Silencer (32 page)

‘Perry?’

I smiled right back. ‘The lad even got the short version wrong. You sure our kids’ futures are worth saving?’

PART SEVEN

6 September 2011

14.25 hrs

It was only a short twenty-dollar ride into Acapulco, fixed in advance, but it seemed to take hours to make distance between each of the bright blue traffic signs counting down the kilometres from General Juan N. Álvarez International Airport to El Centro.

My head was roasting in the back seat. The rip-off sun-gigs I’d bought on the way to Dino’s slithered from side to side as I tried to escape the rays the curved rear window focused on my neck. It was a really dry heat here, not at all like Hong Kong, but the back of my sweat-soaked shirt was already clinging to the worn-out PVC of the twenty-year-old cab upholstery.

Power and telephone lines hung low and lazily from their poles, feeding the houses and the megastores each side of the dual carriageway. I could have been in any one of the Moscow suburbs Anna was so fond of – had it not been for the sunshine and the Spanish road signs, and the fact that I was surrounded by Nissans, American Ford pick-ups the size of troop carriers, and more VW Beetles than you could shake a stick at.

Volkswagen had been spewing them off the local production lines for years, and white V-Bugs with blue wheel arches were
Acapulco’s taxi of choice. The one I was melting in had a modification that hadn’t been factory-fitted: the windshield was coated with a layer of greasy dead-bug juice that made it almost impossible to see the road ahead. The driver had been trying to dislodge it ever since he’d picked me up from the terminal rank, but without screen-wash to back them up, the wipers had simply spread the problem more evenly.

Acapulco was one of Mexico’s oldest and best-known beach resorts. It had really come into its own in the fifties as a getaway for the Hollywood élite. Clark Gable and Elizabeth Taylor were almost considered residents, and Frank Sinatra was so taken with the place he couldn’t stop crooning all that ‘Come Fly With Me’ shit. Then Elvis invited us to share the
Fun in Acapulco
in 1963, and John Wayne bought every hotel he could lay his hands on and imported palm trees for the tourists to sit under.

The funny thing was, Elvis never actually came here: all of his scenes were shot in Hollywood. But that didn’t seem to matter. Big chunks of America wanted to come down Mexico way and have a touch of the good life, and Acapulco boomed. Within thirty years the place was no longer a hideaway for the rich and famous, and started to look more like Benidorm.

And thanks to its location, sandwiched between the world’s biggest drug producers in the south and its biggest consumers in the north, it had long since sold its visitors – and its inhabitants – a different kind of dream. These days Narcopulco was more famous for what happened in the shadows than the sunshine.

Travelling to Acapulco is extremely dangerous
[the online travel sites warned me]
, and is strongly discouraged as the city has been taken over by violent drug cartels. The Mexican government has little control over large parts of the city; Acapulco is effectively a war zone. Bear in mind that by travelling in Acapulco you are putting yourself at serious risk of being robbed, raped, kidnapped or murdered (foreigners are normally beheaded when killed). Law enforcement officers and local authorities collude with criminals and will not help in case of trouble. Needless to say threats are unpredictable and the situation is volatile.

A few holidaymakers still made the trip to the beach, but they were locals and mostly from Mexico City, about four hours inland along a motorway that hadn’t been there ten years ago. The nation’s capital was a nightmare too, so maybe death on an expensively hired sun-lounger was more fun than it was in your own backyard.

I moved my head again. On the opposite carriageway, three police technicals with machine-guns mounted on their rear flatbeds were barging through the traffic. The only difference between these pick-ups and the Taliban’s was the word POLICIA stencilled across their dark blue or black paintwork, and the fact that the guys manning the weapons were in black or combat fatigues, their faces covered with black balaclavas instead of
shemags
. It must have been as dangerous for Dino to crash into these fuckers as it was being banged up at the
casa
.

John Wayne’s palm trees were still there in force, but they now lined the meridian between the dual-carriageways. The bottom third of their trunks was whitewashed, bouncing the sunlight in all directions.

