The Other Son Read Online Free Page A

same as usual: that this is what the agreement looks like, for security reasons.”
    “
Does he believe you?
”
    “No, and I think we’ve dragged it out as far as we can now.”
    “
What else?
” Aron asked.
    Ernst picked up a document and began to talk about other business. To start with, the forged-goods industry in which they invested a lot of money in fake groceries, designer labels, and medicine; then people they were trying to extort information from in companies listed on the stock market. About drug smuggling, weapons, about the cold war between their organization and other factions, about securing their assets and ruining other people’s. Acquiring market share, getting rich by any means possible. Murder, blackmail. Striking hard and without mercy against anyone who got too close. Never questioning right and wrong. Just racing at full speed until you hit something without a safety belt. At which point you might be forced to consider things more thoughtfully. Something like that.
    Sophie switched off and thought about her own concerns.
    She missed Hector. She wondered where he was in his coma. Could he think? Dream? If he could, she knew he would be missing her, too. She had felt loved by Hector Guzman. Unconditionally. He had raised her up, awoken something inside her. But she hadn’t been able to return his love. He had too many hidden sides. And she didn’t feel able to love them all. And now his brother was dead. Hector didn’t know about that. His whole family, apart from one sister who lived in Madrid, was gone. Her heart ached for him….
    Aron’s voice crackled over the feeble loudspeaker.
    “
Sophie? Pick up the phone
.”
    She woke up from her thoughts and switched off the speaker-phone function.
    “Yes?”
    “
How are you, Sophie?
” Aron asked.
    The question surprised her, it wasn’t like Aron.
    “I’m OK.”
    He was silent for a moment, then said, “
You did well in Istanbul
.”
    “Thanks, Aron,” she said.
    Then he reverted to his professional self again. “
I
want you to arrange a meeting with Don Ignacio
.”
    “What for?”
    “
Calm them down.
We need them on our side, but we can’t expand, not now. Ask them to be patient. Raise the price if you have to
.
We need time to figure out what’s happening to us calmly, so make sure they’re calm. It’s important that we’ve got them on our side….”
    She wanted to argue, saying that she could not do the things that they asked of her. That she was the wrong person. But it was her lifeline. As long as she filled a function…
    “Where shall I meet Ramirez?”
    “
You’ll have to go to them, ask Ernst to arrange it
.”
    He sounded stressed.
    “Colombia?” she asked.
    “
That’s where they live
.”

The body was lying on its stomach on the parquet floor, a knife sticking out from between the shoulder blades. He was naked, or almost naked, except for a pair of white sport socks on his feet.
    Detective Inspector Antonia Miller considered the sight in front of her. Almost no blood where the knife had penetrated. And his position? She squatted down and looked at the body from different angles. Had he been stabbed in his bed while he slept? Perhaps he’d woken up and fallen to the floor before finally dying? Unless he was stabbed on the floor…
    She was blinded by the flash of a camera, followed by several more in quick succession. Forensics was taking forever to document the scene. Antonia stood up and looked slowly around the room. One picture: Elvis as a bartender, with Dean, Humphrey, and Marilyn at the bar. On the other wall, above a chest of drawers, a framed poster behind dirty Plexiglas, a basketball team, lots of stars and stripes, preprinted autographs—Harlem Globetrotters, 1979.
    A pine bookcase containing some old
Dirty Harry
and Charles Bronson films, as well as a few porn movies, mostly featuring transvestites.
    Antonia read from her small notebook, which was bent from being in her back pocket. The dead man