Forty-five minutes later
SAMUEL RUIZ’S HEADQUARTERS
7:36 PM
I smile when I see the old man’s silhouette.
"You haven’t changed, neither has this place."
Walls ravaged by time, a dingy floor surely crawling with cockroaches and insects. Holes in the walls probably housing rats, a ceiling about to collapse, and a single half-broken bulb lighting the windowless room.
I walk toward him. His new henchman watches me without comment.
When I reach them, Sam gives me a big smile and hugs me. I hug him back.
"It doesn’t make me any younger seeing you grow up!"
Sam is a man in his forties. Tall and slightly chubby, with light brown eyes, blond hair streaked with gray, and wrinkles marking the passage of time.
Behind that ordinary appearance hides one of the biggest cocaine suppliers in the c
