Hell's Gate(35)

Maria smiled, trying to remember if this was the third or fourth time that he had repeated this very same story. She nodded her head and made sure to continue smiling. It was four—definitely four.

“You should have seen his face,” Raza said, finishing the brag with another belch that reminded her of a sick cow.

Maria nodded again. And fortunately, you had a dozen of your machete-carrying friends with you, she thought. Then she flashed her very brightest smile. I am getting good at this.

“He’s just lucky I was feeling—”

Someone kicked the front door into the room, landing a section of the frame beside the table where Jesus Raza sat.

The jefe’s pinga-soaked brain registered Maria’s scream and a flash of movement; but before he could rise from his chair, there was a gun muzzle pressing against the back of his head and another jammed into his right cheek.

Raza froze, keeping his hands on the table. Only his eyes moved.

Someone was dragging Maria into the back room. “Nooooo—” she cried, until her voice was cut off by the closing of the bedroom door.

Now the room was silent—so silent that Raza was able to hear the quickening thump of his heart, inside his own chest.

“Who killed my men?”

The voice had come from behind him. It was calm and measured, almost gentle in tone. The speaker was definitely a foreigner but his Portuguese was fluent.

Raza tried to turn toward the voice but a painful increase in pressure from the twin gun muzzles prevented any movement at all.

“I . . . I don’t know what you mean,” Raza replied. “What men?”

More silence, but five seconds later a bone-chilling scream sounded through the walls of his bedroom. I have heard her scream before, Raza thought, but not like this.

Her cries stopped as abruptly as they had begun.

“Who killed my men?” The voice had come again, still calm, still measured.

“This is a mistake,” Raza blurted out. “But you know . . . mistakes happen. So take the woman. I . . . I give her to you.”

There was another pause, then a sudden ease in pressure from the gun barrel that had been pressing into the back of his head.

That’s better, Raza thought. Now—

Something smashed into the side of his jaw. Raza felt an enormous bolt of pain shoot down his neck and arm. It felt like electricity dipped in fire, and his right arm straightened in something that resembled a salute. Pieces of hard and sharp matter were clattering in the bottom of his mouth, and when he slid his tongue along the place where four teeth had been only a moment before, he felt cold air behind warm blood.

Unbeknownst to Raza, the man with the calm voice had instantly recognized the involuntary arm movement as a muscle spasm resulting from a damaged nerve. He also recognized the expression of startled surprise in a man who had just pushed his tongue through his own cheek and into open air.

Raza slumped to the floor and one of the guns followed him down, the muzzle resting uncomfortably close to his right eye.

“Who killed my men?” The tone of the man’s voice had not changed at all.

“I . . . thon’t—” Raza’s mouth was full of hornets. He spat them out, hard and wet, and waited for another blow—which did not come. For some reason, this scared him more than anything else the last few minutes had wrought.

Ask me again, Raza thought. Ask me the question! But there was no question—only excruciating pain and even more excruciating silence. His mind was racing. Maybe a bullet this time. And Raza flinched at the image of his head, mostly gone above the eyes.

But the room remained silent.

Then Raza’s mind fixed on something else. Something important. Yes. Something that can save me. The gringo. He willed his mind to clear.

“Stranger . . . choo days . . . ag . . . o . . . Amer . . . Amer . . . can.” The hinge of his jaw was not working right. Still, his only concern was getting the words out.

“Witch . . . esss . . . housh . . .” Raza spat again. “Witch anner cra-zzee hush-ban. Liv . . .” He paused. The clicking of the hinge and the dribble of fresh blood was making him dizzy, so he pointed: “. . . ne . . . rrrr . . . edge . . . town.”

Instantly, the gun muzzle was withdrawn.

The pain was coming in dull waves now, but with great effort, Raza raised his head. A tall figure had materialized in front of him. He had a narrow face, with a thin mustache.

Something familiar, Raza thought, squinting as if trying to remember the name of an old acquaintance.

Was he a movie actor? His mind flashed to a film he’d seen in Cuiabá.

Raza could see that the thin-faced man was smiling. But the smile wasn’t making him feel any better at all. In fact, Jesus Raza suddenly felt his bowels churning.

The smiling man nodded slightly.

Suddenly he knew. It was—

Raza’s head was jerked back by a powerful hand and in that same sweeping motion he was thrown forward onto his knees. He kicked backward with one foot and tried to stand but his hands slid on something hot and wet. His whole world tilted into dizziness and irrational calm, tilted like the deck of a sinking ship, leaving him puzzled that his fingers seemed to be resting under a warm spray.

The roof is leaking, he thought.

Raza called out to his wife. The bitch can clean it up. But his bisected trachea only let out a long, bubbling gurgle. Calm and a descending dreamscape were gaining dominion over his thoughts—a dreamscape in which shadowy figures stepped out of the corners, their hands lengthening toward him, as if seeking to drag him into the earth itself. The shadows and his own wet croak snapped the toughest man in Chapada to hyperconsciousness. And in that moment he saw two men in black uniforms.