Saint Death - John Milton #3 (19 page)

“Señor González. I suppose you think I’m pretty stupid.”

“Negligent, perhaps. I’m surprised. Your reputation is excellent.”

“And yours,” Beau said, with a bitter laugh.

“You know not to make any sudden moves, yes?” Adolfo’s English was heavily accented, slightly lispy.

“No need to remind me.”

“Nevertheless––”

“There’s no need for this to end badly.”

“It won’t, Señor Baxter, at least not for me.”

Beau tried to maintain his composure. He laid the knife and fork on the plate, nudging them so that they rested neatly alongside each other. “Let me go back to New Jersey. I’ll tell them to lay off.”

“I could let you do that.”

“They’ll listen to me. I’ll explain.”

“But they won’t, Beau––do you mind if I call you Beau? You know they won’t. I killed your employer’s brother. I removed his head with a machete. I killed five more of their men. They want that debt repaid. I’d be the same if the roles were reversed, although I would do the business myself rather than hide behind a
panocha’s
skirts.”

“I’ve got money in the car. Twenty-five grand. I’ll give it to you.”

“That’s the price they put on me?”

“Half. You’re worth fifty.”

“Fifty.” He laughed gently. “Really? Beau, I’m disappointed in you. You think I need money?”

He realised how stupid that sounded. “I suppose not.”

He indicated the half-finished quesadilla. “How is the food here?”

“It’s alright.”

“Do you mind?” González picked up Beau’s knife, used it to slice off a triangle, then stabbed it and put it in his mouth. He chewed reflectively. “Mmmm,” he said after a long moment. “That
is
good. You like Oaxaca?”

“I like it alright.”

“It is a little too Mexican for most Americanos.”

“I’m a little too Mexican for most Americans.”

González took a napkin from the dispenser, folded it and carefully applied it to the corners of his mouth. Beau watched Adolfo all the time. He looked straight back at him. Beau assessed, but there was nothing that he could do. The table was pressed up against his legs, preventing him from moving easily, and, besides, he did not doubt that Adolfo had him covered. A revolver under the table, it didn’t matter what calibre it was, he couldn’t possibly miss. No, he thought. Nothing he could do except bide his time and hope he made a mistake.

“We’re alike, you and I,” he said.

González did not immediately answer. “Let me tell you something, Beau. I want to impart the gravity of your”––he fished for the correct word––“your predicament. Do you know what I did last night? I went out. Our business has a house in a nice neighbourhood. Lots of houses, actually, but this one has a big garden in back. Not far from here. We had two men staying there.
Hijos de mil cojeros.
They used to be colleagues but then they got greedy. They thought they could take my father’s money from him. Do you know what I did to them?”

“I can guess.”

“Indeed, and discussing the precise details would be barbaric, yes? I’m sure a man such as yourself must have an excellent imagination. We had some enjoyment but then, eventually, after several hours, I shot them both. And then, this morning, I visited the restaurant where a journalist and her friends were eating on Monday night. The owner and the
cuero
he was with, they didn’t give me the information that I wanted. So I shot them, too. Just like that.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Another question: do you know what a
pozole
is?”

“I’m pretty sure you’re fixing to tell me.”

He smiled, his small teeth showing white through his thin, red lips. “A
pozole
is a Mexican stew. Traditional. Hominy, pork, chillies. It’s important to keep stirring the soup while it is on the stove so that the flavours blend properly. One of my men has acquired a nickname: he is know as
El Pozolera
. The Stewmaker. It is because he is an expert in dissolving bodies. He fills a plastic drum with 200 litres of water, puts in two sacks of caustic soda, boils it over a fire and then adds the body. You boil them for eight hours until the only things left are teeth and nails, and then you take the remains––the soup––to an empty lot and burn it up with gasoline. It is disgusting for those without the constitution necessary to watch. A very particular smell.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because, Beau, I need you to understand that, even though we might be in the same business, you are mistaken: we are
not
alike. You deliver your quarry alive. You even allow them to bargain with you. To negotiate, to offer you a better deal. Mine cannot. I do not make bargains and I do not negotiate. I’m not open to persuasion and I can’t be dissuaded with whatever you have in your car, by the money in your bank account or by any other favour you might offer me. Once I have decided a man must die, that is it––they will die. A final question before we leave. You have killed people. Not many people, I know, but some. Tell me: what does it feel like for you?”

