by Matt Rogers
‘Did I bump into you?’ King said. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘No. Come with me.’
The guy turned on his heel and strode off purposefully. King hesitated, then moved to follow him deeper into the bar. The hyena cackle from the first thug repeated itself, slicing through the quietened bar like a knife through butter.
‘Go with your daddy, gringo,’ he called.
King didn’t react. He suppressed his emotions and continued after the older man. He was led to a dimly-lit two-seater table in the far corner, surrounded by a maze of similar set-ups. He guessed the tables were meant for facilitating conversation. Many of them were occupied by couples from out-of-country, and a few were home to locals. Everyone was sipping on their drinks. King felt the warm buzz of the two tequila shots in his stomach as the elderly man gestured for him to sit in the spacious leather chair opposite him.
King sat.
‘The fuck are you doing throwing that name around, huh?’ the man growled, seemingly infuriated by King’s brash decision.
‘I didn’t realise it was such a sensitive subject,’ King said. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Juan,’ the man said. ‘But that means absolutely nothing to you, eh?’
King shrugged. ‘Always nice to get someone’s name.’
‘And yours?’
‘Jason.’
‘That’s a nice name. Now — what the fuck were you thinking?’
King hesitated. Juan seemed deeply maddened by the way King had brazenly demanded answers from the two thugs. He decided to try and alleviate the aggravation. ‘I didn’t mean to cause any offence.’
Juan smirked. ‘You didn’t cause me offence. But you are a very stupid man.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I mean it.’
‘I’m flattered.’
‘Do you know who that man is?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you intend to get from him?’
‘I just want him to answer a few questions for me.’
Juan scoffed and sipped at the long-necked bottle of beer in his palm. ‘You do not know who he is then, my friend.’
‘I know exactly who he is,’ King said, running his hands through his long hair to slick it back off his forehead. ‘In fact, I’m here specifically for him.’
Juan paused, raising an eyebrow. ‘What business do you have here?’
‘I’d rather not discuss it. Actually — I wouldn’t mind telling you. But I’m not legally allowed to.’
‘You some type of hitman?’
‘No.’
‘Then what?’
‘I just want to speak with him.’
‘You want to work with him?’
‘I can’t say. No matter how badly you want to know. What do you know about it, anyway?’
Juan smirked again. ‘I can tell you’re from out of town, boy.’
‘My accent?’
‘No,’ Juan said. ‘Because of how casually you are treating this. Ramos will gut you like a pig.’
‘I’m fully aware of the consequences.’
‘I don’t know if you are.’
‘Trust me.’
‘No,’ Juan said. ‘Trust me. Do you know what is happening in this city because of him?’
‘I’ve heard rumours.’
‘The rumours are watered down, my friend. I’ve seen the bodies of little six-year-old kids lying in the streets, riddled with bullets. Little pre-schoolers. Innocent people murdered. The deaths are becoming more and more frequent, you see. No-one can go outside anymore without fearing being caught in the crossfire of a cartel shootout.’
‘Is that because no-one has challenged the existing cartel before?’
‘Draco has a monopoly, yes,’ the man admitted. ‘But no-one has tried it in this way. No-one has been so reckless.’
‘You think Ramos would run for the hills if he thought his life was on the line?’ King said.
Maybe Juan would have the answer to the question that had been plaguing him since the mountain chase.
The man simply laughed. ‘You definitely do not know Joaquín Ramos. He lives and breathes confrontation. It would only encourage him to work harder.’
‘I see.’
‘You know — people should hate the cartels, eh?’ Juan said, as if he finally had the chance to voice all the thoughts that had built up in his head. ‘Everyone should despise them. But it’s like magic, my friend. They do a few good deeds here, they help out a few poor people there. Suddenly, everyone loves the Draco cartel. They don’t see all the killings. They hate who they’re told to hate. Ramos is just as bad, but both sides are pure evil. Fuckin’ thugs, man…’
‘How do you know so much about Ramos?’
Juan lifted his gaze off the floor to meet King’s, and King saw genuine sadness in the man’s eyes. ‘I don’t want to discuss it with you. Just like you don’t want to discuss your business with Ramos.’
King furrowed his brow, contemplating what would come next. He believed that Juan had nothing to do with Ramos, evident from his clear hatred of the man. He decided he could trust him. ‘Tell me, and I’ll tell you why I’m here.’
Juan shrugged. ‘My two young boys … twins … they …’
He trailed off, blinking back tears. King thought it wise not to open his mouth. He sensed intense raw emotion in the elderly man’s tone. He blinked hard, making sure that his gaze stayed unwavering, more for moral support than anything else.
‘My boys,’ Juan continued. ‘They needed the money. I’m not well-off, you see. I guess I wasn’t really … there for them. They both went out to work for Mr. Joaquín Ramos. Two months ago. There were rumours, you see, that he could provide a life of luxury with little downside risk. Because he was doing things differently. Because he wasn’t on the streets, so there was no risk of being killed in a gang war — of course, how could there be any risk at all?’
‘What happened?’
