“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?”
Mojica shrugged. “I don’t know that yet, neither. I think of something, I let you know.”
“What about Jesús?”
Mojica performed the internationally understood comme ci, comme ca gesture. “Comes with the job, eh? Dame.” He indicated that Barney should return the empty can.
Barney handed it back with live-grenade gentleness.
“Thanks,” said Barney.
“De nada.”
Exit Mojica.
If this was a game, it was more sophisticated than the schoolyard crap that had so far constituted Barney’s incarceration. It could be one of those despair-of-hope things; something to make his torment cut more deeply, bleed more fulsomely, when the time came for killing.
The drink sure had been heaven on earth, though.
Flush-rinse-repeat.
On the days no one visited to hit him until he blacked out, Barney did not exist. Therefore, he was no one those days. Alternate days were defined by the ebb and flow of assorted pains, the occasional meal (Barney had learned to distrust feeding times as a significator of a day’s passage), or a thin mock of sleep quickly ruined by the pounding heat and inadequate ventilation.
Some of those prisoners who had television sets also had air conditioning, apparently. The A-list kidnap victims. The ones with some value.
Barney had become worse off than the Old Assassin — he had ceased to exist even though he had a mission: escape before his captors tired of him and flushed him permanently, no rinse, no repeat. He had to withdraw, cocoon and marshal his remaining energies before he wasted away to his own shadow.
He would not be missed in a world full of non-people, of unlife, of zombie rote and casual strife.
Flush-rinse-repeat.
She was abducted, Carl had told him. Lie Number One.
There’s nobody else I can trust in a shitstorm like this, Carl had told him. Sucker play.
Carl had done an excellent job of appearing weak and lacking in practical resources; another brilliant performance. Barney should have tipped when he noticed Carl was more conversant in Spanish than he ought to have been, particularly when he was yelling at Jesús.
Carl was deliberately vague about this so-called “Felix Rainer” guy — probably a pseudo — because he knew Barney would automatically accept the clandestine. Carl had counted on Barney underestimating him. Further, he had depended upon Barney overestimating his own cleanup capabilities in the daddy role.
Carl had played the Erica ace, showing a photo and relying upon Barney’s perception of her to further make Carl appear to be the vulnerable gringo, at which point Barney had thought nobody would ever fox him like that.
Carl had been far too casual with the amputated finger that was presented as Erica’s. He had whipped it out for dramatic effect like a bauble from a vending machine, choking up and artfully misdirecting Barney’s scrutiny.
Carl had provided an armored limousine, acting like it was no biggie. The wildness of Mexico had neatly masked that magic trick.
Carl and Estrella were a conduit of intel back to El Chingon and his crew. They weren’t having sex in their cheap hotel; they were comparing notes on Barney, and Estrella had reported their conclusions via cellphone like a good little spy. Some random factor or unscheduled mishap had altered Estrella’s profile so that she could be sacrificed. It was what she was for. So the woman actually named Salvación had been lied to as well. Big surprise, there.
Carl should have been a lot more shocked to find his bar-bunny gutted and bled out. Instead, he let Barney direct the immediate action.
When they went to make the money drop, Carl had asked do you really need to have that gun? Uh-huh.
Despite his training in Basic, despite target practice in Iraq, Carl had handled Barney’s .45 like an amateur to reinforce Barney’s view of him as someone who needed saving.
And Barney, fool to the end, had asked to see the picture of Erica.
You remember how I used to be, Carl had told him. I was a world-class fuckup. Still am. But he was good enough at play-acting to win Barney a stay-over in the hole, so who was the real fuckup, here?
At least... wing ‘em or something. By god, Carl had actually instructed Barney to shoot — and Barney had.
Carl’s check was growing bigger, line by line.
The speech about how marrying Erica was the only good thing Carl had ever done — all made up.
The instructions on the phone — not coaching. Erica talking. Her script all along.
Flush-rinse-repeat.
Barney’s status as a non-person was confirmed when the man Mojica had called El Chingon, the boss, showed up in person to describe the ways in which Barney had become a null quantity in the universe.
He entered Barney’s room with Sucio poised behind him at respectful, subordinate distance like a giant sumo attack dog.
“That big sonofabitch comes near me again,” said Barney, “and you bet I’ll bite his goddamned nose off this time.”
“Sucio is understandably upset at the pointless death of his brother — not his cousin, as erroneously reported. Family means a lot to him. To us all.”
“Spare me the platitudes. You’re sitting on hostages for money and calling it business. At least Sucio is honestly criminal.”
Sucio smiled with misplaced pride. It was not a pleasant sight. He lacked the equipment to appreciate oxymorons.
“Indeed, that is the crux of your situation, sir. Whatever your real name is. You have no familia. No connections of any kind. No traceable history. I have checked; wasted my time. I was misled by your good friend Carl to believe you might have some value to your government as a covert agent, some sort of subterranean asset better kept secret. It turns out you have no such worth. No one I have contacted has ever heard of you, even under the list of alleged aliases I had compiled. It is a situation I don’t find myself in very often: You have no value to us.”
It was impossible and pointless to explain to this man with the lazy eye that Barney’s assumed reputation was more a matter of attitude, of a persona he preferred to project in order to insulate himself from the mundane. It was an air others imposed upon him, and rather than actively cultivate it, he merely did little to countermand it. His current status was backhanded proof that he wasn’t such a badass after all, right?