The Devil You Know

by Robert Swartwood

  Ibarra turned back to them as he disconnected his call.

  He said to Serrano, “We need to leave.”

  Serrano said, “Where?”

  “Pátzcuaro.”

  Pátzcuaro was a town located in Michoacán.

  Carlos said, “What’s in Pátzcuaro?”

  The agents traded a quick glance before Ibarra cleared his throat.

  “Earlier this morning the Devil attacked a convoy. They had been working as a decoy to lure him out with the idea they were transporting the wife and children. One of the men was missing, from what we understand, and it’s believed the Devil tortured him for information.”

  Ramon said, “What kind of information?”

  “The whereabouts of the wife and children.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because their bodies were just found.”

  There was a brief silence as the men digested this new information, and then Carlos shook his head.

  “Wait a minute. Pátzcuaro has to be at least one thousand kilometers from here.”

  The agents said nothing.

  Carlos said, “Just to be clear, do either of you think this man was killed by the Devil?”

  The agents said nothing.

  Carlos said, “You guys have been a lot of help, you know that?”

  Serrano said, “We need to head out. Send us updates as they come in.”

  The PFM agents left them and hurried up the alleyway toward where they’d parked their car.

  Carlos watched them and muttered, “Assholes.”

  He and Ramon stayed motionless for a long time, both staring down at the body in the barrel.

  Carlos lit a cigarette and shook his head.

  “Who in the hell did you piss off, Miguel?”

  Forty-One

  Dorado sits perched on Yolanda’s lap, staring at me.

  I sit on the couch across from Yolanda, staring back at the cat.

  It’s late in the day now, the sun already starting to fade, and the narcos haven’t made another attempt to enter the town. So we’ve been waiting here in the house, Yolanda and I, and as I don’t feel much like talking, we’ve mostly just been sitting in silence.

  “Would your parents be proud of you?”

  The old woman’s question catches me off guard. I glance up at her, breaking my staring contest with Dorado.

  “What kind of question is that?”

  Dorado, triumphant with his staring contest win, hops off Yolanda’s lap and scurries out of the room into the kitchen.

  Yolanda says, “A simple question. Would your parents be proud of you?”

  This gives me pause. Truth is, I’ve never really thought about it. Or, well, if I had thought about it, I didn’t care much. But is that true? Screw this—I decide to throw the question back at the old woman.

  “Were you proud of your son?”

  Maybe it’s the way I say it—a little too glib—but something changes in her face. It’s clear I’ve hit a nerve.

  I sigh, leaning forward on the couch.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

  She watches me for a long moment, then shakes her head.

  “No, I deserved it. I was making you uncomfortable, so you decided to make me uncomfortable.”

  Neither one of us says anything for a long time.

  Dorado reenters the room. He stands there for a couple seconds, looking toward Yolanda and then toward me, before lying down on the carpet to stretch.

  Yolanda says, “They will come back, won’t they?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She holds her gaze steady with mine.

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Fine. Yes, they will come back. When, I have no idea, but you said it yourself, Fernando isn’t like his father. He’s more vicious. He won’t be able to let go of what happened today.”

  Again, neither one of us says anything for a long time. We watch the cat, stretching on the carpet, until he rolls over onto his feet and pads over to Yolanda. He sits in front of her and meows.

  She leans forward.

  “Are you hungry?”

  Another meow.

  “You ate a half hour ago. You do not need anymore. What you do need is to lose some weight.”

  The cat meows a third time, like a protest, and then scurries back into the kitchen.

  I say, “My mother doesn’t know what it is I do.”

  Yolanda looks like she was about to push herself out of her chair to follow Dorado into the kitchen. Clearly, she’s ready to give in to the cat. But she pauses and glances up at me.

  “And what is it that you do?”

  “I can’t tell you. But I recently walked away from my job. And my mother, she never knew what it was I really did. The same with my father; she never knew what he really did. She’s been lied to for the better part of half her life. Or no—not lied to. It was never something intentionally devious. Just her … ignorance was meant to keep her safe.”

  I shake my head again.

  “Never mind. I feel like I’m rambling. I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. But my mother … I think she always wanted something better for me. And she’s always been disappointed that I didn’t turn out differently. Or at least the way she thinks I should have turned out. Except the truth is she has no idea what I’ve done. All the people I’ve killed. I should be ashamed about it, I guess, but all those people were bad people. And to keep my mother safe, she’ll never be able to know the truth. She’ll always … be disappointed in me.”

  Silence again. After a couple moments, Yolanda looks like she’s going to say something, but that’s when the front door opens.

  I reach for the Glock as I stand and turn toward the door.

  The boy from earlier hurries inside, a cell phone swinging in his hand.

  Yolanda asks, “What’s wrong?”

  The boy pauses to catch his breath. Then he holds up the phone, its screen facing us.

  “La Baliza. This was posted … a couple minutes … ago.”

  The boy steps forward and hands me the phone. The webpage is centered on a video. The headline reads JOURNALIST WHORE.