Juan stayed completely silent, letting the tears finally flow. He clenched the neck of the beer bottle hard enough to turn his knuckles white, clearly dealing with a wave of raw emotions. King said nothing. Beads of condensation on the bottle ran down over his shaking fingers.
Finally, Juan spoke.
‘I’ll never know exactly,’ he said. ‘They must have done something wrong, eh? Must not have been very good at their jobs. The police found both of them dismembered in a ditch between two maquiladora factories. You never know — maybe they were good people in the end? Maybe they decided to go to the authorities about Ramos’ brutality. I’ll never know. I like to think they died trying to do the right thing. I’ll … I’ll never know…’
King had no idea what to say. He couldn’t imagine the sheer grief, the trauma, the emotional weight of such a horrific burden weighing down on the old man. He tightened his mouth into a hard line to stifle emotions of his own. Then he began to speak.
‘I’m here to kill Ramos,’ he said, leaning forward so that he could lower the volume of his voice. ‘I’m a government agent. You might not believe that, but it’s the truth. You give me anything — any goddamn thing — to lead me to him and I’ll make sure he pays for what he did to your sons. Okay?’
A wry smile spread across Juan’s face. He wiped his eyes dry with the sleeve of his floral shirt — which suddenly looked completely ridiculous in contrast with his harrowing tale — and shook his head slowly from side to side.
‘I don’t know a thing about him,’ he admitted. ‘I got angry at you because I thought you might want to go working for him. You seemed young and impressionable. You might have been drawn to making a quick peso. I thought … maybe I could be there for you like I wasn’t for my kids.’
King grimaced. Genuine sadness needled deep into the pit of his stomach, making him gulp back emotion. ‘There’s nothing you can give me?’
‘I’m afraid not…’ Juan said, suddenly pitiful. ‘I … I’m sorry about that. I don’t know what came over me. I don’t usually pour
my sob story out to the nearest tourist. I apologise. This isn’t your responsibility.’
King got the idea that Juan felt suddenly uncomfortable about what he had told him. He figured that the best option would be not to intrude on the man’s time any longer.
Slowly, he got to his feet. He touched a hand to the man’s shoulder. ‘I’ll find him, don’t worry. When it comes out in the news that Joaquín Ramos died a grisly death, you’ll know who to think of.’
Juan smiled, a hollow, empty gesture. ‘I hope you do. Good luck. Don’t get yourself killed.’
‘I’ll try not to. I’ll leave you to it, Juan.’
‘Goodbye.’
King turned and didn’t look back, heading for the avenue. Absent-mindedly trawling the streets of Tijuana over the last half-hour had subtly broken down his confidence, causing him to doubt the future of the operation. Now, he made a silent promise to himself not to leave the city limits until he’d put Ramos in a bodybag. Silent fury coursed through him at a deeper level. He recognised the foolishness of letting emotions affect him while on the job, but he couldn’t help himself.
He would take Ramos down, or make a trip to the city morgue in a bodybag.
There were no other options.
On the way out, he passed the two thugs, both of them still sitting at the bar. He barely even registered them in his peripheral vision, focusing intently on the path outside. He needed to breathe fresh air after the shocking story Juan had told him. He barely paid them any attention.
The guy with the hyena laugh cackled again as King walked by. ‘You touching that old man’s shoulder, esé? Very cute. How much is he paying you for a quick fuck?’
The pair of them roared with laughter in a deliberate attempt to attract as much attention as possible.
They weren’t anticipating what came next.
King burst sideways, darting laterally into range before either of the two had a chance to react. He seized the first man’s head on either side of his skull, gripping the guy’s scalp like a bowling ball. He drove it down into the oak countertop with enough force to rattle the entire bar, accompanied by an ear-splitting impact. The guy went instantly limp, smashed into unconsciousness in a heartbeat.
Before the other guy could react, King spun on his heel and delivered a straight left punch into the man’s stomach. He put his entire bodyweight behind the strike, sinking his fist so hard into the guy’s soft mid-section that he felt his knuckles crack through two or three ribs.
The guy vomited a full stomach worth of alcohol and greasy fast-food onto the floor, then collapsed into the puddle in grotesque fashion.
King left them to their own devices and exited the cantina with a spring in his step.
25
It turned out that King needn’t have bothered attempting to hunt down any of Ramos’ friends.
They came to him.
He stepped back out into the balmy night air, slinging the duffel bag over both his shoulders and securing the straps tight to prevent anyone running off with his personal belongings. There was sensitive information within, including forged identification documents. If it came to light that a member of the U.S. government had knowingly impersonated another citizen, King imagined he would have the book thrown at him in a court of law. He was the scapegoat for this new division — he was sure of it. That’s why they had sent him into Tijuana with such a barebones plan of attack.
As a test subject.
There was a certain indecency in the air tonight. The people swarming all around him were either drunk, high, or both — they stumbled around the Avenida Revolución, heading from thrill to thrill. This was the pleasure district, and the tourists in the area were making full use of its vices. Music swelled in every direction, pouring out of jukeboxes in open bars and blending together into a deafening amalgamation of noise.
