He gulps. “Shit. No wonder Reyes wants us dead.”
I’m getting a little bored. I hear something, and I lift my head. It’s thunder in the distance. “Tell me about Howard Fissure.”
“Fentanyl,” Miguel says quickly. “He can get great quantities of it through connections he has in China. We arrange to transfer it over the border, and suddenly it’s here.”
I assume Reyes is more pissed they’ve cut him out of a deal than that they’re bringing poison into the country. “You split the profits?”
“Seventy-thirty.” Miguel’s lip curls up in a sneer. “I want to change that, but it’s the best Paco could do.”
“I see. Does Howard Fissure have a family?”
Miguel screws up his face, appearing as if thinking hurts him. “Um, ex-wife, maybe two. I don’t know. We don’t go to barbecues together, man. It’s a business arrangement.”
“An arrangement you made without Urbano Reyes knowing?”
“Obviously,” Miguel says.
Oh good, he is getting some of his spirit back. “Where’s the money?” I ask.
He looks up. “I ain’t telling you that until I’m free.”
“Where’s the money?” I ask again.
“I’m not telling you.” I stab him in the shoulder and tear down. He cries out with the most high-pitched sound he’s made. He must have an old shoulder injury. The knife didn’t go through as easily as it should have. Scar tissue impedes blades.
Bloody tears flow down his face. “Fine, fine. It’s upstairs beneath a board in the second bedroom.”
“That wasn’t that hard, was it?” I ask him. He doesn’t answer and instead tries to sniff a snot bubble up his nose. It occurs to me how much that would annoy Rosalie. Well, she probably wouldn’t like the blood either. “Now, tell me about Ella Rendale,” I suggest.
Miguel blinks. “Ella Rendale? From the society pages?”
“Yeah. Why would Reyes want her dead?”
Miguel sits back, his eyebrows rising. One of them is heavily scarred. “Dude, I have no idea. We don’t have anything to do with the society page. Reyes must have a contract I don’t know about.”
Most entirely possible. “You better not be lying to me.” I lift the knife.
“I’m not. I’m not,” he says quickly. “I promise. I don’t know anything about Ella Rendale.”
Probably truthful. He did give me the information on Howard Fissure pretty easily. “So Juan Gomez?” I ask. “Why are you two so tight?”
“He saved my life more than once,” Miguel says. “I’ll split the money upstairs with you, but you have to leave Juan alone. We need someone to lead since Paco’s dead, and Reyes ain’t getting out of prison anytime soon.”
“Fair enough.” I walk behind him and reach down for the ropes tying his wrists together. His shoulders relax. In that split second, I lean around him and slice his jugular. Blood spurts across the room, and he jerks several times, finally going limp in death. I manage to keep most of the blood off of me, and the cheap gloves I wear will be easy to burn. I wipe the knife off again on him and then stab it into the ground next to his foot. It was his knife, so he should keep it.
I exit the room silently and carefully walk upstairs, listening for noise. Nothing. I make it to the second bedroom and tap on the floorboards until I find a loose one. Making sure my gloves remain in place, I lift the fake wood to find a knapsack that I pull out and open. The little bastard lied to me. There’s at least three hundred grand in the duffel bag.
Slinging it over my shoulder, I walk out the back door and through many sad-looking, forlorn backyards until I reach my motorcycle. I pause and then decide to walk the other block. I have the bike hidden neatly between two old sheds, and starting her up will just create more noise.
So I walk the other block and knock on a door. Nobody answers. The house is one story with falling shutters, and it may have been green at one point. Now the color is more of a dingy gray fronted by a small patch of burned-out grass in the yard. I knock louder.
The porch light flickers on, and the door opens to reveal a girl who can’t be any older than seventeen. She has at least a two-year-old on her hip. “What do you want?” She’s pretty, though bruised. She has a black eye and marks on her neck. Her hair is long and black, and the baby’s adorable with her little thumb in her mouth.
I drop the knapsack next to her feet. “There’s enough here for you to take off and don’t look back.” She looks at me suspiciously and takes a step back. “Paco and Miguel are dead and Juan is next,” I say. “Reyes is not getting out of prison anytime soon. Take the baby, take the money, and go.”
Turning, I leave her on the porch staring at me. It’s up to her whether she takes a chance at freedom or not. My gut feeling says that she will. I make my way back to my bike and roll it for almost a mile away from the shitty neighborhood before jumping on and starting the ignition.
I find Jose with a group of his buddies partying at a house about fifteen blocks away on Seventh, exactly where Miguel had said. I park in the distance and watch, waiting until Juan comes into sight. I tracked him through Facebook and know exactly what he looks like. He laughs and jokes with buddies, a gun visible at his hipbone.
