Hunter's Run(51)

He levered himself up to his elbows.

"I'll tell," he croaked. "Come on, you pendejos. You want to know what's out there, I'll fucking tell you. I'll fucking tell. Just let me go!"

No one heard him. The door didn't open.

"Just let me go."

He fell into an exhausted sleep there on the floor and dreamed that his twin was in the cell with him, smoking a cigarette and bragging about sexual conquests Ramón didn't remember. He tried to yell to the other man that they were in danger, that he had to get away, before recalling that the man was dead. His twin, who had also become Maneck and Palenki, had launched into a lascivious description of fucking the European's companion when Ramón managed to break in, protesting in thought more than words that it had never happened.

"How do you know?" his twin asked. "You weren't there. Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm Ramón Espejo," Ramón shouted, waking himself with the words.

In the darkness, the prison floor harder than mere stone under his back, Ramón shook his head until the last tendrils of nightmare were gone. He forced himself to sit up and take stock of his injuries. They were, he decided, more painful than dangerous. Disgust washed over him-for his weakness, for his willingness to help the police even after they'd done this to him. Maneck and the aliens had collared him like a dog, but they hadn't locked him in with a psychopath just for fun. It took a human to do that.

"I'll kill you fuckers," he said to an imagined constable, his supervisor, the governor. "Somehow, I will get free of this, and will kill each one of you sorry pendejos!"

Even he wasn't convinced. When the door swung open, he realized he'd fallen asleep again. The supervisor walked in, light from the hall making a halo around him. As Ramón's eyes adjusted to the brightness, he saw resignation and amusement on the man's face.

"You don't look so good, Se?or Espejo."

"Yeah. Well, you go ten rounds with Johnny Joe Cardenas, see how you do."

The LED in the ceiling flickered on as the door closed, leaving the two of them alone.

"I'd do fine," the supervisor said. "Hung him this morning. You want a cigarette?"

"Nah," Ramón said. "I'm quitting." Then, a moment later, held out his hand. The supervisor squatted beside Ramón, struck a cigarette against the floor and handed it over.

"Got some food coming too," the man said. "And I'm sorry about Paul. He doesn't do so good when someone embarrasses him. The Enye taking your side with the governor watching? Well, he overreacted."

"That's what you call this, eh?"

The supervisor shrugged like a man who'd spent too many years looking at the world.

"Got to call it something," he said. "They're gonna take your story apart. I'm just saying, Ramón. It's going to happen."

"Why would I lie about my van getting-"

"No one gives a shit about your van. The Enye have been going crazy about this robe. It's some kind of alien artifact."

"That's what I fucking said it was!"

The supervisor let that pass.

"If there's something you're hiding, we're going to find out. The governor's not going to watch out for you. He knows you killed the European ambassador, even if he doesn't want to admit it. The cops  …  well, we can't back you if the governor doesn't. The Enye are hot about this thing, whatever the fuck it is. They'll want us to turn you over to them."

Ramón sucked the smoke deep into his lungs. When he exhaled, he could see where a little draft from the hallway caught the air and spun it. The smoke made the flow visible.

"You're negotiating for them?"

"I'm saying it's gonna be better if you tell them what they want to know. They're the ones who've got all the power."

Ramón rested his head on his knees. A memory assaulted him, the first flashback of its kind in many days-the last, it turned out, he would ever have. It began with laughter. A woman's laughter, fighting its way past the clink and clatter of the pachinko machine. Ramón was in the El Rey. The memory was clear now. The reek of the smoke, the smooth blackness of the bar. He remembered the glass in his hand, the way it clinked when he plunked it with his fingernail. The way the back mirror looked gray from the low lights and the accumulated film of old cigarettes. Music played, but softly. No one had paid to have the speakers turned up loud enough to dance to.

"It's about power," the European said. His voice was too loud. He was drunk, but not as drunk as he pretended. His accent was broad and nasal. "You know what I mean? Not like violence. Not physical violence."

