Certain Prey

said.
    “It was on TV,” Rinker said.
    “He said he gave you a tape to hold, and that if anything happened to him, we were supposed to come and get it, because if you keep it, somebody’s gonna show up here and hurt you,” Carmel said, squatting to look the woman straight in the face. “He gave us an envelope to give you. Money.”
    The man said, “We don’t got no tape,” but the woman said, reflexively, “How much?”
    They had the tape, Carmel thought, and she felt a wire, tight in her spine, suddenly relax.
    “Five thousand dollars,” Carmel said, speaking to the woman. The woman looked up at the man, who said, “I dunno.”
    Carmel took the envelope out of her pocket. “If we could get the tape?”
    The woman stood up, but the man put a hand out to her. “I think we should look at the tape first,” he said.
    “Rolando said not to,” the woman said, nervously dry-washing her hands.
    “We need to get that tape . . .”
    The woman flipped her hands up, explaining to Carmel, “It’s one of those funny little tapes, you need to get a special holder-thing to run it . . .”
    “We’re gonna look at the tape,” the man said, decisively. “If you show up here to give us five thousand . . .” He smiled brightly and said, “Then I bet it’s worth a lot more.”
    “We really need the tape. Rolando wasn’t supposed to get it, and the people it belongs to, you really don’t want to mess with,” Rinker said. Her voice was flat, and sounded dangerous to Carmel’s ear. The vibration apparently went past the Latino.
    He sneered at her. “What, the fuckin’ Mafia? Or the Colombianos? Fuck those people.” He turned to the woman. “We look at the tape.” And back to Carmel and Rinker, hitching up his pants. “You bitches can leave the envelope here. If it’s enough, we’ll give you the tape. If not, we’ll figure out a price.”
    “Goddamnit, this isn’t necessary,” Carmel said, stepping in front of Rinker. Out at the very edge of her vision she could see Rinker’s gun hand sliding out of her pocket.
    “Yeah, it’s fuckin’ necessary,” the Latino man said, his voice rising. “What I fuckin’ say is necessary, that’s what’s fuckin’ necessary, right?” He looked at Marta. “Is that right?”
    She looked away, and Carmel shrugged. “If you say so.” She took another sideways step and felt Rinker’s arm come up with the gun.
    The man stepped back, a little surprised, but still smiling slightly. “What, that’s supposed to scare me?”
    That was the last thing he said: Rinker shot him in the center of the forehead, and he dropped in his tracks. The woman, Marta, clapped both hands to her face in disbelief, and before she could scream or make any other sound, Rinker panned the gun barrel across to her face and snapped: “If you scream, I’ll kill you.”
    “Give us the tape, you get the money,” Carmel said.
    “Oh my God oh my God oh my God . . .”
    “The fuckin’ tape,” Rinker snarled. The woman put a hand out toward the muzzle, as though she could fend off bullets, and slowly backed away, still looking down at the man.
    The tape was in the kitchen, in a cupboard, inside a Dutch oven. She handed it to Rinker, who handed it to Carmel, who looked at it and nodded. “You didn’t make any copies?”
    “No, no, no, no . . .” The woman was staring fixedly at Rinker now. Then the man in the front room groaned and Rinker turned and walked toward him.
    “He’s alive?” Marta Blanca asked. Rinker said, “Yeah, it happens. Sometimes the bullet doesn’t even make it through the skull bone.” She casually leaned forward, bringing the muzzle to within an inch or two of the man’s head, and fired three quick shots into his skull. His feet bounced once, and he lay still.
    Marta crossed herself, her eyes now fixed on Rinker. “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” she said, with the sound of certainty in her voice.
    “No, I’m not,” Rinker said. She showed a tiny smile.
    Carmel, who had been carrying the second gun, shot Marta Blanca in the back of the head. As she fell, Carmel stepped forward and fired five more times. Then she smiled at Rinker, her eyes bright with excitement, and said, “We got the goddamn tape. We got the goddamn tape.”
    Rinker put the gun back in her jacket pocket and said, “Let’s get a drink somewhere.”
    “Let’s check the tape to make sure it’s right, erase it, and then get a drink somewhere,” Carmel said. G OING OUT