Vice(16)



I glance over my shoulder, and Ocho hasn’t followed us; he’s standing in the middle of the room, staring at a girl’s ass as she measures out powder into little baggies, weighing each one, and tossing them onto a bucket. She doesn’t seem to care that he’s checking her out at all.

Natalia knocks quietly on the blue door, stepping back, and then clasping her hands behind her back. Her fingernails are dirty. I don’t know why I notice that, or why it makes me like her even more, but it does. A second later, the door whips open and a tall, incredibly skinny man is glaring at us down the length of his very straight, very long nose. A pair of tortoise shell glasses are perched on the very end of said nose; he peers at us through them like the prescription might not have been updated in a couple of years.

“Natalia. Who is this man?” he asks in a clipped voice. His accent is far thicker than Natalia’s; I’m sure they would normally speak to one another in Spanish, but he must have taken one look at me and known I wasn’t from around these parts, just as Natalia did back by the booby trapped buildings.

“Says his name is Sam Garrett. We found him snooping around outside the old outpost. He hasn’t said why he’s here yet. I brought him straight to you, Papa.”

The tall, spare guy with the glasses squints at me, frowning. His skin is much darker than Natalia’s; her mother must have been white. The guy straightens his back, and blows a deep breath out down his nose. “I am Fernando Villalobos, and you, my friend, have either made a very grave mistake by wandering onto my land, or you have a very good reason for being here. Which is it?”

It appears as though I’m standing before the very man I’ve come looking for. Hatred coils in the pit of my stomach like a snake. Is this the man who took Laura? How can that be true? He doesn’t look remotely capable of kidnapping anyone. His shirt is neatly pressed and tucked into his pants. His hair is trimmed in the most conservative, boring style imaginable. If I went to see my accountant and sat down in front of this guy, I wouldn’t even blink. “Oh, yeah. I have a really good reason.”

Fernando removes his glasses and sighs. “Which is?”

“Drugs. I want to buy a f*ck load of drugs.”

He blinks, and then shakes his head. “I’m afraid a…f*ck load is not a quantity we deal in, Sam. Who do you work for?”

“A private individual. A businessman, who enjoys his anonymity in situations such as this.”

“Oh. Well I’m afraid we don’t deal narcotics with people we don’t know, Mr. Garrett. Anonymity breeds mistrust. Betrayal. I’m sure you understand.”

“As you wish. His name is Louis James Aubertin the third. He’s an investment banker in New York. He provides a service for other professional men and women in the city. They go to him when they need a little…stimulation.” This is a lie we’ve had to tell before, and Jamie’s already given me the go ahead to fall back on it if I need it. Jamie’s father, perhaps the biggest * on the face of the planet, still thinks Jamie is a banker in New York. There’s a pre-existing paper trail there—bank accounts, an apartment. A fake office, set up on the eighteenth floor of the Klein building on Wall Street.

Fernando rocks back on his heels, folding his arms across his chest. I feel like a teenager picking up my date for the first time, only to be accosted by her overprotective father on the doorstep. This is a lot more serious than that, given the amount of armed, naked guards close by, but still… I don’t feel as threatened as I probably should. On first inspection, Fernando seems like the introspective, brooding type. Intellectual. Stern. Very cold, of course. But not terrifying. Good thing he’s stayed low here in Ecuador, instead of trying to claim territory in the States; he wouldn’t last five seconds in a place like L.A. or Chicago.

“I usually only deal internally within Ecuador,” he says. “I have no relationship with the Ecuadorian border, or with any state officials. I can’t help you transport this…f*ck load of my product you wish to buy out of the country. How are you intending to transfer the coca back into the States? Or do you intend on shoving it all up your nose, Mr. Garrett?”

“Ha! No. I love coke as much as the next guy, but not that much. We have a fleet of small aircraft at our disposal. We can fly it out personally without being discovered.”

“And how did you come across my coke?”

“I’m sorry?”

“How did you find my excellent cocaine and know where to come to buy more of it in bulk? You see, Sam, we do not sell to people we do not know. And the people we do sell to know better than to even breathe the name Villalobos when they are trafficking our product. So…I ask you again. How did you know to come here, to this place, to buy my drugs?”

Ahh. Shit. He does not look happy. The whole accountant vibe he had going on a second ago has morphed into something far less friendly. He has a glint in his eye, sharp and cruel, that hints at madness. “I beat it out of a very fat Mexican,” I tell him. “And then I killed him.”

Fernando’s expression is all ice. He studies me with cool disregard for a moment, and then pinches the bridge of his nose between his index finger and his thumb. “I may have heard something about that.”

“I used to go stay at his compound. He always had the best girls in his stables. And the best blow.”

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