Bloodline (15 page)

Eugene branched off the main path into a grove of white pine and mature tulip poplar. He craned his neck and stared up the towering trunks. At eighty feet the top branches swayed gently in the afternoon heat, and beyond them was luminescent blue sky. It reminded him of the rainforest canopy near Angel Falls where he had spent eight years of his life with the most wonderful woman on the planet. For some reason, thinking of Julie didn't depress him as it had for the past few days, but gave him strength and optimism. Tomorrow was Saturday and once it rolled past, one week of his time allotment was gone. But he had made monumental strides over the past six days; far more than he could ever have hoped. And now the group of DEA and CIA agents, coupled with Irwin Crandle and Bud Reid, were poised to begin the search in earnest. The resources of the United States's three premier agencies were at their disposal. If Pablo Escobar was out there, living life on the lam, the net would soon begin to close in.

Eugene stopped beside a Kentucky coffee tree and ran his hand across its rough bark. The sound of running water crept through the trees, and somewhere in the forest a starling trilled. And for a moment he was home again, in his beloved Angel Falls, with his wife in his arms and his children running through the trees. The virgin forest, thick with ferns and dripping with moisture, closed in on him like a warm blanket. He pulled Julie close to him and kissed her on the lips. She mouthed
I love you
and returned the kiss. They had lived the simple life, yet wanted for nothing. He was a happy man.

Then reality returned and he was alone in the Kentucky hills.

But for the first time in a week he felt invigorated, hopeful even.

Chapter Eighteen

Pedro closed the phone and smiled. The news from Eugene was good. He didn't know Senator Irwin Crandle, but someone of that stature had to be a good addition to the team searching for Pablo. He slipped the phone in his jacket pocket and looked around.

The taxi was just passing San Salvador's Galerías shopping mall, a flashy monument to the wealth of Colonia Escalón. But it didn't interest Pedro, and he stared out the other window as they drew deeper and deeper into the most exclusive enclave of the mountainous city. The houses bordering the street were set back, their expansive front lawns decorated with beds of bright orchids and ornamental shrubs. A strip mall, similar to millions of malls in the continental U.S., appeared, tucked between a football field and a school. A fitness center occupied almost half the mall, and the parking lot adjacent to the gym was filled with Mercedeses and other high-end cars. Two women dressed in spandex exited the club, as Pedro paid the driver and grabbed his bag from the rear seat. They both smiled as he passed, and he grinned back. Being noticed by attractive women was one part of his life where he'd never had problems. He entered the club and crossed the tile floor to the reception.

“Hi. I'm Pedro Parada. I have an appointment in the gym at ten o'clock.”

She glanced down at her schedule sheet where visitors were listed alphabetically on the right side. His name was on the list. “Could you sign in, Señor Parada?” she asked, indicating a guest book just off to the right. After he had signed, she said, “The gym is toward the back of the facility, but you'll want to change first. Men's lockers are around the corner immediately behind me, first door on the left. The locker attendant will find you a locker and supply you with a combination or a key lock. Enjoy your visit.”

He thanked her and found the locker room. He was given a quick tour, so he'd know how to find the showers and sauna baths after his workout, and then assigned a locker. He tipped the attendant and quickly slipped into his shorts and T-shirt. It was just before ten when he entered the vacant and quiet gym. Pedro had been in a slew of gyms and boxing facilities, but never anything like this. The floor was a regulation-size hardwood basketball court with a temporary boxing ring set up in the center. A moveable rack sat against one wall, covered with skipping ropes, boxing gloves and head protectors. Next to the gear was a freestanding punching pillar with a heavy bar and two smaller punching bags. Although it wasn't a permanent fixture, the ring was of better quality than Pedro had ever set foot in. The sprung floor was lively, the ropes taut but forgiving. The lighting was excellent; there would be no fooling an opponent by working bad lighting in this ring. He bounced about the ring for a minute, just getting the feel, then hopped off the canvas to the hardwood, picked up one of the skipping ropes hanging on the wall and went to work.

It had been a couple of years since he laced on the gloves, but he had worked out almost every one of those seven hundred and some-odd days, and kept himself in prime physical condition. His routine was brutal: cardio, weights and agility training that lasted almost two hours. And he took few breaks. Couple that dedication to staying fit with a careful diet, and Pedro Parada was still the deadly machine he had been a few years back as an Olympic hopeful. He just needed a tune-up.