The future of Acapulco’s tourist industry didn’t look nearly as bright and shiny. Every hotel had a vacancy sign – and that just applied to the ones that were open. Many of them hadn’t even been finished. Their builders had given up a long time ago. Multi-storey chunks of concrete littered the place, stained by the elements, with hardly a crane breaking the skyline above them.

The tourist shops selling designer goods their visitors could buy much more cheaply at home had given up the ghost as well. Every third or fourth store-front was boarded up. Even from this distance I could see unopened mail piled up on the other side of their grimy glass doors.

The traffic ground to a complete halt and the driver gave a groan of frustration. Even if my Spanish had been up to it, I was too knackered to ask questions.

I’d had an eight-hour stopover after the flight from DC to Phoenix, during which I’d read all I could about Acapulco – after downloading it from the world’s most expensive Internet connection in the Sky Harbor terminal. I’d called Dino to fill in
the gaps, then memorized all the routes from the city towards the
casa
. It had been covered by cloud on Google Maps. That’s par for the course with government locations, so it looked like either Peregrino already had the right connections in high places or he had put a gun to a few heads.

The more I stored inside mine, the less I had to carry about with me and the lower my chances were of being compromised. I’d ditched the downloads as soon as I’d read them, then hit the airport shops for a couple of odds and sods I thought I’d need for the job. They were safely stored in the bag on the seat beside me.

The one thing I couldn’t quite ditch was the white noise still bouncing around inside my head.

They’ve taken her to Mexico …

I’d understood Sophie’s words, the bruises on Katya’s face and the signs that she’d left her Moscow apartment in one fuck of a hurry to mean the Pilgrim had taken Katya against her will.

But now I had the DEA’s interpretation.

She seems to have the freedom of the place
… Dino had warned me.
She may not be a prisoner …

All I knew for sure was that they couldn’t both be right.

A rash of technicals started to appear on my side of the carriageway too, not barging their way through the traffic but parked up at the roadside, blue lights blinking rather weakly in the blinding light.

Hooded operators manned the weapons; black-clad figures in Kevlar helmets with M4 assault rifles dangling off their body armour ran around getting sweaty. They were channelling three lanes of traffic into one, the fast lane on the left, and I soon saw why. Two bodies lay at the side of the road, as if they were car-crash casualties. But there hadn’t been an accident. There was no wreckage. I was pretty certain they’d been pushed off the graffiti-covered pedestrian walkway above us.

One of the bodies was in his mid-sixties, peppered with gunshot wounds in the chest and abdomen. It was hard to tell the age of the other because it was headless but, judging by the stonewashed jeans and on-trend Nikes, he’d been younger. Blood congealed in big pools around them.

A small crowd had gathered on the walkway, but most of the locals carried on moving, chatting into their mobiles or tucking into their snacks. A couple of guys in suits, sun-gigs and cowboy hats, with badges hanging from their necks, looked down at the bodies. Even their clouds of cigarette smoke couldn’t conceal their boredom.

The traffic began moving again and we carried on towards
what I knew was going to be Costera Miguel Alemán, a six-lane thoroughfare that hugged the curve of the bay. The locals just called it the Costera. We were heading for the Zona Dorada, the Golden Zone, home of the best nightlife and beaches. Or that was what the Hotel El Tropicano website had told me.

Surrounded by beautiful tropical gardens, right in the center of the Acapulco Dorado
[it boasted]
, a pretty property of two floors is elevated throughout the day.
[Fuck knew what that meant.]
It counts with two colorful restaurants open throughout the day, as well as with a piano bar of amused atmosphere and warm service.
[All in all, apparently]
Hotel El Tropicano is an excellent option for one familiar vacation, very near of the beach and the main entretainment centers of the bay. Their comfortable facilities and beautiful gardens will offer you tranquillity to spends unforgettable days. Our personnel is highly qualified to make your vacations an unforgettable ones. Came with your family and enjoy this paradise.

I didn’t think Anna and our son would be rushing to join me there anytime soon.

Both sides of the Costera were lined with apartments, bars and hotels, infested with lunatics trying to jump the traffic to reach the beach a block away. Every intersection offered a glimpse of sea and sand.

