Gun Work

by David J. Schow

  Estrella was brushing her teeth when Barney returned. She grabbed an El Sol without asking and swigged half of it. Her scent filled the room, not unpleasant, a vague waft of spice that hit you when she passed; maybe it came from all her burnished mahogany hair.

  “You dinna hafta take a vacation, baby,” she said to Barney. “We can party if you want.”

  “Later we will,” said Barney, ever the courtly gentleman, feeling the way a nine-year-old feels when he inadvertently catches his parents in the act of making younger siblings.

  She kept glancing at the door. Gotta go. They all fumbled through the usual air-filling small talk, and presently she breezed away, leaving her scent to pleasure the room.

  “Half mast,” Barney said, indicating Carl’s zipper.

  Carl secured his cargo, already anticipating Barney’s actual concerns. He gulped most of an El Sol as though he had just crawled off the Gobi desert. Cleared his throat a couple of times. “It’s a little... uh, complicated.”

  “No doubt.”

  Carl wiped down his face. His hand came away oily. The world was still the same. It would not erase like one of those Magic Slates.

  “See... Erica had this thing when she was in New York. This affair. Right about the time she got promoted at Curve, the magazine. It was just one of those things, like, y’know, those trap-reactions.”

  “You mean she was looking down the gun barrel at marriage, which means settling, which makes everything boring, and soon you feel your youth passed you by, so you’ve got to bust out? One last fling?”

  “It’s not like she loved the guy or anything. She came clean; she was up-front about it.”

  “So you brought her down here either to try to zip up your relationship in a foreign port or keep an eye on her, and it’s not going as well as you hoped?”

  “She got kidnapped, man!”

  “And between the time she got kidnapped and now, Estrellita bounces along to fill your lonely waiting period? What, did you run out of magazines?”

  Carl flushed crimson again. “I met her in a bar. I was going out of my mind, man.”

  Barney sighed. They’d gone through worse, and crazier, in Iraq.

  “Erica is the only thing I’ve ever done right in my life,” Carl said. “You remember how I used to be. I was a world-class fuckup. Still am. That’s why I need you. That’s why I need to save Erica.” He held his hands out in entreaty. “She’s all I’ve got now.”

  Barney tried never to judge. What was that line about walking a mile in another man’s shoes? Oh yeah: By the time he figures out you’ve screwed him over, you’re a mile away, and you’ve got his shoes.

  “Call the bad guys,” Barney said.

  The Rio Satanas was not a genuine river. It was a toxic spillway etched into bedrock by overflow from Mexico City’s compromised waste management system. It was lost — that is to say, handily concealed — within the contaminated maze of industry on the municipal outskirts, everything from oil pumpers to propane plants contributing their discharge. At some point, somebody had built a wooden bridge over one of its tributaries, the veins and backwaters eroded by its determined march toward cleaner waterways. The bridge was almost quaint-looking, as though it had been shipped in from New England, but the whole place would never make for an attractive postcard.

  The bridge was the rendez, and Carl obtained directions. Barney drove the ostentatiously ridiculous limo, even donning a chauffeur’s cap he found stashed in the glovebox. Why not play it to the rim? Rich American shows up in big car driven by obvious lackey to deliver dinero grande with extra sauce.

  Using the GPS in the car, Barney checked the signal on the transplanted chip. Thumbs up.

  They got lost, naturally, trying to navigate chuck-holed streets with no signs, following directions mostly by landmark — a clear, wide, long, twisting trail that would allow ample surveillance, and guaranteed no tails or hidden reinforcements. They knew they were in the right general area when they could see the car headlights cutting through assorted noxious gases. They could see the air. Dark, now.

  Barney scanned the perimeter a safe distance from the bridge, using the nightvision binocs. Wherever their opponents were, they had blended well. No movement, no hot spots just yet. A few heartbeats of very tense quiet, to the backbeat of distant machines, grinding, pumping, polluting.

  When the cellphone went off in Carl’s hand he nearly shrieked like a freshman with an icicle up his nether port.

