by Sean Black
‘Just be cool.’
Ty stepped away and pulled up the number Lock had given him. A few seconds later a woman answered, speaking in English but with an accent: ‘American Citizen Services Unit.’
Without explaining who he was or why he was calling, Ty asked to be put through to a member of the consular staff. He was put on hold. The phone pressed to his ear, he walked to the front of the store and peered out. The two men he had spotted were standing next to each other now. One was nodding towards Ty, who was only partially obscured by the gaudy stencilled advertising plastered across the window.
Finally there was a click, and for a second he thought he had been cut off or placed in some kind of automated queue. A second later there was a voice, a real live human being. ‘How may I help you?’
He stepped away from the window, and started to speak. He gave the man at the end of the line Julia’s name and explained that they were across the street but that two men were positioned outside the consulate who, he believed, had been placed there by people who wished to prevent Julia’s safe return to her family.
‘Mr Johnson, please stay on the line, and I’ll be right back to you.’
Before he had a chance to protest he was put on hold. He walked back to the window and took a peek. The two men were still in heated discussion. One was on a radio. Not a cell phone but a walkie-talkie. From the corner of his eye, Ty caught a flash of red light as a patrol car sped down the avenue. The two men watched it pull up not far from them. Walkie-talkie Man keyed his radio again. At the same time the consular official came back on the line.
‘Mr Johnson, I want you and Julia to stay exactly where you are. If you have a weapon please do not draw it. Do you understand me?’
‘Yeah, got it.’
The patrol car was joined by another. One of the two men, the one without the radio, broke off to go and speak to the cops as the one with the radio started towards the salon. The owner, completely oblivious to the scene unfolding outside, remonstrated with Julia, who was fidgeting in her seat.
Walkie-talkie Man was walking at a clip now, his right hand dropping into his jacket and under his left shoulder. Not wishing to be overheard, Ty killed the call. He didn’t know what kind of bullshit was going down and he wasn’t about to stick around to find out. Sit tight, my ass.
He crossed to Julia. ‘We gotta go,’ he said, tossing twenty bucks in the direction of the protesting salon owner, for whom a half-finished manicure was clearly some severe breach of beauty-shop etiquette.
Walkie-talkie Man was no more than ten seconds from the door. His partner’s discussion with a cop who had got out of the patrol car was proving animated.
Ty turned to the salon owner as he pulled Julia to the back of the store. ‘You have a way out back here?’
She stared at him, uncomprehending. Julia tried to translate her few words of stitched-together Spanish, earning a shake of the head and a finger pointed at the front door, which was now opening as Walkie-talkie Man shouldered his way through. Beyond him the Federales were making their move too, running not walking towards the salon.
Ty’s right hand came up, with the gun, finger on the trigger.
Walkie-talkie Man froze. ‘Dude, chill out,’ he said, his accent pure California surfer. ‘I’m from the consulate. We’ve been waiting for you. If you hadn’t stopped to get your goddamn nails filed we would have had you inside by now.’
Ty lowered the gun. The guy flashed his State Department identification to prove his point and apologized in fluent Spanish to the salon lady. He motioned Julia towards him. ‘Stay close. They’re going to give us some static but they touch you and I have four men across the street ready to turn this place into the goddamn Alamo.’
Julia managed a smile, which soon dissolved into tears of relief. The State Department official, whose ID had him down as Armando Hernandez, turned to Ty. ‘You too. Stay close to me. You’re not exactly flavour of the month with some of these assholes.’
He walked them to the door, shielding Julia with his stocky frame as Ty brought up the rear. Halfway across the street, he glanced back at Ty. ‘Kind of disappointed in you, Mr Johnson. All us Hispanics look alike to you or something?’
Sixty-five
Rafaela walked back into her apartment, threw her bag and keys on to the kitchen counter and took off her jacket, but kept on her holster with her loaded service weapon. She had been relieved of her duties pending an official inquiry into the ‘unauthorized release of the two Americans’: her boss wanted her out of the way while he assured the consul general that everything was being done to find Charlie Mendez. That part was true enough. For once they weren’t just putting on a show. They did want Mendez — and Lock — just not alive and talking.
She filled a plastic jug from the kitchen tap and watered the plants out on her little terrace balcony. After the death of her husband and everything that had followed, she had clung to work, though in her darker moments she told herself that she was more social worker than cop. Cops found the bad guys, gathered evidence and made sure they were put behind bars. Rafaela picked up the rag-doll bodies of young women from the streets and comforted their heartbroken parents as best she could. What good was that? What good was she? The bodies piled up anyway and she made no difference. The streets weren’t any safer. Worst of all, the dead girls weren’t even the main event: they were a sideshow. Sure, the media got excited as they speculated on the serial killer or killers but really they were nothing. There was a war on drugs. There would never be a war on the rape and torture of young women.
She put the jug away in a kitchen cupboard, walked into the bathroom, took off her clothes, dumping them in a small wicker laundry basket, and turned on the shower. She hung the holster with her service weapon on a hook at the back of the door, stepped into the shower and closed her eyes as the hot water pounded her face.
