Gun Work

If Barney was sketching an insulting caricature, he would have written that dialogue down as joo don’ godda say notheeng if jew dun wanna. But that shit had never worked in books, never worked in movies, and rarely worked when you were trying to dehumanize your opponent in order to justify killing him without compunction. Barney decided to respond, to indicate that he still had two dendrites of intelligence not rolling around loose on the floor.

“What do you want, Mojica?”

Mojica smiled as though finding out an injured pet was still alive. “Oh, you awake, eh?”

“Let’s get this over with. Your primo was an accident. I was going to let him go.”

“Nah, it ain’t that.” He came closer, confidentially. “El Chingon is keeping you here; I don’t know why ‘cos you’re not a hostage, man, you understand what I’m saying?”

“Entiendo,” said Barney. “Claro. Who’s El Chingon?” It was a slang term for the bossman, El Mero-Mero, big dealski — literally, as in el gran chingon: the head fucker. That would be Mr. Lazy-Eye-Doesn’t-Talk-Like-A-Mexican, but his drones probably called him el jefe, at least to his face.

“Don’t ask me shit I can’t tell you.”

“Fair enough. So what do you want?”

“I want to show you something.” Mojica moved forward with his body, cautiously, looking for a sign that Barney would not attack.

“Mojica, I’m too fucking tired to get into it with you...”

“Here.” Mojica popped a can of America’s second most popular soft drink and handed it over. “You like this, right?”

Barney regarded the chilled can in his grasp with befuddlement and briefly wondered if it was drugged, then decided it did not matter. The first swig burned all the way down, fizzy and caffeinated and shot through with sugar, beautiful carbonated nirvana. In times like these, simple, small things could freight tons of meaning. If you had asked Barney what he wanted most of all the things in the world, in that moment, he might have answered that he already held in his hand all good things, and could die happy.

“Look at this,” said Mojica, removing his ever-present mirrorshades. He pointed at a small skidmark of scar tissue on his right temple. “See this?” When he pressed the scar, it went concave, then boinked back as though made of rubber. He turned his head to show the lower portion of his right occipital. A similar scar, similarly gelid.

“I got shot in the head once,” he said. “Brains came out, so maybe I’m not the smartest vato in the world. But I tell you this — they killed my ass. I was dead once. And I’m still here.”

Barney’s hand loved that soft drink can; would not give it up. Nor use it to hit Mojica in the side of the skull so hard that what was left of his brains would come flying out his ear. Not until he finished the drink, anyway, because it was too good. Mojica had bought himself an audience for whatever confessional he cared to stage.

“This ain’t right, them keeping you,” Mojica said. “We grab people, we got all this set-up, we don’t torture hostages, and anyway you ain’t a hostage.”

“You kicked my ass with the others.”

“Because I ain’t stupid, man. But keeping you here... I mean, for what? So Sucio can whale on you until you’re a retard? There ain’t no ransom on you. No pickups, no negotiation, nada por nadie. So... so...”

“So what did I do?” said Barney.

“Yeah, that’s it. What the hell did you do, man?”

“I tried to help a man I thought was my friend.”

“Some friend.” The incredulous expression on Mojica’s face almost made Barney laugh, but he could not actually laugh, not in this place.

“Yeah, that about sums it up,” said Barney. He reasoned that Mojica was not here to help him. Draw him out, maybe; play good cop and get him to say something that would rationalize a quick kill.

“Nobody who’s a friend would leave you in this kinda mess. It’s bad, it’s like...” Mojica’s hand sought a small metal crucifix around his neck. “You know?”

“Like, spiritually bad.”

“Yeah. And bad for business. Not profesional. Not the way El Chingon does it. You see?”

Barney nodded.

“What do you think is gonna happen to you?”

“Honestly, de veras, I think I’ve been abandoned and I get to stay in this charming place until I die.”

Mojica frowned as he puzzled the word “abandoned.”

“Abandonado,” said Barney.

“Ah, sí. You are... you are...” Mojica fought for the phrase. “You are el hombre de las armas — you know what that means?”

“Gunman.”

“Sí, exactamente. You know the weapons. You hit Jesús twice in the dark while he was running. Like, expert. El Chingon could use him an expert like you.”

“You bring me a job application?”

“Es imposible. No chance, Vance. Not while Sucio is around.”

“Then, what?”

Mojica spot-checked the door several times, wrestling whether to divulge more. “Then-what, I don’t know. But maybe... maybe I can find a way to get you out of here.”

“Why?”

“Like I said.”

“What’s in it for you?”