Diablo Nights (Detective Emilia Cruz Book 3) Read online

  “What’s she talking about?” El Gordo wheezed at his brother.

  Emilia looked from one brother to the other. “I’m looking for whoever asked you to make these letters.”

  “Are you a cop?” El Flaco demanded, tension flooding his features.

  “Cristo Rey,” El Gordo swore. The loupe fell out of his eye and a gun appeared in his hand. It had either been in a desk drawer or hidden in the rolling folds of flesh. “A cop? You think you can hit us up for protection money?”

  “No, no. I’m looking for the woman who once had that finger attached to her hand,” Emilia said, putting a crack into her voice. She hesitated, offering up a mental prayer that Flores wouldn’t fuck it up this time, then burst into noisy tears. “It might be my sister’s finger.”

  El Flaco swore as Emilia cried as hard as a little girl setting up for Alvaro and Raul; gasping loudly around her sobs, real tears streaming down her face.

  “We got an email,” she sobbed. “Maria’s husband is rich, but he isn’t as rich as they think.” Flores opened his mouth and she dug an elbow into his ribs.

  “What the fuck’s going on?” El Gordo demanded of his brother, as the gun wavered between Emilia and Flores. “Cops or con artists?”

  El Flaco hauled Emilia toward him with surprising strength. “Let’s find out which it is, chica.”

  “Please,” Emilia gasped as El Flaco dragged her toward the door. “We need to find Maria, that’s all.”

  “Leave her alone!” Flores launched himself at El Flaco, only to receive a backhand that sent the younger man to the floor. And then the cold muzzle of a gun was against Emilia’s temple and the click of the safety echoed in her ears. Emilia’s eyes watered as rank body odor clogged her nostrils.

  El Gordo breathed heavily with the effort of having left his chair and pulling his mass past the desk. The gun rose and fell against Emilia’s head in time with his breathing and the effort to keep his arm outstretched. “Who are you?” he rasped.

  “My name’s Emilia.” It wasn’t hard to sound scared. “He’s my brother Orlando. We’re trying to find our sister.”

  The door opened and the woman who’d watched them enter the house came into the art studio. She looked from El Gordo and Emilia, to El Flaco, then to Flores on the floor. “What’s going on here?”

  “My sister,” Emilia blurted, knowing she had one shot to make this woman her ally. “My sister’s been taken and these letters were sold with her finger.”

  “Shut up,” El Flaco shouted.

  “Please listen to me,” Emilia begged. She couldn’t see Flores and didn’t dare turn her head.

  The woman almost certainly was the mother of the two men. She smelled like garlic and tomatoes, like a comfortable kitchen should smell, and had a kitchen towel over her shoulder. She marched up to Emilia and gasped her chin, banging the side of Emilia’s head against El Gordo’s gun. Her work-roughed fingers dug into Emilia’s jaw. “You lying to me, chica? You here to make trouble for my boys?”

  “No,” Emilia gasped and held up her hands, palms out. The woman’s grip across her face was like iron. “I’m looking for my sister. No trouble, I promise.”

  The woman locked eyes with Emilia. “What about him?” She jerked her head at Flores.

  “No trouble, I promise,” Emilia repeated.

  Finally the woman dropped her hand. “Talk,” she said.

  “There have been emails,” Emilia said. She hoped the woman hadn’t cracked her jaw. The pain in her face equaled the pain of the gun pressed against her temple, as if the fat man was leaning his weight against her. “They told us to go to a store and there it was. With these letters.”

  “Who told you to come here?” the woman asked.

  “Señor Blandón Hernandez.” Emilia had to walk carefully, especially if Blandón had been the one to commission the letters. “I don’t know if he is being honest with me or not.”

  “We don’t ever ask questions,” El Flaco said. “Never talk about jobs.”

  “I don’t know what else to do.” Emilia felt the tears stream down her face again. “Please. Please help me.”

  No one said anything.

  The woman in the doorway pointed at El Gordo. “Do you know this Señor Blandón Hernandez?”

  “Maybe.”

  The woman turned to El Flaco. “You?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Tell her what you do know, then get them out.” The woman looked at Emilia. “You don’t come back here, chica. Understand?”