  For the first time, Barney heard the curiously uninflected voice that was bossing Carl around.

  “You are to exit the car on my word. You are to walk thirty paces straight ahead to the bridge, place the bag on the ground, turn around, and return to your car without looking back. You are to drive away without looking back. Remembering this route will be useless to you. Be advised that you are being tracked by men with automatic weapons. Non-reflective gear, sight-shields and baffled muzzles. You will not be able to see these men using night vision equipment. Step out of the car now.”

  It did not sound like some grubby gangster playing snatch-and-grab. This sounded more like excellent strategy, or maybe a simple playbook of what worked, per brutal experience in the game. Carl’s glance to Barney said perhaps they were in far deeper than their competence.

  “What about my wife?” Carl said to the caller.

  “Your wife is about to lose another finger if you do not step out of the car now.” Click — that was all.

  “We don’t even know she’s alive,” said Barney. “We can about-face and burn ass out of here in this tank, right now, and they can shoot all they want.”

  “No,” said Carl, opening the passenger door. “I’ve got to do this. If somebody nails me, at least... wing ‘em, or something.”

  “I’ve got your back.”

  Carl stepped out, exposed, elaborately demonstrating that he carried nothing except the bag, then began to plod toward the bridge. The smell outside was unique, almost physical in its oppressiveness. Barney could see through the binocs that Carl was actually counting his paces.

  Non-reflective gear, sight-shields and baffled muzzles.

  This was big time.

  Carl must have sweated off half a pound for every step, to and from. No commotion from the outlands. No snipers in the trees, so far. Not that trees could survive here. He made it back to the limo with all his skin intact, and the phone rang again.

  “I see three men coming down for the bag,” said Barney. Three shadows, from different directions, vectoring on a target.

  “Carl?” The voice on the phone belonged to Erica.

  “Baby...?” Carl sounded lost, or damned. His voice had constricted.

  Erica was gulping air, sobbing on the other end of the call. “He told me... they told me I have to tell you...”

  Barney leaned over to listen, trying to keep an eye on the bag.

  “Just say it, baby, whatever it is.” Carl was jittering, on the verge of implosion.

  “They say you broke the rules,” Erica said, parroting what a deep male voice was telling her to say. “You contacted someone. Brought someone with you. That’s... that’s not allowed. He says...they say the ransom is now two million, and this is a down payment.” More instruction, then she reluctantly added, “In good... faith that you will not betray them again.”

  Carl was shouting Erica’s name into a dead line.

  “No good,” said Barney. “We’re blown. They’ll dump the bag unless we give them a reason to run with it.”

  Barney floored the accelerator of the limo, heading straight for the bridge.

  The night came alive with auto weapons fire.

  “What the hell are you doing —” Carl hollered.

  “Shut up. Get in the back. Head down.”

  Lacquer chips jumped from the hood of the Town Car as a fusillade of nine-millimeter slugs flattened into the windshield, making starbursts, rude impact hits without the attendant cacophony of gunfire. The voice had spoken true — silen
cers.

  Triangulating, Barney figured four shooters, three of them the guys after the bag. One grabbed and they all scattered two seconds before the limo came to a dust-choked halt near the natural stone foundation.

  Barney already had the Army .45 in his hand.

  As the car stopped he chocked his door open with his foot and stayed low, popping two rounds and dropping the runner with the bag, who was not shooting. The bag was scooped by another runner who fired back — Uzis, from the sound and cycle rate. Barney ducked the incoming angry metal bees, mostly discharged unaimed, panic fire, gangsta showoff.

  The brake was up and the limo began a slow roll toward the bridge. This was intentional. Barney crabwalked alongside, scanning around for the bonus shooter, who expectedly rose from the crest of the bridge and began shooting downward, ineffectually. Barney put a triple-tap in his general direction to keep him down, under cover.

  The right front wheel stopped against the outstretched leg of the first guy to grab the bag.

  “Now,” Barney shouted at Carl. “Drag that sonofabitch in here!”

