Private L.A.

Chapter 124

 

 

AT TEN PAST ten that evening, we drove past the wall that surrounded El Panteón de Belén cemetery in Guadalajara.

 

“Park here,” the boy said, rubbing at his knee where the door had hit him. He said his name was Roberto. He sat in the passenger seat of one of the panel vans, his pistol in his lap, lazily aimed at my waist as I drove.

 

We’d come to something of a Mexican standoff back there in the house and had negotiated a truce that allowed me to keep my weapon and my life in return for going with him and his two friends. Justine came along too. The others had been forced to remain behind, which didn’t sit well with Cordova or Cruz. But that was the deal if we wanted to find out what had happened to the Harlows.

 

“Where are we going?” I asked.

 

“Inside,” Roberto said.

 

“What’s in there?” I asked.

 

“What do you usually find in cemeteries?” he said. “Get out.”

 

“Who sent you?” Justine asked from the back, where two other armed teenage street urchins watched her.

 

“That’s right, we’re not getting out until you tell us who sent you, Roberto,” I said. “De la Vega? Gomez? Fox?”

 

“I do not know these men,” he said, opening his door. “And I don’t know who you are. And I don’t care. This is a business transaction. Understand?”

 

 

 

 

 

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