Mondragón rarely deigned to visit Cortez. But from time to time—more times than Fernando would have liked—he summoned him to one of his many choice establishments in Saguero and beyond. Choicer than The Red Room, but always with a sordid edge to them, no matter how posh of a front they seemed. Mondragón was not a trafficker per se, but he was an associate of traffickers. He lectured Fernando in his patronizing, grandiloquent way that it was vain naïveté for a rich man in this place and

The new establishment was called El Toro, and it was part pool hall and gambling den. Backed by Mondragón’s full support, Fernando saw the place finished out in record time.

El Toro appealed without pretense to all of Cortez’s most deeply cherished vices. Because of this, it was eagerly anticipated and well-received—not only by the locals, but by the rural region at large. Drinks and women were served on the side. Underground fights held there were advertised by word of mouth. No less

Fernando smiled. “Anyone who ransoms me is bound to be disappointed. My father’s wife holds the purse strings, and she despises me. She would consider my disappearance a blessing. Maybe she even half-hoped for it in sending me here.”

Of course, Juan Francisco’s pride would never suffer such a slight as to have his favored son kidnapped by backcountry lowlifes. The senator might not be a cartel man, but like any man of means in this country he had his dealings. This small-time mafioso would

Thanks to Fernando’s oversight, work at the job site had progressed without incident to the final stages of construction. And so he was surprised, as he made his way back toward one of the near-finished rooms the jefe had claimed for his office (in lieu of his afore-sold trailer), to find Pedro and his friend Pablo standing there. They flanked the closed door like they’d been plucked straight from the street to serve as bodyguards. Likely enough, they had been.

Both nodded to him as he approached.

Fernando dismissed his grandmother’s imagined concerns. He was confident that the success of his ventures would soon allay them. The goats were bringing in a bit of profit already. The exceptional quality of their milk at market outweighed the locals’ superstitious suspicions that the old witch had cast charms on the well water and hay to enrich them.

Fernando’s grandmother didn’t care much for money. He suspected she never much had, even when she was young. But she did like

* * *

By the next week, Fernando had seen the choking ferns and vines routed from beneath his grandmother’s house and a plot of the rich dark earth plowed under for a garden.

Fibrous weed roots of all kinds riddled the loam. They snapped in sullen protest at their demise. Under the killing blade they became fodder for the crops to come, the good and rightful seed which would inherit.

Apart from his handy friends, Fernando consulted with the greater purview of Cortez. He recruited from among them,

“I don’t have any money for you,” Fernando said.

This wasn’t exactly true, but as Chico had so sagely put it: Why pay for what you could get for free? The whore shut the door behind them, plunging them both into shadow.

“I don’t care,” she growled back at him, driving him up against the closed door.

Her mouth was on his then, lush and musky and wild. Her hair crinkled in his hands, a bristly tangle of half-fallen curls. She scored her nails over him through his thin shirt, scratched

Outside on the streets of Saguero, Fernando ambled past closed shops, deserted cafés. After asking around, he knew the general direction of his destination. But the path there he took at random, letting his intuition guide him as much as his senses. His night vision had always been good. Even in the darkness of this unfamiliar place he felt at home and in his element.

He meandered through dismal alleyways choked with trash. He doubled-back at dead-ends, or at some prickle of primal warning that

Alejandra giggled, as if Fernando were joking. “What do you like then? Tell me.”

“Order,” he said. “Reason. I like for things to be in their rightful place. For people to behave like rational beings, not dumb blundering animals. When they don’t, it irritates me. It should irritate everyone. But it doesn’t. And that irritates me all the more. On the whole, I find the human race to be a gross disappointment.”

Alejandra frowned, not knowing what to say to this. Fernando didn’t blame