I make a call to have several of my men meet me at Mea Culpa, and when I arrive, I use the side entrance where I’m obviously expected. The cook’s already making breakfast, and the smell of frying bacon makes me hungry.
“Morning, Mr. Santa Maria,” someone says once I’m inside. He’s a low-level soldier.
“Morning.”
“They’re waiting for you downstairs. Last door on the right.”
“Thanks.” I’m about to head down but stop. “Get me some coffee, will you?”
“Sure thing, Mr. Santa Maria.”
The downstairs of Mea Culpa is infamous in our world. It’s where you absolutely do not want to be because nothing good happens there. This is where the ugly side of this business is handled. Upstairs is high-end, with an excellent restaurant and only the most beautiful women to provide service and entertainment. Down here, it’s a whole other world, and you know it the moment you step through the door that leads to the metal staircase.
It’s cold with bright fluorescent lighting and is lined with heavy doors. The one I’m directed to has two men standing outside. They nod in greeting as one opens the door. Hugo chose a good room for today’s purposes. He knows me. It’s tiled with a drain in the middle and a counter along one end, like a kitchen, but not. Just has all the tools one may require.
“Good morning, sir.” A soldier straightens, greets me upon entering.
I nod, and he resumes picking dirt out from under his fingernails as I turn to Hugo, who is leaning against the wall at the back.
“Morning,” I say.
“Good morning.”
He’s a big guy and looks foreboding with his heavily tattooed arms folded across his chest. He’s wearing a black T-shirt, black jeans, and dark shoes. He’s ready for the work that needs to be done.
I turn my attention at the man sitting on a metal folding chair in the middle of the room, wrists bound behind his back, looking up at me like a wounded animal. Like he knows what’s coming because I know for a fact he’s been in this situation before, just on the other end of things. He knows what happens to the guy in the chair.
“Good Morning,” I say to him.
When he doesn’t reply, Hugo swiftly stalks up behind the chair, grips a handful of his hair and tugs his head backward. “Mr. Santa Maria just bid you good morning. Show some fucking respect.”
“G…g…”
“This is one of Estrella’s men?” I guess I didn’t expect him to be so easily broken down.
“John Diaz. And I admit, he looked a little better before the trip over here,” Hugo says, one side of his mouth curving upward. He takes pleasure from this.
I look at the cheap, bloodied suit, at the man’s bruised face. His pleading eyes.
“It happens. Where’d you find him?” I reach into the front pocket of the guy’s jacket, pull out the piece of paper sticking out. It’s an address. I don’t know the area, but it’s a little outside the city. I tuck the piece of paper into my pocket.
“All-night diner near his house.”
“I don’t do work for Mr. Estrella anymore,” the man in the chair says.
“That’s about all he’s been telling us too,” Hugo says, picking a piece of skin off his knuckle. “Except I know he was on a job when we picked him up.”
I look down at the man again, peer into his face. “You high, Johnny?”
Hugo snorts.
“No. No, sir.”
“I think we beat the high out of him because he was behaving like a fool, weren’t you, Johnny-boy?”
The man in the chair flinches.
“What job?”
Hugo gestures to the pocket in which I just stuck the piece of paper. “Has to do with that address, but that’s all I got, so far. Was waiting on you, thinking you may want to talk to him while he still has the ability to speak.”
The man blubbers something.
“So you don’t work for Estrella, but you were doing a job for him?”
“I owed him a favor. This is it. I’m out. I can’t—” He shakes his head, drops it.
“Can’t what?”
He doesn’t answer right away. I turn to Hugo. “Pet peeve of mine. I can’t stand it when people don’t finish their fucking sentences.”
“I hear you.” Hugo kicks the leg of Diaz’s chair, and he startles.
“Can’t what?” I repeat.
“I got a family now. Please. I don’t want nothing to do with Estrella.”
“Considering that, I hope I wasn’t out of line to offer a deal,” Hugo says, moving around so the man can see his face. “I guess it’s my soft side.”
I chuckle because Hugo doesn’t have a soft side. None of us do. He’s fucking with the guy, but I’ll play along.
“What’s the deal?” This guy’s about pissing himself right now, and I’m good with that.
“He gives us the information we require, and we let him live. Of course, he promises never to speak again. Can’t take a chance he’ll share that information with anyone else, obviously. Just covering all our bases.”