The rest of the week was similarly frustrating. There was no buzz on the streets, the flesh trade had yielded no leads, and
The only good news was that Cruz’s chest wound was healed and hardly ached at all any more. The leg was also mending, albeit grudgingly. He’d been to the physical therapist’s for instruction on exercises he could do, and religiously performed them every morning and evening.
The other surprising occurrence was that Dinah had taken to calling every few days to follow up on the case and to see how he was doing. Cruz was unsure how he felt about that. It had been two years since his family’s heads had been shipped to him, and life inevitably had to move on, but it had also
Cruz woke up every day with a sense of impatience, and a tremor of doom, as the days to the summit counted down. He’d made scant progress and wasn’t kidding himself. At the rate they were going,
The Acapulco night cloyed hot and humid, the air scented with the distinctive verdant aroma of the tropics. Off in the distance, the lights of the waterfront strip twinkled as partygoers celebrated their Friday fiesta; dancing and drinking until the oncoming dawn chased them to bed. The town was in decline from its heyday in the Sixties and Seventies, when the Hollywood set had made Acapulco and Puerto Vallarta must-go-to destinations, but it still saw its share of celebrants from Mexico City due to proximity — at a hundred and eighty miles away, it was the closest accessible beach resort, and still a popular getaway for those seeking a respite from the densely populated
Cartel violence had sullied the reputation of the seaside paradise. It had joined the ranks of notoriously embattled areas like Morelia and Culiacan, as roving gangs of armed thugs terrorized whole neighborhoods, and the cops either stayed away or were on the drug traffickers’ payrolls. Still, the tourist zone along the water was relatively safe, and travelers from the southern Mexican states went there in droves, ignoring the sporadic outbursts of violence.
Booming music and peals of laughter drifted up into the hills, the din amplified as it refracted off the inky water.
The industrial section of Acapulco was ominously dark and seething with menace. It was infamous as an area where people disappeared, where headless corpses with bound hands cropped up all the time. Even a predator like
The last few times he’d needed something special he couldn’t get in Culiacan or Mexico City, this contact had arranged for the goods to come into Manzanillo, the main port on the Pacific side, yet another dangerous town in the trafficking chain that ran up the coast. All shipments from South America that came up the west coast offloaded at Manzanillo, so it was a natural hub for criminality and violence. The customs officers there were legendary for their corruption, and it was considered foolhardy to ship into the port without an established connection, which the contact clearly did.
A Toyota Sequoia with a bank of spotlights across its roof pulled around the corner and rolled to a stop at the curb in front of the warehouse. Four men got out, surveying their surroundings before approaching the building and unlocking the multiple locks on the heavy steel entrance door. Two of the men took up a position on either side of the entry and stood with their hands in their loose sweatshirt pockets, the bulges of their pistols obvious.
The synthetic soles of his Doc Marten boots gripped the surface securely. He walked confidently towards the two men, the bag and his free hand clearly visible so as to avoid any accidental bouts of nervous shooting. After a brief confirmatory discussion, one of the men made a cell call, and a few moments later, the door opened and his source welcomed him into the dank interior.
“Greetings, my old friend. Glad to see you. You found the place with no complications?” Gerzain, the vendor, asked.
“No problems.”
Pleasantries concluded, they walked through the depths of the cavernous expanse until they arrived at a set of wooden crates. Another man waited nearby. Gerzain gestured to him. He approached with a crowbar and wedged it between the crate and the sealed top, then expertly pried it loose. Gerzain reached in and brushed aside the straw packing material, and stood back so his favorite client could inspect the goods. El Rey moved to the crate and crouched down, rubbing his hands along the cold smooth surface of the contents. He stood and nodded to Gerzain, who smiled with pride.
“Nice,” El Rey said.
“You only need the one? I’m having a double-discount sale tonight…” Gerzain offered.
El Rey considered the proposition, but then shook his head.
“And the rest?” El Rey asked.
“Being manufactured. It’s a very unusual request, and will take every bit of the two weeks I quoted you.”
“No problem delivering everything to Cabo?”
“Nope. On time and on budget. Guaranteed,” Gerzain assured him.
El Rey tossed him the bag of money. Gerzain smiled and began walking to the door. “Can I get you anything else? Hand grenades? Machine-guns? A tank?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Not tonight. You going to count it?”
Gerzain turned to face him, grinning, a happy man indeed.
“No need. I trust you.”
Cruz could now walk without crutches, using only the stainless steel cane that Briones had acquired for him,