To The Lions - 02 (14 page)

The
guard was no longer alive, killed during a violent “robbery” on one of his
nights off.

Redon
crossed his leg and nervously ran his hand up and down his calf.
 
“Señor Navarro, not to be coarse, but I have
a question that’s quite personal in nature.”

There
was a slight dip of Navarro’s head.

“Los
Leones keeps killing the men you send in, and doing so in ghastly
fashion.”
 
Redon swallowed visibly.
 
“Forgive me for asking this…”

“Speak,
man.”

“Why,
señor, don’t they just kill Cesar?”

The
mobster flicked the cigarette into the fire and sipped his brandy.
 
Then, in an uncharacteristic display of
emotion, he hurled the snifter into the stone fireplace, the crystal shattering
as the brandy flamed in a ball of heat.
 
He cut blood-laced eyes to Redon, his lips crinkling in anger.
 
“They’re doing it to torture me.
 
They’re going to suffer Cesar until the final
day, and then they’re going to gut him.”

Shaken
by the outburst, Redon smiled weakly and said, “If Cesar can lead Hartline to
his aggressors, perhaps Hartline can kill them before they kill him.”

 
Navarro closed his eyes, his voice a whisper.
 
“I pray…
le
pio a Dios
…he will take this job and protect my only son.”

“Cesar’s
a fine young man,” Redon said obsequiously.

Navarro’s
eyes opened.
 

Redon
stared at him.

Navarro
slowly turned.
 
“Cesar is a piece of shit.”

The
two men grew silent.

Chapter Eight

Outside
the bedroom the music blared, making the mirror vibrate on the wall.
 
Having dimmed all the lights, Xavier stared
at himself, his hands straining on the edge of the marble countertop.
 
His anger was visible, marked by tremors and
bulging veins.
 
Xavier couldn’t
comprehend that, despite the growth of Los Leones, they were still in financial
peril.

Earlier,
after the lieutenants had left, Xavier sat naked in the hot tub, trying his
best to unwind.
 
Then he was surprised by
that little over-educated shit, Theo Garcia.
 
Garcia had not left with the others.
 
Instead, he pulled up a chair and harangued Xavier for the better part
of an hour.

As
always, Theo had started with hard expenses.
 
These dealt with drug-processing facilities, boats, transportation and
people on Los Leones’ payroll.
 
“Things
have been trimmed as far as possible,” Garcia said with a grave
expression.
 
He moved on.

His
next line item, as usual, was what he called soft costs.
 
These were items Garcia deemed unnecessary,
although he was blind to the specifics of many of the actual transactions—something
that was by Xavier’s design.
 
But the
little accountant, degenerate little prick though he was, was no idiot.
 
He deftly pointed the dirty end of the stick
at Xavier, telling him that “the highest level of leadership is spending well
in excess of two million euro per month on security, transportation, meals,
housing and
personal
entertainment.”

Upon
hearing this, Xavier had eyed the little man—stared him down.

“Unless
I’m mistaken, señor,” Garcia had said, averting his own eyes.

The
end of the summary had dealt with mundane items.
 
The net result was essentially this: the top
line was up, but only modestly.
 
The
bottom line, however, had shrunk.
 
And
though he never came out and said it, Garcia most definitely hinted that the
bottom line was being vacuumed away by Xavier’s extravagant lifestyle.

“We
have no cash reserves,” Garcia had warned.
 
“One bad month could wreck our entire organization.
 
If you do not have the cash for our
government payoffs, or if your legions do not receive the money they’re owed,
you could be dealing with a mutiny that would result in your certain—”

“Cállate!”

“My
apologies,” Garcia said, as insincerely as humanly possible.

As
he had actually considered grabbing the little accountant and holding him under
the overheated water, Xavier, quite overheated himself, sat on the side without
covering himself.
 
He took a few deep
breaths, finally asking, “Assuming our expenses remain the same, what can we do
to increase the bottom line?”

“If
all of our expenses remain the same?
 
Including executive expenditures?”

“Yes,”
Xavier growled through clenched teeth.

“Then
you must increase the top line without adding more expense.
 
