The Devil's Bounty (15 page)

Lock considered his options. It didn’t take long. He wasn’t
going to try to overpower her. They couldn’t walk back into town. The only real option was to do as she said, then come back and try again.

‘Okay,’ he said eventually. ‘We’ll go. But will you do me one favour?’

‘What?’

Lock switched on his cell phone and pulled up the picture he had of Mendez’s bodyguard. ‘Mendez is supposed to have picked up an American girl in a bar. I’m concerned for her safety. Could you at least look into it? I can tell you where he was last seen.’

He stepped forward and angled the cell-phone screen towards her. ‘He was with this man,’ he said, showing her the picture of the bodyguard.

She took the phone from him, looked at the picture and back at Lock. ‘Where?’

Lock didn’t follow her. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Where was this taken?’ she asked.

‘A bar out near …’ He stopped himself. Now he had something she wanted.

She had her gun out again. It was a Browning. ‘Where? Where was that taken?’

‘We’ll show you.’

‘Tell me.’

Finally he had some traction. ‘You help us and we’ll help you. No games. No tricks. I give you my word.’

She started for the wagon. She opened the driver’s door. ‘You’ll have to ride in back.’

With the cage door at the back of the wagon wedged open, Lock sat with Ty as the woman, who had finally introduced herself as
Detective Rafaela Carcharon of the Policía Federal, drove them back towards the highway. A hatch opened from the mobile holding area into the cab. A grille covered it but Rafaela kept the windows open so that they got some breeze. Lock didn’t blame her for having them ride in the back. She had taken a risk helping them in the first place. It was clear from what she’d said that, as soon as they’d been arrested, they had been marked for death.

It had been the picture of the bodyguard and the mention of the girl. He had asked her who the man was but she had said she didn’t know. She was lying to him. She knew exactly who he was and, tough cop or not, she was frightened of him. It had shown in her eyes and her fear told him that for someone like her, who lived every day in a war-zone filled with atrocity and horror, he must be a very bad man indeed. And he was the man who stood between Lock and Charlie Mendez. At least now he was beginning to understand why Mendez had stayed untouched for so long. But it still didn’t explain why these people were protecting him.

That was the real mystery that lay at the heart of this business.
What was in it for them?

Thirty-five

TURNING AWAY FROM
the windows that looked over the swimming pool, Hector walked out of the room and down the corridor to the kitchen where he fixed the girl something to eat. He put it all on a tray and walked it down to the room.

At the door, he set the tray on the floor, unlocked the door and stepped inside. She was where he had left her. She eyed him with a mixture of fear and relief. Fear of what he would do. Relief at not having been abandoned. He didn’t speak to her. It was better that way. He might still have to kill her and he felt badly enough for her without getting to know her more than he had.

People on the outside might laugh at that, but it was true. He was a killer many times over. On more than one occasion his hands and arms, all the way up to his elbows, had been immersed in blood. He was an executioner. A
sicario
. But he still felt pain, and grief, and sympathy, and fear, and every emotion that others did.

He propped the door open with a case of beer, one of many stacked in the narrow corridor outside the room, brought the tray
in and set it down next to her. There was bread and eggs, juice and coffee. An American breakfast. Bland but filling. ‘The coffee is hot,’ he said to her. ‘But don’t get any ideas about throwing it at me. I am used to pain.’

She didn’t react but she seemed to take in what he was saying. He took the keys from his pocket and released her from the restraints. He retreated to the door as she ate. She had an appetite, which was good.

As she finished her coffee, she looked up at him. ‘Why are you keeping me here? If it’s money, my parents do okay but they don’t have millions or anything.’

So young, he thought. So naïve.

He motioned for her to sit back so he could put the manacles on again. She did as she was told. As he knelt next to her, he sensed that someone else was in the room with them. Not a person. Something much bigger than they were. Bigger than the boss.

Later, he would reflect that he didn’t think it was God, or the Virgin, or Santa Muerte, because what washed over him was beyond a thought: it was something far more powerful. His face was close to hers and for a split second he thought he might throw himself on the floor and weep for what he was doing. But the core of him, which allowed him to function, reared up again, pulling him back from what was surely an abyss. The feeling didn’t abate entirely but it retreated, like the tide.

