He was alone, but scent and heat and langour told him El had only recently gone.
Feet and fast gossiping words in the corridor outside, the annoying bastards who'd woken him up already moving away. Traffic and voices beyond the window, frequent, nobody making an effort to be quiet, and it had to be late.
He didn't give a shit about late. He was enjoying sleeping. A decent bed, perfect morning temperature, sheet warm beneath him with the rising scent of laundry and mild sweat and sex.
And okay, one of the buttons of his fly was digging in his hip, and there were uncomfortable ridges of cloth scrunched up under his ribs, and when he shifted to fix that, his cock felt dry-glued to his underwear.
He debated a while whether he was relaxed enough to be able to ignore all that, but El was back now anyway, so he sat up as the door opened, closing again over coffee and something baked, and El with just the slightest off to his steps now.
He wondered lazily if El could be provoked back into bed - being thoroughly fucked would be a good way to finish waking up.
"I brought breakfast," El said unnecessarily. He put things soft plastic and cardboard on the table. "We need to leave soon. We should have left before." Measured and calm and all business, and business to El was killing the right people.
Sands was in cheerful agreement with the main item on the day's agenda, though there was still the sleep-woolly incentive to put the meeting back a bit, the old irritation of extended sleep leaving him almost less functional than exhaustion.
"Ten minutes," he said. "I can eat in the car." Five was enough for a regular, non-battle-gore level sluice-down, and another five to run the electric razor over his face. Not quite as good as a blade, but it passed, and he wouldn't want to meet up with any old friends looking like he'd been inconvenienced.
He made a point of dressing in smart-casual, with a wool-based jacket heavy between his fingers that would survive the journey time.
El wasn't quite pacing when he was done, but he was teetering with a plastered leg and a crutch right on the edge of it.
Sands grabbed his cooling coffee and drained it down, following El out to the car eating some kind of doughy, shaped egg roll one-handed. Christ, El could have spared the few minutes to go one better than the nearest McDonalds.
But that wasn't the kind of mood El was in.
The drive was quiet, and Sands didn't break it. El got himself quite the focus when he'd a specific kill in mind - he'd checked out the place once before, and he'd be running scenarios and options and outcomes. For a barely-bothered-to-finish-school Mexican, El's thoughts ran with impressive efficiency once he found himself a particular motive, and his silence now beside Sands was tension-low, the barest of leashed anticipation, movements minimal and methodical over the low background notes and burble of the radio. Sands sat relaxed, slouched across his seat, tuning out the guitars and the chatter - his body wanted to sleep, but if he did that he'd be feeling machine washed and tumble dried on non-delicate later when he had to be awake.
Any real planning would have to wait till they reached Lázaro Cárdenas - El's information was close on a year out of date, his own more like two. He settled for drifting, his mind wandering idly over a few possibilities, the usual steady monitoring of El for any change in the tension running smooth beneath. Not all the possibilities he had flitting around in his head were good ones, but some of it was out of his control, and he left those lurking back in the corners. El's hands moving light and familiar over plastic of wheel and turn signals and radio dials were distinct through his thoughts, and it was easy to drop into thinking of those hands on his body, and how good it was going to be to have El fuck him after this, just enjoying sex with no stress.
He put the brakes on that early and the wheels up on blocks, because a hard-on now would be inconvenient, and jacking off at the next restroom stop wasn't what he had in mind.
Timing and noise and choking traffic in combination told him when they got to the right city, and El crawled them straight through and out onto the coast road to Playa Azul. Sands opened his window to catch the breeze heavy with salt and humidity, because the hours of cycling air-con had freeze-dried his nose and his sinuses, and it felt good tugging through his hair, ruffling between the strands over his neck.
El took a right off the arterial, and they were headed upwards, the curves increasing and speed slowing till the pavement faded out from beneath the wheels, packed dirt transitioning looser and stonier as they climbed. El pulled over someplace that sliced the sun from Sands' cheek, trees whistling overhead as he killed the engine, keys left rattling in the ignition.
El opened the guitar case on the back seat, quick, distinctive scrape-slides of metal screwed into oiled metal, twice over. One would be the scope, and maybe a silencer in case, or it could just be stock assembly. He didn't know the details on what El was keeping in there right now.
Sands closed his window and stayed in the car. It was cooler and less buggy, no flies to land unanticipated and creepy on his skin, and he wasn't at his most productive on these observational runs anyway.
He settled in for quite a wait, but El was back after just fifteen minutes, stalking up to the car tight and deliberate. "Something's wrong." He started the engine and swung the car around back down the hill.
No more explanation offered, and Sands didn't question.
El took them back down to the main highway and on into town - residential areas, no noise from the sidewalks, only the regular pauses at intersections. It was obvious enough when they arrived where they were going because El did the full block tour, four consecutive rights before he pulled over and climbed out.
This time, Sands let himself out, ready to follow as El crossed in front of the car onto the sidewalk. Just a few strides till El stopped, rattling metal tall and minimally mobile, and Sands remembered curving double gates at the end of a straight, lawn-enclosed driveway.
"They've gone," El said. "Most of the furniture is still here, but they are not."
