But it was bleeding like a sonofabitch. It was a sign of my occupation that I kept a box of adhesive pads in my saddlebags. Tearing what remained of my T-shirt’s arm off, I stanched the flow of blood. I could barely keep up with it before I could slap the bandage down, ineffectively. Clusterfuck. I had to go home sooner or later and face the music. I just wished I could have a good snooze first.
This was really the first time I’d fucked up. All of the rest had been good, clean hits. The only other time I’d even remotely screwed up was when Ortelio Jones wanted the mark alive. That motherfucker had punched and kicked like he was being raped as I tried to cram him into the trunk of my Cadillac. I finally remembered they’d given me a stun gun, and I’d stunned the shit out of the guy before he went limp.
You have to understand, this wasn’t a job I willingly chose. It wasn’t like an eager-eyed, idealistic younger me ran around studying to be a sicario. I wasn’t in awe of the glamor, the fringe benefits, the sex on the side. In fact, quite the opposite. I’d been bound to defy my father, an Irishman who traded illegal arms for profit, and uphold the letter of the law. But if everyone waged war according to his own beliefs, there would be no war. So I was destined to wind up with Jones.
A Fiat was pulling into Margie’s parking lot. Santiago Slayer got out, buttoning his blazer and smoothing it down. As though he didn’t still have terra cotta dust on his shoulders. I was surprised he hadn’t brushed that away with a lint roller.
He nodded primly at me. “Se?or.”
I nodded back. “Santiago Slayer,” I acknowledged. Then I realized I was being kind of an asshole, so I shook his hand. “Fox Isherwood.”
He warmly grasped my hand like we were just meeting at a cocktail party. This guy was a smooth operator, I had to hand him that. “I know. Your fame has traveled far and wide.”
“Then why have I never crossed paths with you?”
Slayer became serious. “I know how to stay off the grid. I am only called in for jobs that require the most stealthy, the most sneaky, the most crafty and catlike of skills. Oh, excuse me.” His features became mild and friendly again when he checked his phone. He chuckled at what he saw on the screen. “Oh, yes, yes,” he said to himself, as if recalling fond memories. He turned the phone to me briefly. “This girl that I met at a party last night has tagged me in this most awesome party photo.”
The Instagram photo showed Slayer liberally draped with scantily clad women barely in their twenties. Since Slayer was probably coming up on forty, that was slightly creepy. But the real creepy part was that he’d allowed photos to be taken of him at all.
“Instagram?” I queried, and went for my phone, too. But I didn’t have that app installed, of course, so all I could do was google “Santiago Slayer.” Aside from some gaming hits that were hopefully not him, this stealthy, crafty sicario was all over the fucking map. In addition to a thousand Instagram hits in which he’d allowed himself to be tagged using his real—or rather I should say his made-up, hitman name—he was similarly tagged in Facebook, and I could open those.
“You sure like to party.” I snorted cynically, swiping through photo after photo of the Ken doll handsome guy posing with drinks and chicks. “Your jefe doesn’t get up in your shit about this?”
Slayer frowned. “A kingpin, getting angry about partying?”
I realized that sounded stupid, so I clarified. “I mean about you being tagged all over the place. You’re not afraid your cover will be blown?”
Slayer wiped my existence away with his hand. “Pfft. This is partying. A completely separate reality from our jobs. As I always say, ‘work and fun do not mix.’”
That was an odd way to justify it. There was always bleed-through from one reality to the other. I lived my entire life like a sicario. It might’ve been easier for me to keep them separate because women and socializing weren’t part of my reality. “Yeah, but anyone trying to find you can just easily log onto Facebook or Instagram and figure out which party you’re at. They have geotags on these things, you know.”
Again, Slayer scoffed at me. “Pfft. Big deal if they see me at a party? Why would that make them instantly think I was coming to get them? Oh, excuse me.” Slayer chuckled at his screen. “Look. This girl sent me a sexy Snapchat. See how pouty her lips are.”
I waved away his phone. That sort of shit held no interest for me. I was all business, to the core. “Did you even get El Ba?o?”
Slayer’s face was blank, he was so entranced with the onscreen girl’s boobs. “What? Oh, El Ba?o? Let us just say he is happily diving with the dolphins.”
I frowned, trying to understand his slang. “You mean sleeping with the fishes?” If El Ba?o was dead, maybe I could convince Slayer not to report his success to his boss. That would keep me out of hot water.
Slayer finally blacked out his phone’s screen and put it in its holster. He was professional again. “Let us just say, El Ba?o will not live to flush another day.”