[Between Tack Street and Riley Drive | 1135 Central Time, Day 1]
There's absolutely no need for Mendez to pull his revolver's hammer, but he did it anyway. It was to let Becks know that this time it's the hammer, next it'll be the trigger.
"So you wanna tell me who you're working for, Becks?" asked Mendez, "Scratch that, let's start with something simpler: Becks, isn't it?"
Becks gave nothing other than a glare. However, with that glare came an answer, or rather, a counter-question:
"How'd you know my name?"
"I'll take that as a yes," said Mendez. Now we're getting somewhere, he thought. "Next one: who are you working for?"
Mendez had hoped Becks will give him a familiar name...
"I don't know, man."
...or not give him a name at all.
Still at square one. Such a shame.
Running out of patience, Mendez adjusted his aim on Becks.
"I'm sure you've seen this gun I'm holding right now," said Mendez as he popped open his revolver's cylinder, revealing that it was fully loaded with six bullets. "This little guy right here fires .44 Magnum cartridges, enough power to stop a bear dead in its tracks."
"Now I'm not gonna Clint Eastwood my way through this 'cause unlike him, I haven't fired this gun during all those excitement we've had earlier," said Mendez as he pushed the cylinder shut.
"So don't even bother asking yourself if you're lucky, 'cause let me tell you, you're not."
Mendez squeezed on the trigger. Becks closed his eyes.
Two gunshots rang the alleyway.
***
Nothingness. Becks should be dead by now. Two bullets to the head, not the best way to go.
Or did he actually go?
Becks opened his eyes. He was still lying on the ground by the sedan he'd crashed into earlier. The same position where his assailant had pointed his revolver at his head, making a cheesy reference to 70s action movies.
Only this time, there's no blond dude standing on top of him threatening to blow his brains out. He's gone. Nowhere to be found, at least on his immediate line of sight, anyway.
Sitting upright, Becks looked to his right.
And that's where he saw the man with the revolver.
Lying on the ground, two bullet holes spattered on his on his black leather jacket.
Those two gunshots didn't belong to the assailant. Someone had shot him twice.
Instinctively, Becks looked at the opposite direction, where the bullets would've came from.
There he saw another figure.
Unlike the person that'd just held him gunpoint, Becks recognized this one.
Becks remembered driving for this man a few hours earlier. Becks remembered this man making taking a call from what sounded like a "business associate". Becks remembered him instructing said associate to meet him at the warehouse at Riley Drive. Becks remembered the man telling Becks himself to go to that same warehouse. Becks remembered--vividly--the man instructing him to scout around the warehouse for "something suspicious", which led to his encounter with a certain tenacious man with blond hair, black leather jacket, and a big revolver.
But most importantly, Becks remembered this man bossing him around during all that. What a prick.
"Holy shit, you killed him!" exclaimed Becks.
"Of course I did," said the man, gripping a still-smoking pistol with his two hands. Unlike the blond guy's bulky and imposing revolver, the pistol that the man's holding is black, sleek, and compact. Becks imagined the bullets from the pistol not being very damaging, although the pistol's small size will definitely allow for a quicker draw from its user.
"Yo, y'all gotta pay me more for this shit," demanded Becks as the gunman paced closer to him.
The gunman stopped right in front Becks, clearly taking notice of Becks' demand.
"Hold up," said the gunman. "Did I just hear you telling me to pay you more?"
"Fuck yeah I did," retaliated Becks. "This dude right here? Chased me all across the rooftops, dropped my ass off a building, beat the shit out of me, pointed a big-ass gun at my face while saying some cheesy 70s action movie shi--I mean, who the fuck is this guy anyway?
"When you paid me $500 to drive you round town and scout for "something suspicious", I expect to throw hands at some poor hobo who was at the wrong place at the wrong time, not some crazy mofo who wiped blood from his mouth like it was fucking chocolate milk!"
Noticing that he's got the gunman's attention, Becks made his demand once again.
"So once again, I'm telling ya: Give. Me. More. Money."
Lowering his gun, the gunman shrugged and turned his attention to Becks.
"Well to answer that question, Becks: you're not getting a raise."
Becks was obviously appalled. "Fuck you say--"
"No, you shut your useless ass up, because I'm telling you, we wouldn't be in this mess if it weren't for you," asserted the gunman.
"If you'd handled the warehouse situation well, you wouldn't have to run across three rooftops to save your sorry ass. And even if you couldn't handle the situation, why the hell did you run anyway? You could've waited for me to come over to the rooftop and take over from there by stalling our mark, but nooo, you had to run away leaving a messy trail for everyone to see.
"When I paid you $500 to scout the roof, I expect you to scout the roof, not run off like a wuss the second you lost your footing. You've only got yourself to blame in this, so like I said earlier, no raise."
Becks opened his mouth to launch a counter-counter-argument, but the gunman did something that caught Becks completely off-guard.
He shifted his pistol's aim from the dead blond guy to Becks, who was still sitting on the concrete.
"Besides, the mark's dead, so you're quite literally useless to me now," said the gunman, readying his aim to Becks head. It was so quick and so sudden, Becks couldn't think of a way out--yet again.
"Don't take it personally, Becks. Gotta tie up all our loose ends, you know?"
Those were the last words Becks heard before the gunman pulled the trigger.
***
A scream of pain. A smoking gun barrel.
The scream didn't come from Becks, nor did the smoke come from the gunman's pistol.
Rather, it was the gunman crying out in agony--his hands had exploded in a sickening display of red mist, his gun knocked to the ground following the sudden impact.
As for the smoke, it came from a weapon way off the gunman's line of sight, which explained his obvious shock on top of his excruciating pain.
