Greasing the Piñata (22 page)
The United flight to Mexico City was delayed, an event that didn’t make the evening news or surprise anyone in the terminal at SFO. The Mexicana flight to Monterrey was only slightly less terrifying than a tax audit.
The topography of Monterrey is similar to Las Vegas, mountainous and hot as hell, so landings are always memorable. The Sierra Madre Mountains conspire to send thermo-climes into the path of any incoming aircraft. The turbulence was so severe that Cape was convinced the plane had struck a flock of birds, then he changed his mind and decided on pterodactyls. Sally slept the whole flight.
Sally had left her black bag in a locker at Mexico City airport when they departed Puerto Vallarta the week before. The bag was still there, and transporting it on a flight within Mexico proved uneventful. Cape had two sonic disruptors, which is how he liked to think of his new toys, hidden inside two hollowed-out tennis balls next to a racket he intended to throw away as soon as he unpacked. He wondered what his fellow passengers had hidden between their socks and underwear.
The rental car was a Ford with a brake pedal just big enough to overlap with the accelerator that required absolute concentration. They made good time, Cape driving and Sally navigating, but it was late by the time they reached the Calinda Plaza hotel. The lobby bar was empty, the restaurant closed.
A stout woman in her forties who looked like she was in her fifties greeted them at the front desk. She had sad eyes at odds with the warmth of her smile. They checked in and then Cape cut to the chase.
“Have you seen this woman?” Cape pushed a photograph of Rebecca across the desk. He had borrowed quite a few pictures from the Senator’s house. She was younger by ten years but still the same woman if you looked at the shape of the face and the eyes.
The woman behind the desk shook her head, her eyes older than time.
“She would have checked in last night.” Cape nudged the picture a little closer.
“
Lo siento
, I did not work last night. My husband, he was at the desk.”
“Is he around?”
“He never came home last night, Señor.” Again the heavy shake of her head. “
Pienso que hay otra mujer.
”
“
Gracias.
” Cape turned toward Sally, who had already headed toward the elevators. They went to her room and took turns using the bathroom, then they unpacked. Sally laid her essentials on top of the bed closest to the door, then arranged the items she had carried for Cape on the bed nearest the window.
Cape peeled open his tennis balls and deposited the sonic disruptors next to a nine-millimeter handgun. Ten rounds in the clip, two spare clips. Compact binoculars. A night vision scope. Cape had brought a photographer’s vest but hadn’t checked to make sure everything fit in the pockets.
Assorted knives, throwing darts and
shuriken
adorned Sally’s bed. Near the pillows she laid a
katana
almost three feet long attached to a lanyard. The sword was sharp enough to cut through flesh and bone like paper, and Sally never removed it from its sheath unless she was going to draw blood.
Without ceremony Sally stripped off her travel clothes, a loose pair of gray sweatpants and white sweater, and started changing. Cape followed her example but was slightly more self-conscious, turning toward the wall as he took off his shirt.
“No peeking.”
Sally snorted. “Not sure I could stand the excitement.”
Cape turned around to find her almost invisible. Her clothes were matte black, the fabric so tightly woven that it seemed to absorb all the light in the room. Her hair was tied into a ponytail and she had a scarf wrapped tightly around her neck that she could use to cover her face up to her eyes. On her feet she wore black shoes split near the second toe.
Her outfit looked skin-tight, but Cape glanced at the bed and saw all the metal objects except for the sword were gone. He wore a black sweatshirt over jeans, black sneakers, and a black cotton vest with bulging pockets. He patted them one at a time, then again, forming a mental image of which pockets held which gadgets.
“Ready?”
“You know this is probably a trap.” Sally looked up at him. She was a foot shorter but her presence filled the room.
Cape nodded. “Probably, but what else can we do?”
“We could go home.”
“You mentioned that in San Francisco.”
“I can be pedantic sometimes.”
“I never noticed.” Looking into Sally’s jade green eyes had always calmed Cape, even though she was the most lethal person he’d ever met. “I couldn’t live with myself if we didn’t go have a look.”
“You might not have to if you do.”
Cape smiled. “Then I guess it’s a win-win situation.”
“OK.” Sally lifted her sword off the bed and slung it across her back. “Let’s go herd some pigs.”
“You lied to me.”
The man with the cane hobbled across the great room toward Luis Cordon, who sat on a brown leather couch under a tank filled with piranha.
