"They Play Unplugged Versions" [Mister Martínez 21]

The studio apartment was so small that there wasn’t room to jump the guy without breaking a piece of furniture. Mercedes was smoking a post-caffeine cigarette. Martínez had stood up. The pistol was a cheap Glock-off probably made in Wuhan. It would have a split-trigger safety of doubtful reliability. Whatever Martínez tried, the gun would go off and could put a hole in any one of the four of them. The gunman’s faded green polo was knock-off too. The polo hammer looked like the pony’s polla. His tattoos were expensive, but not quality work; one arm sported a sleeve of interlocking symbols and images straight out of El Libro Infantil de Nazismo.

The man waved the pistol,

‘You’re coming with me, Coño.’

‘I just got here,’ Martínez said.

The guy smashed the pistol down behind Antonio’s ear and the Glock-off went off. Martínez launched himself at the goon catching him full in the face with the top of his head. The man’s teeth broke first and then the cartilige in his nose. The gun fell to the floor and fired again. Martínez kneed him in the groin. The thug collapsed in a heap on the floor, taking up too much room. Antonio had his hands over his ears. His eyes were watering. He was shaking.

‘What’s up with him?’ Martínez asked.

Mercedes took a last draw on her cigarette and blew the smoke towards the window over the sink.

‘He’s a musician. Sensitive about his hearing.’

‘Yeah, well, I’m sensitive about my breathing.’

Martínez retrieved his own pistol from the ruck-sack beside the spindle-legged table and nudged the Glock-off along the floor towards the quaking Antonio.

‘See if you can de-string that instrument and stop it making any more noise.’ Mercedes stood up and picked up the pistol herself. Antonio’s lip was trembling.

‘What does he play? The triangle?’

‘He’s in a death-metal covers band.’

‘How come he’s not deaf already?’

‘They play unplugged versions.’

By this time Martínez had the barrel of his pistol resting on the Neo’s head just above his left ear.

‘Who sent you?’

‘No-one.’ Martínez moved the barrel to the mess where the guy’s nose had been. ‘I wouldn’t even have to pull the trigger, Cabron.’

He screamed though the muzzle had barely touched him.

‘En serio. No-one. Fue un mensaje. “No-one wants Martínez dead” and the address.’ He moved his hand towards his pocket. The bulge looked cell-phone shaped, so Martínez let him take it out. He thumbed open a message, showed the screen to Martínez.

Martínez pointed at Antonio, ‘what happened with him?’

‘He was at the door when I arrived. At first I thought he might be Martínez, but then…’

Martínez shot him through the eye. The apartment would need a new front door, painting over it wouldn’t help.

‘Sorry about the mess, Mercedes. Now tell me about the job.

Mercedes shrugged and told Antonio to use the bathroom to clean himself up.

‘Once upon a time in Colombia, there was a girl. There was a powerful man. Before long there was a bébé.’

‘Is this the one about the Big Bad Wolf again?’

‘Not this time.’

‘Before long the girl died and the powerful man ran away to – well, where all these hijos de puta run, where the coca is. And some Yanquis found the bébé. The hijo de puta waited ten years, until he could go back to Medellín. He became a big man in politics. Even after he was arrested again he was still un hombre poderoso. He paid for a hit on la pareja norte americana. The sicario didn’t kill the boy. Maybe he hid under the stairs. The boy was ‘adopted’ by another Yanqui couple working at the UN in New York. They took a posting to Madrid. They put the boy in school. He followed them through their diplomatic career. Their car blew up in Mexico, when the boy was 18. The Thi-ya* saw him through college and gave him a job. Which he did for ten years, before free-lancing. Many times for us at El Centro, sometimes for others. And then you disappeared. But we wrote the protocol, in case we ever did need you.’

‘That isn’t what happened. I paid my own way through college, The Agency had decided against throwing money away on Colombianos by that time.’

‘Maybe not, but you have a half-brother here in Spain, and he has to go.’

* Thi-ya is how hispanic speakers say CIA