Resurrecting Midnight (36 page)

The water at his feet as pink as a beautiful rose.

On one side of Rodríguez was a young couple, tongues moving inside each other’s mouths, kissing like they were alone. On his other side was a man in a Brazilian jacket, hair in braids and cheap golden rings on every finger and his thumbs.

None was the enemy. He had to be sure before he took another step.

As soon as Medianoche leaned forward, Señor Rodríguez spoke in a pained whisper. “Saw the package . . . briefcase . . . same as the one we got . . . from Uruguayans . . . two tangos . . . man . . . woman . . . saw them run . . . getting on train . . . was right behind them . . . then . . . this big guy . . . big fucking guy . . . didn’t think . . . didn’t know he was with the two tangos . . . fucker hit me . . . rabbit punched me on my chin . . . fucker’s fist was like a brick . . . he walked away . . . got back off the train before it left . . . was dazed . . . then this other guy . . . awwww fuck . . . guy with package . . . shit . . . he came out of nowhere . . . blade in my chest . . . handle broke off . . . fuck . . . took my earpiece . . . and my gun . . . sorry . . . so damn sorry . . . the package . . . it went . . . it went . . .”

“Took your earpiece?”

Medianoche paused.

Then came the rugged voice of an angry stranger.

“Yeah. I borrowed his earpiece.”

Medianoche stood up, looked through the crowd. Someone squeezed by, shouting out loud, selling Claro SIM cards for five pesos. He wanted to elbow that fucker in his face. Then the lady with the baby squeezed by again, her dirty hand outstretched.

Medianoche asked. “Who is this?”

“They call me Gideon.”

“Gideon.”

“Is this . . . the man wearing the eye patch?”

“Yes.”

“The other one . . . she called you Medianoche.”

“They call me Medianoche.”

“Medianoche. That means Midnight.”

Medianoche paused. “What are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t sound British. Or Latin. Or double
E
double
U
.”

“I look forward to . . . to seeing you . . . again.”

“Have we met?”

“Once.”

Medianoche said, “I doubt that.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re still living. If we’d met before, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Gideon said, “I thought the same thing.”

Medianoche leaned closer to Rodríguez. Blood was dripping into his dark clothes.

His hands pressed down on the place the blade had been shoved, like he was trying to hold his life inside his body. Medianoche looked into his eyes, told the wounded soldier to hold on.

The knife had been pushed through the Kevlar. That took power. That took rage.

Medianoche told the soldier that back at this apartment, Tres Marías waited for him. So he’d better hold on. His three
amigovias
would want to go out and dance the tango very soon.

Señor Rodríguez nodded, smiled a little, struggled to breathe, then managed to say, “Kill the sonofabitch, sir. I’ll be here when you get back, sir. Sorry I messed up, sir.”

Señor Rodríguez nodded a painful nod that said he would be okay.

Medianoche pushed people aside, passed by crying babies, men who were coughing like they had the flu, women blowing their noses. He made his way past disgruntled faces and headed down the aisle of the crowded train.

Medianoche put his hand inside his pocket. Kept his gun inside his hand, finger on trigger. He moved by people, past train hustlers and pickpockets and mothers with children.

Medianoche saw the expressions on the faces of the passengers change, like a storm warning. The baggy-pants-wearing rapper stopped rapping. With the abrupt silence, the crowd tensed, horror sprouted in eyes, some ducked while others moved away from what looked like a South American assassination in the making.

They were all terrified, fixated on something behind him.

Medianoche pulled out his gun and prepared to turn, all done in one smooth move.

As he turned, the handle of a gun came down across the back of his head. His gun exploded, shot a round into the ceiling. People screamed. Dazed, Medianoche felt the business end of a gun pushing into the back of his neck, the metal digging an inch deep into his skin. He found his balance, heard tense breathing. The man who had gutted Rodríguez was behind him.

Gideon said, “Hand me your gun or die where you stand.”

Capítulo 35

 

 

 

Death stood
behind Medianoche.

People yelled like they were trapped inside a burning building, rushed away from them as if the flames from their conflict were burning their skin.

