Flash Fire

by Dana Marton

A moment later, a tall black man appeared on the sidewalk at the corner of the building, carrying another AR-15. He didn’t look familiar to Walker either. He waved at them to approach, holding his rifle ready.

  Walker moved in front of Clara.

  “Stay a step behind me. Use me for cover,” he said under his breath, then strode forward as if he didn’t have a care in the world, even if he was pretty sure at least one or two other weapons were trained at them beyond the two rifles he could see.

  He walked up to the guy waiting for them, a narrow-faced, sharp-eyed twenty-something who scanned him first, then Clara, spending enough time on her legs to annoy Walker, so he cleared his throat.

  The guy flashed him an I’m-holding-the-AR-15-and-I-don’t-have-to-give-a-shit-about-your-opinion look, but then jerked his head toward the side of the building, and the three of them went around the back.

  Two more guards stood between the back door and half a dozen pickups parked in a half circle for protection. The guards looked to be brothers, early twenties, same spikey hair, same hint of a mustache. One of them nodded toward the rusty metal barrel next to the door. “Weapons.”

  A deeper voice called out from inside the building in Spanish. “Francisco, you ain’t the man to take this particular pasty-assed gringo’s gun, trust me, hermano.”

  Jorge’s voice was followed by the man himself as he appeared in the doorway.

  He looked Walker over with a shuttered expression, switching to English that he’d learned in a Texas prison back when he’d been a lowly drug mule. “What the hell happened with Pedro?”

  Nose flattened by multiple fractures, Jorge was a full head shorter than Walker, but built like a battering ram. He’d been born to the boxing ring. He was all solid muscle and he knew how to use it. At one point, he’d been the Chiapas lightweight state champion.

  He’d bought the car repair shop and set up a legit business from his winnings. He’d been this close to an honest life when the gang came for him and pressed him into joining. Now he was the leader. He’d gone too far to go back.

  His black muscle shirt showed off some of his tattoos, both arms inked to the tips of his fingers, his neck up to his chin and his ears. One ear and one half ear, technically.

  Jorge’s ink represented his family, his gang affiliations, his time at various prisons, his kills, his girlfriends, his wins in the ring and his losses. They were a visual biography of the man, if one knew how to read them.

  Walker did. Tattoos were their own language down here, and being fluent in gang signs could mean the difference between life and death.

  “Pedro got frisky with my girl,” he answered Jorge’s question and caught Clara looking at one particularly lovely piece of art on the guy’s neck, a giant eye with a fork stuck in it, blood spurting from the socket.

  Jorge noticed her too. His gaze dropped to her slim hips and those long legs that her red shorts left bare. The flare of interest in his eyes said he liked what he was seeing. A slow grin spread on his face. “For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t let Pedro have her either.”

  Walker was beginning to rethink the shorts. He draped an arm over Clara’s shoulders to head off any trouble. To her credit, she played along and pressed herself against his side.

  He felt a bit of softness. Maybe she did have something under her shapeless T-shirt. As intriguing as the thought was, he had to file it for later.

  Jorge was looking her over once again. Suddenly, his eyes narrowed. His gaze snapped to Walker. “She a cop?”

  All weapons in sight swung to point at Clara.

  She froze. But she did not draw. Another point in her favor. She didn’t panic under pressure.

  Walker kept his relaxed stance. “On vacation, hermano. From back home. She’s got nothing to do with anything you do down here,” he said all easy like, glad that Jorge was the kind of guy who’d hear him out first before shooting.

  There weren’t many like him left in the borderlands. People these days were more apt to squeeze the trigger first and ask questions later.

  Jorge nodded after a long, tense moment, accepting that Walker was vouching for her. He waved the gun barrels back, then led them inside.

  The shop smelled like tire rubber and motor oil, the windows blocked with plywood, and only half the overhead lights lit, leaving the place dim. About two dozen guys loitered around inside, some standing, some lying on mattresses lined up by the wall, all armed to the teeth, every eye on the visitors. Walker knew about half of them, and nodded at them as they called out greetings.

