Saint Death - John Milton #3 Read Online Free PDF Page A

whether the cartels themselves were sophisticated enough to follow the footprints from the Blog del Borderland back to this flat in the barrio but the government was, and since most of the government was in the pocket of the cartels, it did not pay her to be blasé. She was as sure as she could be: nothing she wrote could be traced, and her anonymity––shielded behind a series of online pseudonyms––was secure. It was liaisons like this one, with a frightened girl somewhere in the city, that were truly dangerous. She would have to break cover to write it up and all she had to go on with regard to the girl’s probity was her gut.
    But the story was big. It was worth the risk.
    She checked the screen.
    Still nothing.
    She heard the sound of children playing outside: “ Piedra, papel, tijeras, un, dos, tres! ” they called. Scissors, paper, stones. She got up and padded to the window. She was up high, third floor, and she looked down onto the neighbourhood. The kids were playing in front of the new church, the walls gleaming white and the beautiful new red tiles on the domed roof. The money to build it came from the cartels. Today––and yesterday, and the day before that––a row of SUVs with tinted windows had been parked in front of the church, a line of men in DEA windcheaters going to and from the garden at the back of the house three doors down from her. She could see all the gardens from her window: the backs of the whitewashed houses, the unused barbeques, rusted satellite dishes, the kid’s trampoline, torn down the middle. The third garden along was dominated by pecan trees and an overgrown creosote bush. The men in the windcheaters were digging a deep pit next to the bush. Cadaver dogs sat guard next to the pit, their noses pointing straight down, tails wagging. Every hour they would pull another body out.
    Caterina had already counted six body bags being ferried out.
    Like they said.
    Ciudad Juárez.
    Murder City.
    The City of Lost Girls.
    She pulled her chair back to the desk and stared absently at the computer.
    “I am here.”
    The cursor blinked at the end of the line.
    Caterina sat bolt upright, beginning and deleting responses until she knew what to say.
    “I know you’re scared.”
    There was a pause, and then the letters tapped out, one by one, slow and uncertain: “How could you know?”
    “I’ve spoken to other girls. Not many, but a few. You are not the first.”
    “Did they tell you they could describe them, too?”
    “They couldn’t.”
    “Then the stakes are much higher for me.”
    “I accept that.”
    “What would I have to do?”
    “Just talk.”
    “And my name?”
    “Everything is anonymous.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You’re right to be scared. I’m scared, too. These men are dangerous. But you can trust me.”
    The cursor blinked on and off again. Caterina found she was holding her breath.
    “If I come it would just be to talk?”
    “It would be whatever you want it to be. But talking is fine.”
    “Who would be there?”
    “Me and my partner––he writes, too. You can trust him.”
    Another pause, and Caterina wondered whether she should have said that it would just be her alone. Leon was a good man, but how was she to know that? A fear of men whom she did not know would be reasonable enough after what Delores had been through.
    The characters flickered across the screen again. “I can choose where?”
    “Wherever you want––but somewhere public would be best, yes?”
    “La Case del Mole––do you know it?”
    Caterina swept the papers from the iMac’s keyboard and typed the name into Google. “The restaurant on Col Chavena?”
    “Yes.”
    “I know it.”
    “I could meet you there.”
    “I’ll book a table. My name is Caterina Moreno. I will be there from 8PM. OK?”
    There was no immediate reply.
    And then, after a pause, three letters: “Yes.”

 
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    6.
    LIEUTENANT JESUS PLATO stopped at the door of his Dodge Charger police cruiser and