  “I understand,” Emilia managed.

  El Gordo lowered the gun and Emilia swayed in relief. He made his ponderous way back to the desk and sat, breathing heavily from the effort. The gun rested on the desk near his hand. Flores stood up but stayed where he was.

  The enormous forger picked up the copies of the letters with his incongruously nimble hands. “I remember this job,” he said, sucking in air between every word. “It was a few weeks ago. I had to age the papers, make them different, recreate the vegetable inks that would have been used at the time. We don’t do too many jobs that take a long time, but letters are easy. No official seals, no special forms. Just letters.”

  By the door, the woman played with the kitchen towel in a way that made Emilia think of a rope used to strangle. El Flaco’s angry confusion thickened the tension in the room. Flores breathed in little panicky puffs.

  “The buyer couldn’t wait here, of course.” El Gordo went on, spittle forming on his lips as he struggled to breathe and speak at the same time. “He paid us and when the letters were done we delivered them to the address he gave us. A business in a warehouse. Delivered there two, three times.”

  “Blandón Hernandez’s office,” Emilia supplied. “In the Costa Azul neighborhood.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But did he pay for the letters?” Emilia pressed. “Or they were simply delivered there?”

  “The buyer is a regular,” El Gordo said. “Sometimes the deliveries are to his stall at the Mercado Municipal. Other times to someone else like Blandón Hernandez.”

  Emilia wiped tears off her face with the back of her hand. “He runs a stall at the Mercado Municipal?”

  “Juan Fabio,” El Gordo huffed. “The junkman. Go ask him where your sister is.”

  “Thank you,” Emilia breathed. El Flaco hustled her and Flores out the door, past his hulking brother and the gray-haired woman and the towel twisted tight in her hands.

  ☼

  “What the hell were you thinking of?” Emilia snarled.

  “Don’t walk so fast,” Flores said.

  “Shut up, shut up,” Emilia muttered. The trip back to the park in El Flaco’s taxi had been silent and excruciating, Emilia expecting any moment that he’d take a wrong turn and produce the twin of his brother’s gun. But they were unceremoniously dumped out a few blocks from the park and it was taking every bit of Emilia’s self control not to run all the way to the burger place, which Silvio had designated as the rendezvous spot. If she didn’t kill Flores before they got there it would be a miracle. “What the fuck were you thinking of? Feeding him some story that meant we had to show him identification?”

  “I was protecting you,” Flores exclaimed. “I didn’t like--.”

  “You never, ever, ever give your real ID to a known criminal,” Emilia rolled on. “Unless there’s a gun to your head. Do you realize the problem you created?”

  “It was more convincing this way,” Flores said. “Otherwise if it was just about you needing a letter to get a job, why did I need to be there? That would make them suspicious.”

  “We talked about this!” Emilia exclaimed. She pulled him into an alley behind a small grocery store. Plastic bags of trash reeked of rot and rats rustled near a dumpster. “The story would have worked fine. Instead you made up something on the fly that nearly got us both killed.”

  “I was protecting you,” Flores insisted. “That taxi driver looked at you--.”

  “That didn’
t matter,” Emilia wanted to scream. “You stick to the plan. The agreed-upon plan. You don’t make up shit because that leaves you vulnerable.”

  Flores blinked at her.

  “Who the hell do you think they work for most of the time?” Emilia poked him in the chest. “Do you know who their friends are? How they make enough money for that nice house? No, you don’t. You weren’t even thinking like that!”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Maybe they do some work for one of the street gangs that don’t like cops. Maybe El Flaco gives them your real name and address. After all, he didn’t seem to like us very much, did he? Thought maybe we were cops. Those two brothers want to get in good with the gang, well, we’re going to be the cops they give up.”

  Flores flinched. “What about your bit of play acting?”

  “I was pulling our asses out of the fire,” Emilia said. “And barely pulled it off.”

  “We got what we wanted,” Flores pointed out. “I thought you’d be happy.”

  Emilia turned and headed for the burger place.

