“What’s that?” I asked.
“A warning,” he said.
“To who?”
“Anyone stupid enough to face me.”
Searching Peter’s pockets, I found his cell phone. I had a number for Adolpho and hoped I could convince him to take a break and come collect us. Holding the phone up to the light, I discovered there was no signal.
“Fuck fuck fucking fuck we’re fucked.” Peter was fried.
“No we’re not.” Moving back through the alley, I noticed how dark it really was. On the street, I scanned for prying eyes and roving gangsters. None appeared.
“Wait here.”
“With him?” Peter looked at the silent assassin.
“Yeah.” I walked away. At a small bar, I dropped a ten for the use of the phone. The rough boys at the bar sized me up. Wondering if I was worth the trouble of rolling. I’d like to think my street hardened looks kept them off, but truth was I probably didn’t look like I had enough on me for them to bother climbing off their bar stools.
Ten minutes later, a late model Toyota pulled up to the mouth of the alley. Adolpho’s smile faded when he saw the blood on Peter and the lad. “You want me to take you to medico?”
“The blood’s not theirs,” I told him.
“So I guess you found your Russians.”
“Something like that.”
“And this is the nina you were seeking?” He motioned to the lad. I shook my head.
“No, he’s the one did most of the cutting.”
Adolpho placed an old blanket to protect his back seat and drove us to Hotel 49. Instead of asking me any more questions, he told me about a drunk gringo who had tried to take his son into Anthony’s early that night. “He tells me the boy is eighteen, but he looks thirteen, si?” He was grinning, enjoying telling the story. “I say, maybe, but I need to see ID, now the pinche gringo gets enojado, red faced he yell, he is the boy’s father and should know his own son’s age.”
“So did you let him in?” I asked.
“What could I do, he tipped me fifty dollars,” he said with a gleeful laugh.
When he pulled up to the hotel, I asked him the fare. “Nada, is por las ninas,” he said. I didn’t insult him by pressing it. I shook his hand and promised to let him know when we had freed her. He looked like he thought that message might be a long time coming, but he didn’t say anything.
The lad tightened when I pushed the dresser against the door. Before I could explain about the lack of a good lock, the razor was out and swinging at my face. I caught the arm inches from lacerating my cheek. A boot shot up and connected square on my nads. I dropped to my knees, fighting to keep the puke down. I rolled onto my side as a second kick sailed past my head. This little punk was fixing to kick my ass.
“What the fuck is your damage?” I yelled, ripping the.38 out of my pocket.
“To take me, it will have to be dead.” Again the blade swung up.
“I don’t want to do shit to you. Now put the razor down before I forget we’re on the same side and blow a hole in your face.”
“You want to fuck me. Tell me I’m wrong.”
I suddenly started laughing, all the adrenaline and general bad craziness of the night had hit critical mass. He wasn’t a he, he was a she, and she wanted to slice me up out of some Diana driven man hatred. The laughter made my balls hurt worse but I couldn’t stop. She looked down like I had gone mad, and maybe she was right.
“Look, as beautiful as you look bathed in blood and all, you just aren’t my type.” I lowered the.38. “I go for something a little less… deadly in my lady friends.” The blade was still hovering up above her head, ready to strike. “Screw it, slit my throat or take a shower, choice is yours.”
Rolling over slowly, I crawled on all fours over to the bed and hoisted myself up onto it. When I was able to see the room, she was gone and the bathroom door was shut. She had moved as silent as any cat, she dealt out a mean knife, if it wasn’t for her wanting to kill all men, she might just be my type after all.
The worst of the nausea had passed by the time she came out. With the blood gone and lights on, it was clear she was a woman. A thin scar ran from below her left ear to the corner of her lips. Wrapped in a towel it was clear she was missing her right breast. A jagged spider web of scars spread up from the towel and into her neck line. They were all old scars, pale and slightly raised lines of some distant trauma. She had an athlete’s build, all muscle and sinew, if she had an ounce of body fat it wasn’t apparent.
“My clean clothes are in a locker at the train station,” she said.
“And?” I smiled at her stupidly.
“I can’t go like this.”
“True.”
“Do you have anything I can put on?” she said quietly. It was obvious she had difficulty asking for anything, and I wasn’t about to make it easier on her.
“So first you make sure I’ll never be able to have children, and then you want to borrow my clothes? That about right?”
“You locked me in. What did you expect?”
“Not to get my balls kicked in was on the list, thought maybe you’d get a shower and then tell me what your part in this game is.”
“What game?”
“Hide, seek and destroy the Russian mob. Your accent, Russian right?”
“Ukraine.” Her arms were across her chest, and her face was free from emotion. I made a note not to ever play poker with her.
“You want these?” I pulled a pair of chinos and a tee shirt from my duffle. She reached for them but I yanked them back. “No, answers first, then clothes.”
Setting her jaw, she turned and started to pull the dresser from blocking the door. She was clearly willing to walk out into the streets of Ensenada dressed only in a towel rather than be pushed into answering my question.
“Fuck it.” I tossed her the pants and shirt. Without a thank you or even a grunt of gratitude, she slipped into the bathroom and got dressed. Pulling a web belt off her blood stained pants, she cinched up my huge chinos and dropped the razor into her pocket.
“Any chance we can talk like civilized people, without one of us getting cut to shreds?” I asked with a loose smile.
She leaned against the dresser, keeping a good distance between us.
“If I’m such a dirt bag, why am I risking my life to help some little Russian girl I never met?”
“People lie all the time.”
“They sure do. Time to roll the dice and hope I don’t come up snake eyes, or walk out the door.”
She dug a pack of Mexican smokes out of her coat. Striking a kitchen match, she inhaled a lung full of nasty smelling tobacco. Letting the blue gray smoke roll out over her thin lips, she spoke so softly I had to strain to hear her words, “If you betray me. I will kill you.”
“Sounds fair. You going to fill me in on what you’re doing down here?”
“No.”
“Right. Do you have a name?”
“Mikayla.” That was it, no last name. After a few more lame tries, I stopped asking questions that she wouldn’t answer.
I was getting my.45 out of the Scout’s hidden compartment when Peter joined us. His color was back to pink, and he looked more confident. “You’re not coming on this run,” I told him.
“Why, because I freaked when a man got his throat slit on top of me?”
“You weren’t in Afghanistan or Haiti. Are you even a reporter?” I asked. Mikayla watched Peter suspiciously over the hood of the truck.
“You want to see my press credentials? Is this some macho testosterone power play, big man Moses gets to judge who is man enough to go on his little death trip?”
“I don’t roll with liars, or wannabe tough guy cherries. Seen ‘em get too many guys killed.”
“Screw you. Ok, I never was in those places, I lied, big fucking deal. You take me with you and I’ll be fair witness to what goes down. If this shit doesn’t get reported in the States, it will keep going, spreading like a malignant tumor. You shut them down, they’ll open three more safe houses before you cross the border. Am I using you to further my career? Yes, absolutely. But you can use me to put an end to this sleazy deal.”