To The Lions - 02 (40 page)

Cortez
watched her for a few seconds, finding himself struggling to swallow.
 
Finally, cursing the deadline imposed by the
woman on the phone, he grabbed his jacket, said goodbye again, and walked away.

The
girl didn’t respond.

Feeling
suddenly dejected, he crossed the side street, turning left as the door bells
jingled at El Café de Limón.
 
Sitting to
the left, the only patron in the café, a diminutive woman with a beehive of
black and gray hair climbed off her high stool and headed to him, her right
hand extended.

“Acusador
Redon, I am Maria Herrero and I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

After
glancing through the window, able to see only the taillight of the Volvo,
Cortez forced a polite smile as he shook the woman’s hand.
 
“Please understand, Señora Herrero, that I’m
only here in the
duty
entrusted in me
by the people of Catalonia.”

This
seemed to throw her, as a troubled expression briefly crossed her round
face.
 
“I see,” she said distantly.
 
“I guess I probably shouldn’t ask you what
I’d planned, then.”

Between
two forces of gravity, lust and greed, Redon felt himself transferring from one
field’s pull to the other.
 
He clasped
the older woman’s hand, sandwiching it with his left.
 
“Let’s don’t be hasty.
 
You suggested a chat, and a chat we shall
have.”

She
tugged her hand away.
 
“But I don’t want
to get myself in trouble.”

“What
trouble?” he asked in a breezy tone.
 
“We’re just two acquaintances having a friendly discussion.”
 
Signaling the young man behind the counter,
Redon asked for another mineral water.
 
He took Señora
Herrero’s
water
and led her to the sitting nook in the corner.
 
Once they were both seated, Cortez leaned forward, clutching his hands
together.

“Now,
please tell me, dear lady, without fear of consequence, what you wanted to tell
me.”

* * *

Perusing
the feed on Facebook, Mara, Cortez Redon’s assistant, heard the ding of the
elevator out in the hallway but paid it no mind.
 
They shared the third floor with an
engineering firm and the firm’s early workers would be heading out to lunch.

As
she read a thinly-veiled posting by a friend, clearly an insult to another girl
they both knew, Mara’s phone buzzed.
 
It
was the front receptionist.

“Yeah,
Pilar?”

“There’s
a man here to see the acusador.”

“He’s
out,” Mara said, already refocusing on the snide comments below the posting.

The
front receptionist, Pilar, a heavy, middle-aged woman who liked to live
vicariously through Mara’s nocturnal adventures, lowered her voice to a
whisper. “Let me send him back anyway.
 
I’m flushed all over…you’ve got to see him.”

Mara
hit the red X at the top right of the screen.
 
Pilar might have been a frump, but she had an unerring instinct in men.
 
“Okay, give me thirty seconds and buzz him
through.”

Grabbing
her purse, Mara quickly applied fresh lipstick and powdered the shine from her
nose.
 
She glanced down at her cheap
department-store blouse, unbuttoning another button and spreading the
collar.
 
A moment later, the buzzer
buzzed, the handle turned, and in walked a gorgeous specimen of a man, prowling
forward with the rippling confidence of a Bengal tiger.

He
was tall and lean, but muscular in the right places.
 
Complementing his rich tan, his dark hair was
flecked with spots of light brown, burnished by the sun.
 
His clothes were casual but chic and appeared
tailored—probably from a fine fashion designer.
 
He oozed superiority, infused with animal sexuality.
 
Despite his chiseled face, his alluring body,
and his fashion-magazine wardrobe, the most prominent of all the visitor’s
features was the large tattoo of a smoking pistol on the side of his neck.

Mara
knew, as soon as she saw the tattoo, that he was a member of the notorious
Leones gang.

Not
that she cared.

Moving
around her desk without invitation, he took Mara’s hand and kissed it, saying,
“
Buenos días
, beautiful lady.
 
My name is Xavier Zambrano and I am here to
see the acusador.”

Addled,
Mara blurted something about the acusador having stepped out.

Xavier
stood his ground, glancing at his large, expensive-looking wristwatch.
 
“He doesn’t take
el dinar
this early, does he?” he asked, having switched to
Catalan.

“No,
he just said he was stepping out.”