  He spent his final five rounds keeping Bridge Guy down. It took Carl about five seconds to find his own spine, then jack-in-the-box out the starboard side of the limo to collect their captive. Only about one in twenty fired shots from the darkness was even hitting the car now. They were back in the thick of battle, and dormant reflexes and instincts resurged. Carl even remembered to grab the insensate man’s gun, and hefted it across the seat to Barney just as Barney’s clip ran dry and the action of the .45 locked back.

  Barney’s hands knew the weapon, a Heckler-Koch MP5 with a retractable buttstock. A Navy version of the assault gun favored by SWAT teams, notorious for having a dicey thumb safety. Barney quickly checked the cocking handle and then emptied the 30-round mag at the top of the bridge before he ducked back into the limo. The integral silencer was starting to cook already, and the gun was hot as a barbeque.

  Sporadic incoming fire tried to hector them, but their armor was as good as advertised. Barney stomped the limo into reverse, humping the big vehicle inelegantly out the way they had come.

  Carl shouted something about Barney being out of his mind, what was he thinking, they were all sunk now — clear the table, bring in fresh meat and stick a fork in them, because they were done.

  “Just clock that maggot if he wakes up,” said Barney, meaning their guest.

  “What’re we gonna do?” Carl moaned.

  “I hate to put it this way, old buddy, but if Erica is still alive, they’ll call you, you bet. If they don’t call, she’s already gone. But if they do call, you tell them that now we’ve got a hostage, too.”

  What had just happened?

  Past the insanity, when the shouting had abated, what had been accomplished, and why?

  That was what Carl would want to know. Barney was stone-faced and silent as he put distance between them and the bad guys, one eye already on the GPS tracker in the limousine. The onscreen map was shifting, stuttering southwesterly — away from them. Carl would want to talk, to quell his rampant panic with chatter; Barney would tell him to please be quiet.

  Gunfire produces a surreal, accelerated state of mind, and the first rule is not to be seduced or distracted by the hyper-reality of metal projectiles whizzing through the air all around you, the noise, the muzzle flashes, ricochets and panicked confusion. You must envelop yourself in a pocket of calm deliberation that permits maximal safe evasion, target tracking, and optimum — not wasteful — return fire in order to neutralize the opponent’s capacity to kill you. The learned behaviors of firing scared, firing blind, or firing wounded cannot be acquired by advice or instruction; either you got it or you ain’t.

  The people who had abducted Erica Ledbetter were businessmen in a cruel trade who no doubt thought of what they did as a brutal necessity in a harsh and unforgiving world. If they were good at what they did, they would not gratuitously sacrifice a revenue asset — Erica — for the sake of a macho gesture.

  But. But this was Mexico, birthing crib of cowboy machismo. What if their dicks had been scuffed enough to warrant a violent display and alpha-male retribution?

  But. But the voice on the cellphone hadn’t sounded like a street thug. He’d sounded like a businessman with an education, which made his status in the kidnapping trade extra-lethal, because here was a person who would not bluff.

  But. But Carl and Barney now possessed a counter-hostage, one of the bad guys, currently dozing in the back of the limo after being knocked unconscious by Barney’s second shot, a deflection hit that had skinned the hair off his left temple and put his nasty self down into dreamland. Barney’s first shot had hit the guy in the ass, and the slug was buried deep in the meat of his right buttock. That would be painful soon enough, and very useful.

  But. But Carl would believe Barney was a loose cannon, a gold-card-carrying member in good standing of Club Psycho, for taking provocative action. Carl might not understand that had been the only option. They could accede like sheep or push the ante. The deciding factor for Barney had really been the bulletproof car. The armored limo had been better than having five extra guys on their side. The Rio Satanas drop-off stank in more important ways than its eye-watering odorama: At the moment Barney had seen the setup, he’d known the drama was far from over, but there’d been no time to explain that to his compadre.

