Gun Work Read online

  “How much American cash do you have?”

  “You mean besides the —?” Carl’s face went cheesy at almost blurting out big money while surrounded by hungry foreigners. He lowered his voice, playing spy. “A couple thousand.”

  Barney held out his hand under the table and Carl passed a wad of damp currency. “Give me your hotel room key. Tell the hotel you lost it. Be ready to call them at six o’clock and say you just want to get it over with. Then find a car agency and rent a car that has a global positioning system.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Barney pocketed the money as absentmindedly as you’d tuck a small receipt. “Go shopping.”

  As an anonymous outsider, it was comparatively easy for Barney to score the things he wanted: three cheap cellphones, gray-market night vision binoculars, a ex-military Colt 1911-A chambered for modern .45 caliber rounds. But he was carrying more than that. He felt the crush of obligation on his shoulders, trying to weary him prematurely. He felt depressed about becoming the designated tough guy, and therefore devaluing Carl in his mind because Carl was reluctant to soldier up. At least Carl fit into the universe; all Barney had to fall back upon was rusty old myths about the nobility and honor of samurai, or ronin, or paladins — those stiff-lipped protectors who always wound up dead when the status was returned to quo.

  In another way, it wasn’t Carl’s perceived weakness so much as Erica’s influence. Erica, the yet-unseen, had changed Carl. Perceived as feminine and thus victim fodder, she was the prime target. Carl was responding as protector — a damnable predictability. If the kidnappers had grabbed Carl and pushed Erica through this wringer, things might have sorted out differently.

  Barney wondered about Erica while he field-stripped and cleaned the .45. The sidearm was narrow and heavy, its parts scuffed with wear and burnished by time, but as a functional assembly of parts it was nearly indestructible. You could hammer nails with it, dunk it in fresh concrete, and it would still fire reliably. Not subtle, it would kick like a piston. It was like a longdistance mace, designed for one to fire at full arm extension, single-handedly, and knock down enemies out of choking range. The two-handed grip amateurs had learned from the movies was strictly boutique, a precious formality that made you seem more impressive on the shooting range. It was useful for target shooters; less practical in combat. Felt recoil was only a downside if you let it disrupt your aim.

  The gun was an unsung classic, most definitely an antique. It was stamped UNITED STATES PROPERTY M1911A1 U.S. ARMY on the right side of the receiver, though the serial numbers had been scratched off both the slide and receiver (probably with a Dremel, Barney noticed). It bore the Coltwood plastic grips introduced in the 1940s — dull reddish-brown, no mold numbers — to replace the Coltrock and checkered walnut stocks of earlier iterations. Slide marks and factory stamps indicated the barrel had probably been replaced several times.

  Barney put fifty rounds through the pistol to warm it up and check its balance. The action was tight as a snare drum; whoever had stolen or bought or recovered this pistol had taken good care of it. Barney dum-dummed another box of fifty and loaded four clips of nine. He acquired a brown leather shoulder holster that had gone furry at the rivets, with a counterbalance web for the extra magazines. He was strapped to several pounds of shooting iron plus about a pound each for the mags; the Zen trick now was to forget the burden existed. It had to become part of him, no second thoughts, and a weapon was a tool, and you never drew it capriciously. Unholstering the gun had to be instinctive, and deployment of firepower a foregone conclusion. The combination of thoughts and actions required for threat/response/aftermath was too cluttered to permit linear logic. It had to be almost autonomic, like breathing or blinking. Barney had spent a great portion of his life subverting his fear triggers in order to fix things, to get jobs done, to never flinch.

  He had become, he realized, a kind of monster to normal human congress, like a rattlesnake in a society of rodents. Normally they were prey, and left you alone due to your threat protocols. Your look, your attitude, your aura. But occasionally they could gang up on you and kill you for being different. A fellow Barney would always remember as the Old Assassin had once told him: “I am what I am, and that’s not always very pretty. But being ugly is better than being nothing.”

  The Old Assassin was no longer alive. He was no longer anything.

