She never lost her composure, never missed a beat even in the worst situations, and absolutely never seemed confounded. "Him?" she questioned, raising both penciled brows until they seemed to disappear into her very black hairline. "I don't think so, Agent Hashemi."
Chapter Nine
Seven muchachas jóvenes lined up along the corridor of the tavern, youngest girl to oldest, although most of them looked to be the same age, around eleven or twelve. Perhaps the one at the end was thirteen, but none older than that. He could tell by their flat chests and straight hips as well as the baby-soft skin on their cheeks.
Santos crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the dirty faces and ragged clothes.
"Una cosecha fina de muchachas, a very fine crop this time. You agree?" The proprietor of La Taberna Afortunada – The Lucky Tavern – smiled broadly at Diego Vargas and chucked the first girl under the chin.
A fine crop, as if he were speaking of corn or coffee bean harvest, Santos thought.
"Dé vuelta alrededor," the tavern owner ordered the girl, making a circular motion with his hand. Thin and brown, barefoot and dressed in a dirty white chemise, she turned slowly around at the command.
Santos peered into the girl's eyes, listless and dilated, like a cat's in the dark. She'd most certainly been drugged. Probably one of the benzodiazepines, but he couldn't be certain.
El Vaquero wanted the girls mildly sedated for transport, but not completely wasted. It was much safer that way to make the nearly fifteen-hour van drive north through California until they crossed the California-Nevada border.
"See, I told you," the fat proprietor said. "¿Muchachas finas, eh? And I can get you plenty more."
"Shut up, old man," Santos growled.
He watched lust play across the face of Diego Vargas. Santos knew his boss was calculating the price of having his way with one or two of the girls first and thereby lowering their value.
Lust and greed always battled inside Diego. Usually, his love for money won out, but sometimes the power of his lust overcame him and he succumbed. Often with tragic consequences. Although El Vaquero usually preferred his women large and lusty, he occasionally liked to sample the wares he purchased before he turned them over to the women in charge of his two legal, and one not-so-legal brothels.
Yes, Santos thought for the thousandth time, Diego Vargas was a fucking pig, un cerdo de mierdo. However, he allowed none of these thoughts or emotions to register on his face or in his stance. After all, he was El Vaquero's lawyer, as well as his bodyguard, and he was wise enough not to make his personal opinions available for perusal.
He was not afraid of Diego Vargas. In truth, he feared nothing and no man. His strength had been forged in pain and his reputation in fire. There were few enterprises Santos refused to engage in, few men or women he would not kill when necessary, few appetites he would not satisfy.
But some lines should not be crossed.
Santos did not remember his father. Miguel Gabriel Santos had been killed in the plaza when Santos was a small boy. He well remembered the square, the burnt adobe stones of the surrounding buildings, the deep stone well that stood at the end of the street. But he did not remember his father's actual death.
To this day in the village where he was born, stories of that event were widely repeated. Of how Miguel stood up to the oficiales federales. Of how he died slowly in the village plaza of Real de Cantorce after hours in the baking sun. Of how he choked on his own testículos.
The small boy Gabriel Santos did not recall the event of his father's death.
He did remember his mother, however, and this trafficking with the girls – Santos knew his madre would not approve of a man who made his life's work out of the flesh of innocents. Santos did not fear the fuego del infierno or death's end, and he did not believe many true innocents walked the face of this earth. But the few there were should not be sacrificed.
Drugs, fine, una opción. The users made their own choices.
Killing, una necesidad. Often very necessary.
But the girls, absolutamente no.
Santos knew the day would arrive when he would draw his boot across the sand and tell El Vaquero that he could not cross that line. That would be a very bad time for all of them, and Santos was not eager for that day to arrive. But, nonetheless, it would come.
The tavern owner pinched the scrawny backside of the last girl as she climbed into the back of the battered van.
Sí, the day would come.
Bella didn't leave the bathroom until she heard the door shut firmly when Rafe left the apartment. Even then she waited what she guessed was five minutes more before entering the bedroom. After searching, she found her dress hanging from the shower curtain rod in the second bathroom. He'd apparently tried to clean it for wet spots dampened the bodice and hem.
That hadn't worked. The dry cleaners might be able to get the stains out, but Bella guessed she'd owe Anita the price of an expensive new dress. The panties and bra were soaking in the kitchen sink and her shoes rested on the counter on a piece of newspaper. The evidence of her wild night brought fierce color to her cheeks.
She felt like snarling. Rafe must've been awfully sure she'd stay. And who would've guessed he'd be so… tidy. She imagined him touching her underwear, but more embarrassing was him thinking she'd be here waiting when he returned, like a favored lapdog. At the back of her mind she knew she was more furious with herself than him, but she enjoyed her moment of pique a little longer.
She washed out her panties and blotted them on a towel. As uncomfortable as it was, she dressed in the damp clothing and slipped her shoes on. Her wisp of a purse lay where she'd dropped it in the armchair.
Finally, she searched about for paper and pen. In one corner of the bedroom a walnut desk rucked up against the tall windows. Rummaging through the drawers, she found what she needed and sat down on the chair to write a note.
"Rafe," she wrote, "I had a great time. Call me, Bella, 916-781-3043." She crumpled up the note and tossed it in the waste basket. "Bella, 916-781-3043." No, she should give him her cell number. She tore that paper up and grabbed another from the middle desk drawer. "Bella"… She stared out the window and tapped the pen against her teeth.
This wouldn't work. So she'd had a one-night stand. She wasn't going to let her Catholic guilt rule her. Why make more out of it than it was? Because, she answered herself, because she liked Rafe. He was probably one of the good guys. And because they hadn't really… well, hadn't really had sex, per se. Per se, lawyer talk. She shook her head. She was an idiot.
Somehow their encounter seemed unfinished and in the end she left no note at all. She left Rafe's apartment, pushing the button to latch the front door. She scarcely had time to make it home to change for her eleven o'clock meeting with the bull-headed DEA agent.
The cabbie dropped Bella in front of her mother's modest three-bedroom house in Riverside. If God were really on Bella's side, Mama wouldn't even hear her sneak in. Sometimes her mother stayed up so late at night watching her Spanish soaps that she slept until ten or later the next morning. No such luck today.
Orotea Torres sat upright on the floral-covered sofa that faced the entryway of the small house. Her arms gripped each other tightly across her ample bosom, and Bella knew without seeing the grim look on Mama's face that she was mad. Great! Her sisters had wheedled her into going out and then abandoned her to face their mother's strict Catholic questioning.