  He looked back at Jorge. “Any hits yet?”

  “Hernandez’s crew tested us the night before last. We beat them back.” Jorge’s mouth tightened. “Lost Marco.”

  Marco was Jorge’s little cousin, barely sixteen. Walker shook his head. “I’m sorry, man.”

  Jorge’s eyes grew cold. “We took out three. Next time they come, we take out the rest. I got a little surprise set up.”

  He led them to his office, then closed the door behind them and pointed to two rickety chairs.

  He watched Clara, but asked Walker, “What brings you here, hermano?”

  “Looking for a girl.”

  That brought the earlier grin back to Jorge’s face. “Cop babe ain’t enough? You sure your greedy gringo ass can handle another?”

  “Don’t you worry about what I can handle,” Walker shot back in the same easy, macho tone. Then he turned serious. “I’m looking for Rosita Ruiz. American. Seventeen. Went missing on the first of July in Furino.”

  Clara pulled the photo from her pocket and put it on the desk between them without a word, pointed a finger at the girl in the middle.

  Jorge looked at the printout without touching it, then leaned back in his chair. “Never heard of her.” His eyes narrowed at Walker. “What makes her important enough for you to give a flying fuck?”

  “Favors are owed.”

  Jorge rubbed his chin. “Pain in the ass.”

  Wasn’t that the truth? Walker nodded. “What’s the word on the street?”

  “About what?”

  “Anything. I’ve been out of circulation for a while.” He’d spent most of last week in the jungle, setting his plans in motion.

  Jorge shrugged. “Everyone’s tense. The Tamchén pushed through a big load three days ago. Makes the Xibalba twitchy. Especially since the Xibalba shipment is late.”

  The two cartels coexisted in the region in fragile peace. Walker hoped fragile was the keyword. Not something he could discuss with Jorge, so he returned to his reason for being there. “No word about an American girl getting nabbed?”

  Jorge scratched his chin. “Two American college girls were killed at one of the tourist bars a week ago. But they were blond Anglos and a couple of years older than your chica. Police was all over that.”

  “They caught who did it?” Walker asked out of idle curiosity. He liked to know who was up to what.

  “Nah, man. Nobody touches Chapa’s boys.”

  Jorge wasn’t lying. Walker knew policemen who’d taken people out of witness protection and hand-delivered them to Chapa for torture and execution. Chapa was above the law. Far above the small-time local gangs like Jorge’s too. Chapa was second in command of the Tamchén cartel.

  But even Chapa didn’t usually go after foreigners unless they meddled in his business. Doing something like that was plain asking for aggravation.

  Killing the two American college kids, in particular, made no sense. A lot of the girls coming up from South America ended up sold into the sex trade, and a pair of pretty blondes would bring in a healthy premium. So if the girls had come to Chapa’s attention, why kill them instead of selling them? Why waste the profits?

  Chapa was a money man, a greedy piece of shit. This didn’t sound like him.

  Walker pushed aside the thought. The college girls weren’t his problem, and it was too late for them in any case.

  “If you hear anything about Rosita,” he said, “leave word with Brun
hilda. I’ll check in with her. I don’t have a cell phone right now.”

  Jorge pulled the desk drawer open, rummaged through two dozen cell phones, picked one, and tossed it to him. “Number’s on the sticker on the back. What happened to the last one I gave you?”

  Walker shrugged. “Lost it somewhere. Thanks, hermano.”

  He glanced at Clara. She hadn’t said a word, but she was taking everything in. She didn’t look rattled by Jorge and his gang, she looked…ready. Her back was to the wall, her feet braced slightly apart. Her hands were relaxed, at her sides, in position to go for her weapons as needed.

  Little wonder Jorge had her pegged in two minutes.

  She was new to the job, obviously green, but she had potential, Walker thought again.

  He turned back to Jorge. “Got any in the shed?”

  “Four,” Jorge said without the slightest sign of emotion.

  “Chicas?”

  “Two.”

  “Mind if we look?”

