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Back Dead of Winter Save as PDF
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In this part of the world—not unlike in Washington, DC—loyalty and discretion are earned over years, while treachery and deceit can be purchased in mere minutes. I was sure one of Manta’s employees took cash clients when the master wasn’t in and altered his order records and accounts.

A little grease on the side.

Three middle-aged women—one with the handsome, snobbish look of an upper-class Spaniard, the other two with a working-class Andean look—and an austere man in his late sixties, who was dressed more fittingly for the work of funeral home director, examined my feet. Scrutinized them. Pressed and rubbed them in their gloved hands. The women spoke Spanish to one another in accents I was unfamiliar with. The austere man nodded and scribbled notes. At one point, one of the Andean-looking women rolled out a portable X-ray machine.

“Whoa! Hold on!” I said in Spanish. “What the hell is that for?”

“The master finds bone structure to be of utmost importance when it comes to podiatric comfort, performance and styling. It is the personalized foundation of an exquisite shoe,” the humorless man said. “X-rays are held in the strictest of confidence, and should you not order from us again within two years, the films are shredded.”

The austere man was not my mark.

No one wants to be around when focused beams of high-intensity radiation are being deployed. The austere man and two of the women—the snobby Spaniard and the younger Andean—left the showroom while the third woman donned a lead vest and prepared me for the machine.

She was my mark.

I discreetly took a fold of two hundred dollars American from my suit coat inner pocket, and while she set up my left foot for the X-ray machine, I inconspicuously showed her the money and whispered, “Información, por favor.”

Without a word, she took the money.

Forty minutes later, I met the woman on her lunch break. I gave her another three hundred, and she gave me Sloane’s address.

It was during this transaction over a cold pork sandwich and warm Coke that I realized how mundane cold-blooded murder could be.

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