The Ides of Matt 2017

Chapter OneYou really stepped in some s**t this time, Alejandra Martinez.” She didn’t even know where to direct her fire. Or if she should fire at all. Lying prone on the roof of the highest building in the area, a whole two stories, gave her the best vantage of the cesspool that had been her hometown for over twenty-five years. US-Mexican border towns sucked, especially when they were on the Mexican side. But she’d never found a way to leave it. If she started shooting over the low parapet of aged adobe, they’d know she was up here and that could start to suck really fast. Of course another couple of hours up here in the midday sun baking her butt on an adobe grill and maybe she would be ready to shoot all of the assholes who had conspired to trap her up here. They’d gotten blood on her new jeans and sneakers, which was really pissing her off. At least it wasn’t hers. “Next time you’re stuck in a street war and trying to survive, remember to bring milk and cookies. Or at least some water.” Good reminder, if she ever got out of this one. A six of cold beer sounded good too. Life had been so much simpler twenty-four hours ago. She’d had a lover, a lousy-as-s**t job—making it only a little better than her lover—and something that sort of resembled a place to be. Now she had a cartel war surrounding the building she lay on top of, and her job was dead—her former employer had owned most of the blood she was wearing. Too bad her job had been to protect his stupid a*s. He’d not only been stupid enough to piss off the Alvarado cartel that controlled all the contraband traffic through this town, he’d neglected to tell her he was also setting up the street gangs for a hard fall. They’d found out. Everyone wanted him dead and it was hard to blame them. The steady c***k of automatic gunfire and the hard thwaps of bullets impacting on stone and metal echoed up and down the streets below. These guys were using ammo like it was free. As far as she could tell they were either fighting over who got to claim taking the i***t down, or they were having a gunfight just for the hell of it. “This town is really going down the toilet.” “Wasn’t all that impressive to begin with,” a deep voice resonated from close behind her. As she swung around, a big hand grabbed the barrel of her rifle, stopping it halfway to its new target. There’d been no sound. No warning. Not a creak or shift of the rotten roof timbers. A big muchacho knelt close behind her on the roof. He was loaded for action. He held a combat rifle in one hand and her rifle barrel in the other as calmly as if it was the other end of an umbrella or something. Despite his light jacket she could see a pair of Glock 19s in twin shoulder holsters and would wager he had more ammo and another hidden carry or two on him. A glance past him—the roof access hatch was still closed and latched. “How the hell did you—” But then she recognized him and knew. “Hector Garcia? Haven’t seen your pretty face since Marina was still a virgin.” Which was close enough to never. Her little sister had probably seduced her first boy from side-by-side bassinets at the hospital and hadn’t slowed down since. At times it was hard to tell if she was a w***e or just a s**t. Actually, Hector’s wasn’t a pretty face, not even the part that wasn’t covered by his wrap-around shades and a scruff of three-day beard that looked good on him. He’d broken his nose twice that she knew of, and now maybe a third time by the look of it. She still remembered the knife fight that had earned him the wavering scar from jawline to temple. His dark hair was long, the way he’d worn it ever since he’d lost an ear during a street brawl. He might be a mess, but Hector also looked really good. He used to be one of those slender and dangerous types. Now he was a powerfully wide and dangerous type. And at the moment…she must look like s**t. Just perfect. She’d been riding guarda on a candidate for congress presently bleeding out in the middle of the plaza. What idiota campaigned in favor of building a wall on the Mexican side of the border to stop drugs and illegal emigration? That was American-style craziness. But he’d paid her more than she could make anywhere else even marginally legal—which meant he was also on the take in a dozen different ways and worried about it. She could have defended him against one or two shooters. But the two gangs duking it out on the streets below had brought them to his speech by the truckload. She’d dropped four before her sense of self-preservation kicked in. Now Alejandra was really pissed about the blood on her. She’d also crawled through a shattered luncheon buffet on her way up to the roof. Total mess. Not usual at all for her to think about how she looked in the middle of a gunfight, but she and Hector had a past—even if it was a long-ago past—and her last shred of vanity had been drowned in reeking mole sauce and blood. He let go of the barrel and she sat up to get a better look at him. “s**t, woman!” He placed a big hand on top of her head and shoved her back down onto the roof. Moments later a single bullet cracked by overhead. She’d drawn exactly the kind of attention she hadn’t wanted. Hector rose quickly onto one knee, then swung his rifle up so fast she could barely follow it. No time to aim. No time for anything. He just fired: two shots, a hesitation with a slight shift upward, then a third. He dropped back down. “That should take care of that.” She’d been a shooter of one form or another ever since she was little: possum as a kid, armadillos to put meat on the table after Dad had bugged out, and bad guys as a policewoman—until the d**g lords made that too dangerous a beat. But she’d never seen anything even close to what Hector had just done. He’d barely even looked for the target. Maybe the sound of the bullet had been enough. Maybe for him. And she knew if she tracked down the corpse—for she had no doubt that’s all it was now—it would have two holes close together in the chest and one more in the head. There was certainly no return shot whistling aloft from below. “Sorry,” she should have stayed down. “De nada! So,” Hector lay on the roof beside her. “You busy much?” “You saw the body in the plaza?” “Yeah.” “That was my meal ticket. No major loss—wasn’t much of a lover either.” Hector’s face darkened at her second statement. She swung the butt of her rifle into his gut, aiming between a pouch of ammo and a Glock 19. She caught him hard enough to earn her an angry grunt. “You been gone, hombre. You don’t get to judge shit.” He shrugged one shoulder in agreement, but didn’t look much happier about it. Well, neither was she. Especially not with Hector Garcia lying just inches away to remind her of how good her best lover ever had been. The gunfire down on the plaza was dying down. Probably running out of ammo at the rate they were using it. “Why? You got any bright ideas on how to keep me busy?” “More than few,” his easy leer said plenty. But she still knew him well enough to know that s*x wasn’t the only thing he had on his mind.