Don't Send Flowers E-Book

Martín Solares

• Herausgeber: Grove Press UK
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

From a writer whose work has been praised by Junot Díaz as 'Latin American fiction at its pulpy phantasmagorical finest,' Don't Send Flowers is a riveting novel centred on Carlos Treviño, a retired police detective in northern Mexico who has to go up against the corruption and widespread violence that caused him to leave the force, when he's hired by a wealthy businessman to find his missing daughter. A seventeen-year-old girl has disappeared after a fight with her boyfriend that was interrupted by armed men, leaving the boyfriend on life support and the girl an apparent kidnap victim. It's a common occurrence in the region-prime narco territory-but the girl's parents are rich and powerful, and determined to find their daughter at any cost. When they call upon Carlos Treviño, he tracks the missing heiress north to the town of La Eternidad, on the Gulf of Mexico not far from the U.S. border-all while constantly attempting to evade detection by La Eternidad's chief of police, Commander Margarito Gonzalez, who is in the pockets of the cartels and has a score to settle with Treviño. A gritty tale of murder and kidnapping, crooked cops and violent gang disputes, Don't Send Flowers is an engrossing portrait of contemporary Mexico from one of its most original voices.

Leseprobe

Praise for Martín Solares and The Black Minutes

“A breathless marvelous first novel . . . Latin American fiction at its pulpy phantasmagorical finest, this is a literary masterpiece masquerading as a police procedural and nothing else I’ve read this year comes close.”

—Junot Díaz, Times Literary Supplement

“Stunning. His characters simultaneously move toward resolution and the void, each success paradoxically dragging them down.”

—Nation

“Solares’s prose—alternately playful, poetic, and plainspoken—propels the pages.”

—Booklist

“Martín Solares uses the codes and formula of classic crime novels to create a universe where the reader is permanently on a fluctuating border between dream and reality, between fiction and the authentic violence of facts.”

—Le Monde (France)

“[Martín Solares’s] debut novel is risky business . . . One of the most ambitious crime novels that Mexico has had to offer since the great works of Paco Ignacio Taibo II.”

—Titel Magazin (Germany)

“This first novel by Solares will satisfy—to an immense degree, believe me—those who enjoy impossible missions and quixotic adventures.”

—El País (Spain)

“Solares displays an impressive string of situations, and constructs an action-packed plot that never declines . . . A true novelist.”

—El Mundo (Spain)

Also by Martín SolaresThe Black Minutes

First published in the United States of America and Canada in 2018 by Grove Atlantic Inc.

First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Grove Press UK, an imprint of Grove Atlantic Inc.

Copyright © Martín Solares, 2015English translation copyright © Heather Cleary, 2018

The moral right of Martín Solares to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

Originally published in Spanish under the title No manden flores in 2015 by Literatura Random House, Barcelona and Ciudad de México

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of the book.

Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright-holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.

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A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

Paperback ISBN 978 1 61185 489 3

E-book ISBN 978 1 61185 916 4

Printed in Great Britain

Grove Press, UK

Ormond House

26–27 Boswell Street

London

WC1N 3JZ

www.groveatlantic.com

PART ONE

The Mysteries of La Eternidad

1

He told them there was someone who could find the girl: an ex-cop.

He told them that if this individual was still alive after the trouble he’d had with his own team, he’d be just the man for the job. He’d survived assignments like this one—where a death wish was more of an asset than deductive skills—several times already. He told them that if this man was still alive, which wasn’t entirely unlikely, they might find him in one of the next states over, Veracruz or San Luis Potosí. Every so often an informant would claim to have seen him on the highway heading into La Eternidad. According to these reports, he said, the individual in question still drives a white car. He settles in at a certain restaurant down near the breakwater for a few hours, chats with the owners, sees to his business, and heads back the way he came. No one knows where he goes. Others say he’s always in and out of town and might be mixed up in smuggling, but I don’t think so, vouched consul Don Williams. He always kept on the right side of the law. You might even have hired him at some point, Mr. De León. In any event, if this guy does happen to still be alive, he’d be just the man for the job.

Mr. De León asked what the individual’s name was and the consul replied,

“Carlos Treviño.”

“Don’t know him,” the magnate snapped. He prided himself on knowing each of his employees, and Treviño had never been on his payroll. “I don’t know him and the name doesn’t ring a bell. I won’t risk it. I can’t take the chance he’s working for them.”

“Treviño would never work for a criminal,” the gringo insisted. “Not knowingly, at least. Unlike most people in this city.”

He was interrupted by a loud crack.

“What was that?” the consul asked, while Mr. De León’s bodyguards craned their necks like two dogs sniffing out danger. “It sounded like it came from nearby,” the consul insisted, but neither the woman nor the men at the table budged. The sound of gunshots—a single round or a hail of bullets—or a grenade blast in the distance as night fell had become a part of life around the port, no more unusual than the words extortion and kidnapping. Noticing the consul’s anxiety, Valentín Bustamante, a.k.a. the Bus, the head of Mr. De León’s security detail, stepped onto the terrace to have a look through the magnate’s telescope. A fat man with a skinny mustache, he moved his six-foot-three frame with an agility unimaginable for someone his size, as if gravity didn’t exist, and pointed the instrument at the next neighborhood over. Hunched over like that, his round face and childlike features accented by his ridiculous facial hair, he almost looked like someone who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Which was true, as long as that fly was under three feet tall and posed no threat to Mr. De León. Meanwhile, Rodolfo Moreno Valle—second in command of the magnate’s security detail and as serious as a heart attack with his bushy eyebrows, goatee, cowboy boots, and black leather jacket—walked over to cover his associate’s position next to the door and stood there with his arms crossed.

