Requiem for the Assassin - 06

by Russell Blake

  Chapter 25

  El Oso Negro was the kind of working man’s bar that tourists to Mexico City never saw. Tucked away on a side street on the edge of an industrial district, the façade was run-down. A hand-painted caricature of a rampaging grizzly bear with a frothing mug of beer in one paw as it swatted at white-clad villagers with the other glared from a rusting steel billboard over the entrance, the pair of red lights that served as its eyes blinking on and off in either invitation or warning.

  Briones pushed through a pair of worn saloon-style half doors and peered around the gloomy interior, which continued the bear motif on two of the walls. The interior was as sorry as any he’d seen, and the clientele was largely in worse shape: middle-aged men with nothing to say, their drinking silent and committed. A stereo blared seventies-era banda music through a pair of partially blown speakers, the tuba that served as the bass reduced to a crackling woof. The floor was bare concrete, stained gray-brown, and had seen more than its share of sucker punches and spilt blood.

  Briones moved to the bar and sat down next to Cruz, who had a half-empty shot glass in front of him and an amber bottle of Indio beer sweating beside it. A bartender with pasty skin queried him with a glance, and Briones pointed at Cruz’s drinks and held up two fingers.

  The tequila was El Jimador Reposado, cheap and strong, a smoky caramel that promised damnation and salvation in the same glass. The first bite burned his throat as he threw it back, and his eyes immediately brimmed as he reached for the cold comfort of the beer. When he’d taken two large swallows and had caught his breath, he turned to Cruz, who hadn’t said anything.

  “I guess you heard the news.”

  Cruz grunted and downed the remainder of his shot, his movements deliberate and wooden. The bartender raised an eyebrow, and Cruz held the glass up and gave a curt nod. Another serving of tequila arrived, and Cruz paused as he reached for it, as if only now hearing Briones’ words.

  “Yeah. Coroner’s preliminary report said she’d been raped and sodomized repeatedly before they killed her. That the burns were likely inflicted while she was still alive. As was the butchering. Did you see the pictures?”

  Briones shook his head. “No.”

  “Good. You don’t want to. After they were done with her, they tossed her in a dumpster like yesterday’s garbage. She’d been there for at least twenty-four hours.” Cruz gazed bleakly at his reflection in the mirror, seeing an unfamiliar face twisted by disgust and the mirror’s imperfections. “The rats had gotten to her.”

  “I heard.”

  “Some things you never forget. That’s one of them,” Cruz said and drained his shot.

  It was Briones’ turn to grunt.

  Cruz looked at the younger man. “How did you find me?”

  “Dinah.”

  “Ah. She gave me up, did she?”

  “She’s worried. Said you sounded…distant…when you called.”

  Cruz gazed at a nonexistent spot on the wall. “You didn’t look at the pictures, did you?”

  “No.” Briones hesitated, took a pull on his beer, set it back on the weathered bar top, and ran a blunt thumb across a burn scar left over from the days when smoking was permitted indoors. Someone had used a cigarette, or perhaps a knife and a lighter, to leave their mark. Briones swallowed hard before he continued. “I was hoping we could grab something to eat and head home. When you’re done with your beer.”

  This was the tipping point. The moment when the car ran out of gas and someone suggested that the party was over. Briones knew it could go either way, and he held his breath as he waited for Cruz to respond. The captain was a smart and serious officer, but he also had demons large enough to bury ten men, and it was debatable who was sitting on the barstool next to the lieutenant.

  A phlegmy cough echoed from down the bar – a wet, ugly sound, the result of decades of inhaling dust at construction sites, end-stage lung disease as common as cockroaches with laborers by the time they hit forty. Cruz closed one eye and glared at the mirror behind the bar with the other, and then his face seemed to collapse, like wax before a flame.

  “What kind of animals would kill a sixteen-year-old honor student because her parents aren’t millionaires – would rape her and cut her nose and ears off? Who does that?”

  Briones had no answer. The tequila had begun to warm him, and he more than understood the flight into oblivion that his superior was seeking. But that had never been his way, and he hadn’t come to be a drinking partner.

  “We’ll find them, and when we do, we’ll return the favor.”

  “It’s just so…senseless,” Cruz muttered, his voice quiet, the consonants surprisingly well pronounced. “I mean, with the cartels, it’s about drugs, power, territory. Nothing surprises me with their atrocities. It’s like junkyard dogs fighting for dominance. I completely get that. But this? What was this about? She was just a child.” Cruz took a long breath. “Her mother was hysterical on her last phone call with the kidnappers. We were taping it. She offered herself, to sell the house, whatever they had to do to get her baby back. Didn’t do any good, did it? Burner cell phone. She was crying, begging for her child’s life, offering everything they had in exchange. I listened to her. The kidnapper laughed.” Cruz groped for his beer, missed with clumsy fingers, got it on the second try. “I heard him. The bastard laughed. Like it was a game. Funny in some way.”