  Silvio was in a corner booth. He slid a cold cola across the table to Emilia and she marveled at how the world had changed to the extent that she could be so pathetically grateful to see his ugly face. She gave him a quick rundown of what had happened, expecting her partner to blow up at Flores. Instead he’d shaken his head and said, “You’re lucky Cruz isn’t wiping the floor with you, kid.”

  No one spoke on the way back to the police station. Once they parked the car, Flores got out and marched into the building.

  Emilia didn’t open her door.

  “You got a name,” Silvio said. “We can follow up.”

  “We got a name,” Emilia affirmed.

  “This is your fault, you know,” Silvio growled.

  Emilia grabbed her shoulder bag from the car floor. “How’s that?”

  “His story was a marriage certificate? Because he didn’t like the way the taxi driver was coming on to you.” Silvio rubbed a hand over his crew cut. “Rayos, Cruz. Better warn Hollywood he’s got competition.”

  “Okay, Flores has got a crush on me,” Emilia acknowledged. “Not my fault. I haven’t done anything to encourage him. And when I kill him, he’ll get over it.”

  Silvio scowled. “This is why women detectives are such a fucking bad idea.”

  Emilia jabbed her hand on the button to unlock her door. “You know what’s such a fucking bad idea, Franco?”

  “What?”

  Emilia was so angry words failed her. “Nothing, just fucking nothing.” She threw herself out of the car but stuck her head back in before she slammed the door. “You get him tomorrow.”

  Chapter 14

  Emilia walked into the squadroom Tuesday morning. Silvio reached across their two desks and snatched up her coffee mug. As she dumped her shoulder bag into the desk drawer on top of the binder of Las Perdidas, he filled both her mug and his own from the coffee maker in the corner, then left the squadroom.

  “What the hell?” Emilia glanced around. Flores wasn’t there yet. The door to the lieutenant’s office was closed. Castro and Gomez were at their desks. When Castro saw Emilia looking around he smacked his lips together suggestively.

  Emilia locked the drawer. She crossed the squadroom to the door and nearly collided with Ibarra and Loyola coming in together. They were deep in conversation and ignored Emilia as she slid by. Ibarra left the stale scent of cigarettes in his wake.

  She headed for the rear exit of the building past the holding cells. She shot the guards with her thumb and forefinger, like always, and they whistled and shot her back.

  Silvio was waiting for her outside. Emilia closed the door and he held out her mug like a peace offering. They walked a little ways around the corner without speaking. Emilia drank the hot coffee with eyebrows raised over the rim of the mug.

  “I talked to Perez in Organized Crime,” Silvio said. “Found him in the gym this morning.”

  Emilia gave him a so what? look.

  “Nobody’s been assigned to the Pacific Grandeur murder case. Same as I predicted.”

  Emilia lowered her mug. “They haven’t listened to Bonilla’s interrogation tape yet?”

  “No.” Silvio slurped some coffee. “Nobody’s been assigned, either, to find the Salva Diablo body that disappeared from the morgue.”

  “I thought it had been assigned to a uniformed unit.”

  “Salva Diablo,” Silvio reminded her. “Anything related goes to Organized Crime. Perez said it’s being regarded as an internal morgue fuck up.”

  “Prade did not lose that particular body by accident,” Emilia said.

  “It gets better.” Silvio finished his coffee. “I asked Perez about the Customs cameras at the docks. Haven’t been turned on since November. Cost cutting.”

  “So no chance of any footage showing the Salva Diablo guy getting on board the cruise ship,” Emilia conceded unhappily.

  “Makes you think nobody gives a shit about this case, doesn’t it?” Silvio folded his arms, empty mug dangling below forearms thick with muscle.

  Emilia shook her head. “Or somebody’s going to a lot of trouble to make sure Bonilla, Ramos, and the Pacific Grandeur aren’t examined too closely. What did Perez say about the possibility of the Pacific Grandeur being used to smuggle Ora Ciega?”

  “Not much,” Silvio said. “Basically dismissed it as conjecture based on shit in a dead guy’s pocket.”

  “How stupid would we be if we didn’t make that connection?” Emilia exclaimed. “Ora Ciega, transport to El Norte, dead tumbadore. It’s not a hard one.”

  Silvio squinted up at the sky. “If you were going to start running Colombian Ora Ciega through Mexico, using Honduras as your trampoline, who would you pay off first?”