For a few seconds, the rustling of the palm trees was the only sound. A northern wind was blowing in, one of those that haunt the Gulf and can hang around for ten or twelve hours, knocking down trees and old houses. The gale reached out to stir up a handful of paper napkins next to the coffeepot with the tips of its fingers; for a moment, the napkins seemed to come to life, as if they were trying to transmit a message. The meeting was being held in Mr. De León’s mansion, one of the biggest in the luxe portside neighborhood next to a valley of slums on this side of the river. It was a three-story abode inspired by California’s Spanish colonial revivals, with huge picture windows and terraces adorned with wrought iron and carved stone, in a gated community complete with a small golf course, swimming pool, and a natural spring. All this, of course, could be seen only if you made it past the walled perimeter accented by flowering vines and bodyguards. The windows looked out over the lagoon—without question the most beautiful stretch of La Eternidad’s port—but no one was there to talk about beauty.

“Why play dumb?” Mr. De León’s wife asked. She was a tall, prickly blonde used to getting her way: an overbearing woman who was still in shape at forty-five thanks in large part to her bad temper. “Go talk to the three bosses, offer them some cash, and put an end to this.”

“That would put your daughter at enormous risk,” the consul objected. “If they don’t realize she’s disappeared, that’s one advantage we have. We need to find another way.”

“Well, the two of you seem pretty relaxed,” she snapped. “I can’t even imagine what Cristina must be going through right now, kidnapped and terrorized by those animals.”

The consul looked at his watch. It was true: thirty-six hours had passed since the girl disappeared, and every minute that went by made it seem less likely they’d find her alive.

A truck’s brakes screeched on a nearby street. The consul looked Mr. De León squarely in the eye.

“We don’t have time to waste. Instead of waiting for them to contact us, send a specialist in to find her. One who won’t raise suspicions. The detective I’m recommending is fearless and discreet. He could run an investigation and come up with a strategy for getting her back. He knows the area and has a team, or at least he did a few months ago. He’s brilliant, the type who can handle any situation. He could get himself out of a whale’s belly if he needed to.”

A shadow fell across Mr. De León’s face.

“And why should I hire this guy, when I have an army of bodyguards at my disposal?” he said, gesturing toward the most threatening member of his security detail, the man with the goatee. “Moreno’s an ace with this kind of mission; he was trained by the German military. Why would I hire someone I know nothing about?”

The consul, aware that the businessman was a two-hundredpound bundle of nerves, replied as diplomatically as possible: “I’m afraid your bodyguards wouldn’t be able to infiltrate their ranks without being detected, Rafael, especially not the ones you trust most. Whoever got close enough to kidnap your daughter must have been studying your security for months. As for La Eternidad’s police and military, I wouldn’t recommend calling them in on this. The police would sell their souls to the devil if he was the highest bidder, and the military depends on the politicians. And you know who they work for. This guy was the best detective the port had seen in years. He was the one who caught the Chainsaw Killer.”

The businessman’s wife eyed him suspiciously.

“The Chainsaw Killer? The one who murdered those girls?” They were talking about a maniac who kidnapped young women from different parts of the city and tortured them. “That doesn’t mean a thing,” she went on. “Everyone knows the guy they caught was just a scapegoat.”

“Precisely,” said the consul. “The man officially accused of the crimes is innocent, but the detective I’ve been telling you about caught the real killer and ended up in hot water with his colleagues because of it.”

Mr. De León looked up when he heard this, intrigued. The case had been big news around the Gulf of Mexico because of the criminal’s extraordinary cruelty, because of how hard it had been to find him, and, above all, because of the scandal that erupted when word got out they’d let the maniac walk while an innocent man rotted away in a jail cell.

“That was a long time ago,” thundered the businessman. “If he’s as good as you say, why hasn’t anyone heard of him? Shouldn’t he be famous by now?”

“A good detective doesn’t get famous,” said the consul.

“Will you vouch for him?” the magnate asked.

The consul cleared his throat.

“Listen, I’m not saying he’s squeaky-clean. He’s probably taken a bribe or two, like everyone at police headquarters. But in the Chainsaw Killer case, he was the only ranking officer who actually tried to catch the criminal, even if his enemies say he was only in it for the reward. You know how things are here. But as long as he was on the force, he always collaborated with the consulate and with me directly, to the extent permitted by Mexican law, of course. He kept it on the straight and narrow. That’s why he only lasted four years on the job. Treviño’s one of the few honest people I’ve met in the Gulf.” Noticing the silence this last remark provoked across the table, he added, “An honest man who’d be worthy of a position in your family’s company.”

Mr. De León and his wife nodded, as if appeased, and the consul made a note in some corner of his brain to show more respect in the future.

The door to the terrace opened again and the fat man with the absurd mustache walked back into the room, wrapping up a conversation on his walkie-talkie with, “Affirmative.” He installed himself next to Mr. De León and didn’t say a word until the consul asked him, “What’s going on out there?”

“There’s activity in Colonia Pescadores. La Cuarenta’s thugs. It’s the weekend, they must be off their asses. I also hear the boy hasn’t come to yet, but we’re keeping an eye on him.”

He was talking about Cristina’s boyfriend, who was still in the hospital. Mr. De León turned crimson with rage.

“I told you to leave him alone!”

“It was my idea,” interrupted the consul. “I didn’t want to take any chances. We’re watching him as a precaution.”

It wasn’t likely the boyfriend would ever speak again, but the consul desperately wanted to hear what he had to say since he was the only witness to what happened. Sitting there, a balding old man with a potbelly, dressed in a plaid shirt and construction boots, he didn’t look like much. But he’d been the consul to the United States there in La Eternidad for more than ten years and was one of the people who knew the most about crime in the region. To his friends, he was Don Williams; to Chief Margarito and company, he was Our Consul, if they were on good terms, and That Asshole Don Williams, if they felt he’d stuck his nose in above his pay grade in La Eternidad. There was no doubt in Mr. De León’s mind that if there was a security expert in La Eternidad, the gringo was it. The minute he heard they’d found Cristina’s car and that her boyfriend, Alberto Perkins, was in critical condition, he chose Williams to lead the investigation and negotiations.

“If they’re going to keep an eye on him, make sure they’re discreet. Remember, his father’s an associate of mine,” Mr. De León said. “Damn it, Consul. Stop wasting time. It was Los Nuevos.”

