South of Evil Read online

  “Who is that?” he asked.

  Angel beamed. “My little cousin Odalys. Isn’t she something? She was always a shy little thing with her nose buried in a book. She suddenly became this beautiful young woman.”

  “Has anyone fucked her yet?”

  Angel didn’t answer. A man was shouting near the fire pit. A skyrocket exploded overhead.

  “Has anyone fucked her yet?” Eduardo repeated.

  When Angel quietly said that no, she was a nice girl, a good girl, very shy, the defeat in his voice could not have been louder. Eduardo knew then that he owned him, and their deal had been sealed.

  “I would like to meet her,” he said, and it was done.

  ***

  They took the elevator to the garage. By his third day in the complex, he already couldn’t stand opening the door to the garage on a used Cadillac with the handicap sign dangling from the rearview. Meanwhile, his car was in a dark back corner. Odalys had called it a rapist’s dream come true. Eduardo had found the owner of the Cadillac, an older woman on the fourth floor, and exchanged pleasantries with her for almost twenty seconds before asking, “Exactly how handicapped are you?” A few negotiations later and his Aston Martin had the prestige spot in the front, so that when he opened the door, his exquisitely sleek, black car was the first thing he saw.

  But on this day, when Eduardo Mendes opened the door to his garage, he saw shotguns and heard screaming.

  Chapter Two

  Strauss – Monterrey, MX

  Strauss sat by the window, sipping coffee and thinking of all the men he had killed.

  He didn’t look Mexican, and he never had. His grandmother summed it up best when she spit on his head, tried to press his unruly blonde hair, and said, “Hundreds of years of perfectly good Indian blood, and you come out!” His grandmother had raised him. She had the same rough old hands as the men who came through this little café off the main highway. She had poor hands that had worked all her life, and would until the day she died.

  Strauss hadn’t heard it in a long time, but he had heard “You don’t look Mexican” enough times to know it was true. He looked European. His hair and skin were lighter, and he had the bearing and countenance of the old world.

  A man went into the small café. He made eye contact for a second with Strauss, but quickly looked away.

  Sometimes, he thought of them by name. Other times, he gave them nicknames: The old man, the sad man, the fat man, the man who should have known better, the man who should have stayed dead the first time.

  He preferred to think of a woman who had made him happy. She called herself Dulcinea. She was eternally clad in lingerie, or nothing at all, and whether smoking or sleeping or just peacefully letting him be, she’d had an old movie playing on the television.

  The café was the only structure on this stretch of road, and Strauss sat a small table in the shade. He saw a blur of light appear on the desert highway. It was harsh to look at, but as the light faded, it became a Lexus, silver and freshly waxed. It pulled into the little road stop, its engine silent.

  A well-built man in his late forties stepped out of the car wearing a fine gray suit. He looked around warily, though there was not much to see. When his eyes met Strauss’s, he immediately sat down across from him.

  Strauss placed a cup of coffee in front of him, and if he was surprised that Strauss, a man he had never met, knew exactly how he liked his coffee, he did not show it. He sat uncomfortably in his seat, watching the few other customers uneasily as they came and went. Strauss sipped patiently.

  The man’s name was Vicente Bonasera. He had the remains of a muscular body, but didn’t work at maintaining it. He had played soccer well enough to play in college, but not well enough to play professionally. But wherever he went, he was an imposing presence.

  On this day, he was sweating. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. He tried not to be nervous about it, but trying only made him look worse.

  Vicente Bonasera cleared his throat.

  “Is it safe to speak here?” he asked softly.

  Strauss nodded. Bonasera began to talk. Once he began, there was no stopping him.

  He was a lawyer, and worked for one of the largest companies in Mexico, with offices all over the world. His company had moved him to Buenos Aires, and later to Bilbao, Spain. He had four children with his college sweetheart, and they had spent many of their formative years in Europe, with the privileges and education of the old world. When his company returned them to Monterrey, Mexico, they found it a different place.

  His eldest son went to college. His eldest son looked like his mother, who was very beautiful. The boy had been on a date when he was taken. The university called that night with the news. The kidnapper called the next morning. He said that he had Bonasera’s son and the guard at the gate to his house had a package for him. Bonasera tried to keep him on the phone. “I will do anything you say,” he told the kidnapper desperately.

  “I know you will,” was the response.

  Bonasera raced out to the guard shack in his bare feet. The guard tried to stop him. He said he was going to call the police. Bonasera ripped the phone from the wall. Then he saw it. It was a brown envelope on the pavement. His name was on it. It was soaked through with blood. Inside was an ear.

  Bonasera paid the money. He never questioned it. He met a man in town, who proved to be the most average man he had ever seen in his life. The man disappeared into the crowd. An hour later, his son was dumped naked and bound on the side of the freeway. Before they drove away, one of the kidnappers drew a knife and cut off his son’s other ear.

  Vicente Bonasera sat up straight in his chair and took a long sip of his coffee, like a spent athlete guzzling water. He breathed deeply, and he was no longer sweating.

