The Devil's bounty

Twenty-three

Five Hours Later

Once a proud sicario, Hector resented his demotion to babysitter. Especially when the baby who needed his nappy changing was Charlie Mendez. A spoilt, rich pup of an American who had done terrible things, not for money or survival, as Hector had, but for kicks. A nobody, who had never worked a day in his life. A coward, who didn’t even have the balls to take a woman against her will unless he had drugged her first and she couldn’t fight back.

Hector did what the boss had asked him to do. He did it well. He made sure that no harm came to Charlie, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

Hector’s journey in life had been different. No silver spoon for him. No spoon of any description, in fact. Not even a plastic one.

He had grown up in a family of four boys and one girl, small by the standards of his colonia. Hector had been the eldest. His father had died in a farming accident when he was seven. He’d been chewed up and spat out by a threshing machine, then delivered home in a plywood box by a Texas rancher, who probably thought of himself as a good guy for going to the expense.

It was the boss who had saved Hector, and brought him into the plaza, back in the days when there was a plaza and a proper order to business. At first Hector had started out doing some jobs here and there, mostly taking cars across the border. He was never stopped and it was only later he realized that it hadn’t been just luck. Actually, that wasn’t true. He had been stopped once and the car taken but he had been let go. He had gone straight back to the boss and, because he hadn’t waited for him to find out, there had been no repercussions. From that point on, Hector had been trusted and his ascendancy had been swift. Soon afterwards he no longer had a job but a career, with prestige and status and even a pension — if he lived long enough to collect it.

It was a quarter to the hour and darkness had enveloped the streets outside the villa. Dinner would be served soon by the staff. Hector put down his tumbler of Johnnie Walker Blue and walked from the living room, with the french windows that gave on to the swimming pool, into the corridor. At the bedroom he knocked softly. His charge was in the habit of taking a long siesta, but he was usually up, showered and dressed for dinner by now.

There was no answer.

Hector knocked again, a little too loudly, the alcohol kicking in, along with his impatience to lend extra weight to his hand.

When he was ignored again, he reached down and opened the door. Inside the bedroom, the curtains were closed and it was dark.

‘Senor,’ he whispered. ‘Dinner will be served in an hour. You may want to think about…’

He crossed to the bed and nudged the lump. He grabbed a corner of the sheet and pulled it off to reveal a bundle of clothes, neatly rolled up and arranged to look like a body.

He checked the bathroom. It was empty. Charlie Mendez was gone and Hector had a problem.