The House of Wolfe (7 page)

The men nod. Unsure if they were included in the question, the women do too.

Excellent, says Galán. Except for the visits to the banks by you gentlemen, the four of you will remain at the Belmonte house until our business is completed. However, other relatives of wedding party members may become concerned about the lengthy absence of the party and the lack of communication from it. You must therefore provide them with an explanation that precludes their concern. I suggest you devise a good one before morning. If you find that you
must
tell a relative the truth, if only to keep him from worrying to the point of calling the police, it is your responsibility to ensure that this relative also keeps the secret. Understood?

Everyone nods.

Very good. Be aware that, thanks to the technological marvels of our age and Mr. Huerta's expertise with them—and his intimate access to your home, Mr. Belmonte—we have arranged to intercept any communications to or from the house. Landline phone, cell call, text, e-mail, everything, we will hear it or read it. Your communications with us, however, will be solely through a pair of telephones we are going to provide for you. One for each of you gentlemen. Both phones have been programmed so that we will know whenever they are used. We will know the numbers they call and the numbers they receive calls from. We will know if they are in any way connected to a recording device. We will know if either phone's cover is removed to expose its interior elements or if the instrument's security system should in any way be compromised. I stress, in
any
way. Am I clear to everyone?

All four of them nod.

The phones will not give you any indication of the numbers you are calling or, should we call you, of the number of the phone from which you receive a call. To call us on either phone, you need only to press zero. Understood?

The men nod.

Mr. Belmonte, you will call me at four o'clock tomorrow afternoon. At that time you will receive directions for conveying the payment for the first group. When you deliver that payment, you will be detained with that group until the remainder of our business is concluded. You, Mr. Sosa, will then receive instructions for delivering the second payment at the second location. When that payment is received, everyone in both groups will be liberated at the same time. Am I understood?

The men nod.

Very good. Now then, it pains me to say what I must say next, but it is important that all of you hear it from me and believe it absolutely. So listen well. . . . If you fail to get the cash by the appointed hour or fail to call me at the appointed hour . . . if we detect any attempt to infringe on the security of the phones we give you . . . if you or a relative or your banker or
anyone
contacts the police . . . if you in any way jeopardize this transaction at any point . . . if
any
of these things should happen . . . I promise you that every member of the party in our custody will be killed in a manner more horrible than you can imagine.

Mrs. Belmonte whimpers.

The remains of your loved ones will be disposed of where you will never find them, but photographs of those remains will be sent to you and will be distributed to newspapers and television stations around the country. Those pictures—forgive me, but I must be absolutely forthright—those pictures will be
unspeakable
. You will never be able to rid them from your memory. Or to forget that
you
were the cause of them.

Both women are weeping, struggling to contain themselves, but a moan escapes from Mrs Sosa.

Calm yourselves, ladies, Galán says. There is no need for such mortification. I'm sure nothing bad will happen to anyone. Your husbands will not permit it. They will do exactly as I have asked and all will be well. You will see. Your children will be back in your arms by suppertime tomorrow.

The four parents nod and nod.

Very well, Galán says. I believe that covers everything. Each of you gentlemen may now ask one question. Mr. Sosa?

Sosa is so surprised by the opportunity to pose a question that he has a mental blank and shakes his head.

Mr. Belmonte?

Do you promise not to hurt my children? I just want—

I have answered that question. They will not be harmed so long as you do as we instruct you. Now I bid all of you good evening and expect your call tomorrow at four. Be strong and be wise. My associate will drive you home.

The captives hear both of the front doors open and shut. A long minute passes and they hear a nearby vehicle start up and drive away. Now someone enters on the driver's side, and then the voice of the dark-glassed man tells them he's going to remove their masks and cuffs but they must then sit on their hands and remain silent if they don't wish to be hurt. He asks if they understand, and they all nod. One at a time, he has each of them lean forward and half turn and he slips off their masks and takes off the flex-cuffs.

Shed of their restraints, they sit back again, hands under butts, and stare at each other with a mixture of fear and relief. Huerta is no longer among them.

