David Corbett - The Devil’s Redhead

He lowered his hand.

“I have met your kind before, Mr. Waxman. You show up a lot in our country, coming down like tourists. Then you go back home and cry about the poor. You pronounce them good, honest, and basically gentle. Like you. All of which is nonsense. You come here to ruin us, Mr. Waxman, how gentle is that? It’s this hypocrisy that makes you so jittery. So false.” Raising a cautionary finger, he concluded, “Trust me, we will not be ruined by the likes of you.”

Moreira burst back into the room, smiling with relief. “I just spoke to our friend,” he said. “He has a response that will be filed with the local media, should Mr. Waxman fail to give up this hoax. And he has a contact at the Commerce Department who will prepare a statement as well.”

Moreira looked about the room, to be sure everyone had heard him. Satisfied, he went to the buffet table, poured himself a cognac and downed it, his back to the room. Facio returned to Waxman the two articles.

“There you have it,” he said. “Write what you want, Mr. Waxman. Disgrace yourself.”

He gestured to the large one, who then lifted Abatangelo from his chair. Facio came forward, picked up Shel’s photograph from the floor where Abatangelo had dropped it and handed it to him, saying, “It is obvious you are very concerned about this woman. But I cannot help you.”

He turned away and joined Moreira by the buffet table. The large one reholstered his weapon and gestured for Waxman and Abatangelo to march ahead of him toward the entry. The same landeno youth who’d greeted them earlier opened the large white door and shut it firmly behind them. The corridor stood empty, dimly lit and still. The large one prodded them down the hall to the elevator, rode down with them in silence and led them out through a rearward corridor to a back entrance opening onto the hotel’s loading dock. He whistled harshly through his teeth, as though to shoo a cat, nodding for them to go. Once they’d climbed down in the dark onto the asphalt, he returned inside and bolted the door.

The rain had worsened, with winds tunneling in cold gusts through the hills. Waxman hiked up his collar against the chill, blinking against the droplets hitting his face. Turning to Abatangelo, he winced and said, “Are you hurt?”

Abatangelo recoiled from the question with an enraged and bitter laugh. He still felt short of breath from fear and his bearings drifted in the darkness. He rested his back against the loading dock, closing his eyes.

“Congratulations, Wax,” he said. “If she isn’t dead already, you just killed her.”

The only thing that stopped Humberto from climbing on top of her one more time was the arrival of food. Another one of the gray-suited ones brought it, a picnic basket with brightly colored napkins that suggested party fare. Humberto chortled with joy and rummaged through the basket, removing a bottle of Chanaco and then announcing with satisfaction what else he found. “Picadillo, quesillas, totopas. Bueno.”

Humberto dug in with his fingers as the newcomer’s glance darted toward Shel. He found her the way Humberto had left her, thrown back on the mattress, legs akilter, jeans in a knot around her knees. She reeked of sex, and it mingled with the coppery scent of fresh blood.

Her head rang with pain and her stomach seethed. The last booster of whatever it was they were shooting her full of had worn off about an hour before, draining from her the bizarre hallucinatory defense she’d had against Humberto’s first few onslaughts but leaving behind an inchoate craving, too. Her mind phased in and out, but every now and then she’d snap to like a rousted dreamer and find herself fixed in the present. In those moments she realized what he’d done to her. Given the chance, she told herself, I’ll kill him.

The newcomer took one look and turned back to Humberto, saying something in a tone of disgust. Humberto shrugged. A moment of uneasy silence ensued between them, then the newcomer sighed, turned and left. Humberto snickered at his back, cracking the seal on the Chanaco. He downed half the bottle in record time, stretching out on his side as he ate and leering at Shel drunkenly from beneath the crucifix nailed to the wall. It was the same spot Snuff’s body had occupied earlier.

“You’re not the first to pull this shit with me,” she told him, aware he did not understand English, not caring. She tugged her pants back up to her hips. “So don’t think you’ve made good on some sick bet with yourself. You want to kill me, you’ve got to shoot me.” She struggled with the zipper. Watching, Humberto licked his fingers. “I’m not gonna fall apart, fucker. I’m not gonna just wither and die. I won’t give you the pleasure.”

As though to drown out what she was saying, he started to sing. His voice was boyishly off-key, and even when repeating the same melodic line he couldn’t hit the notes the same way twice. Not that he cared. He trolled along, one hand lilting back and forth as though to conduct an invisible band.

When the door opened again she figured it was the same man who’d brought the food. He’d thought twice, come back, deciding why not, he’d have a go at the guerita . Why should he miss out?

But it wasn’t him. It was Cesar, though it took a moment for his face to register. His features were drawn, his skin pale. Blood soaked one whole side of his suit jacket, and his left arm hung limp at his side. In his right hand he held a gun that he raised as soon as he broke the plane of the doorway. He fired four times at Humberto, still lying on his side like a glutton. The small whitewashed room amplified the sound of the gunfire. Shel cringed from the echo in her ears as the smoke and the smell of cordite hung in the air and Humberto’s head fell back, his mouth gaping with unchewed food soon gorged with blood.

Cesar staggered over and put one last bullet in Humberto’s face. An explosion of blood sent missiles of flesh and bone across the room. Shel tucked her face inside her arms. Cesar reached down, withdrew Humberto’s weapon and pocketed it. Turning around, he approached the edge of the mattress taking short, dragging steps.

“The thing about stupid people,” he said, panting for breath, “is that they think everybody else is as stupid as they are.”

He shoved his gun into his belt and reached inside his jacket, withdrawing a tangled shred of newspaper streaked with blood. “You stink like a whore,” he said as he tried to unfold the newspaper clipping one-handed. Unable to, he ended up throwing it down. Pointing, he said, “You spoke to the press. Your picture’s there. You have to die.”

Shel looked down at the clipping and pulled its edges apart, sticky from his blood. It was an account of the murder of Duval and Rowena and the man she’d brought home. On the second page was a picture of her, one Danny had taken, beside an old stock photo of Felix Randall.

“El Zopilote demands it,” Cesar said, not so much to her as to the room. “ ‘She needs to disappear. She’s already spoken to a reporter. The reporter’s nosing around out here. Him and some photographer. Tonight. It’s a problem.’ ” He turned back toward Humberto. “Your fucking problem, big shot. Not mine.”

Photographer, Shel thought. Danny. Out here. Tonight.

“Guess what else?” Cesar added, his voice rising. “Francisco Fregado, Frank the Mess? He’s dead. ” He laughed, a spiteful shrieking sound, hissing through his teeth. “Killed himself. Blew himself up. How’s that for apples?”

He flipped his hand at her, like a prod: Go on, say something. Shel’s body sagged. A feeling of unreality numbed her for a moment, then a damning sorrow took hold. “How do you know?”