Страница 40 из 95
“We should go back to our seats,” he said.
She nodded distractedly. They left the bathroom and went back down the aisle. That was when he saw Ilan Halevy, the narrow brim of a hat pulled low, sitting in the last row of first class, reading a copy of the Financial Times. The Babylonian looked up over the rim of the newspaper, delivering a wicked grin.
14
"WHAT D’YOU MEAN I can’t see her?”
“She’s crashing, Charles.” Delia put her hands against his chest, pushing Thorne back from the recovery room.
He stood against the wall as doctors and nurses pushing stainless steel carts hurried past.
He followed them with his eyes. His mouth was half open and he seemed to have trouble breathing. “What’s happening, Delia?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were in there.” His restless gaze lit on her. “You must know something.”
“We were talking and she just collapsed. That’s all I know.”
“The baby.” He licked his lips. “What about the baby?”
Delia reared back. “Ah, now I get it.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Why you’re here. I get it. It’s the baby.”
Thorne appeared confused—or was that alarm on his face? “What are you talking—”
“If the baby dies, all your troubles die with it.”
He came off the wall, his eyes blazing. “Where the hell do you come off—?”
“The baby dies and you don’t have problems with A
“You’re nuts, you know that? I care about Soraya. Deeply. Why can’t you accept that?”
“Because you’re a cynical, self-centered sonofabitch.” Thorne took a breath, gathering himself. His eyes narrowed. “You know, I thought we could be friends.”
“You mean you thought you could recruit me.” She produced a steely laugh. “Fuck off.”
Turning her back on him, Delia went to talk to Dr. Santiago as he emerged from Soraya’s room.
“How is she?”
“Stable,” Dr. Santiago said. “She’s being moved to the ICU.” Delia was aware that Thorne had come up behind her. She could almost hear him listening.
“What happened?”
“A slight blockage developed at the surgical site. Rare, but it happens sometimes. We’ve cleared it and we’re giving her a low dose of
blood thi
“Safe for her,” Delia said. “What about what’s safe for the baby?”
“Ms. Moore is our primary patient, her life takes precedence. Besides, the fetus—”
“Her baby,” Delia said.
Dr. Santiago regarded her enigmatically for a moment. “Right. Excuse me.”
Delia, melancholy and forlorn, watched him disappear down the hallway.
Thorne sighed. “Now I see how it is between you and me, I’ll lay my cards on the table.”
“When will you learn I don’t give a shit about your cards?”
“I’m wondering whether Amy will feel the same way.”
Delia spun on him. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.” The challenge in his voice was unmistakable. “I have transcripts of your voicemails with Amy Brandt.”
“What?”
“Surprised? It’s a simple hack. We use a software program that imitates caller ID. It’s how we can gain access to your mobile phone—
anyone’s, really—and bypass the password protection.”
“So you have—”
“Every message you and Amy have left for each other.” He could not hide a smirk. “Some of it’s pretty hot.”
She slapped him across the face so hard he rocked back on his heels.
“You hit like a guy, you know that?”
“How the hell d’you live with yourself?”
He laughed thinly. “It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.” She eyed him warily. “If you have a point, make it.”
“We each have something on the other.” He shrugged. “Just something to remember.”
“I don’t care—”
“But Amy does, doesn’t she? In her line of work she has to be careful. A shitload of parents don’t like their kids being taught by a lesbian.”
Delia thought of several choice things to say, but at that moment a pair of grim-faced nurses wheeled Soraya out of recovery, past them, down the hall to the ICU. There was silence for a time after that.
“So there’s our truce,” Thorne said, “laid out for you.”
Delia turned back to him. “Did you ever care about Soraya, even for a moment?”
“She’s a hellcat in bed.”
“What’s the matter? A
“A
“My heart goes out to you,” she said acidly.
He gave her a lupine grin. “And mine to you.” He grabbed his crotch. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”
Maceo Encarnación, staring out the Perspex window as his jet circled Mexico City prior to landing, saw the familiar fug of brown effluvia that hovered over the sprawling metropolis like a filthy carpet.
A combination of the happenstance of geography and the unbridled emissions of modern progress formed this almost permanent atmospheric layer. Mexico City, built upon the ruins of the great Aztec megalopolis Tenochtitlán, seemed to be drowning in its own future.
The first thing his lungs inhaled when he stepped onto the rolling stairs was the stink of human shit, used to fertilize many of the crops. In the street markets where fruits and vegetables were laid out on the ground, dogs and toddlers alike pissed and shat on the wares without consequence.
Encarnación ducked into a black armored SUV, its motor ru
The ground on which his urban estancia sat was the most valuable in all of Mexico City, but because it was protected from development by the powerful National Fine Arts Institute, of which Encarnación was, not coincidentally, an influential member, no high-rises could be built there, as they had been in Lomas de Chapultepec or Colonia Santa Fe.
“Welcome home, Don Maceo. You have been missed.”
The man sitting beside Encarnación was short, squat as a frog, with dark skin, a belligerent hooked Aztec nose, and pomaded black hair swept back from his wide forehead, thick and lustrous as a horse’s mane.
His name was Tulio Vistoso; he was one of the three most powerful drug lords in Mexico, but almost everyone except Encarnación called him the Aztec.
“There is tequila to share, Don Tulio,” Encarnación said amiably, “and news to digest.”
At once the Aztec was on guard. “Problems?”
“There are always problems.” Encarnación fluttered a hand back and forth. “What matters is the level of difficulty these problems present in the solving.”
The Aztec grunted. He was wearing a black linen suit over an elaborate guayabera shirt. His feet were clad in caiman-skin huaraches dyed the color of polished mahogany. The driver was Encarnación’s bodyguard, the stolid armed man beside him belonged to the Aztec.
Nothing more was said on the drive to Encarnación’s mansion. Both men knew the value of silence and of presenting business at the proper time and place. Neither man was possessed of an impetuous nature. They were not prone to make a move before its time.
The familiar streets, avenues, and squares slid by in a blur of color and cacophonous noise. Bursts of bougainvillea crawled up the stucco sides of restaurants and tavernas, lumbering buses belched carbonized particulates. They passed by the square of Santo Domingo, inhabited by evangelistaswith their old bulky typewriters, banging out for the city’s illiterates letters of love or condolences, simple contracts to be explained and signed, eviction notices to be delivered orally, occasionally short, stark missives of bile and hate. The sleek armored SUV maneuvered nimbly in the rattling sea of taxis painted in violent colors and trucks and buses packed with stinking men, women, children, and animals. While church and cathedral bells clanged incessantly, it passed through the thick, grainy, wallowing morass of the city on its way to the cleanly exalted Colonia Polanco, and nestled within its heart, the villa, screened by high walls and pines, secured by electrified fences.