“Santiago—
amigo
—that is quite the accusation.” Luis Cordon looked wounded as his guest approached.
“Stop calling me that.”
“We are not friends?” Cordon’s handsome features assumed a troubled expression. The fish directly overhead bared their teeth.
“A man like you doesn’t have friends.” Santiago gestured at the glass wall, leaning heavily on his cane. “Except for your
pets
.”
“I see, you are upset.”
Santiago pulled a newspaper clipping from his pocket and tossed it onto Cordon’s lap. Above the article was a photograph of a row of well-dressed men standing in front of a pig farm in Monterrey. Some were American and several were Mexican. Cordon didn’t even glance at it. All week he had been getting phone calls from nervous investors and scared politicians.
“I was in that picture.” Santiago shifted his weight and looked as if he wanted to sit down, but the nearest chair would have required that he backtrack, and his anger wouldn’t allow that. His forehead was beaded with sweat below his white hair, his eyes jumpy.
“So were many other investors and government officials, but they are not here in my house, complaining.” Cordon made an all-inclusive wave of the hand. “I do not recall you hiding your face at the time. You didn’t even wear dark glasses.”
Santiago leaned forward, exhaling loudly from the effort of keeping his balance, and snatched the article from Cordon’s lap. He shifted his cane to his other hand and jabbed his forefinger at the photo. “
That
man is Senator James Dobbins.”
“You talk as if neither of us knew him.”
“An
American
politician.”
“You have a point?” A hint of menace crept into Cordon’s tone.
“He’s dead now, do you understand that?”
“This is not
your
problem.” Cordon rolled his neck, closing his eyes until he was looking up and backward, toward the tank. The sight of the piranha seemed to calm him. “What are you so worried about?”
“People are saying that Antonio Salinas killed the Senator.”
“The facts are certainly suggestive.”
“Salinas may not like the attention.”
“You think Salinas cares about another rumor?” Cordon rested his arm along the back of the couch and studied his guest. “Or did you forget he killed the man’s son?”
“
I have forgotten nothing.
” Santiago banged his cane against the floor. “This is your fault, Luis.”
Cordon’s eyes flashed a warning. “Nothing has changed—you are a rich man, a Mexican citizen, much like your compatriots in that newspaper picture. Above suspicion. Salinas is not your problem, he is mine.”
“But the rumors—”
“What about them?”
Santiago took a deep breath through his nose. “They would suggest that Salinas is coming after you.”
“He always has.” Cordon sounded bored with the conversation. “He always will.”
“But what would you do, if you were Salinas?”
“What are you driving at
amigo
?”
“We know he has seen this photograph.”
“Of course.”
“And by now he has heard the rumors about the Senator.”
“Then what is to prevent him from coming after every man in that picture?”
“Nothing.”
“He will kill them.”
“And torture them.” Cordon shrugged. “Salinas is a sadist.”
“
Then he will eventually find his way to me!
” Santiago looked as if he were about to faint. “He will work his way through that line of men, one by one.”
“I do not think so.”
Santiago straightened. “Why not?”
“He will be dead soon.”
“How do you know?”
Cordon smiled, and his teeth reminded Santiago of the piranha.
“Because I am going to kill him when he comes here.”
“He’s coming here?” Santiago grasped the cane with both hands. “Why on Earth would he do that?”
“Because, my friend, he is going to get an invitation.”
Cordon stood and turned his back on his guest. The conversation was over.
It was time to feed the fish.
The great thing about sneaking up on a pig farm is that no one can smell you coming. The stench hit them before they got out of the car, the methane plant still a mile away. By the time they had climbed the hill overlooking the farm, Cape’s eyes were watering and Sally was breathing through her scarf.
“It doesn’t smell like they’re burning much methane down there.”
“We’re smelling ammonia, I think.” Cape pointed toward a square lake. “I don’t know how the operation is supposed to work, but I think that’s the waste lagoon. Millions of gallons of pig piss.”
“Remind me never to order
Mu Shu
pork again.”
The topographical maps Sloth had provided showed the best vantage point was from the East, where a steep hill leading up from the road leveled off onto a small plateau before sloping gently down into the valley that thirty thousand pigs called home.
The moon was as full as a drunk’s bladder. The night was clear but a low rumbling rolled up the hill toward them in waves, thunder from an invisible storm.
The enterprise was massive. Five long sheds—semi-circular roofs covering huts that ran horizontally down the center of the valley. At the south end of each shed was a huge tank, the kind Cape associated with oil refineries, pipes running between them. They were all inter-connected.
