The Dogs of Mexico Read Free Page A

time to pull his pants on whenH OTEL S ANTA C LARA C ENTRO, P LAZA S AN D IEGO, C ALLE DE T ORO, CR 8 … 39–29 , C ARTAGENA, C OLOMBIA, S OUTH A MERICA appeared on the screen.
    Duane tucked a nine-millimeter Sig semiautomatic in his belt and pulled a sweatshirt on over. He keyed the three deadbolts on his way out.
    The streets in the Kensington District were bleak in the first gray light. Delivery trucks clanged over manhole covers. An old Vietnamese man swept the sidewalk fronting a fishy-smelling delicatessen. A couple of derelicts huddled in a shallow doorway on scraps of cardboard in the chill air.  
    Duane ducked down a set of steps under the stoop of a boarded-up townhouse he had bought years before on the cheap. He unlocked the iron gate, deactivated the alarm, unlocked the deadbolts and switched on the lights to reveal a plain basement room with a small kitchen, TV, three computers, a shelf of phones and one office chair. Not so different from the studio office, except this basement room wasn’t connected to the Company in any way. It was his view that one couldn’t have too many layers of subterfuge. Not in the business he was in. Deception, artifice—the name of the game.  
    He tapped one of the keyboards. The screen blinked on and again displayed the name of the hotel and the number Eduardo had given him.  
    Duane dialed.  
    Eduardo picked up. “Yes?”
    “What the hell’s up with you?”
    “Listen to me,” Eduardo said, breathless, “this is important.”
    “Let’s have it.”
    “You will please shut the recorder off.”
    Duane tapped the set lightly with a fingernail, affecting a click sound. It was a foolish contrivance as all the electronics were soundless. Nevertheless, if it gave Eduardo a sense of security… “So,” he said, “we’re on override. What’s up?”
    “It is what you call the old good-news bad-news scenario, so brace yourself.”
    “Hit me.”
    “I have been outed. That is the bad.”
    “Outed— Shit, Eduardo—“
    “But wait, there is good news.”
    “Dammit to hell shit!”
    “You and I, we have done some things in our day, but this is it. The big one.”
    Duane mentally withdrew, cautious.
    “Fowler,” said Eduardo, “I have had enough. I’m through.”
    “What’re you saying?”
    “This is no life. And you, you are not so happy either.”
    “Hey, speak for yourself.”  
    “No, you listen to me,” Eduardo said with growing excitement. “We can help each other.”
    Duane paused. “Good news? What’s the good news?”
    “Are you ready for this? We just took down a De Beers courier, a priceless collection of rare diamonds en route from South Africa to Switzerland. We took them.”
    Duane was jolted by the sheer audacity of it. “Shit, Eduardo. Those people, they’ll nail your ass before you can pucker good.”
    “Several million dollars. But I need your help. The two of us, we can get out of this thankless business once and for all. How is that for good news?”
    “Wait a minute…you’re saying you have the diamonds? Yourself?”
    “Is this not good news?”
    Duane was aware of his accelerated pulse, all receptors alert to the potential for opportunity.  
    “But you could dispose of them at any of a hundred places. Why do you need me?”
    “This is true. But you are the only one to give me what I want in exchange. I want you to get me back into the States.”
    “You have connections. You know how to manage that.”
    “Not this. I want also for you to get my family out of Morocco into the US.”
    “You have family in Morocco?” He knew it was a mistake the moment he said it. Slow down , he told himself. Self-control. Think.
    A small silence. Then: “What are you saying? You know that.”
    Suspicion flickered in Duane’s mind at the sharp spike of anger evident in Eduardo’s tone. It wasn’t the first time he’d had such a moment with Eduardo. But then, everyone was suspicious of everyone. The nature of the business.
    “Of