Puerto Vallarta police hung around the outskirts of the crowd, but they did not move on the vehicles or the men. They just stood about like all the other spectators.
Tentatively, Elena Gamboa began speaking again, thanking the organizers of the memorial for putting the event together and thanking the audience for coming to pay tribute to the work of her husband and his fallen comrades. But Court kept his eyes on the SUVs. A man in a goatee and a black suit and tie emerged from the second truck. Court watched him take a bullhorn from a similarly dressed man and climb atop the hood of the big vehicle. Immediately, before he even spoke, both cheers and gasps of horror emitted from the crowd.
“Damas y caballeros! Ladies and gentlemen! Your attention, por favor,” the man said, his voice tiny and hollow compared to the PA system Elena’s voice had passed through.
Court spoke into his headset.
“Hey, Chuck, can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Who’s this asshole?”
There was a pause. Gentry looked across the park, picked Cullen out of the people lining the back of the stage, standing on his toes to get a look at the white trucks and the man atop the hood. Soon the older American exclaimed, “Holy hell! It’s him!”
“Him who?”
“That is Daniel de la Rocha.”
FIFTEEN
Court couldn’t believe the balls of this guy. This entire event was to commemorate the police who died trying to kill him, and he shows up, a flagrant insult to both the police and the families of those fallen men. “What is he doing here?”
“Doing what he always does. Putting on a performance.”
Confusion mixed with concern in Gentry’s brain. He thought of the plainclothes men he’d seen in the crowd. Were they sicarios, assassins who were part of de la Rocha’s entourage? Or were they in the employ of Constantino Madrigal, his archenemy. Was there more here than the threat of drunks and fistfights and beer bottles? “I don’t like this. Get the family out of here. Now.”
“I just tried. Elena won’t budge until she finishes her speech.”
“Dammit,” Court said, and he hurried back to the stairs to find the masked man here in the building with him.
De la Rocha continued speaking into the bullhorn, and Court could hear every word, and what he did not understand, he put together contextually. “I have come before you today, to tell the people and the authorities that I am not in hiding. I have nothing to hide! The assassination attempt against me on my yacht failed, gracias only to my protector and savior. The assassination attempt was made by government sicarios working directly under the orders of el Vaquero, Señor Constantino Madrigal Bustamante, the real narcotraficante , the real criminal to threaten the region and our poor nation. Madrigal and his bought-off police gangsters want me dead because I have evidence of government corruption at the highest levels in Mexico City! In my hands I have the names of the corrupt working for Madrigal.” De la Rocha turned his attention from the general crowd and to a dumbstruck Elena Gamboa, still standing behind the microphone on the stage. “Señora, I ask your forgiveness for saying so, but your husband’s name is on this list!”
“¡Mentiroso!” Liar! Elena shouted into the microphone on the podium.
De la Rocha ignored her, and once again addressed the crowd at large. “I came today, putting my own life in jeopardy, because I believe that there should be no rally in support of murderers and villains and dishonest police officers . . .”
He continued speaking, the crowd seemed split down the middle in their reaction now; the arrival of Los Trajes Negros seemed to intimidate some and rally others, even as it incensed many in the crowd.
But Court Gentry tuned it all out. He was back in the stairwell now and heading up, looking for the skulking federale. At the top of the stairwell he began moving through another dark floor of dusty construction, again towards the windows overlooking the park.
Then he saw him, ahead in the shadows. The masked man held the submachine gun, and he knelt behind the cinderblock wall, hiding his body and looking down towards the crowd. Court could hear Elena’s voice over the loudspeaker, trying to argue back against DLR while the crowd both cheered and booed her words.
The cop pulled a radio off his belt, began speaking into it softly. Court could not hear what was being said. He moved a little closer in his stocking feet, staying close to the walls.
He stepped into the dark room with the officer now, moved left along the wall towards the corner, and went prone behind a low stack of wallboard that lay on the dusty concrete.
The policeman spoke again, and once again, Gentry could not make out his soft speech, but Court absolutely did not trust the guy. Why would he be up here, crouched down, conspiratorially whispering into his radio to someone? It didn’t seem like the actions of a policeman on the job.