El Mariachi
El's thoughts raced. He carefully looked away from the dog, before anyone could notice that he had noticed. Who were these guys? Could they be connected to whomever was following him? He'd presumed his followers had spotted him with El Presidente and were either after revenge for themselves or after the cartel bounties on his head. It didn't make any sense. The couple at the first bar would have to be in on it, which was possible, of course, but there was no guarantee that El would choose to stop in this town at all.
He wondered if they had intended to drug him or poison him. The thought of poison made him think again of Sands.
"El, get me a gun," Sands said one day. Sunlight, warm and cheery, streamed in the window of Sands's new room, but Sands could not see it.
Why?"
Why do you think? I'm defenseless here."
El knew better than to take Sands's words at face value. And he found Sands's mood easy to read. "If someone should kill you, it would solve your problems."
Yeah," he said.
They were both silent, though El continued to pick a faint tune on his guitar.
In a burst of nervous energy, Sands got to his feet. "El, I still want coke," he admitted in a voice full of despair. "It's all I want. It's either coke or a bullet."
"Is there nothing you could live for without cocaine?"
"Blind? No." Following the sunbeam, Sands walked unerringly to the window. El saw with approval that Sands had regained some weight.
"I know you wanted revenge. And you wanted to escape."
"And look what it got me. I would have been better off to stay and enjoy the high until it killed me. Give me a gun and I'll solve both our problems."
El continued to play while he thought of what to say next. He finally settled on an odd truth. "It would be a waste of a lot of my work."
"Bullshit. Cut your losses. What are you saving me for?"
"If you really want to die, I will get Lorenzo."
"That poof? No way. I'll off myself before you get back, just to screw him."
"I could contact Señora Delgado. She would send someone to kill you."
"I'm sure not going to let some cartel be the ones."
"I'm not going to."
"You? A guitar assassin with jingly pants? I think not."
"When you decide who is good enough to kill you, let me know."
"I told you. I'll do it. Just give me a gun."
"Think of something else."
Reluctant though El was to leave his lookout position, he felt he had to. He approached the bar, knelt down, and checked the dog. The dog's pulse beat rapidly. Drugged, not poisoned.
He stood and looked at the bartender. It was a baleful glare, delivered from under his long, dark hair, and it should have put fear into the heart of even a stout man. This man however, sneered. "So, what?" he asked.
Behind him, El heard three men enter the bar. The bartender tossed his head. "He's here," he said. El turned, expecting to see the handful of toughs who had been following him in a tan Pontiac. Instead, he saw a gaunt man wearing a tan suit, dark glasses, white shoes, and a light fedora. With him were two burly guards, weapons bulging beneath their tailored suit jackets. The man approached El and stepped around the dog. He looked El up and down and smiled.
"Don't get the beer," El said.
The man smiled even more broadly. "A misunderstanding. You look good." He gestured grandly toward the tables at the back of the room. "Shall we?"
"I have a table," said El with a glance toward the front.
The man followed his look and shook his head. "That's not the right table."
"It's just right for me," El said, and shouldered his way past the man with a dismissive shrug. He sat down and surveyed the street again. He didn't know what this man was about, and he didn't really care.
At the end of the street, the tan Pontiac appeared. El tensed inside. The Pontiac pulled up beside his jeep and parked. A man emerged from each of the four doors.
The gaunt man held a brief conversation with his companions, then joined El at his table. He removed his fedora and placed it on the table. El shifted fractionally, to keep his field of vision down the street clear. He saw the men glance around, give his jeep a brief survey, then square their shoulders and swagger into the bar.
"The look is perfect," the man said, "though I think you should be bigger. No one gave you any trouble?"
El focused on him. "No one gave me any trouble," he repeated, trying to make the man's words make sense. Then, cautiously, he added, "Not yet."
"What?" asked the man. "Do you expect trouble now? Did someone follow you?"
"That car," El said, nodding toward the other bar. What in Heaven's name did this man know of his business?
The man turned to look down the street, then gestured his two thugs over. "We'll take care of it," he said.
"You'll take care of it?" asked El, startled.
"Of course," the man said, standing to give his instructions to his men. "It's not as if you're really El Mariachi, after all."
El sat dumbfounded as the two burly thugs and four other men from the bar rolled out the door and headed down the street.