The new establishment was called El Toro, and it was part pool hall and gambling den. Backed by Mondragón’s full support, Fernando saw the place finished out in record time. El Toro appealed without pretense to all of Cortez’s most deeply cherished vices. Because of this, it was eagerly anticipated and well-received—not only by the

Fernando smiled. “Anyone who ransoms me is bound to be disappointed. My father’s wife holds the purse strings, and she despises me. She would consider my disappearance a blessing. Maybe she even half-hoped for it in sending me here.” Of course, Juan Francisco’s pride would never suffer such a slight as to have his favored

Thanks to Fernando’s oversight, work at the job site had progressed without incident to the final stages of construction. And so he was surprised, as he made his way back toward one of the near-finished rooms the jefe had claimed for his office (in lieu of his afore-sold trailer), to find Pedro and his friend

Fernando dismissed his grandmother’s imagined concerns. He was confident that the success of his ventures would soon allay them. The goats were bringing in a bit of profit already. The exceptional quality of their milk at market outweighed the locals’ superstitious suspicions that the old witch had cast charms on the well water and hay

* * * By the next week, Fernando had seen the choking ferns and vines routed from beneath his grandmother’s house and a plot of the rich dark earth plowed under for a garden. Fibrous weed roots of all kinds riddled the loam. They snapped in sullen protest at their demise. Under the killing blade

“I don’t have any money for you,” Fernando said. This wasn’t exactly true, but as Chico had so sagely put it: Why pay for what you could get for free? The whore shut the door behind them, plunging them both into shadow. “I don’t care,” she growled back at him, driving him up against the