The Rules of Wolfe (5 page)

She lights another cigarette. On the CD player a norteño band sings of a bold contrabandista idolized by the common folk for his bravery and violent defiance of the law.

Imagine my life, she says. Then tells Eddie she was born and raised in Mazatlán in a loud portside barrio that always stank of fish and rage and meanness. A neighborhood of derelict apartments where every night you heard cursings, shriekings, wailings. As a child she many times saw men brawl in the streets and once was witness to a fight with knives that left both men dead on the sidewalk like mounds of bloody rags. She saw a man beat his wife to death with a hammer in an apartment hallway. She saw a woman flung from a rooftop and her head burst on the street like a melon. But her father was a big man, strong, a good fighter, and other men were afraid of him, you could see it in their faces. Her father made her feel protected, her and her one-year-elder sister Felicia and their mother, who was very pretty and always getting looks from men. He worked on a fishing boat and often spoke of getting a house of their own in a better part of the city, but he loved to gamble and was not good at it and they could never afford to move out of that awful place. She was almost fourteen when he drowned at sea. Then life became truly hard. Her mother had no money, no family or friends she could ask for help. She worked at a cannery for a while and earned barely enough to support them. Then there was an accident with a machine and she lost the thumb and part of the first finger of her right hand and nearly died from the infection before she got better. They were going hungry by then, they were close to being put out on the street. So her mother naturally became a whore, an old story everywhere and especially in that neighborhood so full of whores where the seamen came for their fun. But as a whore she could pay the rent and feed the three of them. She brought men to her room almost every night. All the men drank and so she drank with them and became a drunkard. Over time the drinking spoiled her looks and fewer men came home with her and she made less money. By that point she was almost a stranger to her and Felicia, who were now learning for themselves about men and sex and the power of being pretty. When Felicia was seventeen she got pregnant by a forty-year-old man who owned a café in Villa Unión, and rather than have an abortion she gulled him into marriage. Being wife to a café owner was her sister's notion of a good life. She herself continued to go to school for a while longer, mostly because it was a clean and safe place to pass the day, and it was there that she learned about contraception. She had liked sex from her first time at fifteen but had been unbelievably lucky not to get pregnant before learning how to prevent it. She had seen what happened to so many young girls who got pregnant, married or not. Had seen how fast they got fat and bitter, how fast they got old. When she took up with Gabo, who was an errand runner for a waterfront boss, the only thing she knew about her future was that she did not want it to be like her mother's or her sister's. She did not love Gabo, but he was good-looking and fun and tough. He made her feel safe, as her father had, and he taught her a few things about protecting herself, like how to use the knife he gave her for her birthday. All of which was sadly funny when you consider what happened when Segundo's men drove up in the car.

So, she says to Eddie. Imagine yourself a woman and in my place. What choice would you have made?

The same one you did, I guess.

You guess?

I'm sure I would've.

Segundo was happy to hear her choice. Then took her into a bedroom and fucked her.