  Most American law enforcement had switched to nine-millimeter sidearms in the 1980s. Not so with the ostentatiously Kevlared policemen of the Distrito Federale, who packed whatever they wanted, including grease guns dating back to the Second World War. They peppered the streets in pairs and quartets, spoiling for trouble from behind mirrored sunglasses and body armor, defining corruption in a freefire zone of aching poverty. For the most part they were sadistic, bored, and sailing on some form of speed, with a predator’s eye for weaklings in any herd. This was why Carl had not called the cops, and had called Barney instead.

  Carl was a tourist. Tourists were prey. End of story.

  Tourism was shallow people attempting to sample local flavors that by definition were ruined by the presence of tourists. These days, it was even worse if you were an American; they openly sneered at you in foreign ports because you were a loathsome example of the worst of the phylum; ignorant, loud, alien, greedy for things you cannot have, eternally disappointed in ways you can never cognate or admit. Tourists flew the big red flag that read victimize me, I deserve it.

  And Mexico... Jesus. Most Americans viewed Mexico the way most Californians viewed Tijuana, as a cesspool, a whorehouse, a dumping ground, a party zone where you did not have to clean up after yourself.

  Barney’s test, and indeed his skill, was invisibility in the midst of the circus of human congress, no matter what country he was in. He had enough Spanish to ask questions, order food, or obtain the odd farmacia medication. Ampicilina, cincocientos milligramas, por favor.

  Hence, he had been able to obtain his toys without comment.

  He knew his old buddy Carl probably thought Barney had evolved into some kind of black ops badass. Kill a man with a paper napkin. Eat roadkill to survive. Make bombs out of fertilizer and kitchen cleaning products. The emotional depth of a robot. Barney was none of the inhuman things ordinary people assumed. He was one thing — a gunman, the sort of man who would not mind if every single walking citizen was packing a legal firearm. It certainly would make strangers more polite in mixed company. To a certain extent, Barney felt that he was the embodiment of his own skills, an instrument for action that could rust through disuse or neglect. For Carl to ask Barney for help confirmed Barney’s own existence. Simple.

  The vehicle Carl had procured was pretty amazing.

  His “rental” turned out to be an armored limousine, actually a Town Car with the stretch deck, a bomb shell underbelly, solid rubber anti-deflating tires, a personnel-carrier suspension for the extra weight, and bulletproof tinted windows.

  “They had three of these things,” Carl said rather sheepishly. “They made me a deal.”

  “Soft market?” said Barney.

  Carl shrugged. “Look, it’s got the GPS. I thought, it couldn’t hurt, right?”

  “As long as it goes over sixty on the flats.”

  Barney spent the next hour or so dismantling the map-tracker. He had watched one of his shooting range regulars do this once and retained the knack of learning and extrapolating through observation. You never knew what weird skills you might need someday. Then he performed surgery on the nylon cargo bag in which Carl planned to store his million bucks in cash. It was big. A single banknote, no matter what the denomination, weighs a gram. If the $1,000,000 had been in one dollar bills, it would have weighed over a ton. In fifties, forty-four pounds; in hundreds, half that. A million bucks in reasonably clean, circulated bills only fit into a slim Halliburton briefcase in the movies.

  Barney stitched the tiny microprocessor board behind the thick vinyl logo riveted to the bag, hones
tly the only place to hide it.

  “Do you really need to have that gun?” said Carl, eying the .45.

  Barney looked at his friend as though he had just stepped out of a flying saucer. Waited. Then, calmly: “Yes. I need it.”

  “Damn, it’s... heavy.”

  Barney’s hand lashed out like a striking cobra, slamming Carl’s wrist to the table. Pure instinct. He had looked up from his work to see the muzzle of the pistol directed at his face. Now it was angled at the ceiling, potentially bad for other guests.

  It was like a bad joke version of Barney’s range test for newbies. Hand them an unloaded piece and see where they wave it. A good quick way to discover who might or might not handle a firearm responsibly. Carl had just failed with flying colors, picked up a loaded weapon, put his finger on the trigger without thinking, and pointed it right at Barney. The only thing he had not done was try to imitate Cagney and make little pchew-pchew gunshot noises... which would have been obliterated by the sound of the weapon discharging and spreading Barney’s inmost thoughts all over the water-stained wallpaper of their amenity-less hotel room.