Sixty-six
Hector parked around the corner and made a final check of the address. He should have been happy. For one, he was alive, not chopped into pieces in the bathtub of a rent-by-the-hour motel at the edge of town. For another he was back to his regular job, working as a sicario. He had been granted something rarely afforded by his boss: a chance to redeem himself. Two weeks ago, he would have welcomed it, and in some way he still did. A man doing a job he felt ill-suited to couldn’t be happy and Hector was a man who had defined himself, like so many men, by his work. He enjoyed the fact that he was useful and that his work was valued. But ever since the American girl’s kidnap something in him had changed.
Walking up to the entrance of the apartment building, he tried to put this shift in his thinking to one side. Second chances in his world were a rarity.
He pressed the buzzer above the one he needed. I have a chance to redeem myself, he thought. A woman answered, and he muttered something about delivering a parcel to one of the other apartments. He waited. A few seconds later a window opened above him. He kept looking straight ahead so that all she caught was the top of his navy blue baseball cap. She called down and buzzed him inside.
There were four apartments on each floor, two at the front and two at the back. The one he was looking for was on the front right-hand side if you faced the building from the street. He knew his target was there because he had seen her a few minutes before, watering the plants on the tiny balcony.
He rested his hand on the balustrade at the bottom of the staircase and started to make his way up. After only one flight, he was sweating. It wasn’t hot but the stairwell was stuffy and he’d had to wear a jacket, plus he was carrying the big brown leather bag that usually accompanied him on a job like this. It held his special knives. For the most part there were two broad types of job. In the first they wanted the person dead quickly with the minimum of fuss. This one was of the second type, in which they wished to send a message. Message killings were messy.
On the landing, he stopped to catch his breath. That had been the other problem with babysitting Charlie Mendez. All the si
tting around had left him out of shape. Once this job was done, he would change that with a few workouts. He had a friend with a boxing gym in the south of the city. He would go there. He made it a promise to himself. It took more than strength to kill someone, it took stamina as well. People fought, and the ones you least expected to be a problem were often the most difficult to kill.
He took the second flight at a steadier pace. This time he didn’t stop on the landing but kept going. He stayed out of sight of the door and took a moment to compose himself. It was only when he looked over that he saw it was already ajar. Immediately, he was on guard.
He glanced around and saw that the apartment door diagonally opposite was also open. He could hear women’s voices. He tuned into the conversation. One woman was saying how she had to go out of town and would the other take a key.
Hector looked at the two chains dangling by the door and the two deadbolts. He knew better than to hesitate. He walked into the apartment, and pulled the door back to the position it had been in when he had arrived.
Inside, the apartment was neat. A damp towel lay over a stool next to the kitchen counter. He didn’t want the woman screaming if she saw him as soon as she walked in so he decided to wait in the bathroom. Locks and chains worked in two ways: when he heard the apartment door close and the chains go in he would emerge. He crossed to an iPod docking station. The woman’s iPod was already in it. He cued up a track, hit pause and lifted the volume by five or six notches. He found the small white remote control for it on a table next to the couch and picked it up. The music would cover him long enough to place the tape around her mouth. She would fight, he knew that for sure. A woman like her knew where this would end.
The remote in one hand, he retreated to the bathroom. The floor was still wet around a white mat laid on the floor and condensation fogged the mirror. He was glad. He didn’t enjoy looking at himself. He sat down on the toilet and waited for the woman to return.
Sixty-seven
Armando Hernandez took a slug of water from an Evian bottle, and offered some to Ty, who declined with a wave of his hand. They were in a conference room with long windows that looked out on to the avenue. Posters on the wall advised tourists to be cautious when they were out at night. Hernandez cleared his throat. ‘You and your buddy Lock think you just stumbled into the middle of this fucking mess and worked it all out while we were sitting round here like a bunch of hicks? Mendez was being left where he was for a reason.’
Ty didn’t like getting lectures, not from some college kid like Armando Hernandez, not from anyone. ‘And the girl was what exactly?’ he asked.
Hernandez rolled his neck. ‘No one saw that coming. Not the traffickers, not us, not anyone. In that regard, Mendez had been behaving himself. Anyway, she’s safe now.’
Fists clenched, Ty bit down on his lower lip. ‘And that’s it? She was raped. By a guy you knew was here. But, hey, you’re trying to bust these dudes so what’s a little collateral damage, right? I served, motherfucker, so I know how shit like this goes — people get thrown under the bus so that someone else can make a name for themselves. But don’t try and piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. You assholes turned to look the other way. If it wasn’t for Ryan and me, she’d be hanging out at that ranch like a frickin’ pinata. Now, what you gonna do about finding my boy?’
‘You don’t even know where he is.’
Ty said nothing.
Hernandez walked over to the window and tapped the glass with the knuckle of his right index finger. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, Mr Johnson, we’re not in Kansas any more. Mexico is a sovereign state so we have to work with the local authorities.’
‘That’s a joke, right? The authorities here? They’re in on it.’