“
Now
.” Gideon’s voice was firm and deadly. “Hand me the gun now.”

Medianoche dropped the gun, didn’t hand his weapon to his enemy.

More yells came from the terrified commuters.

A blow struck the side of his head. A stunning blow that ended with the business end of a nine millimeter in his face, halting Medianoche’s retaliation. Gideon swooped up the dropped gun, tossed it out the open window of the moving train, checked behind him, then backed up a step. Gideon stood strong, brows drawn down, raised upper lip, tightness under his eyes.

The unadulterated look of violence. Same expression Medianoche possessed.

Gideon said, “Now give me the gun.”

“Just did.”

“Don’t fuck with me. Your second gun. Your backup.”

“Oh, that gun.”

“Hand it over. Use two fingers. Grip it by the barrel. No fast movements.”

Medianoche tightened his jaw, defiant, no man’s prisoner. At a disadvantage.

Gideon repeated himself, his voice hard, eyes focused, his last warning.

Medianoche eased his second gun out of his coat, business end first. Gideon took the weapon and tossed it out the window of the train as it rambled through the rail yard. Medianoche stared at the rugged young man as the rugged young man stared at him.

Spanish panic rose, commuters trying to figure out what was going on, asking each other if the battle was over drugs, over a woman, knowing that people killed over things much smaller.

Gideon said, “It’s you. It’s fucking you.”

Medianoche ignored the assassin’s words, kept his attention on the killer’s eyes, and took in the position of the gun and his enemy’s body language, looking for an opening.

Gideon took a breath, shook his head in disbelief. “You were shot in North Carolina.”

Again, North Carolina.

Medianoche snapped, “Who are you?”

“I’m asking myself
what
the fuck you are.”

Medianoche saw an opening, started to move in.

Gideon reacted, snapped out like a venomous snake.

Medianoche was struck in the face, hit on the chin by Gideon’s left fist, a strong blow that staggered him, sent him back four steps. Lights flashed in front of his eyes, and he found his footing. Medianoche shook it off, stood erect, adjusted his eye patch, and growled.

Gideon stood in front of him, both hands on a gun aimed at the center of Medianoche’s forehead. Medianoche glimpsed the crowd, looked to see who was with Gideon. All he saw was a crowd that didn’t speak English, but their wide eyes said they understood body language.

Mouth bloodied, Medianoche repeated his question, “Who the fuck are you?”

Gideon growled, “I’m the kid who shot you.”

He growled, “Bullshit.”

“You were trying to kill . . . my mother.”

“What was the mother’s goddamn name?”

“Thelma.”

Medianoche didn’t reply. Done talking. He was ready to slaughter the man standing in front of him, and that death would have nothing to do with the mission, nothing to do with Hopkins or Scamz or the wounded soldier who was in the train behind Gideon.

“Sir . . .”

Señorita Raven’s voice was in his ear, back in range, monitoring the conversation. She could hear everything.

Gideon kept his gun raised, its barrel pointed at Medianoche’s head. Gideon reached to Medianoche’s face, grabbed Medianoche’s ear so hard it felt like it was being ripped from his face, and snatched the earpiece out.

Medianoche frowned. Communication broken.

Medianoche held his ground as he tried to remember the face of the kid who had shot him. The memory and the reality, they refused to amalgamate. The man in front of him meant nothing. But it wasn’t over. What he had glimpsed behind Gideon told him it wasn’t over.

He saw Señor Rodríguez. A soldier who had made it to his feet and stumbled through the crowded car. A wounded soldier who was one car behind Gideon, people parting as the wounded man grabbed railings, his face drenched in sweat, features in a severe knot, expressing intense pain as his blood drained from his dark clothing and left a river of red on the filthy floor.

Medianoche had to keep Gideon talking while his soldier fought with pain, while his soldier struggled to take out his weapon, the crowd around them panicking in Castellano chatter.

Medianoche said, “Well, Gideon. You seem to know a lot about me. Wouldn’t doubt if you have information on the rest of my soldiers. Wouldn’t doubt that at all.”

“This is not a fucking joke.”

