?See you about seven.?
He hung up, got another beer out of the fridge, and leaned against the barn?s big doorframe. He watched the kid pull weeds. He smelled the vines. The grapes. He felt the slight breeze wash over him like warm breath. He loved it here. It had started as a hiding place, but now it was home, this jagged, beautiful, thorny wilderness. Like some kind of rugged Eden. He?d kept the past at bay. He?d kept the whole world out.
And here was his nephew, come in from the East, dragging the world behind him on a leash.
Mike drank beer, shrugged. He lived in nowhere, Oklahoma. What could possibly find them here?
* * *
Enrique Mars smoked a cigar the size of a canoe and sipped from a flask of Jim Beam between his legs as his lime green 1976 Cadillac convertible roared up Highway 75 into Tulsa.
Ortega had been clear. Get in. Kill. Get out. He wanted it done quickly. Ortega didn?t say why, and Mars didn?t care. Killing was what he did. Pondering why wasn?t.
Enrique Mars was not Mexican. INS thought he was Mexican. He?d said he was Mexican to get his green card. It was easier to be Mexican.
Enrique Mars was Cuban, and had loyally served on one of Castro?s death squads for eight years. One day, without rhyme or reason, Mars decided he wanted to fuck white girls and eat at McDonald?s and drive a giant American car. He wanted to go to the United States. So he?d used his contacts to get phony papers. He jumped the first banana boat out of Havana, bluffed, bullied, and bribed his way to Mexico, and crossed the border at Juarez. It didn?t take Mars long to fall in with Ortega, who recognized Enrique?s blunt but useful talents.
His skin was a light brown. Thick mustache and beard, a gold hoop in each ear. Bald. When he smiled wide, he showed three gold teeth on the left side. At the moment he wore a purple suit and a black shirt. No tie, but a single, thick gold chain around his neck. Snakeskin cowboy boots. It was his opinion that he looked pretty damn good but also badass. A classy badass.
There was a twelve-gauge pump shotgun, two revolvers, a bowie knife, an axe handle, and a machete in the Caddy?s trunk. When Enrique Mars killed somebody, the motherfucker stayed dead.
He glanced at his watch. Approaching dinnertime. Normally, Mars would pull into a nice hotel, have a good meal, sleep, and proceed with his killing bright-eyed the next morning. But Ortega wanted it done fast. He swigged from his flask, puffed the cigar, and drove. The Caddy swallowed the miles. The sun sank dirty orange behind the horizon.
16
Thousands of miles away the man with the voice smoked a harsh Turkish cigarette and sipped a glass of Campari. He contemplated the problem of Nikki Enders.
His station in the cruel, indifferent hierarchy of the universe depended on things happening exactly how he said they would happen and at precisely the time he decreed appropriate. In the man?s opinion, Nikki?s intentional delay in completing her assignment amounted to something like a minor mutiny. He was getting a lot of business out of the Middle East recently, and he could not afford to lose the trust and respect of his associates in that region. Nikki Enders was a valuable commodity. He?d made a small fortune employing her skills. But a broken tool, however valuable, must be discarded and replaced. If he could not control her and rely upon her, then she was no longer of any use.
How to eliminate the problem? One does not send a jackal to destroy the lioness. That would only ensure the waste of a perfectly good jackal. But a pack of jackals, yes, a savage, deadly pack of them, might be able to bring down a single lioness. He picked up the phone to dial one of his minor operatives in the States. The perfect candidate would be somebody who had a reasonable chance of completing the mission, but no one of any great loss should Nikki Enders prove too formidable.
The man with the voice knew just who to call.
* * *
Ortega immediately recognized the odd accent when he answered the phone. ?It?s you. It?s been so long I had not expected to hear from you again.?
?I have some business for you.? The man with the voice explained what he wanted.
?I see. Sounds like a gang job.?
?I?ll leave it to you to decide what?s best,? the Voice said. ?Just be warned. This target bites back.?