There was no evidence to support the magnate’s theory, but the possibility worried the consul just the same. If it did turn out to be Los Nuevos, it was only a matter of time before they’d find the girl’s body, probably with signs of torture. But no one was calling to demand a ransom, and there were no new leads to follow.

“Duckie, go talk to Margarito,” begged Mrs. De León, calling Don Williams, a.k.a. Donald Duck, a.k.a. That Fucking Gringo, by a nickname only his closest friends used.

Since they couldn’t keep the local police from getting involved in the case—they were the ones who’d found the car, after all—De León and Don Williams had met with Chief Margarito at the magnate’s home the night before. It was a hostile encounter: they barely said a word to the port’s chief of police. They listened to what he had to say—“We’ll find the girl, don’t worry, sir”—and sent him off. The consul thought he was a prime suspect. Given the chief’s reputation, they couldn’t rule out that he was involved in the kidnapping or that he might get involved: he was the kind who would rescue the girl just so he could hide her again and demand three times the ransom—which is why the only information they gave him was a recent photo of Cristina.

Unfortunately, it was pointless to turn to local politicians or the mayor for help: they were all the governor’s lapdogs, even though Mr. De León had bankrolled more than one of their campaigns and had friends and relatives among them. There were two rumors circulating about the governor of Tamaulipas. The negative version was that the Gov permitted this wave of violence because he was the one who had founded Los Nuevos, the most terrifying criminal organization working in the Gulf, a huge operation that specialized in terrorizing the locals by torturing and dismembering its rivals. According to the positive version, though, the governor wasn’t one of the criminals. He just turned a blind eye to their crimes in exchange for a generous monthly payout. When crime rose to truly outrageous levels in the state, a group of businessmen went to see the governor to complain about all the kidnappings, robberies, and extortion, and the cynical way Los Nuevos showed up each month to charge the Business Association an astronomical fee in exchange for so-called protection, just to let them work in peace. The whole time the businessmen were explaining the situation, even presenting photos of the men who were extorting them, the Gov never took his eyes off his BlackBerry; he typed away on it, all smiles, as if he were playing a game or sending jokes to someone. One of the businessmen eventually reached over to cover the screen with his hand and asked, “What are we supposed to do, Your Honor?” To which the governor replied, “Pay them, of course.”

One of the businessmen who’d been at that meeting told the consul all this while drowning his sorrows in a bottle of whiskey. That’s how things were around there. The gringo was no stranger to Chihuahua or Durango, Nuevo León or Coahuila, Baja California or Sonora, and he’d come to the conclusion that—though the competition was tight—for three years and counting, Los Nuevos had been the bloodiest, most ruthless criminal organization in the Gulf: a state within the state run by psychopaths who acted with total impunity.

The consul took a sip from his bottle of Evian, cleared his throat, and insisted, “We should get started on the investigation, on our own, before the trail goes cold. Instead of sending your people”—he tilted his chin at the Bus and Moreno—“I suggest hiring someone who can get past every security post in the neighborhoods held by the Cartel del Puerto, Los Nuevos, even La Cuarenta. And find out if one of those organizations is behind the kidnapping. If we can confirm that, we can plan a rescue mission or at least as close as we can get to one under the circumstances.”

The previous night, as he made his way to Mr. De León’s house, Williams could sense the tension hanging over the port: sentries from various criminal organizations walked around brazenly with walkie-talkies in hand, ready to report any suspicious activity to their bosses; pickup trucks drove down the street with armed men in the back, and the gringo counted at least three fake checkpoints set up along the main avenue to block access to the streets where the city’s main capos lived.

The consul knew that Mr. De León had thirty guards assigned to his different businesses in La Eternidad; they worked in teams of two and were trained and ready for action. He also knew that the magnate paid Chief Margarito every month, just like all the other businessmen in the area did, just like he paid Generals Rovirosa and Ortigosa of the army and the marines, respectively. Still, the consul rejected the idea of going to any of the above for help. None of them wanted to kick the hornet’s nest. Los Nuevos had a hundred highly trained men in La Eternidad alone, and more were arriving every day from the training grounds in the north of the state.

“We don’t want to get the kidnappers’ guard up,” the gringo repeated. “Your best bet is to hire Treviño. People aren’t exactly lining up to work in this city. The longer we sit here talking, though, the less chance we have of finding her.”

Mr. De León clenched his jaw.

“Do whatever you have to do. Just get my daughter back.”

“All right.”

The gringo took a deep breath, stood, and went to the terrace to make a call. As the wind picked up, they watched him leaf through his agenda, take notes or jot down a number, then hang up and dial it; occasionally he’d cover one ear and shout in the general direction of the receiver. Every now and then, the wind would shake the treetops so violently he seemed in danger of falling from the second floor.

“Tell that idiot to come inside,” said Mrs. De León.

Before they could go get him, though, the consul opened the glass door, sat down in front of them, and held up his phone.

“I found him. But he won’t be easy to convince.”

“These two will go get him,” said the magnate, pointing to Moreno and the Bus.

“I should be the one to go,” the consul suggested, but Mr. De León wouldn’t hear of it.

“You’re staying here. What happens if they call while you’re out looking for this guy? Who’s going to talk to the kidnappers?”

The gringo shrugged. “All right, but show him respect. And plenty of it. He can have quite a temper.”

“Don’t worry.” Mr. De León laughed. “These guys are real diplomats.”

Turning to them, he said, “Bring him here. Don’t take no for an answer, understand?” And then he added, without looking at the consul, “If this guy lets us down, I’m holding Williams responsible.”

“Where do we find him?” asked the Bus.

“He lives in Playa de las Ballenas”—the gringo drew a quick diagram on an index card—“in Veracruz, near Isla del Toro. Ask for a hotel called Las Ballenas. The man you’re looking for runs the place.”

“That’s four hours away,” said the Bus.

“Three and a half if you hurry,” the consul corrected him.

