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As soon as you get this.
The Florencia wasn’t far from here, maybe twenty minutes on the train. He left the alley, heading for the closest station. It never occurred to him not to.
Mr. Cabrera asked him to show up, he showed up. The man had seen something in him when he was a little kid—a hardness, he’d told Diego once, a strength that the other kids lacked. And so Mr. Cabrera had dragged him out of the streets. He’d saved Diego’s life. Coming when he was called was the least Diego could do.
* * * *
The Florencia’s CLOSED sign was blinking in the window when Diego got there, washed out by daytime lights. Mr. Cabrera closed the Florencia sometimes in the afternoon. He liked having the cooks make a special lunchtime steak just for him.
Diego banged on the front door of the Florencia until Mateo answered, his pale, thin face set into his usually snooty frown. “You’re late,” he said.
“I was at the Loro, doing my fucking job. Let me in.”
Mateo sneered, but he pulled the door open. The Florencia was eerie when it was all shut down like this, no afternoon regulars smoking cigarettes while the girls danced onstage.
“Making you stick around, huh?” Diego asked as he sauntered in. The stage lights were still on, he noticed, that dark murky blue that was supposed to make the girls look their best.
“Someone had to be here to let you in.” Mateo slunk back over to his place at the podium. A stack of menus sat waiting for the evening crowd.
“He’s back in the office,” Mateo added.
Diego didn’t answer, just made his way first through the dining room and then through the swinging doors that led into the narrow hallway that took you out to the docks. Mr. Cabrera’s office was the first door on the left. Diego knocked once to be polite and then went in.
“I got your message,” he said.
Mr. Cabrera was at his desk, smoking a cigarette with slow, considered movements. A record played in the background, some jazzy number Diego didn’t recognize.
“Good afternoon, Diego,” Mr. Cabrera said. “I trust it’s been going well?”
“Sure.” Diego lingered in the doorway. It was fu
“I’m sorry I had to call you away from the Loro,” Mr. Cabrera said. “But I have a job for you.”
“Yeah?” he said.
“Sit, sit.” Mr. Cabrera gestured with his cigarette, the pale smoke drifting in thick lines through the room.
Diego’s skin was already crawling, but he couldn’t let Mr. Cabrera know that. Showing Mr. Cabrera his weaknesses always made him feel like an orphan again, like Mr. Cabrera would decide he didn’t want to take Diego in after all.
He sat.
“I had a meeting today,” Mr. Cabrera said. “With a little weasel of a man. An engineer from the city.”
“That so?”
“It is indeed, Diego. He’d been trying to get in contact with me since yesterday, in fact, claiming he had something that could destroy an old acquaintance of mine.”
Diego shifted in his seat, waiting. He wondered how involved this job was going to be.
“You know who that acquaintance is, Diego?”
“No, sir,” said Diego, “I don’t.”
A pause. Mr. Cabrera breathed in his cigarette smoke.
“Marianella Luna,” he said.
Oh. Her. Mr. Cabrera’d had it out for her ever since her husband had passed six months ago. She’d taken up with Ortiz and his ag domes, a little scheme that threatened Mr. Cabrera’s whole wintertime smuggling enterprise.
“You finally ready to take care of her?” Diego fucking hoped not. Too high-profile, and he hated that kind of work.
“No.” The answer was slow to come. Considered. “At least not at this juncture.”
At least not ever, Diego hoped.
“No, your target is the man I was supposed to meet with this afternoon. He’d promised me a way to remove Lady Luna from the equation, without the risks of our—usual methods.”
Just come out and say it, Diego thought, feeling hollow. Killing people.
“Unfortunately, he showed up for our meeting empty-handed. The story he gave me was elaborately far-fetched—he claimed one of my call girls ran off with his proof.” Mr. Cabrera laughed. “Suggested I search the whorehouses. I did, but we didn’t turn anything up.”
“Proof of what?” Diego asked.
“Come again?”
“You said the girl ran off with his proof. What was it for?”
“I’ve no idea, which is what I need you for. He refuses to tell me outright—wants the reward for his effort, I suppose. The man’s a complete idiot. Too used to dealing with city bureaucrats. But I’m sure with a bit of your persuasive techniques he’ll give up the information easily enough.”
“Why would a whore steal proof from him?”
“Feeling chatty today, Diego?”
Diego shrugged.
“I doubt any of my girls was involved at all. Who knows what the man was playing at, but it didn’t work. Which is why he needs to be punished. No one toys with me like that.”
That was really what this was about, Diego knew. Not just getting the information from some city engineer. Mr. Cabrera was big into honor and vengeance and punishing the stupid. It was a code Diego had learned after Mr. Cabrera had taken him in, but not one he’d ever completely understood.
Mr. Cabrera rummaged through his desk drawers and pulled out a piece of paper that had been folded over three times. He handed it to Diego, and Diego opened it up. It was an address.
“He lives there. I don’t know if he has a family or not.”
Diego didn’t say anything.
“I don’t need him dead, but I’d like the information before sunup tomorrow. Do whatever you feel is necessary to get it.”
Diego folded the paper as small as he could make it and then slipped it into his wallet. “Sure,” he said. Then, “And his name? Just to make sure I got the right guy.”
“Oh, of course.” Mr. Cabrera smiled. “Sala. Pablo Sala.” He stood up, and Diego did the same. They shook hands. Always the businessman, Mr. Cabrera was.
“Feel free to take one of the cars,” Mr. Cabrera said. “You know you’re one of the few men I trust with them.”
And Diego couldn’t help himself, hearing that. He smiled.
* * * *
The dome lights were dim by the time Diego arrived at Sala’s house, despite it being the middle of the afternoon. A boon for Diego, since darkness made him seem more sinister, which got the mark talking faster. About the only benefit to these blackouts.
The houses cast long shadows across the patchwork yards. Diego drove past Sala’s house and then parked half a block down. His gun was a weight in its holster.
Get in, get it over with.
The houses all seemed abandoned, their doors and windows shut tight. Diego walked up to Sala’s front door. Rang the doorbell.
A minute passed. Another. Diego shifted his weight, started looking for ways to break in. Maybe Sala wasn’t here. That was always easier anyway, hiding out in the dining room until they got back home.
The door creaked open.
“Yes?”
“You Pablo Sala?”
The man in the doorway blinked, his eyes round and enormous behind his glasses. “Yes,” he said. “Who are you?”
“I work for Mr. Cabrera.” Diego smiled, although he didn’t do it to look friendly. “Sent me to get some information out of you.”
“Oh, well, I don’t—”
“You mind if I come in? It’s fucking freezing out here.”
“I guess—”
Diego pushed through the doorway. Sala turned and stared at him. Diego pulled the door shut. Flexed the fingers in his right hand.
Sala took a step back. “Look,” he said. “I’m not ready to meet with him yet. I’ve got to get the documents back first, okay? Some little bitch stole them—”
Diego lashed out at Sala and hit him square in the chest. Sala went flying backward and hit the floor hard.
“He doesn’t give a damn about your documents,” Diego said. “Just tell me what was on them.”