  Briones waved at the bartender and motioned for the check. Cruz stared dully at his bottle, eyes only partially focused, the whites bloodshot, the skin around them sallow and slack. For a moment Briones was afraid Cruz was going to fight him about leaving, with the drunken belligerence that was particular to tequila and mescal, but he just sat quietly, clutching his beer, the stylized green and gold image of an Aztec warrior staring into eternity from the label.

  Briones didn’t need to see the size of the tab to know that Cruz would be suffering tomorrow. He paid with a wad of pesos as the banda song wound down, the singer’s croon ending the tune with a promise of eternal love. When the bartender arrived with his change, he doled out a tip and pushed back from the bar, glad he’d decided to only have one shot.

  “You about ready? I’m hungry. And Dinah…she loves you and wants you home.”

  Cruz slid the beer away from him and stood, blinking mechanically, like a prizefighter trying to get off the mat after a knockout punch knocked his legs from under him. He gazed around the dingy room; the other patrons ignored him, immersed in their own dramas. Another song began blaring from the stereo, the accordion screeching like a wounded eagle from blown tweeters, the tempo downbeat, like a New Orleans funeral march without the swing.

  Briones took his arm to steady him, and Cruz leaned in, his breath a thousand-proof wheeze, the sour taint of perspiration strong as he sweated alcohol.

  “You didn’t look at the pictures, did you?”

  Chapter 26

  Dinah pushed through the bedroom door, holding two steaming mugs of strong coffee. Cruz struggled to sit up in bed and rubbed his hand across the stubble on his chin, wincing from the morning sunlight streaming through the window.

  “What time is it?” he croaked.

  “Ten o’clock. I decided to let you sleep late,” she said, sitting next to him and handing him the cup. He took it and sipped at it gratefully, and then his eyes widened.

  “Damn. Ten? I have to get dressed.”

  Dinah smiled, her eyes dancing in the sun. “It’s Sunday, Capitan. Even the great Cruz can rest on Sunday.”

  “Is it? God. I completely lost track. Every day seems to blur into the next…”

  “I wouldn’t lie to you.” She regarded him. “How do you feel?”

  “Like somebody put me in a sack and dragged me behind a truck.” He closed his eyes. “I’ll never drink again.”

  “Yes, well, we’ll see about that. In the meantime, you owe Fernando a thank-you for driving you home. You weren’t making a lot of sense when he brought you to the door.”

  “
It was that bad?”

  She nodded. “Oh, yeah. That and more.”

  “I didn’t…do anything embarrassing, did I?”

  “No more than usual.”

  They sat together, comfortable, drinking coffee, neither feeling any compulsion to speak. Cruz finished his cup and took her hand. “I don’t deserve you. I’m sorry about last night.”

  “I’ll exact my punishment when you’re more up to it. This morning you look like something the dog ate.”

  “We don’t have a dog.”

  “I know. That’s another thing we need to talk about.”

  After a long shower, Cruz dressed as he checked his messages on his cell phone. There were dozens in his email inbox, all work related, nothing that couldn’t wait until the following day. His head felt like his blood pressure was through the roof, a by-product of a world-class hangover, one of only the first in a litany of tortures his aging body had in store for him as payment for his excesses. The screen of his phone seemed to blur in and out, and he gave up trying to read in favor of finding a bottle of aspirin in the bathroom cabinet.

  Dinah had prepared a large meal by the time he made it out of the bedroom, and he sat down to another cup of coffee and a liter of water as she spooned out heaping portions of chicken, cheese, and tortilla chips slathered in a spicy red sauce – her breakfast specialty, chilaquiles. At first he thought his appetite had deserted him, but after forcing a few mouthfuls he managed to clean his plate and convince her to give him seconds. When he was done, he sat back and patted his belly.

  “This sounds terrible, but all I can think of is going back to sleep for a few hours.”

  She gave him a skeptical look. “Little early for a siesta at eleven, don’t you think?”

  “Can I plead extenuating circumstances?”

  She shook her head and handed him a short list. “I have needs.”

  He read it. “Really? Groceries?”

  “They don’t buy themselves. We’re short a few things, and the walk will do you good.”

  “Nothing will be open.”

  “Of course it will. Don’t procrastinate. When you’re done, then it’s siesta time.”

  Cruz knew Dinah well enough to understand that he’d never win this battle, so he slipped on shoes and his shoulder-holstered Glock, donned a light jacket and a baseball cap, and after swigging another half-liter of water and pocketing the list, kissed her and let himself out the door.

  The day was blustery, partially overcast with a new storm blowing in, but he still put on his sunglasses as he exited the building after telling his men to stand down. A two-block trip to the market didn’t require an escort. They nodded wordlessly, and Cruz wondered whether their night-shift peers had shared the story of him being drunk the prior evening, and then decided he didn’t care.

  There were only a few pedestrians on the wide sidewalk – a man leading a golden retriever, a pair of teenage girls giggling as they strolled arm-in-arm, a middle-aged woman chatting on her cell phone as she ambled by. Cruz set out for the market, the sunlight like daggers on his visual cortex, and wondered to himself whether the entire day was going to be spent suffering.

  He rounded the corner and picked up his pace, determined to will some life into his step, and had about convinced himself that things might steady out when a familiar voice from behind him chilled his blood.

