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“Probably,” I said. “Things have gotten so bizarre of late that Perrine has to get creative in order to grab people’s attention.”
“He certainly has mine,” Emily said. “I mean, this is simply incredible. I’ve read reports that indicate the cartels turned to all these horrors, like beheadings and body mutilations, after seeing them performed by Islamic terrorists on the Internet.”
“Bull,” I said, turning over a photograph. “Narco traffickers south of the border have always been famous for incredibly brutal killings. Where does the Colombian necktie come from? My pet theory is that this recent, really sick garbage has more than a little to do with Santa Muerte, the spooky quasi-religious death cult that many of the cartel soldiers adhere to.”
“So you’re saying it’s like a cycle,” she said. “The more the cartels rise in power, the more and more its members want to satisfy Santa Muerte’s thirst for blood?”
I nodded.
“That’s a little out there, Mike. Isn’t this about money and drug trafficking, not Perrine’s evil cult?”
“If it’s about just money and drug trafficking, what’s up with all the bodies, Parker?” I said. “Twenty-nine dumped in Nuevo Laredo. Forty-nine in Juarez. They’re hung from bridges. Bags of heads are found along highways. The victims aren’t even cartel members. They’re innocent migrant workers or people trying to cross the border into the US. To kill a mule for stealing a load is one thing, or to go after a witness. I’m telling you, this is new. Or, more accurately, old.”
“Old?” Emily asked.
“Have you ever heard of the Thuggee cult?”
Parker rolled her eyes. “Had a lot of reading time on our hands up there on the prairie, Detective?”
“A little, Parker. Anyway, in India there used to be this criminal cult called the Thuggees. They were a secretive organization of robber-murderers. They’d strangle their victims and then bleed them, offering their blood to Kali, the goddess of death. Some say Santa Muerte is a modern incarnation of Mictecacihuatl, the Aztec goddess of death.”
“So what are you saying? It’s us versus the goddess of death?”
“Kind of,” I said.
“You’ve been watching too much History Channel,” she said.
“Have I?” I said. “These cartel people are engaging in the kind of unhinged, deranged behavior usually reserved for serial killers. Is it that crazy to believe that there’s some sort of ideology behind it? I think we have to at least consider it. We have to stop thinking that this is just about a bunch of greedy dope dealers.”
CHAPTER 45
ABOUT AN HOUR LATER, on our way to get a bite to eat, I knocked on the dash of Parker’s metallic-brown Crown Victoria as we pulled out of the Olympic Station lot.
“What’s up with this ride, Parker?” I complained. “As my preteen daughters would say, this car is ‘so not cool.’ You’d think, this being LA, that they’d assign you some kind of convertible, at least.”
Parker smirked at me from behind her Ray-Bans.
“Tell you what, Mike,” she said. “You bag Perrine, I’ll see to it you get first bid on his Bentley at the government auction.”
“Bentley, huh?” I said, scratching my chin. “How many passengers can a Bentley fit? I need seating for a dozen, two of them car seats.”
Parker laughed.
“Just a dozen? Aren’t you leaving someone out? What about Seamus?”
“We usually put him in the trunk, or on the roof with the cat.”
Parker shook her head, sighing.
My chop busting was, of course, just show. I actually loved the Crown Vic, the FBI radio crackling beneath its dash, even the bad gas-station coffee in the holder beside me. In fact, it felt fantastic to be back at work.
I was even more excited about our dinner plans. Parker had spoken to Agent Rothkopf, who, with the help of a cousin or something, got us reservations at some hip restaurant called Cut, in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. It was a Wolfgang Puck steak house where Tom Cruise supposedly ate from time to time. I couldn’t wait.
It was our LAPD hosts who had been less than accommodating. As I’d watched them read reports and brood about them, it’d become painfully obvious to me that the cops in this clique of LAPD heavy hitters were doing their own thing, working their own leads, their own contacts, while completely leaving the feds in the dark.
Though I’d been pretty tribal myself about my home turf back in NYC, the fact that I was now among the feds being boxed out kind of pissed me off. I didn’t come in off the farm to be a benchwarmer.
Parker’s phone rang.