  Carl stammered, “Oh, shit, I’m sorry, man, I—”

  ...haven’t held a gun in twenty years, yeah, I know.

  Barney never felt sorry for ordinary folks, regular citizens, the law abiders, the walking dead. But sometimes he did pity them. Carl had put weapons handling, and Iraq, far behind him. Even there, Barney remembered him with an AR-15, mostly for show, but never a handgun.

  Carl was frittering, nervous with anticipation. He needed a chore.

  “Have you got a picture of Erica?” said Barney, stowing the gun, which had been cocked and locked.

  Suddenly it was very important for Barney to obtain a mental image of the person they were supposed to rescue. He certainly wasn’t going to get an accurate account from Carl. Too much emotion polluting the information. Barney needed to see a photo.

  Predictably, the snapshot Carl produced was from the humid depths of an overstuffed wallet. At least he hadn’t stored a thousand pictures of his beloved on his phone or iPod.

  Erica Ledbetter, née Erica Elizabeth Stolyer, appeared to be a gamine redhead with Bombay Sapphire blue eyes and a wide, generous mouth; pure Midwestern corn-fed all-Americano hotcha; the girl who had fled the small town for better things. Because she was standing beside Carl in the photo, Barney put her height at about five-four, give or take heels. Something in the glint of those eyes gave Barney the feeling that she was very camera-conscious, and always tilted her head down and looked up when there was a lens present. It did not make her look older but did make her look dangerous beyond her apparent youth; Carl had mentioned that she was currently thirty-three years old. Fair complexion; freckles. No wonder they had snatched her. She could not have looked more out-of-town, a pale, white, well-appointed, red-headed target.

  Beyond the image, here is what Barney saw: She used to date outlaws but tired of their arrested adolescence. Probably snagged a useless college degree or two. Just old enough, now, to appreciate adult company. Doesn’t want children and never has; that DNA imperative was subtracted from her makeup, so this woman has sex for pleasure. Barney looked at Carl again, now seated on a sagging twin bed redolent of mildew, staring uncomprehendingly at a TV game show in Spanish. A lot of people were shouting and talking very fast. Carl would have to work to satisfy this woman.

  Back to the photo: The type of woman who does not expect convenience, knows life entails pain, and earns what she considers to be her rewards. Yeah: If held captive, she could probably muster some backbone. A darker thought: Maybe her union with Carl was strategic.

  First impressions, a still life, impossible to say.

  Barney handed Carl one of the cellphones. “The ringers are off. They’ll blink. These are our walkies.”

  “What’s the third one for?”

  “I put the guts into the car’s GPS, which is a simple receiver. Now it’ll tell us where the chip is, instead of where the car is.”

  “You mean where the bag of money is. Why? If they give Erica back when we—”

  Barney overrode him. “If they don’t, we’ve got something to follow. If they’re smart, they’ll ditch the bag straightaway. The difference could be just enough time. A fix, a location, a general direction. I mean, you’re not going to be able to Google ‘hostage hideouts’ and come up with a list of addresses.”

  “You still want me to call them tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  Whatever Barney was going to add was cut short by a knock on the door, in a place where there was no room service.

  Nobody was supposed to know where Carl and Barney were headquartered. Barney had engineered the move himself, advising Carl to keep his original hotel room at a place six blocks distant. Nobody was supposed to know Barney was an added extra guest, and it was a fair bet that housekeeping was not this formal, not at the dive Barney had purposefully selected.

  The gun was already in Barney’s grasp as he backed toward the bathroom. With a finger of silence to his lips, he directed Carl toward the door.

  Here is a snapshot of what walked in:

  Long legs on six-inch heels, liquid brown eyes, skin the color of Bailey’s Irish mocha, shiny gaze, glittering bangles, sharp edges, a halter top and skirt that pretty much showed you in detail what you were getting — a healthy balcony (no implants), good teeth, a few scars for character and no scabs — along with the triple-shot of attitude that stormed into their presence. From what Barney could figure out from his vantage, eavesdropping, this flamboyant vision’s name was Estrella — “star.”

  “Hey, Carlito,” she said, advancing on Carl. “You should know better than to try and hide from your chamaca... you alone?”

  Her radar was good, as if she could smell Barney in the space, and Carl knew better than to try faking it. “Ran into an old war buddy.”