  When Strauss was a child, he suffered from a harelip. He talked strange and looked strange. Neighborhood children were so relentlessly cruel that he kept entirely to himself. He would hang around the church and watch hunched old women waddle into the confessional booth and spend more than twenty minutes confessing their sins. When people spoke to him like Bonasera did, this was what he thought of.

  Strauss took out a pad, a pencil, and a Zippo lighter, and placed them on the table.

  “The man who led you to me,” began Strauss. “Did he explain to you the gravity of what you are doing?”

  Vicente Bonasera nodded three times.

  “You could back out now with no enemies. You and I met for a conversation. One of us decided that he did not like what the other had to say. There would be nothing wrong in that.”

  His voice slipped. It was the tiniest lisp. He heard it. He wondered if Bonasera heard it. He hadn’t reacted.

  “There is a man who I am going to contact. Once he is involved, it is impossible to stop him. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  “Yes,” said Bonasera.

  “Then why don’t you tell me precisely what you want from me, so that we are both clear of what it is we are doing.”

  Bonasera took a moment to think about what he was going to say.

  “I want you to find the men who hurt my son and I want you to kill them.”

  He said it with calm conviction.

  “Have you thought of which men? There are likely to be several.”

  “The man who called me on the phone. The man who said that he knew that he could have anything he wanted. I want him dead. And the man who touched my son. I want him dead too.”

  Strauss looked to his note pad.

  “I want them to die badly,” said Bonasera.

  “That is reasonable.” He slipped again. He despised his lisp.

  Strauss took the pad and tore off the top page, which he placed on the table. He began writing a number on to the page. He would then take the page and show it to Vicente Bonasera, who would nod or balk, and a deal would be made or lost. Life was cheap in Mexico, but revenge was not. He was etching out another zero when Bonasera spoke.


  “How much if I want to watch?” Bonasera asked.

  His pencil stopped where it was. Strauss placed it on the table. He took the page and crumpled it into a ball and tore off another. When he handed the page this time, he did not wait for any sign from the man. There were no negotiations.

  “Go home and sleep. Think on what we spoke about. If you wake up and change your mind, call the attorney. He will call me.”

  The lighter opened with a familiar metal cling, and Strauss lit both slips of paper on fire, dropping them to the ground where they burned to ash.

  Bonasera nodded, but didn’t shake hands. He walked quickly back to his car, but paused at the door. “Do you think you will be able to find them?” he asked.

  “We will see,” said Strauss, though it wasn’t true. He remained in the shade and watched the rich man pull back onto the highway. He wondered if this well-heeled lawyer was prepared to see his blood lust come to life, if his grief was that deep. Bonasera’s only concern had been if Strauss would be able to find out who they were.

  He already knew.

  ***

  “Get on the ground!” they shouted. “Show me your hands!”

  Eduardo dropped, too stunned to do anything but submit. He got to his knees and was forced to the cement. His ear blurred with pain. He felt an elbow to his skull. He saw a black shadow in his periphery and realized that it was the shotgun pointing right at his head.

  He thought he was going to die.

  His hands were pulled behind his back. He had dirt in his mouth. Dirt.

  He heard Odalys screaming. She was crying in a loud and hysterical voice, pleading, and he wondered if the man was standing over his body was about to chop his head off.

  “Darling, would you please shut the fuck up,” said a voice. It was a command. That was when he stopped worrying about being murdered. These men weren’t his executioners. These men were cops.

  This was probably not how Eduardo Mendes had expected his evening would go, Curtis reflected happily. He walked up with Bobby Jordan as the team shouted at Mendes to put his hands behind his back. Curtis had requested the heavy take down on purpose. He wanted to soften him up.

  The team was very fast. By the time they had walked to where Mendes was, he was secured, on his feet, and about to be loaded into a cruiser, which had been backed into the garage.

  “Really, Curtis?” said Bobby Jordan disdainfully. Jordan was a Texas Ranger. Bobby Jordan had kept his hands in his pockets during the sting, but he took them out now and pointed. Curtis looked down and realized he was holding his gun.

  “Did you think this guy was going out like John Dillinger?”

  Curtis put it away and felt silly.

  ***

  One day, two years back, as Bobby Jordan strolled into the office just before lunch, he had seen Curtis across the way, waving him into the conference room. The glass wall had blinds, which had been closed, blocking outside view.

  Curtis had redecorated with a collage of dead bodies and broken glass.

  The black and white photos were blown into eight-by-tens. The far wall was meant to be an overview, but it looked like a jigsaw puzzle of gore. A jagged line of broken cars and body parts led to a centerpiece of shiny metal, shell casings, and blood. Bobby Jordan laid his Stetson on the one empty chair and went straight to the center of it all. Then he sighed.

  “I was hoping that last week’s trip to Mexico would get this business out of your system.”

  “Are the latent print guys still talking about me?”

  “Said you were the baddest accountant he ever met. Then he checked into a mental hospital. Something about being an accomplice to almost burning down a church.”

  “That church was still standing when we left. “

  Bobby Jordan surveyed the damage.

  “Did you sleep at all?”

  “Not a wink,” he said.