It was a Taurus Raging Bull with a 10-inch ported barrel, a red-black grip, a silver-colored stainless steel finish, and a carving on the left side of its barrel that read 'La Mutilar'.
Behind the gun was its owner, a smile of satisfaction painted across his face.
Mendez.
He'd shot off the gunman's right hand, which was his original intention. However, .44 Magnum round he'd fired managed to punch straight through his target's right hand and his SIG Sauer P227 pistol before exiting from his left hand.
The gunman fell into a fetal position, still clutching his disfigured right hand with an equally disfigured left hand, causing Mendez to chuckle in amusement.
Completely ignoring Becks who was completely astonished by the scene, Mendez stood up and approached the gunman, menacingly looming over him with La Mutilar in hand.
"I knew Becks' got someone behind him," Mendez started. "Becks and those five other guys, that is."
Noticing the gunman's compact pistol lying in the concrete beside him, Mendez holstered his revolver, picked up the P227 pistol, removed its magazine and ejected its one live round by cocking its slide, unloading the gun and rendering it harmless.
"Now," said Mendez as he tossed the P227 to the side, "I've had my suspicions, but I wanna hear it from you: why'd you come after me?"
The gunman shot a glare at Mendez. "Might as well just kill me now," he barked. "You ain't getting shit from me!"
Mendez shrugged. "Alright, if you say so," he said as he stood up.
Then in one swift, nonchalant motion, Mendez pulled his revolver, aimed at the gunman's right leg and pulled the trigger.
And yet again, gunshot rang the entire alleyway.
Another five seconds of the gunman screaming in pain. "You motherfucker!"
"What? You told me to kill you, you didn't tell me to make it quick," Mendez replied lightly, clearly unfazed by the gunman's rebuttal. "Also just so you know, I AM NOT into incest."
"You sick fuck!" cried the gunman as he continued to writhe in pain.
"That depends, actually," replied Mendez. "We call the survivors of the 1972 Andes plane crash 'sick fucks' for eating the bodies of dead fellow passengers, but for them, that's just survival.
"But now back to the point," continued Mendez. "I'm sure you're in a better position to talk now, so let me ask again: why'd you come after me?"
"Like I said, you're not getting shit from me, so fuck off!" spat the gunman.
"My God, twice in one day?" reacted Mendez, faking a shocked expression.
And then without skipping a beat, Mendez stomped on the gunman's wounded leg, landing his sole directly on the gunshot wound he inflicted earlier.
Screams of pain, yet again.
But Mendez knew all these micro-torture methods weren't going to break this man. Not quickly at least, and he didn't have much time. So he has to try something else.
"You know what, I'm gonna let you crawl back to your employer, mister--?" realizing the gunman wouldn't tell him his name, Mendez continued. "You're gonna go and tell O'Connell that I am--"
"It's O'Donnell, you stupid ignorant fuck!" interrupted the gunman. "Your sorry ass can't even get his name right?!"
"Oh?" Mendez seemed distracted on the outside.
But on the inside, it's a whole different story. Deep inside, he knew his trick had worked. By 'correcting' his mistake, the gunman--during his moment of pride and pretentiousness--had revealed his employer. Mendez noticed that the gunman had just realized this as well, but by then, it was already too late.
"So it was O'Donnell that sent you," concluded Mendez.
"It doesn't matter who sent me," replied the gunman, trying to avoid confirmation. "All that matters is we're going to get you and every single human being you've cared about, including that cafe lady--"
"Who's we?" interrupted Mendez, stepping on the gunman's chest with La Mutilar drawn.
"You know damn well who we are... Lucio Fernandez."
That namedrop briefly stunned Mendez. Nobody he'd known used that name around him. Not Morgan, not the shopkeeper of the convenience store near the cafe, not anyone... from his present life.
"That pretty much confirms it," said Mendez. "One last thing: you guys set up shop in town yet?"
"Oh, we're everywhere, Lucio," answered the gunman cryptically. "We have always known where you live, your new life, your new lame-ass cafe, your barrista friend that you care about, we know it all. We know each and every one of your moves, so it's only a matter of time before--"
The gunman didn't finish his sentence.
Mendez had shot the gunman in the face.
"If you guys have known all along, you wouldn't have taken four years to try to kill me," quipped Mendez as he holstered his revolver. "I know I wouldn't."
Mendez then crouched and rummaged through the gunman's corpse, finding his phone and wallet in the process. Surely he can find valuable information in those two items.
And don't forget, the two name drops: O'Donnell and Lucio Fernandez.
Mendez knew that name. O'Donnell. He knew the fact that if O'Donnell knew of Mendez's existence in the present, that's a strong enough motive for the former to try to kill Mendez. In other words, no surprises there.
That, alongside the name Lucio Fernandez. That wasn't someone else, that was Mendez himself. However, Mendez hadn't used the name during his time as the co-owner of Cafe Aurores; he'd always used the name in the years before the cafe. Back when he was affiliated with... O'Donnell.
There's no room for speculation now. It was O'Donnell that wanted Mendez dead. But "O'Donnell" is far, far more than just one person with a grudge against Mendez. After all, the mysterious gunman's last words weren't entirely wrong: that "O'Donnell" has a great deal of influence and power, and Mendez was well aware of that.
The odds are stacked against Mendez. But at least he has an end goal now.
Mendez knew for a fact he couldn't take this problem on his own. And as much as Morgan would've wanted to help, he can't ask her to risk her life. After all, chances are these guys are after her as well, as the gunman had previously mentioned.
Mendez will need some allies.
With that in mind, Mendez got up and went to Becks.