‘Don’t tell anyone your family is poor, okay?’ he whispered. ‘If you have no money, they won’t keep you alive.’

He was so close that he could see flecks of green in her blue eyes.

She nodded.

He stood up, took the tray, walked out and locked the door behind him. His hands were shaking so hard that the coffee cup rattled in its saucer. He needed a drink. Needed it bad.

Thirty-six

RAFAELA LEFT THEM
at a fast-food restaurant while she went to return the police wagon. They took a table near the back and ate in silence, the only Americans in the place. It was Ty, the only African American they had seen since they had crossed the border, who drew the stares. It had been the same everywhere they’d been. Not that Ty seemed to mind. Maybe he didn’t notice it, or maybe, thought Lock, he just figured that with his height, build and rugged good looks, he was a pretty tough guy to ignore.

Thirty-five minutes later, Lock received a text: ‘Meet me out back.’

He tapped Ty’s arm. They got up, went outside and strolled round to the back. Rafaela pulled up next to them in a Chevy Camaro. They got into the back seat. She had changed into sneakers, jeans and a white blouse. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Show me this bar.’

‘It’s in Diablo. I’ll tell you the name when we get there.’

She eyed him in the rear-view mirror. ‘You don’t trust me?’

‘You were ready to kick us out of the country a couple of hours ago.’

‘I was saving your skin.’

‘Anybody ask what happened to your prisoners?’ Ty said.

Ty’s question seemed to leave her on the verge of laughter. ‘Here, when you don’t come back with prisoners, no one asks questions. Not if they’re smart. Some things are better not to know about.’

Rafaela’s cell phone rang. She reached over on to the passenger seat and plucked it from her handbag, answering in Spanish. A few seconds later she ended the call. She glanced at her passengers. ‘We have to go somewhere else first. When we get there, stay in the car, and don’t move. If anyone asks who you are don’t say anything.’

‘I think we can manage that,’ said Ty.

She eyed Lock. ‘I’m not so sure about your friend.’

Ty shrugged. ‘Don’t worry. Nobody is.’

She tugged down hard on the steering-wheel and spun the car round. Lock was thrown back in his seat as she buried the gas pedal, weaving through the late-night traffic. As they drove through the city one thing stood out to him: an absence of the normal. There were no young women out alone, and the people who were on the streets scuttled purposefully towards their destination, like beetles, heads down, focused solely on getting to where they had to go.

A truck full of soldiers was parked at an intersection. They eyed each passing car, weapons tucked between their knees, cigarettes dangling from their lips. Rafaela didn’t appear to register their presence as she zipped past. They were so much background scenery, so commonplace that they warranted no comment.

The lights of the city fell away as they hit the freeway. Lock opened the window for some air. He leaned forward in his seat. ‘Can I ask you something?’

Rafaela turned her head slightly to look at him. ‘What is it?’

‘Who’s the bodyguard?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I thought we were going to be straight with each other. I told you exactly why we’re here. You only got interested when you saw that picture so you have to know who it is.’

‘I don’t know his name. But, yes, I recognized him.’

‘From where?’

Her hands tightened on the wheel and she stared out of the windshield as the car swallowed the surface of the road. ‘He’s one of them. Very dangerous.’

‘Who’s them? Part of a cartel?’

He saw her eyes shift towards him and her jaw tighten. She looked down and away before her eyes settled back on the road. ‘Yes.’

He grabbed the back of the front passenger seat, and pulled himself forward. ‘That’s not what you meant, though, is it? When you said “them”, you weren’t talking about a cartel.’

‘No, I wasn’t.’

‘So what did you mean? Who are
they
?’

Another army truck sped past them. One of the soldiers leered at Rafaela from the back.

‘He’s one of the men who are killing the women here.’

‘If you know he’s killing women, why don’t you go arrest him?’ he asked.

He caught sight of Rafaela’s lips parting in a sad smile in
the rear-view mirror. ‘How long have you been in this part of the country?’

