Nick Carter - The Aztec Avenger

“Look,” growled Stocelli, “in my lifetime, I met a couple thousand guys. How the hell do you expect me to remember everyone I ever met? He’s nobody I ever did any business with, that’s for sure. Who is this guy?”

“I don’t know. When I find out, I’ll let you know.”

“All right,” said Stocelli, dismissing the topic. “Now, I got a little job for you. I want you to get rid of that goddamned package.” He gestured at the laundry bundle with his thumb.

“I’m not your errand boy. Get one of your own men to dump it.”

Stocelli let out a rumble of a laugh. “What’s the matter with you? You think I’m stupid? You think I’m dumb enough to let any of my boys run around this hotel with five kilos of pure horse? If they get picked up with it, it’s like putting the finger on me. Besides, you know goddamned well I can’t trust them to get rid of it. You know how much that stuff is worth? Whoever I give it to, the first thing he’s gonna do is try to figure an angle how he can peddle it Five kilos, that’s better than a million bucks on the streets. That’s too much temptation. No sir, none of my boys!” I changed my mind. “All right,” I said, “I’ll take it” Stocelli was suddenly suspicious of my easy agreement “Wait a second,” he growled. “Not so fast. How come you don’t tell me to go get lost? That’s no little favor I’m asking you. You get caught with that stuff and you’re gonna spend the next thirty years in a Mexican jail, right? From what I hear, those aren’t places to spend even thirty minutes. So how come you’re willing to stick your neck out so far for me?”

I smiled at him and said, “It doesn’t make any difference, Stocelli. I’m the only one around here you can trust to get rid of it for you and not get your ass in a wringer.” I wasn’t about to tell him what I had in mind. The less Stocelli knew about what my plans were, the better. Stocelli nodded slowly. “Yeah. Come to think of it, that’s funny, ain’t it? Out of all my boys, it turns out you’re the only one I can depend on.”

“Very funny.”

I picked up the package and tucked it under my arm, then turned to go.

“Let me know what happens,” said Stocelli, in almost a friendly voice. He walked to the door with me. “I get nervous sitting up here without knowing what’s going on.”

I took the elevator down to my room without meeting anyone. I opened the door with my key and walked in. And stopped. Lying on top of my bed was a brown, paper-wrapped package with a blue laundry list attached to it, identical with the one I held in the crook of my arm, the one I had just taken from Stocelli’s penthouse suite.

It took me no more than ten minutes to fix things so that when the police came they’d find nothing. If the pattern was the same, I knew that the police would have been tipped off that they could find one cache of heroin in Stocelli’s penthouse suite and another in my room. They were probably on their way to the hotel by now.

Less than half an hour later, I was in the lobby waiting for Consuela to pick me up. I wore my camera slung around my neck with a 250mm telephoto lens attached to it. Over my shoulder, I carried a large, top-grain, cowhide camera equipment bag.

Consuela was late. I put the heavy camera equipment bag and my camera down on the seat of an armchair. “Keep an eye on that stuff for me, will you,” I said to one of the bellhops, handing him a ten-peso note. I walked over to the desk.

The clerk looked at me with a smile.

“Senor Stephans, no? May I help you?”

“I hope so,” I said, politely. “Do you have a guest registered here by the name of Dietrich — Herbert Dietrich?”

“Momentito” said the clerk, turning to the guest card-file. He searched through it and then looked up. “Si, senor. El Senor Deitrich arrived yesterday.”

Yesterday? If Dietrich came in yesterday and Stocelli the day before, and he had been on the same plane with Stocelli, then where had Dietrich been for twenty-four hours?

I wondered about that for a moment, and then asked, “Would you know what room he’s in?”

“He occupies Suite nine-oh-three,” said the clerk, checking the file again.

“Would you happen to know what he looks like?” I asked. “Is it possible that you could describe him to me?”

The clerk shrugged. “Lo siento mucho, Senor Stephans. Es imposible! I’m sorry, but I was not on duty when Senor Dietrich registered.”

“No es importante” I told him. “Thank you anyway.” I passed him a folded bill.

The clerk smiled at me. “ De nada, senor . If I can be of help to you in the future, please let me know.”

I went back across the lobby and picked up my equipment. I was hanging the camera around my neck when Consuela came up to me.

“My god,” she said, laughing at me, “you really do look like a tourist with all that photographic gear strapped on you.”

I smiled back at her. “Tools of my trade,” I said, easily. “I’m a freelance photographer, remember?”

“Tell me about it later,” Consuela said, looking at her wristwatch and then taking me by the arm. “We’ll be late if we get caught in traffic.”

We were just pulling out of the circular drive in front of the hotel when the police car turned in and came to a screaming stop in front of the entrance. Four policemen jumped out and walked quickly into the hotel.

“What do you suppose they want?” Consuela asked, peering into the rear-view mirror.

“Damned if I know.”

Consuela looked askance at me, but made no further comment. She concentrated on speeding along the Costera Miguel Aleman, past the Acapulco Hilton to Diana Circle, where Paseo del Farallon intersects the Costera. She took Highway 95 that goes north to Mexico City.

About a mile further up the road, Consuela turned onto a dirt road that led into the foothills. Finally, she pulled up in a gravel parking lot half filled with cars.

“El Cortijo,” she announced. “The farmhouse.”

I saw a wooden structure, painted bright red and white, actually nothing more than a large, circular platform built about six feet above the ground, surrounding a small, sand-covered ring. A shingled roof had been erected over the platform area, its center open to the sky and to the bright sun. The platform itself was a little more than ten feet wide, just wide enough for small tables to be set two-deep around its perimeter.

We sat down at a table against the railing, opposite the gate through which the bulls were to come. From that position, our view of the ring below us was completely unobstructed.

The band struck up a brassy tune. Four men walked out across the packed sand of the ring, swaggering to the beat of the music. The crowd applauded them.

I’d expected them to be dressed in the traditional trajas de luces, the tightly tailored, brilliantly embroidered “suit of lights” worn by matadors I’d watched in the bullrings at Pamplona, Barcelona, Madrid, and Mexico City. Instead, these four wore short, dark jackets, white shirts with ruffles and gray trousers tucked into black, ankle-high boots. They stopped at the far side of the ring and bowed.

There was some scattered applause. The matadors turned and walked back, disappearing under the platform beneath us.

Next to us, the table filled up. There were six in the party. Two of the three girls sat down with their backs to the ring. One of them was blonde, the other redheaded. The third girl was small and dark, with a delicate, cameo featured face.

At the head of the table, a husky, gray-haired man with a large paunch began joking with the girls. A tall thin man sat between the redhead and a stocky, bronze-featured Mexican.