by Matt Rogers
‘Um … I don’t know,’ Raul said, only half-interested. ‘I can’t remember.’
He sounded fazed out again. King looked across and saw his eyes had grown distant. They were damp. King bowed his head. He imagined Luis’ death would not stop haunting Raul for years.
‘Are you okay?’
Raul sniffed and wiped his eyes with a putrid sleeve. ‘Don’t know, man. Let’s just check it out, please. I just want to see them…’
King’s gut twisted into a knot as they pushed the reception doors open and stepped into a humid, claustrophobic lobby area. He shared the same feeling that Raul had described.
A strong premonition that no good would come of this investigation.
An overweight middle-aged woman sat behind a small desk facing the entrance. She didn’t smile or utter a greeting as they entered. She simply stared with a deadpan expression. She said something in Spanish to Raul. It came out harsh and obtrusive. Raul responded with a question, and she answered. His face lit up and he turned to King.
‘She says they’re here,’ he said. ‘They’ve been paying rent ever since we left. She’s seen them around.’
King felt relief. He didn’t want to picture what state Raul would enter if they had stumbled across a pair of bodies. And he wouldn’t have put it past Rico and his men to deliver such a statement after both brothers had been thrown in jail.
‘How did they manage to afford it?’ he said.
‘Does it look like I know?’
‘Let’s go then.’
They entered a dark and cramped stairwell, illuminated faintly by the odd flickering bulb every couple of levels. Raul took the stairs three at a time, motivated by nervous energy. King tried to relate to the man’s excitement. But he had no loved ones. He had no connections. That had come with his career. He could have spent the rest of his life in El Infierno without anyone on the planet batting an eyelid.
He followed Raul, scouting each floor for any signs of hostile intentions. Nothing. Each hallway branching off from the main stairwell was deserted. The whole building felt abandoned, even though it was a residential area.
Raul stopped on the sixth floor and led King through several nondescript corridors, all indistinguishable from each other, all filthy. Spiderwebs covered light fixtures and clusters of loose wiring and insulation hung through holes in the ceiling. They paused at a plain black door.
‘This is it,’ Raul said, his hands shaking.
King debated between leading the way in or hanging back. If Raul’s mother and sister were indeed here, he would place himself awkwardly between a family reunion. But if Movers had somehow made it to the complex in time and were lying in wait, he didn’t want Raul storming head-first into a slaughterhouse.
In the end, saner heads prevailed. There were no long-term consequences to scaring Raul’s family. If they were gunned down upon entering, that would be slightly more inconvenient. King pushed Raul aside and placed a hand on the doorknob.
‘What are you doing?’ Raul said.
‘Just in case.’
He pressed his ear against the door, listening intently. He heard nothing. Not a peep. Either Ana and her mother were asleep, or someone had a gun trained on the door, waiting patiently for both of them to step through and be eliminated.
In one motion, King twisted and shouldered the door aside, bursting into the apartment. His blood pumped as he assessed its contents. He was ready to kill.
But that would not be necessary.
For it quickly became clear that the apartment had been abandoned for a while.
CHAPTER 29
King passed through a narrow entranceway into a space containing both a kitchen and a living room — separated by a partition. At first glance, everything seemed normal. The apartment had a homely feel to it. A few quilts lay draped over furniture; maybe a pastime of Raul’s mother, maybe store-purchased.
Then, in the corner, he saw it.
A chair lay overturned.
He noticed this with a tightening stomach. Doubt crept in as he scanned the rest of the apartment. There was a scuff mark on the arm of one couch. Freshly formed. Like someone had clawed it to prevent being dragged away. Discrepancies began to appear. A vase rested on the carpet near the kitchen bench, still in one piece. Like it had been knocked off the bench in a scuffle.
‘They’re not here, Raul,’ King said. ‘This doesn’t look good.’
Raul gazed around the room, misty-eyed. Probably recalling prior memories.
‘How can you be sure?’ he said. ‘What if they’re at the shops or something?’
‘They’re not.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I know when things aren’t right.’
‘Things aren’t right here?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
Raul crossed to the kitchen and began ruffling through the bills and notices that littered the surface of the bench. Searching for any kind of hint as to what had happened. Or maybe just determined to get his hands on concrete evidence that his mother and sister had gone on living here after he and Luis had been locked away.
King watched with a certain disconnect. He had an idea as to what had happened, but he didn’t feel it was the right time to share such information. Especially not after Raul’s devastating loss less than an hour ago.
He would be a broken man if King told him that his entire family was likely dead.
Raul shifted a stack of loose documents aside and picked up a small scrap of paper. He studied it hard. An expression of disbelief crossed his face.
‘Whoa…’ he whispered.
King crossed the room. ‘What’s that?’
‘José Guerra.’
‘Huh?’
‘An old friend. This is his name and number. It’s his handwriting too.’
King snatched the paper from Raul and glanced at it. Sure enough, contact information had been scrawled across the lined paper in freehand.
‘Who is he?’
‘A small-time arms dealer. We grew up together. He’s the one who taught me English — the childhood friend I spoke of. His parents lived in Britain for a few years. They’re fluent, so he’s fluent. Now I’m almost fluent.’
