Beyond the Breaking Point - Lori Sjoberg Page 0,102
shit. Impatience tightened his jaw as he glared down at her. “Don’t fuck with me. You know who.”
Her brown eyes narrowed, while her right hand dropped away from the phone and reached for something under the counter. Most likely, it was a weapon—a pistol, or perhaps a mounted sawed-off shotgun.
Austin drew his gun from the waistband of his pants and leveled the barrel at the woman’s head. As she froze, her mouth dropped open, and her gum fell onto the counter.
“Shooting me would be bad for your health.” Wade hoped she wasn’t the trigger-happy type, because getting shot in a pawnshop would really piss him off. “Just tell me where to find Chato, and we can all live to see another day.”
Uncertainty, and a healthy dose of fear, flickered over the young woman’s features. Her hand moved away from the counter and up into the air where everybody could see it. Then she gave a subtle tilt of her head toward the stainless-steel door to her right.
“Chato!” she barked. “You got a visitor.”
“Who?” A man’s nasally voice called out from behind the door.
“Tell him it’s Flaco,” Wade told her.
Austin gave him a funny look, most likely because the word meant “skinny” in English.
He shrugged. “I’ve put on some size since then.”
His brother snorted. “No shit.”
The woman relayed his message. There was a few seconds’ pause, followed by the man’s voice saying, “Send him back.”
Wade flicked a glance to Austin, who’d lowered his pistol but still had it in his grip. “Wait here. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Half-expecting to get shot at, Wade crossed to the door, stood to the side, and slowly swung it open. The hinges creaked loudly, probably on purpose to serve as an early warning for anyone in the back.
No gunshots. Always a positive sign, though that could change in an instant. Senses sharp, he stepped through the doorway, ready to dive for cover at a moment’s notice.
The room was cramped and reeked of cheap aftershave and stale cigarettes, with a pair of flickering fluorescent lightbulbs illuminating the space. The dingy-white walls were lined with tall metal shelves packed with an odd assortment of goods, most of them likely stolen and/or illegal. There was a large dark stain on the concrete floor, and Wade decided it was best not to speculate about whom or what had caused it.
A scarred metal desk occupied the far wall, and behind it sat one of the most prolific black marketers in Mexico. He had millions in a numbered account in Grand Cayman, homes in Mexico, the US, and Thailand, and yet he insisted on wearing bad-fitting clothes that were at least a decade out of date. Priorities.
Wade let go of the door, and it swung shut behind him with a squeak. “Hey, Chato. What’s up?”
A sleazy bastard like Daniel “Chato” Marron was easy to underestimate. Short and squat, he was in his mid-fifties, with a pug nose, watery eyes, and almost no chin to speak of. What little hair he had left on his head had turned battleship gray since the last time Wade saw him and was styled in a comb-over that wouldn’t fool anybody for a second. But the guy had been dealing in the black market for decades, and you didn’t survive in the business for that long by being stupid or sloppy, which explained the double-barrel shotgun that was pointed directly at Wade.
Chato stared at him for a good twenty seconds, long enough for Wade to get nervous. But then recognition dawned in the other man’s eyes and his tanned face paled. “Fucking hell, man. I heard you were dead.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot.”
“Glad I was wrong.” Chato lowered the shotgun. “What’s it been, six months?”
“Four years.”
“Huh. Time flies.” Chato chuckled to himself, a nervous habit that Wade had picked up on years ago. He opened a desk drawer, took out a half-empty bottle of whiskey and a glass of dubious cleanliness, and set both on the desk. “Want some?”
“No thanks, I’m good.”
Chato poured two fingers and downed half of it in one big swallow. He sputtered, and then poured more whiskey into the glass as he gave Wade a quick once-over. “I almost didn’t recognize you, man. You look…different.”
He got that a lot too, mostly because of the scar on his face. But also, back in his DEA days, he hadn’t been so muscular. His build had more closely resembled that of a runner, long and lean. In Carmen’s opinion, a little too lean.