“You claim that you’re the whore’s kid. You’re claiming to be that snot-nosed kid.”

Gideon’s face remained tense. “Do you know who I am?”

Señor Rodríguez made it to the opening separating the cars. His bloodied hands were unsteady as he used all of his energy to pull his rain- and blood-soaked coat back, exposing the handle of his backup gun.

Medianoche said, “Gideon. You said your name was Gideon.”

“Do you know who I . . . do you know who the kid was that . . . shot you?”

“We can get off the train and talk. Let’s do that. Leave the train and chat.”

“Did you know that it was your son who shot you?”

“What are you talking about now?”

“I’m your son. Might be. That is what I’ve been told all of my life.”

Medianoche smiled a little. Smiled because, in his periphery, he spied Señor Rodríguez as the wounded soldier leaned against the wall, a crowd of frantic people around him, his hand trembling. Medianoche saw his severely wounded soldier move his bloodied hand from his injury, saw him move his hand from his loosened and severed guts and fight to take out his nine.

Medianoche swallowed. “Who told you that bullshit?”

Gideon said, “Thelma told me that.”

Medianoche saw Señor Rodríguez as he battled with pain, as he swallowed and struggled to breathe, then saw his soldier exert all the energy he had in his body to raise the barrel of his weapon. Bloodied hands on his tool of death, it was a struggle Señor Rodríguez lost. But he kept trying. That soldier was not a loser.

Medianoche gave Gideon no clues.

Medianoche asked, “Where’s the package?”

Gideon snapped, “Fuck the goddamn package.”

Medianoche waited for his brave soldier to make his play as the overconfident assassin in front of him unknowingly breathed his final breath.

Gideon said, “You were with Thelma in Montego Bay. Nine months before I was born.”

“Do you have any idea how many men screwed Thelma in Mo Bay? She had men at her door with Jamaican dollars or American dollars or British pounds. Some might’ve had food stamps. What, are you going down the list? You understand how a brothel works? Guy before me took his dick out, my turn came up, I put my dick in, and when I left, the guy after me put his dick in. Has it taken you twenty years to get to my name? Well, you can keep on searching.”

Medianoche saw Señor Rodríguez take two more steps, leaving more blood on the floor. He moved closer as if he knew he was in no condition to hit from beyond point-blank range.

Medianoche kept Gideon’s attention.

Medianoche yelled, “Where is Thelma? Is that whore here? Does that whore have something to do with this mission?”

“She . . . Thelma died in Europe. She died in London.”

“Too fucking bad. Would’ve loved to help her see the end.”

“She’s dead. Thelma is dead.”

“You’ve got some mental issues.”

“Makes the job easier to digest.”

“And let me tell you this. Let me tell you something from my heart, young man.”

Gideon hesitated. He showed weakness and hesitated.

Gideon swallowed and said, “Go ahead.”

“If you’re the snot-nose fuck who left me for dead and cost me my fucking eye, if you are that trick baby grown up, you better
finish the fucking job
now because I’ll come at you like the fucking Bible, the part that says
an eye for a fucking eye
, you fucked-up piece of shit. If this is the real fucking deal, if you’re that kid that was with that pathetic whore, if you’ve come out of fucking nowhere, you’ll wish you had stayed wherever the fuck you were. And if this is some bullshit the fuckers on that arrogant fuck Scamz’s team have concocted, I will still
take you out
the same way, just for trying to fucking get inside my fucking head, you fucking fucked-up fuck.”

His anger was at Gideon, but his words were orders for Señor Rodríguez.
Finish the fucking job.
Señor Rodríguez raised his gun, the train vibrating and whining as the weapon exploded.

The shot missed Gideon and hit a woman in her chest. She was dead before she fell.

There were screams on top of screams. Terror and hysterics spread through the train.

Medianoche sprung at Gideon and was greeted with a kick to the gut that took him to one knee. In pain, Medianoche looked up, saw Gideon spin, his gun searching for his target.

As Señor Rodríguez struggled to hold on, he fired again. He was too wounded to fire straight. His desperate shot hit another passenger, sent the passenger falling to the floor.