The Viper's eyes followed Moss' and the path led him to the gun on the bed. "Survival's a curious thing. People think they are more capable than they are. Most go their whole lives thinking they will fight back if ever confronted with death and never get tested. I am in a unique position, one where I get to witness firsthand the answer to that question. Do you want to know the truth about people in those most dire of moments?"
Moss shrugged. His words no longer mattered. Stalling failed. A terrible trembling jackhammered inside him, spreading out from his rapidly beating heart. He read somewhere that often people falling from great heights would have a heart attack before hitting the ground. Moss imagined the feeling he was experiencing to be comparable.
Sun slipped through a gap in the curtain, finding its way under the brim of The Viper's hat. The beam stung his right eye and it immediately began to water. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and, with a gloved hand, dabbed under his eyelid. The gun moved off target while the killer cleared his vision. Moss saw his fleeting window of opportunity and chose to ignore it. Maybe a trained assassin in the same position could've seized the advantage. But he was not that person, no matter how much he wished he could be.
"Are you ready to honor your debt and obligation to my employer?"
Moss' answer came in the warm urine soaking through his jeans. The pungent liquid leaked steadily from the end of his pantleg, pelting the frayed carpet below.
The dripping was the only sound filling the stagnant air until The Viper unlatched the first buckle on the case.
The snake's rattle sang out its deadly hymn through the reddish-brown leather of the case, drowning out everything, to include the beating of Moss' heart.
Twelve
Hatch found Club de Fuego easily, operating on the intel provided by Ayala. She'd turned down the quirky press agent’s ride offer, not wanting to involve him beyond his initial help. From experience, Hatch had learned the assistance people provided her often had negative and potentially life ending consequences. She wanted his good deed to go unpunished. Hatch had, however, accepted his business card with the promise of calling him should the need arise.
In lieu of his offer, Hatch flagged a taxi and wasted no time heading out to the club. The cab driver looked as though he were a hundred years old and smelt of day-old wine. At one point, he'd dozed off at an intersection. Hatch banged the smudged plastic partition separating her from her sleeping chauffeur, rousing him.
The description Ayala gave had been spot on. He'd said it was on the outside of town. The club was literally at the fringe of Nogales' easternmost point. Just past the nightclub was a ninety-degree bend where the two-lane Nogales-San Antonio roadway snaked along in a southeasterly direction until it intersected with Carretera Federal Numero Dos, Federal Highway 2, in Rancho San Rafael. Highway 2 carved across Mexico's northern tip, stretching from the Gulf of California to the violent streets of Juarez.
Club Fire stood out against the desert canopy sprawled out in all directions. The drunk old coot of a taxi driver muttered slurred Spanish as Hatch closed the door. Turno de manana. The rest was incomprehensible gibberish, but those words she understood. Early shift. She didn't know whether it was meant as a question, joke, or neither. She took it to mean that a) this place moved girls, and b) she was ahead of whatever schedule the club operated. The time it would take for things to pick up was unclear. She felt the stink of the cab cling to her clothes as she watched the driver swerve his way back in the direction of Nogales' city center where she'd hailed him.
The nightclub was a converted warehouse. It was two stories of black painted concrete. The only spot of color came from the large red swirled flame, the point of which nearly touched the flat rooftop. The flames resembled the symbol used for Cobra Command, the evil regime bent on world domination and G.I. Joe's nemesis. Fitting.
The curling outline of the flame was dotted in red light bulbs. Below the sign stood the main entrance comprised of two dual-entry doors separated by a couple feet of the painted brick exterior. The sun slapped its warm beams at the tinted glass face of the doors, painting a purple glow on the walkway in front. A place designed for night did not have the same shimmer in daylight.
A few men were hanging out by the far back corner of the building. Two of them had dark aprons on and the third older man had just carelessly thrown a dishrag over his shoulder and joined the other men in their cigarette break. Smoke encircled the huddled men, none of whom paid attention to Hatch as she walked away from the spot where the cabby had dropped her and away from Club Fire.
Hatch made a beeline for a broken-down water tower. A faded cartoon water droplet smiled down on her as she ascended the metal staircase. Pipes were connected to the warehouse at one point, and reached out their jagged, rust-covered limbs to dusty wind swirling the arid landscape.
The three men never looked up from their conversation. Hatch crested the top landing. The two-foot-wide grated walk that wrapped around the top of the water tower loomed twenty feet above the roof of the nightclub. The vantage point gave her a solid visual of the front and back, as well as the side closest to her. The far side, on the east side of the building, was completely shrouded from view. The rust-coated bolt squealed as Hatch lowered herself to the warm metal, taking up a prone position.
She settled in and waited for night to fall and the girls to arrive. Because as the driver so eloquently put it, the early shift had arrived.
Thirteen