alvarez said. "Would you rather I was arrested and somebody else got the video?"

Larios bit back the first response that came to mind. Although Alvarez was disagreeable and didn't always do as she was told, she had a good point. Besides, better the devil you know than the devil you don't. Contrary to what the me-dia reported, particularly the American media, not every po-lice officer in Mexico was on the payroll of the cartels. Some weren't important enough to contribute anything useful. Oth-ers refused to take the money. And you simply couldn't kill everybody. It wasn't practical.

"Are you there?" Alvarez said after the long silence.

"I'm here."

"Did you hear me? The American is dead, and I have the video."

"I heard you."

"I want to speak to my daughter."

"Not now," Larios said.

There were several more long seconds of silence. Then Alvarez said, "You must not want the video."

The words were confident but the voice that carried them was not. Larios heard a slight catch in it. "Don't do an-ything stupid," he said. "Not while I have-"

"If you hurt her-"

"Your daughter is fine, but she wouldn't stop crying. I can't stand the sound of crying children, so I sent her outside with the priest to look at some of my horses."

"How is my uncle?"

"He's all right," Larios said. "Both of them are. For now."

"I'll bring it to you."

"Do you think I'm stupid?"

"I've been to your hacienda," Alvarez said.

"You've been to one of my haciendas."

"Where then?"

"San Judas Tadeo."

"Why there?"

"He was a martyr, you know."

"Who?"

"San Judas Tadeo," Larios said. "He was killed in Bei-rut, in the Roman province of Syria. He and Simon the Zeal-ot both had their heads chopped off with an axe."

"I didn't know that."

"I'm surprised your uncle didn't tell you about it," Lari-os said. "Especially since his church is named after a mar-tyred apostle of Christ."

"Maybe he did when I was a little girl."

"Maybe you forgot."

"Maybe," Alvarez said.

"San Judas Tadeo is the patron saint of the hopeless and the desperate."

"I know that."

"He can also help you find things that have been lost."

The policewoman didn't say anything.

"Have you lost something?" Larios asked.

"I want my daughter back."

"And I want the video."

"When?"

Larios looked at his watch, a Bulgari Octo he had bought in Rome. "Two hours," he said. Then he hung up.