The Girl with the Golden Gun. Ann Major

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СКАЧАТЬ says we’ve lost the war, so why should we risk our necks—”

      “Smart guy. But you’re too stubborn to stop—like always.”

      “My mother said I was born with a death wish. And you? You’re not one for causes. I’m surprised you give a damn about Morales.”

      Valdez looked bored. “People are full of contradictions. That’s what makes them interesting.”

      “With your factories, you’re exposed. Why risk such an enemy?”

      On the surface Valdez appeared unruffled, and yet there was something hard in his eyes. “It’s personal.”

      Without bothering to fasten his seat belt, Terence sank wearily into the plush leather and stared out the tinted window at the decaying buildings. He fought to ignore the bodyguard leering at the girls, whose smiles were glossy as they waved to him, halving their prices. The baby-faced hookers in their boots and miniskirts were hard up to sell themselves at this hour since the American teenagers, who paid for their services on Friday and Saturday nights, were soundly asleep in their suburban homes in El Paso.

      The seat felt too good. Terence was glad the windows were tinted. Once this city had inspired him to write prize-winning journalistic pieces. Today he needed blinders against the daily brutalities of Ciudad Juarez. If he closed his eyes, Terence would be asleep and snoring in seconds. With a tight smile, he placed the forbidden cigarette between his lips.

      When Federico frowned at his idiotic show of defiance, Terence scowled back just for good measure. Normally he didn’t give a damn how tired or shaggy he looked. Nor did he worry about making a good impression on assholes like Federico, who were part of a big problem that had millions fleeing from this country to el norte in search of decent jobs.

      For some strange reason Terence felt at a disadvantage today. He yanked the cigarette out of his mouth and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. Maybe he was getting old. Or maybe he felt off balance because Valdez, who’d once been his brother-in-law, had set up this little family reunion.

      Valdez was using him to piss off Morales. Why?

      That Valdez had tracked him down was no easy feat, but then he probably had spies everywhere. For various reasons, Collins moved around a lot. One was money. Another was that he’d made a lot of enemies and didn’t want to be easy to find when his eyes were shut. Right now he was bunking in with three newly divorced guys, who were such slobs they disgusted even him.

      Behind his scowl Collins hoped like hell he didn’t appear as tense and unsure as he really was as they were whisked through the garbage-strewn streets while being tailgated by the black SUVs.

      Rich bastards like Federico, who stank of money, ran the developing world, or at least this dusty stretch of it, and there wasn’t much one loud-mouthed journalist, who was growing old before his time, could do to make things right.

      Leaning back against the leather, Valdez stretched his long legs. Valdez’s short hair was as black as outer space. The bastard probably dyed it. But even without his talented barber and the accoutrements of wealth, he would still have been handsome in that unfair way.

      Terence studied his carved profile and realized he reminded him of somebody he’d seen in a photo recently. Who?

      Valdez was as tall and aristocratic in his gray Armani suit as Collins was rough and unkempt in his wrinkled shirt and khakis that he’d lived and slept in for the past two days on the road in his ancient van with his camera crews, boom mikes and photographers.

      Partly because he hadn’t been able to find his comb or his razor in the debris of his beer-can strewn apartment, Collins hadn’t bothered to shave his craggy jaw or comb his too-long, salt-and-pepper mop, either.

      What the hell? Other than some junk food he’d grabbed at gas stations he hadn’t even been bothering to eat lately. He’d been too busy rushing around with his motley crew filming a low-budget documentary about the contaminants in the Rio Grande.

      At fifty Valdez looked as vibrant and arrogantly full of himself as he had at thirty. Collins was a battle-worn forty-nine. He had lines beneath his eyes and grooves on either side of his mouth. His skin was as dark and leathery as a shrunken head’s. Dora had divorced him long before she’d died, but once, long ago, she’d been the beautiful, younger sister of Valdez’s American-born wife, Anita. Valdez men always went for fair-skinned Americans.

      The border was a hellish place. Smugglers were taking over the border towns at a rapid clip. They bought off the authorities or killed the ones who couldn’t be bribed. Then they trafficked in drugs and people at their will. Corporate bandits like Valdez worked the poor like slaves and polluted without restraint. Thousands of people ate garbage, literally, from the dumps in northern Mexico. Nobody cared that millions of kids got almost no schooling because their parents couldn’t afford books and had to put them to work. Thus, generation after generation grew up to be unskilled and were sentenced to lifetimes of manual labor. There were lots of kidnappings both for money and to make people disappear. Ordinary women were their husbands’ chattel. Most people didn’t think much about these atrocities. They were simply a way of life.

      Still, such a hell attracted its share of saints, who naively set up clinics and soup kitchens and schools and churches on both sides of the border without bothering to buy the proper authorities. When these trusting souls got into trouble—recently there had been a lot of kidnappings for ransom—they would turn to the media and tell their desperate stories about the plight of the poor and the exploitation of those who fought to help them. It made for interesting reading, but nobody did anything.

      Terence had been as young and idealistic as the most naïve of them when he’d arrived here in his twenties. Dora, his wife, had been just as inspired as he’d been, but after she’d lost the babies and they’d adopted the twins, she’d wanted more than poverty and chaos and struggle. She’d wanted him to make money. Then they’d lost Becky, too, and been left with only Abigail. Dora had blamed him for Becky and had demanded that they leave the border.

      “It isn’t fun anymore,” she’d said. “It’s become dangerous.”

      The day he’d been nominated for a Pulitzer for doing what he believed in, Dora had sucked up to Daddy and gone back east to resume the upper-class lifestyle to which they’d both been born and had grown up hating. He’d stayed on, growing wearier with the same old battles and lonelier as the years had passed.

      When Dora had died Abby had returned to Texas. She was grown now, and he rarely found time to see her. Strangely she loved him, and was proud of his work.

      Thus, he’d never had a life of his own. Like a lot of people in their fifties, he gave his life a grade. Lately he’d begun to wonder what difference anything he’d ever done had made. The border was a worse pit than ever, and it was still ruled by slick creeps like Valdez. And by drug lords far more vicious than Valdez. He had a neglected daughter, who barely knew him.

      He stared at Valdez’s aquiline nose. Who the hell did the arrogant jerk remind him of? Who?

      The limo and its convoy slipped through the dirty streets like stealthy sharks slicing through dark waters.

      “So, why did you call and invite me to Mexico to interview you?” Collins said at last, his voice cold.

      “For once you and I are on the same side.”

      “Will miracles never cease?”

      Valdez СКАЧАТЬ