“Now it is drugs to the USA, so there is more money involved, but I don’t care. I am a warlord. I don’t give a damn about the money. It is the fight that I love.”
“I’ll fight the hell out of DLR for you, Señor Madrigal.”
Another pause from the narco boss. He stroked his mustache and sipped beer. “We . . . I mean the leaders of the enterprises here in Mexico, do not touch one another’s families.”
“I am not planning on going after his family. I am only asking for information about his drug operations. It will get very, very bloody. But it won’t get personal.”
Chingarito translated. Madrigal sipped his Tecate and thought some more. Finally, he motioned over his shoulder. “This is Hector Serna. My intelligence chief. I will have the two of you work directly together. Less chance for ratones.”
“Rats?”
Serna’s English was superb. He said, “Informants. All organizations have them. We are no different.”
“So you have access to rats in the Black Suits? People who can give you information on their whereabouts?”
“We monitor the movements of the leadership of Los Trajes Negros; of course we do. They do the same to us.”
“So you know where they are at all times?”
“At all times? No. But if they communicate their movements to anyone who might also be on our pay, then yes, we hear of it. For example, we know the Black Suits will be in Puerto Vallarta tomorrow; they have contacted their people in the local police and have let them know. If they need to go to a hotel for a meeting, if they need a street blocked off for their security, if they need cars moved out of a parking lot so that they can eat at a restaurant adjacent to it—then we will hear of it from our contacts in the local police.”
“Interesting,” said Gentry. Then he looked at Madrigal. “Could you arrange for me to get to Puerto Vallarta?”
“Of course,” Madrigal said as he stood and extended a hand.
Court put out his hand. Shook the hand of a murderer of men, women, and children; a torturer of hundreds; a man who epitomized most every reasonable person’s personification of evil.
“Gracias, amigo.”
FORTY-SIX
At eight o’clock the next morning, Court Gentry sat in an old black Mazda pickup truck in a parking lot in the Puerto Vallarta marina. Twenty yards from his dirty windshield, tens of millions of dollars of yachts and other pleasure craft gently rocked in unison on the water. The morning sun warmed a pair of iguanas on the rocks along the promenade. Out his driver-side window, a posh apartment building loomed five stories high. Out his passenger-side window, a long row of tiendas and businesses that had not yet opened for the day sat dark and quiet.
Gentry was on the phone with Ramses Cienfuegos Cortillo. Ramses had hooked up with men in Mexico City he trusted. He was still lying low, but Court had called his old phone number, and a recorded message directed him to a new mobile. Court called that, and Ramses called him back minutes later.
Court had contacted the federal officer to give him a warning. Court let him know he was getting intelligence and support from the Madrigal Cartel, but he wanted his friend in the federal police to know he wasn’t working for los Vaqueros.
As far as Court Gentry was concerned, he was working for Laura.
“Look, Ramses. This is going to get ugly. I don’t know what you have told those around you about me, about you working with me.”
“I have said nothing. I moved my family to a friend’s apartment in Miami, and the people I am working with only know that Martin and I survived the attack on the yacht, but Martin was killed in Tequila. These men know better than to ask more questions.”
“You trust these guys?”
Without hesitation Ramses said, “I trust them. They have all suffered greatly at the hands of Los Trajes Negros.”
“Good.”
“These are honest men. We can help you go after Laura.”
Court paused, looked through the dirty windshield at a middle-aged bald man leaving the apartment building, taking his small poodle for a walk along a grassy strip that rimmed a shopping center just outside of the marina. Then he said, “If you know honest men, let’s keep them honest. What I am about to do . . . I don’t want to involve them.”
“Just what are you going to do, Joe?”
“I am going to scorch the earth. I am going to murder, torture, defile. I am going to go ballistic on the motherfuckers who have Laura Gamboa, and I am going to get her back by killing everything in my path. I am not going to play by the rules.”
“There are no rules here, amigo.”
“I am talking about the rules of humanity, and I am prepared to violate every last one of them.”