I pistol-whipped him across the face and kicked his legs from under him. He collapsed to the floor.

“Hector, Hector, Hector,” I said with disappointment.

“I’m sorry, so sorry,” Hector said, his eyes filling with tears. I checked the revolver, saw that it was loaded, cleaned, ready.

“Hector, you realize this is going to have to go on your résumé,” I told him.

“Oh, please don’t hurt me, they said they would kill my family, they said-”

I put the gun in his mouth and rattled it around his teeth.

“Save it, mate, they already told me, you came to them, you sought them out. What was the finder’s fee?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I love you, boss, I don’t know what-”

Clicking the hammer back is such a cliché in these situations, but in my experience it is a shortcut to the truth.

I clicked the hammer back.

“Ten thousand dollars,” he said.

“Damn it, Hector, if you needed the money I would have loaned it to you.”

“I wanted to earn it.”

“There are better ways,” I muttered.

“You would know,” Hector said petulantly, making a move for the knife he kept in his pocket. That wasn’t going to happen twice in the same hotel room. I kicked his arms apart, so that he was spread-eagled on the floor. I took the gun out of his mouth and placed it a couple of inches from his forehead.

“You are one disloyal asshole,” I told him without much passion.

He closed his sad brown eyes.

“No more disloyal than you,” he said.

“There’s a difference,” I explained. “I did it to save my skin, you did it for the goddamn money.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

“I’m going to salvage your honor, my friend,” I said.

Hector understood. He blinked away the tears, flinched.