The woman beside him glanced around the bar. There were maybe twenty people in the place, and they could all hear the conversation she and her European companion were having. She caught Ramón's eyes reflected in the mirror for a fraction of a second, then looked away and laughed. She neither agreed with the European nor disagreed. He went on as if she had spoken; that her opinion didn't matter proved his point.

"I mean, take you," he said, his hand on her arm as if he was pointing it out to her. "You came out with me because you had to. No, no. Don't disagree, it's okay. I'm a man of the world, right. I understand. I'm the traveling big shot, and your boss wants to make sure I'm happy. That gives me power, you see? You came out to this bar with me, didn't you?"

The woman said something, her voice too low to hear, her mouth in a tight smile. It didn't work.

"No, seriously," the man said. "What would you do if I told you to come back to my room with me right now and fuck me? I mean, are you really in a position to say no? You could, right? You could say you didn't want to. But then I'd have you fired. Just like that." He snapped his fingers and grinned coldly.

Ramón sipped his drink. The whiskey seemed watery. But he'd been listening to the European talk for a while now, and the ice in the glass had melted down to ovals like little fingernails.

"Or not even my room," the European said. "The alley, out back. I could take you out there and tell you to take off that little dress, and spread your legs, and, seriously, what could you do about it? Just hypothetically, you know. I'm just saying what if ? That's what I mean about power. I have power over you. It's not because I'm a good person and you're a bad one. It's not about morality at all."

His hand dropped from her arm. From where he sat, Ramón guessed that it had found its way to her thigh or maybe even beyond. She was sitting very still now. Still smiling, but the smile was brittle. The pachinko machine had gone quiet. No one else in the bar was talking, but the European didn't take notice. Or maybe he did, and this was the point: that everyone should hear and know. Ramón met Mikel Ibrahim's eyes and tapped the rim of his glass. The barkeeper didn't speak, only poured more liquor in.

"Power is what it's all about." His voice was lower now. There was a bass roll in the words. The woman laughed and pushed back her hair. A nervous gesture. "You understand what I'm saying to you?"

"I do," she said. Her voice was higher. "I really do. But I think it's time that I-"

"Don't get up," the European said. He wasn't asking.

This is shit, someone whispered. Ramón drank his whiskey. It was his fourth. Maybe his fifth. Mikel had his credit information. If he'd been out of money, Mikel would have kicked him out. Ramón placed the empty glass on the bar and deliberately put both hands palmdown and stared at them. If he was too drunk, they wouldn't seem like his own. They seemed like his own. Mostly. He was sober enough. He looked forward and saw himself in the haze of the mirror; he watched himself smile a little. The woman laughed. There was no mirth in the sound. There was fear.

"I want you to say that you understand," the European said, his voice low. "And then I want you to come with me, and show me how much you agree with me."

"Hey, pendejo," Ramón said. "You want power? How about you come outside, and I'll kick your pinche ass."

The European looked over, surprised. There was a moment of utter silence, and then the bar was shouting, on its feet, cheering. Ramón saw the moment of fear in the European's eyes, the rage that followed. Ramón adjusted the knife in his sleeve and grinned.

"What have you got to smile about, hijo?" the supervisor said.

"I was just thinking about something," Ramón said.

There was a long pause. The supervisor hunched over like they were both prisoners in the same cell.

"You gonna change your story?" he asked.

Ramón took a long draw on his cigarette and sighed slowly, releasing a long, gray plume of smoke. A half-dozen smart-ass comments came to mind. Things he could say to show them he wasn't scared of them or of the aliens for whom they'd made themselves into hunting dogs. In the end, he said simply, "No."

"Your call," the supervisor said.

"I still get the food?"

"Sure. And do yourself a favor. Reconsider. And do it fast. Paul's got an idea how he's going to show the Enye you're full of shit. And if they ask to take you back to their ship, you're gone. And then you're doomed."

"Thanks for the warning," Ramón said.