‘How small-time?’
‘Well, he was small-time. Then I put him in contact with the Movers when I started working for them. They talked. I think they were finalising negotiations when Luis and I were arrested.’
‘Negotiations?’
‘There were rumours in the pipeline that Rico was looking for a new supplier. That’s why I introduced them to José. He’d been expanding for a few years, selling black market weapons to low-level crooks. He’d just started importing higher-quality gear when I told him that the Movers might be looking for a supplier.’
‘Lot of money in that.’
‘Sure is.’
‘How close were you?’
‘Very. But he hadn’t seen my family in years — I think he was ashamed of what he’d become. He used to live round here. He’d come visit every single day. Mamá would cook us meals, and he’d teach me English. Then that began to fade. We were still close, but we kept our personal lives apart.’
‘How long since that went on?’
‘Five, six years. Maybe more.’
‘So his number shouldn’t be here?’
‘Maybe he’s been helping them. Maybe he knows where they are. We need to find him.’
Just then, the kitchen window shattered into thousands of shards. King recoiled at the noise and ducked his head instinctively, aware that a bullet must have already passed them by. He wrapped an arm around Raul and dove to the kitchen floor, hitting the linoleum hard.
Knowing that more gunfire would follow, he scrambled to the nearest cabinet and pressed his back against the surface. There were several windows in the apartment. He wasn’t sure which would bring the next round.
‘Fuck!’ Raul screamed.
King wrapped a hand around the man’s collar and held up a finger. ‘Quiet.’
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Fragments of glass trickled off the pane and into the sink. It created a pitter-patter effect, harshly juxtaposed against the burst of gunfire that had sounded moments earlier. As King held Raul down, another volley of shots broke the silence. These dotted the entranceway, gouging out chunks of plaster, shattering the vase on the coffee table by the front door.
All the gunfire came through the same window. King noted this, and figured that the Movers had yet to surround the apartment entirely. There was a man in the neighbouring building, evident from the direction of the shots. The other windows faced out onto the street. It would take a noteworthy vantage point to cover those.
‘There’s only one of them,’ he told Raul. ‘Stay low. Head for the door.’
He swore at his own idiocy. The AK-103 he’d escaped El Infierno with lay useless on the back seat of the stolen hatchback. He hadn’t brought it into the building in order to save a panic at the sight of an assault rifle in a residential area. Now, he realised that was the least of his problems. The Movers were fast. Rico must have got the word out instantaneously.
They couldn’t have been free from prison for more than an hour.
He noticed a rolling pin on the kitchen counter just above his head. Thick and sturdy and wooden. He reached up and lifted it off, then threw it at an upward diagonal angle like a pitcher hurling a fast ball. The exertion behind the heave sent it shooting out the open window frame, turning end over end. He heard a window shatter in the neighbouring building.
Zero chance of doing any damage.
But maybe enough to make the sharpshooter flinch. Drop his aim for a fraction of a second.
King scrambled to his feet as soon as the rolling pin left his hands, tugging Raul along with him. They fled down the length of the kitchen and reached the front door in a matter of seconds.
He threw it open and hurtled out into the hallway.
And ran directly into two armed men in the process of charging into the apartment.
CHAPTER 30
Most people — no matter how adept in combat — were stunned by rapid bursts of violence. He made use of the confusion, lashing out as soon as he recognised the presence of hostiles.
The guy on the left was tiny, almost an entire foot shorter than King. He had short hair and the shadow of a beard. He gripped a dirty Taurus 24/7 handgun — the same as Tevin’s. To compensate for his slight stature it seemed he’d spent half his life in the gym, to the point that he resembled a small round ball of muscle.
It wouldn’t do him any good.
Charged with adrenalin, King smashed the man’s gun away. He picked him up from the torso and hurled him into the second man, who had been in the process of locking on his aim. He was taller and wielded an identical pistol. The first man crashed into him and they both tumbled to the carpeted floor of the corridor.
King didn’t hesitate.
He went through the motions, which were second nature to him. He used the moment of utter panic to crouch down and scoop up the Taurus that the first man had dropped. He got a finger in the trigger guard.
The two hitmen began to scramble to their feet.
King shot the shorter one in the head. He lined it up perfectly and fired, noting the man’s death in a spray of gore. The guy had been in the process of getting his feet under him, but the impact killed him instantly and he fell back, trapping his partner under his own deadweight. It took little effort at all for King to send a second bullet through the base of his friend’s skull. The second guy went instantly limp. Blood pooled across the floor.
‘What the fuck!’ Raul said, staring at the two bodies. ‘Oh my God.’
King turned to him. ‘What? Did you want me to let them live?’
‘I don’t know, man. Do what you gotta do.’
King held up the Taurus. ‘They were here for one reason, Raul. Not my fault they ran into me.’
‘Okay, okay. Let’s go.’
