But he wasn’t going to argue it, not with Vance. He and Rojas had used him as backup when they were doing imports up from Coahuila. These dead-of-night cross-border runs in a Bronco, the two of them up front, Vance and a hundred-odd pounds of brown heroin in back. They’d been pulled over one night by two ICE guys and Vance had just stood up through the sunroof with a .357 and nailed the pair of them with a headshot each, and ten minutes later he was dozing in the backseat.
And with that in mind, one did not force the point, especially now the dynamic had shifted, and Leon was in charge.
Quiet as those realities settled. Gloom of the cabin and the smell of new leather and the dials all lit up like a flight deck.
Rojas said, “Just do it. Take that spare key.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Like some petulant kid, packing heat and false ID. He opened his door and slid out of the car.
Marshall
Between the trees he could see the black Chrysler and tailing it the white Audi SUV. Almost predatory in their smooth and quiet glide, sharp headlight beams cast narrow and suspicious.
There was a bit of traffic so two cars in tight succession weren’t that unusual. The only standout aspect was they were both late-model vehicles with tinted windows, and Marshall’s grasp of likelihoods said that if the two most expensive cars he’d seen all afternoon came through as a pair, there was probably something to it.
He waited.
Very quiet on the street. He checked the river reserve. Darkness now between the trees. Nobody on his little side road. His own car plus a couple more. He dropped his window an inch. Cool evening air. A faint light throwing shadows in the woods and then the Audi slipped back along the street, no engine noise, the softest hush off the tires.
And he knew.
They’d cruised past for a once-over. The Chrysler had stayed west, now the Audi was moving back east.
They were setting up a perimeter.
If they were thorough they’d check the south side too, where he was, across the river reserve.
He listened. A gentle rustle as a breeze passed through the trees. In his mirror a lone streetlight framed there at the curb. His bathroom window growing brighter amidst the shadows.
He leaned and placed the binoculars in the glove compartment and picked up the .45 from the floor. There was a round already chambered. He reached up and set the dome light so it wouldn’t come on, and then he slid out and pressed his door shut gently until he heard it click.
He stood a moment beside the car. The streetlight in its lonely vigil. The whispering of the trees. He crossed the road briskly to the junction where his side street met Alameda along the south of the reserve. There was a house on the corner site protected by a high adobe wall. He stood with his back against it and glanced out quickly along the reserve in the direction of the Chrysler. Nothing. The road narrow with no sidewalk, tall fences close against it on the left and the reserve on the right. Looking back the other direction, he couldn’t see the Audi, either.
Blood roaring in his ears. High up the branches swaying gently.
He crossed to the reserve and dropped to a crouch and crept twenty yards up from the junction and put his back against a tree and risked another look along Alameda toward the black car.
Nothing coming. The bark flaking dryly where he touched it. Smell of dust and dead leaves. He couldn’t hear the river. So weak, it was just standing water.
He stayed put. Five minutes. Ten. Every thirty seconds another glance out each way along the road. Waiting there amidst the trees, he knew he’d see before being seen.
Darkness drawing nearer. Cool air with some residual heat off the road. Across the reserve a ten-year-old Chevy sedan drove slowly along the street.
Footsteps.
Very quietly, out on the road. He risked a look between branches. Cyrus Bolt. His face a swollen mess crisscrossed with flesh-tone tape. Maybe thirty yards away, hands buried in his jacket pockets, something concealed there.
Twenty-five yards.
The Chevy sedan pulled up a couple of doors down from his house. The lights died. Quiet a moment and then a woman got out and shut her door gently and glanced up at his lit window and headed for his driveway.
Marshall said, “Shit.” Barely a whisper as he let his breath out.
He glanced back along the street. Bolt very close now, ten yards. Maybe his last short walk.
Marshall waited.
Lauren Shore
Finally better luck:
After her talk with Lemar she’d parked out front of that store across the road and checked the map to locate the diner he’d mentioned. North of Algodones, just off the 25. The next nearest turnoff was five miles north. Another one ten miles south. She called Martinez’s desk line.
She said, “I just talked to Alvin.”
