There was also a strong irony about bartering the guns for stitching up Jes?s Jim?nez, and it was not lost on Juan Paulo Delgado.

Not only was Angel Hernandez going to flip the pistols for a helluva lot more money than if he’d just been paid in cash for his services-but he was also likely going to get more business from whomever those TEC-9s shot up.

A horn honked.

Delgado looked up from the phone and saw Jorge Ernesto Aguilar at the wheel of Aguilar’s ten-year-old dark brown Ford Expedition.

He could not help but notice that the SUV had brand-new twenty-two-inch chrome wheels and low-profile high-performance tires.

Delgado shook his head as he slipped the phone into his pocket.

They must’ve cost more than the damn truck is worth.

What a waste of money.

But… he’s not the only homeboy with them.

The Expedition pulled to a stop at his feet. Delgado opened the back passenger door and threw his duffle on the bench seat. Then he went to the front passenger door and got in.

“Hola,” El Cheque said.

“What took so long?”

El Cheque made a face, which caused his cheek scar, the check that gave him his name, to distort. Then he looked out the driver’s-door window, scanning his mirror for a gap in the traffic. He saw one and accelerated the Expedition into the flow.

Delgado knew that it bothered the twenty-five-year-old Aguilar that his boss-Delgado-was only twenty-one. That Delgado was also physically much bigger did not help with Aguilar’s inferiority complex. Nor did it help when Delgado went out of his way to remind Aguilar exactly who was his El Jefe, in subtle and, occasionally, not-so-subtle ways.

Delgado said, “And what’s with those new wheels on here? It’s not good to draw attention.”

El Cheque remained silent. Delgado could see that Aguilar’s eyes were moving quickly, as if he were considering saying what was on the tip of his tongue. Then El Cheque just shrugged.

They drove in silence as Aguilar steered the Expedition off the airport property and made a right turn onto Mockingbird Lane.

Two blocks later, at Maple Avenue, he hit his left-turn signal.

“Where’re we going?” Delgado challenged.

“Umberto’s. He’s got the Suburban. When I went to get it out of the garage, it would not start. So he put a temporary battery in it, then brought it here to put a good one in it for the trip.”

“I thought that I told you-”

“S?!” El Cheque interrupted, his temper about to flare. He then spoke carefully: “And I did do as you said. That is why we are here. Now it is ready for the trip.”

Delgado looked out the window and grinned to himself in the dark.

“What’re we going south for?” El Cheque said.

“The usual. And we need a new girl or two.”

El Cheque nodded.

“Any news on the kid?” Delgado said.

El Cheque shook his head. “Gomez is in College Station trying to follow his trail. What if it is Los Zetas?”

The mention of the Zetas caused Delgado to think of them with guns.

And that made him remember that he was unarmed.

Delgado glanced quickly around the dark SUV and said, “We got guns in here?”

El Cheque opened the top of the console that was between their bucket seats. He punched the overhead map light. Delgado looked inside. There were three handguns, butts up, one a TEC-9.

El Cheque said, “And there’s a twelve-gauge pump in the back.”

Delgado saw that one of the other pistols was a black Beretta Model 92, the same model Jes?s Jim?nez used to shoot Skipper Olde.

He pulled the semiautomatic nine-millimeter out and closed the top of the console. In the beam of the map light, he removed the magazine, then worked the slide. No round in the chamber. He pushed on the top round in the magazine. No movement downward, which meant the magazine was full. Good. He reinserted the magazine in the pistol’s grip, racked the slide, decocked the hammer, then slipped the pistol into his waistband beneath the tail of his T-shirt.

As Aguilar drove down Maple Avenue, Delgado took in the sights of the familiar neighborhood. Most of the signage and billboards were in Spanish, and it reminded him of that plaque at the airport.

“Mexican province of Tejas.”

With places like Little Mexico here, it may as well still be.

Or will be again…

They passed Maria Luna Park and approached Arroyo Avenue.

Up ahead on the southeast corner of Arroyo was a brightly lit convenience store. Taped to the inside of the plate-glass window beside the door was a handwritten sign reading:

At the covered island of fuel pumps was a somewhat battered white Dodge van. The chipped and faded black lettering on its side read FIRST UNITED CHURCH OF THE REDEEMER, BURKBURNETT, TEXAS. It was a Ram 3500 with seating for fifteen, and each row had a window, all painted over in white except for those on the doors of the driver and front passenger. The driver’s door was open.

A short, very grimy-looking Latino was walking away from the van. He’d left the pump handle in the van’s gas tank.

“Turn around,” Delgado said forcefully, looking over his shoulder as the man walked to the side of the convenience store. “Now!”

“What?” Aguilar said. But he was already spinning the steering wheel so fast that the tires screeched.

He made the U-turn on Maple and accelerated.

“Pull in to that store,” Delgado said, pointing. “To that side. Not in front.”

Aguilar looked where he pointed, hit his left signal, then found a gap in the line of headlights. He turned into the convenience store parking lot.

When the Expedition slowly rolled past the fuel pump island, Delgado surprised Aguilar by opening the passenger door and leaping out.

Aguilar, pulling to a stop, followed Delgado in his mirror.

El Gato moved with speed and grace. He went quickly to the fuel pump island, then to the open driver’s door of the white church van there. He stepped up on the running board and put his head inside the van, looking toward the rear of the vehicle.

Then he hopped down from the running board, shut the van door, and damn near flew to the side of the convenience store where the grimy Latino had gone.

El Cheque lost sight of El Gato just as he was going behind some shrubbery-and just as he was pulling the Beretta from his waistband.

[FOUR] 7701 Brocklehurst Street, Philadelphia Wednesday, September 9, 8:56 P.M.

Stanley Dowbrowski took a sip of his bourbon, then cocked his head as he looked at his computer screen.

Something there’s not right, he thought.

Stanley Dowbrowski was sixty-five years old and in March had become a widower. He stood five-foot-eight, weighed 225 pounds, and kept his salt-and-pepper hair closely cropped; it looked almost like the three days’ growth of his white beard. He wore thick bifocal eyeglasses and, for their comfort and ease of care, a two-piece athletic warm-up suit with a white cotton sleeveless T-shirt.

Stanley Dowbrowski had once been more or less physically fit. He’d worked out regularly. Now, however, he was in failing health, mostly due to having spent nearly the last half-century burning through pack after pack of cigarettes. The resulting scar tissue on his lungs had reduced their capacity to only thirty percent, which meant that getting around took him great effort, and when he did get around, it was with the aid of an aluminum walker, and with an asthma inhaler in his pocket.

Consequently, Stanley Dowbrowski rarely left the nice comfortable four-bedroom house just off Roosevelt Avenue in Northeast Philly. It was where he and his Betty had reared their two children.

He now, of course, was what people called an empty-nester. The kids were adults with young kids of their own, and living in nearby suburbs. He was grateful that over the years Betty had been able to win most of her many battles against the different cancers. Not only had she been able to spend time with her kids’ kids, but the grandchildren had gotten to know-and have memories of-their wonderful “Grandmama.”