Stepping
forward so his body actually made her chair wheel backward—the action nearly
caused Mara’s heart to burst…she thought he was making an advance—Xavier leaned
over her, allowing her to smell the tastefully faint citrus scent of his
cologne or lotion.
 
When he straightened,
she ruefully realized he’d not been making a pass.
 
As Mara dipped her head, he slowly sounded
out the message she’d just taken from the woman on the phone.
 
Mara used a modified shorthand—“medium-hand,”
she called it—because the acusador liked to be able to decipher her notes.

He
stabbed the paper.
 
“When did this call
come in?”

“Just
fifteen minutes ago,” she replied, her voice sullen as she was still fretting
that he wasn’t coming on to her.

“Did
he leave to meet the person who called?”

“I
don’t know.”

“Was
it a man or a woman?”

“An
older-sounding woman,” Mara answered formally, disliking this man’s mounting
intensity.

“Did
he tell you where he was going?”

“He
said he was going to pick up a bite to eat.”

“Where?”
he barked.

She
glanced away, finally shrugging.
 
“He
didn’t say.”

Xavier
leaned down again, veins visible at his temples and on his neck.
 
“Think!
 
Are you certain?”

“I’m
quite
certain.”

“Tell
me everything about the phone call from that woman,” he loudly demanded, “then
tell me
exactly
how long it was
before Redon left.”

Mara
touched three digits on her phone, leaving it on speaker.
 

“Yeah,
Mara,” came a man’s voice.

“I
have a troublemaker up here, Roberto.”

“On
my way.”
 
The line clicked dead.

Feeling
a measure of vengeful satisfaction, Mara narrowed her eyes.
 
“The acusador doesn’t answer to a León, Señor
Zambrano, and neither do I.
 
Roberto is a
very large security guard and he’ll be here in a few seconds.”

Xavier
straightened, nodding once as he backed away.
 
“What a pity.”

“A
pity?”

“I
apologize for my intensity, but the acusador and I are actually acquaintances.”

“Yeah,
right,” she replied.

“But
that’s not the pitiful part.
 
I was going
to suggest drinks after work.
 
Dinner
and drinks.”
 
Xavier Zambrano turned as Roberto, the obese
security guard, burst in from the hallway door, breathing like he’d just run
with the bulls in Pamplona.
 
Xavier,
smirking, put his hands up innocently as he showed himself out, pausing at the
door as Roberto, huffing his way through the query, asked Mara if she was okay.

“He
didn’t do anything wrong,” Mara murmured sullenly.

Xavier
winked at her, then stepped away.
 
The
last thing she heard was the stairwell door being yanked open, followed by the
shuffle of the gangster’s feet as he hurriedly descended.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Having
ducked under the cold shower for a few seconds, Gage donned the guard uniform
and moved Angelines into the running water.
 
She was yelling that there was no time but he ignored her, having
witnessed the amount of airborne drain cleaner that had soaked her body.
 
Still wearing her clothes, she ran her hands
through her thick hair while he dumped shampoo over her.
 
She made a sudden hissing sound.

“Clamp
your eyes shut,” he whispered, taking care not to allow the captive guard to
hear them.
 
“You’re getting mild chemical
reactions but it’ll all wash away.
 
You
might look sunburned for a few days, but that’s it.”

Shutting
off the water, Gage pulled her from the bathroom and handed her a towel.
 
“We’ve gotta go, but you should make another
call.
 
Remember, you’re in charge
here.
 
Your guards don’t yet know what
you’re up to.
 
Until then,
you
call the shots.”

Gage
watched as her uncharacteristic timidity seemed to evaporate.
 
She looked away for a moment, nodding.
 
Then, pulling away from him, her clothes
still dripping, she stalked across the office and grabbed the handheld radio.

“Where’s
my headcount?
 
And I want a status update
from each unit.”

Feeling
slightly emboldened, Gage stepped to the rear door of the office, the remaining
greenish smoke having settled on the lower half of the room.
 
She told him to wait as she listened to the
status reports coming in.

“Salvador’s
bombs caused all sorts of commotion.
 
There’s a host of fires in the main bay.
 
No one mentioned the bomb in here.”

“Good.
 
How long?”

“They’re
getting the last of the stragglers in their cells.
 
We need to be gone in two minutes.”

“Will
the guard at the garage door be in his station?”

“Yes,
but I’ve got a better idea than you driving.”

“What’s
that?”

