THE SUN WENT DOWN AS THEY DROVE SOUTH. THE RED CRACKS in the sky cast deep shadows across the east end of Nuevo Laredo, the Mexican sister to Laredo, Texas, just across the border. With the license plate of the eighteen-wheeler and some cash, Tony had been able to get them the truck's destination, but not the name of the facility. When Tony showed them exactly where it was on a map, they realized the eighteen-wheeler was headed for the same factory they'd passed on their way up from Monterrey with Isodora and her baby, the same place the federales had smashed Casey's camera. Jose and Casey had only been able to stare at each other and shake their heads.
While Casey argued to scope out the factory, Jose insisted that he make use of some old contacts before they made another move.
Heavy purple clouds roiled in the red light, dropping rain in sporadic sheets as they wound their way off the highway and into the city. TV antennae, water towers, and chimney pots stood out against the crimson light like sentinels atop row houses and tenements. Laundry drooped on sagging lines hung from one building to another like bunting.
"That's the place," Jose said, pointing down into a dark alley.
A green neon sign for a bar named Perro Rojo glimmered in the downpour. Garbage spilled from cans and an emaciated yellow dog trotted their way, ears flat, with a plastic bag in its mouth. A drunk peed on the crooked brick wall, steadying himself on the ladder of a rusted fire escape. At the far mouth of the alley, three men stood in dripping cowboy hats around an oil drum whose burning contents cast flickering light across their hardened faces. Jose recognized two of them, even from a distance.
"And I'm supposed to just leave you here?" Casey asked.
"I can't take you in," Jose said, "Machismo culture and all that. And no way in hell are you waiting around here. Just go back to the motel. I'll get a ride back with someone. You can watch one of those movies. I'll pay for it."
"Because you know these people," Casey said. "Right.''
"From my past life."
"I think you said something about some 'drug kingpin.'"
Jose opened the door and got out. "This side of the line, some of them are a little more reliable than the rest. Be careful backing that thing up. You gotta use the side mirrors to dodge the drunks. I'll see you back at the motel later."
He closed the door before she could say anything and turned in the rain. By the time he reached Perro Rojo's doorway at the end of the alley, the rain had stopped. Jose looked up at the thick slab of purple sky with its crimson glow, the light too weak to plumb the narrow depths or to allow Jose to read the face of the man who sat on a wooden stool just inside the yawning doorway.
"Doscientos pesos," the man said in a rough voice, holding out a large gnarled hand that glinted with thick rings until he turned it palm-up.
Jose dug into his pocket and handed the man an American twenty-dollar bill. The man snapped his fingers a few times and kept his hand out until Jose added a five. He then gave two quick double raps with his knuckles against the wood, and the door swung open. The smell of smoke and the pulse of Tejano music came from inside the building. Waves of bass and synthesizer cut through with an accordion and a twelve-string guitar. Jose let his eyes follow the counterclockwise spinning movements of the Tejano dancers in the room as he descended the long metal stairs along the far wall of the club.
At this early hour, he had his pick of several stools at the bar. Behind the shelves of liquor, fogged glass changed colors, fading from one to the next, completely out of sync with the music from the stage. Jose got himself a beer and asked the bartender if Flaco had arrived yet. The bartender, a small-breasted brunette in a spandex top, cowboy hat, and jeans, nodded toward a velvet booth in the far corner, then turned away. Jose took his beer with him. Eyes adjusted now to the low light, he became aware of the three men stationed on the lighting catwalks twenty feet above who carried, not the short-barreled MAC-10s or TEC-9s he'd come to expect from drug dealers, but what looked like M24 sniper rifles with laser sights.
One by one, as Jose closed the gap to the booth, he felt the guns swing his way.