the palace before my colossal joke of a stepson burns the place down. You can do whatever you have to do. My bodyguards here will take me back, but I must see you tonight at ten p.m. sharp. Don’t be late.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“Until then?”
“Until then . . . El Dopo.”
She pinched his cheek so long and hard that his squinting eyes teared, and the bruise quickly turned garishly, sickeningly livid. Studying her handiwork, she could not resist pinching it again. And again. And again.
Turning abruptly, she headed toward her team of bodyguards, which had remained a discreet twenty or so feet behind them. When she reached them, she paused for just a second to look back at her new lover.
“Just one more thing, Capitán.”
“Yes, My Lady?”
“Do not ever disappoint me. I am the last woman in the world you want to disappoint.”
Chapter 6
Two hardcase strangers in black frock coats, matching broad-brimmed hats, and white shirts with black dangling bow ties rode up Culiacán’s main street. With two huge bulging carpetbags strapped to each of their saddles, they easily passed for two ranchers arriving at the bank to make a deposit. Even the pack mule following them, laden with panniers, crossbucks, and more carpetbags, would not have raised suspicions. El Primer Banco Nacional y Fiduciario de Sinaloa was the biggest bank in the state, and Culiacán was that state’s capital and its biggest city. The bank was used to large deposits and withdrawals.
Dismounting, the men each gave their reins two quick turns around the bank’s hitchrack—two turns guaranteed that the horses’ bits would injure their mouths if they tried to bolt—but they weren’t tied up tight enough to slow the men’s escape.
They entered the bank, Moreno first, then Slater. It had just opened and behind the cashiers’ windows stood three men. They wore green forehead visors, white boiled shirts with black elbow garters—to prevent them from shoving money up their sleeves and into their shirts—and celluloid collars. As of yet, there were no customers. It was still too early. Moreno spoke to the security guard in a dark blue policeman’s uniform, asking for the manager’s office.
“To the left,” the man said, studying the two strangers carefully. All the while, the guard, with studied nonchalance, rested his right hand on his holstered pistol.
“We’re here to make uno gran depósito, señor,” Moreno said to the manager, entering his office and pointing toward their six valises and smiling. “Uno muy magnífico depósito.”
Entering the manager’s office, Slater studied the bearded, dark-suited manager seated at his big dark wood desk. He immediately stood to greet them. Three dark wood armchairs faced his desk and behind him a small couch was flush against the wall. A portrait of El Presidente Porfirio Díaz hung behind the man’s desk. A placard on the desk read, MANAGER: JUAN HIDALGO. Rounding his desk, Hidalgo said, smiling, his hand out:
“What’s this I hear about uno depósito gran y magnífico?”
“Here, my friend, let me show you,” Morena said, putting his two valises on the couch behind him and shaking his hand.
Placing his two valises on the floor, Slater quietly slipped out of the office. Reaching into the bag, Moreno pulled out a sawed-off twelve-gauge Greener and shoved it into the manager’s crotch.
“I’m gonna blow your cojones to kingdom come, if you don’t open that safe and deposit all that gringo gold you got this morning in these satchels.”
Catching the blur of motion, Moreno glanced sideways just in time to see Torn Slater whip a thin stiletto out of his sleeve and backhand the guard’s throat hard enough to sever his trachea, his jugular, and carotid. Stepping to the right, Slater narrowly ducked the deluge of blood geysering out of the guard’s throat. He then kicked the pistol, which the guard had just drawn, out of the man’s fist. Picking it up, Slater shoved it in his belt.
“¡En el piso!” [“On the floor!”] Slater shouted, pulling his own pistols and pointing them at the three cashiers standing at their open windows.
The three men dropped to the floor, facedown and shaking, as if they’d been shot. There were still no customers.
“That money’s not worth dying for,” Moreno said to the manager, “which is what you’ll all do if you don’t open that safe ahora [now].”
The scattergun was still crowding the manager’s crotch, so for emphasis Moreno eared the double hammers back to full cock.
“You don’t want those pesos to cost you your cojones,” Moreno added to the manager. “You and your family don’t mean squat to Díaz. Start to doubt that we’ll kill you and take a look at that guard back there bleeding all over your floor. That’s what happens if you try to stop us.”
Head down, the manager nodded his acquiescence. Pointing toward his right-hand desk drawer, he said:
“The key, señor. In there.”
Moreno nodded. “Get it, amigo, and then let’s get them pesos.”
Hidalgo removed the big brass key. “It’s down here,” he said, pointing toward the heavy black wool rug covering his office floor.
“A floor safe?” Moreno asked, surprised.
“Sí, señor. Understand though, you are stealing a personal loan from the United States government to El Presidente Porfirio Díaz—a hundred fifty thousand dollars in newly printed one-hundred-dollar bills. El Presidente will have to pay that loan back personally if Méjico is ever again to borrow money from foreign investors. Díaz will not rest until he hunts you down. He will move heaven and earth until he sees your souls in hell.”
When Moreno looked into the open safe, he saw it was packed with countless stacks of banded, fresh-printed one-hundred-dollar bills.
“Hideputa [son of a whore],” Moreno was finally able to mutter. “What the fuck have we got here?”
Chapter 7
Eléna Vasquez sat on the edge of Rachel Ryan’s bed. Emiliano Pérez, the elderly, white-haired family doctor, sat across from Eléna on the other edge of the bed. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and a pale gray suit with matching shirt, socks, and pants. Only his shoes were black. His eyes were warm but tired, and he was putting cold compresses on Rachel’s hot, shattered temple very, very gently.
Eléna’s close friend Antonio sat in the corner. His clothes were also white mejicano garb, but he wore leather shoes, not rope sandals. He stood six feet three, and even under baggy clothes his muscles seemed massive. His neck was as thick as a telegraph pole. He said nothing. Antonio seldom said anything, but it was common knowledge that he would follow Eléna into the grave.
“Eléna,” Dr. Pérez said, “the woman has suffered a fracture of the left temple, which happens to be very dangerous. It’s one of the thinnest areas in the skull and quite susceptible to shattering when struck with a