  “Just keep walking. Don’t turn around. Up at the metro stop, go down the stairs, and buy a ticket on the northbound route. I’ll meet you there.”

  “What’s this about?” Cruz demanded, not turning.

  “Don’t say anything more.”

  Cruz kept walking, his mind racing. He hadn’t heard that voice in half a year, but it was the kind of thing you never forgot – and he knew he was one of the very few still alive who would recognize it. He debated continuing past the metro to the market, but decided that if something had drawn El Rey out of hiding and warranted making contact, he’d do his best to find out why.

  He paused at the metro station and checked his watch and then took the stairs down into the depths of the city, where he inserted some coins into a machine and purchased a ticket. As he neared the turnstile, a street urchin ran up, startling him. The little boy’s face was coated in a layer of grime. His clothes were little more than rags, and his hands were filthy. Wary of the city’s young pickpockets, Cruz’s hand automatically drifted to his wallet.

  “Señor. Chiclets?” the child offered, his voice a whine.

  “No. Thanks anyway.”

  “Come on. Only two pesos.”

  “I said no. Now get out of here,” Cruz snapped, his headache and the odd circumstances he found himself in fraying his nerves.

  “What a dick. Here you go,” the little boy said and pressed a crumpled ball of paper into Cruz’s hand before running off between the legs of the other travelers. Cruz didn’t know what to make of the scene, but after several seconds realization dawned, and he unfurled the wadded note. He read the neat handwriting and pocketed it and then slid his ticket into the turnstile and pushed through the barrier.

  The next train arrived in five minutes, and once aboard Cruz didn’t bother to sit down. The cars were almost empty on a weekend, and he eyed the few fellow passengers, none of whom showed the faintest interest in him. He’d been the only passenger to get on at the previous station and was the only one to get off at the next stop, other than an ancient woman with a stooped back who was muttering to herself.

  When he arrived at the street level, he proceeded half a block, rounded the corner, and then turned right in the alley. He made for the street at the end and continued to a restaurant with a sign featuring a charging bull, named, appropriately, Olé Olé!

  Inside, a tall man with a grim countenance looked up from where he was sorting receipts at a podium. Cruz took in the colorful interior festooned with red ribbons and photographs of famous bullfighters as the man eyed him like he was a bill collector.

  “We’re closed.”

  “I was told you have a private dining room.”

  The man didn’t blink. “Up the stairs, first door on the right. It’s open.”

  The dining room door opened with a creak. Cruz entered the garishly painted space and took a seat at the rustic wooden table set for six. He looked at his watch again and wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. The room was quiet except for the sound of traffic outside, the roar of a bus, an occasional horn honk or the buzz-saw whine of a motorcycle. He was growing increasingly irritable when the door opened and the assassin stood in the doorway, barely recognizable in baggy jean shorts, high-top Nike tennis shoes, and a blue basketball jersey, his flat-brimmed baseball cap twisted to the side. El Rey studied him wordlessly as he closed the door behind him and took the seat opposite Cruz, his face giving away nothing.

  “You weren’t tailed. That’s positive,” he said in his distinctive soft voice.

  “Should I be worried about being tailed?”

  El Rey gave a small smile. “You should be worried about everything.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind.” He hesitated, afraid to ask his question, the assassin’s parting words to him as vivid in his mind as though he’d just spoken them: “Remember your promise.” He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “I have some information for you, and I need your help.”

  “I see. What can I do for you?”

  “It’s not what you can do for me, so much, at least not right now. It’s more about what I can do for you.”

  Cruz leaned forward, his face puzzled. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “Someone’s going to try to kill you, and I need to find out why.”

  Cruz’s eyes widened. “Kill me? Good luck. I move around constantly, and I’m surrounded by police, even at home.”

  “Didn’t stop me from finding you, did it? I could have taken you out any of a dozen ways when you left your building. An ice pick to the spine. A slip in front of a tr
uck. A needle stick with curare.”

  Cruz grunted. “How did you know where I live?”

  El Rey’s expressionless face shifted slightly. “I was told.”

  “Told? What the hell are you talking about, told? Nobody knows where I live.”

  “Wrong. And the reason I was told…” The assassin paused. “You don’t look so good. You want some water or something?”

  Cruz shook his head. “No. I won’t be staying long. Anyway, you were saying you were told…?”

  El Rey tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. “That’s right. By the same people who want you dead.”

  “Want me dead,” Cruz repeated slowly.

  The assassin sighed, annoyed, and looked at Cruz like he was addled, taking care to over-enunciate each word so the older man wouldn’t miss anything.

  “Right. They contracted me to kill you.”

  Chapter 27

  Cruz’s gaze held El Rey’s for a long moment before he looked away. “I thought you were out of the game. That’s the official story, isn’t it? No longer a hired gun?”

  “Right. But there was one exception, if you recall.”

  “For CISEN. I remember.” Cruz’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. Are you telling me…?”

  “You owe me a favor. You promised to do whatever needed to be done. Do you remember?”

  “Of course I do. But I’m not going to lie down and die, if that’s what you’re after.”

  “Again, if I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already, and I’d be eating brunch.”