Black List

CHAPTER 27

Calling the tavern a hole in the wall would have been a compliment. The place was an absolute dump. Faded 1960s reprints of Mexican artwork adorned the worn plaster walls, which had been stained brown over the decades, like the ceiling, by a patina of cigarette smoke. A string of red, Italian-style Christmas lights looked like it was left up year-round, adorning the dirty mirror behind the bar.

Tables of men conversed as waitresses carried drinks from the bar and plates of food from the kitchen. A bouncer at the door looked up as Harvath walked in but went back to the paperback he was reading, as if tourists with wheelie bags were their bread-and-butter customers. Judging from the neighborhood and the cabdriver’s reaction, Harvath was pretty sure no gringos had seen the inside of this joint in a long time, if ever.

He picked a table off to the side, away from the majority of customers, where he could watch the door.

A couple of minutes later, a waitress came over to take his order. Just like the bouncer, she didn’t seem to be the least bit surprised to see him there. “Cerveza, señor?”

What he wanted was a coffee, but having a beer bottle in front of him at the moment was appealing on several different levels. He saw that they served Bohemia in the bottle and asked for one.

As the waitress left to get his beer, he could see beyond the bar and into the kitchen, where some sort of meat was being roasted on a spit over hot coals, probably cabrito, young goat. It was a popular dish in this area of northern Mexico, as was something called discada, a combination of meats cooked in beer inside a plow disc that’s been welded shut.

Harvath must have been paying a little too much attention to the kitchen. After dropping off his bottle of beer, the waitress returned with a plate of meat, accompanied by onions and fresh salsa, and a container with hot tortillas. Though he tried to explain to her that he hadn’t ordered it, she simply told him to eat and walked away to see to another table of customers.

Not knowing when he’d be able to eat again, Harvath spooned some meat into one of the tortillas, added some onion and salsa, and dug in.

It was cabrito, and having eaten as much goat as he had in his day, most of it lousy, he knew good goat when he tasted it. This was very good goat.

When he was done, the waitress returned with some sort of custard for dessert, which Harvath politely declined. She asked if he wanted any coffee and though he was still slowly sipping at his beer, he said yes. She returned with café de olla, a rustic style of coffee brewed with cinnamon, and cleared his dinner dishes. Missing, though, was the steak knife Harvath had tucked carefully beneath his leg.

An hour later, there were only two other tables of customers left in the place. Harvath declined a third cup of coffee and watched as the bartender waved the bouncer over and handed him two pieces of paper.

The bouncer delivered one to each table and stood there as the groups of disgruntled patrons were forced to pay up. Harvath waited for his bill to come, but it didn’t. Instead the bouncer saw the last of the customers out and then bolted the door.

“Stand up, please,” the bartender said in English as he joined the bouncer at Harvath’s table. “You can leave the knife on your chair.”

The bartender was a barrel-chested man in his late fifties. He wasn’t as big as the doorman, but he looked like he could hold his own and had done so on many occasions. Harvath didn’t want to take on either of them, much less both, but he could if he had to. Have a smile for everyone you meet, along with a plan to kill them, had long been one of the mantras that had kept him alive.

Harvath removed the knife from beneath his leg, set it on the table, and stood up. If he needed it, he wanted it close.

The bartender took two steps back and beckoned Harvath forward. “Over here, please.”

Harvath stepped around the table and walked toward the man.

“That’s far enough. Hands on your head, please.”

“What’s this all about?” asked Harvath.

“It’s just a formality. Hands up, please.”

Harvath did as he was told and was given a thorough pat-down by the bouncer.

When he was finished the bartender told Harvath he could lower his arms and added, “Norberto is going to look through your luggage now. Okay?”

It sounded like a question, but Harvath knew better and simply nodded.

As the doorman did his due diligence, the bartender continued talking. “As best we can tell, no one followed you from the airport.”

“Who’s we?”

“My name is Guillermo,” said the bartender. “But beyond that, I don’t think we want to know much more about each other. Correct?”

“Probably not,” replied Harvath as he watched the bouncer going through his bag. “Are things this dangerous now in Monterrey?”

“Things are this dangerous everywhere now, señor.”

True, thought Harvath. “Interesting orphanage you’re running here.”

The bartender smiled and gave a slight bow of his head. “Consider this a portal. You can’t get there without going through here.”

Harvath wondered what Nicholas had gotten him into. “Your devotion to protecting children is admirable.”

“Let’s just say that I have a personal interest in making sure nothing happens.”

He wasn’t surprised. If there really was an orphanage and Nicholas was somehow using it for his own ends, why shouldn’t other shady characters be doing so as well?

He was about to ask the bartender a question when the bouncer zipped up his wheelie bag and nodded.

“It looks like you’re ready to go,” Guillermo stated.

“What do I owe you for the food?”

“It’s on the house.”

Harvath pulled out another twenty-dollar bill, left it on the table for the waitress, and followed the bartender out the back of the tavern.