‘And what do you suggest? We call them up and tell them that? This entire situation is a mess and it’s way bigger than me or you or your buddy or some scumbag like Charlie Mendez.’ He gestured for Ty to sit back down.
‘I’ll stand,’ said Ty, irritated.
‘When you first spoke to me, you said that your buddy had Mendez and he’d be heading for the border. If they’re on foot there’s probably only a twenty-mile stretch either way where they’d be looking to cross. If we can find them and if they can make it even an inch on to American soil we can help, but the way things are right now, that’s the best we can do.’
‘If anyone can get across, Lock can,’ said Ty.
‘Then that’s good. Believe me, we want Mendez alive too. He’s the key to a lot of stuff. Now, what’s your plan, Mr Johnson?’
Ty looked out on to the avenue where cops were still massing. Right now the city was a symphony of sirens. The military were out too, along with the local police, the Federal Policia and numerous special units. Moments before there had been a stand-off between a small group of soldiers and some cops. Hernandez had explained that, after it had given up on certain sections of the civilian police as too corrupt even to attempt reform, the government had been using the military instead. But even that hadn’t been without its problems: members of Mexican special forces had been offered lavish amounts of money to work for the cartels. It was one massive pissing contest in which no one had any real way of knowing precisely where a lot of loyalties lay.
‘I go out there, I don’t stand much chance, do I?’ said Ty.
Hernandez folded his arms. ‘You stand no chance and we can’t protect you.’
‘Who are you going to have looking for them?’
‘Border Patrol for Lock. US Marshals for Mendez. We’re pulling some strings.’
‘What about Rafaela Carcharon?’ Ty asked.
‘We have people trying to contact her. From what you’ve said she could be an important intelligence resource. She comes in, we can help her out.’
‘You haven’t heard from her?’ Ty asked, with another glance at the window.
Hernandez seemed to read his mind. ‘One white knight out there is about our limit right now. You step outside the consulate, you’re on your own.’
Ty started towards the door. ‘Way I see it, we’ve been on our own from the jump.’
Hernandez got up, blocking his passage. ‘I already said, there’s a lot more to this.’
‘But you won’t share?’ Ty asked.
‘It’s not a question of won’t. I can’t.’
Sixty-eight
Her service weapon raised, Rafaela nudged the apartment door open with her toe and stepped inside. She waited, listening for the sound of movement, but none came.
Across the border, she would have walked downstairs and called the cops. Here, she was the cops and, in all likelihood, so was the delivery man who had come to take her life. Alerted by the sound of the bell and of another neighbour shouting down to the street, she had watched him walk up the stairs and into her apartment. The only thing that surprised her was how quickly they had moved to kill her. Usually when something big was going down, the cartels waited in the long grass for a while. It was clear from the sicario ’s arrival that they wanted her dead quickly for a reason.
She moved into the living room, anticipating the rush of a body only to be met by stillness. Gun arm out, she moved towards the tiny balcony, approaching it side on so that she never exposed her back to the interior. The balcony was empty. She moved back into the body of the apartment, finding nothing.
Then she noticed the closed bathroom door.
She lowered her weapon. She could shoot through the door and hope to get lucky but even if she caught him it would create one hell of a mess. And she didn’t want the man dead, not yet anyway.
She moved back, gathering her bag and car keys, making sure that it would be audible to the man waiting in her bathroom. She went to the door and slammed it shut then threw the locks but left the chains where they were. As quietly as she could, she took up a position facing the bathroom door and stood there.
Less than three minutes later, she heard a deep sigh followed by the splash of water. A minute after that the
door opened. She already had the gun raised and level, the hammer thrown back, her finger on the trigger.
The man she knew as Hector, bodyguard to Charlie Mendez, and one of the most prolific sicarios operating in the borderlands, as well as a serving police officer, stepped out of the bathroom and looked at her. There was no wry smile on his face, no sign of irritation either, but neither was there any fear. If anything, she was looking at what she thought she would never see. Someone who was as world-weary and exhausted by life as she was.
He shrugged. ‘I’ll get rid of my weapon, okay?’
She nodded, watching him carefully as he removed it from the holster, ejected the clip, put both down separately and slid them with his foot across the floor towards her.
‘Raise your arms above your head and turn around,’ she said.
He did as she asked, although it was more of a shuffle than a turn. She knelt down and picked up the clip and the gun. She emptied the clip and made sure the chamber was clear. When she was finished she asked him to turn back to face her.
A silence settled between them.
‘You came to kill me?’ she asked him.
He gave a nod, staring at her with the same sad eyes. ‘Yes.’
At least he was honest, Rafaela thought. Stepping back, she motioned for Hector to move ahead of her. ‘You’re alone?’ she asked, careful not to turn her back to him.
‘That’s how I work. It’s better that way.’
She motioned for him to take a seat on the couch. She could hear it creak as he sank down into it, the cushions folding in under him. He looked up at her. ‘What now?’ The question drew a smile. ‘You found me in your apartment, you know why I’m here. You have a badge. And a gun. You kill me, it would be accepted.’
‘But you’re a fellow officer,’ she said.