And the easiest way to do that, rather than
encroaching into new geographies, is by eliminating Ernesto Navarro, or his
son, and taking over Los Soldados’ operations, including their drug and gun
inventories.”

“Did
you say ‘the son’?”

“Yes.”

Xavier
had begun to laugh.
 
He ran his hands
back through his wet hair, shaking his head before his laughter had abruptly
halted.
 
“You may know numbers, Theo, but
you’re one of the stupidest, most irritating people I’ve ever had to deal
with.
 
For the hundredth time, Cesar
Navarro is a pigeon.
 
We’re trying to use
him to get to his cowardly old man.
 
But
if we kill Cesar, then the old man is a vapor.
 
Do you follow?”

“All
I know is you must eliminate the Navarros.
 
If you don’t, Los Leones is at high risk.
 
If I were you, I’d be concerned about Los
Soldados converting
your
men with the
promise of more money.
 
They can afford
it.”

Xavier
wanted to strike back but what Garcia had just said made him stop and think.

My own men turning on me.
 
It could happen
.

“There
is another option,” Garcia said.

“What?”

Garcia
looked at Xavier, then averted his eyes.
 
“Never mind, señor.”

“Get
out of my face.”

Garcia
began to walk away before Xavier called out to him.

“Yes,
señor?” Garcia asked at the threshold.

“Theo…if
we have any level of financial failure, I will blame you.”

Garcia
departed.

The
little bean-counter had all but ruined Xavier’s evening.
 
Trying to forget the earlier exchange, Xavier
now straightened, eyeing himself in the mirror.
 
The many hours spent with his trainers, with his massage therapists,
under acupuncture and the injections of various anabolic steroids, had left him
with the hard body of a twenty-five-year-old.
 
The day’s sun had set his skin aglow, making it warm to the touch.
 
He was warmed further by the drugs and the anticipations
of his evening’s plans.

Xavier
walked to the bedroom door, hearing the young Dutch women laughing and talking out
in the main sitting rom.
 
Lucky
perras
…they don’t know what they’re in for
.

“But
tomorrow,” Xavier whispered to himself, affected by Garcia’s warnings.
 
“Tomorrow we will increase our efforts to
kill Ernesto Navarro.”

Xavier
opened the door.
 
Tomorrow
.

* * *

Gage
keyed the door and stepped inside.
 
The
small hotel room smelled glorious, of Justina’s toothpaste and shampoo and her
scent in general.
 
He found her on the balcony,
sitting there in a lime-colored cotton dress with her hair down.
 
Beside her was a glass ashtray with three lipstick-marked
cigarette butts.
 
One slightly curled
division of Justina’s blonde hair fell down over her cheek as she lifted her
eyes to him.
 
Her freshly tanned skin
made her teeth seem all the more white as she smiled at him.

“May
I take you to dinner?” he asked, forcing a smile, not yet ready to reveal what occupied
his mind.

They
found an open seafood restaurant on the crescent beach of Tossa de Mar.
 
There was quite a chill blowing in from the
sea so they took a table inside, near the rear of the restaurant.
 
Three different times, as they waited on
their food, Justina asked Gage what was wrong.
 
Each time he reassured her, telling her they would discuss it later,
insisting they enjoy their dinner first.

Finally,
after eating half of his food and struggling to make suitable small talk due to
his jumbled mind, Gage flattened his palms on the table.
 
“What would you say to getting out of here
tomorrow?”

“What
do you mean?”

“I
mean you and me get on an airplane, or a train, and leave Spain.”

“For
good?” she asked, her eyes widening.

“Not
exactly.
 
I’m thinking we just go away
for a few days.
 
The Costa Brava is
beautiful and charming, but I think it would be nice to simply have a change of
scenery.”

She
sipped her water, turning away as she rolled a piece of ice around in her
mouth.
 
After a moment, she crunched the
ice, her face alight.
 
“I’m in.”

“Where
would you like to go?”

“Anywhere
but Poland,” Justina said.
 
“I love my
home and family, but not if we’re going somewhere to relax.”

“Okay,”
Gage said, listing a number of possibilities.

Justina
couldn’t decide, finally telling Gage to surprise her.
 
Gage paid the bill and they left the
restaurant.