‘People don’t get arrested here?’

‘That depends on the evidence – and who they are.’

‘So, who is he? There’s something you’re not telling me.’

She turned, facing him briefly. ‘He’s a police officer.’

Thirty-seven

RAFAELA TURNED OFF
towards the centre of Diablo. They were moving down a main avenue, busy with bars, stores and restaurants. The traffic began to slow. Through the front windshield, Lock could see people crowding a small section of sidewalk and spilling out on to the road. At first he thought it must be another killing, with the inevitable ghoulish assembly that death attracted. Rafaela braked.

‘Someone been shot?’ Ty asked.

‘No,’ said Rafaela. ‘It’s a shrine.’

As they drew level it didn’t look much like a shrine, and the people gathered around it didn’t look much like worshippers. It was a plain storefront with a couple of tables stacked out front, and the crowd was low rent – lots of overweight girls sporting tattoos, and men clutching beer bottles or smoking spliffs.

‘A shrine to Santa Muerte,’ Rafaela said. ‘Saint Death.’

That was when Lock, who was still digesting the notion of a police officer moonlighting for a major drugs cartel, saw it. Right
at the front, bathed in candlelight, a human skeleton was wearing a blonde wig covered with a black shawl.

‘They believe she can offer protection. They come here every night and bring her offerings.’

Next to him, Ty sucked his teeth. ‘Maybe someone should bring her something to eat – she looks like she could use a good meal. I mean, I like my chicks skinny an’ all, but there’s such a thing as taking it too far.’

‘We shouldn’t stick around here. A lot of the people who work for the traffickers come to worship,’ Rafaela said, nudging the car past the edge of the crowd.

Lock looked through the rear window as a hulking Mexican guy, with full sleeves of tattoos running up his arms, made the sign of the cross before the skeleton, then retreated back into the gathering. ‘This why they call it Diablo?’ he asked Rafaela.

‘No. They worship Santa Muerte all over the country.’

‘What’s with the name?’ said Ty.

Rafaela shrugged. ‘It’s an old name, but the joke now is that Santa Maria is so bad that the devil himself is afraid to come within forty miles of it. This is the closest he’ll get to the city, hence Diablo.’

Lock chewed it over. ‘You believe in the devil, Rafaela?’

‘I’m Catholic. It comes with the territory. God. Jesus. The Holy Mother. Can’t have God without the devil, right?’

Before they turned the corner and saw the bar, they smelt smoke. Two fire crews were still at work, dousing it with water, even though all that was left was the charred outline of the frame. Forgetting himself, Lock opened the door and got out as Rafaela pulled up opposite.

The crowd here was sparser than the one that had stood around
the skeleton with the bad haircut but the smell of death was more real. There were four bodies laid out on the sidewalk. A fireman was covering each with a white cotton sheet, but Lock could see that they were badly burned. As he drifted through the crowd towards them, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned.

‘Go and wait in the car,’ Rafaela said.

He shrugged her off and kept walking. Perhaps not wanting to make a scene, she let him go. As Lock reached the bodies, the fireman had covered two. The others lay on their backs, clothes burned from them, faces blackened by smoke.

He knelt down beside them, recognizing the American who had given him the picture of the bodyguard. There was a gaping hole in the man’s chest. Before he’d been asphyxiated by the smoke, he had been shot.

‘
Señor!
’ A fireman waved at him to move back. A couple of local cops were eyeballing him. Lock filtered into the small crowd of bystanders.

Ten minutes later, Rafaela got into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. She had spent several minutes talking to one of the fire crew as the bodies were loaded on to a truck for the short journey to the local morgue. ‘They were all men. One American, your friend, the bartender and two locals. They’re saying it was an electrical fire.’

‘What about the gunshot wounds?’ Lock asked.

She gave him the same sad smile as when he’d asked about arresting the bodyguard. ‘You must have a fertile imagination. They are saying no one was shot, even though I saw the same thing you did.’

‘Any sign of the girl?’ Ty asked.

Rafaela shook her head. ‘Did your friend tell you what she looked like?’

Lock detailed the thumbnail sketch he’d been given.