The Watchman (7 page)

People see what they expect to see.

I dumped the crate in the storeroom and continued along the corridor towards a rack of tourist brochures and city maps. The reception area was close by. I could hear a woman taking a booking just out of my line of sight to my left, marking the reception desk, and got a glimpse of the main entrance and a circular door dead ahead. A sign on the wall pointed to the stairs and elevator.

I made a show of checking out the literature while eyeing the foyer, which had a marble floor and lots of yellow lights reflecting off brass panels, and pots of large exotic plants in the corners.

I heard a man's voice, deep and fast, followed by a laugh. Then a shoulder appeared round the edge of the wall, so close I could have touched it.

It was a security guard complete with shoulder badge and a gun on his hip.

I held my breath. No way would I get past him. I needed the emergency stairway. I turned back down the corridor the way I'd come and saw that the doorway the young woman had come through moments earlier was now closed, and carried a running man sign. I must have walked right by it.

I ducked through and found myself in a lobby at the bottom of a flight of concrete stairs leading up. The air here was stuffy and warm, with no ventilation. Tucked under the stairs and spilling out into the lobby were some damaged chairs, a broken headboard and a couple of electric lamps, and I guessed the fire regulations didn't stretch this far. Before going further, I took out the cell phone and tried Parillas once more.

Still no answer.

I walked up the stairs, my shoes crunching on a fine coating of grit, and hoped there were no security cameras in operation. Just in case, I opened a map I'd picked out of the brochure rack downstairs and held it in front of me with my head down and one hand inside my jacket on the gun.

I passed the first floor landing and stopped to check for voices. Nothing. But it was hard to tell with the hum of traffic and bustle filtering in from outside. As hotels go, it couldn't have been in a busier district. I checked my watch. Four fifty-five.

I continued on up and did the same at the second floor, then walked up to the third and stepped out into a corridor. It was carpeted and well lit, and smelled more like a hotel, with a hint of air-freshener and cleaning liquids. I walked along until I reached another small lobby area with a single elevator and a flight of stairs. I listened for a moment over the void, but couldn't hear anything.

Time to go visit Mr Achevar.

It's always easier walking down from a higher floor to the one you need. That way you get advance warning of anyone waiting, because guards don't always look up; they expect trouble to come from the lower floors. It also gives you the chance to turn and go back up if you need to, because up is generally less busy. The closer to the ground in a public building of any kind, the more likely you are to run into trouble.

I stepped off the bottom stair and checked the corridor. Empty. If Mr Achevar was still waiting, he must be getting edgy.

The door to thirty-four looked perfectly normal. I took out the gun and held it down by my leg, and stood to one side. I knocked.

No answer. I knocked again, slightly louder. Maybe Mr Achevar was taking a nap.

This time the door clicked and moved, then swung open a little.

I smelled Achevar right away.

I stepped inside, following the gun, although I didn't think I'd need it. It was a standard room, with a single bed, TV, a couple of chairs and a writing surface with a drinks tray. There was no sign of the occupant, but it looked as if a hurricane had gone through, tearing the place apart. The bed had been stripped and ripped, drawers opened and the chairs tipped upside down and sliced open. Even the corners of the carpets had been lifted.

I sniffed and felt my gut twitch, and eased round the corner of the bathroom door.

Louis Achevar was slumped in the shower tray. Blood had splattered up the wall and shower screen, lending the scene a pink hue that was anything but soft.

He had died hard, and I hoped for his sake that it had been quicker than it looked. Somebody had hacked off his hands and feet, the latter still in their shoes. They were lying outside the shower, placed neatly side by side, as if he might have stepped out of them before folding himself into a tiny ball and dying. His hands had been placed on his chest, with the fingers dipped into the gap where his throat had been sliced open like a pair of lips.

A towel had been stuffed in his mouth to prevent his screams being heard, and the air was thick with the smell of blood and faeces. Dozens of flies were coming through the air vent in the wall, rushing to settle on the body, where they began feeding greedily off the slick layers of blood.

