Free Man in the Middle by Ken Morris

repurchases, fixed incomes, foreign currency trading.
    More compelling than any of this was the wealth. Nobody at Stenman Partners had discovered a cure for anything—not cancer, not the common cold, not even a hangnail. But they earned four hundred million in income a year, maybe more, for betting on winning investments.
    “Am I selling out?” he wondered out loud.
    “No,” he announced to the street lamp. “Dad was a financial failure. Mom lived in a sinkhole of debt. Life is what it is.”
    He drifted farther down Del Mar’s main street. Rich people lived in Del Mar. Maybe one day he’d live in Del Mar or Rancho Santa Fe or La Jolla. Maybe he’d have a view of the ocean instead of the freeway. A block from his car, a woman with a small dog on a tight leash passed in the opposite direction. The cocker spaniel defecated in a patch of ice plant. The woman placed her hand in a plastic bag and scooped up the steaming feces while Peter’s head filled itself with foolish gratitude for cat litter boxes. The wine’s affecting my brain, he thought. Or maybe it was the kiss.
    In bed, twenty minutes later, he rubbed his moonstone hard enough to raise a blister.

    Carlos Nuñoz arrived at the compound at five a.m. Although the guards recognized him, they nonetheless held rifles at the ready.
    “ Hola, Señor Nuñoz. Como está usted ?”
    Carlos depressed the button activating the driver side window and said, “ Bien. Y tú, Manuel?”
    “ Muy bien. Gracias .”
    Manuel, like the 20 other mercenaries patrolling the parameter of the Guzman estate, wore an olive-green uniform, topped off by dark glasses and a soldier’s cap with a black brim and thin rope adornment across the front. Alongside him, a German shepherd lightly tugged against a steel leash.
    Manuel yanked a lever that popped open the trunk while the dog sniffed for material that might make a bomb. The dog also had the ability to detect drugs, though that skill had limited relevance with the recent changes in their mix of business. Manuel, his rifle slung over his right shoulder, next raised the panel housing the spare tire. He allowed the dog to poke its head inside. Both satisfied, they worked their way to the engine. Manuel reached beneath the hood, unhooking then lifting it. He and his friend next inspected the interior of the car, focusing on the space under the front and rear seats.
    A moment later, the guard used a mirror, mounted on a curved pole, to examine the chassis beneath the hundred-fifty thousand-dollar, steel-reinforced Mercedes sedan. Every car and guest underwent a similar methodical search, with absolutely no exceptions. The word trust had no meaning in this part of the world.
    “ Gracias, Señor Nuñoz ,” Manuel said as the arm of the barricade swung open.
    Carlos coasted through the gate and down the hundred-plus yards of driveway towards the sprawling Mission-style home. He loved Sarah Guzman and did not mind that she was an Anglo. He loved her intelligence. He also admired her estate, where every one of the thirty rooms had a view of the Pacific Ocean and her mile of private beach.
    He was loyal because she was unwavering. After the death of her husband, Sarah Guzman had become the family’s madama —the head of their house. And he believed in her black magic, the spell she held over men and women. Carlos wished, above all else, he could have been of her blood so he might have inherited her intelligence, been born of her loins, not his own mother’s disgusting choca .
    As he pulled his car up to the front door, an armed valet bowed and took his keys while Carlos fantasized how he would handle Sarah’s brother-in-law, Fernando Guzman. One thing he knew with certainty: Sarah Guzman’s solution to this uprising would be genius.
    Carlos approached the outer gate with its stone pillars and wrought iron spikes. When he snatched the lion’s paw door-knock and prepared to announce himself, drops formed on his upper lip. Every time he