  Jorge’s gaze cut to Clara, stayed there. “If you think your girl can handle it.”

  “She’ll be fine.”

  Clara moved toward the door.

  Walker stayed back. One more thing.

  “Seen anyone around who’s missing a nose, by any chance?” he asked Jorge under his breath, low enough so Clara wouldn’t hear.

  Jorge lifted an eyebrow.

  “Long story,” Walker said.

  “Name?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Who does he work for?”

  “Whoever pays him. Like me. No permanent affiliation.”

  “He stepped on one of your jobs?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

  Jorge didn’t walk them out; he asked one of his men. He was still alive because he was smart like that. When you were in the middle of a gang war, you didn’t leave cover.

  The shed stood in the back of the property, ten feet by ten feet at tops, wood-plank side, corrugated-steel top, just a few feet from the railroad tracks. Flies buzzed in and out through the gaps.

  Walker pulled the neck of his T-shirt over his nose as Francisco opened the padlock and threw the door wide.

  The stench hit them like a fist in the face.

  Clara gagged quietly behind him.

  Walker didn’t look at her. He yanked on the chain that turned on the overhead light and took in Jorge’s latest pickings.

  None of the four bodies was particularly fresh. There was a guy with his throat cut, from farther down south, based on his features. He definitely didn’t look Mexican. A ten-year-old boy with bruises on his face lay diagonally over the first guy’s body. Then, in front of them, a twenty-something woman who’d been strangled. The rope was still wound around her neck. She had blood on her thighs.

  Walker looked away from her and focused on the girl who lay just inside the door, facedown: slim body, long dark hair—about the right age for Rosita Ruiz.

  He moved closer and gently rolled her over with the tip of his boot. He looked for a long moment before he stepped back. At Francisco’s questioning look, he shook his head.

  Francisco turned off the light, closed the door and padlocked it again. Then he walked back to the garage, leaving them where they stood. The smell didn’t encourage lingering.

  Walker started across the lot, away from the putrid stench, back toward the road. Clara followed him, her stride not entirely steady, but she wasn’t about to pass out either.

  Too bad. He’d hoped to rattle her into leaving.

  She kept pace, walking at his elbow. “So Jorge is in a gang war? That’s why we brought the arsenal?”

  “If a pickup load of rival gang members showed up, I wanted to be ready.”

  They reached the road, turned toward Brunhilda’s, and walked side by side on the litter-covered sidewalk, passing women on bicycles and kids carrying groceries. The normalcy of the scene stood in stark contrast to what they’d just seen. They walked in silence, trying to adjust.

  The temperature was a cool high eighty. It only got hotter than that down here in the summer. A lot hotter. They had to count their blessings for days like this.

  “Are all your friends criminals?” Clara asked after a while.

  “I don’t have friends. And as far as criminals go, Jorge is better than most.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “For one, he doesn’t kill for fun. He’ll go after a rival, but otherwise, he’s all right. Comes from his boxing days. You want a good match in the ring. You don’t put on the gloves for any weak punk.”

  Clara seemed to think about that for a moment. “Why did he think I was a cop?” She looked herself over, examining her shorts and boots. “Is it the clothes? It’s typical tourist wear.”

  “Boxers, in general, are pretty good at reading body language. Your life depends on it in the ring.” He tried to explain. “You’re too straitlaced. Not a relaxed bone in your body. Someday, if we meet under different circumstances, remind me to take you out for some tequila and salsa dancing.”

  For a moment, he could see it, and damn if he didn’t like what he saw. But she made some kind of a grunt that suspiciously didn’t seem like a sound of appreciation. Oh, well. She was right. He definitely wasn’t the right guy for her. Or for any honest woman, for that matter.

  His female acquaintances tended to come from a different world lately. Speaking of which… One of Brunhilda’s girls was already out for the evening, working the next corner.

  “Hey, Walker.” Carmen smiled at him, swishing her hips, then flashed a questioning look at Clara.