Moreno and the Bus turned, puzzled, and headed down the monumental spiral staircase. When they stepped into the garden, three guys in black jackets walked over to them for instructions.

“We’re headed out on an errand. We’ll be back early tomorrow. Rafita’s in charge,” said Moreno as they got into one of the two black F-150 Lobos parked in front of the door.

“Carlos Treviño, a.k.a. the Detective.” The Bus mopped the sweat from his brow.

“Fuck that fucker,” grunted Moreno, turning the key in the ignition. “What bridge should I take? The Pánuco?”

“No, take the new one. We want to avoid the checkpoints.”

As the Bus leaned back in his seat, Moreno hesitated for a split second, not sure he’d heard him correctly. The new bridge? Wasn’t that where they’d killed Mr. De León’s last driver, his immediate predecessor? But the Bus was clearly in a hurry. “Hit it, cabrón.” So Moreno peeled out, leaving behind them a cloud of dust like a gateway to the terrible events that were about to unfold.

2

“Of course I won’t go,” Treviño said. “Of course not. You’ve got to be crazy.”

The consul drummed nervously on the table with the tips of two fingers as he studied the new arrival. The detective looked tanner than before; he definitely wasn’t as thin as when he’d been on the force, but he hadn’t lost the legendary self-confidence that had landed him in so much trouble. He’d clearly gotten into it with the bodyguards along the way: the Bus glared at him with obvious hatred.

Treviño had been on the hotel’s terrace when they arrived. It was early evening, and the taste of salt filled his mouth. He’d noticed them right away: most people who came to the beach had eyes only for the waves, but these two didn’t seem to see the water at all.

He’d watched them park at the end of the road where the sand begins and walk up between the two rows of pines. Three black dogs sensed the threat and charged toward the curtain of vegetation. Their yelps, which grew increasingly frantic, were his second warning. Treviño realized he’d been found.

He watched them flag down one of the vendors who walked up and down the beach trying to sell coconut candies. The two men called out to the vendor, who froze in terror. He saw the taller of the two lean over him and watched him point to the hotel. The visitors examined the old wooden structure with none of the delight typical of tourists. It seemed like they could see him there sitting on the terrace under a throw blanket, but they stood motionless against the afternoon sun, calculating their approach. They didn’t seem like military men or criminals—maybe hit men sent by the chief himself. Meanwhile, the dogs were going crazy: There are two strangers here. Isn’t someone going to do something?

He saw the two men start moving and cursed under his breath. I’ll be damned, he thought. He was grateful there was hardly anyone in the immense row of palm cabanas, at least: just four gringas playing volleyball in the distance and two old Canadians drinking fruity cocktails. He watched a big wave form and break on the shore with a deafening crash and realized this peaceful life was about to come to an end. So he stood and folded the blanket, which had a Bengal tiger printed on it, then headed into the hotel to get his gun.

The first things he saw as he entered the wooden building were the honey-colored eyes of his wife, who asked him if something was wrong. “Don’t go out there,” he ordered. “There are two men coming this way, and they look suspicious.” He watched her face tighten with fear and headed down the hall. He passed four rooms meant for the guests, climbed a few steps, and opened a door marked with the number 5. The family’s residence: a table, a bed, a crib, a sink full of baby bottles, a wooden wardrobe, and an array of plastic toys scattered across the floor. He looked out the window facing the road and saw them approaching. He had no time to waste.

He opened the door of the wardrobe and took out the shoebox he kept tucked in the corner. He’d promised his wife but never could part with his Taurus PT99—even though it weighed almost two pounds and even though he could be arrested for owning a nine-millimeter now that he was a civilian. The weapon held sixteen rounds and was both fast and intimidating. He’d never felt comfortable with a six-shooter. Well, he thought to himself, it’s not easy to walk away from your past. Detective Carlos Treviño, who’d been living under an assumed name for two years, slipped the Taurus into his waistband, covered it with his shirt, and walked onto the terrace. There was no time to do anything else, because the men were already there.

He thought he saw the visitors exchange a glance to make sure they were on the same page as he took his place on the far side of one of the terrace’s columns. The taller of the two, who was also the broader one—a man with a little round head and a Pedro Infante mustache—took a step toward the stairs but was discouraged by a wave of Treviño’s hand: That’s as far as you go. Far from seeming embarrassed by the incident, the man with the ridiculous mustache stopped in his tracks and asked for the manager of the hotel. He had to yell to make himself heard over the constant growling of the dogs, which were getting more riled by the minute, and the waves crashing against the shore. Treviño looked at the huge fellow without responding, until the mustachioed man repeated: “We’re looking for Carlos Treviño.” The man with the Taurus didn’t blink an eye, so he added, “The one who used to be a cop.”

Treviño studied him carefully and asked, “What do you want?”

The giant looked at him and said, “Mr. Rafael de León would like to speak with you.”

It seemed like a joke: Rafael de León, one of the richest men on the Gulf? There was a rumor going around that he was the one who’d hired the guys that left Juan Gómez, the only journalist in the state capital who was even marginally respected, in a wheelchair.

“Mr. De León would like to contract your services,” added the giant. “And will pay you well.”

In the distance, the group of gringas erupted in laughter. The detective thought about it for a moment and shook his head.

“I’m not the man you’re looking for.”

The second visitor, more impatient than the first, thundered, “You were a cop, right? You worked for Chief Margarito?”

Treviño looked at him, more annoyed by the minute.

“You heard wrong. I don’t do that kind of thing anymore.”

That was when the two men’s hands went to their waistbands.

“Well, we’re sorry, but Mr. De León wants to see you.”

This just got ugly, Treviño thought.

Less than four hours later they walked into a large fifth-story conference room with an impressive wall of glass that looked out over the buildings that made up the Grupo De León. Some of his employees were carrying poles; others were hauling sacks.

