Everybody Pays (34 page)

The stream was a bare trickle as it meandered through a massive rock formation. Yet it was there that those
locos
from Dios-knows-where had set up their gold-panning operation. El Monstruo, the one with the impossible muscles, he was always working: chopping at the rock with a pickax, hammering heavy steel wedges deep into crevices so that the streambed could be widened . . . foolishness that would never repay him for all his effort. El Indio, ah, that one would come and go, vanishing as a spirit into and out of the surrounding trees. Occasionally, he would be seen with some sort of strange-looking telescope device in his hands. El Negrito, he worked with a machete like a machine. So skinny, yet so strong, working as if he were going to clear the jungle away all by himself.

So said the watchers. And there were many, for this remote part of Quitasol attracted those who preferred the risk and hardship of the brush to the certain poverty of working in one of the open-pit mines. The mines had the gold, it was said, but none for the people. In the mountains, the people could have the gold . . . if it could be found. Not gold ore, for digging was impossible. It was not a job for the hands—only high explosives and heavy machinery could accomplish such a task. But there was gold in the riverbeds, this was known. And it could be panned, strained, sifted . . . and, perhaps, revealed. So they were all there for the same reason.

The three men working that narrow stream were not talkative. Only the huge one spoke at all, and that was to menace anyone who came close—drawing a line in the dirt with his digging tool and daring others to cross it, telling them they had better not “start it” as if he were a child instead of a grown man. Surely it was not that the fools had discovered something so valuable. Still, one of the watchers said, perhaps they had things of value
with
them. Tools. Even machinery, maybe. Or a radio. It could not hurt to look, yes? And even crazy men had to sleep sometime.

The men discussed it among themselves. Quietly, for it was a matter of great seriousness. None of them would even consider approaching the huge one without a weapon. His body appeared to have been carved from stone, and even a blade might prove useless against such a creature. Between the watchers, who were all from the same village, they had a single rifle, and four cartridges. And there were three men in the camp by the rocks. Even if they could kill them all, would the trade be worth it? What if the
locos
had no firearms? With only one bullet left, the villagers would be helpless. And, remember, El Indio, he was no stranger to the darkness. Had he not simply
appeared
in the distance one evening, as if out of the night itself? No, this was a bad plan. Best to leave them in peace.

“Could it hurt to talk to them?” one of the youngest said. “Perhaps we could learn more about them. Perhaps they could be frightened off?”

The oldest among them laughed aloud. “
You
go, Carlito. I will tell your widow all about it when we return.”

The young man said the old man had lost his
cojones.
The old man laughed more. “El Diablo himself would not frighten such men. If you live long enough, this is something you too will understand.”

Eventually, they all went to sleep, the matter unresolved.

In the morning, they found Carlito’s body, already stiffening, the piano wire pulled so deeply into his neck that they could not determine the cause of death until they examined him closely.

The men broke camp within an hour. The spirits were wild in that area, they told themselves. But nobody challenged the old man when he laughed at that too.

“Check it again,” Cross told Tiger, pointing to a computer printout in her lap. She had gained weight in the past weeks. And her hair was lustrous again, its stripes restored.

“These are square names,” she said. “I can make two—no, three—from the pictures, but that’s about all I could swear to.”

“I can enhance the images,” Rhino squeaked from the converted park bench he used as a chair, sitting before a screen nearly as large as a home-entertainment center.

Tiger got to her feet with a grace that justified her name and stood behind Rhino, one hand on his shoulder. “I can’t believe you already got mug shots to look so good,” she said.

“They use better cameras now,” Cross told her. “And these aren’t copies—you’re looking at exactly what the feds have.”

“But if they’re not copies—?”

“We’re on-line,” Rhino said. “Inside their house.”

“Oh.”

“They don’t have very good security,” Cross said dryly. “But they sure keep great records.”

“I know. I couldn’t believe I was . . . dead. I mean, to see it, right there, it was . . . weird.”

“Beats the crap out of your picture on the wall in the post office.”

“It does, for a fact. Oh . . . look!”

The face on the screen sharpened right before her eyes, digitizing into an image as clear as a live TV camera could produce. “That’s her,” Tiger said. “Martha Farmington, huh? Guess that’s a bit short of the exotic image she needed.”

“You knew her as—?”

“Tanya,” Tiger yawned. “What else? It was either Tanya or Tammy or Candy or Crystal or something like that for all of them. You know how it works.”

“Work. That’s the key word. We need to get them across the border, and not kidnap them. They have to be greedy enough to risk it.”