“How did that go?”
She summarized the conversation. He thought about it a moment and said, “So it’s nothing, really. Because all he saw was a meeting he didn’t overhear.”
She said, “I’m interested in this blond guy. Lemar thought he looked like he knew what he was doing. Troy’s been around and Bolt’s just come off ten years or something at Beaumont, but apparently this guy took them both down with no one noticing. Two on one can get pretty loud if you’re not careful.”
“So he’s learned some stuff.”
“Yeah. I’d say so.”
He said, “Probably Special Forces. SEALs or Delta or something, probably good experience if you wanted to get into dealing meth. I mean, shit. It would seem like safe work.”
“Yeah, maybe. Can you spare thirty minutes?”
“Well. Not really.”
“I just saved you an hour and a half. You can at least give me thirty minutes back. Come on.”
“What for?”
“I’m just having a look at where this place is.”
“The diner?”
“Yeah, the diner. I was thinking if this guy’s just taken down two dealers and made off with a pound of meth or coke or whatever, he probably wouldn’t want to stay on the interstate too long. I mean, it’s not even seven, there’s not a lot of traffic. And if someone saw him and got the state cops out or even if Bolt and Rojas went after him it wouldn’t be a hard chase.”
“So what do you think?”
“I don’t know. I just thought if he was shaken up or worried about being obvious he might have turned off and waited it out a bit. Let the traffic build some more.”
“A Delta guy wouldn’t be shaken up after breaking someone’s nose.”
“No. But you know what I mean? I don’t think it’s stupid that maybe either the blond guy or the other two turned off and stopped pretty quickly.”
“Okay. So what am I meant to be doing?”
“Just have a look at the first couple of turnoffs north and south of the diner and see if there’s anything worth stopping for. Store or gas station or something. I can’t remember what’s up there. Maybe he saw an Exxon sign on the 25 and thought it was a good idea to wait it out a bit. Time of day you’d get noticed, too. Nobody around.”
“You mean he was worried about being noticed so left a quiet highway for an even quieter gas station.”
“I still think it’s worth checking. Wasn’t necessarily gas.”
He said, “Exactly the sort of job I could’ve got you to do.”
She laughed. “You could have asked. You couldn’t have actually got me to do it.”
“Yeah. Probably. All right. Fifteen minutes.”
“Thirty. You’ll want to get your teeth into it.”
“Twenty. I’ll call you.”
* * *
He rang her back in twenty-five. She was northbound on the Pan American, heading home.
He said, “Good guess.”
“What, you found him?”
“Maybe. There’s a gas station at an exit about twenty miles north. Guy reckons they had a blond man come in around seven or so. Filled up and used the pay phone.”
Finally better luck.
She said, “Yeah, see? You shouldn’t go brushing off my hunches.”
He laughed. “Might be a coincidence.”
“Might be. But I bet you still got his plate number and ran it.”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly. Give it up, you bastard.”
“There’s no need for that sort of language.” Voice loud, making a real show of it. Someone in the office laughing.
“Come on. Where is he?”
“You’re not going to go door-knocking, are you?”
She laughed, like it was ridiculous. “No. Don’t be stupid.”
* * *
So here she was, on West Alameda, up in Santa Fe. She’d managed a few tense hours at home, pacing, checking locks, back to her old habits. It was anticipation that did it. Wanting answers suppressed her logic. The need for truth trumped the fact it wasn’t smart to go looking. She couldn’t talk herself out of it.
She parked the car at the curb and got out and just walked up to the house.
What are you doing?
Which was a wasted thought, because the time to be toying with that was an hour ago, during the drive up. Once you’re in the guy’s front yard you’re committed. If she backed out now she’d never sleep. That lingering “what if” would be a week’s insomnia, even worse than it was now.
There was a light on upstairs. She walked along past the garage toward the entry. A window by the front door was backlit weakly, maybe a light in an adjoining room. She paused there.
Because what are you going to say? When he opens the door, what are you actually going to say?
