Authors: Chuck Driskell
Chapter Thirty-Three
Staring
westward through the floor-to-ceiling glass of his office, Cortez Redon sipped
the icy whiskey, allowing it to sear his throat.
Earlier, his assistant, Mara, visibly puzzled
by the events of the day, had come in to ask him if it was okay for her to
leave.
Having irritably dismissed her,
he now chain smoked, strictly forbidden in government buildings, not that he
cared.
His loafers off, Redon rubbed his
feet on the tight Berber-style carpet, and on one another, watching the blaze
of tangerine sun as it slowly descended in the western sky, overheating the
office since his blinds were pulled to the top.
Cortez
Redon was scared.
Earlier,
when he’d been down the street in the hotel room with that tall siren, his cell
phone had buzzed just as he was disrobing.
“You’re
being set up, you stupid little bastard,” was all Xavier Zambrano had said.
And
for a moment, Redon’s heart had ceased to beat.
He’d
immediately asked for clarification, but Xavier had already hung up.
Xavier Zambrano
…
…not
who you want such a phone call from.
Xavier
Zambrano, head of Los Leones.
Xavier
Zambrano, a man who’d probably ordered at least a thousand kills in the past
decade.
Xavier Zambrano, the man who
Redon feared more than any other man on earth.
Redon
stared at the handsome blue bank book on the desk.
Ruefully, he pondered his earlier excitement,
when that older woman had told him of the Navarro fortune, followed by the
beautiful young woman who’d seemingly desired him in bed.
What a heady moment it had been.
You’re being set up
…
Redon
dragged on his cigarette, an ultra-mild German Auslese de Luxe, and pressed it
into the notch of his ashtray.
Lifting
the bank book, he thumbed the pages, eyeing each of the entries, still
intoxicated by what the old woman had told him earlier.
Xavier’s
words rang in his mind:
You’re being set up.
You’re being set up.
You’re being set up.
Tossing
the bank book back on his desk, Redon lifted the cigarette, pulling fiercely on
it before he finished his drink, three full shots’ worth, allowing it to sear
his mouth and throat and burn like a hot coal in his belly.
Leaving
his coat in the office, Redon slipped the bank book in his back pocket,
buttoning it.
From one of his desk
drawers, underneath a cream folder, he produced the diminutive pistol, known as
a “Baby Browning.”
At .25 caliber, and
small enough to be concealed in the palm of one’s hand, pistols like this had
long since been made illegal.
He tipped
the slide, making certain it was loaded.
Wishing
for another whiskey, but thinking better of it, Redon slipped his feet back
into his loafers, taking the keys to his Mercedes and easing into the hallway
from his direct door.
Springs of sweat
erupted on the back of his neck as he tuned his ears for noises.
When he heard none, he moved into the
stairwell, a concrete and metal affair, heading downward, peering around the
railing to check each landing before making the turn.
With each step he wondered, “Where the hell
is Xavier Zambrano?”
Earlier,
after evacuating the hotel room, Redon had called Xavier back no less than six
times.
The mobster had not once
answered.
Clearing his calendar, because
there was no way he might have focused, Redon spent the afternoon trying to
decide if the old woman’s offer had been genuine.
Did Xavier intervene because he knew the
money he so desperately sought was slipping from his grip?
But, if so, then who was the girl?
Was she somehow working with the old
woman?
And how did Xavier know about any
of it?
“If
only that prick would explain things,” Redon whispered at the bottom of the
stairs, pausing to gather himself.
Xavier’s silence was the worst omen.
When a man like him goes silent, it often means one thing.
Or,
maybe he’s just occupied, Redon reasoned.
He
knew he’d find out very soon.
The door
to the stairs opened into the narrow alleyway that fed into the Carrer de Pau
Claris.
If it was going to happen, Redon
didn’t think Xavier would suspect that he might take the stairs.
Do not underestimate him!
Regardless,
Redon would bet eighty percent of the money represented in his bank book that
the killing would take place at his Mercedes, parked in the reserved space on
the street garage’s second floor.
But that won’t happen, because I’m
going to take a taxi.
Or maybe he’s waiting outside
.
This
was the critical moment.
Redon
removed the Baby Browning, easing the door open, metal on metal, stepping into
the grit of the shaded alleyway that ran northeast to southwest.
Other than a feral cat, staring at him with
indignation as his
caza de ratas
had
been rudely interrupted, there was no one.
Relieved,
but still concealing the pistol by his side, Redon tiptoed to the Carrer de Pau
Claris, looking both ways.
He angled his
head, peering across the street into the dark second level of the garage,
trying to make out his car.
He spotted
it.
There seemed to be no abnormal
activity there, or here on the street.
As
they had done earlier, the beautiful Jacaranda trees swayed and undulated.
The weather was warm and pleasant.
The smell of the blooms, and of calamari,
soothed his nostrils.
The afternoon was
quite agreeable.
Optimism descended upon
Cortez Redon.
Despite
the sudden feelings of positivity, until he was able to gain some clarity from
Xavier, Redon did not plan on driving his car, nor did he plan to go home.