El didn't mean they'd taken a day trip to the beach, and that was one of those possibilities Sands hadn't liked, looking at him right there in his face. "One of Honaker's people must have tipped them off to the loss of contact. They'd always leave an insurance line into the inside of any deal."
"So where do we find them now?"
"We don't." His lips pressed tight around the words, and it was just about the bitterest thing that had been shoved down his gut inside the last year. "Right now, they've got us beat on both time and resources."
"Will they just walk away and leave," cloth and chains and air as El swept his arm around towards the gate, "all this?"
"I honestly don't know. It depends on what exactly they've got stashed away in other places, and I never did get the details on that."
El stilled beside him. "They're you," he said softly.
Sands stilled too.
"Those people," El went on, "they did what you tried, and they succeeded."
Sands put his hand to his hip, thumb hooked into his belt, and tipped his head. "Well, I wouldn't say they're quite like me - they weren't juggling coups and drug barons and generals as I recall - but they took the opportunity to help themselves to a little something extra along the way, yes."
El twisted away on a boot heel, his hair brushing further over fabric. "And still it's not enough for them."
"They run a bit of a sideline to keep from getting bored with the lifestyle, that's all. I wasn't lying when I told Jorge that agents don't retire, El. No need to, when a judicious dose of the truth will get you a sale with a lot less effort."
And maybe that wasn't the best thing to say, because El's tone had hardened basalt-black. "Just how many of you people are there in my country?"
"That's the full set, that I know of." Sands thought a moment and half-shrugged. "Of course, there'll be my replacements now, and maybe a couple of others still nosing around after me, but they're the official contingent, not the strays."
El was looking back towards the house again, his words snatched irregularly into the breeze as it faltered and swirled. "We can't leave them to come after us."
"They only do what they're paid for," Sands told him. Angie always had been practical that way. "Honaker's not paying them now, so unless somebody else does, they won't be hassling either of us."
"They might try taking their payment direct."
Sands considered that, but only briefly. "They've got it pretty good, and they don't need the cash. I doubt they'll weigh the entertainment worth the risk with what they've just been told." He twitched up one corner of his lips, disparaging. "They prefer the kind of challenge where the odds are distinctly with them."
"So they do this to us and they just walk away."
"For now." Not forever. They'd resurface, set up in business again, just like he would, and they'd all end up talking with the same people in the same country eventually.
El had caught that certainty, a rustle and low chink as his body shifted, relaxing out of the stillness.
The sun was ready to stew Sands slow through his jacket-wool marinade, and the brush of air over him didn't change it, a dense and sultry convection for added combi-oven speed. He retraced his steps precise and even back to the car, fingers going straight to the handle, and climbed in, door clicking heavy beside him, sealing Mexico back outside.
It was a few minutes more before El's feet crossed in front of the hood to his own side of the car.
El sat in the driver's seat, door snicking quiet into place, and keys rattled at his hand, but he didn't start the engine. "If you want a town with buses, we are near one," he said.
Lázaro Cárdenas really wasn't such a bad choice, given the overall context of Mexico - coastal with good highway links and the train option too, and a lot further south than he'd started out last time. Though transit wasn't half so pleasant as a car with good seats and air-con, and waiting at a station was really no comparison to having a chauffeur.
El made some things easier, and a few things just a Matterhorn or two more of a pain in the ass, but alone was perfectly workable too.
Sands liked having choices.
He pulled out a cigarette, tapping it deliberately on the carton before he put it to his lips. "You know, El, you still need that bolthole." He reached out a hand to take the lighter El was rustling for. "And before you argue the obvious, yes, I know you can live this shit full time if you have to, but I can't imagine you want to."
"You're the one who told me that hiding was only waiting to die." No real reaction in El's words, straight reporting of a fact.
"Well, that depends a lot on why and where you're hiding." He tagged on a quick, tight smile for that extra bit of emphasis. "If you disappear for a few months, they'll wonder where you went, and they'll keep on looking. But when you don't show up, they'll start to relax a bit, and it'll all be a whole lot easier again when we come back."
"You plan to come back?" Low, guarded, and still slightly more than curious at that final, dangling plural.
Sands dragged deep on the smoke before drawing it down, let it trickle slow through his nose. "Only if you're going to be practical about it. I'm not signing up to die for anybody's good cause or anybody's vengeance trip, not even my own. And I sure as fuck don't plan on dying because I couldn't grab enough sleep in the last few weeks."
He slipped El's lighter into his pocket instead of offering it back, the plastic smooth under the curl of his fingers.
He wouldn't have to wait for long. This was one of the instant decisions, all the thinking behind it already done, whether El was aware of it or not.
He pulled deliberately at his cigarette; opened the door to flick ash because the damn windows didn't open without the ignition.
Keys twitched and rattled below the first catch and steady rumble of the engine.
"So where do we go now?" El asked.
Sands felt the smoke leave his lungs, heavy and fast, tossed out his cigarette half-smoked and closed the door. "We hit Highway 37 and pay a quick visit to Mexico City."
"Why?" Curiosity right to the bottom, and not a single edge of reservation.
Sands turned his head towards him and smiled.
"El, have you ever been to Paraguay?"