The Devil's Necktie Read Online Free PDF Page A

stared at Alvarez for an instant. Satisfied it was business as usual, he continued down cellblock C into the bowels of the penitentiary.
    Alvarez ripped off his headphones and listened to the echo of the guard’s leather boot heels recede down the cellblock before pulling out the cell phone Delgado had provided. He punched in his secret code, keyed into an e-mail account, waited for the download, and hit Play. His features hardened, his coffee brown eyes black as pitch.
    Manuel Alvarez watched Mia, the woman he had entrusted his fortune to—and foolishly opened his heart to—get butchered to death.

6
    Cultivating a proper hatred for someone doesn’t happen overnight, Arturo Delgado mused. He was watching a blue wave crest, the rolling curl edged in silver. It gained momentum and then dropped, turning to white foam as it spilled onto the expansive beach of Playa del Rey.
    No, hatred had to be developed over time, meditated on and nurtured. Arturo’s ruined leg was a constant reminder.
    Delgado had harbored a grudging respect for Jack Bertolino after the bust all those years ago. Seven, to be exact. He had been one-upped mano a mano. As brilliant a tactician as Arturo Delgado had been, Bertolino had remained dogged. And in the end, he had won.
    The cops had named the case Operation Green Door. Delgado had smuggled huge quantities of coke into the United States in crates of fruit. He read everything he could find, on the Internet, in the news, and on court transcripts to find out where it had all gone wrong.
    Green Door was Arturo’s play from the inception, and if successful, would have cemented his reputation forever. He would have earned more money than God, and back in Colombia he would have been treated like one.
    Delgado was forward thinking and had forged a relationship with the Betos, a Mexican group that was responsible for the transportation of major quantities of cocaine throughout the Southwest. Delgado would provide the Colombian cartel’s cocaine, and the Betos would provide the distribution. This new alliance brought the Colombians together with the Mexicans in the northeast sector for the first time in history and would have changed the drug game in the States forever.
    But it was not to be.
    The Betos got sloppy, Bertolino dropped the hammer, and Arturo Delgado paid the price.
    The eighteenth-floor, three-bedroom furnished apartment in the Azzurra del Rey cost Arturo Delgado ten grand a month. Chump change and worth the investment, he thought as he walked past the granite and stainless steel kitchen over to the bank of back windows. The 180-degree view ran from downtown L.A. to the Hollywood Hills. He bent down over the telescope he’d recently purchased at Brookstone on the Third Street Promenade. The viewing lens was focused on a five-story building a few blocks away. Within its silvery circle was displayed an orange metal balcony with a wooden bench, a barbecue grill, and a single tomato plant in need of water.
    As if on cue, Jack Bertolino pulled open the sliding glass doors. He walked stiffly with a glass coffeepot and carefully watered around the edges of the tomato plant. Satisfied with his work, he walked back inside and closed the sliding door behind him.
    Delgado tilted the telescope from the balcony down to the parking level, where he could just make out the nose of Jack’s gray Mustang. He was about to give up the surveillance when he caught a glimpse of Jack walking toward a line of retail shops a half block away.
    Arturo picked up his phone and quickly texted two words: FIFTEEN MINUTES . He couldn’t see his man, but knew he was in place. The professional would make short work of installing a GPS bug on the undercarriage of Jack’s Mustang.
    â€”
    Jack tried to stretch his back as he walked down the sidewalk. It didn’t help. After his fall at Ground Zero doing cleanup post 9/11, shooting pains ran down his six-foot-three frame on a daily basis and