Josh Stallings - Out There Bad

Leaving the tourist district, it wasn’t long before we were the only pale faces. Through a taqueria’s grease-streaked window, I saw the place was filled with mariachi. An older man in a dusty black suit sat on the curb plucking out a tune on a large bodied guitarron. A young man sat beside him, watching the older player’s hands and trying to follow the melody on his fiddle.

Away from the tourist area street lights were nonexistent. Dense clouds drifted across the moon, blocking out what little light there was. Peter started to look worried as we ventured down darker and poorer streets. “Who the hell would put a cigar shop this far from the main drag? Does this guy think we’re complete idiots? Does this look like the kind of place people go to buy fine cigars?” His mouth was in overdrive, while his mind ground gears. Stopping to tie my boots, I nodded for Peter to hold up. The sidewalk under my foot was split with gaping cracks.

I let Teyo get some distance before I spoke. “Shut the fuck up,” I hissed, “when this deal blows its main bearing, stay behind me and keep your fucking mouth shut.” Shoving my buck knife deeper into the top of my boot, I stood and hurried to catch up with our tip boy.

Stone faced Mexican men watched from the front of a pool hall as we passed. With my hand in the pocket of my jacket, I felt the reassuring diamond cut wood grip of my snubby. A.38 won’t stop a bear, but it will make most men think twice about pushing their luck with you. Were we being set up? Oh hell yes, but the only way to find out by who was to let the little punk play out his hand and hope we were holding enough cards to take the pot when he did.

“I knew you’d want to see this.” Porfiro, a middle-aged cop, held several jobs. The first was to protect the gringos who fed the local economy, the second, to protect the locals from the gringos and each other. His third and best paying job was to keep Santiago informed, and his people out of jail. This job allowed his wife to have a nice house on Gringo Hill, not inside the gate, but Gringo Hill nonetheless, it also afforded his daughter college tuition in Mexico City.

He and Santiago were behind a crime scene tape, the flashlight in Porfiro’s hand illuminated a blood-soaked body. Red slashes had been sliced up and down and the dead man’s clothes hung in tatters. It was as if he had been attacked by a thousand razor-toothed animals. The light’s beam rested on the corpse’s chest, where a blood spattered tarot card had been placed.

“The last thing I need is this getting out.” Santiago knelt and carefully plucked the card from the dead man. “Pimps act afraid and their girls stop obeying, this happens and the order breaks down. Order breaks down and dinero stops flowing. You can see this would be bad for us both?”

“Si claro,” Porfiro said. Whatever was happening between Santiago and this pimp killer was none of his concern. It had nothing to do with the people he had sworn to protect. And if by some strange chance Santiago went down, it would be days before another stepped into his place. And the other would need a willing police officer.

The color drained from Peter’s face as we turned down a dark alley, his lips were white from the effort to keep from running his mouth. The meager light from the street was left behind, the skinny walkway smelled of piss and rot. Reaching out, I grabbed Teyo from behind, clamping a hand over his mouth, I pressed the.38 up under his chin.

“Squeak, mouse boy, give me an excuse to splatter you,” I whispered. He struggled briefly. “Game’s over,” I pressed the short barrel deeper into his soft flesh. “Who the fuck are you taking us to?” He mumbled into my hand, his wide eyes glittering in the dim light.

“He can’t answer with your hand over his mouth,” Peter said.

“Did I say you could speak?”

“No, but…”

“Then shut the fuck up, Petey. If I let this boy talk, he’s going to lie to me, and then do you know what I’m going to have to do? No? I’ll tell you, he lies and I’m going to have to blow the back of his head off. And I’m wearing my favorite jeans. Do you want to clean his brains off them, Petey?”

Peter didn’t answer. My guess is at that moment he didn’t know who he feared more, this punk street rat or me. “Ok, tip boy,” I said, turning my full attention back to my prey, “that day you knew was coming since you squirmed out of your mother’s womb is here. You believe in god?”

He moved his head up and down against the revolver.

“That’s good, but I doubt you’ll be meeting him. You haven’t been a good boy, have you? No, you’ll be headed the other direction. Now you have one, and only one shot at delaying an early retirement. Would you like not to die?”

Again he nodded.

“Then don’t lie to me. One chance, that’s it, no do overs, no I’m sorry. Lie and I pop a cap. Got it?” Slowly I lifted my hand from his mouth. As he started to speak, I clamped it back down. “No, the truth.” It was an easy guess that he would lie, I had to override any tricky thoughts running in his brain with fear.

“I don’t know their name, swear to god,” he said when I finally let him speak. “They gave me a hundred dollars to deliver you to them.”

“Goodbye.” I shoved up on the revolver with sudden force, snapping his head back into the brick alley wall. From the wild look on his face, I was sure he thought he had been shot. When his eyes refocused, all slyness was gone.

“I don’t know their names, these Russians, they want whoever has been looking for them. They say they pay big for you. I swear I didn’t think they would hurt you, you’re my amigo, I not let them hurt you.”

“What, you think they may want to ask me to dance? They seem gay to you?”

“They want to talk, that’s all, talk.”

“Good. Take me to them and we’ll talk.” I pulled the barrel from his neck and slipped it back into my pocket. “Come on, let’s get to it.”

We stepped out of the alley into a small courtyard formed by low apartment buildings. A dead oak stood in the center with its leafless branches reaching like skeleton arms into the night sky. No life showed in any of the apartments, the windows broken and boarded over. Trash mixed with discarded furniture and rotting garbage littered the ground.

“Fuck this, man,” Peter said, backing toward the alley. “I’m out of here.” A stocky man stepped from the shadow of a rusted refrigerator, blocking our exit. At the same moment, two others stood out of the rubble. They surrounded us, even in the dark I could make out the shape of pistols in their hands.

Shoving Teyo to the ground, I dropped and rolled left. The flash and roar of their guns filled the courtyard. But they couldn’t see me any better than I saw them. Crawling on my belly, I got twenty feet left of where they had last seen me. Feeling around, I found a discarded beer bottle. Hurling the bottle over my head, I kneeled into a firing stance. The smashing glass was followed by their muzzle flashes. I snapped off two quick shots and dropped down. Someone was yelling painful Russian curses. As I crawled behind a molting sofa, I heard a girlish shriek that I knew could only be Peter.

“Hey dolboy’eb, we have your droog,” a voice called out. “Maybe I should cut him?”

“Moses!” Peter was crying like the bitch he was. “He has a knife…” His voice was cut off by a gurgling wet yell. Jumping up, I dove over the sofa, several shots flamed, illuminating a man standing by the trunk of the dead tree. Bullets ripped into the debris around me. I fired three quick shots while running toward the oak.

I didn’t need light to know the man was dead. Two of my shots had caught him in the face. Somewhere across the courtyard, the first man I’d shot was moaning. Slipping five new slugs into my.38, I wrist-flicked the cylinder closed and ran at a crouch to the last place I’d seen Peter. To my happy surprise, no bullets followed my movement.