CHAPTER 3
SJ Rozan
Carlos Garcia walked into the inmost sanctum at Phoenix HQ. He sat, swung his feet onto the boss’s desk, and lit a cigar. “I told you,” he said, shaking out the match. "You should've let me make the run. Not my pendejo cousin.”
“Oh, yeah, that would’ve been great. Someone the Argentinians never saw before.” Perez spoke through clenched teeth. “Put that thing out and get your feet down.”
“Or? You’ll fire me? Shoot me? Shove it, Perez. Your fucking by-the-book tactics got us here.”
“And if we’d played the whole thing like it was one of your rodeos we’d have been shut down before we started. If your cousin – "
"I didn't bring him into this."
"You vouched for him."
"And he's – "
"Oh, good, a pissing contest. Mind if I join?"
Ignacia Valera watched both men swivel their heads to her. She'd been standing in the doorway enjoying the show and wondering how long it would take Macho Man and Boss of Bosses to notice her. Once they got into this sort of crap, though, they could go on forever, and they didn't have forever. If she was right, they didn't have long at all. In fact, if Santino fucked up – and if you asked her, he already had – they might have nothing.
She strode into the room. "Carlos, that thing smells like a fire on a shitheap. Perez, Carlos is right, you should have sent him instead. But if you guys are ready to stop pointing your dicks – I mean, your fingers – at each other and focus on the shit we're in, I have a great question we can start with."
Both men stared at her. She remained standing, hands on hips, long black hair loose, denim-clad legs ending in motorcycle boots firmly planted. In war you use all your weapons.
No one else spoke, so she went on. "Alejandro's a pendejo, like Carlos said. But he can drive. That road is straighter than my brother and flatter than my sister's ass. He's driven it a hundred times. He checked the truck over before he started."
"How do you know that?" Perez growled.
"Because he always does. That's one of the reasons we took him on, remember?"
A smirk crept onto Carlos's face.
"Because he took this shit seriously," Ignacia said. "The whole fucking world's not a joke to him like it is to the rest of his bull-riding family."
Carlos stopped smirking and luckily for Perez, he didn't start.
"So," Ignacia said. "If he knew what he was doing and the truck was good, why did he crash?" She looked from one man to the other.
Perez, shrugging: "He hit something?"
Carlos, ever the romantic: "He swerved to avoid something?"
"What?" she said. "A jackrabbit? Even a pendejo isn't going to risk that cargo for a jackrabbit."
"He fell asleep?" Perez suggested, a little nastily.
"Yeah, it's a nice, relaxing drive, anyone might nod off with thirty grand and a pile of coke in the back. And Alejandro's never been known to dip into the product to give himself a boost." Ignacia knew the sarcastic edge in her voice wasn't useful but Jesus, these guys. "There's nothing out there big enough to force a truck off the road. Anything that big, Alejandro would have seen it. Or Santino, from up on the rocks."
Both men were silent.
"Unless."
"Oh, no." Perez's chair had been tipped back; now he thudded it down to the floor. "Not that shit.
Carlos frowned. "What shit?"
Perez snorted. "Ask her," he said, but he didn't give Carlos the chance. "Una bruja. El Nahual. Algunos duendes. Some fucking supernatural invisible magic ghost shit. That shit."
Carlos made a face as he looked at Ignacia, as though she were the one smoking a stinking cigar.
"He hit something," Ignacia said. "Something big enough to roll the truck. He didn't see it, Santino didn't see it, and those MPs were right there. Right there."
"Because someone ratted," said Carlos. "They were waiting."
"And Alejandro obliged them by crashing into something no one saw right where they were waiting."
"Okay," said Carlos, "what's your theory?"
"I don't do theories without more data. But here are two possibilities. One, they were guarding something and Alejandro happened along. Two, they were waiting for him and something showed up where they were to do them a favor and fuck things up for Alejandro."
"Why?
"Because something thought that would be funny. I know what you think about this, Perez, and I don't care what you think, Carlos. I'm going in."
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