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Barry’s voice shook as he said, “Yeah, I’m sure.”
Their conversation over, Corbett drove him to where he’d be meeting the woman Corbett had arranged for him that day. Before Barry got out of the car, he said, “Are you alright, man? You don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine, Barry. Have fun and be nice to the girl, got it?”
“Gotcha, thanks,” the boy said.
Corbett sat there for a few minutes. The wheels in his head were turning a thousand miles a minute. There were only six men in the Corpus Christi Field Office. One of them was named Samuel. He and Corbett had gone to the academy together. They had been roommates. Corbett had been an usher at his wedding and had been invited to the christening of his first child. Sam’s wife was a sweet Texas girl, former beauty queen, groomed her entire life to be a wife and a mother. She had made a beautiful home for them in San Antonio, and now…
The whole thing was about to come crumbling down. Emotions were running rampant in Corbett’s chest. Anger, betrayal, hurt, and fear. The fear was for Sam’s family. If Vincent Heston was behind all of this, and Corbett was convinced that he was, none of them would be safe.
“Goddamn it, Sam! What the fuck were you thinking?” Corbett said aloud to the empty vehicle. Then he remembered the tape. Should he play it for Lewis like he normally did after a meeting with Barry, or should he try talking to Sam first, before he went and accused him of being a snitch?
Corbett hit the steering wheel with his fists. “Fuck!”
CHAPTERFOUR
THE CALL
Brownsville, Texas
Monday Morning
Marcella reluctantly gotout of bed and went to see what idiot was at the door. When the incessant knocking had begun, Vincent had told her to keep sucking his cock. He reminded her that there were three ugly thugs outside who could take care of whoever it was and promised that, when Marcella’s sweet lips had finished taking care of him, he would go see what was going on.
She had tried to concentrate. She lived to make Señor Heston a happy man. Someday she hoped that he would realize she was hisalma gemela—his soul mate. Until then, she planned on doing anything he asked of her. When his soul was happy, hers was at peace as well.
But the infernal banging on the front door wouldn’t stop, and Vincent had finally relented and told her to go see what they wanted. He said he’d be right out; if it wasn’t a life-or-death situation, he was going to shoot whichever one of his thugs had allowed the person through. He had recruited them all from Mexico, and what they lacked in brains, they made up for in brawn. But clearly, Vincent was rapidly beginning to re-think his choice.
In Vincent’s old house, they couldn’t hear any noise while in the master bedroom. This hovel that they had been forced to take refuge in, however, was a different story, Marcella thought as she put on her robe and made her way down the hall. She’d been shocked when she’d first seen the new house. It sat at the end of a tiny little street in the worst part of town and was surrounded by dead lawn and a cyclone fence. The paint was peeling in places, and the rest of the exterior had been tagged by various street gangs. It only had two bedrooms and one bathroom, and it smelled like maybe it had served as a crack house at some time in the recent past. The shag carpeting, which had probably been laid decades ago, had turned from an ugly burnt orange to a dirty dark brown. Marcella didn’t even want to get herself started on the kitchen. It wasn’t that she was uncomfortable here. She had lived in many worse places before Señor Heston had rescued her. But her boss and lover deserved so much better.
When Marcella pulled open the door, she wasn’t sure who she had been expecting to see, but Señor Gil had not been it.
“Señor Gil,” she said, automatically averting her eyes down to the floor. Her mother had worked for the Sanchez family for most of Marcella’s young life. Her mother had told her many times to never look Gilberto Sanchez directly in the eyes. The evil that swam there was always looking for another soul to steal, and if you looked at it too long, her mother had told her, it was the same as inviting it in.
Gilberto brushed past her, and as he did, she saw the three goons that Vincent had posted outside standing near the gate with their eyes to the ground. Apparently, they had recognized Gil as easily as she had. If Vincent had wanted protection from his father, he would have had to hire Americans. There wasn’t a Mexican across two countries that didn’t know not to cross Gilberto Fidel Sanchez.
“Where is my son,hija de la criada?”
Marcella kept her eyes to the ground and her face neutral as she inwardly cringed at how Gil insisted on calling her “the maid’s daughter” instead of by her name. She would never dare correct him, however. She wasn’t suicidal. Keeping her head down, she said, “Please, have a seat and be comfortable, Señor Sanchez. I’ll get Señor Heston for you.”
She scurried off, hearing Gil give a disgusted snort behind her as he looked around the shambles of the living room.
“Cómo han caído los poderosos,” he said aloud. “How the mighty have fallen.”
Just as themaid’s daughter scrambled out of the room like a little mouse, Vincent walked in and said, “This is only temporary, Papa. It’s a hide-out, not my home. No one would think of looking for me here.”
Gil looked his son up and down. It was after eight in the morning, and Vincent was still wearing a plaid robe and slippers. He considered his son to be a lazy SOB and often wished it had been Vincent rather than Alberto who had ended up with his throat slit and bleeding out on the doorstep. He was convinced that, if that had been the case, he would have easily stepped over the soft, overly pampered mama’s boy he perceived Vincent to be and gone on with his life with barely a blink. The only reason that he was happy Vincent was still alive was that, for whatever reason, his mother loved him.
“I found you, Vincent,” Gil said, refusing to sit on the furniture that he was sure probably contained the fleas from its last owners. “I’m here to finalize the terms of the deal we discussed on Saturday.”
“I thought I was going to meet you and Mama for dinner on Wednesday night so that we could be conversant?” Vincent said, taking the cup of coffee that Marcella held out to him as she re-entered the room.
Gil rolled his eyes at the boy’s use of the word “conversant” instead of “talk.” It wasn’t even a real word. He was an idiot who wanted to be a scholar. Gil was sure that would never happen.
“Señor Sanchez,” the girl asked him, “would you care for some coffee?”
“No,” Gil said abruptly. He watched Vincent’s face tighten at the way he addressed the maid’s daughter. His son cared too much for the staff. Behind closed doors, he had once heard his son murmur that Gil’s rudeness was part of why he was having sex three or more times a day while his father’s old shriveled dick had probably already fallen off. Gil had killed men for saying less, but his son had been a teenager, so he’d let the comment go.
