Chapter 14 – An Old Friend.

Arturo Fernandez gave a grunt as he heaved himself out of the comfortable chair and wandered over into the kitchen. As he bent down to the refrigerator a dull click made him straighten up once again and creep back towards the lounge, hand automatically moving towards the gun he kept tucked in the waistband of his trousers. The front door was swinging gently in the light breeze. Funny, he could've sworn he'd locked that door about an hour ago. Shuffling over, he pulled the door open and looked out into the busy street; nothing unusual there. Shrugging his shoulders he pushed the door back into the frame, hearing the catch engage before heading back into the kitchen to resume his search for some alcoholic refreshment.

Arturo pulled open the door of the large white refrigeration unit and heard the steady rumble of the motor as it circulated cool air around inside the box. Keeping the food, or more importantly in Arturo's eyes the beer, nice and chilled. He grabbed a frosted bottle from the wide selection available on the second shelf and turned towards the table that sat in the centre of the cooking area, kicking the refrigerator door shut with his foot as he did so. He positioned the bottle with just the edge of the crimped metal cap resting on the tabletop, where all that was required was a firm thump on the top of the bottle to send the metal lid flying off in an arc, falling onto the tiled floor with a clatter and left yet another deep groove in the wooden tabletop amongst the multitude of other marks, gouges and gashes that suggested a prolonged period of use as a substitute for a bottle-opener. The force also sent a spray of beer foam splattering onto the table, dripping with a steady splat onto the floor. Arturo glanced down at the mess and then walked away, ignoring the fact that a small army of ants was quickly homing in on the sweet liquid and walked back towards his seat taking a deep swig of beer, pausing only briefly in his path to let out a belch.

"Buenos dias Arturo." The greeting was not warm and friendly in the slightest, in fact there was the air of a threat entwined with the innocent words.

Fernandez froze, the bottle lifted to his lips, liquid on the verge of flowing into his mouth. When he eventually did move, the beer that had been teetering on the edge washed into his mouth and straight down his throat, causing him to start choking, gasping for a lungful of air.

"Dino."

"Surprised to see me Arturo? Or should I say surprised to see me alive?" Dino sounded each syllable of the sentence pointedly and lingered on the word alive.

Dino was sitting comfortably in the chair that Arturo had vacated only minutes before, legs stretched out and feet, clad in dusty army boots, propped on the low table in front of the chair.

"How did you…?"

"How did I get out? There isn't a prison built that can keep me locked up indefinitely. I guess I'm like a werewolf, only a silver bullet's gonna stop me."

The look on his face was difficult to gauge, there was a smile tugging at his lips but linked with the wicked glint in his eye it was clear that his temperament could swing in either direction. Arturo had a pretty good idea which direction Dino's mood was going to head in and his hand slowly, almost unnoticeably moved towards the waistband of his trousers where his firearm was still stored. Unfortunately for him his movement was only almost unnoticeable and in the blink of an eye, before Arturo had even managed to move his hand a couple of inches, Dino was out of the seat, his apparent relaxation a sham covering the fact that every muscle in his body had been waiting like a coiled spring, ready to react the instant Fernandez tried anything. Instantly Arturo was pushed back until his back came up against the rough plaster wall and found the barrel of Dino's gun pressed into his temple, the palm of his hand wrapped around his throat, forcing Arturo to face forward and look directly into Dino's eyes. There was no mistaking his emotions now, pure and unadulterated hatred and disgust.

"Don't even fucking think about it." Dino growled through his teeth and Arturo lifted his hands slowly out to the side. Dino kept one hand on the grip of his gun, finger firmly on the trigger while his other hand dropped and pulled Arturo's gun out of the waistband of his jeans, checking his pockets and withdrawing a flick knife. Dino's eyebrows raised as he pulled out the knife; tempted to just thrust it deep into Fernandez's chest and twist the blade. Luckily for Arturo, Dino had retained some measure of his self-restraint and instead tossed the knife to one side where the sharp point stuck into the low wooden table emitting a low twang as the blade reverberated backwards and forwards.

