After breakfast he was gone, and she hadn’t heard from him in four days. The first week of October was almost behind them. Was he all right? Had he found Lola’s son?
After Milla left, Susanna went into her private office and called True. “I just saw Milla. We’re still safe; she doesn’t know anything about Diaz. She thinks it was bad information.”
True was silent; then he cursed luridly. “She’s met Diaz, you fool! They were seen together last month in Juarez.”
Susanna’s blood ran cold. “She lied to me?”
“If she denied knowing anything about him, she did.”
“But why would she do that? We’ve been friends for years.”
True snorted at that. Friends? God save him from friends like Susanna Kosper.
“Maybe she suspects you,” he snapped. “Maybe Diaz is closer to us than I thought.”
For once he didn’t have the chance to hang up; Susanna dropped the receiver into its cradle and sat staring at the phone as if it were a snake. She’d always thought Milla, while admirable in so many ways, was a touch naive. Now she wondered if she wasn’t the naive one. Was Milla playing her?
Panic rose in her throat, threatening to choke her. She’d worked too hard to let things fall apart now. She had to do something, and she had to do it fast.
22
Diaz entered the smoky cantina and found himself a place against the wall, partly shadowed, where he could watch the patrons come and go. The music was loud, the metal tables were crowded with empty bottles, and the urinal consisted of a barrel in a back corner. Two prostitutes were doing a lively business; the Mexican farmers and fishermen were relaxed and having a good time, singing along with a folk song, giving one another numerous and enthusiastic toasts, which called for more bottles, which called for more toasts. The cantinero, the bartender, looked like a man who kept a loaded shotgun close to hand, but in the convivial little cantina Diaz doubted he needed it very often.
Running Enrique Guerrero to earth had taken a lot of time and patience. Diaz thought he’d probably chased him over half of Mexico. But he’d finally caught up with the little fucker, in the port city of Veracruz, in this crowded, aromatic cantina where he felt safe, surrounded by all his compadres.
Lola must have warned him, Diaz thought, or his friends in Matamoros had. Enrique had run. Now why would he do such a thing, unless he had something to hide? Watching him, Diaz figured he had a lot to hide. Enrique was one of those furtive weasels who watched the people around him and, when they were too drunk to notice, relieved them of some of their cash. He was slick, but the cantina was dark and smoky, and there was some serious drinking going on; a five-year-old would have had some success doing the same thing. Enrique was drinking, but not much, which gave him a huge advantage. Still, not a few of the campesinos carried machetes; it was their weapon of choice, and hacking at one another was almost a national sport. Enrique was risking more than a black eye if he got caught.
Diaz wasn’t drinking at all. He stood very still, and most people never even noticed him. He didn’t make eye contact with anyone. He just watched Enrique, and waited for his chance.
Because he wasn’t drinking very much, Enrique didn’t have to make any visits to the barrel in the corner. If he had, Diaz could have moved up behind him and gently escorted him out the nearby door that led into the callejón, the alley. In this crowd, no one would have noticed or given a damn even if they had. So Diaz waited, moving deeper into the shadows, his attention never wavering.
Dawn was only minutes away when Enrique stood and slapped his pals’ backs, trading loud and hilarious insults if the drunken laughter was anything to go by. Probably he’d lifted all he could reasonably expect to get; it was a good gig, because when everyone sobered up, they would simply think they’d had a very good time and spent all their money.
When Enrique opened the door, the fresh air outside didn’t even make a dent in the almost palpable wall of smoke that filled the room. Diaz moved without haste from his post, timing his arrival so he stepped through the door right behind Enrique. No one seeing him would have thought there was any purpose at all to his leaving right then, because his gait had been leisurely.
As soon as the door closed behind him, he had his hand over Enrique’s mouth and his knife point sticking just under his ear as he dragged the weasel into the darkness of a narrow alley.
“Talk, and you will live,” he said in Spanish. “Fight, and you will die.” He removed his hand from Enrique’s mouth. Just to make certain Enrique got the point, Diaz gave him the point, about an eighth of an inch. It stung like hell and blood began pouring, but Diaz had taken care not to cut anything major.
Enrique was already slobbering with fear, promising anything, everything, whatever the señor wanted. Here, he had money—
“Don’t move your hands, cabrón.” Diaz dug the knife point in a little deeper. With his other hand he did a swift search and relieved Enrique of the blade he’d been trying to pull out of his pocket. “I don’t want your friends’ money, just answers to a few questions.”
“Yes, anything.”
“Your mother sent me. My name is Diaz.”
Enrique’s knees wobbled. He let loose with a number of colorful curses at Lola, who, even if she’d heard them, likely wouldn’t have cared. Diaz figured there wasn’t any love lost between mother and son, or she would never have told Diaz how to find Enrique. Essentially, Lola cared about no one but herself, a trait she had passed on to her son.