Tequila Sunset Read Online Free

bottle in a recycling bin in the kitchen. She turned off all the lights, went to her bedroom in the dark to undress. Freddie had not stirred.
    The alarm was set for six in the morning. Cristina crawled under the sheets and fell asleep before she realized it was happening.

FIVE
    H IS PHONE WAS RINGING AND M ATÍAS S EGURA struggled up from sleep. He saw from the bedside clock it was three in the morning. He had been asleep five hours.
    “ ¿Bueno? ” he answered.
    “Matías? It’s Felix.”
    “Felix, it’s the middle of the night.”
    “I’m sorry, but we need you right now.”
    Matías sat up in the bed. Elvira was still asleep by some chance, but she stirred when he moved. He spoke on the phone in whispers. “What’s the problem?”
    “Shooting. Six bodies.”
    “Is there no one else?”
    “You know better than to ask that.”
    He left the bed and went to the bathroom. After he closed the door he turned on the light. It was blinding. “Where?” Felix told him. “Give me thirty minutes. No, forty-five.”
    “We’ll be waiting.”
    Matías washed his face and felt the bristles on his cheeks. In the mirror the skin under his eyes were heavy from lack of sleep. He brushed his hair to bring it under control and scrubbed his teeth. Then he shut off the light and crept back into the bedroom.
    Elvira still did not wake as Matías put on his clothes. His gun was on the bed-stand. Again careful not to make a sound, he crept from the room and shut the door behind him.
    He made a cup of coffee in a travel mug and took it with him out of the apartment. Down on the street it was deserted. When he got on the road he was only one of a few cars. Mostly there were trucks at this hour, trundling through the abandoned streets of Ciudad Juárez on their way north to the border.
    The drive was not long and he got there ahead of his forty-five minute deadline. First he saw the blue and red lights flashing, then the spectacular white of portable floodlights, as if a star were giving birth. There were municipal and federal police vehicles present. An officer armed with an M4 carbine stopped him fifty meters away. Matías showed him his identification and drove on.
    Matías looked around the neighborhood. There were no streetlights and it was inky black beyond the crime scene. He saw an auto shop across the street from a gaily painted brick building depicting a rising sun. There was a scrap yard a few meters beyond that and not a structure above a single story.
    Felix Rivera met him at the perimeter. The man also looked tired, hunched down in his black jacket marked POLICÍA FEDERAL. He wore a .45 openly on his hip while other cops around him carried automatic weapons. Matías was even more underdressed, without body armor and his gun tucked away underneath his arm. “Welcome,” Felix said.
    The bodies were scattered in front of the sun-painted building as if tossed by a powerful storm. Blood streaked and pooled on the dirty asphalt and two of the corpses were soaked in it. There were weapons, too. A pair of dead men still had a hold on their pistols.
    A shower of spent shell casings spread out across the street, but were thickest close to Matías’ feet. Looking more closely at the building, he could see the façade was pockmarked in a dozen or more places. The steel door to the building was perforated.
    “It’s an after-hours club,” Felix explained. “Salvadorans come here. There’s drink, drugs, women… everything you need.”
    Matías stepped out into the ring of light, careful not to slipon the discarded brass. He approached the closest body, a thickchested man with tattoos up and down both bare arms. A bullet had passed through his forearm. Another three crossed his stomach and chest.
    Kneeling close, Matías examined the tattoos. A naked woman. A gun. Another gun. A fan of playing cards. “Any of the bodies have gang ink?”
    “Two. There and there.”
    “MS?”
    “ Sí .”
    “What about the