I heard a police siren blip some way off, and felt the hairs lift on the back of my neck. I didn't have much time. I was pretty sure that if Achevar had brought anything with him to hand over to Parillas, like a memory stick or a notebook, it had been taken. Even so, I had to look. I didn't waste time checking the body; the pockets of Achevar's pants had been ripped outwards and his shirt torn open. So I focussed on the bedroom area, trying to get inside the mind of a man terrified for his life yet determined to hand over information about his employers.

There was nothing. The searchers had done a thorough job, even checking the top of the wardrobe and inside the TV. The only things left were the hotel facilities folder and a local phone directory with a cheap ballpoint pen lying nearby.

My cell phone rang. It sounded too loud in the confined space of the room, and I wondered if they could hear it outside.

I checked the screen; caller's number withheld. I hit the button and listened. I could hear breathing, and some voices in the background. Then another blip of a siren, sounding very close to whoever was calling me.

‘Portman?' It was Parillas. ‘Where you at, man?'

For a brief second, I wondered if I'd been wrong and he'd genuinely got held up. I said, ‘I'm close. Why – are you in trouble?'

‘No, man. Everything's cool, y'know?' His breathing was harsh and I wondered why he was calling me ‘man' and sounding so hip.

Something wasn't right.

The police siren.

‘Are we ready to go?' I asked.

‘No. Not yet.' A gabble of voices sounded in the background, then he continued, ‘Tell you what, come in to the hotel. It's safe, OK? I got Achevar, but we need to move fast.'

‘Got it.' Liar, liar. I shut off the phone and heard shouting outside. I stepped over to the window. I couldn't see the area right in front of the hotel, but people on the far side of the street were all focussed on something further along.

The two SUVs I'd seen earlier were still there, but a police cruiser had stopped alongside them, the driver gesticulating for them to move along. After a moment, he stopped waving and nodded, and drove off, one arm hanging out the window. At that, the men at the coffee bar broke away and began walking along the street. They looked as if they meant business.

Just as I was about to move away, the rear door of the nearest SUV opened, and a man in a pale jacket jumped out. He stood on the sidewalk listening to someone inside, then grinned and slapped the roof of the car before turning and chasing after the other men.

They were all heading towards the hotel.

I watched as the man in the pale jacket caught up with them and clamped an arm across the lead man's shoulders. The movement lifted this one's shirt, revealing the butt of a semi-automatic stuffed into his waistband. Whatever the man in the pale jacket said to him was enough to have him shouting orders to his companions, and they put on a burst of speed, spreading out across the street.

I swore silently. It was a trap. And I'd walked right into it.

The pale jacket was similar to the one I'd dumped in the trash earlier, the partner of the one delivered in the wooden box.

It was being worn by Oscar Parillas.

I
got out of there fast, snatching up the phone directory on the way. It seemed to be the only thing the searchers hadn't touched. I didn't know if it was meaningful, but I could get into that later.

For now I had to survive the next few minutes until I got clear.

I hit the emergency stairs on the run. This time I wasn't being too careful. Distance was of the essence; between me and the cartel gunmen outside, and distance from here to the border.

As I walked out of the downstairs lobby area I heard raised voices coming from the reception area. One belonged to the security guard. If he was savvy enough to recognize these men for what they were, he'd back off without resistance and let them do what they had to. He wasn't being paid enough to stand up against the cartel.

I slipped out into the side street and walked away from the hotel, a low sun at my back, clutching the directory under my arm. I was running a mental map and working out where I had to go to cover as much ground as I could. My problem was, Parillas knew where I would go and might have already told his new associates to despatch men to the border to intercept me. That was a chance I had to take.

I was at the end of the street and about to turn the corner when a beefy guy in a flashy shirt stepped out of a doorway and stood in front of me, squinting into the sun. He had smooth facial skin stretched over high cheekbones, and black, lank hair. He also had one hand under his shirt and was holding a cell phone in his other hand.

