Southtown tn-5 Page 11

  Then his next-door neighbor told him about the man who was visiting her while Pablo was at work-twice he’d come to see her, over the last week.

  And when Pablo had walked in that last night, and found the man talking with her on their bed-on his bed…

  Angelina had looked up, and screamed at Pablo to stop.

  He would give anything to take back those few seconds, as the man rose to face him, and Pablo’s finger found the trigger.

  “Yo, amigo. Wake up.”

  Stirman’s presence jarred Pablo out of his thoughts.

  “What’s wrong?” Stirman demanded.

  “Bad news,” Pablo managed to say.

  He told Stirman about their private eye, who had followed Erainya Manos out of town that morning. She’d taken I-35 north-her and her boy, Jem.

  “Running?” Stirman asked.

  “No. She came back.”

  “Where did she go in Austin, then?”

  Pablo shifted uncomfortably. “Our guy lost her when she turned off on Ben White. He missed the exit, never found her again. He drove back to San Antonio and sat on her house, in case she came back. She did-a few minutes ago. Without the boy.”

  Pablo saw the rage building in Stirman’s face.

  They both knew what the PI’s news meant. Erainya Manos had hidden her son. She was trying to protect him, insulate him from danger, which meant she probably wasn’t going to cooperate. She would try to double-cross them.

  “The woman is a problem,” Stirman decided.

  “She’s still got twenty-four hours,” Pablo said halfheartedly. The last thing he wanted was another death, especially a woman’s. “Maybe she’ll come through. We just got to stay low and wait.”

  “No,” Stirman insisted. He took a deep breath, and Pablo knew he was filling himself with that cold, homicidal sense of purpose Pablo had seen too many times over the last few days. “Change of plans, amigo. We’ve got work to do.”

  12

  Robert Johnson was a great help going through the agency’s old files.

  He would crouch at the far end of the living room, get a running start, and dive straight through them like a snowplow. Then he would look at me, wild-eyed, a manila folder tented over his head.

  “Yes, thanks,” I said. “That’s much better.”

  In terms of finding important information, however, neither of us was having much luck.

  The only things that belonged to Erainya in the locked file cabinet were mementos of her transitional year, from Barrow’s wife to self-made PI. There were stacks of clippings about her defense trial in Fred’s murder. Her change-of-name paperwork, officially declaring her to be Erainya Manos. Her U.S. passport, stamped for Greece. Jem’s adoption paperwork from a Texas-based agency called Children First International. His birth date, which Erainya had told me was a guess-April 28, 1995. His birth parents’ names: Abdul and Mariah Suleimaniyah. The usual signatures and medical work. A letter from some government official in Bosnia-Herzegovina, authorizing Jem’s release to Erainya’s custody.

  An early picture of Erainya and Jem. Jem looked about one year old. His dark eyes were wide with amazement as the woman with the frizzy black hair held him up to the camera and kissed his cheek.

  I went through some of Erainya’s correspondence. Several notes of support from women’s advocacy groups. Fan letters from women who admired her for shooting her husband.

  I put those down. They made me nervous.

  The rest of the stuff was from Fred Barrow’s time.

  I’d always thought of Fred as an old man, but the only photograph I found showed him looking not much older than me. It must’ve been from the early eighties. Fred’s greasy black hair was parted in the middle, too long at the collar. He had a square face, battered from years as an amateur boxer. His eyes were sly and shallow, his smile insincere. He looked like a wife-beater, in the middle of saying, Look, officer, you know how these women are.

  I didn’t want to find anything that would make me like him, but he did seem to have a soft spot for illegal immigrants. His first job out of college was ten years with the Border Patrol, and the experience must’ve affected him. After opening the PI agency, he’d taken on a number of cases, either pro bono or at reduced fees, to help families in Mexico find missing kin in the north, or to help prosecute coyotes like Will Stirman.

  He liked fishing and hunting.

  He relished divorce cases. Even his enemies admitted he was a tenacious investigator.

  He almost lost his PI license once when he’d assaulted a federal agent who’d questioned his integrity in a high-profile drug trafficking case. Fred Barrow had been working for the defense. The federal agent made a comment about Barrow’s testimony being “the best fabrication money could buy.” Later, at a bar near the courthouse, Barrow decked the agent with a left hook. A judge friendly to both parties managed to smooth things over, at least legally. The federal agent’s name was Samuel Barrera.

