Triple Crossing (42 page)

“What can I tell you?” Méndez said. “In the final analysis, she’s the boss. What do you think of the setup, Facundo?”

“My men walked the store, top to bottom,” Facundo said, shifting a toothpick rapidly from one side of his mouth to the other.
“Seems clean. Could be worse.”

“We could check it once more,” Porthos said, glancing at his watch.

“The Minerva Mall is supposed to be neutral territory,” Facundo said. “A gentlemen’s agreement. The bosses want a place where
they can take their mistresses without walking into a massacre.”

“So you don’t think Khalid would pull anything in there.”

“Not Khalid. But I can’t answer for young Mr. Ruiz.”

“Or Pescatore,” Méndez said, turning to Porthos. “He has a talent for catastrophe. If he so much as blinks, we shoot to kill,
Comandante.”

“With pleasure, Licenciado,” Porthos said.

“Stay in constant touch by radio or I’ll get neurotic,” Facundo said. “Let’s be quick about this.”

Méndez adjusted the gun in his belt as he and Porthos hurried after Puente.

“It would be nice to have Athos here,” Porthos said.

“Someone has to watch the hotel,” Méndez said. “It’s a calculated risk, I know. But Isabel is right: If Junior moves, we want
to be on top of him.”

Porthos glowered in a way that indicated he had had enough of Puente giving the orders. And I’m the one he expects to take
control, Méndez thought. The apprentice pseudo–police chief.

The Minerva Mall was an apparition. A rectangular six-story salmon-walled alien spaceship. A cosmic joke plunked down in the
middle of Ciudad del Este. The revolving door whisked them out of the rowdy streetscape into a marble-and-glass refuge. A
pair of security guards, one male and one female, flanked the inside entrance. They resembled mannequins in crisp blue uniform
suits. Their wet-look hairdos seemed frozen into place by the air-conditioning.

A multiscented blast of perfumes assaulted Méndez. The ground floor was devoted to cosmetics; the sales pods had neon-strength
signs spelling out brand names in pink-and-white script. Like the security guards, the salespeople were young, well-scrubbed
creatures from a different planet than the mob of peasants, merchants and pirates outside. Members of a Korean tour group
were the only visible customers. They wore yellow visors and T-shirts adorned with the name of a Christian fundamentalist
church in English and Spanish. They clutched thin bricks of cash.

Méndez caught up to Puente on the escalator. He felt the same flustered anxiety he had experienced once when his wife had
blown up and walked away from him in public. He thought: What fun is a lovers’ quarrel if we aren’t lovers?

“Have you seen the prices in here?” he said. “The stuff must be real. They’d get shot selling fakes for that much.”

When Puente turned, she was under control. The knuckle-biting, wet-eyed, name-calling fury had been wiped away. They glided
onto the second floor: designer watches, jewelry, pens.

“I feel bad about losing my temper,” she said.

“Me too.”

“You admit that if we get Valentine back he’s an incredible witness for us.”

“Theoretically, yes. I’m just concerned about your safety.”

“As usual. But you seem to have forgotten who’s in charge.”

“I remember being told this was a Mexican operation.”

She snorted. “First, that doesn’t mean you get to tell me what to do. Second, don’t always believe everything they tell you
in San Diego.”

The third floor offered men’s and ladies’ garments and fur coats. Piano music got louder and closer above them.

“So in the final analysis,” Méndez said, “you are an American.”

“And proud of it.”

He stumbled when the escalator reached the fourth floor; she deftly adjusted her feet to negotiate the landing without breaking
eye contact.

There was a real live pianist. He was playing “Take the ‘A’ Train.” Ordinarily a tune Méndez liked, but the interpretation
was full of cheesy flourishes and rococo ripples. The pianist sat at one of six grand pianos arranged in a circle at the center
of a marble mezzanine. The music echoed upward in an atrium topped by a skylight two floors above.

“So that’s what gangsters buy for their mistresses,” Méndez said. “Pianos.”

“I wonder if anyone has ever bought one,” Puente said.

The pianist was a senior citizen with a somewhat mildewed dignity. His backswept gray hair aspired to a Beethoven-like mane;
he shook it occasionally for emphasis. His three-piece suit had a velvety sheen and looked no younger than him. A placard
in Spanish, Portuguese and English informed shoppers that the pianist’s
name was Johann and that he gave private lessons, tuned pianos, performed at weddings, baptisms and funerals, and offered
“musical consulting services” in all three border communities.