“Feels like business.”

“Again, a point of difference. For me, it is
everything
. It is the sensation of having someone’s life in the palm of your hand and then making your hand into a fist, tightening it, squeezing tighter and tighter until the life is crushed. That is power, Beau. The power of life and death.”

“You’re crazy.”

“By your standards, perhaps, but it hardly matters, does it?” The man leaned back. He studied Beau. “I’ll be honest. You will die today. It will not be quick or painless and I will enjoy it. We will record it and send it to your employer as a warning: anyone else you send to Mexico will end up the same way. The only question is where, when and how. I will give you a measure of control over the first two of those. The how?––that you must leave to me.”

Beau looked out of the restaurant’s window. “I know where the girl is.”

“Good for you.”

“The Englishman––I know where he’s taken her.”

“Ah, yes, the Englishman.
Caro de culo
. An interesting character. I can find out nothing about him. What can you tell me?”

“I could give you him, too.”

“You’re not listening, Beau. I don’t barter. You’ll tell me everything I want in the end, anyway.”

“I could deliver him to you in five minutes.”

He smiled again, humouring him. “You said you know where the girl is?”

“Yeah.”

“You know, Beau. It still doesn’t matter.”

“And why is that?”

“Because there is nowhere in Juárez where the Englishman could hide her from me. This city is mine, Beau. Every hovel in every
barrio
. Every street corner, every alleyway. Every hotel, every mansion, every last square inch. How do you think I found you? All I have to do is wait. She will be delivered to me eventually. They always are.”

37.

MILTON WATCHED the conversation through the windows of the diner. The place was on Avenue de los Insurgents in a strip mall with a large plastic sign in the shape of a lozenge that said Plaza Insurgents. Milton’s taxi had pulled over on the other side of the road, behind a 1968 Impala Caprice with
‘Viva La Raza’
written across the bonnet. The passenger side window was down, classic rock playing loudly.

He recognised the driver as the doctor from the hospital.

Milton stood quietly and watched.

The diner was busy. Beau Baxter was alone in a booth and González made his way straight to him, slipping down opposite and beginning to talk. Beau’s body language was stiff and stilted and his face was pale; this was not a meeting that he had requested. Curious, Milton crossed the street to get a little closer, watching through an angled window so that neither man could see him. He looked closer and saw that González had not moved his right hand above the table. He was armed, or he wanted Baxter to think that he was.

Milton moved away from the window and leant against a telephone kiosk. He looked up and down the street and across the strip mall but if González had other men here, they were good. Milton could see nothing that made him think that there was any sort of back up. González was on his own. He could feel the reassuring coldness of the Springfield’s barrel pressed against his spine. Thirteen shots in the clip, one in the chamber. He hoped they would be enough.

Beau and González got up.

Milton moved to the entrance. There was a bench next to the door, an advertisement for a law firm on the backrest. He sat down behind a newspaper he found on the floor, the Springfield hidden in his lap. Beau came out first, González behind him. Milton let them pass, folded the newspaper over the arm of the bench and took the gun. He followed. When they reached González’s car Milton pressed the barrel against González’s coccyx.

“Nice and easy,” he said.

González turned his head a little, looking back from the corner of his eyes.

“You again.”

“That’s right.”

“I still don’t know your name.”

“I know.”

“English, then. Why are you always involved in my business, English?”

Milton glanced at Baxter. “You alright?”

“Feel a bit stupid.”

“Get his gun.”

Baxter frisked him quickly, finding a gold-plated Colt .45 in a holster clipped to his belt. He unfastened the holster and removed it.