He gave her all he promised. The apartment with the big TV, the nice dresses. He took her to fancy parties and nightclubs. But although he and his brother owned several houses in Culiacán and in other cities, he never took her to any of them for the simple reason that he had a different girlfriend at each of them—a fact she learned from some of the women at the parties, catty bitches who told her Segundo went through young girls even faster than his brother and she better be ready for the day he got bored with her and kicked her back into the street. She felt very foolish for not having understood that's how it would be, that of course he would have other girls, of course he would one day get bored with her. She told herself it didn't matter, since she was not in love with him and wasn't jealous. What did she care what he did when he was not with her? Why not enjoy the luxury while she could? But she very soon had to admit it did matter. Because it forced her to face the fact that she wasn't a girlfriend, she was a whore, one more whore in a world with no lack of them, as much of a whore as her mother, except better dressed and fed and housed and protected. No, more of a whore, because her mother had no alternative but to become one, while she had chosen to. It was an undeniable truth. One that every day became harder for her to bear. She'd been with Segundo two months when she ran away. She got on a bus to Mazatlán, but before it was ten miles out of town a big car with two men in it forced it to pull over, and one of the men came aboard and got her and they drove her back to Culiacán. Segundo seemed more amused than angry by her attempt at escape. She told him she'd changed her mind, she didn't want to be his girlfriend, and asked him to please send her back to Mazatlán as he had said he would do. He said no. He had given her a choice and she had made it and now must live by it. But why not let her go, she asked him. He'd soon be tired of her and kick her out anyway. He said that was very possible and when that happened she could leave but not before. He had a tattooist put the little broken wings on her back. A reminder, he told her, that she could not fly away from him. More effective than the tattoos were the informants she now knew were keeping watch on her and would report to him any attempt she made to leave. A couple of weeks later he took her to a party at Rancho del Sol. It was the farthest she had ever been from home, not only in miles but in feeling. The vastness of the desert frightened her. Everything looked too far away, even the cloudless sky. There was nowhere you could hide in such emptiness. She hated the other women, who were out-and-out whores and who hated her in turn for looking down on them. It was four days of drinking and fucking except for one time when he took her to hunt quail but they spent most of the day driving out here in the scrub. She was glad to get back to Culiacán. During the next two months he came to see her at the apartment more often than before. It was as though her desire to be free of him had made him want her more. But he also seemed very ready to hurt her if she should fail to satisfy him. She had heard stories of what he had done to women who had displeased him, and she did not hesitate to grant whatever favors he asked and do so with enthusiasm. She was convinced he could smell her fear and that it increased his pleasure, a realization that made her almost as angry as she was afraid, but she was careful to conceal it. It wasn't so much a matter of who did he think he was, to take such enjoyment in making her afraid, as who did he think
she
was? But of course she already knew the answer to that question, and every time she thought of it she wanted to both weep and hit something. Then a few days ago he told her to pack a bag, they were going to another party at Rancho del Sol. Without thinking, she said, Shit, and next thing she knew she was on the floor with a numb eye socket and an eye blurred with tears. Excuse me, he said, I don't think I heard you clearly. Did you say you couldn't wait to go? She was able to nod and he smiled and said that's what he thought. He said it would be fun, like last time. Maybe they would go on another quail hunt. But on the morning of departure she was driven to the airport by a lackey who told her that Segundo and the Boss had been delayed and did not plan to join the rest of the party until the next day. She was glad to hear it. It meant one night of freedom at that damned ranch.

But apparently, she says, there was a change in his plans.

Apparently, Eddie says.

And a minute later he says, How old are you?

Nineteen.

p

They arrive at the dirt road and pick up speed and in another hour they spot the distant lights of traffic moving along the federal highway. The eastern horizon now red as a raw wound.

5

The Boss

The Boss enters the malodorous room, accompanied by El Tiburón. Already present are Flores and his main security aide, Chato. They step aside as the Boss goes to his brother's body and stands over it. He is a master of inexpressiveness, a trait that has long served his reputation as a man of cool blood whose decisions have the solid finality of a gravestone. His face gives no hint of his sorrow or his rage—or his embarrassment at his brother's fouled trousers. He's known countless men who shat themselves in fear or agony at the moment of death and he never before felt anything about it except occasional disgust.

Looks like he caught her fooling with a guy, Flores says. One
of the ranch guards. There was a fight, obviously, and . . . He gestures at the body. We found two casings, he says, nine-­millimeter. One hole in that wall, one in that one. There's a towel with blood on it, but not much. I'd say Rico tried to shoot him while they were fighting but couldn't do it but anyway managed to bloody his nose or mouth or something. They took his pistol and cash, left the credit cards and phone. Seems the guy's not completely stupid.

Who is he? says the Boss.

Eduardo Porter. According to Santos, he's been with—

Santos?

The guard captain.

Go on.