He was sweating from the rope when a couple of men entered the gym. The wall clock read 10:20. Both men were dressed in street clothes and stayed just inside the door, watching him. From the description Eugene had given him, neither man was Javier Rastano. He finished with the rope and hung it on the wall before selecting a set of gloves from the eclectic collection of bag and sparring gloves. Before donning the gloves, he removed two long tensor bandages with Velcro ends from his bag and wrapped his hands. He put a few turns on his wrist, then covered the knuckles, spread his fingers, loosely wrapped them and then snugly wrapped his thumb. He made a fist and the wrap felt perfect. He affixed the Velcro and slipped on the gloves. When he looked up, there were four more people in the gym, all standing close to the first two men. Again, Rastano did not seem to be present. As he watched the six men watch him, his opponent entered the room.

The man was dressed in boxing trunks and wore no shirt. His gloves were already in place, which struck Pedro as ridiculous. The man wasn't sweating so he hadn't worked out at all before donning the sparring gloves. That meant he had no intention of skipping prior to the bout. To Pedro, that categorized the man as either so far his superior that he didn't need to warm up, or a complete idiot. He knew he would find out soon enough.

As the other fighter walked closer, a casually dressed man in his early to mid-thirties walked in and stood just inside the door. He was tall and tanned with long hair almost to his shoulders, slicked back behind his ears. The look suited him. And from the description Eugene had given him, Javier Rastano had just arrived. The six men, who had previously been milling around or just leaning against the walls, came to life. They gathered about Rastano, talking and gesturing. This continued for a minute and then Rastano came forward.

“I've been told you're not a bad fighter,” he said when he was a few feet from Pedro. “Do you feel up to a sparring match?”

“Sure,” Pedro said. “Who am I sparring with?”

Rastano motioned to the other fighter, who had entered the ring and was dancing about, bouncing off the ropes and hammering out a few jabs and truncated undercuts. “His name is Sal. He's not great, but he's not bad either. If you're any good you should be able to beat him.”

Pedro nodded. “And who exactly are you?” he asked.

“Javier Rastano.” He glanced at Pedro's hands, encased in the sparring gloves. “I'd shake your hand, but…”

Pedro grinned. “After,” he said.

Rastano returned the grin. “Sure. After. You ready to get going?”

“Not really. But I don't think Sal's had much of a warm- up either, so fair's fair.”

“Then let's go,” Javier said.

Pedro slid under the ropes, inserted his mouth protector and knocked gloves with Sal. A referee, complete with a striped jersey, entered the ring and had them meet in the middle. “Five rounds, three minutes each, with a one- minute break between each round,” he said. “No low blows, break when I tell you and if I call the fight you stop punching. Does each of you understand these rules?”

“Fuck, yes,” Sal said, salivating. “Let's get going.”

“Sure,” Pedro answered, wondering what the hell he was doing in the ring with this rabid dog.

They split and went to their corners. A small man in his late fifties was in Pedro's corner, with towels, water and a stool. His face was creased with wrinkles and he was dressed in faded jeans and a simple T-shirt. “I'm José,” he said as Pedro approached. “Your corner man.”

Pedro shook his head. “Rich people,” he said. “Best ring I've ever fought in, a carded referee and now my own corner man. Where's the ESPN film crew?”

José laughed and Pedro knew from the look on his face that they were from the same side of the tracks.

The bell rang, signaling the start of the fight. Sal waded right in, throwing a few jabs and even a quick left hook. Pedro danced lightly on his feet, staying in a classic basic boxer's stance, one foot ahead and one back, and easily avoided the first few punches. He traded a couple of punches, but let Sal come to him for most of the first round. Pedro counted the attempts and when the bell rang to end the first round, Sal had thrown forty-one jabs, seven left hooks and twelve straight rights. Of the sixty punches, not one had landed. And Pedro had learned the answer to whether the man was a technically superior boxer or an idiot. He was an idiot.

While dancing about and avoiding the ill-timed and lame punches, Pedro had noticed glaring flaws in the man's style. Straight off, Sal was watching his eyes, and that in itself was a fatal flaw for a boxer. An opponent's eyes tell you nothing; his chest, shoulders and feet tell you everything. A boxer who concentrates on his opponent's eyes is not going to remain vertical for very long. In addition to this most crucial mistake, Sal's left hook was a sweeping roundhouse with little to no power. He didn't transfer any weight to his left side and left himself completely open every time he threw the punch; he could stun Sal every time the man threw a left hook. Sal's footwork was non-existent and he was consistently off balance. The only question Pedro had when the bell rang to start the second round, was how long to toy with this guy before knocking him out.