“Licenciado, Miss Puente, I’m going to take my position,” Porthos said. “Where do you plan to meet… the young man?”

“I’ll wait in that coffee bar. There’s a wall to cover my back and it has a view of the escalator,” Isabel said, indicating
half a dozen tables and a counter.

“We’ll monitor you from the fifth floor,” Porthos said.

“Fine.”

Porthos hurried off. The pianist segued into “The Man I Love.”

“I had better get out of the way too,” Méndez said.

Puente did not seem in a hurry to sit down. She looked exhausted. Méndez thought: After all that arguing, she’s got doubts
too, I know she does. She’s afraid Pescatore will let her down once and for all.

“Isabel, do you believe him?” Méndez blurted. “You still trust him?”

She sighed. “His story is credible.”

“So you think he managed to escape from Junior’s entourage, just like that, and spend the night in hiding? And call you repeatedly
without being detected?”

“That’s not so hard to believe.”

“You don’t think Junior and Khalid could find him if they wanted to?”

“Maybe they aren’t that interested. Junior’s a wreck, we know that. And Khalid is keeping Junior at arm’s length.”

Méndez nodded dubiously.

“Good luck,” he told her.

“This is about work,” she murmured, eyes roving the atrium. “This is about the operation. My personal feelings are secondary.”

Méndez covered his radio with his hand. He said: “Look,
we’re here because I lost a friend. I don’t want to lose another. Please be careful.”

She nodded, wide-eyed.

Méndez rode the escalator up to the fifth floor. He positioned himself at the railing near the down escalator, overlooking
the pianos. Porthos was in place at the opposite railing. Méndez checked in with Puente, Porthos, and Facundo on the radio.
He raised Athos, who was camped out at his surveillance post outside the El Naútico.

“Signs of movement here, Licenciado,” Athos reported. “They brought vehicles in front, ready to go. Whether it’s the fat boy
or not, if they proceed in your direction, I will too. We are only five minutes away.”

“No,” Méndez said. “You stay on the fat boy. Don’t let him out of your sight, whatever happens.”

Méndez watched the woman behind the counter bring Puente a cup of coffee. Puente stirred it without drinking.

The pianist had stopped playing. The silence in the atrium was startling.

The pianist sipped water. He stretched his arms, shooting his wrists out of frayed sleeves. He did a little head roll to work
the muscles in his reedy neck. He gave a ceremonious nod and smile to Isabel, who was sitting about twenty-five feet away
from him.

Hair bobbing and shining, the pianist hunched back toward the keyboard and got back to work. He played the opening bars of
“Hello, Dolly.”

A
S PESCATORE STEPPED OFF
the escalator in the atrium of the Minerva Mall, the first thing he saw was a weird geezer at a piano playing “Hello, Dolly”
and making a real racket.

The second thing he saw was a guy who looked like Méndez at the railing one floor above, pressed into the shadow of a pillar.

Which didn’t surprise or bother him, because the third thing he saw was Isabel Puente. She wore tight leggings and a loose
shirt. Her hair, black and abundant, was arranged with a barrette, bringing out the cheekbones that he remembered caressing
once with his knuckles.

As she rose behind the table, it struck him how small she was, a tiny thing, really. And young—even though she always acted
like he was the kid. She looked pale and unnaturally bulky; he spotted the outlines of a bulletproof vest under the shirt.
Her right hand hovered near a shirttail, ready to draw. She was taking no chances with Valentine.

Nice reunion, he thought. Real touching.

When he embraced her, though, it blotted out everything else: Méndez above them like an ill-fed vulture, the images of Junior
and Buffalo, the terrible things that had happened and that were about to happen.

Her left hand planted itself on his chest as if to fend him off.
But she kissed him back. Her mouth hot, her teeth gouging his lip. He held her close, dizzy with the cinnamon taste, her flak
vest hard against him. He heard and felt her sobs. He clung to her, and the moment, as long as he could.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“Easy,” she said, giving him a sweet final kiss. The small hand riding his chest propelled him backward. She disengaged. “Enough.”

“Isabel, I never wanted to hurt you,” he said. “I never ever had a choice. You just gotta trust me.”

“Are you alright?” she asked curtly, still in a stiff-arm tactical stance.

