The Sand Trap (34 page)

He looked even more confused.

“Ha wang what?”

“Do you know Tai Chi?

“Sure. I visited China last year and saw
lots of little old ladies and men doing it in the park. Tourists
with grey pony tails do it on the beaches near my home in
Acapulco.”

“Well,” she explained. “This is like Tai
Chi, only Korean and very old. It is for killing, not meditating or
stretching.”

“You have a lot of need for that in your
gardens?”

“No. Of course not. It's just a hobby Jose.
But one I want to continue. So Marika stays.”

“OK. You said three. What’s the third?”

“No sex,” she announced, suspecting the real
reason that Jose was keeping her around, although she didn't really
understand it. She knew she was not that good looking. Not ugly,
not beautiful, just attractive in a rugged sort of way she supposed
could be appealing to some men. Jose had money and power so she
doubted that women were a problem.

“You think that is why I want you to stay?”
he asked with an incredulous tone? “You overestimate your
charms!”

“I don’t buy the ‘I trust you' thing. If not
sex what is it?”

He paused, stopped walking and sat on a
bench in the middle of the garden. He motioned for her to join
him.

“I want you to teach me English – and
golf.”

She was so shocked she almost fainted. For
thirty years she had been Estella Munoz and for thirty years she
had left behind another life and now in the safest sanctuary she
thought she could have found, this man new about her past?

“How did you know?” she asked quietly.

“Dark black dyed hair and blondish, reddish
pubic hair were my first clues. You speak English too well to
simply have come from a UNAM degree. And I could never quite figure
out where your Spanish accent came from. Of course as a young boy I
had no resources, or time, to explore my curiosity, but when I
realized that I needed better English skills to succeed in my
business I thought of you and hired a detective to research your
background, just to be safe. It took him a while, but the forger
that made your Mexican passport and driver’s license is still
alive. He still has your original driver’s license if you ever want
it. The golf was a surprise and an added bonus. I need to learn
that as well and need to learn in private. Will you do it?”

“Will you keep my secret, my history
safe?”

“I’ll keep yours if you keep mine?”

Estella laughed as she thought of a similar
expression used with a young boy so very far away and so long
ago.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. Sure. I’ll teach you English and
golf. But I think teaching you sex was probably far easier than it
will be teaching either of those.”

The next two years went quickly for Estella.
She fulfilled her end of the bargain and soon Jose spoke reasonably
fluent English and played passably fluent golf, regularly breaking
one hundred in the latter. She even enjoyed having a golf club back
in her hand, although she never played a game during the times she
was teaching Jose.

The only really sad event of those years was
the passing of Marika. Hwa Rang Do with Marika had been her only
physical outlet and she had come to realize that her special
athletic ability couldn't be ignored. If she didn't have some sort
of physical workout during the day she would lie in bed at night
and her whole body would vibrate. Golf was once that outlet and
gardening helped, but to be able to focus her skill on something as
precise and athletic as this ancient form of martial arts was a
good therapy. She knew now that if she ignored her talent it would
bite at her until she used it. So Marika passing away made her very
sad. Estella would miss her deeply.

For two years Jose kept his side of
agreement.

In the fall of 2010 the Mexican cartel gang
wars were in full swing. The profits to be made from the pipeline
of both amphetamine products and cocaine from Columbia to the U.S.
and Canada were enormous and rival gangs fought, and killed to
control various taps and products. It took a while for Estella to
figure out how Jose fit into this and how he made his endless
supply of money. She knew he did not belong to any of the usual
cartels, but she also knew he met on occasion with the leaders of
each of them.

It was only when she overheard one of Jose’s
bodyguards use the term “laundering” when talking to another guard
that it all clicked. Jose did not belong to any of the cartels
because he worked for all of them. He had set up an intricate
collection of legitimate businesses, from golf courses to hotels to
restaurants to manufacturing operations that all acted as
legitimate fronts for the filtering of cartel drug money. She
figured Jose was able to keep a proportion of all money he
laundered while sending the rest back to the cartel through a
legitimate banking or other legal transaction. One popular way to
give the money back was to have a cartel member suddenly show up as
one of the co- owners of a property or business. When the business
was liquidated the owners paid the appropriate taxes and transfer
fees and pocketed the rest. This process was not a secret by any
means, but it was done in such a way as to ensure that everyone
along the money movement process made a profit; so gathering any
evidence on one illegal step was very difficult. In essence Jose
was the one person in all of Mexico who could turn on or stop the
flow of drugs since he controlled the profit margin for every
cartel in Mexico, all without getting his hands dirty in any drug
trade or cartel vendetta.

It did not mean that he was immune to the
violence. Any hint of disloyalty or defection was dealt with
abruptly and violently and men who worked for him just disappeared
on occasion. A small cartel, including dealers, mules, sellers and
their families operating out of Sinaloa, was totally wiped out in
2004. It was rumoured he had something to do with the 2010 raid on
some houses in Nueva Laredo where seventeen young people were the
collateral damage. Apart from his direct role in the violence, over
forty thousand Mexicans had lost their lives in the cartel wars he
supported. But Jose probably did not reflect on any of this too
often. Estella turned a blind eye to it all as well. She immersed
herself in horticulture, even attending a graduate program at the
University of Mexico. As she approached fifty, she focused even
more on her Hwa Rang Do, both as a way to stay in shape and to pay
homage to her special abilities. She had an affair or two to remind
her that she was a woman. But cocooned in the sanctity of the
estate and the solitude of the extensive gardens, she ignored the
blood that was paying for her lifestyle and peace.

