Phillip Margolin - Ties That Bind

Ties That Bind

Phillip Margolin

PROLOGUE:

JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT

December 1970

Pedro Aragon lay naked on a white sand beach in the arms of a lithe, brown-skinned woman who smelled of hibiscus. The fronds of a sheltering palm swayed to and fro above the lovers. Waves beat wildly against the shore. The moment would have been perfect had it not been for the fly buzzing in Pedro's ear.

Pedro tried to ignore the insect, but the incessant hum would not stop. He flicked a hand at it. The buzzing grew louder. Pedro opened his eyes, and the sun-kissed beach morphed into a narrow bed covered by soiled sheets. The sound of waves was replaced by the rat-a-tat-tat of rain beating on the grime-streaked windowpanes in Pedro's low-rent apartment. Gone, too, was the sweet scent of hibiscus. In its place was the musty smell of sweat, stale beer, and half-eaten pizza.

Pedro rolled on his side and stared at his droning alarm clock. For a moment, he regretted setting it. The dream had been so good. Then he remembered what might happen this evening, and he struggled out of bed. Pedro had seen too many lazy men miss their chances, and he was not going to let his slip away.

Pedro Aragon had left the slums of Mexico City for the gold-paved streets of America when he was fourteen. He was a slender boy with pearl-white teeth, dancing eyes, and a well-groomed mustache that covered lips prone to smile. It was hard to picture him hurting, let alone killing, anyone. But Pedro's easygoing mood could change without warning, bringing on brief moments of insane violence. It was this lack of predictability that made him so dangerous and caused even hard men to hesitate before challenging him.

Jesus Delgado, Portland point man for a Mexican cartel, was quick to recognize the young man's talents. Under his guidance, Pedro had become an effective member of Delgado's narcotics operation. Two months ago, Jesus had instructed his protege to use a chainsaw to downsize a crew chief who was skimming profits. His reward was the deceased's job. Normally Pedro sold street amounts of heroin to burnouts, but tonight three college punks were looking to move some weight, and he could smell the money.

Pedro's current place of business was an abandoned house in a rundown neighborhood where people knew better than to complain to the cops--assuming that they'd talk to the cops at all. The lawn of the dilapidated house was out of control, dull gray paint was peeling from every exterior wall, and the overhang on the porch threatened to collapse. Pedro dashed through the rain and rapped on the front door. It opened instantly.

"Que pasa?"Pedro asked the armed guard.

"Business is slow."

"It'll pick up when the sun goes down."

Clyde Hopkins, a muscular cowboy with ties to Las Vegas gangsters, greeted Pedro then followed him down the hall. When they entered a small room at the back of the house, a slender man with glasses was swapping a stoned Janis Joplin wannabe a bindle of white powder for a fistful of crumpled currency. The woman rushed out without even a glance at Pedro. He knew that the entrance of the Devil himself wouldn't distract a junkie from her fix.

"Hey, Benny," Pedro said to the slender man, who was sitting behind a rickety bridge table on which lay baggies filled with product. Behind the table stood an armed and grim-looking bodybuilder.

"Business is slow tonight," Benny answered, pointing to a stack of bedraggled bills bound with a rubber band. Pedro counted the day's take. It was low, but he wasn't worried. The college boys would come at ten-thirty and make everything right.

The preppies appeared right on time. Pedro watched them through the front window and laughed out loud as they got out of their wine-red Jaguar.

"Do you believe this?" he asked Clyde, who was watching over Pedro's shoulder.

"How have these boys stayed alive?" Clyde answered with a shake of his head. Driving a fancy car into this neighborhood was tantamount to carrying a sign that read please rob me.

Pedro judged the boys to be about his age--eighteen--but where the streets had made Pedro into a man, these three looked . . . juvenile. Yeah, soft, childlike, their well-fed faces still marred by acne; fear and want absent from their eyes. He remembered the way they had acted the night before at The Penthouse, Jesus Delgado's upscale strip club, all peace signs and "groovy," larding their conversation with high-school Spanish to show that they were "cool"--calling Pedro "amigo" and "bro."

The preppies were wearing a uniform as distinctive as gang colors: school blazers, chinos, Oxford blue button-down shirts, and crew-neck sweaters. The first boy was football-player big, but flabby and soft, with a mop of unruly blond hair. Still carrying his baby fat, Pedro thought. The next one through the door was Pedro's height--five ten--and skinny, with black horn-rimmed glasses and limp black hair that hung to his shoulders. He looked young, like a kid. Most people would figure him for junior high way before they thought college. The last preppie was a light heavyweight, rangy and strong-looking, with a crewcut. If any of them were dangerous, it would be number three. But Pedro did not expect danger; he expected cash, or "mucho dinero," as the boys had put it when they explained their proposition, which involved moving dope on their college campus. Pedro had listened politely, knowing he couldn't lose. He'd rip them off if their deal didn't feel right, or he'd start a pipeline into a seller's market where the consumers could pay top dollar.

"Pedro, my man!" Baby Fat said.

"Amigo,"Pedro responded, initiating an elaborate handshake that he made up as he went along. "Mi casa es su casa."

"Right on!" Baby Fat answered enthusiastically. He beamed while the other two looked around nervously, taking in the AK-47 that rested on a table near a sagging couch, and the three hard cases who watched them from various parts of the room.

"So, we do business, no?" Pedro asked, putting on a heavy accent he'd mostly lost after four years in the States.

"Business, si, amigo. Lots of business."

"So, what you got for me?" Pedro asked.

"Hey, hey, that depends on what you got for us," Baby Fat answered cagily as the heads of the other two continued to swivel from one of Pedro's men to the other.

Pedro grinned. "For you I got the best shit ever. Come, I show you."

He started to turn but stopped, as the front-door guard stumbled into the room. Blood was running down the front of the guard's tie-dyed T-shirt. Someone had slit his throat. The guard collapsed on the floor. Behind him stood a muscular black man sporting a wild Afro and holding a very large gun. The preppies' eyes went wide, and Clyde dove for the AK.

"Nah, I don't think so," the black man said, squeezing off two rounds. By the time Clyde's dead body hit the floor, the room was filled with armed and dangerous-looking men. The man who'd murdered Clyde lowered his weapon. Two of his associates moved cautiously down the hall toward the back room.

"You must be Pedro," he said calmly. Pedro did not answer. "Soon you're gonna be ex-Pedro." He chuckled. As Pedro's brain raced, trying to figure out a way to stay alive, he heard several shots and a scream from the direction of the back room. The leader grinned.

"I think my boys found your stash," he told Pedro. Then he looked at the white boys, paying attention to them for the first time. They looked terrified. Their hands were stretched high above their heads as if this were a western and the stagecoach robbers had just told them to grab some sky.

"What have we got here?" He looked over his shoulder at a man with an eye-catching scar that traced a ragged path from cheek to jaw. "Abdul, what you call those nice young boys who sing all pretty at the high school?"