It was one of the spotters I'd seen earlier.

Out in the open was no place for a fight; his colleagues were all over the area and would come running the moment they heard anything. So I held up my hands and walked straight into the open doorway he'd just left, which was little more than a small tiled lobby.

The move threw him. He hadn't expected compliance, so he hesitated in bringing up the cell phone and stepped in after me.

It was a bad move. From staring into the sun, he was now in shadow and struggling to adjust his eyesight.

I dropped the phone directory. It landed on the tiled floor with a loud slap. He was startled by the sound, eyes dropping to locate the source. I used a snap kick to his belly and followed it up with an elbow strike to the side of his head. But he was tougher than he looked. He shook it off and tried to shout, and his other hand appeared, bringing up a gun from under his shirt.

I grabbed his face and drove him back against the wall as hard as I could, slamming his head into the plaster. He looked surprised and I felt a spray of saliva against the palm of my hand. He was stunned but he wasn't finished yet and fought against me. I dropped my hand and cupped it under his chin, this time snapping his head backwards as hard as I could. There was a crack and he went limp, and slid down the wall.

I moved back and waited for sounds of alarm within the building. But there was nothing. The dead man had dropped his gun and cell phone. I scooped them up, kicked the gun behind his body and slipped the phone in my pocket.

It was time to go, before his colleagues began to wonder where he was.

I picked up the directory, walked outside and stopped.

Two men in police uniforms were waiting, guns pointing right at me.

Time seemed to slow right down.

They must have seen the dead guy bring me in here and decided to investigate.

‘Hey – you're just in time,' I said, making like the angry tourist. ‘This bastard tried to rob me!'

One of the cops, skinny and with eyes as dead as a fish, looked past me, squinting into the lobby. I heard the word
muerte
– dead – and his colleague shrugged a pair of fat shoulders like he could care less.

At which point things went from bad to worse.

Fish-eye flicked his gun for me to turn round, then searched me and took my gun, my cell phone and my wallet. He looked at the directory with a frown, then walked over to a battered sedan at the kerb and tossed it through the rear window. He motioned for me to get in the back.

The car was a piece of junk. I'd seen plenty of undercover cops driving worse, but these two weren't undercover; they both wore creased uniforms and the car was a genuine clunker, with bald tyres and a broken tail light.

I climbed in and the two cops slid into the front, watching me carefully. Fish-eye dropped into the passenger seat and turned to face me, his gun held down between the seats where I couldn't get at it without getting shot. His fat pal signalled for me to place my hands out front and had me cuffed in a second. Then he muttered to his colleague and leaned forward to punch out a number on a cell phone in a holder on the dashboard.

The two-way conversation that followed was loud and excited and in words too fast for me to follow. Then he cut the call and took us away from the kerb and along the street.

It didn't matter what they'd said because I knew I was in a jam. First, I figured these two were multi-tasking for the cartel, and had no intention of taking me in to police headquarters. If they had, we'd still be at the lobby, waiting for the usual song-and-dance array of backup vehicles and detectives.

Second, I'd heard a familiar voice in the background during the phone conversation, and I knew I wasn't going anywhere nice.

Parillas. And he hadn't enquired after my health.

I sat back and waited. Fish-eye, the one with the gun, was too watchful for me to try anything, so I pretended to be despondent and frightened, as he would expect. While I was doing that, I inspected the back of the car. It smelled of greasy food, of dog, of stale cigarette, oil and other stuff I didn't want to think about. A bunch of squashed coke cans, tissue and old newspapers littered the floor, and the worn-through remnants of carpet were sticky underfoot.

I shifted the cans about while pretending to get comfortable and tried to figure a way out. Fish-eye grinned at me and muttered something to his pal. They both laughed and I figured they were already planning how to spend the money they'd be paid for bringing me in.