Instead, he would take a taxi, unannounced,
to Sofia’s apartment over on Barcelona’s famed Bogatell Beach.
Sofia was Italian, in her early twenties, an
incredibly expensive prostitute.
Her
apartment was sumptuous, her services exclusive—and exquisite.
Even with the five-thousand euro price for a
full evening, plus another thousand if she had to break an appointment that was
already set, Redon could release his tension from earlier and sleep safe with
the knowledge that his location was unknown.
He’d
brought his phone with him, but had turned it off and removed the battery.
And now, stepping up the sidewalk of Carrer
de Pau Claris, his office slowly disappearing behind him, Redon relaxed
because, ahead of him on Barcelona’s busy Avinguda Diagonal, he would find
solace in a taxi, and would be relieving himself inside the leggy young Italian
within the hour.
Tomorrow
he could revisit this unpleasantness.
And, perhaps, he might hear from the older woman again.
A
tedious tightrope navigation, but that’s my specialty
.
Having escaped the area of likely ambush,
Redon allowed himself the tiniest of smiles.
All this worry over nothing.
Xavier knows I’m close to the money, the greedy
bastard.
He’s just trying to spook me.
Redon’s
smile disappeared when, just before the intersection at Carrer de Mallorca, a
large man burst from a dilapidated pickup truck and, before Redon could lift
the mini Browning, punched him square in his face.
Rather than watch Redon tumble to the ground,
the man grasped the diminutive attorney and tossed him into the truck’s
floorboard.
When
the man crammed himself into the passenger seat, crushing Redon’s petite body
further into the uncomfortable floor space, Redon spied a woman he recognized,
driving the truck.
She was cursing like
a Marseilles sailor, complaining about vicious motherfucking pain in her leg.
The
man above him, somehow, had the Baby Browning in his hand, now aiming it at
Redon’s face.
“Remember me?” he asked in
English.
Due
to the circumstances, it took Redon a moment to make the connection.
Had he been able to properly breathe, he
might have sucked in a sharp breath.
Despite his contorted predicament, it all came to him.
She was the captain—the very crooked
captain—from Berga Prison.
And the man
was the American hired by Ernesto Navarro to protect his shit of a son.
Redon
recalled the American’s limited dossier—he was a highly-trained killer.
Joder!
All
the worry over Xavier had made Redon forget his numerous other adversaries.
Contorted
like an unwilling gymnast in Le Cirque, he clenched his eyes shut, dealing with
numerous discomforts over the balance of a twenty-minute ride.
* * *
It
was obvious the drug—its trade name was Amylobarbitone, known on the street as
“parlador”—was beginning to lose its effectiveness with the Polish girl.
She’d spoken to Xavier for thirty full
minutes, answering his questions in a zombie-like monotone, but with palpable
frankness.
Now, however, he could see
minor tells as he continued to question her, although he felt he’d already
learned all he could.
In
summary, she told him the prisoner at Berga, Gage Hartline, had contacted her
last night.
He was somehow escaping the
bonds of the prison and needed Navarro’s fee money for a payoff of some
sort.
The Polish girl had said she’d
left the money in a cabin near the Baells Reservoir.
Upon hearing this, Xavier checked his messages.
There was one message and six missed calls
from that little shit Redon.
There were
three additional messages from Luis, the wily old lieutenant who oversaw the
Contratos end of his business.
Each of
the messages dealt with the prison break.
The second message informed Xavier that El Toro had been gravely wounded
in the bust-out.
But it was Luis’s third
message that sent a shiver of rage through Xavier’s body.
Luis had learned more about the prison break,
discovering that the federal police were looking for the American,
Hartline.
He’d escaped with the captain
of the prison, Angelines de la Mancha.
While
the police first thought her to be a hostage, they now believed that she was
complicit.
That insolent whore
.
Xavier
recalled what he knew about de la Mancha.
He knew that his associates had blackmailed her at first, but she’d
become a willing accomplice over time.
She’d allowed Los Leones the run of that prison and, in return, had
taken hundreds of thousands of euro in exchange for her cooperation.
She
also knew where all the bodies were buried, certainly possessing the knowledge
to sink two dozen ranking Leones.
And maybe me along with them
.
Xavier
turned his mind to Cesar Navarro.
Once
he’d been killed, the American would have felt urgency to get out of
Berga.
He’d have soon found out that
Redon was in on things, so that avenue of release was no good.
Then, with nowhere else to turn, he’d go to
the money-grubbing captain.
I’ve got a deal for you,
capitana.
I’ll pay you a million euro of
Navarro’s money and, in return, you bust me out.
Xavier
grudgingly admitted that it was a good plan.
But that’s my damned money!
As is the rest of Navarro’s money, whenever I
find it.
While
Xavier was a criminal and not classically educated, he was remarkably
prescient.
Mind racing, he studied the
drugged Polish woman, weighing his options.
His first inclination—one of anger—was to gut both her and the old
bat.
But
they had more to give.
He didn’t know
what it was, but his senses told him he’d missed something.
He eyed the pretty woman for a moment.
Then he turned to the old woman.
“Why
are you helping her?”
“She’s
my daughter,” the old woman answered, slurring.