Russell Blake - King of Swords

She woodenly put the receipt into her purse, thanking him, and then looked around the office, lost. Cruz called Briones over and had a brief discussion with him, then handed him the keys to his car. Cruz lifted one of Tortora’s cards from the holder on the desk and scrawled his police headquarters number and name on it before handing it to her.

“This is my contact information, Dinah. Please don’t hesitate to call, for any reason. This has been a horrible day, and again, I’m deeply sorry for your loss. Hold onto it, if you think of anything that can help, or you need anything. This is Lieutenant Briones. He’ll give you a lift home,” Cruz said, slipping the card into her purse.

Dinah seemed out of it by now, and mechanically thanked him for all the help. As they walked out the front door, she turned to him and fixed him with a desperate stare.

“Please find whoever did this to my father, Cruz. Please.”

Cruz returned her gaze without wavering. He nodded.

“I will. I promise.”

Fourteen Years Ago

A young man pulled himself up on the steel bar mounted in the doorway of his bedroom, his hundredth chin-up in the set of three he did every morning as part of his workout. Three hundred pushups, three hundred chin-ups, forty-five minutes of running, seven days a week, without fail. Sweat poured from his flushed face as he groaned an exhalation, counting the final one and then dropping onto the balls of his bare feet.

He’d completed his run, and also his pushups, so now it was time for his shower, and then he’d begin his day. He padded across the saltillo tile floor to his bathroom, stripped off his sweat shorts and turned the water on — always cold, regardless of the temperature outside. Like everything in his life, the cold water was a ritual, and rituals were important. Rituals had sustained him and given meaning to his life. Rituals meant he was in control, and as the grueling workouts and his straight-A schoolwork underscored, he was always in control — that was his rule, his promise to himself: always maintain control.

He soaped up, noting the six pack abs and professional athlete-level arm and leg muscles with satisfaction. It had taken years of work to create this body, and nothing had come easily. That was fine. He didn’t mind effort, and had developed formidable levels of fortitude and commitment. Without commitment, you gave up, and if you quit, you didn’t have control. Whatever you’d quit had won, and you lost. In his mind, it was polarized. Black and white.

The boy had grown into an impressive young man, with a quiet intensity and a brilliant mind, as his teachers could confirm. The private school he attended had skipped him ahead two grades, and he still found the work to be laughably easy. Whenever he was bored, he would read math and engineering books, with the occasional physics textbook thrown in for diversity. He had a seemingly insatiable thirst for knowledge, and devoured books like most teens went through sodas.

His life had taken an auspicious turn since that night in the cannabis field. The man who’d saved him had raised him like a son, and provided for him in ways he’d never imagined existed. In return, he’d demonstrated absolute loyalty, and had invested hundreds of hours practicing at the estate with every manner of weapon, in preparation for moving into an active role in the family business.

‘ Don ’ Miguel Lopez was a tough but fair master over his empire, which had grown powerful during the twelve years the boy had lived with him. It now included most of the marijuana crops in Sinaloa and a substantial cut of the cocaine trafficking business. He was respected and feared by his subordinates, as well as his enemies, and had evolved into a legend in the trade — one of the longer-toothed of the cartel heads at fifty years old. He made more in a day than most of his countrymen ever dreamed of making in an entire lifetime, and yet he remained simple, eschewing the ostentatious fast money lifestyle of the new crop of traffickers, as evidence of their insecurity and inferiority.

The boy had learned his lessons well. He inspected his reflection in the mirror and liked what he saw. Girls found him pop-star attractive, although his interest in them was limited to sex, and nothing more. He was a loner, and didn’t want or enjoy the company of others, preferring to be alone with his books and his thoughts. He’d avoided the traps of youth — shunning the temptations of drugs, and had only taken alcohol on a few occasions, and then only token amounts in accord with the setting. Altering one’s state meant surrendering control. He wasn’t interested. Likewise, sharing one’s thoughts or anything more than some anonymous physical pleasure also involved relinquishing control.

Today was a big day. It was his birthday, sweet seventeen, when he would become a man in the eyes of the cartel and could assume a position within the loose hierarchy Don Miguel had created. This was a touchy subject between them, because Don Miguel had hoped that the boy would go to university to study architecture or engineering, or get a law degree, the better to create a new generation of educated heirs to his empire. But the boy had other ideas. He had expressed a desire to be part of the armed enforcement division of the Don ’s cartel, and wouldn’t be dissuaded. It was difficult for Don Miguel to argue against it with much conviction, considering his massive wealth had been created in the burgeoning trafficking industry, but they’d had numerous heated exchanges where the Don had told the boy he was throwing his talents away. He had the potential to be whatever he chose, and to waste it being an armed thug was sinful.

It was one of their few ongoing disagreements.

Don Miguel had no children, his wife having proved barren in spite of every medical innovation, and he’d invested much of his parenting drive in raising the boy to be a leader. His wife had died from cervical cancer six years previous, and he’d refused to get married again. He saw no point in it, preferring to have willing young women rotate through his harem rather than staying with any one. Don Miguel didn’t want the liability of having to worry about a wife — someone that could be used as a bargaining chip in an adversarial situation. The longer he’d been in the business, the more changes he’d seen. It was a different industry than before; more violent, more dangerous. If you loved someone, they could be used against you. He couldn’t afford it.

The boy strolled into the main house, dressed, ready for the day, which he’d been told would be a special one. Don Miguel wanted to take him to see something: a surprise, he’d said, instructing him to be ready to leave at nine a.m.. The boy had complied, punctual as ever. When the Don saw him enter the formal dining room, he rose to embrace him.

The cook had made a special breakfast to commemorate the event, and the two sat, eating, looking through the picture window at the river below them. Don Miguel owned most of the land in this area of Culiacan, stretching far into the slopes of the distant hills. He was one of the largest landowners in the region. His private estancia boasted two hundred ninety-five acres, and featured a stable for his fifteen horses — his one luxury.

Once they had broken their fast, the boy followed the Don to his truck — a new Chevrolet Suburban, which was the epitome of luxury compared to the two decade old Ford that was its predecessor. They drove into the hills, on a private road that bordered the estate, and continued for fifteen minutes until they reached a clearing. Don Miguel stopped the car, and wordlessly got out, walking around to the rear door and opening it. Inside sat a box, elegantly wrapped, no larger than a large photo album.