“Let
me drive.
 
I’ll tell them I got burned by
an acid bomb and I’m rushing to the doctor.
 
Given what just happened, they’ll believe me.
 
It’s all they’ve been hearing on their
radios.”

“But
when they find the guard and El Toro, they’ll determine that you’re in on
things,” Gage protested.
 
“And the headcount
will show me as missing.”

“They’re
going to figure that out anyway.
 
And it
beats being shot on the way out.”

She
had a point.

Hoping
he could pass muster as a guard, Gage opened the rear door of the office,
seeing an empty, brightly lit hallway that led to a T-intersection to his
left.
 
Holstering the AutoMag, he stepped
into the hallway, obscured by the riot shield.
 
Angelines would follow a moment later.

It
was time to escape this hell known as Berga.

* * *

Acusador
Cortez Redon placed his mineral water on the table, swishing the water in his
mouth before swallowing it.
 
He was
deliberately taking time to digest the fantastic story, trying his best to poke
holes in it, but overwhelmed by the possibilities in the event the woman’s tale
was true.

For
what it was worth, she seemed quite genuine.
 
There was a grandmotherly quality about her but, in a matter of minutes,
he was able to discern the fact that she was certainly moneyed and the twinkle
in her eye suggested that she would like to keep a portion of Navarro’s money,
with his help, of course.

In
Redon’s experience, wealthy people were among earth’s greediest.

“So,”
Redon said, drawing the word out.
 
“You’ve got what were allegedly Ernesto Navarro’s bearer bonds.”

“Yes,”
she replied, unblinking.

“I’m
not a lawyer who specializes in finance or banking, but I thought bearer bonds
were an anachronism.”

“Whether
they are or aren’t, these are genuine.
 
They don’t expire for a few more years.”

“And
you found them when you determined that he wasn’t coming back.”

“When
I saw you on television commenting on his death, I went to the home to see if
Navarro’s…
person
…had come for his
things.
 
Nothing had been touched and
then, when I read the paper, I saw that Navarro’s right-hand man had been
killed along with him.”
 
She patted the
back of Redon’s hand.
 
“Cortez, the only
other people they ever brought to that house were young women...prostitutes.
 
So, in my thinking, no one knew where to look
for the money once he’d been killed.”

Redon
stopped her.
 
“Weren’t you concerned with
him as a renter?
  
He was notorious.”

“Not
really.
 
I didn’t even know it at first.”

“How
did you know to call me?”
 

“I
saw you on a special news report.
 
You
were dashing, Cortez.
 
So in control.”

He
adjusted his tie, smiling.
 
“Please, dear
lady, go on.”

“When
I went to the house, everything was still there, untouched.”

“How
often did he stay there?”

“It
was hard to say.
 
Sometimes for a few
days, other times for weeks.”

“Alone?”

“Like
I said, just with his assistant who always paid the bills.
 
And the women.”

Breathe, old boy, breathe
.
 
Redon fought the urge to dance around the
café.
 
“Tell me about these female
visitors.”

Señora
Herrero pursed her lips.
 
“Harlots,” she
said with disdain.
 
“Buxom, wearing
sinfully skimpy clothing.
 
Drinking and
probably drugs…late-night frolicking in the hot tub.”
 
She looked off in the distance and shook her
head.

So she’s against his bringing
hookers to her home but she’ll gladly steal his money,
he
thought, sticking his tongue into his cheek to avoid a smile.
 
Redon leaned forward, having waited to ask
the most important questions.
 
“Where did
you find the bearer bonds?”

“In
a briefcase.
 
It was well-hidden.”

“Locked?”

She
smirked and diverted her eyes.

“Where
were the bonds issued?”

“A
bank in Luxembourg.”

“Are
you completely certain they’re genuine?
 
Like I said, bearer bonds are outmoded.
 
Although, to be fair, I’m not surprised a man like Navarro held
some—they’re most certainly a favored instrument of money launderers.”

“Acusador
Redon,” she said sharply, “while I may look like I should be home baking
cookies, I’m an accomplished businesswoman.
 
The bonds each have a face value of fifty thousand U.S. dollars and have
matured completely.
 
They’re no longer
drawing interest, but they’re absolutely viable.”

“I
hope you haven’t fallen prey to some sort of prop,” he said.
 
