“Just an acquaintance,” said Barney.
“O-ha, you kid, you kid!” said Mojica with false bluster. “That is the big joke, my friend, the biggest joke of alclass="underline" El Chingon had to go to America. Come on, you can laugh, guy, it’s funny! He had some bigshot El Chingon business in Los Estados Unidos. He’s not even fucking here, ese! And I tell you sure as shit he’s not coming back now, not after you —” he searched for the right words “— redecorated this place, eh?”
“This little rodent pulled a nine on me,” said Sirius.
“You look okay,” said Barney.
“No worries.”
Mojica looked despondent. His chances sucked and he knew it. “So... you gonna kill me now?” He tried for a hopeful-puppy expression that was vomitous.
“I’ll do it,” said Sirius, unsleeving his .45.
“Wait,” said Barney.
That was all Mojica needed to recharge his battery, and during the next few seconds he was as obsequious as it is possible for a human being to be without actually devolving into a lower life form. Barney had to smack him to shut him up.
“Listen very carefully,” Barney said. “Escuchame bien. You tell me where he is. Where he has gone; where I can find him, not later, not maybe, not eventually, but right now. You tell me that, Mojica, and you’ll not only live, but you’ll go free, right now, tonight. And if you’re lying to me in any way, I will come back here just for the pleasure of taking your life in the most painful and drawn-out way I can conceive. Think about that, before you answer.”
“You remembered my name,” the little man said, quietly.
“I try to remember everybody who kicks the piss out of me. Helps at Christmas card time.” Mojica had sterilized his amputated fingers — his face floated up out of the dim cesspool of pain-memory. Mojica had done him one small kindness during his days of torment. That bought him some wiggle room, but did not forgive his other sins.
Maybe Mojica had helped Barney escape, if by no other way than not shooting him when Sucio did following Barney’s bridge dive, headfirst and with no form at all.
It was so easy to be seduced by the thought. Conned, tricked, made a stupid mark, yet again.
Sirius centered Barney in his gaze: We can’t let this guy go. Not after —
Barney imagined what Karlov might have said: For a man on the revenge trail you sure are sparing a lot of warm bodies.
And Armand: You cut him loose now, he’ll be a problem later. Not professional.
Against all this stood Mojica’s one little favor he had not had to do, but had done anyway.
“Los Angeles,” Mojica said. “He’s with that guy’s, your friend’s, you know, that redheaded puta. Your guy’s wife.”
There was much more detail and Barney ran Mojica through the repetition wringer to ensure the tale was not cobbled on the spot. In the end, Mojica sang like a crested warbler just for being uncuffed before Barney’s crew set the Palacio to the torch.
Barney stood in the empty room where he had once been held prisoner.
It was apparently the only room outfitted for problematical detainees. Real hostages got amenities — locked in, not chained up. Beds and television, though the beds were probably lice-infested, and if you need a quick way to go gibberingly crazy there was no quicker method than watching a lot of foreign TV.
Barney wished he could feel some surge of latent emotion, but the room had given up its haunts. It was just a depressing, empty space.
El Atrocidad appeared behind him, moving lightly with his big athlete’s grace. “Not all people in Mexico are like this, amigo,” he said softly.
“You’ve done far too much for me, for far too little return,” said Barney. “I’m in your debt. I always will be. There’s no way to repay... This is unusual for me.”
El Atrocidad made a chaa sound of dismissal. It ain’t no thing. “Look at what you have accomplished. Look at the people you have saved.”
“I didn’t do it to save them.”
“Evil men dealt with.”
“It won’t make any difference tomorrow.”
“You even give all the credito to us.”
“Take it. I don’t want it.”
“Then what do you want from this?”
“My friend back in the hall. His name is Christoph Ivan Karlov. I need you to take him out of here. He needs to be buried. I don’t think he would mind being buried in Mexico.”
He imagined Karlov’s response: I don’t care, youngster — I’m dead. You gave me the challenge of showing a man with crippled hands how to shoot again. You put my weapons in the hands of true gunmen. You gave me plenty. You don’t owe me nothing. Just get on with the mission, damn it.
“El Murcielago Sangriento tells me the news people are on their way,” someone said.
Armand brought up a gallon of gasoline from somewhere in the compound, and Barney splashed it around the Bleeding Room. Ignited it. Walked away. Within minutes the entire third floor was ablaze.
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.