I shake my head. “The world’s a strange fucking place.”
“It wasn’t spontaneous combustion. It was me.”
I’m so startled he’s talking, I almost grab the gun and shoot him.
Instead, I stare.
He stares back with a very non-zucchini-like sparkle in his eye. “I lit the fire. Not sure if you caught that. Thought I’d repeat it since you look a little distracted.”
His voice is different. Raspy and rough, maybe from smoke inhalation. Added to the bandages and his sudden reanimation, the overall effect is eerie.
I say slowly, “You don’t have amnesia.”
“Congratulations. You’re a genius.”
I’m impressed that someone who looks like a bag of smashed assholes still has a sense of humor. Plus, I’m still trying to grasp what the hell is going on. It must be why I don’t clock him and ask a question instead.
“How did you light the fire?”
“With the Bic in my pocket. I couldn’t take sitting in that cage any longer. I figured if I died in a fire, at least I wouldn’t have to listen to you talk anymore. You have a tendency to drone on and on. I think it’s because you enjoy the sound of your own voice. I’m not sure if anyone’s ever told you this, man, but you’ve really got an ego on you.”
After a pause, I say, “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Diego. I could still kill you.”
“You’re not gonna kill me. I just heard your confession. You’d feel too bad.”
“I’d get over it.”
He ignores that. “Besides, I have an offer for you.”
I look at him in disbelief, lying burned, bruised, and bandaged in his hospital bed, this asshole I kidnapped, caged, and pulled out of a fire. “You. You have an offer for me.”
“Yes.”
“You see there’s a gun right next to me on this table, right?”
“I see it. Use it, and in five seconds you’ll be dead, too. My bodyguards are great shots.”
“So am I.”
“So then we’d all be in hell together. For all eternity. Doesn’t that sound fun?”
After a solid sixty-second stare down, I say, “I didn’t think it was possible for someone to be as annoying as Declan, but you’ve got him beat by a mile.”
“Here’s the offer: I’ll continue to pretend I have amnesia, and you’ll continue to pretend you have no knowledge of what happened to me.”
When he doesn’t go on, I frown in confusion. “How is that an offer? It’s exactly what’s been happening until now.”
“Exactly. We’ll keep the status quo.”
“To what end? What do you want out of it?”
“I just want out.”
“You’re gonna have to translate that for me. I don’t speak dumbass.”
He moves his head restlessly on the pillow, like he wants to shake it but can’t quite pull it off. “Look. I thought being the boss would be great. Money, power, pussy, all that. Right?”
“Right.”
“Except it sucked donkey balls.”
I squint at him. Maybe he did get some brain damage after all.
“After only a few months on the job, I knew it wasn’t for me. All you pinche pendejos fighting like a bunch of little bitches all the time. Wah! You took my drugs! Wah! You stole my cargo! Wah! You moved in on my turf! It’s fucking exhausting. My little sister has more smarts than all of you put together.”
I’m not sure if I should laugh or shoot him.
“I just want to retire. Let Declan deal with you. He lives for that shit.”
“Your boy Declan does a helluva lot more than deal with me, Diego. He’s got his fingers in a lot of pies.”
“Yeah, I know. He thinks he’s saving the world. I mean, I know it’s admirable, but as far as I can tell, it’s a total waste of fucking time. You kill this bad vato over here, another bad vato pops up over there. Your whole life’s groundhog day. What a headache.”
I study what I can see of his face. “So you know he’s a spy.”
“Tch. I don’t know anything. I’m just a thug who grew up on the streets. All this shit is over my head.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
“If you’re thinking I’m a spy, think again. Who wants to work for the fucking government? Fuck those guys. Bureaucrats are the worst. I’m just a homie who got promoted to a C-suite position who’s better suited to the mail room. I felt like I was being suffocated. There were too many expectations, too many eyeballs on me all the time. It’s very simple: I need my freedom. I want out.”