To her surprise, she enjoyed the
instructional sessions with Jose. He was travelling more and more
to the U.S. so he was having more occasions to speak English and
his English was progressing well. He was having the usual beginner
frustrations at golf, but that too was progressing. For their
lessons he booked the whole golf course next to the estate so it
was just he, Estella and three of his armed and closest friends
that fanned out around them, as they walked the course. Once in a
while he would bring someone along to play with, but other than
demonstrating once in a while, she would not play.

Then on September 18, 2010 life changed for
both of them.

It happened quickly even for Estella’s
special senses. They were on the tee box of the seventh hole, one
of the holes furthest from both the clubhouse and the estate. She
remembered that Acacia trees and Hibiscus plants surrounded the
box, and that she was standing in front of Jose correcting his
grip. Like most men he tended to want to use a strong, ‘right hand
turned to the right’ grip. As a result he often had a wild duck
hook as the hands came back to neutral at impact. She was
correcting this for the hundredth time when they both heard pfft,
pfft pfft. Jose knew right away what it was and went flat on the
ground taking Estella with him. As she fell she saw the bodyguard
closest to her fall as well, though it was more crumbling than
falling, and he didn’t lift up his head as she was doing. There
were more pfft sounds and then silence. She and Jose lay on the
ground twisting their necks to see what had happened.

“You can get up now,” a voice she didn’t
recognize offered. Estella could see his feet and a pair of cowboy
boots with intricate Inca designs embroidered all over the
toes.

They stood and faced three men each holding
silenced automatic weapons. Jose shook with fright and sweat
glistened his forehead. Estella was still too busy trying to sort
out what had happened to be afraid.

The one who had spoken before continued.
"Get up. We want you to see that the bullet that killed you came
from a Mendoza gun. When we are done with you we will cut your head
off and put it in the Puebla town square for all to see.”

Jose had gathered some of his wits. “It was
just business Roberto.”

“Business? Business to kill so many young
people?” The man who Jose had called Roberto started to weep. “That
was my daughter and my cousins you had killed. They did nothing
wrong except be mine. All of the men here – he waved to the other
two standing beside him, have lost family to your orders.”

“They were just collateral damage Roberto.”
Jose appeared strangely calm. “You have done the same yourself. I
couldn’t afford that kid testifying. We kill traitors. You know
that. That is just business. I didn’t ask you to go into this
business Roberto. As a taxi driver you would never be able to
afford those handsome boots and your daughter would not have been
partying in that fancy house,” Jose sneered. “So kill me if you
think it will make you feel better. But every cartel in Mexico will
be after you for turning off the money tap. The tap only I can
open. So go ahead, kill me, but let this lady go. She is just a
golf instructor and has nothing to do with this business.”

Roberto looked at her. “I am sorry Senorita,
but all who know this evil man must die.” He paused and looked at
Jose. “Just collateral damage.”

At this point the three men were standing
about a metre feet from Jose and Estella. They each had guns, but
only Roberto was holding his in a threatening manner and he now
started to raise it towards Estella. Before he had it halfway to
level, she swept it away with her right hand and pushed her palm
into his nose with such force it was crushed against his cheek and
he was immediately blinded as blood spurted from his face. As was
usual for her, everything took place in slow motion. She first saw
the man on Robert’s right start to raise his gun and she leveled a
kick to his groin and he dropped the gun and put both hands over
his crotch. The other man reacted more slowly and she was able to
grip his wrist, twist it until she heard something break and send
his weapon flying as well. The three slightly injured and very
surprised men, none with weapons, stood in front of her, massaging
their various injuries. They paused for a moment and then the man
Jose had called Roberto bellowed and charged. It seemed to her he
came at her in incredible slow motion and as she stepped aside she
crushed is right knee with her right foot. The others were close
behind him but they were easy to dodge and disable. The one with
the sore groin earned a broken arm to go with it. The one with the
limp wrist had his nose jammed into his skull.

And it was over. The three men lay on
ground. Two of them were moaning, the third out cold. It had
probably taken only seconds, but for Estella it had been a slow
motion movie and she stood over them in a Hwa Rang Do stance,
breathing hard, adrenalin pumping through every part of her body.
Jose had recovered one of the guns and was now pointing it at
Roberto’s head.

“No one betrays me,” he said as he shot
Robert through the forehead. He proceeded to go to each of the
other two and do the same.

Estella threw up. Jose came over to her and
put his arm around her. She turned and went into his arms, sobbing
as she held on tightly. Suddenly he was kissing her. She tasted her
own bile and to her surprise felt the moisture rise between her
legs. Jose pushed her to the ground and, with an adrenalin-fed
passion verging on the violence they had both just enacted, he
ripped off her skirt and panties. And he entered her now wet vagina
with ease on the seventh tee box surrounded by dead bodies. After a
perfunctory struggle she gave up control over her body for the
first time in over thirty years and let him lead the rhythm of the
urgent thrusts. And then, just like that first time in her casita
many years ago, it was over. He came quickly and then sat up and
made a brief call on his cell phone. Estella sat up as well and
gathered the ripped skirt and panties around her waist. It was only
the second time in her life that she had let someone else’s passion
control the sex. It was only marginally more pleasant than the last
and she resolved to never let it happen again.

She was shaking as she dug her fingernails
into his arm.

“Is it all true Jose? What he says. Is it
all true? Did you do all of this killing?”

His silence was the answer.

Maris sobbed as she stood up. “You've broken
our agreement.”

“Fuck the agreement.” The sex appeared to
have meant nothing to him. “You have taken part in some murders
here for Christ sake. What am I to do with you? Is that the Ha
kwang something you do every day? I think I’ll have to learn that,”
he said, as he started to pick up the other guns. They heard the
voices of his other men as they rushed to them from the estate.
“You are now in danger yourself Estella. You’re going to have to
change your name and get out of Puebla." He thought for a moment.
"I’ll take care of it Estella. I know just the name, just the job
and just the place for you. There’s even a golf course."