  Carmen was voluptuous, her curves barely contained by her low-cut shirt and short skirt. A definite contrast to Clara’s tall, lean form. But while Carmen oozed some kind of a sensual, sexual vibe, Walker’s gaze barely hesitated on her before skipping back to Clara.

  Clara was interesting in other ways. Her vibe was of quiet self-confidence, thoughtfulness, her eyes always filled with curiosity and intelligence. One thing for sure, she hadn’t bored him yet, and he’d spent more time with her at a stretch than he’d spent with a woman in a long time.

  “Hey, Carmen.” He kept on walking.

  Clara rolled her eyes at him after they passed, but didn’t comment on him being on a first-name basis with a hooker. “How does Jorge’s gang fit into the bigger picture?” she asked instead.

  “Furino is a small town, under the thumb of some old-fashioned banditos who run the human trafficking, working rural areas. The gangs make a living in the bigger towns off robberies, or have their chop shops like Jorge. Both the gangs and the banditos work with the permission of the cartels that control the gun and heroin trade.”

  “Sounds like a sizable criminal presence in the region.”

  “Which is why you need to leave.”

  “When I have Rosita.”

  He took her elbow to make her look at him. “Rosita’s body might have come to Jorge’s shed last week. Or the week before. He might not remember. He has no reason to make a close inspection. You have to face the facts. If she hasn’t turned up yet and nobody’s asked for ransom, she’s dead.”

  “Then I’ll locate the body for repatriation.” Her gunmetal eyes sparkled with resolve. “What does Jorge do with the dead, anyway? Why does he keep them in the shed? Who are they?”

  Walker dropped his hand from her elbow. “The trains that use the tracks behind Jorge’s place come up from as far south as Costa Rica. They come through Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and pick up immigrants along the way. Some fall from the roof of the train, weak with starvation or exhausted. Others are pushed. Often by the smugglers.”

  She frowned. “Why does Jorge collect them?”

  “The town doesn’t have the money or the manpower for proper burials. The bodies go straight to the town incinerator.”

  Her steps faltered. “Like garbage?”

  He shrugged, swallowing the bitter taste in his thr
oat. He would not think about his brother now.

  He filled his lungs with the street’s hot, exhaust-infused air. “Any bodies that fall in Jorge’s gang’s territory, they gather up, then truck them up to the convent of St. Lupe once a week. The nuns bless them, then bury them.”

  The mercy trips were Jorge’s way of making up for some of his darker deeds, Walker suspected. Most of his gang had the cross tattooed somewhere on their bodies. Most of them had been raised in Catholic households. Their mothers were probably burning candles for them somewhere.

  Jorge was as stone-cold a killer as Walker had ever seen, but he’d held on to something, apparently, a deep-seated need for absolution that Walker had given up a long time ago. He’d gone too far. He couldn’t do enough good deeds in a hundred years to make up for all the bad he’d done and was about to do in the next couple of days.

  He didn’t particularly care anymore if the things he did were right or wrong. He didn’t want absolution; all he wanted was release from his nightmares. Five more days.

  He needed to find the noseless man before that time was up and everything exploded.

  Next to him, Clara’s stomach growled. Walker could go a day or two without food. Hunger didn’t much bother him. But when a street-vendor truck drove by, he flagged it down. He bought enchiladas and water, and they took the bag back to Brunhilda’s.

  The place was full-on busy now instead of entertaining just the earlier handful of patrons. The way Clara tried hard not to look in the windows as they went up the fire escape ladder made Walker laugh.

  “There are two bathrooms in there with nice big tubs,” he told her, “but they’ll be filled with people all night. We can clean up in the morning when the clients are gone and the girls are sleeping. The bathrooms will be empty then.”

  Clara muttered something under her breath he had a feeling he didn’t want to hear.

  They went up and disarmed, down to one handgun each for easier movement, then took turns using the outhouse. While she was busy, Walker used the cell phone Jorge had given him, and called Santiago to set up a meeting for the next day. Then they washed up with the garden hose again before eating their dinner up in the hot, muggy attic.

  “How are you connected to Jorge?” she asked between two bites.