Fever City by Tim Baker

assailant, the loudmouth. His wallet’s heavy with an FBI shield. The same name as on the card Schiller showed me: H. Paul Rico, from Boston, Massachusetts.
    I look up at the couple. ‘You two better go . . . ’ The one called Allen groans. I let him have another crack across the crown of his head. The girl looks from my pistol to Allen’s head to my eyes. ‘And I wouldn’t come back here for a few days if I were you.’
    They’re both gone without another word. Outside in the sunshine they’ll find relief and anger. Rancour and regret. Why didn’t you do anything? How could you have let them jump us like that . . . ? It was your fault, if your mother had gone away like she was supposed to, we wouldn’t have had to do it in the john.
    Rico’s coming round. I grab him by the scruff of his thick neck. ‘Okay, you little shit, you have one minute to tell me everything.’
    Rico tries to sit up against the wall but slides back down against the tiles, hitting the side of his head against the can. ‘Police brutality.’
    I grab him by the collar. ‘Listen, you fuck, I’ll show you some real police brutality unless you talk. Start with your buddy Allen. Is he FBI too?’
    Rico gives a disgusted snort. ‘That tub of shit? Are you kidding? He’s a fucking child molester. I arrested him three days ago in Atascadero.’
    â€˜He didn’t look like he was under arrest.’
    â€˜Yeah well, he was showing me around his network and we decided to have some laughs.’ He gives a grunt of merry remembrance, as though recalling a series of harmless schoolyard high jinks.
    â€˜You think this is funny?’
    â€˜What do you want, tears?’
    It takes everything inside me not to bury the pistol barrel deep inside his ear. ‘The truth. Who told you to arrest Hidalgo?’
    â€˜Hoover. And that’s the truth.’
    â€˜And where were you planning on taking him?’
    Rico clams up. I grab his head and shove it into the toilet bowl, yanking the chain. Water thunders down, nearly drowning out his screams. Something moves behind me. Allen’s getting to his feet. I kick him in the shin. He drops to one knee. I kick him in the windpipe. He falls backwards, gasping. I haul Rico out of his own private porcelain torture chamber. ‘You got thirty seconds before the cistern refills. Why do you want him?’
    â€˜Miami office wants him.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜Fucked if I know, I’m just following ord—’
    I plunge his head back into the toilet. There is the cascade of water, and then the sobs of a nearly-drowned man. ‘Next time I’m not letting you up for air, so you better talk: what’s Hidalgo to Hoover?’
    â€˜Hidalgo ain’t nothing to Hoover, but he’s something to Nixon.’
    â€˜Nixon? The vice president?’
    â€˜The fucking street sweeper—of course the vice president.’
    â€˜What was Hidalgo doing for Nixon?’
    â€˜Apart from giving him a blow job . . . ? No!’ He screams as I go to flush his head down the can forever. ‘Hidalgo is part of Operation 40. He’s controlled by David Sánchez Morales. Morales practically runs the entire outfit. Nixon has oversight, but Morales runs it on the ground. No wonder they keep fucking up: there should be Americans in charge.’ He wipes his stinking wet hair out of his eyes, focusing on me. There’s that snorting laugh again, offensive, derisive; obscene in its total contempt. ‘You don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about, you dumb shit . . . ’ Then, ‘Let him have it!’
    Allen sucker punches me from behind, my ear singing in agony. Rico charges me, battering into my chest with his sopping bullet head. We careen backwards into the sink, my gun clattering out of my hand. I take the rim hard against my spine. ‘When I’m through with you