“Because I’ve not seen bearer bonds since—”

Redon
was cut short by the older woman’s action.
 
She reached into her large purse and removed a single sheet of folded
linen paper.
 
Taking her time, she
unfolded the thick greenish paper, flattening it on the table before them,
turning it so he could read the text.
 

It
was, indeed, a bearer bond—or a fake of the highest quality—marked by several
official seals.
 
“Fifty thousand United
States dollars,” he croaked.
 
Redon’s
mouth was dry, very dry.
 
After a long
draught of the faintly sulfuric mineral water he reverently touched the paper
as he asked the critical question.
 

“How
many of these bonds did you recover?”

“Just
so you know, I do
not
have them with
me.”

He
nodded.
 
“The amount, please?”

“Well,
there’s an entire sheaf of those bonds.”

A sheaf!
 
His throat was so swollen and dry he couldn’t
even swallow.
 
“How many?” he managed,
knowing his squawking voice sounded ridiculous.

“I’ve
counted them three times, Cortez.”
 

“Very
good.”

“And
I’m quite accurate.”

“Please,
darling…how much?”

She
smiled, drawing the moment out.
 
“There
are three hundred thirty-nine bearer bonds.
 
The total value is sixteen point nine five million, U.S.”
 

Cortez
Redon’s jaw came unhinged.

She
moved her hand over his, rubbing it like a lover might.
 
“And I’ll split it with you, Cortez, every
dollar.
 
But in order to do that, you
have to come with me to Luxembourg and use your influence and experience to
make certain that the bank will accept the bonds without trouble.
 
That done, you can go your own way, as will
I.”

Fighting
the urge to let his mind race, Redon narrowed his eyes, focusing on the
proposal.
 
“Madam, forgive me, but if
you’re as successful as you say, why would you want to create a problem of such
a large amount of excess cash?”

“My
money is tied up in real estate.
 
And
need I tell you what has happened in real estate?”
 
She finished her water.
 
“There is a beach somewhere in this world
with sugary sand, and it’s calling my name.
 
I shall sit on that beach, reading good books, dining famously, as I
spend that cash over the balance of the ten or twenty years I have left.
 
I’ve no children or grandchildren,” she said wistfully,
“so walking away for me is not of any concern.
 
And I shall go someplace where cash is welcome payment.”
 

With
such wealth on the table, Redon was easily convinced.
 
His mind began to race.
 
With his adequate state salary and his
lifetime of legitimate investments, he’d created a nest egg of over one million
euro.
 
That number would be quite a bit
higher had he not made a few bad moves prior to the long bull market at the end
of the previous century but, nonetheless, it was quite enough to support his
overweight wife—provided she lived frugally.
 
He wasn’t concerned about his two sons, ungrateful shits they were.
 
Both were well beyond the age of
accountability and could fend for themselves as far as he was concerned.

But
the jewel of Redon’s “retirement package” was the nearly three million euro
tucked away in Switzerland at the Banque Hottinger.
 
Nearly all of it had come from his illegal
dealings with Navarro and Xavier, along with that one tidy addition he’d made
years ago in return for throwing a murder trial (but that was another story).
 
As his secret fund had swelled, he’d found it
harder and harder not to leave his wife.
 
She’d grown fatter by the day, now taking painkillers just from the
discomfort of holding up her massive girth.
 
It sickened him.
 
Every time Redon
mounted a skinny young woman, staring up at him as if he were the lord of
creation, he would instantly think about the bliss of his long-awaited escape
to the islands.

Unfortunately,
Redon had never been able to make the math work with his three million euro.
 
At a conversion of about four million
dollars, he’d struggle to make three percent.
 
So, living on dividends only, he’d only generate $120,000 a year.
 
Given the lifestyle he’d come to expect, that
wasn’t nearly enough money to satisfy him

But
now, after this glorious turn of events, he could walk away with twelve million
dollars U.S., which would immediately put him in a different strata with the
discreet banking community.
 
He’d be able
to assure himself a very safe five percent return, perhaps as much as ten if
the economy turned.

At
five percent on twelve million dollars, tax-free of course, he was looking at
an annual return of nearly $600,000.
 
That’s not private jet money, but it’s fine
dinners, a damn nice second-row villa on Seven Mile Beach and first-class
tickets whenever I feel the need to fly
.