Sal came at him again, jabbing ineffectively and trying a right-left-right power combination. Pedro blocked the rights and ducked the left, then started with his jabs. His left hand shot out from his chin in a lightning fast motion, smacked Sal in the face, and was back protecting his chin before Sal even saw the punch. Again, the jab, and again, no response. Again, and again, Pedro hammered the man in the face with jab after jab that inflicted minimal damage but angered his opponent. Sal countered back with a flat-footed straight right that earned him his first uppercut of the fight. He staggered back, stunned from the glancing blow to his chin. Then his eyes lit up and he charged in.

Pedro had one rule he lived by. Never charge your opponent in the ring when you're mad and off balance. You'll only get your ass kicked. And Sal was in for an ass- kicking. Pedro started his combinations, throwing a quick couple of jabs, then smashing into the man's face with straight rights and left hooks before stunning him with a lightning-quick uppercut. When the bell rang to end the second round, Pedro had landed sixteen of twenty punches and had yet to take one. He returned to his corner, and José offered him some water.

“I get the feeling you're going to kill this guy,” José said, squeezing water into Pedro's mouth.

Pedro pulled out his mouth protector. “This Sal guy, he a regular around here? A friend of Señor Rastano's?”

“Shit, no. He's some punk from down in the barrio. Rastano doesn't know him from a street turd. But then again, he doesn't know you either.”

Pedro laughed. He liked José. “So should I take him down now, or just fuck with him for a bit?”

“Oh, fuck with him, boy. Give Javier a show. Go to the fifth then annihilate him. That'll get Javier's attention, if that's what you're hoping.”

“Wouldn't mind. I hear he promotes good fighters.”

“Good ones, yeah. But you gotta show him.”

The bell rang, Pedro slipped his mouth protector back in place, smacked his gloves together and went back to work. He toyed with Sal, letting the man get close with a few jabs but always staying ahead of any of his power punches. What little footwork Sal had was easy to read; the cross-over right was his most dangerous punch, but it was always preceded by his right foot dropping back. Sal was so easy to read it was child's play. By the start of the fifth, Sal's breathing was labored and he was bleeding from above his right eye and from a cut on his left cheek. As Pedro entered the ring for the fifth and final round, he crossed himself and apologized to God for what he was about to do.

Round five was nothing short of a mugging. Pedro's feet were everywhere, his body bobbing, weaving and bowing, then firing power punches that stunned Sal and sent him crashing into the ropes time and time again. Pedro lit into the man with combinations, holding back on the uppercut until there was about a minute left in the round. Then he danced over to where he could look directly into Rastano's eyes, pointed down with his gloves, and shrugged. Rastano nodded. He wanted to see Pedro put the man to the canvas. And that was exactly what Pedro did. He let loose with everything he had, pummeling Sal's head with a flurry of right-left combinations followed by a crushing uppercut that sent him sprawling to the canvas, unconscious before he hit the mat. Pedro stood over his downed opponent for a second, then retreated to his corner.

“Now that's fighting,” his corner man said. “You fucking killed him.”

“Naw,” Pedro said. “I looked. He's still breathing.”

When José finished unlacing Pedro's gloves and washing Sal's blood off his arms, Rastano was gone. The fight had drawn a crowd, swelling to over a hundred people, many of them attractive female members of the club. And more than one of them was giving Pedro the eye. He swallowed back some water and asked his corner man, “You do this a lot? Work corners for fighters you don't know?”

“Whenever they have a fight, they call me,” José said. “They like to keep these sparring matches as official looking as possible. It amuses them. I ran a gym down in El Centro for years and trained a lot of fighters, so I know the ropes, so to speak. In fact, you look a little familiar.”

Pedro patted the older man on the shoulder. “El Centro is more my turf than this place, my friend. I may have gone a few rounds in your gym at one time or another.” They finished unwrapping Pedro's hands, and he thanked José for his help. It took a few minutes to get through the remnants of the crowd, as a few people wanted to pat him on the back and thank him for winning. Pedro couldn't believe these assholes; they were betting on a sparring match. He finally managed to wade through the last of the spectators and out the front door into the parking lot. Javier Rastano was sitting behind the wheel of a red Ferrari F-50, and he waved Pedro over. Pedro jogged the hundred feet or so to Rastano's sports car, and as he neared the million-dollar car he wondered how this man could kill a young boy over a paint scratch.

“That was impressive,” Javier said. His lean, tanned face and long, black hair fit the image of the car.

Pedro shrugged. “The guy wasn't much of a fighter. He would do better in an alley fight than in a boxing ring.”

“Quite right, Pedro,” Javier said, taking a long slow drag off his cigarette. “If you're up to it, I've got another opponent who may be a bit more of a challenge.”