  Barney had been cast in the part, no audition, and now the spotlight was on. He flushed the toilet to give himself an entrance cue. It gurgled and tried to back up. The bowl was ringed with brown stains similar to the strata of calcification on the teeth of many Mexican citizens, a fringe benefit of no fluoride. Estrella obviously enjoyed a better dental plan.

  “Hey,” Barney said, playing his walk-on badly. “Company?”

  “Hombre,” said the intruder, inviting enough but not game for a handshake. She sized Barney up in an eyeblink. “Looks like you’re the company.”

  Barney tried to picture the pie chart of her bloodline, which looked to be a generational dime-a-dance mix of Latin, Asian, maybe some Dutch, plus a shot of some indefinable exotic extra wallop.

  Great. Carl had gotten himself entangled with some Mexican hottie. The scenario sucked more by the microsecond. She needed to be jettisoned.

  “You come to party with Carlito?” She wagged her eyebrows up and down.

  “Just cervezas and dirty boy talk,” Barney said. But there was no beer in the room.

  “You gonna talk dirty to me, Carlito?” She already had her hand on his belt buckle, pulling him into a clinch. Possessive. Territorial.

  “You guys need a moment?” Barney smiled. It hurt his face.

  Estrella held up two fingers. Peace sign. “Two moments.”

  Barney’s gaze exchanged information with Carl’s: You okay?

  Carl: Yeah. Let me deal with this.

  “I’ll just go get some cigarettes,” Barney said. He didn’t smoke. The gun was beneath his shirt, against his spine, as he exited.

  There are little mercados and bodegas all over the city, but if you are smart you don’t pop out to pick up drinks and a snack after nightfall, at least without bodyguards or armored support. Fearful eyes will watch you from behind curtains as you pass. Buildings are locked, bolted, barred. Surly glares from darkened portals await you, sizing you up. The air is thick with feral pheromones and incipient hazard. Teen punks, drug casualties, bangers and outright sociopaths are eager to test your machismo. They always mock but
never kid. They are coyotes on the lookout for the next domestic pet-snack. As Barney stepped out, the sun was on the wane. About an hour before the vampires came out to enjoy their time.

  Trouble would come later. For now, Barney knew he had nine little ballistic friends with him. Plus one in the pipe, already chambered.

  He purchased some El Sol to cut the dust, Cokes, and a couple of American protein bars. He avoided the “chocolate-flavored” snacks because the dye and seaweed used to color them tended to turn your poop green. Real Mexican chocolate was pretty wonderful, but this packaged stuff was mass-market and of questionable origin.

  He wondered if Carl’s cellphone would ring while he was with Estrella. Now that would be a French farce come to life.

  He squandered about twenty minutes, stopping to watch a cart vendor expertly spatulate some simmering chorizo tacos. The aroma was hypnotic. The grinning brown entrepreneur had evenly spaced two-millimeter gaps between each of his teeth and the next, but his cart was scrupulously clean and his ingredients looked fresh. Some of the best food in Mexico comes from these little wheeled stands, the kind of thing that would make turistas grimace. Barney was tempted but decided not to weigh himself down with chow, in case he and Carl had to move nimbly later. He bought a Manzana in a glass bottle from the vendor’s bin of refrescos; the apple-flavored soft drink was very popular down here.

  Mexico was its own set of contradictions, overpopulated with Catholics mired in poverty who nonetheless gave to the church. Friendly people who would open your throat at a wrong word. Helpless people who might help you; trapped people who might free you. Rare beauty in the midst of ugliness; atrocities framed in Spanish gold. A frontier sense of liberty and advantage butted against the lowering specter of threat. Barney’s image of Mexico City was summed up by the Basilica de Guadalupe — not the new, adjacent Astrodome version, but the original shrine where Juan Diego supposedly first saw the image of the Virgin in a blue mantle in 1531. Second only to the Vatican as a holy place and destination of pilgrimage, the grand old building has been sinking into the earth since the late 1960s due to faulty foundations. It was Mexico in a nutshell: most revered, gothically ornate, culturally omnipresent, sinking into the dirt in the middle of a vast city center only slightly smaller than Red Square in Moscow.