An Unacceptable Death - Barbara Seranella (18 page)

"It's okay, boy," Munch said as she opened
her door. "I'll take care of this one."

Roger was carrying a briefcase and casing the street
with his eyes.

"
You look like an insurance salesman," she
said.

"
I guess I am in a way."

She gestured for him to enter. "I thought we'd
do this in the kitchen."

He followed her through her house. Jasper sniffed at
his heels, obviously not liking what he was sensing. While she
cleared the kitchen table, Roger stooped down and offered his hand.
Jasper couldn't be bothered.

"
He prefers women," Munch said.

"
That's all right, he's just doing his job."
Roger set his briefcase on top of the table and clicked it open.

Inside, nestled in gray foam rubber, was a black box
the size of a deck of playing cards, an elastic belt with a pocket,
and two white cords with black microphones on one end and silver
connectors on the other. She reached for the instruction manual, but
he stopped her.

"
You won't need that; I'll explain everything."

"
I figured I'd read along," she said.

"
No, I want your full attention." He tucked
the manual underneath the padding, then removed the components one at
a time.

"
This is the transmitter." He connected the
silver ends of the cords to the black box and inserted it into the
belt.

"
What's this wire?" she asked.

"
The antenna."

She nodded. "Like an AM radio."

"
Exactly. You run that up the center of your
back. Make sure there's enough slack to compensate for stretching and
twisting, but not so much that it might snag on something and get
pulled out."

She studied the small wire. "And then I'd stop
transmitting?"

"Worse than that. If the antenna wire comes out
of its socket, it causes a mismatch at the transmitter and makes it
burn out, usually at very high temperatures?

"
This would be the thing I'm supposed to strap
to my body?"

"
Yeah, just be careful with the wire and you
shouldn't have any problems. Fit it so the transmitter rides in the
small of your back. You could attach the cords and wire with surgical
tape, but I use duct tape to be sure."

"
Probably less painful to remove duct tape than
bullets."

"
Exactly."

She watched his face, but there was no change of
expression. Either this guy had no sense of humor, didn't get hers,
or he had ceased to think of her as a human being and more as another
piece of equipment.

He tapped the tiny black microphones at the end of
the cords. "And you want the microphones taped to the front of
your body, as near your collar as possible without being visible."

She noticed a small black switch on the top of the
transmitter.

"
What's this?"

"
That's your on/off switch. The green dot is on,
red off. Got that?"

Munch bit back a sarcastic reply. "Yeah, sure."

"
Let's run through a test anyway." He
walked her to the front window and pointed up the street. "See
that white delivery van?"

"
Uh—huh." She also noticed that it was
the same make and model as the van she and Ellen had seen at Rico's
house the first time they'd gone there. Only now the lettering and
logo on the door weren't for a locksmith. Now it was a flower
delivery van. She wondered if the sign was painted on one of those
magnetic mats, such as realtors used on their private cars.

"
Detective Chapman is in there with the
receiver," Roger said. "Turn your transmitter on."

She toggled the switch to the green position. Roger
picked up one of the small black microphones and said, "Flash
your lights, Chapman."

The van headlights flicked on and off.

"
See?" Roger said. "Child's play."

"
Aren't I supposed to get a code word? You know,
to tell you guys something's gone wrong?"

"
Yeah, sure. What do you want it to be?"

"
How about I scream, ‘Don't shoot'?"

"
Serious?"

Munch sighed. "Oh, forget it. I'll take my
chances."

He nodded as if to say:
Suit
yourself.
"Wear it to the church this
afternoon, just to get the feel of it."

"
I don't know about that," Munch said. "A
lot of people are going to be hugging me."

"
What better test?"

"
Okay, fine, but I'm not turning it on."

His face expressed shock at the very suggestion. "Of
course not."

She realized she trusted him less when he acted as if
he cared.

He closed the briefcase. "When will Asia get
home from school?"

There it was again. That familiarity. "I'm
having her picked up by some friends, real friends. They're going to
bring her to the service."

If Roger knew he had been insulted, he didn't show
it. Maybe he didn't get emotionally invested when he was working. She
imagined he could be anyone he wanted to get the job done. It was a
hell of a way to live your life.

After Roger had left, Munch turned on the radio in
her bedroom, switching the band to AM so she could listen to the
traffic report. There was a sig alert at the airport, heavy traffic
on the westbound 10 all the way to the coast, and those planning to
traverse the grapevine were advised to bring chains.

She went into the bathroom and started the bathwater,
then on to the living room to shut the curtains. The white van had
left. Jasper followed her from room to room whining. She paused to
give him her full attention. He'd been neglected of late, perhaps not
by most people's scale. She didn't consider him a possession so much
as a member of the family. She was also aware how dependent Jasper
was on them, and for a lot more than food and water and a place to
lift his leg. Jasper had been abandoned by his previous owners and
had a lot of emotional neglect to be compensated for. She scratched
his throat and the bottom of his chin while he closed his eyes in
canine pleasure.

"
You didn't like that bad old man," she
crooned. "No, you didn't. Mommy didn't either. Who's my good
boy?"

Jasper rolled on his back, presenting her with his
pee-pee. She scratched his chest, and his legs pedaled the air. God,
she thought, what he died, too? She couldn't allow herself to think
like that. Living things died. That was a fact. With any luck, she'd
go first.

