The House of Wolfe (23 page)

Going through the next intersection, he sees a black car at the stop sign to his left, only the driver in it. Then in the rearview sees the car cross the street and vanish. A two-door.

He exits the Chapultepec district and before long is on a secluded narrow road winding through a rolling expanse of pastoral properties whose residences are set far off the road and unseen in the woods. He's thinking of the kid enchiladas he will soon be enjoying at Cuates Locos, a café at a shoddy little plaza a few miles the other side of these mini ranches. The plaza is on the way to both of the hold houses, except that two blocks west of the plaza you must turn south to go to the Alpha house, and north to go to the Beta. Chino will be at the café too. That's where they are to await Espanto's call to action.

The hills are higher here than in the Chapultepec neighborhoods, and more closely together. The road curves and dips and rises as it follows their contours, the muddy shoulder at times only a few feet from a rocky upsweep on one side and, on the other, a verdant sloping drop-off. The radio begins to pick up static. He pushes buttons until he finds another rock station with better reception. Then glances in the mirror and sees a dark car appear out of the curve. About forty or fifty yards behind him. He loses sight of it when he goes into the next bend.

The curve ends in a straightaway, and when the car reappears in his mirrors it is still at the same distance. From up ahead comes a pickup truck with a large load of old tires. It goes by the van with a high splash of road water and then Chato is into the next curve and both the truck and car go out of view.

As the road again straightens, Chato reduces his speed, and when the car again shows in his mirror it's only about twenty yards back—but it abruptly slows down to hold to that distance. A black two-door. There are of course many thousands of black two-doors in this town, but he recalls the one he saw on Belmonte's street. That one contained only a driver, and this one looks like it has two persons in it. It's hard to be sure at this distance, in this overcast. Even if it's the same car, that doesn't mean it's a tail. Could be it stopped to pick up somebody and just happens to be going the same way as himself. Besides, who would be tailing him except cops, and the only way cops could come into this is through the parents, who would not risk their children's lives by going to the police. Or would they? You can't count on people to act in their own best interest.

He and Chino have been instructed not to initiate further phone contact with Espanto after notifying him of the fathers' departures from the banks unless there's a justified need to call—as in the event that either Belmonte or Sosa did not take the money to the Belmonte house, or if he or Chino should spot a tail on either man. The question right now is whether the black car is following
him
. Considering the way it slowed down to keep its distance, Chato thinks it is. Which constitutes a justified need to call Espanto.

The upcoming curve is a wide one bearing right, the hill sloping upward on that side and dropping away on the left. As he enters the bend, Chato takes out his phone and brings it close to his face so he can better watch the road as he thumbs up the directory and scrolls for Espanto's name. Then he looks in the mirror and sees the black car closing on him at furious speed, a realization so startling he doesn't notice the old tire lying in the road ahead until he's almost on it.

He drops the phone and swerves to the right and misses the tire but goes off the road and across the shoulder and the van leans leftward as it angles up the stony rise, rocks rattling on the undercarriage. He cuts the wheel and the van swivels downward and back across the road and onto the other shoulder and he's fighting the wheel and working the brakes as the van skids through stony mud at the edge of the drop-off. Then the tires dig in and he swings back onto the road and gets the van under control for a moment before it's struck from behind in a crash of metal and glass, snapping his head back, and the van grinds across the left shoulder again and the world tilts in the windshield.

31— MATEO AND RAYO

The pickup with the load of tires swooshes past in a raised splash that thumps their windows. They're still not sure if the van guy has paid them any notice until they come out of the next curve and see the van only half as far ahead as it had been. There is no other traffic in either direction.

Mateo slows down to hold their distance at about twenty yards. He's checking us out, he says.

Why would he think we're following him? Rayo says. He has no reason.

Nature of the beast. If he suspects us, he'll call somebody and some of his pals will be waiting for us at the end of this road.

She sees the van driver raise a phone to his face and says, Oh shit.