Excuse me, sir. Given that this morning you took down two suspected narc traffickers, we believe you’re currently in possession of a shitload of cash and hard drugs. Would you mind directing me to where you’re keeping it all? No, I don’t have ID. It’s kind of a long story, but don’t you worry.
Christ, you idiot.
It should have made her walk away. But there was a light on at the back of the house. She could just look in and see if it was him. If it wasn’t, that would be the end of it. If it was, well. Bright ideas often hit you on the spot.
The darkness gaining ground. Lit windows up and down the street and all those within thought they knew their neighbor. She walked quietly down the side of the house. A coiled hose left on, misting weakly from a split. She felt it on the back of her hand.
Past a frosted-glass door. She put her back to the wall. Rough stucco, and it grabbed her jacket. The window was a ranch slider, no curtain. She edged closer.
Closer.
She could almost lean across and look.
And then he grabbed her. She jumped at the shock of it but a hand clamped her mouth, another wrapped her midriff, pinning her arms. Locked upright, immobile.
A whisper in her ear, breath warm on her lobe: “Where’s your friend, bitch? Where’s your friend?”
Marshall
He heard Bolt draw level. The footsteps pausing now and then as he looked into the trees. Marshall glanced up. This clawed black foreground of branches on a purple sky and he thought back to the birds in their circling as he’d talked on the phone.
Bolt continued, footsteps fading. Marshall rose from his crouch. The .45 a bright silver, finding light somewhere. He stepped out onto the road. This quiet specter. He crossed the lane to where Bolt had passed through and fell in behind. A long silent stride.
Bolt ahead, just a silhouette, slightly hunched. Shoulders dipping and rising as he moved. That dark picture of him growing as Marshall gained ground, and with his held breath and the tension of the moment the blood pounded in his ears. As they reached the corner of the adobe wall he hooked a hand in front of Bolt’s face, clamped his mouth to pull his head back against his shoulder, jammed the .45 in his kidney. He felt Bolt tense with fright and then relax when he spoke in his ear:
“Walk with me.”
He pulled him backward off balance and Bolt’s feet scrabbled for purchase as Marshall dragged him into the trees. There was an earpiece corded down inside his collar. Marshall could feel a radio on his belt.
“Take the piece out of your pocket and drop it on the ground.” He nudged him with the Colt. “I’m packing hollow points, so a gut shot will bust your whole engine.”
A cushioned thump as Bolt tossed a pistol on the ground, maybe six feet away. Marshall shoved him against a tree with the gun between his shoulder blades, and then lifted his jacket and ripped the radio off his belt and held it at arm’s length to tug out the earpiece. A little collar mike dragged his shirt neck and then plucked free. Marshall dropped the radio next to the gun and kicked the leads out of trip range.
“How many friends did you bring?”
Bolt didn’t answer. A decade in federal lockup, he was probably accustomed to this sort of thing. Swap the trees for a shower block. His head was turned, cheek hard up against the trunk. From this range he didn’t smell good.
Marshall said, “This is kind of nice. Rojas said you were going to come looking, and I told him we’d meet somewhere in the middle.”
He put the muzzle on Bolt’s spine. “Well. This is what the middle feels like.”
“You’re going to die, boy.”
“I believe you’re right. But you’ll be first through the door, and damn soon if you don’t answer my questions.”
Bolt didn’t answer.
Marshall glanced over toward the house. The light was still on, but he couldn’t see anyone. He said, “I asked about a girl this morning. Maybe you didn’t hear.”
“I heard.”
“Right. So tell me what happened.”
“You ain’t ever going to find her.”
“So you know her.”
“I know you ain’t finding her. I know she’s going to be all dead and chopped up before you get anywhere near. Hell. Maybe she already is.”
So gleeful as he said it. Marshall had to wait a long time for calm to come back. His finger tightened up on the trigger and he knew if he gut-shot the man it would be a slow and awful death. Penance for every wicked action and utterance and then a bit to spare.
He kept his tone level: “I pulled you over here because I’ve got every intention of killing you. And you’re not doing a good job of changing my mind.”
“I ain’t no snitch.”
“Give it a try, you might get to keep living.”