After
a brief walk on the beach, cut short due to the chill, they headed back to
their hotel.
 
Just before walking up the
hillside from the beachfront road, a man in a wheelchair emerged from a
darkened alley.

“Good
evening, friends,” the man said in accented English.

Gage
and Justina stopped.
 
The man who stared
back at them was muscular with a mop of curly hair and a bushy moustache.
 
He had no legs.
 
His wheelchair was blocking the sidewalk but
his expression seemed pleasant as his head rotated between Gage and Justina.

“How
did you know to speak English to us?” Gage asked.

“I
could tell by the way you walk that you’re American,” the man said, pointing a
finger at Gage.
 
“You’ve got that
American swagger.”

“You
must have heard us talking.”

“I
did not,” the stranger said.
 
“Not only
could I tell you’re American, I can also tell that you’re a soldier.”

Gage
glanced at Justina.
 
“I was.”

“You
are
a soldier.”

Gage
took Justina’s right hand in his left.
 
“Can we help you with something, sir?”

The
man held his hand out to Gage.
 
“I just
wanted to say hello to a fellow soldier.”

“Is
that how you lost your legs?” Gage asked, shaking the man’s hand and choosing
to be direct about his injury out of soldierly respect.

“Yes,
sir.
 
Iraq, February of ninety-one.
 
I was one of the few from the Spanish
coalition.
 
I was commanding a Pegaso
that got flipped courtesy of a Russian-made anti-tank mine.
 
Been sitting ever since.”

Gage
nodded his understanding.
 
“Are you from Tossa?”

“Am
now,” the man said, his English nearly good enough to pass for a native
speaker.
 
“Got a shack up on the hill but
most days I like to patrol down here at the water.”

“Patrol?”

“Yes,”
the man said.
 
“It’s my duty to all our
tourists.”
 
He motioned up and down the
beach.
 
“Watch yourselves around here.
 
With our poor economy, lots of sharks in
Catalonia these days.”

“We’ll
remember that,” Gage said, shaking the man’s hand again.

The
man in the wheelchair looked at Justina and said, “
Dobranoc
.”
 
It meant “Good
evening” in Polish.
 
He tipped an
imaginary cap and wheeled back into the darkness.

As
Gage and Justina walked up the hill, Justina was incredulous as she asked, “How
did he know I was Polish?”

“And
how did he know I was American?”

Justina
broke the tension by laughing.

Typically,
Gage would have been very suspicious of such an encounter.
 
But, for some reason Gage couldn’t discern,
he believed the man in the wheelchair to be genuine.
 
He’d instinctively liked the man—and his
instinct was seldom wrong.
 
Rather than
dwell on it, he decided to focus his attention on Justina.

When
they arrived back in their hotel room, the tension was thick.
 
Unsure of what to do, Gage brushed his teeth
and asked Justina what time she would wake up tomorrow.

“Well,
since I don’t have to scrub toilets at Eastern Bloc, I’d like to train my body
to sleep a little later.”

“I’ll
be up early,” Gage said.
 
“And by the
time you wake up, I’ll have a trip all planned out, okay?”

As
he removed his shoes, Justina leaned down and kissed him.
 
He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he felt
her gently pushing him backward.
 
Not
wanting to seem presumptive, Gage stayed upright.

Though
the kiss was glorious, Justina appeared frustrated when she straightened.
 
She walked into the bathroom and told Gage to
sleep well.

Later,
as Gage stared at the dark wall, Justina pulled him behind her, just as she’d
done the night before.
 
Despite the tension,
their mutual touch was just the sleep-aid they both needed.

They
were asleep in minutes.

* * *

Not
far away, Xavier Zambrano was having a much more frenetic evening.
 
Before him, five beautiful and naïve young
women danced with one another, sufficiently drunk and, for at least two of
them, flying high on cocaine.
 
Finger
paintings of color followed each woman’s movement, highlighted by the hue of
her clothing.
 
The house-style music
thudded, pulsating from the villa’s hidden speakers.
 
Xavier was lounging in a leather chair,
sipping his tonic water, enjoying the scene playing out before him as he
decided which one, or ones, he would take first.