After a moment, her eyes began to adjust to the gloom. She couldn’t see behind her. The floor was bare concrete. The walls were a blank grey. She was lying on the floor. The ceiling was bare, apart from a single light-bulb, which hung from six inches of electrical cord at the far end of the room.
She started to get up but couldn’t. She twisted her head to one side. Her neck had a crick in it. She could see her hand. It had a rope around it, which was fastened to a metal ring buried in the concrete floor. She moved her neck to the other side. Her other hand was also tied down. She tried to lift her legs and felt rope around them too.
Panic flooded her. She struggled and thrashed but the ropes held firm. By sheer force of will she forced herself to stop. She had to think.
Her mind felt heavy, as if her brain had been wrapped in cotton wool.
Think.
Think about how you got here.
What do you last remember?
She remembered walking out of the resort hotel and finding the bar.
Charlie.
She had been speaking to him. He was cute. He had bought her a drink. A margarita. She had kissed him.
There had been stairs. She had stumbled. His hands had been all over her as he had helped her up the flight.
Other things were coming back to her now. Things she didn’t want to remember, didn’t want to think about. Maybe it was better not to think about how she had got here and focus on how she could get out.
What if she had been left here? What if someone had dumped her in this room and something had happened to them? She didn’t have water. She would die. The panic rose again and this time she couldn’t force it down.
She tried to shout but the noise that came out of her mouth was little more than a croak. She tried again. It was louder. She kept crying out, she didn’t know for how long.
After a while a key rattled in a lock. She tried to raise her head. She hadn’t seen a door but she heard one open. It must have been behind her.
A hand settled on the side of her face. She shuddered. It rubbed her cheek. A finger traced a line across her lips.
‘Please,’ she heard herself say. ‘Please don’t hurt me.’
She could feel the person crouching behind her. She could hear them breathing. They didn’t answer. They withdrew their hand and lifted her head, settling it on their knees.
The hand came back into view, this time holding a water bottle. It tilted the bottle so that she could drink. Some of the water trickled from the side of her mouth on to the floor. She was so thirsty that she chased it with her tongue. When she had finished it, the person lowered her back on to the floor.
‘Please, let me go,’ she said. ‘My parents have money. They’ll pay you.’
The person didn’t respond. She heard the door close and she was alone again.
Thirty
Arriving in Diablo, they found a hotel in the centre of town. It was part of a large American chain. There were lots of vacant rooms — no surprise, given the wave of violence engulfing some of the border towns and cities.
Ty checked them in using a fake ID, paid in cash, and then they drove straight to the bar to meet his contact. Lock was hoping he would be back for a second evening. He had already decided that if he saw Mendez in public he would take him there and then.
When they arrived, the parking lot behind the bar was already crowded. Ty found them a spot as close to the back door as he could manage and they got out of the Durango. Lock plucked the picture of Mendez from the sun visor as he got out.
They walked around to the front of the bar. Ty glanced up at the sign. ‘This is it.’
Lock squared his shoulders and, with Ty a pace behind him, pushed his way through the front door. The first thing he noticed was the smell of cigarette smoke. Presence of the abnormal if you had just come from California: smoking in public was worse than farting. He had tucked the picture of Mendez into his back pocket.
At the bar, he ordered two beers and checked out the crowd. It looked to be mostly locals but there were a few Americans.
Lock clinked glasses with Ty.
‘What should we drink to?’ Ty asked.
Over Ty’s shoulder, Lock noticed a white guy sitting alone, nursing a Boilermaker. He seemed to be tuning in to their conversation.
‘Let’s drink to a great vacation,’ Lock said, tipping the neck of his bottle against Ty’s. He half turned, so he was square to the bar. The barfly caught his eye. ‘You guys American?’ the man said.
‘How’d you guess?’ said Lock.
The guy gave a modest shrug. ‘Suppose I’m just good at reading people.’
‘You want a drink?’ Lock asked.
The guy smiled. ‘Sure.’
Ty nodded towards a table of tourists, mostly young and female. ‘I’m gonna go circulate, brother.’
Lock slid his beer down towards the guy and grabbed a stool. He’d already spotted something he could use: a battlefield cross tattoo on the guy’s right biceps. ‘My buddy over there was in the Corps.’
‘Good times, man,’ the American said, raising his glass. ‘Your health.’
‘And yours,’ Lock said, taking a gulp of beer. ‘Where did you serve?’
‘Here and there. Did my final tour in Iraq. First time round. Desert Storm.’
That was the phrase Lock had been waiting for, the phrase that told him they had found Ty’s contact. He lowered his voice but kept the tone conversational. Just two dumb-ass Americans shooting the bull on vacation. ‘So what you got?’
The American dug out a pack of cigarettes. He offered one to Lock, who declined. ‘He was in here last night.’
‘You’re sure it was him?’ Lock asked.
The American lit his smoke. ‘Yeah. Soon as I saw him I knew who he was. Kind of surprised to see him here, though.’
‘How’s that?’
‘You get tourists in here.’
‘He was with a girl?’
The American blew a smoke ring, which settled over the bar. ‘There’s a resort not too far from here, still gets some trade. She came in on her own. They were talking, he bought her a drink. She must have been pretty blitzed because he had to help her walk out.’
Lock’s heart almost stopped. ‘She couldn’t walk?’
The American shrugged. ‘Kids come down here, they can’t hold their liquor.’
The bartender was back, asking if they wanted more drinks. Lock waved him away. ‘He left with the girl?’
‘They went upstairs. I didn’t see either of them again for a while until this Mexican dude came to get him.’
‘A bodyguard?’ said Lock.
‘Looked like it. Here,’ he said, digging into his pocket and pulling out his cell phone. ‘I didn’t get a chance to snap your boy but I did get a picture of the muscle.’
The American pulled up a grainy picture on the tiny screen. The bartender was still hovering. ‘Great boat, ain’t she?’
Lock played along as he took the cell phone and studied the picture. It showed a man in profile as he walked out of the bar. He was dressed in shorts and a wife-beater shirt. Mexican. Heavyset, with hooded eyes and a boxer’s squashed nose.
‘So why you selling her?’ Lock asked.
The American shrugged. ‘Low on cash, you know how it is.’
Lock handed the cell phone back. ‘Hey, send me that picture so I can show my wife, okay, and we’ll work something out.’
‘Okay, will do. Listen, good meeting you.’
They shook hands, the American slid off the stool and walked out of the bar. A few seconds later the picture flashed up on Lock’s cell. The contact would be paid by wire transfer the next day as per their agreement.
Ty was still talking to the crowd of girls. Lock joined him. ‘Hate to break up the party, but we gotta go, brother.’