Free Night of the Jaguar by Joe Gannon

our help yesterday that soldier would be alive.”
    Ajax knew from experience that he could get people to do what he wanted, when he wanted. Not by force of will but more by a kind of telepathy, by telegraphing certain information. He thought of it as creating a vacuum that others unconsciously rushed in to fill. So at Cortez’s rebuke he’d taken a step backward as if struck, dropped his eyes to the ground as if shamed, and slumped his shoulders as if defeated.
    Cortez took two steps forward. Said almost kindly, “It’s okay, compa. You get to take the day off.” He sympathetically patted Ajax’s shoulder, as Ajax had wanted him to do. Ajax snatched his hand, put Cortez in a shoulder roll, his feet swinging high in the air, then slammed him into the ground, face down in the dirt, arm twisted to the breaking point, and all in what gringos called a New York minute.
    â€œWe did have your help yesterday,” Ajax hissed in his ear. “You fucking shot him.”
    He felt Cortez go limp from the pain of his arm halfway pulled off. Ajax was kind of enjoying it, it stirred nearly the same feeling as shooting that crow had. The feeling was cut short by the blow he took behind the ear from Pissarro. Damn! He should’ve known Gladys wouldn’t have his back.
    Ajax rolled with the punch, blinking away the stars that swam in his head, flipped onto his back in time to catch the charging Pissarro in the nut bag with his boot heel. Ajax leapt up as the conqueror of the Incas landed in a heap on the destroyer of the Aztecs.
    Ajax straightened his uniform. “Someone wants to take my stiff they have to send higher-ranking assholes than you two. Let’s go, Lieutenant.”
    Gladys looked ready to die, mouth wide open, big eyed. Ajax felt that he ought to reassure her, but the pain behind his ear reminded him that she’d failed to jump in. Then, for some reason, he remembered a delightful idea from long ago. He was making a beeline for the DGSE car when he heard the slide on a Makarov.
    â€œHalt!”
    Pissarro moaned pitifully and cradled his bruised manhood, but Cortez had his Makarov out. Right off, Ajax saw the tremor in his hand. Shit, more like an earthquake. He smiled and shook his head. “Halt? Halt? Where do you assholes do your training?” He made a few quick steps toward Cortez, who retreated the same few steps. “See? You escalated too quickly. What you want from me is cooperation, but you said ‘halt.’ If I don’t ‘Halt!’ what are you going to do? Shoot me?”
    â€œYou want out of your misery, Montoya? I’ll do it.”
    â€œI’m not miserable, but I dare you. Shit-eating puto.” Ajax opened the door of the DGSE car, rolled up the windows, locked the doors and snatched the keys from the ignition.
    â€œStop!” Cortez waved the pistol at him. The hammer was cocked and there was a finger on the trigger. Ajax realized he might just get him to do it. He saw that Gladys had finally snapped out if it and held her pistol at her side. He wasn’t sure she’d fire, or at whom, but at least her eyes were on Cortez.
    Ajax waved the keys at him. “Come on. How much provocation can you stand!” He pocketed the keys. Turned his back and took his time getting behind his own wheel. Just as he cranked the engine, Gladys climbed in, shaky and shaken. His only regret was that the Lada didn’t have the juice to sow a whirlwind of dust in his wake.

 
    4
    1.
    The Tomas Betulia Central Morgue was an ugly, low-slung building that had been erected piecemeal amid the ruins of the original morgue, flattened, like so much else, in the ’72 earthquake. Inside it was dim. Three windows had been carelessly knocked out of the cinder block walls when power outages had become a regular feature of the Revo. The morgue was as dank and unadorned as death itself. Three beat-up metal trolleys bearing corpses that emitted the