Page 133

And so began the women’s whimpering and sobbing and uncontrollable crying.

While it was the least of their immediate problems, the women could see that the house was squalid. It clearly had been a long time, easily years, since there had been any kind of upkeep-never mind preventative maintenance-performed on the sixty-year-old house. The same could be said for any house-cleaning. The dirty appliances in the kitchen had last been replaced when the fashionable color had been a dark avocado green. The single kitchen sink, chipped and rusty, was filled with filthy dishes and glasses. The countertop suffered the same misfortune as the floor-both had linoleum that had separated at the glued seams and both had places where the linoleum had been ripped away long ago, revealing the raw plywood beneath.

Dirt had actually piled up in the corner of the kitchen by the back door, where there was an industrial-size thirty-gallon plastic garbage can. The trash was overflowing.

The women had found that the bathrooms were no better. Worse, there was no running water. The toilet tank, which had no top, had to be filled manually from a heavy plastic ten-gallon water bottle.

And soon they would learn the same was true, if horribly worse in other ways, in the bedrooms.

In the master bedroom, Juan Paulo Delgado led the teenage boy to a back corner. The room was furnished with a somewhat new queen-size bed-it was Delgado’s bed, after all-a bedside table, and an older set of dresser drawers. A crudely cut sheet of plywood was nailed over the window.

Delgado kicked the boy’s feet out from under him. The teenager, unable to break his fall because his wrists were still zip-tied behind his back, yelled as he fell and struck the floor forcefully, smacking his head on the matted green shag carpeting. It stunned him to the point where he just lay there groaning softly.

Nearby, there was a black iron natural gas heater bolted to both the floor and the wall. Delgado began threading the chain around one of the heater’s iron feet, then took the two ends and made a single wrap around each of the teenager’s wrists. Then he took the small steel padlock and, removing all the slack in the chain so that the links squeezed the boy’s flesh, ran its hasp though the two loops of chain and snapped it shut.

He turned and walked over to the dresser, which had three rows of two drawers. He opened the bottom right one and was relieved that no one had touched his stuff. He removed a handheld digital voice recorder and a roll of duct tape.

He tossed the roll of tape over by the boy’s head.

He then walked over and put the recording device on the bedside table.

I’ll make two, Juan Paulo Delgado thought.

One with him making noise and one with his mouth taped shut.

Then Delgado went back out into the kitchen.

All eyes turned to him. He saw that the pretty girl in the tight jeans and pink shirt had fire in her eyes. Others’ eyes showed a mix of anger and fear. Clearly, everyone had heard the teenage boy’s yell and the sound of his fall, and then the quietness.

El Gato smiled at them.

They watched as he walked over to a kitchen cabinet beside the dirt-smudged faded-white K

enmore refrigerator, opened the cabinet, and took out a bottle of Jose Cuervo tequila. He uncapped it and took a long swallow, then held out the bottle, waving it as an offering to the women. There were no takers. He shrugged and took another pull.

Miguel Guilar walked into the kitchen and wordlessly looked around the group for the next person to be chained in the bedroom. He shook his head out of annoyance and grabbed the nearest girl by her upper right arm. It was the pudgy eighteen-year-old with the streaks of bleached hair. She pulled back from him, but when Guilar used more force, and El Cheque motioned menacingly with the TEC-9, she reluctantly went with him.

Delgado walked over to the very attractive girl in the tight jeans and pink lace blouse. She narrowed her eyes at him.

He smiled, reached out with his index finger, and stroked the soft skin of her throat on up to her chin.

The fire in her eyes grew, and she made an angry face and slapped away his hand. Then the look on her face and the fire in her eyes changed to fear as she recoiled at the thought of his response.

El Gato laughed aloud.

“Come,” he said, holding out his hand for her to take. “Let us go show your boyfriend a thing or two.”

She stood frozen. He grabbed her by the upper left arm and jerked, herding her toward the hallway that led to the master bedroom. She shook free of his grip and walked ahead of him.

When they entered the master bedroom, the pretty girl in pink saw her boyfriend lying on the carpet at the far end of the room and ran to him. He was still somewhat groggy from hitting his head on the floor.

Delgado went to them, grabbed the boy by the shirtsleeves at his shoulders, pulled him into a seated position, and leaned him against the gas heater. Then he slapped him.

The girl whimpered.

The boy opened his eyes, dazed. But it was clear that he recognized the girl and, when he made a face, Delgado, too.

“Bueno,” Delgado said.