The meeting got off to a rough start. From the moment he laid eyes on the consul, who was supposed to be mediating the encounter, Treviño was primed to beat the shit out of him. What’s that fucking traitor up to now? The last time they’d worked together, things had ended badly. To say the least. The mayor had offered a reward for catching the man who was butchering women in the city. After overcoming more trials than Ulysses and battling the corruption and apathy of his own colleagues, Treviño managed to identify and apprehend the perpetrator, a psychopath who also happened to be the son of an influential man. Without missing a beat, Chief Cavernosum let the killer go, found a fall guy, and then accused Treviño of running drugs and ordered him to be tortured. Margarito was even about to apply the Ley de Fugas—the anti–habeas corpus—to have Treviño shot while in custody. And the whole time, there was the gringo, comfortably tucked away in the consulate, not lifting a finger to help.

The detective rested a hand on his waistband and the consul saw that the bodyguards had not been able to convince him to leave his weapon at the door. That’s why they were so edgy and why they stuck so close to him.

“Welcome,” Mr. De León said, inviting him to take a seat. When it became clear that Treviño was not about to greet him in return, the magnate withdrew the hand he’d extended and let it fall to his side with all the grace he could muster. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

Treviño shook his head and looked the man over. He’d heard a lot about Rafael de León, but he didn’t expect him to be so young. The blond man behind the desk was almost six feet tall and probably pushing forty-five, though he seemed to have the energy of a twenty-year-old. They disliked one another from the start, but both tried to hide it. He’ll try to put one over on me, thought De León. “This son of a bitch would sell his own mother,” Treviño said to himself.

The statement wasn’t unfounded. In the 1930s, the De León family had amassed one of the biggest fortunes in the state. The founding De Leóns were from Havana, but had been lured to La Eternidad by the Mexican oil rush. Their efforts paid off: within ten years these tireless entrepreneurs had opened nearly every automotive shop you could find along the Gulf of Mexico, and they boasted that they opened a new distribution center every year. Toward the end of the 1940s they got involved in the steel industry with the same success, and in the early eighties they founded a chain of pharmacies called El Tucán, managing to turn it into the biggest distributor of medical supplies in the northeast of the country thanks to a dozen important clients, including the teachers’ and oil workers’ unions and a succession of state governments. But all that glory belongs to his grandfather and his father. Rafael de León is known for being a deadbeat. There were enough stories of the magnate’s immorality floating around to fill an encyclopedia, thought the detective. When his father died in 1980, the black sheep of the family was obliged to give up the international party scene and come back to take over the family businesses. To everyone’s surprise, instead of destroying the empire his predecessors had built with his indulgent lifestyle, Rafael lifted the company and his partners out of the unstable position into which they’d fallen after his father’s death. In less than three years, he got his family’s businesses growing steadily again; after a disastrous start that had the shareholders calling for his head, the young executive achieved such impressive sales figures and opened so many stores that the investors could only sit back and smile.

Don Williams, consul to the United States in La Eternidad— and, by the look of things, security adviser to tycoons in a bind— glanced at Treviño’s white guayabera shirt and cleared his throat.

“Mr. De León needs your help.”

You’ve gotta give the gringo credit, thought Treviño. First, because he’s still hanging around here, where so many people hate him. Second, because he had the balls to come looking for me.

“They kidnapped my daughter the night before last,” said the magnate, picking up a small silver frame. “They took her as she was leaving Giza.”

He was talking about the hot nightclub of the moment. It was built in the shape of a pyramid and all the kids went there to dance and get drunk.

“Talk to the law,” said the detective.

“We don’t want the police mixed up in this, and we don’t want anything to do with Chief Margarito. What I want is for you to go find my daughter.”

The magnate turned the frame around, revealing the image of a radiant blonde with green eyes who could have passed for a European actress. Though the pale, bottomless pools of her eyes and the glint of mischief behind them caught his attention first, Treviño’s gaze quickly wandered to the waves of hair that framed the perfect oval of her face like a crown. Her nose was perfectly sculpted, and it was hard not to want to stare for a long while at the remarkable curves of her full, sensual lips. This girl was born to eat the world alive. Like anyone seeing Cristina for the first time, Treviño was floored.

“She’s sixteen,” said her father.

“About to be seventeen,” her mother corrected him.

The detective examined the girl’s face—her sparkling, defiant smile—and turned to Mrs. De León.

“Did the two of you have a fight recently?”

Mrs. Cecilia de León nodded, somewhat dismissively. “Like we do every weekend. Nothing important. It’s not easy to be the mother of a teenage girl who’s also an only child.” That last phrase, crackling with resentment, was aimed at her husband.

“Have you checked the homes of her friends and her boyfriend? If your daughter has the motivation and the resources, she might be hiding out with someone she trusts. They do that, at her age.”

“She’s not with any of them,” the girl’s mother shot back. “Her friends are responsible, serious girls, and their parents swear she’s not hiding out with them. They wouldn’t lie to me.”

“Does she have a cell phone?”

“We call her every five minutes, but she doesn’t answer.”

“I know she liked to party,” Mr. De León’s voice grew more serious. “She’s young and I taught her to do as she pleased, but this isn’t a childish tantrum.”

He spread a series of snapshots out on the desk. The first was of a pink luxury convertible with both doors open, abandoned in a parking lot; the next one showed a stain left on the pavement by a dark liquid. It didn’t take much imagination to guess it was blood. The last one was a picture of a young man hooked up to a breathing machine in what appeared to be an expensive private clinic.

“Her boyfriend. They left him in a coma.”

Judging by the number of tubes going into and out of his body, the boy was never getting out of that bed.

“They arrived at the club and left together. They found him, but my daughter . . .”

Mr. De León looked exhausted: his eyes were glossy and his jaw was slack. This man’s hitting a wall, thought the detective. The adrenaline and the sleepless night had caught up with him.

Mrs. De León pointed to the photo of the boy in the hospital. “If that’s how they left him, we don’t even want to think about what they did to her.”

Treviño thought for a moment before he added, “And I’m sure you did a thorough search of the local hospitals and the morgue.”

