The Devil You Know

by Robert Swartwood

  “Why were you at the motel?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Why were you there?”

  The girl licks her lips, considering. She stares at the knife for a long moment before shifting her eyes to look back at me.

  “That’s where the call went.”

  “What call?”

  “The call that—”

  She pauses, really looking at me again.

  “Oh my God. You’re her.”

  Now it’s my turn to say nothing.

  Excitement tinges her voice.

  “You were at the scene. You were the one who found the bodies.”

  Something’s not right. The girl shouldn’t know that. What is she doing here, anyway? She’s not police. She made that clear when she threatened to call them. So who is she?

  The girl says, “Can I ask you some questions? What was it like finding them? It will be great for the story.”

  “Are you a journalist?”

  The girl shrugs, grinning.

  “You could call me that.”

  “Then you want a quote? Let’s get out of here and go to your place and delete those photos from the cloud and I’ll give you a quote.”

  Her eyes widen with surprise.

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  I’m not telling the whole truth, of course. I have no intention of giving the girl a quote or anything about who or what I am. I just want those pictures deleted. And I also want to know what she knows. Obviously she has a contact in the police force that tipped her off to the call. That’s why she was waiting outside the motel. And once Ramon and his partner took off, she hurried inside and managed to sweet talk the same information out of an employee. Which led her here to … what, exactly?

  I close the knife, slip it back into my pocket.

  “Whose apartment is this?”

  The girl looks like she doesn’t want to say at first. Then she sighs.

  “Miguel Dominguez.”

  “And who is he?”

  “He worked last night at the motel. Whoever called there most likely spoke to him. That’s why the police are now trying to find him.”

  “Do they think he killed and burned those people?”

  The girl shakes her head like the answer is obvious.

  “Of course not. Not unless he’s the Devil.”

  I frown at her.

  “The Devil?”

  The girl says, “You don’t know about the Devil?”

  “You mean … like Satan?”

  The girl frowns at this, and looks at the time on her cell phone.

  “Shit. We’ve been here too long. We should leave.”

  Sounds good to me.

  I follow her out into the hallway. She says the door was mostly closed when she arrived, so we close it the best we can and then head back down to the first floor.

  Through the glass door, I can see the fat man sitting on a plastic chair smoking a cigarette. Just the sight makes me crave some nicotine, so that’s what I’m thinking as I follow the girl outside. A breeze wafts some of the cigarette smoke my way, and all I want to do at that moment is get a sniff.

  That’s when I hear somebody shout.

  “There she is! Kill the puta!”

  A familiar BMW is parked across the street. The two men I assaulted earlier are inside. The driver leans out his window, pointing at me.

  Directing the two young men on the sidewalk with guns to kill me.

  Seventeen

  For an instant I’m aware that the two young men are much younger than I at first took them for. They’re seventeen at the oldest, fifteen at the youngest. Which is why in that instant I decide not to kill them.

  The girl is in front of me, having pushed open the door, and she sees the kids with the guns but doesn’t move at first. Just like she had up in Miguel Dominguez’s apartment, she freezes.

  The kids raise their guns.

  I grab the girl and yank her back into the foyer as the kids open fire. The glass door shatters. The kids give no regard to the fat man in the lawn chair. The man is simply in the way. His body bucks in the chair as bullets tear into it. I push the girl onto the floor, covering her with my body until there’s a brief lull, and then I glance over my shoulder to see the kids advancing.

  I jump to my feet, pulling the girl up with me, and push her toward the stairs. To her credit, the girl doesn’t hesitate—she sprints up the steps.

  I follow her up the steps just as the kids enter the foyer and keep firing. The wall spits up plaster. I reach the spot where the stairs twist, and pause around the corner, slipping the switchblade from my pocket.

  Two sets of footsteps hurry up the stairs. I wait until they’re only a few feet away—right around the corner—before I step forward and jam the blade into the first kid’s shoulder.

  The kid cries out in both pain and surprise, and I leave the blade in his shoulder as I easily disengage the gun—an old Colt Commander—from his hand. The other kid is following too close behind, and I kick him in the chest and send him tumbling back down the steps, the gun clattering away from him as he falls.

  I pull the knife out of the kid’s shoulder, shoot him in the ankle, and then start back down the steps toward his friend.

  I lean down and press the barrel of the gun against the kid’s forehead.

  “Why?”

  At first it doesn’t look like the kid is going to answer, but then he issues a heavy breath.

  “They paid us.”

  “How much?”

  “Fifty each.”

  Jesus Christ. A hit on my life is only worth that much?

  I keep the barrel pressed against the kid’s forehead.

  “How old are you?”

  Again, it doesn’t look like the kid is going to answer, but then he does.

  “Sixteen.”

  I nod.

  “You keep this up and you won’t see seventeen.”

  I step back, shift the gun down toward his leg, and place a bullet in his knee. I kick his gun farther down the hallway, then turn and shout up the stairwell.

