to the door lock’s keypad and we’re in the house. The lower floor is softly lighted and the air-conditioning’s going strong. We cross the living room and pause at the bottom of the stairs. There are muffled sounds from the second floor—recorded voices, snatches of sound track music. They’re watching TV, maybe a video. We go up the stairway as cautiously as cats.
The TV’s louder now and emitting sounds of gunfire and Spanish dialogue. They’re coming from the room at the end of the hall, its doorway fully open but only faintly and flickeringly lit, the TV probably the only light within. We take a look into each of the first three rooms by turn, silently opening each door, switching on the light, guns ready, and find all of them unoccupied. We come to the open door and Mateo very slowly leans into it for a peek, then backs us down the hall a little way before whispering that there’s four of them in there, two guys, two women, all in one bed against the far left side of the room, watching a big TV on the opposite wall. He tells us how we’ll work it, then leads us back to the room. He takes another look inside, then Frank and I follow him in, all of us holding close to the wall. El Negro brings up the rear and stays by the light switch. The glow of the TV is sufficient for us to see that the two guys are wearing only boxer shorts, the girls only panties. I recognize the Spanish-dubbed movie they’re watching. Heat. De Niro and Pacino. Good flick.
Halfway to the bed, Mateo pauses and taps his gun against the wall, and Negro clicks on the lights. The girls let out short shrieks, and we dart out from the wall to form a firing line facing the bed as they all jerk around to gape big-eyed at the row of us pointing pistols at them. The girls are nicely hootered, and there’s no mistaking Miguel Soto with that mouth scar. He says, What the fuck—but Mateo tells him to shut up and orders them all to put their hands on top of their heads and they do. Julio looks as scared as the girls. Frank goes to the TV wall and yanks out a plug, and the screen goes dark and silent. If you’re curious about the ending, he says to the couples on the bed, the cop kills the robber.
Mateo tells the girls to push the covers and all the pillows to the floor, and they do it. He stirs the bedclothes with his foot to assure there are no weapons in them, then asks Soto if there are any firearms in the room and he says in the closet. Negro opens it and collects the two shoulder holsters hanging on door hooks, each one holding a large revolver. Mateo opens the window and sticks his head out and looks down, then tells Negro to drop the guns into the bushes below.
We flex-cuff the four of them with their hands at their backs, then gag and blindfold the girls and Julio with duct tape, but not Soto. We place Julio in an easy chair and tape his ankles to the forelegs. Mateo tells Negro to take the girls into the adjoining bedroom, put them on the bed, and tape their hands and feet to the bedposts. Negro hustles them away.
Mateo walks around the room, looking it over like he’s thinking of buying the place. He picks up a wad of currency from atop the dresser, seems to weigh it with his hand, then puts it back. He holsters his pistol and takes out a switchblade and snicks out the blade. Where’s the Boca Larga shipment? he says. If I have to ask you again, it’ll be after your dick’s on the floor.
Soto stares at him. Then at me and Frank. He looks like he’s considering every possible lie as fast as he can and not finding any of them propitious. Corona ratted, huh? he says. I shoulda shot the whoreson.
Mateo starts toward him with the blade brandished.
In the Suburban in the garage, Soto blurts out.
What garage? Where?
My garage. Soto juts his chin toward the rear of the house.
We look around at each other and smile. Sometimes it’s this easy.
Mateo puts away the knife. You and your brother and who else did the hijack? he asks.
Oh, hell . . . Cheto and Gaspar.
Frank casually looks at Mateo and strokes his mustache, his sign that he thinks Soto’s lying about the names. He’s the best I know at perceiving a lie. The best Mateo knows, too. Calls him a human polygraph.
Where are they? Mateo asks. Cheto and Gaspar.
Across the river in El Paso somewhere. I don’t know where they live, exactly. They don’t want me to know. Those fuckers don’t trust anybody, not even their own chief.
Another mustache stroke from Frank. Soto’s protecting his other two guys. He’s a loyal chief. There’s that to say for him.
El Negro returns, and Mateo takes him aside and whispers to him and they take out their phones. Mateo taps a button on his phone and Negro’s buzzes and he swipes the screen and nods. Keep it open, Mateo tells him, and they pocket the phones. Negro remains in the room with Julio as Mateo, Frank, and I take Soto, still cuffed and in his underwear, downstairs and out the back door.
We cross the high-walled rear patio to the garage, and Soto tells us the numbers to tap into the garage door lock. We go in and turn on the interior light to reveal a mud-smeared black Suburban with dusty black glass. Been driven hard over rough country and not cleaned up. We go around to its rear and I open the lift gate and there it all is—the unopened crates of carbines, machine guns, ammo. Plus a pair of loose M4s. I eject the magazine from one of them, make sure there’s no round in the chamber, take a whiff of its muzzle, and nod at Mateo that it’s recently been fired. Then I give the other one the nose test and say, “This one, too.” There’s also a small package, a carton wrapped in brown paper and sealed with packing tape and without any markings on it. It’s of a size to hold a few trade paperback books but feels lighter than that.
Mateo asks what’s in it and Soto says, Movies. DVDs. The chief likes movies. I was gonna give them to him.
Chief? Mateo says. I thought you were the chief of this bunch.
I am. I meant the chief of the Sinas. You know. El Chubasco.
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