Gun Work

On the hit list of Mexico’s most profligate crimes, kidnapping came third after theft and homicide, and was considered more serious than drug trafficking. In theory the act carried a 30- to 50-year prison sentence. Mexico City accounted for more than half the abductions in the entire country, with the death ratio of victims actually murdered about one in ten. It became so dire that in 2004 a quarter-million citizens protested in Zocalo Square, where the sinking Basilica was located. They called for political reform, they decried police corruption, they called out for implementation of the death penalty. The following year, Mexico City was reported to have the highest kidnapping rate in the world... and the highest percentage of money paid to kidnappers.

So much for Rudy Giuliani and zero tolerance, thought Barney. Giuliani had collected over four million dollars for his consultancy on how to clean up Ciudad Mexico, a place one does not, cannot, “clean up.”

In the interests of public service, someone conducted a study that reached the prim conclusion that four percent of the kidnappers down here were cops. The real percentage they did not dare suspect out loud.

It was a growth industry in more ways than one. Five thousand separate personal security firms in Mexico City easily billed over a billion dollars per year.

The middle class had imprisoned itself inside walled compounds, requiring bars, latches, locks, codes, dogs, cameras, and beefy enforcers to run it all. It was not unfair, and certainly not gratuitous, to call Mexico City a completely paranoid freefire zone most of the time.

But the contradictions waited to hard-slap you at every turn. You could encounter the kind of aching beauty only noticeable when contrasted with eye-watering squalor. Small kindnesses loomed much larger here. Love was amplified as much as hate, and could broadside unsuspecting outsiders just as completely. There was more dignity in a wizened old man plying a watchmaker’s trade in a hole-in-the-wall shop than in all the ostentatious skyscrapers in the richer districts. Folks living in borderline poverty were more honestly generous than their supposed betters. More honor among common people, because to them the lessons had come gruelingly hard. Heads you live and tails you die, and Mexico City was the edge of the coin.

You could fall in love or become a killer, no preamble. And fall back just as quickly. It all depended on how the coin fell, and the coin was forever in mid-air. In lesser men this might be a source of nerve-wracking stress.

To Barney, it was other people’s noise, and he could click it all off, could wait with an almost conscienceless patience.

Carl emerged from the fortress building with fresh sweat on his temples. His gaze swept the street, and his manner was the manner of a man who was certainly guilty of... something. He started physically when the BMW skidded up beside him and he found himself staring down the bore of Barney’s .45.

“Get in the car,” said Barney. “Right fucking now. Not a word.”

At least thirty people saw Carl climb meekly into the car at gunpoint. It did not matter to any of them, and was forgotten even before the dust of departure had settled.

“I almost called you on the cell,” said Barney. “That might have been a nice little surprise. But it might have gotten you in trouble.”

“Thank god you didn’t,” Carl said, practically mumbling.

The gun was stowed. It had made its point, and its threat was implicit.

“You want to tell me what the hell is really going on?”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“Don’t. Do. That.” Barney’s tone was as serious as a nuclear core meltdown. “I want to know what you’ve mixed me up in, and what you have to do with it. Not the story. The truth. Start anytime, because I’ll keep your ass in this car for a week until you come clean.”

Carl fumbled, hands uselessly grasping the air before him, trying to twist nothing into some sensible shape.

“Start with your drop-off at the building back there.”

Still nothing. Where to begin?

“All right, try something simpler. What’s your cut?”

Any pretense to standing fast collapsed, as though Carl’s face had been unscrewed. “Half.” He spluttered. “Look, it ain’t broken... I can fix this. I can pay you. I was going to pay you anyway. A lot. More than your trouble, because you came to help me. I can pay you—”

Barney pulled the pistol back into sight to shut him up. “What I want, old buddy, cannot be paid in dollars or pesos or doubloons. You are a world-class fuckup, Carl. You got yourself conned into a scam too big for you, and it could still backfire and blow your dick off. Worse, you involved your wife, and even worse, you took advantage of a friend. It’s long past the time to shrug and go oh well. Frankly, I’m not amazed you’re that gullible. I am amazed that you’d come up with such a cowboy idea and throw your wife into the pot.”

“That’s why I have to tell you about Erica,” Carl said. Contritely. “It was her idea.”