T. Parker - The Jaguar

Luna barked at the others to do the same and Hood watched them obey. When they were down Luna told them to not move and without taking his eyes off them he dug out his cell phone and punched a number and a moment later was giving their location and ordering someone to hurry.

Reynosa police pommander Oscar Ruiz was heavyset and dour and he seemed uninterested in what had happened. The six suspects were locked in a holding cell in the intake area, where a uniformed officer cut away their wrist restraints as they held them out to the bars. The suspects said little and they avoided looking at the local cops but stared sullenly at Hood and Luna.

Hood was directed to the lobby bathroom and here he used a dribble of water and powdered soap to grind the blood off his hands and face. His long run of adrenaline had ended and he felt dazed and displaced. He watched the grainy pink water trickle down the drain and he wondered, as he had in the alleys of Hamdaniya and on the streets of L.A. and in bloody Mexico, how ready men were to die for the things they wanted. To die by the hundreds. By the thousands.

A few minutes later Hood and Luna stood in the compound yard and watched two medics wrestle Julio from the Expedition onto a stretcher, then carry the stretcher into the coroner’s building.

“A wife and a daughter,” said Luna. “And a very small government payment.”

“It could have been me,” said Hood. “I volunteered to buy the dinners. But Julio knew a restaurant.”

“It could have been you one thousand times in the past. And it might be you a thousand times in the future.”

“Your country is beginning to exhaust me.”

“It exhausts us all.”

Hood made sure the suitcase was still on the rear seats, then swung the liftgate closed and locked the vehicle and set the alarm with his key fob.

The interview lasted half an hour and Ruiz made a few notes, very slowly. He said that Reynosa was being contested by Sinaloan and Gulf Cartel gangsters because it was a lucrative entryway into the Estados Unidos. He looked at Hood when he said the gringos were the cause of the drug wars and the deaths of forty thousand Mexicans who had died in those wars, because of the gringo appetite for drugs. Hood said the Mexican appetites for money and violence had plenty to do with it too and this drew a quizzical raising of eyebrows.

Ruiz said that the shooters appeared to be quite young and this could mean they were Gulf Cartel recruits because this cartel had been at war with the Zetas and now the Sinaloans and it had suffered losses. He said that the suspects probably mistook Hood, Luna, and Julio for rival cartel men. There were shootouts in Mexican border towns all the time, he said, between such people. These criminals would be interrogated and charged, swiftly. He never mentioned money, or any possible motive for such an attack other than cartel wars, so Hood suspected that he already knew about the luggage and what it contained. Information is cheap of course and can be sold many times.

He asked Hood and Luna to fill out their own versions of what happened and he gave each of them a Reynosa Policia Municipal form and a ballpoint pen. Hood finished before Luna and he went back to check on the Expedition. A uniformed officer stood with his back to the driver’s door and he stared at Hood. They spoke in Spanish.

— I’m seeing if my vehicle is safe.

— It is very safe. I am guarding it.

— What is your name?

— Reuben.

— It has a very loud alarm, Reuben.

— Yes, I know this model of the Ford.

Hood looked through a back window and saw the suitcase on the seats. They’ll be looking for this vehicle now, he thought, and they’ve got our Mexican plate numbers. He unlocked the Expedition and opened a back door and yanked the luggage out to the ground where it landed on its side.

“Your luggage is very safe.”

“Yes. But I may need a change of clothes.”

The officer looked questioningly at Hood, but said nothing. Hood rolled the suitcase around to the impound yard and set it down and unsnapped his holster strap and waited. A few minutes later a man in street clothes and a straw cowboy hat walked from the station and got into the purple Durango and drove it out of the yard, through the sally port, then onto the street. Here he parked it and got out and locked it with an electronic key and put the key in his pocket. Hood watched him walk around the corner and out of sight. He waited and watched, then carried the suitcase back inside to the prisoner intake area, where he saw the man in the straw cowboy hat leaning against the bars of the holding tank, talking with the boys inside. One of the boys laughed. The man in the hat glanced over at Hood, then turned back to the inmates.

Luna had come up behind him. “They’ll be free the moment we leave,” he whispered. “Ruiz is the third police commander in Reynosa in the last two years. The other two were caught running drugs into Texas.”

“How did these people know where we were and what we have?”

“In a poor place one million dollars cannot be a secret for very long.”

Hood patted the suitcase. “It’s pretty much public knowledge now.”

“It’s good you have it and a gun to guard it with.”

“We need a different vehicle.”

“We can do this.”

Hood drove away from the Reynosa PD and Luna kept a constant eye out behind them. They were almost back to the motel when Hood’s phone buzzed.

“Drive to Merida. Stay at the Hyatt Regency. You have four days.”

“Let me talk to her.”

There was a shuffle and silence, then Erin’s voice.

“Charlie?”

“I’m here, Erin. I’m getting closer with the money.”

“Please get here soon.”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m all right. But I’m afraid. Armenta knows who I am. He knew all along. He claims he loves my music. He wants me to play for him. Where is Bradley? Why isn’t he bringing the money? I’m his wife. I’m not your wife, but you’re risking your life for me. I don’t know how long I’m going to last around here.”

“We thought this would work best. You’re going to be okay, Erin.”

The connection went dead.

“You’re going to like Veracruz, Bradley,” said Mike Finnegan. They were walking the malecon at dusk. The sky was too dark for this hour and the wind snapped the Gulf of Mexico waters into whitecaps. Most of the vendors had packed up ahead of the storm and the old boardwalk was empty of tourists and lovers. Finnegan wore red tennis warm-ups and Topsiders and a USS Constitution cap and he toted in each hand a heavy canvas bag.

“Where is she? You said you’d know by now.”

Mike stopped and set down a bag and dug a hand into the pocket of his warm-ups. Bradley noted that the contents of each canvas bag were covered by a neatly folded plastic lawn bag. Mike handed him a Villa Rica matchbook. “She is being held in Benjamin Armenta’s Castle in Quintana Roo. The coordinates are written inside.”

“Castle?”

Finnegan picked up the bag and they continued down the malecon . “There’s no really good word for it. It’s too rustic to be called a palace or a mansion. Too large to be called a home. Too homey to be called a fortress or citadel or bastion. It was always called the Castle. It was built in the nineteen-twenties by a daft banker who was passionate about Meso-American native artifacts. A gringo, though his wife was a Chinese woman. Interesting pair. When they died the place was sacked by vandals and sat in ruin for decades. Armenta bought it five years ago, through intermediaries, paid more cash than it was really worth so that certain questions could go unasked. It sits squarely in a federally protected archaeological preserve not open to the public. Federal soldiers man the gates and no one can enter the reserve, except for Armenta’s chosen few. He pays handsomely for this protection. The reserve itself is managed by a private Catholic league called the Sons of Jesus, heavily endowed by Armenta through Father Edgar Ciel. The Castle is said to be either four or five levels and is of course believed to be haunted.”