The dark-glassed man shoves the masks and cuffs into one of the plastic bags holding the other captives' possessions and replaces the bag under the seat.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, he says, starting up the Town Car, let's get you home.

6 — ESPANTO

The drive back to the Belmonte residence is fast and smooth, though to the four parents it seems interminable. Nodding his head in time to the radio rock music, Espanto might be alone in the car, so oblivious of the others does he seem, so disregardful of any possibility of being attacked from behind.

When they arrive at the street fronting the Belmonte residence, there are only a few vehicles still parked along the sides, their drivers lolling behind the wheel or smoking and chatting on the sidewalks. Espanto stops the car in the shadows alongside the driveway gate and permits the parents to free their hands from under their buttocks. They flap and massage them to restore circulation. He hands Mr. Sosa a shopping bag holding the parents' belongings and the two special phones Mr. X spoke of, then passes to Mr. Belmonte a larger bag containing the four gymnasium bags in which they will put the money. He tells Belmonte to inform the two Angeles men in the house that Huerta said for them to come out to the car for instructions.

There are still
two
of—? Belmonte stifles himself, unsure if the man's order to keep their mouths shut is still in effect.

Just tell them Huerta said to get out here. Don't say anything else to them. Understand?

Yes, yes. I will not say anything else.

Espanto watches them walk up the curving driveway, then removes the dark glasses and phones Rubio, in charge of the Alpha crew and its hold house in the distant southwest outskirts, who tells him in coded terms that his bunch is on the way to the house and all is well.

Excellent, Espanto says. If there's any problem with the invoice, let me know. Otherwise, I'll talk to you in the morning.

They click off, Espanto wishing he'd had the time to ask how the new man worked out, the ponytailed guy called Apache. Espanto had recruited him only three weeks ago to replace Chisto, who had been murdered in his sleep when a jealous girlfriend jabbed an ice pick through his eye. By then the plan was all set—the car assignments, the hold house crews, the street surveillance duties—and Galán ordered him to get a replacement fast. Espanto made inquiries around town, eliciting recommendations, and ended up with the Apache, whom Galán approved after an interview of less than two minutes. The other men seemed to have accepted him well enough, but there is something about him that makes Espanto uneasy. Then again, if the Apache had in any way proved troublesome tonight, Rubio would have said something about it, and he didn't.

He calls the Beta crew leader, Barbarosa, whose hold house is in the far northwest fringe of the city, and hears the same report—they're on their way—and Espanto tells him the same thing he told Rubio.

Now he phones Galán and reports that the cargo shipments are in fine condition and en route to the ports. I'm about to attend to the remaining security matter, Espanto says, and then I'll check to ensure the cargo's arrived.

Galán praises him for his good work. If there's any problem, call me, he says. If all is well, go home and get some rest. We'll talk again in the morning.

Until then, Espanto says.

The two Huerta men from the house appear at the mouth of the driveway. They see the Town Car and come toward it.

One of the men steps around to Espanto's window and says, Where's Huerta?

I don't know. He called and said pick up you two, then another guy, take you all to the Sosa place. Let's go.

What other guy? Who the fuck're
you
?

I'm the guy Huerta sent to get you. You coming or not? Makes no difference to me. He asks me, I'll tell him you said he could go fuck himself.

Hey, man, we been trying to get him on the phone for an hour but he doesn't answer. And Belmonte looking at us just now like we got two heads. What's going on?

Hell if I know, Espanto says. I just do what I'm told, same as you. Come on, let's go.

The men get in, one in the front one in the back. They continue complaining about the way Huerta's always changing plans but never telling them about it until way later.

Tell me about it, Espanto says. Fucking bosses. All the same.

They arrive in a run-down neighborhood cast in misty vapor lighting and Espanto follows an isolate road to the gate of an auto junkyard.

Jesus Christ, the man in the backseat says. Who we getting
here
?

I don't know, some guy, Espanto says.

The watchman recognizes him and unlocks the gate to let him pass. He drives deep into the shadowy yard and parks in front of a garage building whose bay door is open wide and its interior brightly lighted. Not far from the garage door a large trash barrel is flaming high.