Porter's been with us since March. He was hired by Morales. As far as Santos knows, it's the kid's first job with the Company. Been reliable, he says.

Tiburón snorts and says, Till now.

The Boss ignores him. How old is he?

Twenty.

Where's he from?

Tampico, Santos says.

I want to see everything we have on him.

It's on the way, Flores says. Photo too.

The Boss squats beside his brother. They had finished their business in Culiacán sooner than expected and decided to fly to Loma Baja tonight instead of wait until morning. Decisions sometimes have extraneous consequence, usually too insignificant for remark, but sometimes . . . sometimes the extraneous consequence is something like this. He fingers Rico's discolored neck and feels no break in it. Strangulation. They had been at the rancho only a few minutes and were having their first drink when Rico said he was horny as a goat and was going to go get a fast fuck from . . . the Boss has trouble recalling her name. The one from Mazatlán that Rico picked up three-four months ago. Marisol? Miralinda? . . . Miranda. Good-looking but with mustang eyes, like so many crazy ones. They can be great fun in bed but they aren't worth their loony irritations. He'd told Rico so a dozen times. But that's how he liked them.

He gently pushes Rico's tongue back into his mouth and closes his jaws and with two fingers draws the lids down over the bulbous red eyes. “Pañuelo,” he says, reaching back without looking. Flores takes a folded handkerchief from his breast pocket and hands it to him and the Boss wipes the bloody snot and saliva from Rico's face.

He'd said he'd be right back, just a quickie. He still hadn't returned when Flores said the communications net with Hermosillo couldn't be completed until the tech crew had the new cell codes Segundo had brought from Culiacán. The codes were in a courier case he'd left with the Boss but the case was locked and Rico had the key. The Boss called Rico's cell but he didn't answer. Having too much fun with the Mazatlana, he thought. He gave the case to Flores and told him to get the key from Rico, then thought no more about it until a runner from Flores was shouting into his ear to be heard above the music, shouting Flores's message that he should come to the girl's room right away.

The Boss stands up and asks Flores, What do we know?

Prior to the Boss's arrival, Flores made some calls and has learned that an hour and a half ago Porter and the girl left the compound in the Boss's Escalade. The kid told the security man at the car park he and the girl had been ordered by Segundo to use the SUV to go to the plane and get a briefcase from it and Segundo meant right the fuck now. The security man knew Porter was a guard but thought of checking with Segundo anyway, but then was afraid he'd get his ass chewed for delaying their errand.

The men at the gate of course thought it was you in the car and let it pass, Flores says. So did the guard in the tower. He thought it curious you would drive off into the desert but who is he to question what the chief does?

The Boss sighs and rubs his eyes. The security man who spoke to him at the car park, you know him?

Yes, chief. Busteros. Been with us about four years. Good man.

No he's not. If he was, the kid wouldn't have got the car. Set him free.

It is the Boss's standard phrase for ordering someone's execution. Flores blinks at the severity of the punishment. Yes, chief.

The tower guard too, the Boss says. We cannot grant leniency for security failures. A reminder to the others.

The guard captain was in the tower, Flores says. Santos.

The Boss stares at him.

Done, my chief, Flores says.

The Boss turns to Tiburón. What do you think?

I think the kid's got stone balls, Tiburón says. He knew he'd never get by the checkpoints and the only way he could go was into the scrub. But even an SUV can't handle that country except at a crawl. And that's in daylight. They're in the dark. If they've got any brains they're scared shitless and they'll probably push it too hard and bust a wheel or roll over or something. Then they're on foot, if they can still walk. Even if they don't break down, odds are they'll be out there at sunup, roaming around like lost dogs. We can get a helicopter here and it'll find them damn quick . . . wherever they might be.

The Boss doesn't miss Tiburón's insinuation. If the Escalade had a tracker in it they would know exactly where they were and could easily cut them off at the highway. Almost all of the Company's vehicles carry such a device, but he did not permit one to be put in the Escalade for fear that enemies might intercept its signal.