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He gave that to a count of five, pushed STOP on the digital recorder, and put the pink-faced phone back to his ear.

“Do as I say, and you get the girl back alive!”

He listened for a response. But he heard only silence, and then, in the background, a concerned young voice saying, “Madre? Madre?”

Delgado looked at Guilar and said, “Shit! I think she fainted!”

He pushed the red END button on the cellular phone.

Then he reached across the table and picked up the black ink marker. He wrote on the bag: “1. Called ‘Madre’ 9/9 9:50pm. Woman fainted?”

Then he stuck the phone back in the bag. And fished out another. And repeated the calling process.

This time, he speed-dialed the number on the menu linked to the listing that read HOME, and when the man answered, he began their exchange by playing the audio clip of just the girl screaming.

Delgado knew that it did not matter that the recording was of another girl. When parents heard a female’s voice screaming and were told that it was their child, they tended to believe exactly that. And not believing carried serious consequences. If the receiving telephone had caller ID, so much the better when Delgado called using the girl’s personal cell phone.

Then he barked in Spanish: “We have your loved one! Do as I say, and you will see her alive again!”

Delgado carefully explained that he wanted the two thousand dollars that was to be paid to the coyote. He said that it was to be sent to Edgar Cisneros at the Western Union, Mall of Mexico, Philadelphia.

Delgado had a fake Texas driver’s license with that name and his picture. He’d bought it for three hundred dollars. It had been made by the same counterfeiter who lived in a loft apartment near that expensive private school, Southern Methodist University. He sold to the sorority girls and other students there what the kids simply called “fakes.”

“If you do not do as I say, and especially if you contact the police,” Delgado said in an angry tone of voice, “your loved one will be dead this time tomorrow. When we get your money, she will be taken to Dallas and released.”

He put the recorder and the cell phone face-to-face and hit PLAY.

“Someone! Anyone! Help me! No…”

After a few seconds, he broke off the call.

Delgado looked at Miguel Guilar. Guilar smirked. He knew damn well that Delgado had no intention whatever of releasing the girls. They were all, or at least the more attractive ones, going to be moved to Philadelphia.

Miguel Guilar’s phone then buzzed once. He pulled it from the clip on his belt, then read the text message.

“Uh-oh!” Guilar said. “Look at this! And a Mexico City number.”

He held out the phone for Delgado to read it.

“What do you think that means?” Guilar said.

011-52-744-1000

ramos here… i borrow amigos fone… am in houston jail… u bail me out?… police want me 2 say i live on hatcher… y is that?

Juan Paulo Delgado’s eyes went to the envelope.

His stomach suddenly had a huge knot. He had to consciously squeeze his sphincter muscle-he thought he might have shit his pants.

Why? Because you didn’t pay the water bill, you fucking idiot!

And they obviously found it in your car, then bluffed you!

Right about then, El Cheque walked in, holding up his cell phone. He had a confused look.

“Ramos just sent me a text…”