linoleum had been ripped away long ago, revealing the raw plywood beneath.
Dirt had actually piled up in the corner of the kitchen by the back door, where there was an industrial-size thirty-gallon plastic garbage can. The trash was overflowing.
The women had found that the bathrooms were no better. Worse, there was no running water. The toilet tank, which had no top, had to be filled manually from a heavy plastic ten-gallon water bottle.
And soon they would learn the same was true, if horribly worse in other ways, in the bedrooms.
In the master bedroom, Juan Paulo Delgado led the teenage boy to a back corner. The room was furnished with a somewhat new queen-size bed-it was Delgado’s bed, after all-a bedside table, and an older set of dresser drawers. A crudely cut sheet of plywood was nailed over the window.
Delgado kicked the boy’s feet out from under him. The teenager, unable to break his fall because his wrists were still zip-tied behind his back, yelled as he fell and struck the floor forcefully, smacking his head on the matted green shag carpeting. It stunned him to the point where he just lay there groaning softly.
Nearby, there was a black iron natural gas heater bolted to both the floor and the wall. Delgado began threading the chain around one of the heater’s iron feet, then took the two ends and made a single wrap around each of the teenager’s wrists. Then he took the small steel padlock and, removing all the slack in the chain so that the links squeezed the boy’s flesh, ran its hasp though the two loops of chain and snapped it shut.
He turned and walked over to the dresser, which had three rows of two drawers. He opened the bottom right one and was relieved that no one had touched his stuff. He removed a handheld digital voice recorder and a roll of duct tape.
He tossed the roll of tape over by the boy’s head.
He then walked over and put the recording device on the bedside table.
I’ll make two, Juan Paulo Delgado thought.
One with him making noise and one with his mouth taped shut.
Then Delgado went back out into the kitchen.
All eyes turned to him. He saw that the pretty girl in the tight jeans and pink shirt had fire in her eyes. Others’ eyes showed a mix of anger and fear. Clearly, everyone had heard the teenage boy’s yell and the sound of his fall, and then the quietness.
El Gato smiled at them.
They watched as he walked over to a kitchen cabinet beside the dirt-smudged faded-white Kenmore refrigerator, opened the cabinet, and took out a bottle of Jose Cuervo tequila. He uncapped it and took a long swallow, then held out the bottle, waving it as an offering to the women. There were no takers. He shrugged and took another pull.
Miguel Guilar walked into the kitchen and wordlessly looked around the group for the next person to be chained in the bedroom. He shook his head out of annoyance and grabbed the nearest girl by her upper right arm. It was the pudgy eighteen-year-old with the streaks of bleached hair. She pulled back from him, but when Guilar used more force, and El Cheque motioned menacingly with the TEC-9, she reluctantly went with him.
Delgado walked over to the very attractive girl in the tight jeans and pink lace blouse. She narrowed her eyes at him.
He smiled, reached out with his index finger, and stroked the soft skin of her throat on up to her chin.
The fire in her eyes grew, and she made an angry face and slapped away his hand. Then the look on her face and the fire in her eyes changed to fear as she recoiled at the thought of his response.
El Gato laughed aloud.
“Come,” he said, holding out his hand for her to take. “Let us go show your boyfriend a thing or two.”
She stood frozen. He grabbed her by the upper left arm and jerked, herding her toward the hallway that led to the master bedroom. She shook free of his grip and walked ahead of him.
When they entered the master bedroom, the pretty girl in pink saw her boyfriend lying on the carpet at the far end of the room and ran to him. He was still somewhat groggy from hitting his head on the floor.
Delgado went to them, grabbed the boy by the shirtsleeves at his shoulders, pulled him into a seated position, and leaned him against the gas heater. Then he slapped him.
The girl whimpered.
The boy opened his eyes, dazed. But it was clear that he recognized the girl and, when he made a face, Delgado, too.
“Bueno,” Delgado said.
Then El Gato stood.
The eyes of the boy and girl followed him as he walked over to the small table between them and the bed, then picked up a small electronic device and pushed a button on it. A pinhead-size red light came on. He put the device back on the table and walked back over.
Then he bent over, grabbed the girl by the waist with both of his hands, lifted her completely off the floor, and threw her onto the bed.
The pretty girl in pink started screaming hysterically. The teenage boy began yelling. The girl kicked at El Gato and flailed with her arms, fighting off his advances with a great effort.
But El Gato only laughed as he tore off her clothing.
The great effort of a ninety-five-pound girl proved no match for the strength of a muscular man twice her size.
When the women in the kitchen heard the screaming from the boy and girl, their crying intensified.
After a moment, El Cheque sighed disgustedly.
“Just shut the fuck up!” he shouted.
They were quiet a moment. Then their sad noises began again.
El Cheque shook his head.
Miguel Guilar came back into the kitchen.
El Cheque walked over to him and without a word handed him the TEC-9. Then he walked back across the kitchen and grabbed two of the teenage girls he’d eyed as they got out of the van, pushing them toward the hallway.
He said to Guilar, “Your turn to keep watch, mi amigo.”
Five minutes later, the women in the kitchen heard a girl cry out from one of the smaller bedrooms. From the master bedroom, they could no longer hear the teenage boy’s terrified shouts of “Stop! No!” over and over.
Now only the muffled cries of the pretty girl could be heard.
“Someone! Anyone! Help me! No…”
After another twenty minutes, El Gato reappeared in the kitchen, wearing only his desert camouflage cutoff shorts. In his left hand he carried the recording device. His right hand had the roll of duct tape.
He looked absently at the two mothers and their toddlers who had not yet been locked up in one of the bedrooms. The women glared back at him.
Miguel Guilar was drinking from the bottle of tequila. He grinned at El Gato and held out the bottle. El Gato grinned back and took it.
Then El Cheque came into the kitchen and removed the last of the group.
Delgado looked at Guilar and held up the recording device. “Want to hear? It came out better than I thought. The boy shouting is the better of the two, I think.”
“I already did hear…”
Delgado shrugged and said, “Bueno.”
He looked around the kitchen.
“Where is the bag of stuff?”
Guilar pointed to the doorway that led to what originally had served as the dining room.
El Gato took another swig of tequila, then went through the doorway. Guilar followed.
The onetime dining room now contained a long folding table with a battered top and rusty steel legs. It had three of the white plastic stackable chairs around it.
Against one wall were gray plastic storage bins stacked five high. These contained the various paraphernalia-the mixing bowls, the digital scales, the empty packets, et cetera-for the manufacturing of Queso Azul. One bin also held at least a dozen brand-new prepaid cellular phones, all unused and still in their original clear plastic containers.
