Robin Burcell - Face of a Killer

Out of breath, she stood there, stared, looked around for the boy. She thought she heard him calling out, “Senorita.”

“Hello?” she said in reply, starting down the narrow street toward the boat, just as a car drove up, parked in front of it.

A slight rustling sent her senses on high alert. Before she could turn, someone stepped from a shadowed alcove. Reached out, grabbed her from behind. With one swift move, he slid her gun from her waist, then clamped his other hand over her mouth. He pulled her against his chest, whispered in her ear. She barely heard him over the pounding of her blood. “Do not move, senorita, and no one will be hurt.”

Sydney’s heart slammed into her throat. She caught a glimpse of the boy at the end of the alley near the boat. Tried to silently plead with him to run for help-an absurd thought since he was the instrument used to lure her here. The man pulled her against him, held her arm behind her back. His hot breath hit her ear as he said, “Senorita. Slowly we walk to that car. Nod if you understand.”

She struggled against him, and he gave a slight tug on her arm. Pain shot through her. She forced herself to still, waited a moment, knew who had the advantage. It wasn’t she. He could snap her neck in one quick move. Attempting to nod her acquiescence, she felt him loosen his grip around her mouth, slightly, perhaps to test her cooperation.

“Quietly to that car. Do you understand?”

She nodded, figuring any forward movement was good. A chance to get away. Get someone’s attention. But if he thought she was getting in that car, he was dead wrong. Bad enough she’d allowed her desire to find a boat she wasn’t sure still existed get in the way of all rational thought. “I have money,” she said. “Several hundred dollars.”

“Move, senorita,” he said, holding her tight, while he walked her down the narrow street to the waiting car. She could see the boat just beyond it, taunting her, the long tendrils of some hanging plants, rosemary she thought, growing down the sides of the boat, while large pots of flowers filled the middle. And as they neared the car, she eyed her surroundings, saw the boy was gone. There was a man behind the wheel on the opposite side; no one else seemed to be there and the doors were closed. She knew that would be her chance, when he’d be at his most vulnerable. Because he was going to have to let go with one arm to open the door. And she could use the strength in her legs to brace herself, fight back. If nothing else it would cause a scene; maybe someone would report it.

And then they were at the car. He reached out, opened the door, and she put her foot on the floorboard, ready to push off and back, take him down.

Except the wind gusted in that one moment.

Rustled the plants hanging down the sides of the boat. In that split second, her foot poised, her body braced, she read two words: Cisco’s Kid.

And she thought of the picture in her pocket.

And allowed the man to place her in the car.

“Who are you?” the driver asked. “And did you come alone?”

Hispanic man, maybe late forties, he eyed Sydney from the rearview mirror, waited for her to answer, and she thought he looked vaguely familiar, at least the two square inches of him she could see in the mirror. She glanced at the man seated beside her, didn’t recognize him at all, thirties, also Hispanic, busily searching through her backpack. He opened her wallet, bypassed her money, and pulled out her license, reading her name, then replaced it. So this wasn’t robbery. “Sydney Fitzpatrick, and yes, I’m alone.”

“And what are you doing in Ensenada, Senorita Fitzpatrick?” the man beside her asked, as he eyed the suicide note, then shoved it into the backpack, before he took out Arturo’s phone, pulled it apart, examined it. He dropped it back into the pack, not bothering to put it together.

“Searching for that boat,” she said, nodding out the window, thinking about the picture of it that was in her coat pocket, something her captor didn’t appear too interested in at the moment. “You don’t happen to know the owner, do you?”

No one answered her. Instead the driver shifted into gear, took off. She watched for street signs, tried to remember the direction, in case she was able to call for help. Several minutes later, as he wound his way in and out of the narrow streets, around corners, it was clear he was trying to keep her from recognizing a location, or keep someone from finding them. Or both.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

As if in answer, he slowed, checked his mirrors, then made a quick left turn into an arched drive that led into the courtyard of a salmon-colored villa. A tall blond man stood in the center of the brick-paved courtyard, holding what looked like an old leather bank pouch. His bearded face was deeply lined, darkly tanned, his collar-length hair bleached from the sun. She put him in his mid-fifties. The car slowed just long enough for him to get into the front seat, and the moment he did, they exited.

“Were you followed, Tomas?” he asked the driver as they pulled out.

“I think we lost them. She says she came alone.”

The blond man turned in his seat, looked right at Sydney, his gaze searching her face. “You look like him. Your father.”

She eyed him for a moment, decided that the sun had aged him more than she’d expected, but he was probably the man in the photo. “You’re Robert Orozco?”

“I am.”

“Boston?”

He smiled. “Not a name I’ve heard in a while. So, little Sydney, why is it you are here, asking about Cisco’s Kid, a boat that I sold twenty years ago, after your father was killed?”

“I remembered it from a photo of my father’s, a trip we took.” She removed the scanned photo from her pocket, showed it to him. “You disappeared the year before he was killed. I think you have answers.”

“That will only lead to more questions, I’m afraid.” “And I’m willing to take the time.”

“Which we don’t have. You think that no one knows you are here? You came to my charter boat office. Do you not recognize my driver, Tomas?”

She glanced over, and this time the driver turned, looked right at her. The man from the pier who had thought the boat looked like something from Puerto Nuevo.

“You were being followed even then, which is why he sent you into the fish market. The men approached him, asking about you, what you wanted. Tomas sent them on a wildgoose chase in the opposite direction that he sent you. They are, we hope, checking out a boat to the south in Punta Banda, no doubt wanting to get to it before you. We hope they don’t figure it out too soon, since we did not expect you to stop for tacos.” His eyes sparkled, despite the concern that laced his voice.

“Do you know who these men are?” she asked. “Who they work for?”

“I can only surmise.”

She had so many questions for him that she wasn’t sure where to start. “You heard about McKnight?”

“Yes.”

“He mailed me a photo of all of you. And he left a suicide note.” She took that from her backpack, gave it to him.

Orozco looked at it, handed it back, and she saw a glint of red from the ring on his right hand, one like her father used to wear. “So that’s what started it. Twenty years of peace gone because some guy wants to clear his fucking conscience. Iggy and company have got to be sweating bullets right about now.”

“Iggy?”

“Iggy Ignoble. Your senator.”

“About what?”

“I assumed you knew.” He held up the pouch. “Why else did you come down if not for this?” he asked as Tomas whipped the car around a corner, then accelerated. “Everything you wanted to know about just how dirty your government really is.”