  “Local cops,” Emilia said, still fuming at Organized Crime. “Federales. The usual. Why?”

  “Customs, Cruz,” Silvio said, as if she’d missed the point. “First Mexican authority a cruise ship encounters when it docks.”

  “Maybe,” Emilia said. She finished her coffee. “But consider this. Bonilla and Ramos are two norteamericanos. If they’re moving high-priced Ora Ciega through Acapulco, they aren’t doing it on their own. Same for Salva Diablo. They might be big in Honduras but they’re nobodies here. They’d need permission from a big player already operating here, at the very least.”

  “Agreed,” Silvio said. “Salva Diablo doesn’t have a foothold in Mexico. Bonilla and Ramos are two guys who’d be dead already if they were moving Ora Ciega on their own. More likely all of them are at the bottom of the pyramid and somebody big is calling the shots and making the local payoffs. Same network that Bonilla called after killing the Salva Diablo kid.”

  Emilia’s coffee was beginning to kick in. “You think it’s Customs.”

  “Interesting coincidence their database going down when it did.”

  “It actually seemed genuine,” Emilia pointed out. Irma Gonzalez’s sympathetic smile lodged in the back of her mind. “If there is something going on, the woman in charge of that employee database doesn’t know.”

  “We can try her once again,” Silvio said. “But we don’t tell Flores. He’ll run his mouth off and somebody will end up real dead. We just keep him on the kidnapping case.”

  “Regarding the kidnapping case,” Emilia said. “I’ve got something to do before trying to find this Juan Fabio.”

  Silvio spewed out air. “Now what?”

  “Do you remember Lila Jimenez Lata?”

  “The lost girl.” Silvio nodded.

  “Her mother turned up dead in the morgue last week. At least it might be her mother.” Emilia gave Silvio a swift rundown of encountering the body in the morgue, Pedro Montealegre’s response, and Prade’s startling news of a name change and husband. “I’ve got an address for the husband.”

  “You think he can lead to the daughter?”

  “It’s worth a shot.”

  “Fuck, Cruz.” Silvio stamped hi
s feet. “How long is this going to take?”

  “I don’t know,” Emilia said. “Take Flores to the gym. Teach him how to handle himself. El Flaco put him on the floor with one slap.”

  Silvio’s scowl shifted into a rare sideways grin.

  “Make it look like an accident,” Emilia said. She was pretty sure she was kidding.

  ☼

  The sign over the pink-painted stucco building read Academia de Belleza Trinidad. It was located at an intersection in Colonia Bellavista, a working class neighborhood northwest of the docks. Like so many of the parts of the city hugging the base of the mountains, Colonia Bellavista was bereft of the glamour and money that ringed the bay. Here, Acapulco was just a city where people scrambled to stay away from the violence, make a living, go to church.

  The windows of the beauty school were covered with scrolled white iron grilles but the door was open. Emilia slowed as she drove past, checking out the people lounging in front. It was a sociable corner, with a newsstand a few meters down the way on one side, and a small abarrotes shop selling snacks on the other. A couple of rusted vehicles were parked on the street but nothing looked immediately threatening. Emilia drove around the block. It was all the same; scuffed and sagging cement, tears of rust around downspouts, advertisements painted onto walls, thick dust courtesy of the dry season and the chronic water shortages of forgotten neighborhoods. The buildings were low here; one or two stories with flat roofs and tangled electrical wires overhead; a far cry from the shiny white towers a bus ride away.

  Emilia parked and walked to the beauty school. The interior was cool and dim. She stood in the entrance for a moment, letting her eyes adjust. There wasn’t much to see. Two white plastic chairs, the kind in every outdoor taco joint, were clustered to the right near a desk littered with an appointment book and well-thumbed beauty magazines. On the other side of the room, two salon work stations sported vinyl swiveling chairs on pedestals and mirrors scarred by age and hairline cracks. An old fashioned hair dryer with a big plastic hood was propped on a makeshift wooden ledge above a faded blue fabric office chair. A pink sink with a cutout in front hung on the wall next to the dryer. The plumbing pipes were exposed and shiny with green mold.