Read The Concrete Pearl Online
Authors: Vincent Zandri
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #Women Sleuths, #Thrillers
The Concrete Pearl (32 page)
She may be acting out a role, but the one thing she can’t fake is her beauty.
She is, as they say, drop-dead gorgeous standing out there in the middle of the desert with cropped auburn hair, blue eyes, and black leather jumper, the zipper running from breasts to navel. Like something out of a Bond film. And right now, as the headlights shine in the near distance, she can feel her heart beating, her throat closing, that little tingle shooting up her spine telling her, It's time, baby.
The desert is peaceful this morning.
Calm.
There is a sweet, dry, desert smell. And a slight hum that comes from the insects you never see in the dark of night. There is the bone cold and the occasional burst of wind to make it even colder, to send the fine granules of sand up into her face, make them stick to the red lipstick that covers her heart-shaped mouth.
When the doors on the Land Rover suddenly open, one at a time, and the silhouettes of two men appear—one tall and thin, the other short and stocky —both packing shotguns, she knows she's reached the proverbial point of no going back.
No amount of acting can stop those bullets should they start to fly.
She cannot deny the fear any more than she can deny the thrill of it all. She's the method writer, after all. She's not interested in facts so much as discovering what it actually feels like to experience something. What are the specific sights, sounds, tastes, and emotions that come together to create an experience? How do you translate these sensations and dimensions to the page so that the experience becomes more real for the reader than if the reader actually participated in it? That's method writing, and there isn’t a soul on earth who can come close to her ability to convey a true life-and-death experience.
Now, with every step they take toward her, with every shell they cock into the metal chambers of their pump-action shotguns, she knows she is coming that much closer to death. The real thing. So she rubs her hip up against the saddlebag. Just to make certain that the money and her life is still a viable option. Because if the money is not there, she knows she has no choice but to hand over her life. No questions asked, no excuses, no “Oh crap, I left it on the kitchen counter.’’
No begging, no pleading, no free sex.
She's done the research, so she knows what these brothers are capable of, even on a good day. How they strip you, strap you down naked on your back, all four limbs tied to stakes, baby oil poured over the skin, the hair on your head and sex completely shaved, eyelids taped back against your eyebrows so that when the desert sun also rises, the eyeballs fry while your skin bubbles and broils. What they find of you later—if they find you at all—stands as a coyote-chewed warning, a fleshless message not to fuck with the Contreras Brothers and their Mexicali turf.
But this morning, she has nothing to worry about as the two men in cowboy boots and Stetsons close the gap. She can feel the bulge the cash makes in the saddlebag when it rubs up against her thigh. The sensation is oddly sexual. She swallows hard when the two men stop dead in their tracks, as though on cue (obviously, they've been through the routine dozens of times before). One of the men —the shorter—takes four or five steps forward, meets her face to face, so close she can smell the tequila and cigarettes on his breath.
“Buenos días, señorita.”
“Its still nighttime, case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Did you bring our money?”
‘‘Did you bring our drugs?”
“Oooohhh, I like that. A beautiful woman who answers a simple question with a stupid question. Makes my job so much easier”
“Shall we get down to the job, or shall we stand around and chat?”
“Well, what do you know. Beauty, brains, and—if you’ll excuse the expression—balls.”
He reaches out with his free hand, uses his dirty fingers to pull down her zipper. As much as his touch repulses her, she allows him to do it. Because it's all a part of the act, a small price to pay for the method writer.
And it proceeds like that. She standing there, he breathing on her, touching her, while his partner looks on in horny amazement. Until business must be tended to and the saddlebag is opened to reveal its cargo of cash, and then the tailgate on the Land Rover is opened to reveal its payload. As the sun begins to show itself red-orange on the easternmost horizon, the whole deal goes down smoothly.
That is, until another set of headlights appears. And another and yet another, the bright white lights clearly visible a split second before they hear the telltale wail of the sirens.
PART ONE
REMAINS HINT AT HORROR IN MEXICO!
MONTERREY, Mexico (AP)-U.S. and Mexican authorities have resumed their search for bodies in the desert where at least six corpses have been unearthed. FBI informants claim as many as three hundred victims of a powerful drug cartel could be buried in the desert country between the city and the Texas border. Forensics experts, in cooperation with Mexican soldiers and ski-masked police, have been systematically searching the vast area as well as two known desert ranches in Monterrey, once the undisputed territory of the Contreras drug cartel, at one time Mexico's most powerful and most violent drug-smuggling family.
Electronic Edition Copyright © 2011 by Vincent Zandri
All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher.
StoneGate Ink 2011
StoneGate Ink
Nampa ID 83686
First eBook Edition: 2011
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover art by Fuji Aamabreorn
Published in the United States of America
StoneGate Ink
Table of Contents
Table of Contents