There was nothing untrue in what I said, and the girl’s silence showed how intelligent she was. Her job was to keep the monster happy. Lobster, squid, maguey worms or whatever else he might fancy to eat, the best alcohol and a honeymoon worthy of the Virgin Mary. In other words, whatever he asked for and was up to. “Be a guiding star for him.” Carlos Hernandez knows how to look after his friends, and what that guy had just given him was priceless. It’s true that the information was common knowledge among the whores of the Zona Rosa, but now – the most important thing! – the police had got wind of it too. Once upon a time there was a ranch, bought in the name of a gentleman from Los Angeles, whose owner had never been traced. The police searched for his whereabouts for a whole month before giving up. The case was so cold it might almost be called frozen, like the beers my women offer me when they forget to bring them warm, and yet those in charge of it – “I can’t say a word about any of this,”
