“Now. What would you like to speak about, Jamie? I’m sure it must be pressing to drag me out here in the middle of the day on a Tuesday.” Ramirez leans back against the sedan, his hand reaching into the pocket of his heavy suit pants. I instinctively assume he’s going for a gun, but I don’t move to act on my assumption. Not yet, anyway. If Lowell sees me pull a gun, I’m going away for a very long time. Besides, I can judge a man’s intent in his eyes. Ramirez definitely looks like he would happily skin us alive right here and now if he thought he might get away with it, but he knows he won’t. He doesn’t pull out a gun from his pocket. Instead he pulls out a handful of almonds, some sugared some plain, and he offers them first to Jamie and then to me. “Sweet tooth. I have the worst sweet tooth. I can’t seem to stop eating these things. I suppose there are worse addictions to have, though, no?”
Jamie doesn’t take any of his almonds, and neither do I. We both simply look at him like he’s crazy, which he is. Patently. Jamie clears his throat. “I heard you have a friend in town. A mutual friend.”
Ramirez pops an almond into his mouth and bites down on it, smiling. “Alan? My good friend Alan? I had no idea you two knew each other.”
“We do. Very well. I’d like him to come stay with me if that’s amenable to you.” Jamie lifts one shoulder in a poor attempt at a shrug. “We do have more room for guests after all.”
Ramirez wags a finger at Jay, like he’s just made a joke. His eyes crease at the corners, showing how blatantly amused he is at the prospect of merely handing Alan over without a by your leave. “You sure do have a lot of room over there, you’re right. I don’t know, though. Alan’s pretty happy with me right now. He knows his daughter is going to come pay him a visit soon. He seems very invested in seeing her.” His eyes turn cold all of a sudden, hardening, the creases created by his smile morphing into something sour and angry. “I believe she’ll be by any day now.”
Jamie steps forward, growling under his breath. “She won’t be going anywhere near you or your farmhouse, Hector. She’s not your property.”
“Of course not. People can’t belong to other people. This is America, Jamie. What an absurd thing to say.” Ironic that he chooses to say this, when he makes hundred of thousands of dollars a year, perhaps millions, selling people as sex slaves. There’s a chance he makes more money selling people than he does selling heroin and cocaine. A junkie will pay twenty bucks for a baggie. A rich gentleman with certain proclivities and the means to keep them secret will pay considerably more to satiate his addiction. Jamie’s seething, but he’s also doing a pretty damned good job at remaining calm.
“If we drop our conflict,” he says, “will you let him go?” It’s wild that he’s dropping our pretence so quickly, but what’s even wilder is the suggestion he’s making. Drop the conflict with Los Oscuros? I can barely believe what I’m hearing. We went to war with the cartel because Ramirez had Jamie’s uncle murdered. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and it broke Jamie’s heart at the same fucking time. Now he’s just willing to forget that, forget about getting justice for Ryan and walk away?
Ramirez looks bemused by the thought. “I don’t see that there’s ever going to be a way out of this conflict for you or for me. Not without blood spilled. Life lost. You’ve been quiet for the past little while, and I’ve sat in that cramped farmhouse waiting for you to snap. Waiting for you to make your move. And you’ve done nothing. I have to say at this point, I want a more…physical ending to this game of ours if only so I won’t feel like I’ve been wasting my time in this godforsaken place, day in, day out for what frankly feels like an eternity.”
“So you refuse?” Jamie doesn’t move an inch. I don’t want to take my eyes off of Ramirez in case the guy truly is certifiable and he does make a move here, but I can tell something is very wrong with the man standing next to me. He’s about to lose his fucking mind.
Alfonso appears from the café next to the women’s clothing store on the other side of the street, coffee cup in hand, still shooting me stink eye. He hands the coffee to Ramirez and then hovers, standing there. “Get back in the car,” Ramirez snaps. Alfonso glowers at all three of us, and then does as he’s told, reluctantly folding himself back into the passenger seat.
“Yes, I refuse,” Ramirez says. “Of course I fucking refuse. Tell me something, Jamie. Where is Raphael?”
Raphael. Raphael Dela Vega. I’d like to say I haven’t even thought about him in forever, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Jamie never gave me details, but I know the fucker is buried somewhere out in the desert, and that Sophia had something to do with it. I can’t imagine her taking someone’s life, but then again Dela Vega was a special guy. I’m pretty sure nearly everyone he met wanted to drive a knife into his heart, and with good reason.
“How the fuck should I know where he is?” Jamie’s voice is level and even, but it holds a hard edge to it. It’s hardly an admission that he had something to do with the guy’s disappearance, but it’s hardly a denial either. Not a real one, even if he does claim so with his words.