"Dino, I…I…"

"What Arturo? You never meant to sell me out? It was all a mistake? Don't try to pull that shit with me you two-faced bastard." Dino's face was so close to his adversary that Arturo could feel the spittle erupting from Dino's lips with every word.

"Dino, I had no choice, they…they said they would kill me if I didn't help them, what was I supposed to do?"

"Then you should have died with honour. Honour above all, Arturo. Although I doubt you'd recognise the honourable thing if it hit you in the face. And I doubt very much that you have ever been put in the position where your life was in danger. I saw you getting paid off and I know that you went to them willingly with the information. How much was my life worth?"

"I…"

"How much?"

Fernandez dropped his head, finally realising that continuing his lie was pointless. Dino had seen the transaction. There was no point trying to fabricate a cover story of blackmail and force when none existed.

"Fifty thousand dollars."

"Pathetic. I'm insulted; I'm worth at least triple."

"I needed the money. You think it's easy running some two-bit kidnap and ransom outfit down here? You work for one of the biggest companies in the world you don't know what it's like lower down the ladder. I want to run a business to rival Luthan Risk but I need the cash to start up. I want to start a legitimate business." Arturo was whining now, his voice oscillating amongst notes in the higher octaves of human speech. Dino started to wonder if he pushed him a little further, made him a little more nervous if his voice would go high enough for only dogs to hear him.

"So you thought you'd cross the line one last time to get hold of the cash you needed to be taken seriously as a player in the K&R market? You'll never go legit Fernandez. You haven't got the skills or the balls. I'd be surprised if you hadn't started spending that blood-money on women and booze already." Arturo's eyes dropped again and his face coloured telling Dino that his guess had been right on the money, so to speak. "Pathetic." He spat again. "You're not even worth a bullet."

Dino finally lowered the gun, noting that as he pulled it away from Arturo's temple it left a reddened indentation in the skin, a clear imprint from the gun muzzle. Putting some force behind the hand that still curled around Fernandez's throat Dino shoved him hard and brought him crashing down onto a flimsy cabinet that splintered and gave way under the man's considerable weight and covered him in shards of cheap wood as he came into contact with the floor. The fact that the initial force had been to his throat left him gasping for breath. When he eventually raised himself from his crumpled position on the floor onto two unsteady legs he found Dino had once again raised his weapon, aiming at the floor around Arturo's feet.

"On second thoughts, bullets are cheap." He extended the arm which held the gun. Three, four, five shots rang out, the sound as they exploded from the barrel of the gun and echoed as they hit the tiled floor was deafening; the projectiles bouncing around, skittering across the hard surface. Dino let out a deep, humourless laugh as he watched Arturo dodge the bullets, leading him to perform a kind of frantic dance before finally crying with pain as one ricocheting projectile bounced and burrowed into the flesh of his calf.

Fernandez howled in pain, writhing on the floor, his hands clasping the back of his leg as blood slowly oozed between his fingers.

Dino nodded, satisfied with the image he was witnessing before turning on his heel and walking towards the door.

"You can't leave me like this." Arturo begged, between the rasping gasps of breath.

Dino turned back, halting his exit, his eyes aflame with concentrated hatred.

"Why not? You left me to the mercy of your amigos with a bullet in my shoulder. You should think yourself lucky I'm not locking you in a stinking cell for a week without any kind of medical help. Here." He picked up the cordless phone that had been sitting in the cradle on a table to one side of the door and tossed it over to Arturo. "Call a taxi to take you to the hospital, I'll even pay." He pushed his fingers into the back pocket of his trousers and pulled out a bundle of cash that he'd liberated from the gang's headquarters when he's gone back in to find Nika. Peeling a couple of notes off the stack he tossed them in the same direction as the phone. He watched as they fluttered down, one landing on Arturo's arm, the other coming to rest in the gradually spreading smear of blood and then turned back to his intended path and walked out of the door, letting it slam back into the frame with a satisfying thwack.

Most of the time turning the other cheek was the best course of action, but sometimes, just sometimes, revenge was too sweet to pass up.

To be continued…