The man nodded. “She’s not anywhere, not in any local hospital, and we already sent her dentist to examine the corpses they haven’t been able to identify. No one’s called about a ransom, either. It’s like the earth just swallowed her whole.”

Treviño looked at a telephone that had been set up on a small base with speakers in the middle of the desk. Off to one side were a laptop and a sophisticated device with a map of the city waiting for the kidnappers to make contact. These tracking technologies were Don Williams’s specialty, he recalled. That Fucking Gringo, right in front of him.

The detective sighed. It didn’t look good for the girl. If her parents turned to the bureaucratic labyrinth of the law, his colleagues on the police force would take at least a week to produce any results. If the police in La Eternidad could be trusted, first they’d have to file a report with the prosecutor’s office, which would then pass the case to the police, who would open a file on the case and, if they managed to identify the guilty parties or catch them in the act, would ask the prosecutor to initiate judicial proceedings against them. Then a judge would review the case and sign a warrant to arrest the accused. If they were to be brought in, they’d be given a sentence that would first pass through the prosecutor’s office; then, once they were remanded, they’d have a hearing before the judge. It was a long and tortuous process that in other countries would take less time and yield better results. But we’re talking about La Eternidad, Tamaulipas, where the law is sold to the highest bidder, and the police round out their salaries with payouts from the criminals.

“We need your help, Treviño. You know the port better than anyone, and you were a good cop,” said the consul.

And because this was the exact phrase he’d used a few years earlier to convince him to do the right thing, Treviño struggled not to punch him in the face.

“You’ve got a shitty memory, for a pathological liar,” he exploded. “Tell them to go talk to your friend, Margarito.”

Everyone, including Mr. De León, could tell that the detective’s answer had offended Don Williams. Sensing there was about to be trouble, Moreno and the Bus discreetly moved closer to Treviño, but the magnate stopped them with a wave of his hand and changed the subject.

“I want nothing to do with Chief Margarito. On the other hand, Don Williams insists that no one knows the chief’s methods better than you, which makes you our first choice for finding our daughter. I’ve also heard that thanks to your time on the force, you know the people in the trade you’d need to talk to and how not to stir up trouble with them. That more than one of them owes you a favor. What I’d like to ask is that while we wait for their call you go out and see if either Los Nuevos or the Cartel del Puerto has my daughter.”

Treviño shook his head.

“I don’t have connections with either of those organizations.”

“Not with La Cuarenta, either?” the girl’s mother asked.

“Not with any of them,” the detective insisted. “I dealt with them only as much as I had to and always kept it professional, back when I was a cop.”

The gringo interrupted him.

“The investigation doesn’t necessarily have to start there, though. It’s too early to say for sure that Cristina was taken by someone in the trade.”

“It was Los Nuevos,” the magnate declared.

Streams of tears were running down his wife’s cheeks. She cried silently, wiping her face with a handkerchief. Treviño looked suspiciously at De León.

“Why do you think it was them?”

The magnate fixed his gaze on the window before answering.

“Over the past year . . . or maybe two years . . . several people who identified themselves as belonging to those organizations have tried to extort money from me. Repeatedly.” De León chose his words carefully. “My people felt compelled to respond to these aggressions. It’s possible, though it would be the worst possible scenario, that they’ve taken my daughter as payback for the way we treated them.”

His wife sobbed convulsively and he went to comfort her. In the meantime, the detective looked the Bus and Moreno over and realized that the giant with the ridiculous mustache and the guy with the goatee probably had no qualms about taking care of a few delinquents here and there. It couldn’t be easy, meeting with and then neutralizing the criminals lining up to get the Grupo De León to pay dues.

“Who came here trying to get money out of you?” asked the detective.

“Pretty much everyone, it seems,” the consul chimed in.

The magnate continued. “The fucking bums who terrorized my secretaries said they were Los Nuevos. There were others, too, who said they were with the Cartel del Puerto, Mr. Obregón’s organization. They were more serious, respectful even, but they wanted their share just the same. There’s also been plenty of derelicts who come by claiming to work for one of them: small-time criminals, gang members trying to run their own racket. Ever since things started getting really bad around here, any asshole can just grab a gun and come down, trying to collect dues.”

“Any fatalities?” The ex-cop asked, eyeing the bodyguards. “

How should I put this . . .” Mr. De León replied. “I don’t pay them to stand around with their arms crossed.”

Treviño wondered how many of the execution-style killings carried out around the port over the past few months had been the handiwork of the two bodyguards standing in front of him and how much Mr. De León must have paid the police and the local press to keep the corpses off the front page of the papers.

“I’m sorry,” Treviño said, resting his hands on his knees as though he were about to stand. “I hope you find your daughter safe and sound. I’d like to help you, but I’m not looking for any trouble.”

“We haven’t even discussed numbers. And it would only be until they called.” Mr. De León insisted.

“You were given bad advice,” the detective said, looking at Williams. “I don’t do this kind of thing anymore. Investigating a crime always involves some risk, but investigating anyone in the trade is suicide.”

“Wait. There must be some way.”

“Why don’t you send your people?”

“Because I need them here, keeping an eye on the company.”

“Bring someone in from the capital.” He shrugged. “Or get the gringo to help you hire a detective from the other side, someone from the FBI.”

“They wouldn’t last five minutes here,” the magnate said.

“Do it for my daughter,” Mrs. De León broke through the formalities and free of the magnate’s arms. She took the detective’s hands. “Think about her. My husband will reward you generously.”

“I’m sorry”—Treviño looked up—“but I don’t do this kind of thing anymore. I explained it very clearly to your people, but they insisted on bringing me.”

“Treviño.” Mrs. De León’s pale eyes sparkled. “Please. Just until they call.”

After gently removing himself from the woman’s grip, Treviño felt obligated to explain. “Look,” he said. “If I take this gig, I’ll have to start over from zero in some other part of the country. I wouldn’t be able to live around here ever again, and that’s no good for me. I’ve finally got my life here set up, which wasn’t easy, and I like it the way it is. Not to mention the fact that my wife would kill me. I promised her I’d never do that kind of thing again. You’re a wife. I’m sure you understand.”