  “It’s clear!”

  At least I think it is. I watch the street as I wait for the girl to reappear down the steps. She stares at the two kids with wide eyes. She turns to stare out at the street.

  “It’s safe out there, too?”

  “I’m not sure yet. Let me head out first. You don’t hear any gunfire, hurry out and get in your car.”

  I step outside, the knife in my left hand, the gun in my right. The two men in the BMW are still parked across the street. Their expressions change the moment they see me. I glance up the block at where the two cops had been parked earlier, but they’re long gone.

  The BMW’s driver starts the engine and throws the car into gear. Before he can peel out, though, I shoot out his front and rear tires as I advance across the street, and then I’m standing right beside the car aiming the gun at the two men.

  “What did I tell you before? Nobody likes a pair of smelly assholes.”

  The men just glare at me.

  I hold the knife in my left hand. There’s still some of the kid’s blood on it.

  “I know I said I was going to keep this, but I changed my mind.”

  I lean into the window and stab the driver in the leg. The driver cries out. The passenger scrambles to open his door, but before he can make much progress, I aim the gun once more and shoot him in the leg. He too cries out.

  “Quit your crying.”

  The men glare up at me again.

  “I let you off easy the first time. This time was a bit more rough. The next time? I’ll kill you.”

  I step back, surveying the street. Some people are out now, watching the action, but that’s it. The girl is already in her car and headed this way.

  I lean into the BMW again.

  “By the way, you paid those kids fifty each to take me out? I’m offended. I’d like to think a hit on me would cost a bit more.”

  The driver keeps
glaring at me. He spits and mumbles.

  “Fuck you, puta.”

  I shake my head.

  “How many times do you want to get hurt?”

  I press the barrel of the gun against his shoulder and pull the trigger.

  The driver howls in pain.

  The girl pulls up next to us. I start toward her car but pause, turn back toward the BMW.

  “Remember, assholes. The third time will be the last.”

  I open the door and slip into the passenger seat, and within seconds we’re gone.

  Eighteen

  The back doors to the ambulance slammed shut and then the ambulance started away, its lights flashing but its siren muted.

  Ramon and Carlos watched until the ambulance disappeared around the corner before they turned toward the BMW and the two wounded occupants sitting on the ground beside it. Three officers stood around them, weapons in their hands.

  Carlos pulled out a cigarette from the pack in his pocket and lit it.

  “You guys look like shit.”

  The BMW’s occupants didn’t carry any identification—even the BMW had no papers—but one of the officers knew them well enough to inform Carlos and Ramon of their first names, Hector and Pedro.

  Hector—his shoulder and leg patched up by the medics, though he and his friend would still need more medical attention—glared up at Carlos and Ramon.

  “Fuck, man, we’re in pain here. Why are you treating us like criminals?”

  Carlos puffed on his cigarette.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you are criminals.”

  “No way, man. We’re no criminals. We’re good citizens.”

  “We know you two are pimps.”

  “Pimps?”

  Hector forced an expression of confusion.

  “No way, man, we ain’t no pimps.”

  Ramon said, “We also know you deal drugs.”

  Now it was Pedro’s turn to force confusion.

  “Drugs? No way, we don’t sell no drugs. We don’t even do no drugs.”

  Carlos took one last drag on the cigarette, dropped it on the street, and then crouched down so he was on eye level with the two men.

  “Let’s cut the bullshit, all right? We know who you are. We know what you do. The sooner you tell us everything, the sooner we let you get to the hospital. Now tell us, what happened here?”

  Hector’s eyes widened.

  “We told the other cops, man, this girl came out of nowhere and attacked us.”

  Carlos said, his voice flat, “Attacked you.”

  “Yeah, man. She came out of nowhere and started stabbing and shooting us. She’s crazy, man. Hope somebody catches her before she kills somebody.”

  Ramon pointed across the street at where the dead landlord lay on the sidewalk.

  “You mean like that?”

  Hector and Pedro said nothing.

  Carlos said, “So let me get this straight. Your story is that you two were parked here minding your own business when this girl came out of nowhere and attacked you. Is that right?”

  Again Hector and Pedro said nothing.

  “And then she, what, just happened to kill the old man over there too?”

  Still nothing.

  “And what about those two kids? You know, the ones who left in the ambulance? Either of you want to guess what it is they told us?”

  Pedro shook his head and muttered.

  “They’re kids. Probably made shit up.”

  Carlos sighed and rolled his eyes at Ramon. He stood up and stepped aside so Ramon could take a shot.

  Ramon stared hard first at Hector, then at Pedro, and shook his head.

  “Don’t know why you guys are making this difficult on yourselves. Like my partner said, we know who you are, what you do. We know you hired those two kids to kill the girl. We know that the landlord got caught in the cross fire. Hell, we spoke to the man a half hour ago. So why don’t you save us all some time and tell us why you wanted to take the girl out.”

  It didn’t look like either man was going to answer, but then Hector turned his head to spit and glared back up at Ramon.

