Sean Black - The Devil's bounty

She nodded, watching him carefully as he removed it from the holster, ejected the clip, put both down separately and slid them with his foot across the floor towards her.

‘Raise your arms above your head and turn around,’ she said.

He did as she asked, although it was more of a shuffle than a turn. She knelt down and picked up the clip and the gun. She emptied the clip and made sure the chamber was clear. When she was finished she asked him to turn back to face her.

A silence settled between them.

‘You came to kill me?’ she asked him.

He gave a nod, staring at her with the same sad eyes. ‘Yes.’

At least he was honest, Rafaela thought. Stepping back, she motioned for Hector to move ahead of her. ‘You’re alone?’ she asked, careful not to turn her back to him.

‘That’s how I work. It’s better that way.’

She motioned for him to take a seat on the couch. She could hear it creak as he sank down into it, the cushions folding in under him. He looked up at her. ‘What now?’ The question drew a smile. ‘You found me in your apartment, you know why I’m here. You have a badge. And a gun. You kill me, it would be accepted.’

‘But you’re a fellow officer,’ she said.

‘You know what I am,’ he replied.

He tilted his head back and looked up at the ceiling. ‘It’s what I would do if I were you.’

‘Is it that or is it that you don’t want to live?’

His huge shoulders heaved. ‘I live. I don’t live. If I cared about my life how could I do these things? You’re no different either. If you were, you would have left the city by now because you know that when I’m gone they’ll send someone else and they’ll keep sending them until you’re gone, too.’

He didn’t say it as though he was making a threat. There was no menace, no macho bravado. He spoke softly, his voice barely reaching a whisper. He was simply stating facts. He had raised a good question too. Why hadn’t she left? With what she knew she could have made a deal with the Americans and been relocated in return for information. But then what? America wasn’t her home. This was her home and, contrary to what the Americans believed, not every Mexican dreamed of a life across the border. Rafaela didn’t want the American Dream, she simply wished to see an end to the Mexican nightmare. She wanted her country back, just like the majority of its people.

The problem wasn’t simply the violence. It was the creeping acceptance that came with it. At first, as the cartels had become more extreme, there had been protest marches, and reporters, like her husband, along with other people had spoken out. Then they had begun to kill those who dared to remonstrate.

She crossed to the kitchen counter and picked up the thick blue binder that held the pictures of the dead girls. Her girls. Still holding the gun, she walked back to the man and tossed it towards him. He looked at it, confused.

‘What’s this?’ he asked.

She dug a little handheld voice recorder from her bag and clicked on the record button, then placed it on the arm of the couch.

‘I want you to tell me which ones you know about. And I want you to tell me everything.’

He opened the binder and caught sight of the first girl in her confirmation dress. In his eyes, she saw recognition. He glanced up at her and said softly, ‘Do you believe in God?’

Rafaela nodded. ‘I believe in the devil so, yes, I believe in God.’

‘I’m lost, Detective,’ he said, tears welling in his eyes. ‘I am so lost.’

The road outside the shack grew quiet, the kids’ soccer game finding its way gradually down the street. The last police patrol had passed more than an hour ago. Two cops had tried the door, which Lock had long since bolted from the inside, and a neighbour had come out to inform them that the lady who lived there was at work and the place was empty. They had moved on without making any further checks.

Mendez was sitting on the edge of the battered couch and rubbing his eyes, a man coming to terms with his new circumstances. Lock had dug some stale corn tortillas from a cupboard along with some overripe brown avocados. He split open the avocados with his Gerber knife, took out the stone in the centre, scooped out the browny-green flesh and mushed it over two tortillas, which he then rolled up into wraps. Beggars couldn’t be choosers. He took one and handed the other to Mendez.

Mendez took the food without a word and a long moment passed as both men ate in silence, chewing as little as possible and swallowing as fast as they could. Lock opened a soda bottle that was half full of water, took a slug and passed it to Mendez. He gulped and passed it back.

After a few more moments had passed, Mendez finally looked up at him. ‘You have a name, bounty hunter?’

‘Nope,’ said Lock.

‘No name?’

‘Okay.’ Lock sighed. ‘If it makes you feel any better, you can call me asshole.’

Mendez waved the stump of his rolled-up tortilla at him. ‘You know what happened to the other guys who tried to take me back across the border, right, bounty hunter?’

Lock nodded. ‘Sure do, but aren’t you forgetting something?’

‘What’s that, bounty hunter?’

‘Well, I’d say that, judging by the pot shots they were taking at you last night from that helicopter, you’ve just about worn out your welcome down here.’

Mendez’s gaze fell to the bare floorboards. He took a final bite, chewed briefly, then swallowed. Last night, Lock had seen the terror in his eyes but it hadn’t taken Charlie Mendez long to revert to the smug, self-satisfied moron that Lock had anticipated.

‘That’s true,’ said Mendez. ‘You’ve got me there.’

He was working his way up to something, Lock could feel it. His predatory little mind was turning over, the cogs clicking away.

‘So, how much do you pick up when you hand me over?’ Mendez asked him. ‘Guy like you gets — what? Ten per cent? That’s right, isn’t it?’

Lock shrugged. ‘Something like that.’ In truth, he had no real idea how it worked. He wasn’t even sure that someone in his position was able to collect part of the bond. And if he was entitled to the money, he had no interest in it. Money only interested him in as far as it allowed him to be his own man, not beholden to anyone. Other than that, he thought of it as merely a tool, a means to an end, and certainly not something that you accumulated as an end in itself. Having enough money could buy you freedom, but too much became its own prison. He had looked after enough wealthy people to know that.

Mendez, though, was warming to the topic. Unsurprisingly, for him money was clearly one way to manipulate people. ‘You know, a couple of hundred grand is chicken feed compared to what you could make,’ he said matter-of-factly.

Lock smiled. ‘You mean if I don’t hand you back to the authorities when we get you back home? If instead I smuggled you out of the country or let you go.’

Mendez returned a smile that showed he was used to having his way. ‘That’s right. So, what do you say, bounty hunter? You want to make some real money?’

‘I’d say there’s about as much chance of me helping you out as there is of the Iranian government legalizing gay marriage.’

‘Come on, bounty hunter. Everyone has a price. Half a million bucks. That’s got to be double what you’d get for handing me back.’

‘Forget it,’ said Lock. ‘This isn’t about money.’

Mendez’s grin grew broader, as if what Lock had just said was utterly alien, which it probably was to a man like him. Lock didn’t feel like explaining so he didn’t add anything.

‘This is personal to you?’

Lock stared.