King retrieved the second Taurus and handed it to Raul. He knew they had to move quickly. The unsuppressed gunshots would have drawn the attention of every resident in the complex. It wouldn’t take long for commotion to break out. The last thing he wanted was to find himself trapped in a mad rush for the stairwell as everyone exited their apartments in unison. He relayed this concern to Raul.
The man laughed. ‘Are you crazy?’
King stared at him, confused.
‘Look around,’ Raul said. ‘Gunshots aren’t very far from normal. No-one’s panicking.’
‘Ah. Never mind then.’
They set off down the corridor. King re-entered the stairwell first and descended slowly, Taurus raised, ready for any confrontation that may occur. He didn’t imagine that the Movers would send more than three men. He guessed their forces weren’t limitless. And the sharpshooter in the adjacent building would take too long to leave his position. He’d missed his first shot, and it had all been downhill from there.
‘Do you still have José’s number?’ he said.
Raul nodded and held up the scrap of paper.
‘We might need to chase that up,’ King said.
‘Now?’
‘No, not now. We’ve barely been out of El Infierno an hour. Every gangster in the city is going to be searching for us. Time to lay low for a while.’
King stepped out into the lobby, not bothering to hide the Taurus. If more Movers came rushing in through the entrance, he needed to be ready. It didn’t matter what the receptionist thought. She could wet herself for all he cared.
In the end, she simply gave both men a passing glance. Noted the guns in their hands. Recognised that she was not the object of concern. Turned back to her newspaper and flicked the pages with nonchalance.
He paused by the entranceway, sensing Raul come to a halt behind him. He glanced out into the carport. From what he could see it, the lot was deserted. The neighbouring building that the rifle fire had come from was blocked from view, but it couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes since they left Raul’s apartment. He assumed it was safe.
He kept the Taurus raised as he stepped out into open ground. He half-expected a bullet to punch through the back of his head and shut him down forever. If that happened, he would never know. It would simply flick the off-switch.
There were worse ways to die.
Given what had occurred over the course of his life, he wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if his luck finally decided to run out.
They got back in the hatchback and King fired it up and reversed out of the parking space.
‘Where to?’ Raul said.
‘The hotel I was staying at still has a few things I need,’ King said. ‘My passport, my wallet, a few fresh pairs of clothes.’
‘You’d risk going back there for some clothes?’
‘Emphasis on the passport, Raul.’
‘What if they call the police?’
‘I can deal with that. There’ll be worse problems than that if I can’t leave the country. No offence, but I don’t want to stay in Venezuela a moment longer than is absolutely necessary.’
‘Oh, believe me, that’s understood. Won’t they just arrest you at the airport though?’
King paused. ‘How would they do that?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I had no trial. They threw me in there solely based on Rico’s instructions. I wasn’t an official prisoner by any means. They didn’t even ID me. They just kept me in a holding cell overnight and then transferred me across. The entire thing was off the books.’
‘What if they tell airport security to keep a lookout for you? You’re fairly noticeable.’
‘Then I’ll retaliate. You can be sure as shit I won’t go willingly this time. I had slight faith in the justice system here a few days ago. That’s gone.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then Plan B.’
‘Which is?’
‘Old friends. Contacts in the military. Higher-ups. They’ll get me out of here. It’ll just take lo
nger.’
‘Your life sounds like insanity.’
‘It is.’
He drove on.
CHAPTER 31
The hatchback crawled through the mid-morning traffic, entering the heart of Maiquetía. King looked around as they drove, admiring the culture — but he didn’t want anything to do with the country any longer.
Your whole system can go fuck itself, he thought.
It took ten minutes to reach Diamanté Resort, and in that time their surroundings underwent a dramatic transformation. The dilapidation vanished. The roads became cleaner, the air seemingly fresher, the atmosphere more relaxed. This was the tourist district. Little chance of a war between drug cartels occurring in these parts. He turned the car onto a pristine road running along the beach. Parallel to them, the Caribbean Sea twinkled in the sun.
Raul stared in awe. ‘Never used to come to these parts. I look like a local thug. The police would always chase me away.’
King pulled into an enormous parking lot filled with luxury cars. He ignored the questioning glances from the valet. The beat-up hatchback stood out against the other vehicles.
He and Raul got out and made for the lobby. He recalled the high-ceilinged reception area, complete with vast walls of marble and a broad sweeping desk housing more than ten receptionists in pristine uniform.
King drew the attention of everyone in the building as he entered. He knew he was a mess. His clothes were now three days old, covered in dried mud. Blood dotted his collar — not his own. Cuts and bruises littered his exposed skin. Dirt caked his fingernails. His right cheek had swollen from the beatings it had sustained.
For a moment, he felt detached from reality. Two hours ago, he’d been in the midst of a wild brawl between prison inmates and Guardia Nacional, fighting for his life, knocking brutish thugs senseless left and right. Now he stood in utter luxury as a free man.
He took the lead and approached the front desk. Raul followed tentatively. King wasted no time in making his intentions clear. He withdrew the rest of the money in his pocket — probably over twenty thousand bolivares — and slapped it down on the table. Then he looked at the well-groomed man in front of him. The man recognised him. He’d been the one to secure the penthouse suite for King several days ago.