“Isabel, we gotta get out of here. It’s all gonna hit the fan.”

“What do you mean?” She reached back, the moonlike eyes drilling him, and picked up a two-way radio from the table.

He improvised wildly, remembering bits of what he had scripted in his head. “On my way in I saw some of Khalid’s boys in a
vehicle. I think they saw me. We don’t got much time.”

Glaring at him, she spoke into the radio. The radio gave off agitated voices, street noises. He saw Méndez moving along the
railing above, radio at his ear, and on the other side of the atrium the bearded
judicial
he had met in Isabel’s apartment. The beefy cop had a gun in his hand, apparently not giving a shit about what anyone in
the store might think. The piano music was driving Pescatore crazy.

“Facundo? Facundo, what’s going on?” Isabel demanded.

An extremely loud voice echoed over the radio. Pescatore heard the faint but unmistakable crack of gunshots in the background.
The Mexicans above sprinted for the escalator. Puente cursed.

“Come on! This way!” Pescatore exclaimed. He bolted, running past the pianos, hearing “Hello, Dolly” falter and finally come
to a stop.

Puente called his name and gave chase, as he had known she
would. A saleswoman in blue pitched backward out of his way. He blazed over marble past a row of female mannequins in bridal
and communion gowns.

If there was one thing Pescatore was good at, it was running. He took sprint-relay strides, hands half-clenched as if pulling
down strings, head pumping, back straight, despite the prospect that someone was about to put a bullet in it.

He rounded a corner hard, knocking a pile of boxes off a table, throwing a glance over his shoulder. Isabel pelted after him
with Méndez and the big man well in the rear.

Pescatore found the freight exit by the elevator, just as they had planned it. He slammed through double swinging doors, skidded
to a stop in front of a dank freight elevator fronted by cagelike mesh. He turned and drew his gun.

Seconds later, Puente kicked through the doors. She came in low and fast in a shooter’s crouch. Pescatore made no move to
raise his gun. His eyes locked on hers as she drew a bead on his chest. Right on the ten-ring. The best thing that could possibly
happen would be for her to pull the trigger.

She didn’t get a chance. Momo and Buffalo jumped her from either side of the doors, where they had been hiding.

Buffalo hadn’t told Pescatore exactly where they would be. But his orders had been clear: Don’t worry about us, we’ll be there.
You just lead ’em where I say. They’ll be expecting a bunch of us outside, so we set up a diversion in the street. Meanwhile
me and Momo sneak in and do our Delta Force thing.

The problem was that Junior had ordered them to capture Puente alive. So Momo grappled with her gun arm. Buffalo, holding
his sawed-off shotgun, tried to help as he kept watch for the pursuers. She ducked and twisted, resisting furiously. She turned
Momo in a circle. She headbutted him under the chin, driving him up and back.

Puente’s gun hand pulled free. She shot Momo twice in the belly at flesh-scorching range. Buffalo slammed a fist on her head
as if he were pounding a table. Puente and Momo went down together. Her gun clattered away on the floor.

Pescatore rushed up and got her in a chokehold. He backpedaled toward the elevator, dragging her. Buffalo bent quickly over
Momo, who was motionless on his back. Buffalo rose and trained his shotgun on the swinging doors.

“You did good, homes,” Buffalo rasped at Pescatore. “
Aguas,
they’re comin’.”

When Méndez and the other Mexican appeared beyond the swinging doors, advancing behind their pistols, Buffalo cranked off
a shotgun blast that shredded wood and eardrums.

“That’s as far as you get,
cabrones,
” he snarled. “Or we blow this lady’s brains out. No closer.”

Puente stirred and wriggled in Pescatore’s grip. He put his mouth against her ear and hissed: “Just trust me. Hold still and
don’t do nothing.”

Incredibly, Méndez showed himself in the doorway, straightening, his gun pointed down at the floor. He’s got a death wish,
Pescatore thought.

“Wait!” Méndez called in that schoolteacher tone that Pescatore hated. “Don’t do anything stupid. I offer myself in exchange
for her.”

Lame dumbshit wannabe hero, Pescatore thought. Sacrifices himself for his chick.

“You’re in no position to negotiate, motherfucker!” Buffalo retorted in English, his Spanish deserting him in the heat of
the moment. “She just killed one of my boys. I oughta smoke her and you both.”