Hunter's Run(52)

"De nada," the supervisor said, making it clear by his tone that it really was nothing to him. One way or the other.

                       
       
           



       Chapter 28

Time was a strange thing in the cell. The darkness had left him feeling discarded and forgotten. Now that the LED was on, Ramón had the sense of being scrutinized. The light was unforgiving; it made every squalid stain and scratch and chip in the cell perfectly clear. Ramón considered his wounds and came to the conclusion that while he would ache and piss blood for days, he wouldn't be the last man Johnny Joe Cardenas had killed. He would recover-if the Enye let him.

There were stories, all officially denied, about what happened to men who transgressed against the crews of the transport ships. Ramón had heard his share and believed them-or not, depending on who told them and when and where. Once he'd reached the colony, they had the same status as ghost stories. They were pleasantly frightening and grotesque, but nothing to spend time thinking about. Now, though, he wondered. If they took him, would he hold out?

There wasn't any advantage to him in keeping Maneck's secret if the Enye would wrench it out of him anyway. The slaughter that followed would be the same whether Ramón offered up the information or had it taken from him. Except, of course, to Ramón.

On the other hand, he was a tough sonofabitch. So maybe he could stand it, even if they tried to break him. No way to know without trying.

Instead of obsessing about it, Ramón attempted to pinpoint the moment when he'd stopped thinking of Maneck and the aliens beneath the mountain as his enemies. It had to have happened. He had dedicated himself to killing them for the indignities they'd heaped upon him, and now here he was, wondering if he would be strong enough to die to protect them if the need arose. It wasn't a small change of heart, and yet he couldn't say when it had happened. Or why it felt so much like the moment he'd spoken up for the woman in the bar. Or why the prospect of his own torture and death didn't fill him with some greater dread.

But there had been no promise of survival with the European either. He could have died in that alley as easily as he had killed. The result wasn't the point. It was all about being the kind of man who would do the sort of thing he was doing. It was a reason to be, a reason to die a good death, if that's what it meant. And maybe he had a thing for lost causes. Like that guy in the telenovela.

And then there were also long stretches when Ramón knew that if anyone had asked at that particular moment, he'd have told them anything. Everything. Just as long as they'd let him go. As the hours passed, he came to fix Maneck's chances at maybe sixty-forty against. Depending on what part of its cycle of heroism and cowardice his mind was in when they came, and whether they pissed him off enough that he'd be willing to sacrifice himself out of spite. When the door opened and the guards stepped in, the supervisor was with them. He'd changed his suit, so Ramón figured at least a day had passed since he'd been hauled into the cell. That seemed plausible.

Once he was shackled, the guards marched him-one before, two behind, and all of them with electric batons out and charged-to a small meeting chamber. It was nicely appointed. None of the slaughterhouse feel that the rest of the station maintained. The Enye from before, or else one enough like it to fool Ramón, stood against one wall, its slick tongue darting contentedly over its body. The governor was there, and, to Ramón's surprise, the woman from the bar. The supervisor had the guards lead Ramón to a chair bolted to the floor and chain him to it. The governor looked at him with a mixture of disgust and shrewd evaluation. The woman glanced at him once, her expression profoundly bored, and turned back to her datapad.

This is all your fucking fault. He projected the thought toward the woman. If you had stood up for yourself instead of counting on us to do your fighting for you, I wouldn't be in this fucked-up situation.

"Okay," the governor said, sounding annoyed. "Can we get this over with?"

"They're just getting her into the interrogation room now, sir," the supervisor said.

"Who?" Ramón asked. "What the fuck's going on?"

"What I told you, hijo," the supervisor said. "End of the line."

A wall screen popped once and then hummed to life. The hellish little interrogation room came into being, canted at a disturbing angle. He could see the back of the constable's head and the place where the man was just starting to bald. Across from him, Elena was looking annoyed and fidgeting with a cigarette. Ramón coughed.

