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Then El Gato stood.

The eyes of the boy and girl followed him as he walked over to the small table between them and the bed, then picked up a small electronic device and pushed a button on it. A pinhead-size red light came on. He put the device back on the table and walked back over.

Then he bent over, grabbed the girl by the waist with both of his hands, lifted her completely off the floor, and threw her onto the bed.

The pretty girl in pink started screaming hysterically. The teenage boy began yelling. The girl kicked at El Gato and flailed with her arms, fighting off his advances with a great effort.

But El Gato only laughed as he tore off her clothing.

The great effort of a ninety-five-pound girl proved no match for the strength of a muscular man twice her size.

When the women in the kitchen heard the screaming from the boy and girl, their crying intensified.

After a moment, El Cheque sighed disgustedly.

“Just shut the fuck up!” he shouted.

They were quiet a moment. Then their sad noises began again.

El Cheque shook his head.

Miguel Guilar came back into the kitchen.

El Cheque walked over to him and without a word handed him the TEC-9. Then he walked back across the kitchen and grabbed two of the teenage girls he’d eyed as they got out of the van, pushing them toward the hallway.

He said to Guilar, “Your turn to keep watch, mi amigo.”

Five minutes later, the women in the kitchen heard a girl cry out from one of the smaller bedrooms. From the master bedroom, they could no longer hear the teenage boy’s terrified shouts of “Stop! No!” over and over.

Now only the muffled cries of the pretty girl could be heard.

“Someone! Anyone! Help me! No…”

After another twenty minutes, El Gato reappeared in the kitchen, wearing only his desert camouflage cutoff shorts. In his left hand he carried the recording device. His right hand had the roll of duct tape.

He looked absently at the two mothers and their toddlers who had not yet been locked up in one of the bedrooms. The women glared back at him.

Miguel Guilar was drinking from the bottle of tequila. He grinned at El Gato and held out the bottle. El Gato grinned back and took it.

Then El Cheque came into the kitchen and removed the last of the group.

Delgado looked at Guilar and held up the recording device. “Want to hear? It came out better than I thought. The boy shouting is the better of the two, I think.”

“I already did hear…”

Delgado shrugged and said, “Bueno.”

He looked around the kitchen.

“Where is the bag of stuff?”

Guilar pointed to the doorway that led to what originally had served as the dining room.

El Gato took another swig of tequila, then went through the doorway. Guilar followed.

The onetime dining room now contained a long folding table with a battered top and rusty steel legs. It had three of the white plastic stackable chairs around it.

Against one wall were gray plastic storage bins stacked five high. These contained the various paraphernalia-the mixing bowls, the digital scales, the empty packets, et cetera-for the manufacturing of Queso Azul. One bin also held at least a dozen brand-new prepaid cellular phones, all unused and still in their original clear plastic containers.