Shelter From The Storm (The Bare Bones MC Book 6)(3)
The Instagram photo showed Slayer liberally draped with scantily clad women barely in their twenties. Since Slayer was probably coming up on forty, that was slightly creepy. But the real creepy part was that he’d allowed photos to be taken of him at all.
“Instagram?” I queried, and went for my phone, too. But I didn’t have that app installed, of course, so all I could do was google “Santiago Slayer.” Aside from some gaming hits that were hopefully not him, this stealthy, crafty sicario was all over the f*cking map. In addition to a thousand Instagram hits in which he’d allowed himself to be tagged using his real—or rather I should say his made-up, hitman name—he was similarly tagged in Facebook, and I could open those.
“You sure like to party.” I snorted cynically, swiping through photo after photo of the Ken doll handsome guy posing with drinks and chicks. “Your jefe doesn’t get up in your shit about this?”
Slayer frowned. “A kingpin, getting angry about partying?”
I realized that sounded stupid, so I clarified. “I mean about you being tagged all over the place. You’re not afraid your cover will be blown?”
Slayer wiped my existence away with his hand. “Pfft. This is partying. A completely separate reality from our jobs. As I always say, ‘work and fun do not mix.’”
That was an odd way to justify it. There was always bleed-through from one reality to the other. I lived my entire life like a sicario. It might’ve been easier for me to keep them separate because women and socializing weren’t part of my reality. “Yeah, but anyone trying to find you can just easily log onto Facebook or Instagram and figure out which party you’re at. They have geotags on these things, you know.”
Again, Slayer scoffed at me. “Pfft. Big deal if they see me at a party? Why would that make them instantly think I was coming to get them? Oh, excuse me.” Slayer chuckled at his screen. “Look. This girl sent me a sexy Snapchat. See how pouty her lips are.”
I waved away his phone. That sort of shit held no interest for me. I was all business, to the core. “Did you even get El Ba?o?”
Slayer’s face was blank, he was so entranced with the onscreen girl’s boobs. “What? Oh, El Ba?o? Let us just say he is happily diving with the dolphins.”
I frowned, trying to understand his slang. “You mean sleeping with the fishes?” If El Ba?o was dead, maybe I could convince Slayer not to report his success to his boss. That would keep me out of hot water.
Slayer finally blacked out his phone’s screen and put it in its holster. He was professional again. “Let us just say, El Ba?o will not live to flush another day.”
Sidling up to him, I became Slayer’s biggest confidante. “Hey. I wonder if I could talk you into taking joint credit for the hit. You know? Who is it you work for now?”
Slayer drew himself up proudly. “The Bare Bones motorcycle club, but that is no secret. Ford Illuminati would never tell me to curtail my social refreshments. I do not miss out on assignments. I am very punctual, and always report back promptly.”
“Yeah, speaking of that, have you reported in to Mr. Illuminati tonight?”
“Not yet. It is three in the morning. I would never be so rude.”
“Exactly. You strike me as a very polite, well-mannered man. According to the internet, your reputation that has soared far and wide rings in the streets.”
Slayer looked pleased and modest at the same time. “Well. I cannot deny it. I have been sometimes labeled with the moniker ‘The Kindly Sicario.’ I have a gentlemanly way of not strewing the body parts all over the place as some messy people do. Once I even pulled up some flowers nearby—”
“Wait. Hang on.”
Fuck me dry. It was Ortelio Jones, already harassing me about the evening’s activities. I couldn’t very well pretend I was asleep and avoid the call, so I put my finger to my lips to tell Slayer to shut the f*ck up, and answered.
“Isherwood here.”
“Fox,” said Jones grandly. Contrary to his name, Ortelio Jones was Mexican, with roots deeply intertwined with the Sinaloan drug trade. His compound was in Los Mochis. I could tell by his tone that it was too late to take credit for Slayer’s kill. “I have heard you had a little help tonight.”
“Well, yes. Ah, that is true.”
His tone didn’t stay grand for long. It only took a few seconds for it to rise to an irate level. “Just the idea you’d need the help of that clown, Santiago Slayer, is a stain on the Jones name!”
“Well, ah, just so you know, I didn’t exactly ask for his help. I didn’t even know he was in the area.”
It was as though Jones didn’t even hear me. “Joder! Now everyone knows it was that cabrón who buried El Ba?o, not us! You are going to have to get El Pozolero, his right hand man.”
“The Soup Maker.” El Pozolero was so named due to his penchant for dissolving the bodies of his rivals in big soup pots. “Just tell me when and where.”
Jones’ pause chilled me to the bone. “You will have to cross into New Mexico.”
I didn’t want to tell him no. Lord knows, I didn’t want to say no. I had just been called on the carpet for messing up. This was not something I was accustomed to. But New Mexico? Jones knew to set foot there spelled my doom. “Ah, you must have other guys who can go there. What about Armando Grillo, or El Ostión?” He was called “The Oyster” because he rarely talked.