Adjacent to the last shed was a rectangular one-story building with a smokestack three times its height. The pipes from the tanks all routed into this building, which looked like it was made of cement. Small windows covered with wire mesh were set high in the walls. Only one door was visible.
“That must be the plant where they process the methane.”
Sally nodded but didn’t say anything. She was using the binoculars to scan the area. The entire compound was illuminated erratically by security lights mounted above the doors of each building.
Next to the plant was the waste lagoon, looking much larger than it had in the photographs. Much bigger than the duck pond in San Francisco. Adjacent to the lagoon was a drainage ditch that ran parallel to the long side of the factory. It looked deep and seemed to run past the far side of the lagoon into the open field, where it disappeared in the darkness. On the far side of the valley was the hulking outline of Cerro de la Silla, the four mountain peaks looking like a saddle without a rider.
“Definitely a trap.”
Cape dug in his pocket for the night vision scope. “Why?”
“Nobody down there.”
“How far did you get?” Cape pressed the power button as he placed his right cheek against the rubberized eyepiece.
“I’m on the third shed.”
Cape closed his left eye and opened his right as wide as he could. A green circle of light appeared, lines slowing becoming sharper as the scope reached full power.
He started from the far end, working the opposite direction from Sally, beginning with the refinery building. Pools of light around the windows and door looked impossibly bright, as if the noon sun had appeared while he was looking through the scope.
Sally muttered under her breath in Cantonese.
“What?”
“Ten o’clock.” Sally kept her eyes pressed to the binoculars. “Past the last shed, before you get to the refinery.”
Cape focused between the buildings where the pools of light didn’t overlap. At first he didn’t see anything, just clumps of weeds and moist earth. He started to wonder if he was looking at the two o’clock position instead of ten o’clock—he always got those confused—when he saw something that made him want to learn Chinese just so he could curse.
“Drag marks?”
Sally nodded. “Follow them left toward the drainage ditch.”
Two shallow streaks in the mud about a foot apart framed a deeper indentation that followed the same path. They were about the depth and spacing you’d expect if you dragged a dead or unconscious body backward. Cape stopped breathing as he followed the streaks past the door of the refinery toward the drainage ditch a few yards away.
At first he saw nothing, just a river of blackness where the ditch started. Then his eyes adjusted and he moved slowly away from the building. He didn’t have to look for long.
“Is that a shoe?”
Sally traded her binoculars for Cape’s night vision. “Yes, and it’s attached to a foot.”
Cape squinted through the binoculars but it was no use. “Can you see anything else?”
Sally nodded. “Another shoe.”
“His other foot, presumably.”
“Not unless he has two left feet.”
Cape resisted the urge to make a dancing remark. “You sure?”
“Here.”
Cape took the scope. A left leg jutted up from the ditch, twisted at an unnatural angle, but there was no sign of the right. Several feet further down the ditch, too far to be connected to the same body, another left leg appeared. They’d have to get closer if they wanted to know whose bodies were piled there.
“What do you think?”
“I think we never should have left California.” Sally adjusted the sword on her back.
“I think the excitement’s over—nothing’s moving down there.”
“Which side do you want?”
“You check the sheds, I’ll take the ditch, we meet at the refinery.”
Sally slid down the hill like a figure skater, right leg forward and left bent back, her hands out for balance. She didn’t make a sound as she disappeared into the shadows. Cape scrambled after her like a fat kid on a slip-‘n-slide.
The rolling thunder was louder on the valley floor, much louder. Cape realized it must be reflecting off the hillside, which meant it was coming from inside the valley. He looked at the sky, the moon surrounded by stars but not a cloud in sight.
It wasn’t a storm coming. The thunder was the sound of thirty thousand pigs snoring. Grumbling in their sleep, pushing, grinding against the walls of the sheds and each other to make room for their beds. By the time he reached the drainage ditch the air was vibrating with the bass notes coming from the sheds. Cape could feel the reverberations deep in his chest.
He looked back toward the first shed. He thought he sensed movement near the window closest the door but it barely registered, a shadow blowing on the wind. Cape guessed Sally was inside.
He stuck to the shadows, veering left toward the side of the drainage channel that was furthest from the refinery door. He gauged the distance—it looked like the ditch was about four feet deep.
Cape took one last look around, crouched low, and jumped into the ditch.