Taylor got out and Luis slid behind the wheel as Taylor and Brodie both got in the back seat as though they were tourists with a driver.
Taylor asked, “Any luck?”
“Sí,” replied Brodie. “There’s a place called…”
“El Gallinero,” Luis said as he pulled out and began driving up the hill.
“Right. The Hen House. Very young chickens.”
“You think this is the place?”
“Let’s check out the location and exterior to see if it fits our friend’s description, and if it does, I’ll come back tonight.”
“I’m coming with you tonight.”
“We will discuss.”
They rode in silence as Luis navigated the narrow, unpaved streets of the July 24th neighborhood.
Well, thought Brodie, if El Gallinero was the place where Simpson had seen Mercer, it had been easy to find. Trouble was always easy to find. Sin and corruption and human depravity were easy to find. He’d found those things all over the world. Even in the hills of Kentucky and the barracks of Army posts. He always had to remind himself that virtue and goodness were also easy to find. But that wasn’t what he was looking for on this job.
Taylor said, “I hope our guy is there tonight.”
“We will see.” And Brodie hoped there weren’t guys from MBR-200 there waiting for him.
CHAPTER 23
Brodie sat in the rear seat next to Taylor as they drove through the narrow passages that made up the streets of this neighborhood of jerry-built hovels. Through the window Brodie could feel the day growing hotter, and the smell of garbage and human waste hung in the stagnant air. The slums of twenty-first-century Caracas were a regression to the Dark Ages.
They passed another piece of MBR-200 graffiti. This one was simpler and to the point: the gang’s name painted above an image of an AK-47 firing a hail of bullets.
They came to another narrow road that snaked north up the hillside, and Luis pointed out the windshield. “Pepe says turn left at the Jesus.”
On a building up ahead was a large graffito of a Latino Jesus in a dazzling white robe holding a Venezuelan flag. Piles of flowers lay in the road beneath his sandaled feet.
Luis hooked a left onto the narrow road, then narrated the next step of the directions—“right at the blue house”—and slowed the car as they approached a cinder-block hovel painted in bright blue. He turned right onto a wider road that ran along the edge of a ridgeline, offering a panoramic view of the slums and Caracas below. A red and blue macaw glided over the barrio and toward the towering green mountain range to the north. Up ahead was a large flat-roofed one-story structure, windowless and faced with white stucco.
Luis said, “This is the place.”
The building had a large footprint, built on a natural plateau in the hillside. A rusty green low-rider was parked out front. As they got closer, Brodie spotted a security camera mounted above the doorway. There was a concrete enclosure to the side that probably housed a generator. He said, “Well, if Pepe wasn’t lying, then this is the Hen House.”
“Or,” said Taylor, “it’s MBR-200 headquarters.” She added, “I don’t see a sign.”
Luis interjected, “There would be no sign for such a place, señora… and if this was a place for MBR-200, there would be a very big sign.”
Brodie said, “We’ll come back tonight and see what goes on inside.”
Taylor reminded him, “I’m coming with you.”
“But you’ll stay outside.” He said to Luis, “You’ll just make the introduction for me at the door, and you and Ms. Taylor will wait in the car with the engine running and your Glocks ready to rock and roll.” He looked at Luis. “Okay?”
Luis nodded.
They continued on past the white building. Brodie had made some difficult arrests in some dicey places, but if Kyle Mercer was in that bordello tonight, this would be one for the books. Dombroski, as always, would criticize Brodie’s recklessness while patting him on the back.
Taylor said to Brodie, “Our fugitive might not be there tonight. Or this might be the wrong bordello, or not a bordello at all.”
Luis said, “It is a bordello.”
