The Devil's bounty

Part Two
Twenty-two

Wrapped in the warmth of the fiery orange sun above the Pacific Ocean, Charlie Mendez stretched his lean, tanned body, and gave a loud yawn. The whole day stretched ahead of him. In a minute or two he would rise from his lounger, grab his surfboard and try to catch some waves. After an hour or so, he would come back into shore, head to the villa to shower, then go out to lunch. Afterwards, he would return to the villa with one of the local girls he rotated on a weekly basis. After a siesta with her, when he often ended up burning more calories than he did surfing, he would rest properly. Around seven, he would go to dinner, then drink in a local bar where he would pick up another girl, almost always a different one from the afternoon’s. By midnight he would be alone in bed and asleep.

While most men would tire of such a life, Mendez was used to indolence, to doing a lot of not very much. It had eased his transition to life in Mexico. There was only one problem: the local girls. They were beautiful, some strikingly so, but they were no challenge. He was young, wealthy and American, which meant that getting laid was a lot easier than catching a wave. He missed his old life so badly that he had even drugged one of the girls he had brought back to the villa. But, as she lay there unconscious, the thrill was gone. She would have done what he wanted her to do anyway, no matter how degrading or weird. Where was the fun in that?

That was why, later that evening, he was going to slip away from the villa and drive to nearby Diablo, which had a couple of resort hotels that catered to American tourists, and find some real sport. He had bought a new video camera specially. He had sourced his drugs. He was taking a risk. There was every chance that a bounty hunter might still be looking for him, despite what had happened to the last one. But that made it all the more thrilling. Charlie Mendez would be both hunted and hunter. The thought made his skin tingle with anticipation, and goosebumps rose on his arms.

He got to his feet, flicked off his sandals and picked up his board. Behind him, on the concrete promenade, two of his bodyguards stood next to a red Mercedes saloon, their automatic weapons slung over their shoulders — men openly carrying heavy-duty firearms were no big deal down here. He waved to them. One of them, Hector, waved back. Hector scared him. Although he was the smallest of the men who followed him everywhere, he was the one the others deferred to, the leader of the group. It was in his eyes, which were those of a predator.

Mendez began to run towards the ocean, the promise of a proper evening’s entertainment making him feel truly alive for the first time in months. Finally he had something to look forward to. Then he heard Hector calling him from the road.

‘Charlie!’

He kept running, but Hector called after him again. He might get away with ignoring the man once, but not a second time. He turned. Hector was beckoning him. He jogged towards the vehicle. ‘What’s up, Hector?’ he asked.

‘We have to go back to the house.’

‘Why?’

Hector stepped forward. ‘I’ll take your board. Get in.’

Pissed off, Mendez handed it to him. Hector took the front passenger seat, an assault rifle on his lap.

‘What’s the problem?’ Mendez asked. ‘Why do we have to leave?’

Hector swivelled in his seat and smiled at him. ‘There’s no problem.’

‘Is it another bounty hunter?’

‘Like I said, there’s no problem. It’s a precaution.’

‘But something’s happened, right?’

‘The girl who was giving you so much trouble. The Warner girl?’

Mendez hadn’t thought about her in ages. For a while he’d had recurring fantasies about killing her in more and more macabre ways, or occasionally he thought back to the night he had raped her. ‘Oh, yeah, that bitch — what about her?’

‘She’s dead,’ said Hector.

He greeted the news as if he’d been told that the lunch special had already sold out. ‘Oh, yeah? How’d it happen?’

Hector shrugged. ‘She was at a rap concert. Someone shot her. It’s LA. Bad things happen there sometimes.’

‘So how come I have to go back to the house?’ Goddamnit. Even dead that bitch was cramping his style. He hated the house where they’d kept him since Brady had arrived. There was no view of the ocean, no mountains, only other buildings, and even those were difficult to glimpse beyond the high walls and razor wire.

Hector’s lips thinned to a straight line beneath his fat, bulbous nose. It was a sign that he was growing tired of the questions.

‘It doesn’t matter, Hector. I’m sure there’s a good reason,’ he said, with a sigh. He climbed into the back of the vehicle. The air-conditioning was running at full tilt and he shivered as a cold blast hit him. He leaned back in his seat and tried to sleep. His mind drifted back to Melissa but, as he thought of her, images of the night came back to him. Even drugged she had tried to fight him, her hand clawing limply at his face. He had enjoyed that. He thought of it now, and found that he had an erection. What wouldn’t he give for another Melissa?