  There were stacks of paper reports in Spanish all over the table. More photos spilled out of files and on to the chairs. There was a map spread out with colored tabs on it. There was a larger sketch of the street on top of that. He pointed back to the wall with the photos and the mess in the center.

  “That thing right there. Is that Colon?”

  Curtis looked just a bit wistful.

  “Yeah. That was him.”

  “They bring him back to life after this?”

  “No. He stayed dead.”

  “Then why are you doing this to yourself?”

  Curtis thought about that reason.

  “If we find the money, we can pick up our investigation right where it left off.”

  “Our investigation?”

  “My investigation.”

  “Your pet project.”

  Bobby surveyed the damage.

  “Curtis?” Bobby asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “Why are you doing this to yourself?” he asked quietly.

  Curtis thought about this question too.

  “I’ve never been really good at anything,” he said. “But I’m going to be good at this.”

  They looked at one another for a long time without a word.

  “Well,” Bobby Jordan said finally, “if I can’t talk you out of it, I might as well see what you’ve got.”

  Curtis took a photo from the wall. It was an overview of the street scene. Bobby studied it in profile against the window. Bobby Jordan was a legend in Texas law enforcement. He was in his late fifties but moved like a much younger man. He was a Texas Ranger, and had spent time in the army. He never spoke in specifics, but rumor had it that he had been Special Forces.

  “Looks like an L-shaped ambush. We used to run these,” Jordan said.

  “Where was that? Back in El Salvador?”

  “I could tell you. But then I’d have to kill you,” he said distractedly.

  He pointed. The photo showed five cars. They were surrounded by tiny cones. “Picture an L laying on its side in the street. Your shooters are lined up along the lines of the letter. As soon as your target enters the L, your shooters open up. There’s no place to go.”

  Jordan tapped the Yukon.

  “Who was in this truck? I don’t need names. Just tell me about them.”

  Curtis crossed the room and tore into an even thicker file.

  “Driver, age thirty-three. Minimal record. Served in the military for eight years. Cause of death: gunshot wounds to the chest and head with large and small caliber rounds. Check this out: blood alcohol content of point one one.”

  “What time did this happen?”

  “Seven thirty in the evening.”

  “So he had a couple stiff ones that day, even though he was working. Tell me about the other guy.”

  “Ex-military. Three with the federales. Retired due to injury. He had an artificial knee and hip. Toxicology came back clean.”

  “I see one body next to the Mercedes. How many inside?”

  “Two. The driver was in pieces behind the wheel, and the guest of honor was in the back.”

  “And them?”

  “Former army. Attached to units that are known to work with the cartels. One was dishonorably discharged for conduct unbecoming.”

  “Jesus, what do you have to do to be dishonorably discharged from the Mexican army?” Jordan asked.

  “Why are you asking about the bodyguards?”

  “I don’t know. You’ve always talked about how careful this Colon was. How smart. Now he’s being guarded by a guy with a bum leg, a drunk, and some dude who can’t cut it in the world’s most crooked army.”

  “They’re not his normal bodyguards,” Curtis said.

  “No. Then who is? And why wasn’t he there?”

  “He was fired six months ago. After twenty years of service.”

  Jordan thought on that for a while. “I would wonder where he’s getting his bodyguards now. And who’s picking them.”

  The Mexican cops hadn’t released any conclusions, but by seven o’clock, Jordan and Curtis had a good idea o
f what had happened, and who had fired first. Curtis said he had access to a database listing all motor vehicles registered in Mexico.

  “That car is burned to scrap metal by now. I wouldn’t give it another thought. My best guess is this: sit back, relax, and see who picks up Colon’s business from where it left off. It’ll be someone who worked for him. That person will know a thing or two about what happened in Monterrey.”

  With that, Jordan stood, picked his hat up off the table where it had sat for many hours more than he had ever intended, and made his way to the door. He paused before he left.

  “I’m going home for the night. I’m going to drink some beer, and I’m going to give advice.”

  “Fire away,” said Curtis.

  “Go home. Have a drink. Talk to a girl. Don’t talk about drug dealers or meth or people getting their heads blown off. Be a normal person for one night. Come back on Monday with a clear mind and hope the cleaning lady throws all this crap in the dumpster and you never see it again.”

  “Yeah? Why’s that?” Curtis asked.

  “Because it ain’t worth it, kid.”

  ***

  Curtis had asked the leading computer forensic expert to come on the raid of Eduardo Mendes’ apartment because of the review he’d heard from Jordan. “He is the second biggest geek in the federal government,” Jordan had told him. Curtis had almost asked who was number one, but he realized who it was and stopped himself. Even he didn’t believe what the geek had to say.

  “What do you mean?” Curtis asked.

  “Dude, I mean, there’s nothing on this computer,“ said the geek.

  They had a search warrant to enter Mendes’s apartment, as well as to seize and search electronics. Darryl the Geek was their digital forensic technician. His specialty was searching computers for evidence. Curtis wanted him on the raid so he could tear into the laptop immediately. He didn’t want to wait. He didn’t think he could.

  “Have you looked around for an external hard drive?”

  “This is a Mac Book. I went into the central drive, and from what I can see, the spreadsheet files have never even been opened. All he does on this is shop for clothes.”