Bane of Blood: La Gorgona

III, Part 42

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 Pablo standing there. They flanked the closed door like they'd been plucked straight from the street to serve as bodyguards. Likely enough, they had been.

Both nodded to him as he approached. "Primo," Pedro said.

Warily, Fernando nodded back. Just as warily, he pushed the knobless door open and entered the office room, which smelled of raw wood and cloves. In a folding chair in front of the desk the jefe Alfonso sat slumped in his cowboy hat and boots. He looked for all the world like an overgrown urchin sitting in time-out.

Behind the desk in the jefe's usual seat reclined a man Fernando had never met but knew at once. This man wore a nice white suit that was a bit too broad through the shoulders. The shirt beneath the suit was black and pinstriped and unbuttoned at the collar to show a gleaming gold coin necklace below. A white fedora with a black silk ribbon capped his head.

The man sat back from the desk in casual command of the room. One shiny black dress shoe extended from the cross of his knees. He was lean and tan-skinned, with a long horsey face and a trim black mustachio. He looked to be perhaps forty years old. His brown eyes were so light they were almost gold. Through a haze of cigar smoke, this hawkish gaze pierced Fernando.

After a moment, the suited man spoke, in a voice so polished and smooth only the faintest ripple of affectation was detectable.

"Do you know who I am?"

"You are the patrón," Fernando replied. "Luis Mondragón."

The man nodded. Flicking cigar ash onto the floor, he cut a glance toward Alfonso, who rose at once and left the room without speaking. Mondragón's tawny gaze returned to Fernando—weighing him, it seemed.

"So you have learned my name," the patrón began conversationally. "I have learned yours as well. It is a name I have been hearing for some weeks now. When I hear a name more than once, I am inclined to remember it." He smiled musingly, the barest uptick of mustache. "'Fernando' this, 'Fernando' that...I begin to ask myself, who is this Fernando? By and by I come to learn that he has only just arrived in this town, yet he is managing my affairs here." His gaze sharpened upon Fernando, whose face betrayed nothing at all. "Naturally, I find myself more interested. I begin to ask not only myself, who is this enterprising young man from Bogotá?"

The patrón paused, as if waiting for Fernando to reply to this rhetorical question. When Fernando did not, Mondragón took a long pull from his cigar. Through his thin nostrils he exhaled a fine plume of smoke.

"Imagine my surprise," the patrón continued, with none evident whatsoever, "to discover that this young man Fernando is surnamed San Martín, son of the senator Don Juan Francisco de San Martín. Who would have guessed that so influential a name would be found in such humble surrounds as this?"

"My father has many sons," Fernando said, "and his political connections have nothing to do with me."

"But your father is a wealthy man, no?"

"I am a bastard," Fernando replied.

"A legitimized bastard," Mondragón said. An avid glint shone in his eagle's eyes. "Surely that is worth something."