  “We don’t talk to scared cops who wear masks.”

  Ramon glanced up at Carlos, then pulled down his mask to show his entire face. He leaned toward the pimps, his voice going low.

  “I’m not scared of shit. Now tell me why you wanted to kill the girl.”

  Hector said, “We told you, she came at us first.”

  “Yeah, and like I told you, we know that’s bullshit.”

  Hector shook his head.

  “No, not here. Earlier.”

  Ramon traded glances with Carlos. He frowned at Hector.

  “Where earlier?”

  “The Paraíso.”

  Ramon said, “What were you doing there?”

  “One of our girls, man. She hadn’t come home. We went looking for her, tried to get her back in the car. And then out of nowhere this other girl shows up.”

  “The one you paid those kids to try to take out.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did she do that made you want to have her taken out?”

  Hector just shook his head, looked away from Ramon. Pedro did the same.

  Carlos said, “We’re going to find out eventually. Might as well tell us now.”

  Hector turned his head to spit again.

  “Shit, man, it’s fucking embarrassing.”

  “What’s embarrassing?”

  “She came at us in that alleyway. She hurt us.”

  Ramon echoed it: “She hurt you.”

  “Yeah, man. And then she let our girl get away. We couldn’t let that shit stand. We saw what kind of car she drove off in, so we called around. We heard from one of the taxi drivers where she went. That’s when we found those kids and gave them the pieces to take her out.”

  Ramon glanced back up at Carlos, who nodded to him that they were done for now. Without a word Ramon stood back up, and they drifted down the street toward the empty Civic. The two officers who had been parked two blocks down keeping an eye on the apartment building stood next to it.

  One of the officers said, “You wanted to talk to us?”

  Carlos said, “Where were you?”

  Both officers played dumb. The other one shrugged, shaking his head.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Carlos said, “How much did those pimps pay you?”

  One of the officers looked down at his feet, then looked back up.

  “We were hungry, okay? That’s all. We left to get some food.”

  Carlos glared hard at them, and then shook his head.

  “Get the fuck out of here.”

  The two officers scurried away.

  Ramon watched them and said, “You really think Hector and Pedro paid them off?”

  “Don’t you?”

  Ramon shrugged.

  Carlos said, “It seems Samantha Lu is more than what she appears.”

  Ramon nodded.

  “If that’s even her real name.”

  “Good point. No college student can do what she did.”

  “Assuming it’s really her.”

  Carlos gestured at the blue Civic.

  “That’s her car, isn’t it? And the one kid said that she was Asian. I think it’s safe to assume it’s our girl.”

  Ramon stared at the Civic for a moment before he glanced up the block at the apartment building.

  “So she managed to follow us to the Paraíso, then followed us here to this apartment building. Why?”

  Carlos shrugged, lighting himself another cigarette.

  “I guess we’ll have to ask her the next time we see her.”

  “When do you think that will be?”

  Carlos looked up and down the block, exhaling smoke through his nose.

  “After what we just learned about her? I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s watching us right now.”

  Nineteen

  The girl turns a corner and ease
s the car to a stop along the side of the street. She keeps her hands on the steering wheel, sitting ramrod straight, her eyes on the rearview mirror.

  I ask, “What’s wrong?”

  She keeps watching the rearview mirror.

  “I want to make sure we’re not being followed.”

  “We’re not.”

  She breaks her stare with the rearview mirror to glance at me.

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do. I’ve been keeping an eye out ever since we took off. Nobody’s following us.”

  Almost a half hour has passed since we raced away from that apartment building. We haven’t spoken once. The girl drove us through the city, away from the ghetto, toward a more respectable part of town.

  I gesture at the houses along the street.

  “You live in one of these?”

  She shakes her head, puts the car in gear, and steers us back out into the street. She goes up one block, turns a corner, goes up another block, turns another corner, and the next thing I know she hits a button and a garage door farther ahead starts to open and she coasts right into the garage.

  I’d caught a glimpse of the house before we entered the garage and was impressed.

  “This your place?”

  She shuts off the car.

  “My grandmother’s. I’ve been staying with her the past two years.”

  “What happened to your parents?”

  Somehow I know the answer even before she answers in a soft voice.

  “They’re dead.”

  She turns to me, her face all at once serious. She’s in her early twenties, with dark eyes and long dark hair. She has a striking kind of beauty that makes me think she should be on the set of a telenovela instead of being chased by teenagers with guns.

  She says, “Who are you?”

  “Just a girl.”

  “What you did to those men back there”—she shakes her head—“where did you learn to do that?”

  “YouTube videos. Just search ‘kickass kung fu’ and you’d be shocked at what you can find.”

  The girl stares at me.

  I say, “What’s your name?”

  She hesitates, clearly not sure she wants to tell me, and then says, “Gabriela.”

  “I’m Samantha.”

  The girl smiles.

  “That’s not really your name, is it?”