  A dark foreboding tinge in my stomach, I press the play button.

  At first the video is shaky, so it’s unclear what’s going on, but soon the camera steadies and focuses on a girl kneeling on the ground. A cinderblock wall is behind her. The girl’s been stripped of her clothes and is completely naked, making it easy to see the bruises that have already been inflicted on her body. Her hands are tied behind her back, and tape covers her mouth.

  Somebody behind the camera—maybe the cameraman himself—tells her to look up.

  Gabriela looks up.

  For an instant, she looks defiant. There are tears in her eyes, and her face is bruised and bloody, strands of bloody hair clinging to her face, but the defiance that flashes in her eyes gives me hope, if only for an instant. Because then, a second later, that defiance blinks out and is replaced by fear.

  Yolanda is on her feet now, and with the help of her cane, she shuffles over to where I’m standing, frozen. The moment she sees what’s on the cell phone’s screen, she murmurs a quick prayer.

  She says, “Turn it off. Do not give them what they want.”

  But I can’t turn it off. I can’t stop watching. This may be what the narcos want—after all, who else would post what is most certainly a snuff film—but I can’t look away.

  I hear myself say something, but the voice doesn’t sound like my own.

  “I need a car.”

  Yolanda says, “What?”

  “I need a car.”

  Yolanda tells the boy to hurry out and find somebody who will loan me a car. The boy turns and sprints out of the house.

  I keep staring at the screen.

  Two men step into view, both of them masked. They have tools, and they use those tools like they’ve used them many times before.

  I don’t stop watching. I can’t look away.

>   Because of the tape covering Gabriela’s mouth, her screams are muffled, but they still cause a chill to race down my spine.

  Yolanda is still in the room with me—I can sense her there—but it’s the cell phone I keep watching, because the men take their time. They take turns. And Gabriela, despite the tape over her mouth, screams and cries and then screams some more.

  How much time has passed since the video started is hard to say—five minutes, maybe, ten minutes—but at one point Yolanda’s voice drifts in and snaps me out of my fugue state.

  “A car is waiting outside.”

  But I don’t react. I keep watching—the men leaning over Gabriela with their tools, twisting and tearing and rending flesh—until Yolanda grabs the cell phone and rips it from my trembling hand.

  I stare into space for an instant—into the void where the screen was just moments ago, so many thousands of pixels working to show Gabriela being tortured—and then I blink and turn my head to look at Yolanda.

  She stares hard at me, the cell phone clutched to her chest, and says one word.

  “Go.”

  Forty-Two

  I park three blocks away from the house, what feels like a safe distance, though for an instant I second-guess myself because adrenaline is still surging through my veins. I take a moment to try to calm myself, to simply breathe, and I’m surprised I managed to make it all this way without getting pulled over. I must have been doing at least one hundred miles per hour at some points, and now I’m here, three blocks away from Gabriela’s house.

  I shut off the engine and open my door. I don’t get out at first, scanning the empty street. With the door open, I can hear the sounds of the city, but nothing strikes me as off.

  Gun in hand, I step out of the car and quietly shut the door and start down the block.

  A minute later I’m standing on the street outside Gabriela’s house. The garage door is closed, but the gate has been forced open.

  In the back of my mind I know this might be a trap. Narcos could be inside, just waiting for me to finally show myself. A few could even be positioned on rooftops right now, rifle sights leveled on my head.

  I look up and down the street one last time before pushing the gate open and entering the yard.

  I slip a penlight from my pocket as I approach the front door. Shine the light at the door and, yes, it has been forced open too, the lock smashed. The door has been pushed closed, so anybody from the street would think nothing of it.

  Part of me knows that I need to be careful right now—those narcos could be right inside, holding their breath with anticipation as they aim their rifles at the door—but at this moment I’m not thinking straight. It’s reckless, I know, but I can’t help it. I don’t open the door quietly but instead kick it open and charge inside, my gun raised, the penlight sweeping back and forth searching for any movement.

  Nothing.

  The living room is empty.

  Except, well, not quite.

  Gabriela’s grandmother sits in her chair in the corner. Her head is down, like she’s dozed off, only I know she’s not sleeping.

  The front of her shirt is dark with blood.

  I quickly approach and duck down, shining the penlight at her face. The bastards sliced her throat. All things considered, it’s a small mercy.

  It doesn’t take long to search the rest of the house. The place has been ransacked, but there’s nothing to find on either floor.

  In Gabriela’s room, the computer on her desk has been destroyed. I’m not sure what the thinking was behind that, but obviously they had used her computer to upload the video to La Baliza and then they had—

  Wait.

  Why come back here to upload the video on her computer? That seems like too much work. Like too much chance of getting caught. Unless …

  “Shit.”

  I whisper it as I rush out of the room, down the stairs, through the house toward the door that leads into the garage.

