Sean Black - The Devil's bounty

He was talking in riddles — and the smell of whisky was tantalizing. ‘So what?’

The bartender lowered his voice. ‘She came in on her own and sat down next to him.’

The only girls who did that were working girls so Hector didn’t see why the man was so anxious, standing there in the narrow hallway, sweating. He shrugged. Then he wondered if maybe Charlie had done something to her. Hurt her. Killed her even. Surely only that would make the bartender so twitchy.

Hector squeezed the man’s arm. ‘Come on. Spit it out. What’s the problem?’

The bartender leaned in towards him and whispered, ‘She’s American.’

Hector pushed past him, his feet hammering up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He reached the tiny wooden postcard of a landing and threw open the only door.

What confronted him inside told him he had been right. Win-win was for asshole gringos, like Charlie Mendez. For a man like Hector there was only ever lose-lose.

Contrary to its carefully cultivated image as a hotbed of decadence and debauchery, Los Angeles was an early-to-bed, early-to-rise city. There was too much money out there and up for grabs for it not to be. It wasn’t even seven in the morning but the diner on the corner of Melrose and Lankershim already had half a dozen people waiting for a table.

In a corner booth, Lock took a sip of coffee and pushed a half-eaten Western omelette around his plate while Ty continued to shovel up a mountain of food. They had walked there from the hotel, Lock wanting to make doubly sure that the surveillance they had been under had ceased. Not that it mattered. A new security team had already moved in to take over the coat-holding and car-door-opening duties demanded by Triple-C, but when it came to Mendez they were still at square one. Despite contacting everyone who might be able to lead them to him, there had been no new sightings, no fresh intelligence of any description.

Ty wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and belched. ‘So what’s the plan, Senor Lock?

‘Apart from you maybe getting some table manners?’

‘Sorry about that, just came out.’

‘So what do you mean, “What’s the plan?”’

‘Well, we going to go down there and get this asshole or what?’

Lock eyed him over the table. ‘Slight hitch, Senor Johnson.’

Ty smiled and scooped up some more food. Lock swore that his partner had hollow legs. Ty could eat all day every day and not put on a pound. It was irritating in the extreme.

‘Like we don’t have a goddamn clue where he is?’ Ty said.

Lock cleared his throat. ‘There’s that. But what if he never surfaces? Do we just let it go?’

‘Can’t do that either, can we?’

‘Okay. Let’s set ourselves a deadline. If we knew right now where he was, how long do you think we’d need to put everything together for a hostile extraction?’ Lock asked.

‘Day, maybe two.’

Lock signalled to the waitress for the check. ‘Two days’ time we head down there. If we don’t know where he is, maybe we can flush him out.’

‘Or get ourselves killed,’ said Ty.

Lock lifted his coffee mug and clinked it against Ty’s glass of orange juice. ‘That’s always an option too.’

The waitress dropped by with the check. Ty gave her his patented never-fails smile. She ignored him but took Lock’s credit card and came back with her phone number, which she had written on the back of the receipt.

Ty stared at it as she walked away. ‘You gonna call her? I mean the girl’s eyesight’s clearly not the best, but she is kind of cute.’

‘Don’t go there.’

‘What? You gonna be a monk the rest of your life? You gonna give yourself a bad case of DSB?’

Lock grimaced, knowing he would regret asking the obvious question. ‘DSB?’

‘Deadly Sperm Back-up, brother. Messes up a dude’s mind if he holds on to that dirty water too long.’

Lock pushed away his plate. ‘Can’t understand why you don’t get yourself more dates, Ty. Real old-school charmer such as yourself.’

Ty open-palmed an apology. ‘Hey, I’m just sayin’.’

‘Well, don’t.’

Ty’s BlackBerry chimed. He picked it up and took a look at the screen, then clicked the read button to open the email that had just dropped into his inbox.

‘Something?’ Lock asked him.

‘That break we needed?’ Ty said. ‘American guy I’ve been talking to down there who’s plugged into one or two of the local crews. He thinks he spotted Mendez in a bar.’

‘When?’

‘Last night,’ smiled Ty.

‘Where?’

‘Little town outside Santa Maria called Diablo.’

Lock tried to think back to his map. He was sure he’d registered that name. ‘Wasn’t that close to where Brady found him the last time?’

‘Think so.’ Ty thumbed further down the email. ‘Looks like he wasn’t alone either.’

‘Security?’ Lock asked.

Ty’s expression clouded. ‘Doesn’t mention it here but there was an American girl.’

Lock was already at the door. ‘Think we’d better move that departure date up.’

‘A day?’

‘No,’ said Lock. ‘We leave now.’

‘I can be good to go in an hour.’

‘Make it thirty minutes,’ said Lock, shouldering out on to the sidewalk.

The Audi would stay where it was. Lock gave the valet who had seen it in its blood-drenched condition a hefty tip to take it out of the garage and drive it around Los Angeles on a pre-determined schedule that broadly correlated to his previous movements over the past week: a car that didn’t move would alert the suspicion of anyone still monitoring the tracking device.

In his hotel room, he gathered some of his belongings. He left some clothes on hangers in the wardrobes in case someone decided to take a closer look. He also left his toothbrush and razor. The toothbrush he would replace; the razor could go unused. He hadn’t shaved for the past week, figuring that if Mendez had changed his appearance to deflect attention then so would he.

The hotel was paid for until the end of the following week. That was the time-frame Lock had allowed to locate, kidnap and repatriate Mendez. If it took any longer than ten days they could keep the rest of his stuff or throw it away: the chances were that he wasn’t coming back.

He pulled a pre-packed duffel bag on to his shoulders and took one last look at the room, then left. In the corridor, Ty was waiting for him. They walked in silence to the elevator and rode it down to the parking garage. They got out and went to a white Ford Ranger double-cab pick-up truck.

They slung their bags into the back. The Ranger would take them over the border where they would switch vehicles. Ty got behind the wheel and drove out of the garage, both men on the lookout for someone following them.

Lock pulled a picture of Charlie Mendez from his jacket pocket and clipped it to the sun visor as a reminder. Mendez stared back at him with a broad grin. If Lock had his way, he wouldn’t be smiling for much longer.

They took Interstate 5 as far south as San Diego, then picked up the Kumeyaay Highway and began to head east through the Cleveland National Forest. Finally, Ty broached the subject that had been preying on their minds. ‘He was seen with a girl. You think he was…?’

Lock stared out of the window at the dry, scrubby desert, as the road flirted with the Rio Grande only to switch north again. ‘A leopard doesn’t change its spots.’

Towering roadside crosses, painted pink and entwined with dried flowers, greeted Lock and Ty as they crested the hill, the border area of Mexico laid out beneath them. Lock counted six of the twenty-foot-high wooden structures. A hundred yards down the road they came to four more, one after another, high desert stretching off into the distance on either side of the highway. He waved for Ty to pull the white Ranger into the side of the road.