  The kidnappers had never wanted an exchange at Rio Satanas, Erica for the cash. They had wanted an excuse to sweeten the pot. They had already known Barney was in play before he and Carl left their seedy hotel, so credit Estrella for sinking them even before they got to the river; Erica was probably miles away. Carl was to be told his desperate gambit — using Barney — had been hopeless. There was to be the requisite gunfire and shouted ultimata. It was designed to play that way so Carl, now more freaked out than ever, would eagerly agree to any solution, any carrot the bad guys offered, like doubling the ransom. Minimal effort, and the kidnappers win two-to-one.

  Which was why the only option had been to jab them, see who flinched, maybe score a drop of blood in payback. It had all happened very quickly, and the exchange seemed to have soldiered Carl up. He had dropped back into combat mode, heeding the incoming fire, grabbing their hostage, tossing Barney the MP5, not pointing the muzzle at Barney or himself.

  Maybe that was why Carl was being unaccountably quiet right now.

  Barney’s own return to combat mode had come much earlier. It had surged back instantaneously like a good cocaine bump to his bloodstream. It was all foregone the moment he saw the bridge. Flooring that pedal was as natural for Barney as hitting the brake would be for an ordinary human with a toddler in their path. You either got it or you ain’t, and Barney owned it.

  He could feel his heartbeat. He was awake now, and that was why he had engaged superior forces while hopelessly outnumbered.

  Now all he had to do was figure out a way to tell Carl that his saucy little friend Estrella was working for the bad guys.

  “He’s awake,” Carl said from the back of the car.

  “The bag has stopped,” Barney said, watching the GPS screen.

  Barney heard the sound of Carl punching their captive in the face, more than once, sort of as punctuation as he spit invective. It was not necessary, in fact, it was badly advised, but Carl needed a place to put his rage and the impotence of the past few days. You vent the rage, you get it out of yourself, then you can assess more clearly. The downside of shedding your rage is usually that somebody else has to absorb the burden, in this case, one tooth-loosening knuckleblow at a time.

  “Hey! ¿Como se llama, puto? ¡Digame, pinche cabron! ¡Repuestame!”

  Thud. Thud.

  Hurting them first generally got answers more briskly than asking them first, then hurting them. It was the same as the kidnapping theory: Pay us or we’ll kidnap your wife would not work nearly as well as the other way around.

  “¡Oigame, pendejo!” Thud.

  “I didn�
��t know you knew so much Spanish,” said Barney.

  “What about the goddamned bag?” Thud.

  “Driving toward it now.”

  “¡Nombre, joto!” Thud, thud.

  Their guest tried to respond, in a spray of tooth chips, flecks of blood and bits of his tongue, but Carl was enjoying hitting him too much. Apparently the fellow’s name was Jesús.

  “¡Me llamo Jesús, Jesús, chinga tu madre, Jesús! ¡No molestarme!”

  “¿Se hábla Inglés?” Carl cocked but didn’t strike, and it got the desired response.

  “Si, un poquito,” said Jesús, quickly recognizing a wonderful opportunity not to be hit again. “I speak a little. Please, por favor, no —” He had his hands up, defensively.

  “The guy’s just a bagman, Carl; lighten up,” said Barney.

  “He shot at us.”

  Point, Barney thought.

  “Better start a conversation with my amigo back there,” said Barney. “He might keep punching until he breaks on through to the other side.”

  “... me cago en la tapa del organo y me revuelco encima de la mierda,” Jesús muttered.

  “What was that?” said Barney.

  “Ole Jesús here thinks his world just turned to shit,” said Carl, pulling back for a definitive haymaker that caused Jesús to start talking faster.

  “Those guys! The guys!” he said. “They just hire me! Pay me to do job!”

  “Bullshit, Jesús — you haven’t got any dinero on you. If they agreed to pay you and you don’t have any money, that means you’re going to see them again.”

  “They kill me super-bad if...”

  “I’ll kill you super-bad right fucking now, Zorro!” Carl was not screwing around. The whites of his eyes had pinked in anger, Barney saw in the rearview.