Willy lowered the telescope. "He hit the second-floor buzzer."
There was a small moment of silence before Riley murmured, "Okay, we seen day-to-day stuff on the third and fourth floors, and who knows about the first and second."
"First's probably the factory," Willy ventured, "with several exits besides the front door. And the second's where he lives. At least that's the way I'd lay it out."
Riley didn't disagree, but his focus was on something more pragmatic. "So, what now? We don't even know what La Culebra looks like, much less how to get at him."
Willy looked thoughtfully across the street. "The trick," he said, "is to come at them some way they don't expect."
"And they expect cops and the competition," Riley added, "meaning a big show of force."
Willy admitted with grudging admiration, "I bet that's why half this place looks normal. Fill a potential combat zone with civilians and you screw up the other guy's attack plan. No free-fire zones, no Philadelphia-style bombings from helicopters. We can't even burn them out with a Molotov cocktail."
"Too bad we don't have more time to recon this," Riley mused.
"Well," Willy answered, "we don't, so we'll just have to improvise. Maybe we can underwhelm them, instead." He reached into his pocket, extracted his gun, and held it out to where Riley was standing in the inky darkness, nudging him in the shoulder. "Here."
"What're you doin'?" Riley asked in surprise.
"Going in there," Willy said simply, and stepped out into the open.
"Wait," Riley whispered from his hiding place. "You'll get your ass shot off."
"Whatever," Willy said without looking back. "Stay put and keep an ear out."
He crossed the street, climbed the front steps, and rang the same bell he'd seen Marcus hit earlier.
"What?" came the reply through the small loudspeaker above the door.
"Police. Open up."
The speaker went dead. Willy waited for several minutes, aware of the conversation that must be taking place overhead.
Finally, the disembodied voice came back with the most standard of inquiries. "You got a warrant?"
"Not necessary. La Culebra needs what I have."
"What d'you mean?"
"I'll tell that to him."
"The fuck you will."
"You'll be fucked if I don't."
There was another prolonged silence. Willy let out a small puff of air. Despite the stakes, there was an element of formal, almost boring protocol to this, as if all of them were locked into a pattern of behavior none could escape.
Without further comment from the loudspeaker, the door lock buzzed noisily and Willy turned the knob. He stepped into an empty, dimly lit lobby with a staircase and an elevator door against the far wall.
"Step into the middle of the room and put your hands up," said a voice.
Willy looked around. There were several doors to each side, one of which was barely open. He moved forward. "My left arm is paralyzed. I can't lift it."
"I suppose to believe that?"
"You don't have much choice."
The door swung wide, revealing a young man pointing a small machine gun at Willy's chest. He smiled as Willy watched him. "I got a choice, dummy, and this is it."
"What? You kill me and then La Culebra kills you because he learned what I got too late to save his butt? Sharp thinking."
"Fuck you."
Willy smiled. What would these guys do without that word?
The gunman hesitated, thrown by Willy's seeming lack of concern. "Open your coat, then," he finally ordered.
Willy did so slowly, revealing the badge he had clipped to his belt.
"Okay. Go over there and lean against the wall with your legs spread out."
Half amused at the irony of the request, Willy did as he'd ordered countless others to do in the past. The other man emerged from his refuge, crossed the lobby, and patted Willy down, looking for weapons or hidden wires.
Satisfied, he stepped back. "Okay. Go upstairs."
Willy took the steps slowly, his right hand held slightly away from his body so the gunman could see it at all times. One flight up was a landing with three doors, two of which had been welded shut with steel plates, and the third heavily beefed up against forced entry. A camera was perched over this last door, surveying the entire landing.
The gunman pounded on the door. "Rico. Open up."
A mechanical chorus of bolts and locks snapping to was followed by the door opening onto another man with a similar weapon.
"He clean?" this one asked the first.
"No, asshole. I made sure he was carrying hand grenades."
"Fuck you, Manny. Who made you the big man?"
Willy shook his head. "Boys, boys."
Manny poked him in the back with the barrel of his gun. "Fuck you, cop. Maybe I don't care what you got and I kill you right here."
Willy looked at him. "Maybe you do. So what?"
Manny's eyes narrowed. "You fuckin' with me?"
Willy considered commenting on his limited vocabulary, but said instead, "Take me to La Culebra. Let him figure this out."
Manny pressed his lips together angrily before spitting out, "I don't like you, man."
Willy knew he should be a nervous wreck by now, bearding the lion in his den, bluffing all the way. But fear was an instinct he'd lost long ago. Once, during a similar confrontation when he'd been taken by surprise by a Viet Cong guerrilla, the man had threatened to shoot him on the spot. Willy had merely opened his shirt and exposed his bare chest in a moment of stark self-revelation, all concern for survival gone. During the stunned hesitation that had followed, one of Willy's companions had appeared from the foliage behind them and shot the young man dead. In that moment, Willy had both mourned his passing and the service he'd been about to provide.
"Join the crowd," he told Manny.
They took him down a hallway, past rooms with other men loitering inside, some watching TV, others talking, a couple cleaning more guns. It reminded him of a base camp between operations. Willy noticed all the windows were equipped with closed steel shutters.
They reached what might have once been a dining room, now converted into a hodgepodge of den and office and general storage area. There, sitting at a badly abused metal desk covered with an assortment of weapons, paperwork, wads of money, and a couple of powder-filled baggies, was a man in his late thirties sporting a trim beard and mustache, his hair swept back and held in a ponytail, incongruously wearing a pair of half glasses on the end of his nose. He was reading something in a folder, much as any businessman might.
He looked up as Willy entered with his escort.
"He's clean," Manny announced unnecessarily. "He's got a crippled arm, too."
The man with the beard gave Manny a careful look, but didn't say anything to him. Instead, he motioned to an empty folding chair and told Willy, "Sit."
Manny and Rico fanned out to either side.
"You Culebra?" Willy asked.
"La Culebra, yes."
"What I got is for your ears only."
The Snake pushed out his lips thoughtfully, taking in the man opposite him. He then gave his two lieutenants a rapid order in Spanish and sent them off.