King made the decision to keep floating from bar to bar when the cold steel of a gun barrel jammed into the small of his back, bringing with it a wave of heightened emotions. He felt each individual aspect of the change in his demeanour, from the adrenalin flooding his veins to the quickening of his pulse to the sudden clarity of his vision.
It was like the murky haze of everyday consciousness had been stripped away.
His primal instincts kicked in, activating in the event of a threat on his life.
Slowly, he turned his head to get a look at whoever was threatening it.
Three men total. One had a firm grip on the pistol — a Sig-Sauer P226. Its unsuppressed barrel needled further into the sensitive area just above King’s hip. He stifled a wince. The guy had narrow beady eyes and long thinning hair hanging in wild strands over his forehead. He had the distinct appearance of a man who enjoyed getting high on his own supply. The two thugs behind him were of similar build — broad-shouldered, dressed in casual attire, putting on a terrible acting performance in an attempt to blend into the crowd.
It might be good enough to pass off to the swarms of drunk tourists flooding around them.
It didn’t convince him.
He recognised that they were operating as a trio, and planned accordingly.
‘Heard you been talkin’ to some people, esé,’ the guy with the gun snarled.
‘You going to shoot me here?’ King said, keeping his voice low despite the din of the jam-packed avenue. ‘That’ll be loud. It’ll cause commotion.’
‘You think we care?’
‘If you were going to shoot me you would have done it already.’
‘Boss wants you alive.’
‘I see.’
‘Let’s take a walk.’
‘What if I don’t want to take a walk?’
‘Then I have permission to shoot you down like a dog right now. You want to go that way?’
‘I’m good.’
‘Thought so. Fuckin’ walk. Slowly.’
King shifted uncomfortably. If he had tucked the FN Five-seven into the front of his waistband back on the mountain road, he would have easy access to the weapon without the three thugs knowing any better. But — as fate would have it — the weapon rested directly above his rear. He couldn’t reach back and extract it. The guy with the gun simply had to pump the trigger once, and that would be that.
The first bullet would likely paralyse him, given the position of the barrel against his upper hip. There were all kinds of sensitive nerves bunched up in that area.
King gulped as he realised his options were slim, and elected to follow the man’s demands.
He started to stride forward, slowly, just as the guy had instructed.
It didn’t take long for the man to see the gun in his waistband.
‘Stop walking,’ the man hissed in his ear.
King pulled to a halt, disrupting a tourist couple attempting to cross the avenue. The man — a college frat boy in his early twenties — bumped into his shoulder. King had two options — roll with the impact, or hold his ground and send the guy stumbling away. He decided on the option that was least likely to cause the P226 against his back to go off.
He held his ground.
The college kid went flying, almost tumbling off his feet due to the awkward clash.
King grimaced.
The kid’s eyes were glazed over from either drink or drugs, and he looked ready for an altercation with anyone. He squared up to King, eyes wide, brows flaring. King sensed the trio of cartel gangsters behind him visibly stiffen, all of them wondering what the hell was going on.
‘Hey, man,’ the college kid said. ‘You got a fuckin’…?’
‘Keep walking if you want to live,’ King hissed with reckless intensity.
The frat boy must have noticed the unhinged look in King’s eyes, because his gaze wandered over to the trio of thugs standing ominously close to King, all their eyes fixed on him.
The guy dropped his head and hurried away as fast as his feet would allow.
26
King breathed a sigh of relief. Minimising civilian casualties was of the u
tmost priority. The last thing he wanted was for a college kid to get murdered for a drunken mistake. Briefly, he considered the fact that he was probably close to the same age as the man who confronted him.
What could have been, he thought.
Sometimes he weighed up the possibility of living a relatively normal life. Going to college, getting a degree, settling into a nine-to-five and squirrelling away ten percent of his paycheque until he enjoyed a short-lived retirement and fell into a grave at the age of eighty.
Only sometimes.
The cartel thug behind him wrenched the Five-seven out of King’s waistband and tucked it into his own pocket, stripping King’s only chance of survival away.
‘Now you walk,’ the guy spat.
The three thugs directed King to a quieter section of the multi-block pleasure district. The guy with the gun instructed him on the directions, tugging the back of his shirt viciously in one direction after the next. Finally, King felt the guy’s free hand shove him in the back, and he stumbled forward into a dark alleyway between two bars.
With the number of witnesses minimised, the other two thugs built up the nerve to pull out their guns.
Three identical P226s aimed at King’s head. He flicked his concentration from one barrel to the next, sizing up the distance between the three of them, analysing and assessing until he ultimately concluded that there was no chance he could mount any kind of offence.
Not yet.
The guy who seemed to be in charge gestured down the alley with the barrel of his P226, shaking the gun for a moment. ‘There’s a car waiting at the other end. Let’s go.’
King nodded, turned on his heel, and started walking. The alleyway smelt of puke and urine and dried puddles of liquor. Trash lined each side. The only light came from pinpoints of luminescent LEDs positioned above the exit doorways to the buildings lining the length of the alley.
Back exits to dispose of the trash.
There were no dumpsters in sight — it seemed that any waste was dumped on the putrid ground and left to rot. King held his breath as he trudged slowly through the muck, trying to make out the path ahead in the sheer darkness.
