An Acceptable Sacrifice (5 page)

This was interesting. The agent said, “I suppose crime is an art form in a way.”

Cuchillo’s head cocked and he seemed confused. Díaz’s heart beat faster.

The collector said, “I don’t mean that. I mean that crime and popular novelists are often better craftspeople than so-called literary writers. The readers know this; they appreciate good storytelling over pretentious artifice. Take that book I just bought,
The Old Curiosity Shop
. When it first came out, serialized in weekly parts, people in New York and Boston would wait on the docks when the latest installment was due to arrive from England. They’d shout to the sailors, ‘Tell us, is Little Nell dead?’” He glanced at the display case. “I suspect not so many people did that for
Ulysses
. Don’t you agree?”

“I do, sir, yes.” Then he frowned. “But wasn’t
Curiosity Shop
serialized in monthly parts?”

After a moment Cuchillo smiled. “Ah, right you are. I don’t collect periodicals, so I’m always getting that confused.”

Was this a test, or a legitimate error?

Díaz could not tell.

He glanced past Cuchillo and pointed to a shelf. “Is that a Mark Twain?”

When the man turned Díaz quickly withdrew the doctored Schiller and slipped it onto a shelf just above
Ulysses
, near the drug baron’s armchair.

He lowered his arm just as Cuchillo turned back. “No, not there. But I have several. You’ve read
Huckleberry Finn?
”

“No. I just know it as a collector’s item.”

“Some people consider it the greatest American novel. I consider it perhaps the greatest novel of the New World. It has lessons for
us
as well.” A shake of the head. “And the Lord knows we need some lessons in this poor country of ours.”

They returned to the living room and Díaz dug the iPad from the case. “Let me show you some new titles that Señor Davila has just gotten in.” He supposed P.Z. Evans was relieved to hear his voice and learn that he had not been discovered and spirited off to a grave in the graceless Sonora desert.

He called up Safari and went to the website. “Now, we have—”

But his phony sales pitch was interrupted when a huge bang startled them all. A bullet had struck and spattered against the resistant glass of a window nearby.

“My God! What’s that?” Díaz called.

“Get out of the room, away from the windows! Now!” José, the security man, gestured them toward the doorways leading out of the living room.

“They’re bulletproof,” Cuchillo protested.

“But they could try armor piercing when they realize! Move, sir!”

Everyone scattered.

P.Z. Evans didn’t get a chance to shoot his gun very often.

Although he and Díaz had earlier commented about Cuchillo meeting with an “accident” in a euphemistic way, in fact staging natural deaths was the preferred way to eliminate people. While the police would often
suspect
that the death of a terrorist or a criminal was not happenstance, a good craftsman could create a credible scenario that was satisfactory to avoid further investigation. A fall down stairs, a car crash, a pool drowning.

But nothing was as much fun as pulling out your long-barreled Italian pistol and blasting away.

He was about fifty yards from the compound, standing on a Dumpster behind a luxury apartment complex. There wasn’t a support for the gun, but he was strong—shooters have to have good muscles—and he easily hit the window he was aiming for. He had a decent view through the glass and for his first shot aimed where nobody was standing—just in case this window happened not to be bullet proof. But the slugs smacked harmlessly into the strong glass. He emptied one mag, reloaded and leapt off the Dumpster, sprinting to the car, just as the side gate opened and Cuchillo’s security people carefully looked out. Evans fired once into the wall to keep them down and then drove around the block to the other side of the compound.

No Dumpsters here, but he climbed on top of the roof of the car and fired three rounds into the window of Cuchillo’s bedroom.

Then he hopped down and climbed into the driver’s seat. A moment later he was skidding away.

Windows up, A.C. on full. If there was mold in car’s vents he’d just take his chances. He was sweating like he’d spent an hour in the sauna.

Inside the house, after the shooter had vanished and calm—relative calm—was restored, Cuchillo did something that astonished Alejo Díaz.

He ordered his security chief to call the police.

This hardly seemed like the sort of thing that a drug baron would do. You’d think he’d want as little attention—and as little contact with the authorities—as possible.

But when a Hermosillo police captain, along with four uniformed officers, arrived twenty minutes later, Cuchillo was grim and angry. “Once again, I’ve been targeted! People can’t accept that I’m just a businessman. They assume because I’m successful that I’m a criminal and therefore I deserve to be shot. It’s unfair! You work hard, you’re responsible, you give back to your country and your city … and still people believe the worst of you!”

