Down Among the Dead Men

58

The moment the line clicked, Vargas moved.

He didn’t give a damn what he’d been promised; he wasn’t about to hang around hoping they’d leave him alone.

No matter how you sliced it, these were not benevolent people. He’d seen that firsthand. And despite his instinct to ask Mr. Blister about La Santa Muerte, he had resisted. If you don’t want a hornet to sting you, don’t start poking at its nest.

But then that was exactly what he’d been doing, wasn’t it?

And Mr. Blister hadn’t come all this way to sit in Vargas’s hot tub.

Throwing on the rest of his clothes, Vargas grabbed his keys, the SD card, and the backpack in his closet that held his spare laptop, then doused the light, and went to his door.

Stopping short of opening it, he waited a moment, listening. The hallway outside had a cement floor and tended to echo, so he strained to hear any sound of movement.

Nothing.

Maybe a little too quiet.

Sucking in a breath, he opened the door a crack and peeked out, saw that the hallway was clear.

But just as he pulled the door wide and stepped past the threshold, a voice said:

“Mr. Vargas?”

Turning with a start, he saw an LAPD patrol officer topping the stairwell and heading in his direction. A powerfully built Hispanic guy with the requisite cop haircut.

“I’m looking for Ignacio Vargas. Is that you?”

Vargas’s heart was pounding. “What’s this about?”

“We had word of a disturbance. Is everything okay here?”

Disturbance, Vargas thought. What kind of disturbance? Had one of his neighbors heard Mr. Blister breaking into his apartment and called the cops?

A nice theory, but most of the people living in this building-which leaned toward off-duty prostitutes and low-rent hucksters-had no interest in contacting the cops for any reason whatsoever. It seemed that the only time the LAPD ever showed up around here was to harass or arrest someone.

Besides, he doubted that Mr. Blister would be so careless.

He was about to respond when his gaze dropped to the officer’s right hand, which was moving toward the weapon holstered on his hip. In a quick, fluid motion, the cop unsnapped the holster strap and pulled his gun free.

It was at that moment that Vargas decided that either the La Santa Muerte cult had connections that reached far beyond a rogue border patrol agent or this guy was not LAPD at all.

Whatever the case, one thing was obvious: Mr. Blister had help. And as the gun came up, Vargas dove.

The shot cracked, splintering wood somewhere above him as he rolled into his apartment, then suddenly realized that he’d just made a huge mistake.

There was nowhere to hide in here.

Jumping to his feet, he slung the backpack over his shoulder, bolted for the sliding glass door, and flung it open.

Another shot cracked and the door shattered, glass flying everywhere as — Vargas vaulted the balcony rail and jumped to the roof of a Grand Caravan parked at the curb below. He hit it hard, denting the roof, and the alarm started squealing as he lost his footing and tumbled to the sidewalk, landing on his hands and knees.

The impact sent a jolt of pain through him. But feeling eyes on him from the balcony above, he pushed past the pain, scrambled to his feet, and ran.

There was a shout behind him but no more gunshots. Then an engine revved and tires squealed and headlights washed across his back.

Chancing a glance over his shoulder, he saw what looked like an LAPD patrol car heading toward him, but again, he couldn’t be sure it was the real thing. The light bar mounted across the top was dark, and the glare of the car’s headlights made it difficult to see.

Not that it mattered at this point. These were subjects for later debate-assuming there was a later.

He picked up speed, but he knew there was no way he’d ever outrun a car, so his only choice was to cut into a neighboring apartment building.

This was good in theory but difficult in practice, because the building he was in front of right now was a bit more upscale than his place. The only way in was through one of the security gates that guarded the underground parking garage and the lobby entrance.

He didn’t figure anyone would be buzzing in a half-crazed has-been newspaper reporter with a gun-toting assassin at his heels, so he cut across the street instead, heading toward the all-night gas station on the corner. There was a lot of light there, and surely they wouldn’t try to shoot him in so public a place.

Assuming, of course, he was able to reach it.

The car roared behind him, and as he cleared the curb and stepped onto the sidewalk, his breathing ragged, his body shouting at him to slow the fuck down, the car pulled up alongside of him and — all he could think about was his brother, Manny. Manny getting ambushed by a van full of punks, pulling up alongside him and firing that bullet that changed his life forever.

And at that moment, Vargas knew his brother’s terror.

Then a shot cracked, quickly followed by another. And while the first one seemed to have gone wild, the second one made an impact and Vargas felt himself go down, pain blossoming somewhere in the region of his shoulder and the right side of his neck.

And as he hit the ground-knocking what little wind he had left completely out of him-he heard the squeal of tires and the beefy roar of the car’s engine as it tore away, disappearing around the corner.

Then, for the third time in as many days, everything went black.