“How’d you get that? It was covered up.”
“The men they have to eat, right? When they do, I take a rag and wipe the dirt off. Before they come back, I put the dirt back on.”
“Describe them to me.”
Diego did so.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Puller handed him the twenty bucks.
“Isabel and Mateo. Did someone come here and hurt them?”
Diego shook his head. “Not here or I would have looked like they do too, because I would have tried to stop them.”
“Tell me about the men I knocked out. Are they part of a gang?”
“They want to be, but they are so stupid that no one wants them. They run some drugs on their own, but nothing much. Then they hassle people. And get money for that. They are scum.” “Do they have friends?”
“Anyone here has friends, if they have the money to pay for them.” As he said this, Diego carefully folded up the twenty and placed it in his pocket.
“Think they’re waiting for me back at my place?”
Diego shrugged. “I think you must be very careful.”
“Thanks for your help.”
“I just do it for the money.”
“I admire your honesty.”
“Don’t trust anyone in Paradise, mister, including me.”
“At some point, Diego, you have to trust someone. You need any help, you can come to me.”
“If you are still alive, mister. We will see.”
“You can just call me Puller.”
“Okay, Puller. Buena suerte.”
“Yeah, you too.”
Puller walked off. Part of him was thinking about having to deal with the three stooges again, and possibly their paid help. But part of him was thinking about the descriptions that Diego had just given him of the two men in the Chrysler.
Lean, fit, buzz cuts. They fit the description of men who had the same employer he did.
The United States military.
CHAPTER 29
Puller walked to the Tahoe, climbed into the back, stretched out, and thought about what he had just learned.
If the guys in the Chrysler were former military, then that changed the balance of things. They might very well see through his disguise and change rides. They might be able to fire at him faster than he could fire back.
And if they were still in the military he wondered why they would be here following him.
If they weren’t in the service he wondered the very same thing.
After what had happened to him in West Virginia it was possible that the military had put a tail on him. He decided to see if that theory held any water. He called Kristen Craig back.
She must’ve recognized his number because instead of hello she said, “Miss me already?” “Always.”
“Seriously, don’t you ever sleep?”
“Look who’s talking.”
“Yeah, but I heard what happened in West Virginia. Not the official story, because there is no official story. But just scuttlebutt, stuff between the lines. I think you could probably write your own ticket right now. Even take a vacation if you wanted to.”
“I’m on vacation. Well, sort of.”
“I have my iPad ready to take down your next assignment, boss.”
Puller chuckled to himself. He got a kick out of the lady, he really did. If she weren’t married, he might have even asked her out.
I must have hit him even harder than I thouqht I did.
They passed the Tahoe without even a glance. On the battlefield this negligence would have resulted in their immediate deaths. But this was Florida and not Afghanistan, so Puller refrained from drilling them all in the back with rounds from his M11.
He could see gun bumps under their shirts, front and rear. Two of them carried baseball bats and another was clasping a metal bar. They were loaded for bear. Geared for war. Ready to kill.
Of course probably none of them knew what being in actual combat was like.
Puller did.