Hold on, Mateo says, and the Charger leaps forward like it's been let off a leash. As they speed toward the van it veers to the right and goes off the road, spraying mud and partly climbing the rise and they see the tire it almost hit. “Águila!” Rayo shouts.

Mateo taps the brake and skirts the tire as the van comes off the rise and across the road and slews along the other shoulder. Rayo's sure it's going to go over but it somehow regains the road for a moment—and then Mateo deliberately rams it into a skid back off the pavement and into a fishtailing slide along the shoulder and it keels over it and is gone.

They slow down and pull over, see no other vehicle on the road, then slowly back up to where the van went out of sight. They put on baseball caps to keep the rain out of their eyes and get out and cross the road to the rim of the slope.

The van lies halfway down the incline, about fifty feet below, on its right side, its underside facing uphill, the two upside wheels still turning. Steam rises off the engine compartment into the cold rain. The upturned doors are shut.

Think he's dead? she asks.

Could be. Or just hurt. Or might've got out.

Can't be hurt too bad if he got out so fast, she says.

He checks the empty road and draws his Beretta. Let's go down and see what we've got.

She unholsters a Ruger 9 and ensures there's a round in the chamber. She has never shot at anyone but is prepared to do it if necessary. One of the first things she'd been asked when she sought to become a Jaguaro was if she believed she could kill. She'd said yes with stronger conviction than she'd actually felt, but she knew the face to show her questioner, the tone to use.

He tells her to go around to the right of the van, he'll go to the left. Let's hope he's in there and alive but not able to make a fight of it, he says. If you spot him outside, let me know where and take cover and leave him to me. But if you think you have to shoot, shoot.

Charged with adrenaline, gripping the Ruger in both hands, she makes her cautious way over the tricky footing down through the dripping trees and brush, water running off the brim of her cap. She listens hard for any sound from the van, but all she hears is the patter of the rain, a passing vehicle on the road above. She's lost sight of Mateo.

Nearing the van, she smells gasoline. She's afraid and won't deny it. She was taught as a child there's no bravery in pretense of fearlessness, only a dangerous self-deception.

When she gets to the rear of the van's exposed underside she's uncertain how to proceed. Mateo didn't say. Should she climb up on the upturned side and take a look in the driver's window? She both wants to and she doesn't. The smell of gasoline is now very strong. She's heard of capsized cars whose spilled fuel spread to an ignition wire and
boom
.

She eases past the front wheels and scouts the area beyond the van. And there's Mateo. Partly showing himself among the trees, his position fore of the van but downhill of it and farther away than she'd expected.

He's seen her, too, and gestures for her to circle back to the other end of van. She raises a fist shoulder-high in acknowledgment, and he starts moving to another cluster of trees.

She backtracks to the end of the van and starts around it—and flinches to a halt at the blasts of several gunshots from its immediate other side. There follow three pistol reports from somewhere downhill, all three bullets striking the van. Then two more louder, closer shots.

Then silence but for the rain in the trees.

She stands immobilized. Scared. Then thinks,
Move, bitch!

She steps around the end of the van, two-handing the Ruger straight out in front of her, wincing at the crunch of loose rock underfoot.

Standing by the front bumper is a man turning toward her with a pistol, and all in an instant she sees his face in stark clarity under his black Giants cap—young brown flat nosed, his wide eyes
seeing
her more intensely than she's ever felt herself seen—and as fast as she can pull the trigger she fires four rounds into him, knocking him back in a sprawl.

She keeps the Ruger pointed at him, her heart and lungs heaving, and eases up to where he lies with legs in awkward splay, arms outflung, cap askew, open eyes overrunning with rainwater. There's a red wound at the base of his neck and three others in a tight group over the heart.

She assesses her sensations, her feelings, and finds neither shock nor regret among them. She has grown up among men who have killed but speak of it only in serious timbre when they speak of it at all, and perhaps such familiarity and outlook have prepared her for this moment more than she could have known. She picks up the man's Glock. It's a fine weapon, and that it might have killed her had she been a second slower doesn't alter its worth. She tucks it in her pants.