Before the two Angeles men can register what's happening, Espanto turns in his seat and raises the silencer-fitted Glock and shoots each of them in the head—the reports loud in the enclosed car,
THONK, THONK
—first the man beside him and then the one in back, spraying a raw paste of bloody brains on the door pillar and on a section of rear window cobwebbed by the bullet. In the enclosed confines of the car, the reports hurt Espanto's ears—only in the movies are silencer gunshots whisper quiet and without flash—and he curses himself for not having brought ear plugs and inserted them after coming through the gate.

He reaches under the seat and extracts the ragbags and plastic bags containing all other confiscated items, detaches the silencer from his pistol and puts it in the gun bag. He strips the two men of their possessions, adding their weapons to the gun bag, all else to one of the other bags, then gets out of the car and goes to the burning trash barrel and drops all the bags into it except the one with the guns. They will be added to the gang's weapons cache.

He enters the garage where the other three Town Cars are already receiving new vehicle identification numbers and new license plates and registrations before being shipped to buyers in different parts of the country. The other drivers aren't in sight and he assumes they've already gone to the hold houses.

The gray-haired owner of the yard comes out of the office and says, Finally, the last one. The utterance comes out in a muted parrotlike squawk, a consequence of his throat having been slashed in a long-ago attempt on his life, and the reason he has since been called El Loro.

Car's outside, Espanto tells him. Two dead in it. Needs a cleanup and new rear glass.

One of Loro's services for Galán is to dispose of corpses by putting them inside junked cars he then compacts in his crushing machine to the size of a suitcase.

I knew I wouldn't be lucky enough for the last one to come in as clean as the first three, Loro says in his parrot screech. He hands Espanto a key. White Sierra with extended cab, tinted glass, camper shell, he says. Around on the right side.

A
pickup
? Bullshit. I want an SUV.

Loro tells him the guys who dropped off the other Town Cars took the SUVs. The pickup's the only thing available.

Those pricks, Espanto says. I'm their
chief
and I don't get an SUV?

White Sierra with a camper shell, Loro squawks. Around on the right.

7 — GALÁN AND HUERTA

Galán and Huerta are in the backseat of the Cherokee, discussing their favorite dishes at La Nereida, a seafood restaurant where they plan to have supper, when Galán's phone vibrates in his coat.

“Dígame,” he responds.

He listens, then says, Excellent. He commends the caller on his good work, gives him a few instructions, and says he will call him in the morning. Then slips the phone back into his coat.

“Tu segundo?” Huerta says. Is all well?

Yes, Galán says. A capable lieutenant, Espanto. And tomorrow, my old friend,
you
will be a wealthy man. And a disappeared one, no?

Yes I will, Huerta says, grinning back at him.

Huerta and Galán have known each other since their teens, when Galán's only name was Ramón Colmo and they belonged to a street gang called Malditos. They have fought against common enemies and both made their first kill at the age of sixteen. They have shared many drinks and stories, but they were both born to abject impoverishment—Huerta in a Puebla slum, Ramón Colmo in a shantytown in the hills west of the capital—and learned very early that friendship is above all else largely a matter of expedience. But both have also always been intelligent and ambitious, and Huerta was not yet twenty when he was befriended by an agent of a downtown security company who soon thereafter hired him as a street informant to keep him apprised of whatever talk he might hear about store break-ins and warehouse burglaries. Huerta grew fascinated with the security business and when he expressed interest in becoming an agent, the man became his mentor. Over the next two years Huerta learned the basic skills of the trade, how to dress for it, how to comport himself. In due course the agent recommended him to his company and he was hired and proved highly adept at the work. He was not without charm and verbal facility, and despite his youth was smoothly self-possessed. Clients liked him, and his amiable and confident bearing reaped the company many referrals. Yet certain aspects of his character would remain unchanged, and before long he was augmenting his income by abetting robbery gangs, instructing them in ways of bypassing basic electronic security systems. Over the next years he worked hard, saved some money, nurtured good relations with his employer's clients, and before he was thirty established his own company, Angeles de Guarda. He recruited a few capable pals from the old Malditos gang and trained them as agents, and he induced some of his former company's clients to switch their patronage to him.