Page 12 of Her Mercenary
“It means, I know many men—good agents—who went undercover for too long, like you. Lost themselves along the way. Did things that they should have never done, didn’t do things they should have done, all in the name of the job. Thing is, with you, it’s not the job—it’s more, and that’s when it gets dicey.” He pointed his drink at me. “And let me tell you something. You need to be on-fucking-point when dealing with the CUN, brother.”
“You don’t know shit about me, Kieran.”
“I know enough to know that you didn’t just decide to dedicate your life to saving women from the sex trade because you’re a good guy. There’s something else driving you, and if you’re not careful, it’s going to consume you.” He stared at me a minute. “They don’t know you’re continuing the case, do they?”
“Define they.”
“The US government.”
“No.”
“Your boss?”
“No.”
“So, you’ve just gone totally rogue to find this chick.” Kieran shook his head and laughed. “Jesus, man, you’re going to get yourself killed.”
When I didn’t respond, he tapped his fingers on the table, emphasizing his point made, then stood.
“Don’t forget, Roman, everything you do leaves a trace. And speaking of that, leave me out of it from here on out. You’re on your own—although, I have a feeling that’s exactly where you prefer to be.” He tipped back the last of his whiskey. “Happy hunting, my friend.”
I watched Kieran weave through the crowd. Once he’d disappeared into the night, I laid ten one-hundred-dollar bills on the table and slipped out of the booth.
I had a plane to catch.
6
ROMAN
Ripping the tie from my neck, I stepped onto the sidewalk and into the balmy, humid air. I tossed the noose onto the cobblestone street, watching it fall like dead weight into a puddle littered with cigarette butts.
There was no breeze in this city.
The fucking heat. It was one of the many things I never got used to in Mexico, along with the noise, the crowds, the clogged air, and the smell of urine baking on the asphalt.
Mariachi and hip-hop music blared from the bars that lined the street, shouts and laughter echoing from the apartments overhead. Street vendors crowded the sidewalks, selling a little of this and a little of that. Bikes and scooters zipped past, deftly weaving between locals and tourists alike.
Whether male or female, rich or poor, everyone was searching for something that night. Most eventually would find it at the bottom of a bottle.
I noticed a group of teenagers exchange a small bag of drugs in an alley next to a pair of dumpsters spray-painted with gang signs. Twenty feet away, two prostitutes watched with keen interest. One feverishly scratching the scabs on her face, the other wild-eyed, bouncing from heel to heel.
The economy in this part of the city was thriving.
I watched the drug deal go down, and before the dealers were even out of sight, the prostitutes descended on their targets. Down the block, a few more hookers emerged, smelling blood in the water. I watched this shameless exchange for goods and services as I strode down the street in my four-thousand-dollar suit and two-thousand-dollar shoes.
I thought of the circular flow of money. The domino effect one transaction has on another, and how eventually, habits and societies are formed around this flow. It’s an endless, and sometimes very vicious, cycle.
In this case, money is paid to the drug dealers for their product. That money is then given to the hookers who were waiting to strike. The prostitutes use their payment to buy more drugs from the drug dealer, who, in turn, uses the money to make more drugs to sell to more kids on the street. And on and on we go.
Then there are the men and women the government pays to police this thriving economic subset, though not nearly enough to justify a full dedication of self to the job. These men and women are a very different type of people, using their paycheck as a means of survival to pay for food, homes, cars, college tuition, and so on. There is no passion in what they do. They work because this is what society tells them they need to do. They live within the acceptable standards of human existence, and that is all.
The drug dealers, on the other hand? The buyers? The prostitutes? They live and breathe for their payments, for their products. Their entire world revolves around getting another hit. Not food, not water, not college tuition. For them, it’s another high, whether by drugs or orgasm.
Addiction, greed, lust, or power... it consumes them. This subset of the economy operates on passion, that carnal need to sate desires of the flesh. They buy, sell, and trade a feeling. And this is why they win.
This is why they’ll always win.
I watched the hookers lead the kids around the corner and disappear into the darkness.