Queen of the South - Страница 46

"Tell me one thing," Yasikov suddenly interrupted Patty's clumsy explanation. "How did you do it?… Go to the place where it was hidden. Bring it here without calling attention to yourselves. Yes. You have taken risks. I think. You are still taking them."

"That doesn't matter," Patty told him.

The gangster smiled. Come on, that smile said, tell the truth. It'll be all right. His was a smile that made you want to trust him, Teresa thought as she watched him. Or distrust so many other things that you wind up trusting him.

"Of course it matters," Yasikov replied. "I looked for this merchandise. Yes. I didn't find it. I made an error. About Jimmy, I mean. I didn't know that you knew… Things would be different, no? How time flies. I hope you've recovered. After the incident."

"Perfectly recovered, thank you."

"I should thank you for one thing. Yes. My lawyers said that you never mentioned my name in the investigations and interrogations. No."

Patty frowned sarcastically. In the tanned triangle of her cleavage one could see the scar from the exit wound.

"I was in the hospital," she said. "With holes in me."

"I mean later." The Russian's eyes were almost innocent. "The interrogations and the trial. That part."

"You see now that I had my reasons." Yasikov reflected on her reasons.

"Yes. I see. But still, your silence saved me some trouble. The police thought you knew nothing. I thought you knew nothing. You have been patient. Yes. All these years… There had to be some motivation, yes?" He tapped his chest. "Inside."

Patty took out another cigarette, which the Russian, despite having the enormous Dupont on the table, made no move to light for her, even when it took several seconds for her to find her own lighter in her purse. Stop shaking, Teresa thought, looking at Patty's hands. Control that twitching in your fingers before the son of a bitch notices and this tough-girl facade starts cracking and this whole thing goes to la chingada.

"The packages are still hidden where they were. We only brought one."

The discussion in the cave, Teresa remembered. The two of them inside, counting packages in the beam from the flashlights, half euphoric and half scared shitless. One for now, while we think-and leave the rest, Teresa had insisted. Taking it all with us now is suicide, so let's not be stupid. I know they shot you and all, but I didn't come to your lovely country as a tourist, either, you blond bitch. Don't make me tell you the whole story, which I've never told you so far. A story that has no resemblance to yours-since you managed to get shot wearing Carolina Herrera. Don't fuck with me. In this kind of deal, when you're in a hurry, the best thing you can do is go slow.

"Has it occurred to you that I can have you followed?" said Yasikov.

Patty rested the hand holding the cigarette in her lap. "Of course that's occurred to us." She inhaled and returned the hand to her lap. "But you can't follow us to where it's hidden. Not there."

"Oh, I see. Mysterious. You are mysterious ladies."

"We'd realize we were being followed and disappear. And find another buyer. Five hundred kilos is a lot."

Yasikov said nothing to that, although his silence indicated that five hundred kilos was, in fact, too much in every way. He kept looking at Patty, and once in a while he gave a brief glance in the direction of Teresa, not talking, not smoking, not moving; just watching and listening, almost holding her breath, her hands on the legs of her jeans to absorb the sweat. A light blue polo shirt, tennis shoes in case she had to make a quick getaway and slither between somebody's legs, her only jewelry the semanario of Mexican silver on her right wrist-in sharp contrast to Patty's elegant clothes and heels. They were there because Teresa had insisted on this solution. At first Patty had wanted to sell the drugs in small amounts, but Teresa had managed to convince her that sooner or later the real owners would figure it all out. It's better if we work straight, she counseled. A sure thing, even if we lose a little. All right, Patty had finally agreed. But I talk, because I know how that fucking Bolshevik's mind works. And there they were, while Teresa became more and more certain that they'd made a mistake.

She'd been around people like this since she was a girl. They might speak a different language, look different, wear different clothes, make different gestures, but underneath they were all the same. This was going nowhere, or rather somewhere they didn't want to go. When all was said and done- Teresa was realizing this too late-Patty was just a spoiled society chick, the girlfriend of a wet-behind-the-ears asshole who had been in the business not out of necessity, but because he was stupid. A guy who thought he was cool-like so many others. As for Patty, she had lived a life of appearances that had nothing to do with the real thing, and the time she'd spent in prison had done nothing but blind her even more. Here in this office she wasn't Lieutenant O'Farrell-she wasn't anybody. The blue eyes with flashes of yellow that were looking at them-that was where the power was here. And Patty was making an even bigger mistake than coming here in the first place. It was a mistake to put it to him this way. To refresh Oleg Yasikov's memory, after so much time had passed.

