Gun Work

The Palacio burned for five hours, due to difficulties with firefighting response and a lack of local water pressure. News cameras loved fire, and only later got around to the poignant report of rescued hostages. The wrestlers got a lot of face time, explaining they were en route to a match as a group and spotted the flames. Their next bout at Arena Coliseo would be packed and they would he hailed as superheroes, some of the best Mexico had to offer.

When the conflagration embered down, even the brickwork had fallen, sundered by the collapsing interior of the building. By dawn the next day the site resembled the aftermath of a bombing, or just another run-down Mexican firetrap gone to its reward. The news of a fire in a shithole like Iztapalapa was not important enough to make the papers in the United States, and besides, nobody would believe that stuff about strongmen in circus-colored costumes giving a crowd of people their lives back.

For all intents and purposes, Barney and his men had never been there.

Part Four

Felt Recoil

What the desperate Mojica had been able to provide was a key phone number, a last resort backup, emergencies only. Which number, when properly traced, could serve as a homing beacon for a stakeout location in Los Angeles. Barney already knew what his targets looked like. He had Tannenhauser’s dictatorial mien imprinted on his memory. As for Erica — whatever she was calling herself these days — he had Carl Ledbetter’s wallet photo.

It was enough.

Armand and Sirius were spoiling for more, especially since the loss of Karlov, whose burial had been private, in an undisclosed location. Barney, stung by this post facto price on his mission, was reluctant to place his remaining allies in the path of harm. Progress choked, once they had returned home to lives and existences that seemed even more pointless after the blood-fever of battle. Barney told them he had to be very careful, time would be needed to make extremely discreet inquiry and follow-up, and that he would flag them the moment he had his final two targets.

Barney was, of course, lying.

Based on a bit of sublegal cellular tracking, it was necessary to isolate Tannenhauser’s signal as soon as possible, since the man would be on the move as soon as the import of the disaster in Mexico resonated. Since you could never lop off every head of a Hydra, Barney assumed Tannenhauser would be apprised immediately — so he had to fob off Sirius and Armand and land on this man’s tail mega-quick.

He had staked out the Sheraton Miramar in Santa Monica for a whole day, tracking comings and goings. He had spotted Tannenhauser once, and seen a woman who might have been the former Erica Ledbetter three times, depending on how she could have changed her look over the past two years.

They appeared to be together, as Mojica had said.

Just today, outside, waiting for a car, they had appeared to be arguing.

Now all Barney had to do was time them out, and tag them inside the building. Figuring out what code names they were registered under was a waste of time. He had them and they did not appear to be anxious to relocate just yet. There was probably a lot of longdistance spin control going on, the kind that was safer to do from another country.

He would scoop them alone, and his men might be spared a stray bullet.

Armand ruined all of Barney’s quiet strategy with a single cellphone call.

“You’ve got to get down here now.”

Bad news, incoming, take cover...

“Somebody nailed Sirius. Right outside the gun range. Wherever you go, don’t go back there because I’m pretty sure it’s hot. Meet me at the morgue, four o’clock.”

The downtown Los Angeles County Department of the Coroner — the county morgue, due west of the University of Southern California Medical Center — has a gift shop on its second floor called Skeletons in the Closet, where one can buy “ghoulish gifts” such as toe tag keyrings, coffee mugs featuring a body outline in chalk, or toy miniatures of the 1938 Black Mariah hearse. Profits from the shop go to stout causes such as the Youthful Drunk Driving Visitation Program, which, among other incentives to reform, compels offenders to watch an actual autopsy-in-progress. Founded in 1993, the shop pulls down between $15,000 and $20,000 in sales every month (excepting, of course, Halloween season, when it does double that) and has an international clientele.

People who visit the morgue for the purposes of putting a name to a corpse usually don’t stop at the gift shop for a souvenir.

The late Sirius had a small-caliber bullet hole straight through his head. You could actually see through it; blow frigid condensed breath through it, if you had the guts to lift it from the confines of the body bag on refrigerated drawer-tray Number 38.