“Look at this. Gold? You might have money but you can’t buy class.”

González said nothing. He just smiled.

“Beau,” Milton said. “What are you driving?”

“The Jeep,” he said, nodding to the red Cherokee with tinted windows.

“Get it started.”

“You have already taken too long, English,” González said. “My family has eyes everywhere. They are our falcons––waiters, barmen, newspaper vendors, taxi drivers, even the
cholos
on the street corners. A hundred dollars a week so that we may know everything about the comings and goings of our city. My
Padre
will know what you are doing before he sits down to dinner. And then he will find you.”

“You’ll be halfway back to New Mexico by then, partner,” Beau said.

Milton prodded González in the back and propelled him towards the Jeep. When they reached the car the Mexican finally turned around to face him. “Every moment in your life is a choice, English. Every moment is a chance to go this way or that. You are making a choice now. You have picked an unwise course and you will have to face the consequences of your decision.”

Milton watched him carefully, a practiced assessment that was so automatic that he rarely realised that he was making it. He watched the dilation in his eyes and the pulse in the artery in his neck. He saw the rate of his breathing. The man was as relaxed as if they were old friends, meeting up by coincidence and engaging in banal small talk about their families. Milton had seen plenty of disconcerting people before but this man––Santa Muerta––this man was something else. A real piece of work.

“The way I’m coming at it,” Beau said, “you ain’t in a position to lecture anyone.”

González kept his eyes on Milton. “Not everyone is suited to this line of work, English. Having a gun pointed at someone can sometimes lead people to exaggerate their own abilities. They tell themselves that they are in control of events where perhaps they are not.”

“Don’t worry yourself on my account,” Milton said. “I’m as used to this as you are. Get in the car.”

Baxter opened the door and, smiling serenely and without another word, González got in.

38.

EL PATRÓN had a small mansion on the outskirts of Juárez. He had dozens, all around Mexico. This was in the best part of the city, St Mark’s Corner, a gated community approached through a series of arches and set around a pleasant green. It was a quiet retreat of mansions, each more garish than the next. Outside some were vehicles marked with the corporate logos of the owners of the
maquiladoras
. In other forecourts were SUVs with blacked-out windows and bullet-proof panels; those belonged to the drug barons. The community had a private security detail that Felipe bolstered whenever he was in residence. His men were posted at the gates now, in the grounds of the mansion and in the watchtower that he had constructed at the end of the drive. Twenty of his very best men, most related to him by blood or marriage, vigilant and disposed towards violence. His doctor had advised him that sleep was important for a man of his age and he made sure that he always slept well.

He had bought the place a year ago, persuading the prominent lawyer who had owned it that it was in his best interests to sell. He hadn’t stiffed him on the price––he felt no need to drive a hard bargain––and he had sent three bags with a million dollars in each as a mark of his gratitude. He had visited the house before the lawyer had owned it and he had always been fond of it. It was surrounded on all sides by tall brick walls. It had been built with a small cupola, an architectural shorthand for extravagance in Juárez. Inside, there were baroque tables mixed with minimalist leather couches, red velvet curtains and a disco ball, Oriental rugs and, on the wall above the fireplace, a knockoff of Picasso’s ‘Guernica.’ The décor was not systematic thanks to the fact that it had been purchased, at various times, by several of Felipe’s wives. There was a glass-enclosed pool. A room in the basement held a large pile of stacked banknotes––four feet cubed––a little over twenty million, all told. Another held his armoury, some of the guns plated in gold. There were just a few street-facing windows and, at his insistence, the best security system that money could buy.

Marilyn Monroe had owned the house at one time; the rumour was that the purchase was a drunken extravagance after a night in the Kentucky Bar following her divorce from that American writer. It reminded him of another time in Juárez, so different from how things were today that it was almost another place. Salaciousness and audacity, everything for sale, most of it carnal.

The fleshpot and the dope-den.

Frank Sinatra and Steve McQueen.