“Those ho’s
love
scratch, baby. That’s what they played for. Wouldn’t have hired me to bodyguard them if they weren’t looking to up the take.”

“They rolled quick enough.”

“In a second,” Tiger agreed. “But we weren’t sisters. I wasn’t surprised.”

“Four is all you can be sure of? Out of that whole batch?”

“Yep.
Sure
sure, I mean. Even looking at all the files from the ones who got busted with me, I can’t swear to any more than that. It isn’t like we spent a lot of time doing girly stuff together. I was muscle, they were pussy. Some of them, I hardly laid eyes on.”

“All right. We’re in luck, anyway. One’s in St. Louis, one’s in Tucson, the other two in L.A. We can scoop them up as we move.”

“We’re going to drive across?” Rhino wanted to know.

“Yeah. In a limo. That way, we can keep watch on them, no risk. And it’ll make the splash we need once we touch down.”

“Uh, Cross . . .” Tiger began

“What?”

“No offense, honey. But you and Rhino aren’t exactly Central Casting for ‘pimp.’ I should—”

“You’re dead, remember, Tiger? And if one of the girls you worked with sees you alive, that’d kind of blow the game, right? We can make this work. I know what it takes.”

“Two weeks, fifty grand?” the woman who called herself Tanya said to Cross, her voice skeptical-hopeful.

“Guaranteed. With ten up front.”

“And no lump tricks?”

“No whips and chains. I can’t promise some of them won’t get rough, you understand what I’m saying. But anyone gets
too
rough, you make a little noise, my man here quiets it right down.”

The woman looked over at Rhino, agreeing within herself that he could quiet down a whole roomful of whorehouse customers just by shrugging his shoulders.

“Sounds too good to be true,” she said, letting a vein of suspicion into her voice.

“Yeah? Well, it gets even better,” Cross told her. “Whatever you work them for—tips, whatever you want to call it—you keep that too. It’ll be in local currency, so you may get jobbed a little on the exchange, but you should clear another few thousand easy. These are
very
rich men. And they’ve never seen girls from Sweden before.”

“Sweden? I’m from—”

“You’re from fucking Stockholm, anybody asks,” Cross cut her off. “You’re a natural blonde, right? Blue eyes? That’s enough for those chumps. Besides, none of them speak that much English.”

“How do I know I won’t end up there forever? I heard stories of girls going for a week and—”

“To where? Some Arab country, right? Or fucking Japan, if they were that stupid. This is right below Mexico. And you can tell anyone you want where you’ll be. This isn’t some ‘white-slave ring,’ girl,” Cross said casually. “Truth is, if that was what we wanted, you’d already be in the trunk of the car outside, and nobody’d ever know what happened to you.”

The woman’s pale face went so bloodless it showed even through the heavy layer of makeup. “I got protec—”

“Who? That punk Maurice? Why don’t you give him a call?” Cross sneered, tossing her a cellular phone.

The woman sat there, not moving.

“Think it over,” Cross told her. “We promised them a minimum of three girls to work the house for two weeks. There’s a
lot
of money in this. For everyone. You don’t want to go, nobody’ll make you. We wanted to do that, we’d do it. You couldn’t stop us. We’re businessmen, not kidnappers. This is all about money. I gave you my name. You must know people in Chicago. Ask around.”

“How much time do I have?”

“Three, four days.”

“Okay. And Maurice . . . ?”

“He’ll be all right in a few hours,” Cross told her.

“Wow! First-class!” Tanya looked at the pair of tickets in her hand.

“Yeah, so what? One of them’s to L.A., right? This sounds like some kinda scam to me.”

“Maurice, it’s exactly like that man said. We’re going to drive down from L.A. So I only need a ticket there, and a ticket home. That’s what
this
one is.”

“Let me see that . . . Damn, bitch, you see this? You got to fly to Mexico City, then to Chicago, then switch again and come back home to St. Lou.”

“So?”

“So look at the bottom of the ticket. See, right here,” he said, pointing with a manicured fingernail. “This sucker cost over seven thousand dollars! Throw in the one to L.A., we cash them in, and we just blow this place, you understand what I’m saying?”

“No.”

“You one stupid fucking bitch sometimes, Tanya. Listen: These tickets, they in your square name, right? And you got a passport to prove it, the one that guy Cross told you to get. So these tickets, they’re as good as cash. We just drive over to the airport, go up to the counter, and get a refund. What part don’t you understand?”