Page 9 of Vice
CHAPTER TWO
MR. AMERICA
The woman with the needle hanging out of her arm is dead. I want to bury her and the dog in the back of Julio’s yard, and I also want to finish off those four coke heads in the downstairs living room, but I have time to do neither. I have to get on the road; I have to hit Santa Clarita before dark, and the sun is already bobbing lower in the sky than I like. I duck low and weave my way through the long grass back toward the scrambler, planning the next step of my journey: ride for six hours, find somewhere to wash properly, store the scrambler somewhere safe, and get my ass on a plane.
I may have feigned ignorance when Julio started babbling about a house for wolves, but I do know what it means. Or at least, I think I do. Not a house for wolves. The House of Wolves. Villalobos. The Villalobos family aren’t like other cartels. People don’t shake in their boots when they hear the name whispered down dark alleyways across the United States. There aren’t many people who would even have heard of them in the first place. Like most cartels, The House of Wolves deals in skin, coke and heroin, but they only deal with their own contacts—in motherfucking Ecuador.
They are the top of the food chain, a great white shark in the sea of narcotics and sex trading, and they don’t bother themselves with small fry. The only reason I even know of the family is because of the constant trawling for information that’s carried out at the Widow Makers’ clubhouse. Jamie’s not your average motorcycle club president; he’s heavily invested in bringing down as many sick fucks as he can. If you deal in skin and you’re stupid enough to try and sell girls online, or in any sort of bidding community, then you’re basically fucked. It’s only a matter of time before we find you. Our hackers are good. The Villalobos family have been whispered about for years, but no one has ever given us solid information on them. And without solid information, the risk of a full-frontal assault has just been too great.
Until now.
So. A flight out of Mexico. A small dip into the stack of money I’m carrying with me, but well worth it if it leads me to Laura.
I take off my leather jacket and then the black tee I’m wearing underneath, using the sweat and blood soaked shirt to wipe down my jacket, and then I rifle in the small bag I have stowed under the scrambler’s seat, hunting for something clean to wear. A gray ACDC shirt? Perfect. I throw it on, bundling up my leather and jamming it into the small compartment under the seat, along with the bag, and then I wheel the Yamaha back to the road. Just as I’m about to start the engine, shots ring out behind me, from the direction of the Perez farmhouse. I can just about make out two guys running from the house, their muffled, indecipherable shouts carrying across the fields. One of them raises his hand and another gunshot rings out, snapping through the air.
Looks like it’s time for me to get the fuck out of here.
******
Getting a plane ticket is easy. There are plenty of security checks in Mexico, especially if you’re a white American trying to fly to another country and not back into the States, however this isn’t my first time at the rodeo. I pay five hundred bucks to a toothless old garage owner on the outskirts of Santa Clarita, telling him if I’m not back in a week he can keep the scrambler. I make sure to tell him, in no uncertain terms, what will happen if I did come back in less than a week and the motorcycle isn’t there, too.
I ditch every single last scrap of clothing I’ve brought with me, and I buy a suit and tie, briefcase, polished tan leather shoes and a pair of aviators. The money I’m carrying with me goes into the briefcase.
I am no longer Cade Preston, vice president of the Widow Makers Motorcycle Club. I am Samuel Garrett, executive sales representative at Holland Radisson Tailors & Purveyors of Fine Cloth. Thank god for fake passports, and thank god for fake back-stories. The travel documents and sales pitch I prepared back in New Mexico at the Widow Makers compound were meant to be used if I needed to chase Julio down in Columbia or Brazil. I hadn’t banked on Ecuador, but the paperwork holds up when customs officials inspect it. The suit I’ve bought is expensive enough that they don’t ask too many questions—what is your business in Ecuador, Mr. Garrett? How long do you intend to stay for? Do you plan on traveling back through Mexico on your way home to the United States?
I already have my responses scripted out: I’m searching for a new manufacturing site; I’m going to be in Ecuador for a week. Maybe more. And no, I don’t intend on flying back into Mexico.
They don’t care about my responses. All they care about is the envelope of money I casually “forget” on their desk.
“You may go, Mr. Garrett. Have a nice day.”Smiles all round. Handshakes. A warm pat on the back.
I know nothing about Ecuador. Like, zero. Absolutely fucking nothing. I read the in-flight pamphlet in the back of the seat in front of me on the flight, but it’s in Spanish, and while I can speak the language fluently, reading it, on the other hand, is another matter entirely.
By the time we land in Eloy Alfaro International Airport, I know that the population hits somewhere under the sixteen million belt, and that there are four distinctly different regions to the country. The thing about in-flight pamphlets, though, is that they don’t tell you where you might find the local coke and heroin moguls, or where you might be able to buy a shit load of guns. More’s the pity.
I buy a couple of t-shirts, two pairs of jeans, a new backpack, a new leather jacket and a pair of white Adidas sneakers from the stores before leaving duty free, and make my way to the first rental place I can find that has motorcycles. I could easily rent a car instead of a bike, but the past week sat on the back of the scrambler has given me time to think. Time to plot, and scheme and plan. Plus the vibrations of my cock against the gas tank feels really fucking good. You just don’t get that kind of stimulation in sitting behind the wheel of a Honda Civic.
The rental company only has touring motorcycles, which isn’t going to work. If the House of the Wolves are smart, they’ll be holed up in the hills somewhere, probably off road, and I’m gonna need something that can handle a few dips and bumps in the terrain. The guys in the rental place barely understand me when I try and explain what I need, but eventually we get there. They give me the name of a second-hand place that won’t lease me a motorcycle, but will sell me something reliable on the cheap.
Four hours later, I have a five-year-old version of the motorcycle I just left behind in Mexico, and I’ve gone from sixty grand down to fifty. I ride to a shifty looking café just outside the city, all too eager to leave the busy, over-crowded roads and streets teeming with people behind. There, with a giant cup of coffee glued to my hand and a stale queso wrap growing staler on a plate in front of me, I make a call from my cell. A call I am seriously not looking forward to.
“You did what?” On the other end of the line, Jamie sounds pissed. “You flat-out killed him?”
I stuff the queso wrap into my mouth, hoping the sound of me eating will drown the rest of my conversation with him. That’s not going to work, though. I need something from him, and I can’t really ask him if he can’t understand a word I’m saying. I swallow the huge bite of food in my mouth and sigh. “He had it fucking coming, man. Tell me you weren’t sick of his shit, Jamie. Tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing if you were in my situation.”
Silence reigns supreme. I chew on another bite of my food, while my best friend, technically my boss, chews on what I’ve just said. Eventually, he grunts down the phone. “You should have called it in,” he says. “We could have done some recon work, seen how many of his guys hung around once he left the country. Now we don’t know how many of them are gonna come looking for payback.”
“You know as well as I do, no one’s gonna be mourning that disgusting piece of shit. If anything, those power hungry bastards will be sending us thank you cards.”
“Maybe,” Jamie concedes. “But still…”
I discard the wrap, wiping my hands on my jeans. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. But sometimes it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission, right?”
Jamie laughs. I can imagine the way he’s pacing, still trying to process the information that Perez, one of our sometimes allies and nearly-all-the-time-enemies is dead, though. I probably should have given him a heads up first. I’m not looking forward to parting with this next piece of information, either. “While we’re on the subject of things I need to ask forgiveness for, I should probably let you know that I’m not in Mexico anymore.”
“What? Where the fuck are you, Cade?”
“Ecuador.”