  The smell hits me almost instantaneously. It’s not a stench, not yet, but it’s certainly ripe. After all, it couldn’t have been more than two hours since those men were here. The body, in many respects, is still fresh.

  I don’t bother with the penlight. I flick on the switch just inside the door and the single bulb in the ceiling blinks to life.

  I didn’t recognize the cinderblock wall of the garage in the video, but maybe that’s because my focus was on something else. But this is where they did it. Where they stripped her naked and bound her wrists and ankles and slapped tape over her mouth and forced her on her knees so that they could record. Everything those two masked men did happened right here, just feet away from where Gabriela’s grandmother sat dead in her chair with her face tilted down like she was taking a nap.

  The men didn’t bother cleaning up their crime. They even left the tools behind—the tools, I now realize, which were already in this garage. A cabinet in the corner has been busted open, and that’s where the men found the screwdrivers and hammers and saw. Those tools now lie bloodied on the floor around the pieces left of Gabriela.

  I don’t know how long I stand there staring, the gun gripped tightly at my side. Blood is screaming in my ears, and my heart is going so fast it slams against my ribcage, and it takes everything I have at that moment not to shout and scream and cry out my frustration.

  Then I blink, and I’m able to move again.

  I turn and flick off the light and close the door and make my way back outside the house.

  Narcos aren’t waiting for me on the street. Neither are the police. The street is empty.

  I keep the gun at my side as I head toward where I parked the car three blocks away. After the first block, I slip the disposable phone from my pocket and punch in the number I had memorized a week before. I place the phone to my ear and I listen to it ring and then I listen to the prerecorded message for Scout Dry Cleaners, and when the beep sounds, I tell Atticus to call me ASAP.

  He calls back a minute later. By that point I’m in the car and driving back through the streets toward the highway.

  “I need two things, Atticus.”

  He says, “It’s nice to talk to you too, Holly.”

  This causes me to clench my teeth. I want to tear into him, tell him not to fucking start with me, but instead I relay today’s events as quickly as possible so that he’ll understand what’s just happened.

  He’s quiet for a long moment, and then he clears his throat.

  “I’m sorry, Holly. What do you need?”

  I tell him the first thing. I know it’s a long shot, but I figure if anybody has the resources to do it—or can find somebody who does—it’s Atticus.

  He says, “It’s not going to be easy, but I’ll see what I can do. What’s the other thing you need?”

  “Nova.”

  Part Three

  The Devil

  Forty-Three

  At just past two o’clock in the afternoon, Nova Bartkowski steps through one of the exits of Guadalajara International Airport. He’s dressed nicer than I expected—khakis and a dress shirt—and he has a luggage bag strapped over his shoulder. Sunglasses cover his face, so I can’t tell if he sees me at first. I’m standing across the drop-off area by the first terminal. I stand there, waiting, until Nova has time to scan the people and the cars and then he nods briefly and crosses over to me.

  I say, “Welcome to Mexico.”

  He tilts his head down to look at me over the rims of the sunglasses, but he doesn’t say anything.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Wanted to make sure it was you. Feels like a long time since I saw you last.”

  In reality it’s been one week since we parted ways. I had just killed Javier Diaz and his men in the elevator of my apartment building. Nova had shown up to help clean up the mess. And then that was it. One week, but yet it did feel like a long time.

  He says, “Atticus told me you were in Culiacán.”

  “That’s right.”

  �
�So then why did I just fly into Guadalajara?”

  “How much did Atticus tell you?”

  “He said that you needed my help. Something about a serial killer.”

  “That’s part of it, yeah.”

  He raises an eyebrow.

  “There’s more?”

  I grin and motion for him to follow me toward the car.

  “Of course, Nova. There’s always more. By the way, what’s in the bag?”

  “Just some clothes. Also your new passport and identification.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. James gave it to me. I mean, I think it’s your new passport and identification. I’m not fluent in Sign Language.”

  James is Atticus’s assistant—at least, that’s how I’ve come to think of him—and he’s deaf.

  “When did you see James?”

  “He met me at the airport before I flew out. You know I came in on a private jet, right?”

  “Atticus said that was the plan. Was it nice?”

  “Is the Pope Catholic?”

  We reach the car—the same car I’d driven the previous night to Gabriela’s—and I pop the truck for Nova to put in his bag. There’s a blanket in the trunk, and I shift it to reveal a brushed chrome Desert Eagle 1911 hiding underneath.

  Nova says, “Thank God. I was starting to feel naked without a piece on me.”

  He sets the bag in the trunk and grabs the pistol, checks the mag, then stuffs it in the back waistband of his khakis.

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “Stole it from some narcos.”

  “Nice.”

  He zips open the bag, rummages inside, and pulls out a Holy Bible.

  “Here you go.”

  I take the Bible and say, “Um, thanks?”

  “The passport and ID are stitched in the front and back flaps.”

  I’m tempted to tear the book apart, eager to learn the name of my new identity, but that will have to wait. I toss the Bible in the trunk and slam the lid shut and offer the keys to Nova.