“Look.” Mr. De León wrote a figure on a piece of paper and showed it to the visitor. “With this much money, you and your family could start over anywhere you wanted. And start over right.”

“If I make it out alive.” A smile flashed across half of the detective’s face.

“As a father I understand your position, and I ask that you understand mine. If anything happens to you, I’ll take care of your family. They’ll have everything they could possibly need.”

Treviño looked the magnate in the eyes, less certain than before. He thought about it for a moment and said, “No, but thanks.”

Seeing things take a turn for the worse, the gringo let out a heavy sigh, stood, and walked to the window, keeping Moreno between him and the detective.

“There’s also your brother. We know he entered the United States illegally, running from Los Nuevos. Poor guy. He was a pretty good CPA, and now he’s stuck parking cars in San Antonio, living off tips and whatever he can find in the trash. Just imagine: a man with his education and character, having a hard time putting food on the table. He’s been having a rough go of it for months now, and he could be deported at any time. Just imagine what would happen if Los Nuevos got their hands on him. Your brother needs a green card and I can get him one. Otherwise”—the consul coughed twice—“he might end up back here, and that wouldn’t be good.”

Treviño clenched his fists and shot the gringo an eloquent look. Both Moreno and the Bus kept their eyes on the ex-cop, who weighed half as much as either of them but could still cause plenty of trouble, as he’d proved when they went to pick him up.

A cement truck passed under the window and the building shook for a few seconds. Right then, Mrs. De León caught sight of the figure her husband had marked on the slip of paper, rolled her eyes, and muttered, “Don’t be so cheap. Offer him more. What you’ve written there is an insult.”

“I’ll triple the offer,” said Mr. De León, also rolling his eyes. But the detective snorted and shook his head.

When the building stopped shaking, the detective turned to the magnate.

“Five days. If I don’t find anything in that time, the deal is off. The only condition is that my brother gets his green card no matter what.”

Mr. De León and his wife breathed a sigh of relief. Five days were better than nothing.

“Deal,” said the gringo.

“You’ll be paid in full when you find my daughter,” said the magnate. “And there’s a bonus in it for you if you bring her back alive. What do you need to get started?”

Treviño didn’t even look at him. “Just a car. And some cash, to pay informants.”

“The car you can have right now, just go out to the parking lot and take whichever one you want. And take one of these guys with you,” he said, pointing to Moreno and the Bus.

“Take one of these guys?”

“It’s not a good idea to head out alone. Getting around can be complicated here.”

Treviño looked at the two gorillas standing across from him and shook his head.

“You have no idea how bad the city’s gotten,” the consul insisted. “And you’ll be happy to have them around if you run into Margarito.”

Treviño looked at the bodyguards and considered the offer. He didn’t seem convinced.

“How much do you need to get started?”The detective didn’t answer, so Mr. De León opened the top drawer of his desk, took out a stack of bills, stuck it into an envelope, and slid it across the table. “Here’s two hundred thousand pesos.”

The detective looked suspiciously at the magnate.

“Something important is still missing, you know.”

“Whatever you need.”

“My intervention here is illegal unless you sign a contract hiring me as a bodyguard. If the military stops me, or Margarito does, I’ll need to account for this weapon I’m carrying.”

De León shot him the smile he reserved for business deals that were working out in his favor. “The contract’s been ready for a few hours. It just needs your signature.”

He signaled to Moreno, who left the room. Sweet mother, thought the detective. What have I gotten myself into?

Just then, Treviño’s cell phone rang. The detective glanced at the screen, excused himself, and stepped into a corner of the room to take the call. The consul caught every word of the conversation.

“Yes . . . I’m here in a meeting with Rafael de León . . . Yeah, the one from the pharmacies. I didn’t go to him. He came looking for me . . . No, there’s nothing to worry about. They’re just offering me a job in his company. I’ll be back soon . . . I’ll call you in a little while and explain everything. No, don’t think like that. I won’t be here long. Nothing is going to happen. Okay. I’ll call you soon. Bye, now.”

The detective ran his hand across the back of his neck.

“My wife,” he said and then addressed the consul directly for the first time that day. “I imagine you have surveillance on all the ways out of the city?”

“Absolutely,” replied Williams. “Five people who know the girl are standing guard: one at the airport, one on the bridge to Veracruz. Another at the piers and two more along the highways heading out of the city toward the north and the west. There’s no way someone could get out of here with her without their noticing.”

“Unless she’s unconscious in the trunk of a car,” Treviño said, looking at her mother. “And they’re probably not planning to take any of those routes. There are other ways to get in and out of the port.”

“Such as?”

The detective shook his head. “In a motorboat, from some deserted stretch of beach. In a small aircraft taking off from a secret airstrip. In a cargo truck, hidden under piles of fruit or corn.”

“Excuse me, but—” stammered the consul.

“No, excuse me,” Treviño interrupted him. “You’ve brought me nothing but trouble as long as I’ve known you. Hear this: if my brother doesn’t get his green card, it’s going to be your ass.”

“The contract is on its way,” said the magnate, trying to calm him.

Standing at the window, Treviño crossed his arms and looked down at the workers carrying construction materials into and out of the factory until Moreno came back in and set the stapled documents in front of his employer. The detective sat facing the desk, picked up a pen, and read the contract.

“Let’s be honest,” he said as he signed the papers. “People have tried to extort money from you on numerous occasions over the past year, but now your daughter disappears and no one’s asking for a ransom. The clock keeps ticking, and no one comes forward. To me, this comes down to one thing: Who are your enemies, Mr. De León? Is there someone who hates you more than anyone else?”

The businessman’s jaw dropped, and it took him a moment to respond.

“I don’t have any enemies,” he said. “That I know of, at least.”

The detective followed his gaze and realized he might be holding something back because of his wife’s presence, so he flashed him that half smile of his and said, “Why don’t you just think about it and start putting together a list.”

