The House of Wolfe by James Carlos Blake Read Free Book Online

as long as they like. Some will take his invitation at face value and linger for a good while yet, but most will adhere to customary decorum and take their leave soon after their hosts.
    Laughing and jabbering, the bridal party exits into the chill night and descends the verandah steps to the open doors of the waiting Town Cars, and the four parents are ushered to the one at the head of the line. Jessie notes how cleverly Aldo has positioned her and himself at the tail end of the group to ensure they will be riding in the same car, the last one. Their driver, a blond young man with a pleasant smile, stands between the open front and back doors.
    Take the front seat, my captain, Aldo tells José Belmonte, his fifteen-year-old brother and a groomsman, and the boy happily complies. Aldo extends his arm toward the back door and says, Ladies. Jessie gets in and slides over to the window, expecting Susi—a bridesmaid and Luz’s younger sister—to get in next, but Aldo cuts ahead of her and snugs up to Jessie, pressing his thigh to hers.
    Susi says, Oh, thank you very much, Sir Galahad! and gets in.
    The driver shuts both doors, goes around the car and slides in behind the wheel. The heater is on, the temperature cozy.
    The small caravan gets rolling. The gate attendant waves as they exit to the street, both sides of which are lined for blocks with the attended cars of reception guests, and the Town Cars bear away into the deeper night.
    3 — CHATO AND CHINO
    Bound, blindfolded, gagged, alert to every ambient sound, the five agents of Angeles de Guarda lying in the back of the van feel the road passing fast beneath them.
    The easy glide of the van suggests they’re on a main highway. The radio is turned up loud, but the rocking rhythms of Chikita Violenta don’t fully mute the sidelong rumblings of large trucks, the blares of car horns. At times they’re jounced by a tap of the brakes and the driver curses somebody for an asshole who shouldn’t be permitted to drive or a shithead who should be shot. In one instance, the other man laughs and says, Hey, Chino, pull up beside him and I’ll hold the wheel while you shoot him.
    After a time the van slows down and the men in back feel a mild lean and infer they’re leaving the highway on a curving off-ramp. The road onto which they exit is also well paved. Soon afterward they feel a stronger pull as the van executes a tighter turn, and now the tires are reverberating over a rougher road face, perhaps of tar and gravel.
    The radio begins to sputter with static. The tuner starts moving over a series of stations in a staccato of speech and music, and the driver, the man called Chino, says, What the fuck, Chato, I like that station. Put it back.
    The Chato one says he’s tired of that stupid rock noise and anyway can’t stand the static. He settles on a corrido station.
    Peon crap, the Chino one says. But the tuner stays where it is.
    When the van slows almost to a stop and makes a careful turn and proceeds slowly over rugged rising ground, weaving widely left and right, the men in back cannot say whether they’ve been riding for forty minutes or for two hours. They proceed at this slower pace for a long while before the van stops and the motor shuts off.
    The front doors open and close. The back door slides open and the one named Chino says, All right, boys, here we are.
    The men in the van smell a horrific stench mingled with acrid smoke, and they know where they are—at one of the massive garbage pits all about the periphery of the city. Where a daily fleet of huge trucks brings its garbage for disposal, much of it by fire.
    Peee - yoo, huh? Chino says. As you guys can tell, the house is right next to a dump.
    The caustic stink loosens mucus from their noses and a couple of them begin snorting wetly, puffing hard through the little mouth hole in the gag.
    Christ, man, Chino says. Let’s get the gags off them before they choke to