"That's just the problem," Patty was saying. "Five hundred kilos is too much. That's why we've come to you first."

"Whose idea was it?" Yasikov didn't seem flattered. "Me the first option? Yes."

Patty looked at Teresa.

"Hers. She's the deep thinker." She gave a quick, nervous smile between puffs on her cigarette. "She's better than I am at calculating the risks and probabilities."

Teresa felt the Russian's eyes studying her; he looked at her for a long time. He's wondering what it is that joins us, she decided. Prison, friendship, business. Whether men are my thing or we're a couple.

"I still don't know what," said Yasikov, asking Patty without taking his eyes off Teresa. "She's doing in this. Your friend."

"She's my partner."

"Ah. It's good to have partners." Yasikov turned his attention back to Patty. "It would also be good to talk. Yes. Risks and probabilities. You might not have time to disappear to find another buyer." He paused deliberately. "Time to disappear voluntarily. I think."

Teresa saw that Patty's hands were trembling again. And how I wish, she thought, I could get up right now and say, Quihubo, don Oleg, see ya around. Didn't even see that third strike coming. You keep that shipment, right, and forget this chingada.

"Maybe we should…" Teresa began.

Yasikov looked at her, almost surprised. But Patty was already at it again: You wouldn't gain anything by that. Not a thing, except the lives of two women. And you'd lose a lot. And the fact was, Teresa decided, that apart from the trembling hands that transmitted their shaking to the spirals of cigarette smoke, the Lieutenant was handling this very well. And she didn't give up easily. But both of them were dead women. She was about to say that aloud. We're dead, Lieutenant. Let's pack up and get out of here.

"It takes time to lose a life," the Russian was philosophizing, although as he continued, Teresa realized that there was nothing philosophical about it. "I think that during the process one winds up telling things… I do not like to pay twice. No. I can get it back. And without paying."

He looked at the brick of cocaine sitting on the table, between his two hamlike, immobile hands. Patty clumsily stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray just inches away from those hands. And this is it, Teresa thought in desolation. She could smell the other woman's panic. Then, without thinking, she heard her own voice again:

"You might be able to get it back without paying," she said. "But you never know. It's a risk, a hassle… You'd be depriving yourself of a sure profit."

The yellow-ringed irises fixed on her, interested.

"Your name?"

"Teresa Mendoza."

"Colombian?"

"Mexico."

She was about to add Culiacan, Sinaloa-which in this business was blowing your own horn-but she didn't. Fish get caught because they open their mouth one time too many. Yasikov had still not taken his eyes off her.

"Deprive myself. You say. Convince me of that."

Convince me of the utility of keeping you alive, read the subtitle. Patty had leaned back in her chair, like an exhausted fighting cock taking a breather against the pit wall. You're right, Mexicana. My breast is wounded and bleeding, and it's your turn now. Get us out of this. Teresa's tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth. A glass of water-she'd give anything to have asked for a glass of water.

"With a kilo going for twelve thousand dollars," she said, "the half-ton probably cost you, at point of origin, about six million… Right?"

"Right." Yasikov was looking at her inexpressively. Cautiously. "I don't know how much the intermediaries got, but in the U.S. a kilo would sell for twenty thousand."

"Thirty thousand for us. This year. Here." Yasikov had still not moved a muscle, especially a muscle of his face. "More than for your neighbors. Yes. The Yankees."

Teresa did a quick calculation. She was chewing that nopal. Her hands- to her surprise-were not trembling. Not just then.

"In that case," she said, "and at current prices, a half-ton on the street in Europe would go for fifteen million dollars. And that, according to my partner, was much more than you and your associates paid four years ago for the original shipment. Which was, and you can correct me if I'm mistaken here, five million in cash and one million in… what would you call it?"