“Where are you going to start?” asked the consul.

“At the scene of the crime.”

“That might not be a good idea,” the consul argued. “The police were still there just a few hours ago.”

“It’s where we have to start.”

“In that case, I should take you in my car. I have diplomatic plates.”

The detective scoffed. “Why don’t you work on getting the video feeds from the cameras around the club? The city used to have twenty cameras on the traffic lights at all the major intersections. If you want to do something to help, get the last few hours of tape from the cameras on the Avenidas Costera, Gulf, and Héroes de la Independencia. Seeing as how you and Margarito are such good friends, it shouldn’t be too hard for you.”

“The chief and I aren’t friends,” retorted the consul.

“Call it whatever you like. Just get the videos. If you don’t want to talk to Margarito, I’m sure you have plenty of other contacts on the force. One more thing”— he looked at Mrs. De León—“I’ll need to talk to your daughter’s best friend. Tell her I’m going to pay her a visit, or invite her here to save her the shock.”

“I’m not sure she’ll want to,” Mrs. De León said. “And I doubt her parents would let her come here if they knew she’d be talking with a police officer. They’re all terribly frightened.”

“If I don’t talk to her, the odds that I find your daughter drop by fifty percent.”

“All right,” said Mr. De León, looking at his wife. “We’ll get her here. We just need to add one more thing to the document. What is your wife’s name, so we can add her as a beneficiary?”

Treviño looked suspiciously at the two bodyguards and picked up a pen.

“Here, I’ll write it down for you.”

He saw the way they’d looked at his wife when they’d gone to get him at the beach. Against his urging, his wife had come out to see what was going on while he was dealing with the visitors. He realized she was there because the giant and his companion looked up and softened a little all of a sudden. Out of the corner of his eye, Treviño had seen her using one hand like a visor to get a clearer view of them. She’d looked incredible in her floral dress, playfully lifted by the wind. It hadn’t escaped his attention how the giant with the mustache licked his lips at the sight of her.

“Are you two family?” he’d asked.

Treviño hadn’t answered. The giant ran his eyes lustfully over the girl’s slim waist and full breasts. A few steps away, the Canadians had sipped their pink cocktails and watched the drama unfold with the curiosity of tourists. Finally, the Bus spoke. “Come with us. You’ll be back soon.”

The detective understood there was no way out and held them back with a movement of his hand.

“Wait for me here.”

Treviño walked slowly up the stairs and turned toward the house and his wife. She hadn’t moved a millimeter until then, but she guessed what was about to happen and turned away, furious. He took her by the shoulders and she shook her head once, twice. The visitors watched her tell the detective off with angry words and desperate tears, until Treviño finally calmed her down and held her. Then he turned and cleared the stairs in a single jump, landing behind the bodyguards.

“Let’s go.”

The stocky one swung into action right away, but the man with the ridiculous mustache had been slower to leave the sand, focused as he was on the woman’s curves.

Say good-bye to your man, gorgeous, he thought.

Then he’d turned and followed the others back to the road.

A few hours later, in the offices of Mr. De León, Moreno said, “Lucky bastard. He’s going to walk away with a bundle . . . if he makes it out of this alive.”

“Treviño strikes it rich,” muttered the Bus as he watched him sign the contract.

3

“We have a copy of the police report.” Mr. De León said before the detective left the office. “Would you like to see it?”

A smile flashed across half of Treviño’s face. It was the only way he smiled now, after the beating his own colleagues had given him.

“Who wrote it?”

“A guy called Bracamontes,” the gringo offered.

“Braca? Don’t waste your time. It’s not worth the paper it’s printed on.”

“Listen,” the magnate interjected, annoyed. “It wasn’t easy to get a copy of that report. Do you have any idea how much I had to pay for it?”

“And I’m guessing it was ready for you right away.”

“More or less.”

“Of course it was. Writing up lies is pretty fast work.”

The magnate held firm. “There’s no need to be so dismissive. Who told you there’s nothing of value in that report?”

Treviño finished counting the money, signed a receipt, and slid it toward his interlocutor.

“If he wasn’t too drunk or high, Braca would start out with a description of the scene: He’d say they found the car and that there were signs of a struggle, but he wouldn’t go into detail or worry too much about the facts. He’d say the car was facing north when it was actually facing south, that there were no fingerprints without having dusted for any, and he’d name not a single witness, even though there must have been plenty of people around at that hour. In the second paragraph, he’d plant a false lead, probably mention the presence of mysterious individuals who never existed. If he’s not too short on time, in the next few days he’ll pick up some random citizen or a small-time crook and try to pin this thing on him. About the girl, he probably said that witnesses reported seeing a group of suspicious individuals of indeterminate age in a dark car without plates. An SUV, let’s say.”

Mr. De León leafed through the report and read: “A black SUV with no plates.”

“He uses the same formula for every kidnapping.” The detective stood to go. “It’s the easiest way around the problem: invent the perp.”

The magnate tossed the report onto the table. Treviño slipped a copy of the contract into his pants pocket and said, “I used to work in that unit.” Then, since the two men were still staring at him, he added, “We’re going to take a look at the evidence. Where’s your daughter’s car?”

The Bus took him to a garage that housed two Mercedes and a huge white crew cab pickup that had been armor plated, by the look of its tires. There was also a yellow Jaguar that looked new and, in the back, a pink convertible.

“That’s the one,” said the Bus.

The ex-cop walked up to the passenger side and shook his head at the dark spots on the door that once were drops of blood. “Animals,” he said. Then he knelt on the pavement and inspected the door and the underside of the vehicle.

“How much does one of these things go for?”

The Bus did some math.

“Hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

Treviño’s eyebrows went up.

“Two million pesos?”

“Something like that.”

“But they didn’t take it.”

“They were after the girl.”

“They’re in no rush to demand ransom, either,” said Treviño. “They haven’t called here or contacted Mr. De León’s office. Strange. How fucked is the crime scene?”