"
Okay," she said out loud, "that's
enough. Mommy needs to get ready." Munch went into the kitchen
and collected the transmitter. She strapped the elastic belt around
her waist. The ends were Velcro, but not where she needed them to be
in order to have a secure fit. Roger should have brought her a
petite.

A few well-placed safety
pins should do the trick. Her rarely used sewing kit was in her
closet. She crossed in front of the radio to get to it and static
ensued. Surprised, she checked the transmitter's on/off switch. It
was turned to the red. It should have been off. She switched it to
the green and the radio still crackled. She moved the transmitter
away and the radio broadcast cleared again. Why, Officer Roger, you
little stinker. The switch was a dummy. The transmitter was a
continuously live feed. Well, well, well. She was going to have some
fun with this.

* * *

Victoria Delaguerra picked at the bedcovers and tried
not to tap her foot or pull at her lip or any of the hundred other
mannerisms Abel knew so well. She didn't know why he was always so
suspicious of her. She had never given him cause. None that he knew
of, anyway. He pulled on his black short-sleeved shirt, noticed a
thread hanging from one of the buttons and swore.

"I'll fix that," she said, helping him take
it off again. She selected a navy blue shirt in the same style,
checked to see that it was unflawed, and held it open for him.

"
You're being nice," he said.

"
I'm sorry I snapped at you yesterday. It must
be the moon." She glanced at the clock, trying not to be
obvious. Humberto was calling at nine. If Abel answered the phone,
Humberto would have no trouble playing the communication off as an
update of his mission. Humberto was smart that way, quick on his
feet, and sensitive to shifting winds. This venture was a big
opportunity for him. For both of them.

Abel was no fool, Victoria reminded herself. Many
other things, but not a fool. If she wanted to hear what progress
Humberto was making without her husband around, she needed to act
natural. Mentioning the moon had done the trick. Abel would write her
mood off to a woman's thing and be happy to leave.

She really was on a roll lately, though she knew not
to let her newfound talent at intrigue go to her head. There was too
much at stake to get cocky or careless now.

Still, she thought with no small amount of pride,
having the pilot bail just before sending the transport plane into
the mountains had been a stroke of genius. Now she and Humberto had
the cocaine to convert to cash. Usurping Abel's power structure was
going to be as expensive as it was risky. The penalty for failure
would be death."The reward for success, huge. The cost of doing
nothing, unimaginable. Victoria blamed Abel for all of it. Would she
have been better off if he had not taken her from her home in
Colombia? Arguable. Perhaps she would be dead or addicted to the coca
leaf as her brothers had been. Perhaps she would have married some
peasant, produced baby after baby, and been old and used up before
her time. Or maybe she might have found true love and been poor, but
happy.

Abel had changed her fate. That much was certain. He
had made her a princess, but never a queen. He claimed his marital
rights whenever the mood struck him. And he did things to her, odd
perverted things she could speak to no one about, not even her
priest. She worried that she was to blame in the beginning. Sex
repulsed her, perhaps she was frigid. Then she educated herself,
first by reading, then by her own cautious experimentation, and she
realized she was not the one at fault. Sex could be wonderful with
the right partner. A partner without anal fixations and sadistic
perversions. She did not consider herself a greedy woman, but she was
a mother now. She had her children to think of, not to mention the
hundred other families that relied on the Delaguerras for their
livelihoods. In America, she could claim irreconcilable differences,
divorce Abel and receive her rightful half of the estate. But she
wasn't in the United States. It was not her fault she had been born
on the wrong side of the border.

Abel's escalating
volatility and irrationality only fueled her cause. This was a
business, and needed to be run with a cool head. Someday he would
kill the wrong person and put them all in danger. Perhaps he already
had. She hoped to avoid further violence. Civility promoted order.
Abel had forgotten that. Violence only begot more violence. Of
course, one had to expect a certain amount of blood when pulling a
drug cartel coup.

* * *

Ellen came by at noon with a black dress for Munch.
It was knee-length and properly somber. Munch thanked her while
shoving a note in her hand. The note had one simple message: "It's
on." Then she parted her robe and showed her friend the
contraption strapped to her body.

Ellen didn't miss a beat. "Do you have stockings
and black shoes? If not, I could run out and get you some."

"
No, I've got those. 1 would like to borrow your
purse." She needed a bag large enough to hold Rico's service
revolver. Ellen didn't ask. She dumped the contents of her bag on
Munch's bed. Munch handed her a smaller leather purse, taking a
moment to marvel at the range of objects Ellen considered crucial
enough to keep with her at all times.

Not like the old days, when all they needed was a
douche bag, filtered smokes, and a lighter to get them through the
cycle of their dope-addicted day. Going from John to cooker, motel
room to shooting gallery in a matter of minutes, and stopping at hell
and all points in between.

Munch took down the gift-wrapped box from the top
shelf of her closet and tore through the paper. Rico's gun was cold
when she lifted it from the box. She spun the cartridge chamber,
making sure there was a bullet in every slot, and put the weapon in
Ellen's purse.

"
Make yourself comfortable," she said. "I'm
going to take a bath."

"
I'll come sit with you."

They left the dress and transmitter in the bedroom,
but brought the purse with them into the bathroom. Jasper joined
them. Munch had learned from experience that if she excluded Jasper
from the room and he could hear her or knew she was in there, he'd
claw the paint off the door until she opened it.

"Oh, man," Ellen said, hopping up on the
sink counter. "What a night."

Munch checked the bath temperature and adjusted the
knobs to add more cold water. "Why? What did you do?"