The police conducted a brief investigation, but the shooter was, of course, long gone. And no one had seen anything—everyone inside had fled to the den, bedroom or bathroom, as the security chief had instructed. Díaz’s response: “I’m afraid I didn’t see much, anything really. I was on the floor, hiding.” He shrugged, as if faintly embarrassed by his cowardice.

The officer nodded and jotted his words down. He didn’t believe him, but nor did he challenge Díaz to be more thorough; in Mexico one was used to witnesses who “didn’t see much, anything really.”

The police left and Cuchillo, no longer angry but once more distracted, said goodbye to Díaz.

“I’m not much in the mood to consider Señor Davila’s books now,” he said, with a nod to the iPad. He would check the website later.

“Of course. And thank you, sir.”

“It’s nothing.”

Díaz left, feeling even more conflicted than ever.

You work hard, you’re responsible, you give back to your country and your city … and still people believe the worst of you …

My God, was he a murderous drug baron or a generous businessman?

And whether Cuchillo was guilty or innocent, Díaz realized he was stabbed by guilt at the thought that he’d just planted a bomb that would take the life of a man at his most vulnerable, doing something he loved and found comfort in: reading a book.

An hour later Cuchillo was sitting in his den, blinds closed over the bulletproof windows. And despite the attack, he was feeling relieved.

Actually,
because
of the attack, he was feeling relieved.

He had thought that the rumors they’d heard for the past few days, the snippets of intelligence, were referring to some kind of brilliant, insidious plan to murder him, a plan that he couldn’t anticipate. But it had turned out to be a simple shooting, which had been foiled by the bullet proof glass; the assassin was surely headed out of the area.

Jos knocked and entered. “Sir, I think we have a lead about the attack. I heard from Carmella at Ruby’s. She spent much of last evening with an American, a businessman, he claimed. He got drunk and said some things that seemed odd to her. She heard of the shooting and called me.”

“Carmella,” Cuchillo said, grinning. She was a beautiful if slightly unbalanced young woman who could get by on her looks for the time being, but if she didn’t hook a husband soon she’d be in trouble.

Not that Cuchillo was in any hurry for that to happen; he’d slept with her occasionally. She was very, very talented.

“And what about this American?”

“He was asking her about this neighborhood. The houses in it. If there were any hotels nearby, even though earlier he’d said he was staying near the bar.”

While there were sights to see in the sprawling city of Hermosillo, Cuchillo’s compound was in a nondescript residential area. Nothing here would draw either businessmen or tourists.

“Hotel,” Cuchillo mused. “For a vantage point for shooting?”

“That’s what I wondered. Now, I’ve gotten his credit card information from the bar and data-mined it. I’m waiting for more information but we know for a fact it’s an assumed identity.”

“So he’s an operative. But who’s he working for? A drug cartel from
north
of the border? A hit man from Texas hired by the Sinaloans? … The American government?”

“I hope to know more soon, sir.”

“Thank you.”

Cuchillo rose and, carrying the Dickens, started for the library.

He stopped. “José?”

“Sir?”

“I want to change our plans with the bus.”

“Yessir?”

“I know I said I wanted safe haven for all bus passengers in Sonora on Friday, that nothing should happen to the passengers here.”

“Right, I told the men to wait to attack until it crossed the border into Sinaloa.”

“But now, tell the men to hit a bus
here
tomorrow morning.”

“In Sonora?”

“That’s right. Whoever is behind this
must
know that I won’t be intimidated. Any attempts on my life will be met with retribution.”

“Yessir.”

Cuchillo looked as his security man carefully. “You don’t think I should be doing this, do you?” He encouraged those working for him to make their opinions known, even—especially—differing opinions.

“Frankly, sir, not a tourist bus, no. Not civilians. I think it works to our disadvantage.”

“I disagree,” Cuchillo said calmly. “We need to take a strong stand.”

“Of course, sir, if that’s what you want.”

“Yes, it is.” But a moment later he frowned. “But wait. There’s something to what you say.”

The security man looked his boss’s way.

“When your men attack the bus, get the women and children off before you set it on fire. Only burn the men to death.”

“Yessir.”

Cuchillo considered his decision a weakness. But José had a point. The new reality was that, yes, sometimes you
did
need to take public relations into account.