Gun Work

Believe it or not, even down here there are police reports, genuine investigations, paper trails. It has to look, smell, act, and shit real. Whole food chains of players who must be convinced. If kidnappers diversify, the guys above them have to believe they haven’t gone soft, aren’t cheating the system in any way. You can’t just pay off everyone to lie. The snatchers have to think they’ve abducted a real victim. The keepers have to believe they are watchdogging a legitimate hostage. The money men have to believe they are trafficking at the potential cost of a real human life.”

“I can just keep driving north until we’re at the border,” said Barney, hoping his warning was clear as distilled water.

“Yeah, yeah, okay... Erica talked to Felix. Felix talked to me. Then Erica talked to me. We invest three days, a week, tops, and walk away with a million to split, fifty-fifty. We allow Erica to be kidnapped and ransomed. We make it look so real that we get the payout doubled, and nobody on the outside suspects it’s anything but crime as usual, what a damned shame. We rescue Erica, but only after the money has changed hands. Bang — everybody’s safe, everybody’s richer, and Erica goes her own way with her new bank, and I get to go mine.”

“Wait a fucking minute,” said Barney. “That drop at the bridge. Are you telling me you knew those scumbags? They were shooting live ammo at me, Carl!”

“No! I... I... didn’t know them, personally, I mean. It had to be real. If you bought it, as an outside agent, then it would look watertight, and—”

“And you didn’t have the balls to do it yourself,” Barney overrode.

“You asked me for the truth,” said Carl. “I’m trying to give you that. You don’t have to make me feel like a shit. I’m already doing a great job of that myself. If you want to punch me out, go ahead. Yell. Shoot me. But don’t give me that child-molester look, like you’re not going to be my best friend at school anymore. I have to get free. I conned you. I’m sorry, but there you were — all capability and no connections. Certainly no connections like Erica, who I have to get free of. You see?”

“No, I do. Not. See. Carl.”

A gruesome silence settled between them. Carl had raved. Now he needed to think up something else to say — anything else to reacquire Barney’s sympathy. Carl was jabbering himself into a hole...

... which should have made the rest brutally clear and simple for Barney: Abandon Carl. Free Jesús, who was a blameless gunner needing a hospital and a few days off. Barney no longer trusted Carl to do that. Then: Get to the airport. Use another of his stack of blind credit cards. Leave. No luggage, no souvenirs. Pitch the gun so its tainted memories would not hang around. Forget Mexico. Resume being a ghost. As the Old Assassin had told him: “Between missions, I cease to exist.” Barney would be okay until he found a worthier mission. Or worthier friends.

But what Carl decided to say was the wrong thing.

“It’s not personal, man. It’s just business.”

Barney might have forgiven, though not forgotten, all of Carl’s transgressions if he had not uttered that last. It was the weaseldick rationale of the serial coward. It was the free ride clause big money could buy. It was the price for which your friends sold you out when they decided to exchange your friendship for a bargain.

“I’m out,” said Barney. “I’m already gone. Keep your money. Clean up your own mess. And after that you are never to speak to me again.”

“No, hey — wait, man, we can fix it, I swear!”

“Carl.” Barney spoke softly, motioning Carl to lean closer for a confidence. Then he crossed with his left and plowed his fist into Carl’s hopeful half-smile, dialing his lights down to dreamland. Carl flopped back against the passenger door with a busted nose and one tooth perched on his shirtfront.

“Shut up,” Barney said.

Jesús was gone.

In fact, all traces of Barney and Carl’s base of operations at the motel were gone. Fresh linens, squared sheets, the chair back at the desk and the bible back in the drawer, no blood anywhere.

Barney’s body pricked to high alert. He pulled out the .45, knowing a slug was already chambered.

“No way he could’ve gotten out alone. I taped him up myself.” He wheeled, murder in his eyes, which were now looking directly at Carl.

Carl actually backed off two paces. One of his front teeth was in his shirt pocket and his face was already swelling from Barney’s punch. He stammered, “I don’t know what’s going on. Not me.”

Footsteps. Concealed soldiers breaking cover and rallying.

A lot of men with a lot of guns — street sweepers loaded with devastating shredder rounds, machine guns with mags of fifty-plus — were boxing them in from both sides of the breezeway. Their safeties had never been on.