Hungry Ghosts (Eric Carter #3)
Stephen Blackmoore
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Sometimes books are easier to write than thank you notes. Who do I thank? Everybody? Do I have that many pages to name them all? Will I disappoint someone because I missed them? Will they even care? Will they even notice?
The point is that a lot of people helped me with Hungry Ghosts and though I would like to thank them all, I don’t have nearly enough space here. They answered questions, vetted details, helped me with my deplorable Spanish. But they also helped me get through a rough year that saw this book torn down and rewritten from the ground up.
Thank you to my readers and their infinite patience. I hope this book is worth the wait.
My wife, Kari, for putting up with me while I hammered out draft after draft, tore everything down and started over. Thank you for helping me maintain something resembling sanity. I love you.
Angus and Emma, the two best dogs a guy could hope to have. Even if they do think every mailman and pizza delivery guy is a murderer.
Friends both authorly and not, whose support helped immeasurably. Chuck Wendig, Richard Kadrey, K.C. Alexander, Kevin Hearne, Jaye Wells, Jaclyn Taylor, Delilah Dawson, Lilith Saintcrow, Kat Richardson, Brian McClellan, Kristin Sullivan, and so, so many more.
My agent, Al Guthrie, the Scottish Ninja, whose kindness and stoic demeanor hides a truly dark soul. Respect.
My editor Betsy Wollheim, Josh Starr, and the outstanding staff at DAW. Thanks for helping make this the best book it could be.
R. Andrew Chesnut, PhD, Santa Muerte scholar and all around stand-up guy. His book Devoted to Death is the best scholarly examination of Santa Muerte and her followers out there, and I highly recommend it. It takes an honest and unflinching view of the movement, both good and bad. Anything I got wrong about Santa Muerte or her followers, and there are oh so many things, are all me.
And finally, a shout-out to the Bony Lady, herself. La Flaca, la Dama Poderosa, Se?ora de las Sombras. I have taken liberties, and I hope she doesn’t mind too much.
Sharpie magic is the best magic.
I stand on the side of the road, cool fall breeze blowing through the scrub brush. Half a dozen trucks pull out of a gated, hillside compound in the moonlight, kicking up dust and gravel. The men in the truck beds wear ballistic vests, skull-printed face masks, wicked looking guns clutched tight in their hands.
I wave as they go by, but they have no idea I’m here. I’ve got a “Hi My Name Is” sticker on my chest with the words “NO ESTOY AQUí” written in Sharpie and pumped with enough magic to keep me hidden from them. I didn’t need to write it in Spanish, the magic doesn’t work that way, but I’ve been speaking almost nothing but for the last two months, and it helps me focus.
They’re on their way down to a warehouse on the outskirts of Tepehuanes, Mexico, just down the road. It holds several thousand kilos of heroin in varying degrees of processing. It’s currently on fire.
I set the fire.
I don’t care about the heroin or the Sinaloa Cartel men entrusted with operating and guarding it. I just need them out of the compound. With them gone there should be about half a dozen men left inside. Plus the one I came to talk to.
The estate of Manuel Bustillo is fairly modest by narco standards. He’s not terribly important in the Sinaloa Cartel. Middleman stuff. Processes heroin, cocaine, meth. I hear he used to handle a lot of pot coming up from the south, but with medical marijuana in the U.S. getting so popular and so much weed being grown inside the states, the cartels have had a hard time moving product. Things are tough all over.
I’m not here because Bustillo is a Sinaloa man, or because he’s a murderer, thug and all around bad guy. I’ve hung out with worse people. Lately, I’ve been wondering if I might be worse people.
I don’t much care about Bustillo at all, actually. I’m here because he’s a stepping stone. A link in a chain. I’m looking for someone, and he’s going to help me find her.
I got his name from a guy in Hermosillo a couple weeks back. And I got that guy’s name from somebody in Ensenada, whose name I got in Tijuana. I found out about the Tijuana guy from somebody in San Diego, who I tracked down from a guy whose arms I broke in an alley behind a strip bar in Los Angeles.
It’s been a busy few months.
Bustillo’s house sits on ten acres of hilltop Durango real estate looking down on rocks and scrub brush. It’s surrounded by an electrified fence and a ten-foot-high, brick wall. Spanish Colonial. Terra cotta tile, fake adobe.
I sling my messenger bag over my shoulder, pick up my Benelli M4 twelve-gauge, and stroll unseen through the gate before the two men watching it shut it up tighter than a nun’s butthole.
The men in the courtyard have no idea I’m here, but once the gunfire starts—and boy howdy is there gonna be gunfire—the Sharpie magic’s going to be pretty useless. Them not seeing me depends on them believing they can’t see me. It’s hard to ignore a guy firing at you with a shotgun at the best of times.
I find a convenient spot out of the way and take a seat. The men walk the courtyard nervously fingering the triggers on their guns. A while later I check my pocket watch, an antique, railroad grade, 1911 Sangamo Special. Aside from being a nasty piece of magic that can twist time into ugly knots if you use it right, it’s a really good watch.
It’s been half an hour. That should give Bustillo’s men enough time to get down to the warehouse and out of my hair. I slide the watch into my coat pocket and pick up the Benelli.