Paradise Girls (John Standard Book 2)

Book summary

Haunted by his own brush with death, freelance writer John Standard leaves Portland for the tranquility of Zihuatanejo, Mexico. Instead of peace, he finds himself in a harrowing quest to rescue a young woman believed to be kidnapped and forced into a sinister ring of exploitation. Navigating the perilous landscapes controlled by the enigmatic Raul Barrego and his lethal associate, La Pantera, Standard must risk everything to save the girl and perhaps find redemption. "Paradise Girls" weaves a gripping narrative of crime and survival in the underbelly of Mexico, marking a thrilling continuation of the John Standard series.

Excerpt from Paradise Girls (John Standard Book 2)

The SUVs and mid-size rentals in the parking lot on the U.S. side of the border belonged to the last of the revelers still staggering around Tijuana, looking for one more open tittie bar along Avenida Revolución.

Discarded newspapers, empty beer cans, and shattered wine bottles littered the lot’s broken asphalt surface with its faded yellow lines and dingy overhead lights. A steady breeze blew dust and candy wrappers up against a chain-link fence that separated the lot from the mud and tarpaper hovels that passed for a housing project.

The woman in the black Escalade cruised up to the booth at the entrance to the lot, the Oakland Raiders cap she’d purchased in a sporting goods store in La Jolla earlier that day pulled low over her face. A sleepy-looking Mexican in a tattered Eisenhower jacket handed her a metered ticket that read “2:06 a.m.” and stamped with the date.

“Gracias,” the woman said.

“De nada.” The attendant answered without taking his eyes off the soccer match on the small black-and-white television suspended from the booth’s ceiling.

She cruised the lot for a few minutes, checking out the surveillance cameras on the light poles before deciding to park in the darkness between two large RVs. She got out, stood for a minute to stretch her legs and tug gently at the crotch of her leather pants. She was starting to get that feeling again, the dampness between her thighs with its sweet, musty predictability that came on nights like this. It was a feeling that had scared and surprised her the first time it happened. Now she looked forward to it.

This time the pleasant dampness had started to build when the border came into sight. She smiled to herself, knowing it would keep building until she was finished with what she came to do. Then it would subside, leaving her satisfied in some ways and wanting in other, much different ways.

She locked the car and pulled the hat down lower over her face so the surveillance cameras couldn’t get a clear look at her. Emerging from the shadows of the two behemoth Winnebagos, she headed south across the lot toward the rundown concrete block building with the sign that read “Public Toilet.”

A rat scurried in the papers along the fence. A car alarm blared somewhere in the distance. Vermin and honking horns. This was Tijuana, she thought, what else could she expect?

The wide sidewalk leading to the revolving gate that appropriately marked the porous border was empty on the U.S. side. Her thick-soled shoes sounded like sledgehammers on the concrete walk. Three hours earlier, the same walk had been filled with horny servicemen, drunken salesmen, and tourists in search of cheap trinkets and what passed for authentic Mexican food.

Once over the bridge to the Mexican side, her pace quickened. She was all business now, no time for the last of the children selling Chiclets, no sympathy for the one-eyed man sleeping against the light pole holding a paper cup, and no pesos for the legless woman who had no place to go and nothing left to do but beg spare change from her perch on an orange crate.

The wind turned suddenly colder, sending hamburger wrappers, and paper cups spinning in tiny whirlwinds along the street that dead-ended at the border crossing. The air tasted of grease, stale beer, and urine. The black Lincoln Town Car, with Baja plates, waiting at the curb, looked out of place amid the dirt and trash. She got in the passenger side and nodded to the driver.

“How are we on time?” she asked.

The driver had the massive chest and narrow waist of a bodybuilder. Wrap-around, dark glasses perched on the top of his head held thick, blond hair back from a tan, slightly feminine face. He wore jeans, cowboy boots, and a lightweight sport coat over a tan T-shirt.

“He’s just closing up.”

“Perfect.”

They wouldn’t talk again. There was no need. They communicated in ways that didn’t require words, ways that made sure the jobs they were given were completed in an easy and efficient manner. Tonight would be no different. Everything would go smoothly, the same way it always did. Besides, this was Tijuana. What could possibly go wrong in a city with no rules?

As the car moved through the empty streets, she kept the window rolled up as a barrier against the odor of mildew and garbage that would move in and take up residence like it did everywhere else in the city.

To her, Tijuana was nothing more than a cesspool of ten-dollar blowjobs, donkey shows, and second-rate dentists; a dark carnival where bar girls earned a few bucks each night rubbing their tits in the faces of Americans drunk on cheap tequila and over-priced cerveza. It and all the other border towns were the same: lint traps for what oozed from the bottom of the United States. It had always been that way. It would never change.

