‘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.
‘You know what I am,’ he replied.
He tilted his head back and looked up at the ceiling. ‘It’s what I would do if I were you.’
‘Is it that or is it that you don’t want to live?’
His huge shoulders heaved. ‘I live. I don’t live. If I cared about my life how could I do these things? You’re no different either. If you were, you would have left the city by now because you know that when I’m gone they’ll send someone else and they’ll keep sending them until you’re gone, too.’
He didn’t say it as though he was making a threat. There was no menace, no macho bravado. He spoke softly, his voice barely reaching a whisper. He was simply stating facts. He had raised a good question too. Why hadn’t she left? With what she knew she could have made a deal with the Americans and been relocated in return for information. But then what? America wasn’t her home. This was her home and, contrary to what the Americans believed, not every Mexican dreamed of a life across the border. Rafaela didn’t want the American Dream, she simply wished to see an end to the Mexican nightmare. She wanted her country back, just like the majority of its people.
The problem wasn’t simply the violence. It was the creeping acceptance that came with it. At first, as the cartels had become more extreme, there had been protest marches, and reporters, like her husband, along with other people had spoken out. Then they had begun to kill those who dared to remonstrate.
She crossed to the kitchen counter and picked up the thick blue binder that held the pictures of the dead girls. Her girls. Still holding the gun, she walked back to the man and tossed it towards him. He looked at it, confused.
‘What’s this?’ he asked.
She dug a little handheld voice recorder from her bag and clicked on the record button, then placed it on the arm of the couch.
‘I want you to tell me which ones you know about. And I want you to tell me everything.’
He opened the binder and caught sight of the first girl in her confirmation dress. In his eyes, she saw recognition. He glanced up at her and said softly, ‘Do you believe in God?’
Rafaela nodded. ‘I believe in the devil so, yes, I believe in God.’
‘I’m lost, Detective,’ he said, tears welling in his eyes. ‘I am so lost.’
Sixty-nine
The road outside the shack grew quiet, the kids’ soccer game finding its way gradually down the street. The last police patrol had passed more than an hour ago. Two cops had tried the door, which Lock had long since bolted from the inside, and a neighbour had come out to inform them that the lady who lived there was at work and the place was empty. They had moved on without making any further checks.
Mendez was sitting on the edge of the battered couch and rubbing his eyes, a man coming to terms with his new circumstances. Lock had dug some stale corn tortillas from a cupboard along with some overripe brown avocados. He split open the avocados with his Gerber knife, took out the stone in the centre, scooped out the browny-green flesh and mushed it over two tortillas, which he then rolled up into wraps. Beggars couldn’t be choosers. He took one and handed the other to Mendez.
Mendez took the food without a word and a long moment passed as both men ate in silence, chewing as little as possible and swallowing as fast as they could. Lock opened a soda bottle that was half full of water, took a slug and passed it to Mendez. He gulped and passed it back.
After a few more moments had passed, Mendez finally looked up at him. ‘You have a name, bounty hunter?’
‘Nope,’ said Lock.
‘No name?’
‘Okay.’ Lock sighed. ‘If it makes you feel any better, you can call me asshole.’
Mendez waved the stump of his rolled-up tortilla at him. ‘You know what happened to the other guys who tried to take me back across the border, right, bounty hunter?’
Lock nodded. ‘Sure do, but aren’t you forgetting something?’
‘What’s that, bounty hunter?’
‘Well, I’d say that, judging by the pot shots they were taking at you last night from that helicopter, you’ve just about worn out your welcome down here.’
Mendez’s gaze fell to the bare floorboards. He took a final bite, chewed briefly, then swallowed. Last night, Lock had seen the terror in his eyes but it hadn’t taken Charlie Mendez long to revert to the smug, self-satisfied moron that Lock had anticipated.