Blood of the Assassin - By Russell Blake Page 0,100
to and fro as it negotiated the uneven asphalt, the press of tired humanity staring dully into space, carefully avoiding all but momentary eye contact in the way that regular commuters usually did. Nobody wanted to have to strike up a conversation after a long work day, and the entire packed conveyance had the air of a slaughterhouse, the resigned bovines waiting patiently in line for their turn at the sledgehammer.
Officer Lopez gripped the overhead bar and tried to read his paper, folded in quarters so as to take up as little space as possible, but the near constant starting and stopping interrupted him with the regularity of a ship on the high seas plowing through oncoming swells. Bored on the hour-long commute, he snuck a look at a young woman eight feet away, who studiously ignored him, the twinkle of her wedding band all the warning he needed. Returning to the news, he read the latest list of murders with indifference – every day more were found, victims of crime, rage, random violence, or drug trafficking. It was an unending procession of misery to which he’d grown inured as part of his job, and he liked to joke that with human nature being what it was, he’d never be out of work.
The ride was tolerable in the spring, except when it was raining, when it became a misery, as hundreds of wet fellow travelers, many of whom wanted for indoor plumbing, packed onto the buses, their hygienic challenges painfully obvious. Then in summer, the heat of August and September again made it especially unpleasant – the buses rarely had air conditioning, and the opened windows were woefully inadequate. Now, however, it wasn’t so bad, and he’d learned to try to get as close to the younger women as possible, who usually huddled together, their heady perfume almost as much of an attraction as the possibility occasionally flashed from mahogany eyes.
Porfirio was twenty-nine, and had been with the Federales for eight years, having snagged the plum position with the help of an uncle who was on the force. Federales were the cream of the law enforcement crop, paid better than their lowly civil police counterparts and bribed with more generosity because of the vastly greater power they wielded. The best duty, that of highway patrol, was reserved for the fortunate few. None of that lofty branch of officers rode the bus, preferring to motor to work in their new SUVs, impossible acquisitions on their pay but unquestioned by the system. The graft involved in stopping drivers for indiscretions of speed or registration was an accepted part of the job, although publicly decried by administration after administration. He was hoping that maybe in another few years a slot in the hotly contested mobile force would open up, and then he too could trade the bus for the opulent Lincoln Navigator he’d had his eye on forever.
Lost in the daydream about how his life would change for the better, he almost missed his stop, on the outskirts of the metropolitan area only a few blocks from one of the more infamous slums, where the unfortunate and downtrodden spent lives of brutal hardship. He stepped down onto the cracked sidewalk with several dozen other commuters and then trudged the three long blocks to his home – a two-story apartment building with eighteen single-room flats, each with a flyspeck bathroom and a dangerously unventilated propane stove serving as kitchen. He could afford better, but saw no reason to squander his money – he was single, was rarely home except to sleep, and was saving for whenever he met a girl he got serious about. His marriage had ended in divorce, thankfully with no children, after seven years of bitterness and recriminations as he failed to bring home sufficient bacon to appease his young bride, and he had been footloose for two years, in no hurry to try that again anytime soon.
His boots crunched on the gravel as the sidewalk gave way to dirt and rocks, and he failed to register the shadow that darkened his building’s doorway as he unlocked the rickety front door – his landlord was a cheap bastard who never did any maintenance, and cockroach spray and air freshener were staples in all the dwellings. As he swung the door open he felt pressure on his upper back, and then a voice hissed in his ear.
“I have a gun, and I’ll blow a hole the size of a softball in you