All the more reason to get this job done, she thought, and wait for dawn when she would start her trip south along the east coast of the Sea of Cortez. Fifty miles from the border, America’s corruption of Mexico dissipated like a receding rash. The farther south, the more of real Mexico started to emerge, the Mexico she loved.

The drug cartels had made life harder in some cities, especially those along the border. It didn’t bother her, though. In fact, efforts to stop the cartels just made her life all that much easier by focusing attention on the drug lords rather than the business that had made her rich. The drug trade existed to feed one American appetite. She existed to serve one much different.

Leaning her head back against the seat, she focused her thoughts on what lay ahead. The clean, fresh smells of central Mexico, the scents of sage, hyacinth, and bougainvillea, of mole sauces, carne asada, and warm tortillas. Thinking about it brought her peace of mind, but never for very long. Maybe she had become too addicted to the men she was sent to see. Too addicted to the feeling between her legs each time she had the chance to kill one of them.

Too addicted to Raul Barrego, the man who sent her on these missions.

Looking out the car window at the array of cut-rate stores selling furniture, appliances, electronics, and clothes; at the drunks either passed out in doorways or pissing in the gutters, she promised herself never to set foot in Tijuana again. Nothing good happens here, she thought, so why come back?

“How much farther?” she said without looking over at the driver.

“A few more blocks.” He checked his watch. “We’re right on time.”

She went back to staring out the window, this time thinking about Barrego. “How old is he now?” she wondered. With him, it was hard to tell. Barrego was more Spanish than Mexican, more patron than el jefe. His skin the color of creamed coffee, his longish hair perfectly parted. The last time she saw him was two weeks earlier aboard his yacht. He was wearing sandals, faded jeans, and a polo shirt, smelling of expensive cologne and sipping 15-year-old tequila from his own distillery. Mexico’s Ralph Lauren.

She tried to guess how much he was worth. Not that it mattered. He probably didn’t even know himself or didn’t care. But she did. Without him and his money, she’d still be living in Chiapas, a brood mare to some field hand who thought ten pesos a day was a living wage.

Working for Barrego had taught her that wealth was wasted on the rich. Only those who knew what it was to be poor could appreciate what it was to have money. Knowing the difference made her stronger than the fools Barrego sent her to see.

The first “mission,” as she came to call them, was a man named Diego something. She didn’t remember his last name, only that he was a soft-drink distributor from Chihuahua, who’d paid Barrego twenty thousand dollars for the right to take her virginity. He was a clumsy, cruel man, smelling of chilies and garlic, who grunted his way to climax then slapped her over and over again because she didn’t act grateful enough for his efforts.

Years later, when Diego attempted to cheat Barrego on a land deal, he became her first mission. She found him home alone one night and slit his throat while staring into his eyes. Recognition crossed his face as life ebbed from his fat body. She didn’t charge Barrego for that one, but doubled the price for the next two.

“How many after that,” she wondered? Twenty? Maybe more. It didn’t matter. All she cared about was the money and that she killed more men than she’d slept with.

“We’re here,” the driver said.

He turned right onto Avenida Revolución, and then left onto one of the calles, side streets. The nightclub sat halfway down the block, wedged between a small tienda and a panadería that would open in another two hours to sell bocadillos and empanadas to men on their way to work.

A half-case of empty Victoria beer bottles propped open the nightclub door. Two young women, in short skirts and too much lipstick, stood out front smoking cigarettes. They eyed the Lincoln like it was made of gold and filled with passengers sporting Rolexes and pockets full of diamonds.

The driver stopped the car across the street. “I’ll take care of them.”

She stayed in the car, watching the hookers greet the driver with smiles and wet lips. After a few seconds of talk, the two women scurried off up the street. Spiked heels scraped hurriedly against rough cobblestones. They disappeared around the corner without looking back.

She steeled herself for what lay ahead, both tonight’s job and another waiting for her when she got home. Barrego had called her earlier in the day to tell her about it.

“Pantera,” he’d said.

She hated that name, Pantera, panther. Her real name was Maria. Why couldn’t he just call her that?

Barrego had said something about a periodista, a journalist, from Portland, Oregon, who had been in Zihuatanejo for the last month on vacation. The mention of Portland had bothered her. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but she hated coincidences. There were too many people from Portland in Mexico these days, people who either knew too much about Barrego’s business or wanted to find out.

She got out the little notebook she kept in her pocket and stared at the name Barrego had given her: John Standard.

Hopefully, he was more exciting than his name, she thought. Then again, what does it matter? All men were the same: children who didn’t know what it was to be a real man. Still, reporters made her nervous. Barrego had always avoided them, which made sense given the business he was in. So, why change now? What made this John Standard different from other reporters? Did he want her to kill him, or was it something else? It didn’t matter. It all paid the same. She closed the notebook and put it away. She would find out sooner or later.