She hears a car pass by up above, and then another behind it. She looks to where Mateo had been but doesn't see him. She calls out for him.

“Acá 'stoy. Por acá!” The response sounds strained, his voice odd, coming from off to the right of where she'd last seen him. Over here! he calls again.

She scrambles down through the trees and scrub and finds him lying on his side, one hand pointing his Beretta at her, the other pressed to his bloody stomach. He sees it's her and lowers the gun. He's also been shot in the thigh, his pant leg soaked with blood, and has already tied his belt as a tourniquet just above the wound.

He asks if she put the guy down for good and she says yes, holstering the Ruger. She hurriedly takes off her Windbreaker and the holster and her sweatshirt and balls up the sweatshirt and places it against his stomach wound. He groans and lays the pistol aside and holds the sweatshirt to himself with both hands, still on his side. Before permitting her to tend him further, he tells her to call Jaguaro operations and tells her what to say. She does it. Then she takes off her T-shirt and rips it into a long strip that she uses to bind his leg wound. She's shivering, goose fleshed, feels her nipples chilled rigid under the flimsy bra. He's closed his eyes. When she's bandaged him, she puts the Windbreaker back on.

They'll be right here, she says. Won't be long.

He nods, eyes still closed. Then his arms slacken and the sweatshirt falls free of his belly.

She says, Oh God, and puts her fingertips to his neck. He's still alive. She eases him onto his back and replaces the balled sweatshirt on the wound and holds it there.

Keep breathing, she says, just keep breathing, that's all you have to do and you'll be all right. Keep breathing.

She hears another car go by and wonders if the passing traffic has had any curiosity at all about the unattended car at the roadside. She gives thought to binding the sweatshirt in place and then going up there and at gunpoint stopping the next vehicle to come along and commandeering it to get him to a hospital. But she doesn't think her belt will hold the shirt properly, and anyway cannot bring herself to leave his side for even a minute, fearful that if she should cease exhorting him to breathe he will cease to do it.

Jaguaros arrive. A pair of SUVs with three men in each, and they move with brisk efficiency. One team of three carries Mateo up to the road, pausing to peer over the berm to make sure no witnesses might be coming, then places him in the rear of one of the SUVs. Two of the men then speed off with him, followed by the other man and Rayo in the Charger, the guy driving.

The other three Jaguaros have taken cans of gasoline down to the van. They heave Chato's body up to the open door and drop it inside, then splash gas into and over the vehicle and set it afire. Flames rush at them along the gas-soaked ground and they leap back, whooping with laughter.

Minutes later they're making away in the SUV, a dense column of black smoke churning up through the hillside trees.

32 — RUDY AND CHARLIE

The rain's coming down a little harder again but there's almost no wind. We make our way through the sidewalk crowd, staying about thirty feet behind Chong, who's less than half that distance behind Belmonte, who's carrying the two bags with no apparent difficulty. More than a few of the people streaming past us on either side—tight faced under their umbrellas, seeming oblivious to everything but their own foul-weather thoughts—would start killing each other on the spot to get those bags if they knew what was in them.

As we approach the intersection before the block containing the public parking square, Chong takes a look back, and then a few paces farther on, looks again.

Belmonte crosses the intersection—the traffic light's little green stick figure walking in place, the yellow numbers above him counting down the remaining seconds before the light change. But Chong remains at the curb on this side and looks all around like maybe he's unsure of an address or something. He looks our way again. Charlie stops at a newspaper kiosk and I sidle over to browse at a shoe store window.

Chong waits at the curb until the light countdown flashes down to 1, then sprints across the intersection as the light turns red and the four lanes of traffic start moving in both directions, cutting us off till the next green. The lead car in the far right lane has to brake sharply to keep from hitting Chong, and the driver gives him a long blast of the horn. Chong gives him the finger and melds into the crowd.