I’d snapped. I guess I had it coming.
I drove the beat up car I’d rented from a cheap agency right on his ass, following him in heated pursuit. I wasn’t thinking, I wasn’t even breathing, I was just reacting to some long-forgotten, deep-seated need for vengeance.
The sedan screamed down the road, tires burning on hot asphalt, heading for the highway. I was going to stop him before that. I didn’t know what I was going to do after that, but I had an idea.
I pressed the gas pedal down as far as it would go and willed it to catch up, muttering expletives as it shuddered beneath me. The rental car was a pile of shit to look at, but it turned out the engine worked well enough to let me catch up with the sedan that was sputtering erratically, a tire having blown out as it fought for control on the rough road.
I couldn’t get a good look at the driver, but through the dust I could see him thrashing around in his seat, panicking at the wheel. He wasn’t a professional by any means. Then again, I was supposed to be one and I was trying to kill his fucking ass for no reason at all.
No reason except that it felt one hundred percent right.
His car suddenly shifted right and I took that moment to gun it until my front end clipped his back. The headlights shattered, and with a screech of metal, the car went spinning to a stop.
Before I could comprehend what was going on, I was jumping out of the car, gun at my side, and running to his door. I threw it open and aimed it right at the man’s head.
The dust blew around us, and through the haze he looked at me, mouth open, the whites of his eyes shining as they stared at me with fear or shock or regret.
I didn’t care which one it was.
He raised his hands, screaming out in Spanish, “It was an accident, please, it was an accident!”
“Who are you?” I asked, my voice more steady than I felt.
“It was an accident,” he cried again. For a brief moment he took his frightened eyes off the gun and looked behind him, at the parking lot in the distance and the commotion that was gathering there. Soon they would be heading our way. “Is she all right? Please, please, the girl, is she all right?”
“No,” I told him, and pulled the trigger.
Because of the silencer, the sound of his brains and skull splattering on the window – a bright burst of red – was louder than the gun.
I quickly got back in my car and drove away. There was no time to stand around and figure out who the man was, if it was truly an accident or something else. Questions would come later, as they always did, only this time I’d be the one doing the asking.
***
I spent the rest of the day inside my hotel room, cleaning my guns and watching the local Puerto Vallarta news, trying to see if the accident would be mentioned. It was at the end of the segment when they finally reported on it. It was the usual shoddy shot of the serious reporter standing in front of the smashed gates to the parking lot. Alana, as it turns out, wasn’t killed or even critically injured. She had been admitted to the nearest hospital. The bigger part of the story was the part that had my hand all over it. It was that someone had caught up with the driver and shot him in the head. The news wasn’t sure whether this was a botched hit-and-run or vigilante justice.
I didn’t know what to think of it myself. One minute everything was going to plan, the next minute I was putting a bullet in the head of someone else, acting out of pure, untrustworthy instinct. That lack of control scared me. I hadn’t responded like that, so loosely, so foolishly, since my wife had been killed.
Regression was not a good thing in this business.
It was just after nightfall when my phone rang. I waited a beat, trying to read my gut before it got compromised by the voice on the phone. My gut was telling me to back out.
“Hello,” I answered.
“Hola,” the man said in that light tone of his. “I think we may have gotten our wires crossed here. I heard you were the best in the business. I’m a bit confused as to why you killed someone else instead of the woman you were paid to kill.”
“No time for pleasantries,” I noted.
“No,” the man said. “Not when she’s in the hospital and you’ve jeopardized this whole operation.”
I cleared my throat. “It was all lined up. Before I was even able to take my shot, she was hit by a fucking car. Everyone saw it. What was I supposed to do, still go through with it with everyone watching me?”
“That still doesn’t explain why you shot the driver.”
No, not really, I thought.
“I guess I lost my cool,” I told him.
“I didn’t think that was possible with you.”
“Maybe you’ve heard wrong about me.”