Mexico City Noir Read Online Free PDF Page B

nipples sported rings.
    Sometimes, in her deepest dreams, Lizzy allowed herself fantasies about the muscle-bound cholo. Fantasies that vanished as soon as she woke up.
    “What’s up, boss?” said Bwana in greeting just outside the warehouse. He had a .38 sticking out of his pants and a green bandanna covering his shaved head.
    “I want this over with. Where they are?”
    “This way,” he said as he entered the warehouse. Lizzy followed, leaving behind her escorts and the warehouse security guards.
    Bwana guided her through narrow corridors of boxes labeled with Korean characters. Pancho walked behind them, a few meters back, with a canvas backpack on his shoulder that caught Bwana’s attention.
    Lizzy had specified that the walkways be designed like a labyrinth. Only a few people knew the way to the center. The architect, a gay old maid who used to walk his dogs on Amsterdam Avenue, had been found dead on the freeway to Toluca after he’d finished the job.
    The cholo was saying something to his boss but she found it impossible to understand because of the rapid mix of Spanglish and border slang. Every time they reached a door, Bwana keyed an access code into the electronic lock that protected the crossing.
    When they arrived at the center of the warehouse, Bwana entered another code. This time, a trapdoor opened, revealing stairs that led to an underground chamber; these were covered by a layer of high-density foam rubber, just like a recording studio.
    Moans could be heard coming from below. Barely audible, more like murmurs.
    “Welcome to special affairs, boss,” said Bwana.
    Lizzy descended the steps. The basement was dark. A switch was touched and a light went on, revealing where the sounds were coming from.
    A man and a woman were tied with barbed wire to vinyl chairs and gagged with cinnamon-colored gaffer tape. The woman had a ruptured eye. They were covered with dry blood, a pool of excrement gathered at their feet.
    “They stink,” mumbled Lizzy.
    Pancho obediently sprayed both bodies with the Lysol he carried in the canvas backpack. The man and woman twisted from the sting of the aerosol.
    Lizzy approached the woman and looked with curiosity at her ruined eye.
    “You said she was with him when they got him?”
    “Correct. She’s his bitch. Bad luck.”
    The Constanza cartel boss turned toward the bound man.
    It was Wilmer, assistant to Iménez, the Colombian capo with whom Lizzy had been negotiating just weeks before. Bwana’s people had discovered they were bringing Brazilian amphetamines on their own into the country.
    Bad idea.
    Wilmer had been the person in charge of the operation. Then, he was a real mean motherfucker. Now, what was left of him whimpered like a kicked puppy.
    Lizzy noticed a tear sliding down his filthy cheek.
    “Deep in shit, everybody’s the same.”
    Then she kicked the man’s jaw aikido-style. She felt the bone crack under her foot. The blow knocked him to the ground. His scream would have echoed in the chamber had it not been soundproofed.
    The woman began to struggle, trying to shout from under the tape sealing her cracked lips.
    Lizzy tore the tape off in one quick move. In the process, she also tore off a good bit of skin.
    “What did you say?”
    “Please … pu … pu-leeze … you … I have … a daughter …”
    On the ground, the man sobbed. Lizzy flipped him over with the tip of her boot. “ Cry like a woman for what you couldn’t defend as man, ” she said, then reached her hand out to Pancho.
    The bodyguard removed a wooden bat with a Mazatlán Deers logo from the canvas backpack; it had a dozen fourinch steel nails sticking out of it. Lizzy had inherited it from her father.
    “ We deal with amphetamines here,” she said to the man on the ground, “and I don’t like sudacas who get in the way. This is what happens to anybody who tries to horn in on my market. Consider this a declaration of war.”
    She advanced toward the man with the bat in her hand.