to negotiate a delicate surrender, Longoria is the last person I would send. Longoria would never let this guy Calavera skate. He'd kill him first. Berry certainly wouldn't send him alone."
"And yet Longoria came here. Alone."
I nodded. It made about as much sense to me as childbirth manuals. Or maybe I was just too tired to think. As I sat on a comfortable bed with Maia, my body was reminding me just how long it had been since I slept. I had no idea what time it was. Close to midnight, probably.
"What's in the newspaper?" Maia asked.
I looked at the copy of the Kingsville Record that I'd set at the foot of the bed. I'd completely forgotten about it.
"Old news from Mr. Lindy," I said. "We don't want to know."
"Sure we do," she said. "Go on."
And so reluctantly I picked up the paper. The story Mr. Lindy had wanted me to read was easy enough to find. It had been front-page news in Kingsville, three years ago.
The meeting was held in a closed club called Gatsby's on the north side of Kingsville. Someone, perhaps to prove they'd actually read the Fitzgerald book in high school, had duplicated the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg on a billboard outside. The parking lot was marbled with weeds. The front doors were elegant mahogany with beveled glass, which did not at all fit the plain white building that might have been anything - a warehouse, a beer barn, a pawnshop.
Three cars arrived within fifteen minutes of each other. Two new Mercedes sedans, each with Coahuila license plates, and a red Ford F-350 that belonged to Papa Stoner, one of South Texas's most notorious middlemen in the heroin trade.
Stoner was sixty-two. Thirty-three of those years had been spent in prison. He was called Papa Stoner because he had a son, Eduardo, "Stoner, Jr.," who had gone on to an illustrious career as a gang leader on the South Side of San Antonio. Eduardo had been murdered by rivals shortly before his twenty-fifth birthday, but Papa was still proud of him. He'd avenged himself ruthlessly on his son's killers, and still wore Eduardo's name tattooed on his arm, encircled in snakes and flames.
Papa Stoner came to the meeting alone, unlike his guests. Mr. Orosco and Mr. Valenzuela each brought two guards. Traveling with any less would have been suicide for such important men.
They met in the restaurant's bar, which still smelled of stale beer and cigarettes and lemon furniture polish. Papa Stoner had personally inspected the place that morning. He'd found no traps, no wires. He'd taken care of bribing the right cops to make sure their meeting would not be disturbed. When you're entertaining guests from across the border, after all, you want to show them hospitality.
Orosco was the nervous one. His operation was still small. This was a bold play for him, going behind the backs of the major cartels. He dressed too well for the meeting - an Armani suit, leather shoes, a new Patek Philippe watch. His hair was parted in the middle, well oiled, so he looked a bit too much like a maitre d'.
Valenzuela was older, more confident. He wore beige slacks and a white guayabera as he did every day. He was a large, messy man with unkempt hair. Everything about him suggested disorganization, but he ran one of the tightest drug operations in Central America. Not a kilo escaped his notice, and he never forgot a name or an insult.
The men talked for almost an hour. They agreed that the border war between the cartels was a major opportunity for smaller players. They could form a new pipeline, quadruple their profits within the year. With the cartels at each other's throats, the border could become a free trade area, a NAFTA for drugs.
Stoner just about had Orosco and Valenzuela convinced. Everything would be fine. They didn't need to fear reprisals. Orosco started to relax.
Lunch arrived, specially catered from Stoner's favorite Kingsville deli. The four guards took the meal boxes from the delivery boy at the door. Valenzuela and Stoner were breaking out the cold beer when Orosco's phone rang.
No one knew where he was. Only a select group of people had his mobile number. He answered the phone.
A man's voice said, "Go to the bathroom."
The line went dead.
Orosco hesitated only briefly. He'd been in the drug trade most of his life. He knew that some things went beyond logic. Most people would ignore something like a random