"Hey! Hey, wait. No fucking way. No way! I just broke it off with her. She's fucking loca! You can't believe a thing she says!"

The governor shot a glance at the supervisor. The Enye's wet oyster eyes seemed to flicker as it considered Ramón. The woman pretended she hadn't heard him.

"Se?or Espejo," the supervisor said. "Extradition hearing needs the governor, a representative of the foreign power, a representative of the police, and the accused. That's you. Doesn't say a goddamn thing about the accused getting to talk. With all due respect for your rights as a citizen, this is your chance to shut the fuck up before I gag you. Okay?"

On the screen, the constable and Elena were going through the motions-stating her name and address, whether she knew Ramón Espejo.

"But she's a liar!" Ramón said, embarrassed to hear the whine in his voice.

"I known that ass-wipe for seven years," Elena said from the screen. "Whenever he comes to town, he stays with me. Eats my food, leaves his crap on my floor. I even washed his pinche clothes, you believe that? I got a good job, and I'm spending my time off-shift making sure that slack-ass cabrón has clean socks!"

"So you would call your relationship with Se?or Espejo an intimate one?"

Elena glanced at the constable, then down at the floor, shrugging.

"I guess," she said. "I mean. Yeah. We were intimate."

"In your time with Se?or Espejo-seven years, you said? You washed his laundry often?"

"Sure," Elena said.

"She never-" Ramón began. The supervisor shook his head once-left, right, stop-with a sense of threat that made Ramón go quiet.

"And in that time," the constable said, "did you ever come across this garment?"

With a flourish, he produced the robe. Ramón looked over at the Enye. Its gaze was on the screen, its tongue moving restlessly, darting in and out of its mouth, the fringe of chartreuse cilia that lined its body squirming like worms.

I've got to tell them, Ramón thought. For fuck's sake, I got to tell them now before they give me to that thing. Secondhand visions danced through his mind-the Silver Enye on their path of slaughter. What methods would they devise to wring information from a human? All he had to do was talk, say a few words, and condemn Maneck's people to death. How fucking hard could that be?

"That rag? All the time," Elena said. "Leaves it on the floor of the fucking bathroom whenever he takes a shower. And you know why? Because he thinks I'm his goddamn maid! Pendejo. I'll tell you what, I'm way better off without him. Kicking his ass out was the best thing I ever did!"

Ramón's panic had deafened him, so it took a moment before the meaning of her words came to him. He turned to the screen, his jaw slack. In the interrogation room, silence stretched. The constable's mouth moved as if he were speaking, but no words escaped. Elena scratched herself indelicately. Ramón's head spun. It was bullshit. Elena couldn't have seen this robe, not even after he'd come back from the hospital. She was lying, and lying in just the right way to save his sorry ass. He couldn't understand it.

"Are you sure of that?" the constable asked. His voice sounded a little strangled. "Please take a very close look at this. You're sure you've seen this particular piece of clothing?"

"Yeah," Elena said.

"But in your deposition, you said that Se?or Espejo doesn't own a robe."

"That's not a robe," Elena said. "Robe is like, down-to-yourankles long. That would only go to just under his knee. It's more like a smock."

"And this smock  … " the constable said, then trailed off. Ramón almost felt sorry for the little shit. What was there left for him to say?

"He's had it since I met him," Elena said. "I kept telling him to throw the fucking shabby thing out, but did he ever listen to me? Never. Never once, about anything. Pinche motherfucker."

"Ah," the constable said. And then, hopelessly, "You're sure?"

"Do I look stupid?" Elena asked, frowning.

A sense of unreality washed over him. Someone had gotten to her. Someone had gotten to Elena between the time she gave her deposition and now, and coached her on how to pull Ramón's sorry balls out of the fire. He wondered how much it had cost. Knowing Elena, probably a fair amount. He didn't let himself laugh, but the relief was like taking a drink of the best whiskey he'd ever had. Better, maybe.