Ted Bell - Spy

It was pretty much the murder capital of the world now.

A lot of windows and doors had been blown out and the plasterwork on most of the building fronts was pockmarked or missing entirely. All this had happened in the last year or two. Drug wars had terrorized this town. No law. No order. Period. Somebody’d said over a thousand people had died in the last year alone. Accidentally on purpose. One Border Patrol report Franklin had seen talked about mass graveyards to the south of town. They had to do something with all those bodies.

He saw movement to his left and swung his eyes that way. Nothing but some old dog slinking around the corner. The town was full of such animals. Crossbred, Franklin thought, with coyotes or jackals or some such thing. Ugly as sin no matter what they were, all bones and teeth.

Every now and again he’d see a human shape or a silhouette looking down at them from above. From a rooftop or to this side or the other of a window or doorway. Homer had noticed them too, but so far he hadn’t said anything more about his fears. He knew what they were getting into when he offered to come down here. Boy clearly had his mind set on it, so Franklin finally just said fine let’s go.

They’d driven down to Nuevo Laredo to have a parlay with a gang-affiliated gentleman by the name of Felix “Tiger” Tejada. Franklin had gotten a message to him via a detective in Laredo PD. Lieutenant Detective Rodriguez maintained a purely mercenary relationship with one of Tejada’s honchos. Somewhat to the sheriff’s surprise, the man had agreed to meet with him. Tejada had a lot of conditions, of course, and Franklin agreed to every one of them all without any hesitation. What else could he do? Lose his whole town?

Tiger Tejada, now he was one unusual bandito. He wasn’t smart enough to do some of the things he did, so you had to assume somebody up the line was whispering in his ear. And he wasn’t brave enough to go out and piss in a windstorm so he hired people to do his killing, stealing, and whatnot. But money? Money was not an issue for this gentleman. The DEA in Austin told Franklin that Tejada was an up and comer in the Latino gangbanger world.

Tejada, as a relatively high-ranking member of the Para Salvados, was already moving a ton of product over the border. As an amusing sideline, he had the biggest string of fancy brothels and claptrap cathouses south of Laredo. But, his real hobby was trucking aliens across the border at five thousand dollars a head. That’s where the big money was, illegal immigration. The Border Patrol called guys like Tiger “coyotes” and it was pretty darn accurate. Coyotes, that’s just what they were.

“Next right,” Franklin told Homer, putting his index finger on an intersection.

“Where’s this meeting supposed to be at?”

“I’ll show you here in a minute. Okay, left, and then stop.”

“That’s it? Right there?”

“Right here. The Plaza del Toros.”

“A bullring?”

“Let’s go.”

15

T hey pulled up as near the entrance as they could. There were a large number of motorcycles parked in under the concrete overhang, maybe thirty or forty of them, all painted in bright metallic colors. What they had in common was a large white death’s head painted on the fuel tanks. Below the skull, the symbol PS 13 was painted. Para Salvados. PS 13 rode well. They were expensive bikes, Franklin saw, Harleys and Ducatis and big Indians.

They stuck the Mossburg under the seat. Tejada had said no guns, but Franklin wasn’t walking in there completely unarmed. Homer had a gun. Franklin told Homer to take his hand off his hip as they walked toward the darkened archway, marking the entrance to the crumbling building. He didn’t want them getting shot by some trigger-happy crackhead on the way inside. The old building had a damp smell of rotting concrete and urine and time passing by.

They walked out into the center of the ring.

They were standing back-to-back in the middle of a circle of hard-packed sand about fifty-five yards across. All around them the concrete seats rose up into the darkness under the overhanging rooftop. The bad smell was even stronger out here, different. Franklin wondered if it might be a couple of centuries of blood soaked into the sand beneath his boots. Probably a sprinkling of matador blood mixed in with all the bull blood. Bull blood and bullshit, he amended his thought.

The noble corrida. He’d gone as a little kid down to Mexico City. There was a festival of some kind and they went to the Plaza del Toros Monumental. That was the biggest ring in the world at that time. His daddy had wanted him to see El Cordobés and the great Mexican matador, Carlos Arruza.

He’d seen them.

The bulls never had a chance, he thought then and now, gazing up at shadowy figures with guns moving around up on the top rows. Lots of them up there, maybe fifty or so. You had to assume they all had automatic weapons. He felt Homer’s trembling when they brushed up against each other. Just take it easy, he told him. We’re just here to talk to the man. That’s all. We’ll talk to him. Then we’ll go home. Steady.

“Welcome to the corrida, Señores,” a voice said from a tinny loudspeaker mounted high above the ring. It was Tiger. Franklin had heard his voice talking on a tape once at Laredo PD. The Feds had a tap on his home wire at that time and they’d had his cell for a while. He’d stopped using it now that he’d become rich and famous and could afford a sat phone.

“Howdy,” Franklin said, not bothering to raise his voice. They could all hear him just fine. A minute later, Tiger had some of his guys file inside the ring and fan out in a circle, maybe thirty of them, all standing behind the wooden barrera not twenty yards away. The barrera was a five-foot fence all around the ring to keep the bulls from goring the spectators. The sweet stench of marijuana wafted up from behind the thing. Some small talk and laughing. Friday night gangbangers having a good old time.

“You didn’t get my message about the guns?” the amplified voice said.

“I’m not having a conversation with a loudspeaker. You come on down here and talk man to man. We’ll put the guns down.”

There was a silence while Tiger thought that one over and discussed it with his compadres in the broadcast booth up at the top of the stadium. A blue-white spotlight suddenly came on, shining right down in their eyes. It was blinding and he hadn’t counted on that.

There was a loud bark and then the sputtering staccato sound of one of the big choppers outside exploding into life. This was followed shortly by the fairly awesome sound of about thirty more bikes being cranked and revved under the concrete overhang of the stadium.

“They leaving?” Homer asked.

“I don’t think so. I think they’re coming in.”

The wavering beam of a bike headlamp was visible in the tunnel leading to the ring. The first motorcycle to enter the ring came in slowly and took a left just inside the barrera. The rider made a slow circuit of the ring. The next rider took a right, the next a left and so on, left then right, until there were thirty or more inside, executing a slow parade at the perimeter of the ring.

Behind him, Homer said, just loud enough to be heard over the deep rumble of the bikes, “Looks like Hell’s Angels wannabes to me.”

Franklin spoke to Homer in a low voice over his shoulder. “Listen. Take your weapon out of your holster real slow and lay it on the ground.”

“You sure about this, Sheriff?”

“Yeah. Do it now.”

Homer did it but he plainly wasn’t happy about it. Franklin kicked the gun away with his boot tip.

“You coming down?” Franklin asked, squinting in the bright lights above. “Turn those dang things off if you want to talk to me.”