It’s hard to read Alejandro’s face. It’s even harder to read his eyes. For a moment, it looks like he’s going to relent, but then he shakes his head and his finger starts to tighten on the trigger, and I have no choice but to follow through with my initial intention.
I put a bullet in the side of Alejandro’s head.
His body jerks. The finger loosens on the trigger. The gun slips to the floor. And so does Alejandro. He falls back and tips over onto his side.
The boy immediately runs to his mother. She wraps her arms around him, holds him tight, repeatedly kisses his head. She keeps staring at the dead body on her bedroom floor, and her eyes shift up to meet mine.
She whispers, “Thank you.”
I watch the woman and child huddled in the corner. I stare at them for a long time, and then without a word I lower the gun to my side and leave the room.
Fifty-Three
Nova hasn’t moved from the spot I left him in. He stands with his back to the wall and a good view of the house.
I step over the dead man and approach Nova and the two crime scene investigators. The older one, Carlos, looks worse. As for Ramon, it’s clear he’s in pain, but he does his best not to show it.
Nova asks, “All good?”
I nod and step over to the two men on the floor. I glance at Ramon, who stares straight ahead, refusing to look at me, so I direct my question at Carlos.
“Ramon shot you?”
Carlos’s breathing is very shallow. He doesn’t look like he has much strength left, but he manages to nod and push out the answer.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He wanted to capture … the Devil … for the cartels’ … reward. Ten … million dollars.”
I whistle at the amount and glance at Ramon.
“That would have been a nice payday, huh?”
He says nothing.
Carlos continues.
“When it became … clear to him … I would not give … the Devil … to the cartels … he shot me.”
There are bullet holes in both of them, so it’s hard to tell just how truthful Carlos is being right now. But still I crouch down in front of Ramon. He keeps staring past me, refusing to meet my eye, so I snap my fingers in front of his face.
“Earth to Ramon.”
He blinks and looks at me.
“Is what your partner says true?”
Ramon’s glare is so hard it could probably cut glass. I figure he’s not going to answer, but then he grunts out something that doesn’t make sense to me at first.
“You should not even be here.”
“Say that again?”
“I thought you would be with your friend. There was no reward for you—the cartels don’t know who you are so they don’t give a shit—but they pay good money for journalists like your friend.”
I’m not sure when it happens, but my body starts to shake. It’s subtle, but the rage is there, just beneath the surface. At any second it might explode, but before that happens, I need to get more information out of him.
“You sent the tip about Miguel Dominguez’s body being found?”
Ramon’s glare cracks as he sneers.
“I did not send her to the right scene. I sent her to a place across the city. That was where the narcos picked her up.”
He pauses, and his eyes light up with a sort of mischief.
“You saw the video, yes? Then you saw exactly what they did to her.”
Ramon sees my rage, and it causes him to smile. Not sneer as he had done before, but smile.
“You could have been in the video, too. You could have been a star.”
Nova moves away from his position against the wall.
“This isn’t productive. We need to leave.”
I hear his voice and I hear his footsteps, but both are distant. I keep my focus on Ramon.
“How much?”
He raises an eyebrow, like he doesn’t understand the question.
I say, “How much did they pay you?”
Now that he understands, he smiles again, and coughs out a laugh.
“Two thousand dollars. American dollars.”
He pauses again to see my reaction, but the rage is still just beneath the surface, so he continues.
“It’s not the first time I sent a journalist like her a tip. I’ve done it before. There are many things I have done for the cartel. The money is easy. All I have to do is—”
I’ve finally had enough. I stand up and raise my gun and shoot him in the face. It should be more than sufficient—the man is obviously dead—but I fire three more rounds into his face until there isn’t much left of his head.
“Stop!”
I glance back at Nova, see that he’s impatient to leave, but I’m not ready to go just yet.
I turn back to Carlos.
The older man can barely keep his eyes open. But he slowly shakes his head and offers up a weak smile.
“I guess nobody … should piss … you off.”
I crouch down in front of him.
“I was the one who attacked Ernesto Diaz’s compound. I found the woman and the two children inside the house, and I took them with me up the coast. I dropped them off at that building. I intended on leaving the country, but I felt the woman and children still needed help, so that was why I returned. I didn’t get a chance to verify it upstairs, but somebody who knew the Devil said those murders were not done by the him.”
Carlos’s eyes fall shut. He forces air into his lungs to speak.
“When you helped … them leave the compound … did the woman … have an earring?”
“No, she didn’t. Why?”
Carlos’s head tilts to the side.
“In my … pocket.”
I reach into his pocket and pull out a familiar crumpled photograph.
Carlos says, “Who … is that?”
“I don’t know who she was, but she was a prostitute. Her sister said she had been working that street the previous night but never returned