We hit a roundabout and the driver diced with death as he tried to accelerate through a gap. I looked at the closely cropped oval mound at its centre, fringed with palm trees, and wondered if this was where Liseth’s husband number two had given his last public appearance. Or what was left of him – it sounded as if most of his head had been splattered across a wall somewhere else.

The driver muttered something and pointed. We’d arrived. El Tropicano could have been the Spanish for ‘faded glory’. Its whitewashed walls and arches were straight out of a spaghetti western. A swarm of V-Bugs buzzed alongside it, ready to sting anybody who ventured out.

I expected us to drive through the main arch but the driver
obviously thought he’d done his job in getting me that far. He stopped with the rest of his mates and shouted something about the traffic behind us, leaving me to fight my way out through the front passenger door. I dropped him his twenty USD, and was immediately approached by three guys in bleached polo shirts.

‘What you need, Señor? Women?’

‘No.’

‘OK. Boys?’

‘No.’

‘Drugs? Good bars? I got cocaine, I got heroin. I can get—’

‘No.’

‘OK, cool. Tickets for the water park? Bungee jump? You want city tour?’

I kept walking until I reached the cool of the hacienda-style, terracotta-tiled and ceiling-fanned reception area. What I really wanted from the local guys – a weapon – a white boy couldn’t ask for. It would raise awareness, and that was the last thing I needed. The only friendly force on this job was Dino.

I got hold of him on the mobile. ‘Mate, I’m here. Give me a couple of hours to re-SIM and sort my shit out, and I’ll call back.’

‘Affirmative.’

Dino hadn’t been one for pleasantries these last few days, but now there was an extra edge of urgency to his voice.

He’d sounded like he was running the Space Shuttle control room ever since I’d landed in Phoenix. That could have been down to me helping him get what he wanted out of this shit, but I reckoned there was a bit more to it than that. Despite all he’d been through, he was loving life back in the saddle. I knew that feeling well.

‘Never forget why it’s called Narcopulco, Nick. Too close to the US and too far from God …’

‘I won’t make that mistake, mate. Talk soon.’

He’d been saying it since Phoenix, but I still had no idea what he was talking about. It didn’t much matter: he’d be sure to bore me to death with it one day.

My first-floor room was pretty much an extension of the lobby, with the same terracotta floor tiles, and air-conditioning that worked – thank fuck. The hotel was designed as a quadrangle, with all the rooms overlooking a blob-shaped swimming-pool surrounded by clumps of grass and bushes. The window on the other side gave me a view of the Walmart up the road.

I switched on the old box-like TV and left the screen to de-fuzz while I took a shower.

I took my life-support pouch from around my neck and hooked it onto the towel rail. I thought about having a shave but, fuck it, I was going to be in shit state again soon enough. In any case, the
Fistful of Dollars
look wouldn’t do me any harm where I was going.

I felt a bit more awake as I got dressed, even though I was climbing back into the clothes I’d just taken off. I was keeping the new set folded so I’d look freshly laundered and unsuspicious on the journey home.

The TV news treated me to a parade of recent killings: corpses hanging from bridges, shot to bits in cars or just lying in the street. The picture still wasn’t crisp enough for me to be able to tell if they’d been the two I’d seen on the way in. From the tone of the anchor’s voice, it was just business as usual. No wonder my hotel was as empty as the one in
The Shining
.

I counted out my pesos. Taking commissions and the shit
tourist exchange rate into account, it worked out at about twelve to the dollar. I still had plenty of the things in my neck pouch.

It always felt good, this part of the process – getting my shit sorted before an operation. It was like a runner going to the start line and putting his toes in the blocks. I tipped the Sky Harbor bag upside-down and my Phoenix purchases fell onto the bed.

First out was a dark-brown CamelBak hydration pack, a three-litre plastic bladder with a suction tube fitted inside a day sack with extra storage pockets. I’d dumped its fancy packaging at the airport, along with the almost impregnable fused plastic blister-pack that protected the x12 telephoto lens that clipped onto my iPhone.

I’d also bought a set of ear-bud headphones with a mic, twenty-four AA batteries and two emergency charger cases to keep my mobile topped up. If I needed more power than that, I’d have been on the ground far too long and fucked up.