  There was nothing to indicate the two men had framed Will Stirman. Just meticulous notes on their interviews with Gerry Far and Dimebox Ortiz, outlining Stirman’s operation, and confirming that McCurdy had been a regular client. In exchange for their testimony, Far and Ortiz had escaped prosecution. Far had taken over Stirman’s operation. And Dimebox Ortiz… what had he gotten out of the deal?

  I wrote on my otherwise blank notepad: Dimebox Ortiz?

  I set that question aside for the moment. If Dimebox had any brains, he was several hundred miles away by now.

  Robert Johnson dive-bombed the stack I’d just gone through and sent papers flying.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  As I was picking them up, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. It was a piece of stationery that must’ve been stuck between envelopes in Erainya’s correspondence. The note was from a woman. I could tell that from the handwriting. She wrote:

  Irene, You’ll be acquitted and back with us before you know it. Don’t worry. And the package from Fred-relax. It’s safely hidden.

  Love, H.

  The package from Fred?

  I read the note again. It still said the same thing.

  Will Stirman wanted something from Barrera and Barrow, something Erainya felt guilty about.

  I looked at the cat. “You’re a genius.”

  He looked at me wild-eyed. He probably couldn’t believe it had taken me so long to catch on.

  I needed to strong-arm somebody for more information. Somebody who wasn’t Sam or Erainya; they would only lie to me more. Somebody who knew Will Stirman, and wasn’t dead yet.

  I looked at my notes. I’d written two words: Dimebox Ortiz?

  At this point, under normal circumstances, I would’ve called my friend Ralph Arguello, Ana DeLeon’s husband. He specialized in finding lowlife scumbags. He delighted in strong-arming them. But I hadn’t talked to Ralph in almost a year. The longer the silence got, the more stubborn I felt about not breaking it. Besides, I had an unreturned message from his wife on my answering machine, asking why I hadn’t shown up at the police station last night like I’d promised.

  I’d have to go this one alone.

  Was it worth searching for Dimebox?

  I looked at the cat. “If he has any brains, he’ll be far, far away.”

  The cat’s expression told me I’d just answered my own question.

  “You’re right,” I said. “He’ll be in town.”

  I told Robert Johnson to sort the rest of the files for me. Then I grabbed my car keys.

  The normal axiom is Follow the money. In the case of Dimebox Ortiz, it’s Follow the poultry.

  Dimebox might’ve been a bail jumper hiding from a crazed killer, but he still had to place his cockfighting bets. Sooner or later, I knew he would show up at the pits, or with a bookie. I asked around, said I had a couple of grand to spend on the right bird, and within an hour I had a list of places to try.

  I found Dimebox back in Southtown at Rosario’s restaurant, about to enjoy a skillet of
sizzling fajitas with a particularly oily cockfighting bookie named Travis the Spur. There were various rumors about how Travis had gotten the nickname, none of which involved the local basketball team.

  I came up behind Dimebox, pulled his arm behind his back, and slammed his head onto his flour tortilla, making sure his face was close enough to the heated skillet so he would catch the pops from the grease.

  I told Travis the Spur to cluck off. He was only too delighted to oblige.

  Dimebox struggled.

  I applied a little more pressure to his arm. “Nothing like a good fajita.”

  “Navarre?” He was blinking from the grease, drooling on the tortilla. “Jesus, thank God it’s you.”

  “Saved you again, have I?”

  “Stirman’s looking for me. He got to Kiko and Lalu-I think… shit, he might’ve killed them, man. I was just leaving town-”

  “You seem to have trouble finding the city limits.”

  “Just gonna make a couple more grand for the road. You know. How the hell did you find me?”

  “Talk to me about the night Stirman was arrested.”

  “What?” He tried to shrug, which was not easy to do in his position. “What’s there to say?”

  “Your face needs garnishing, Dimebox. How about some of these?”

  I made a lightning grab for the jalapeno bowl, poured them on Dimebox’s face, then reapplied pressure to keep his head against the plate.

  “Agghh!” he said. “Jesus!”

  The juice started running into his eyes.

  I let him struggle.

  There wasn’t much of a crowd in the restaurant, this time of afternoon-a few guys drinking margaritas at the bar; a couple of businessmen having a late lunch. They’d been admiring the wraparound view of the corner of Alamo and Presa, but they all stopped watching that and started watching me.

  A waiter came over nervously and asked if there was a problem. Did he have to call the police?

  “Everything’s fine!” Dimebox groaned, blinking pepper juice out of his face. “No police! Everything’s cool!”

  “Cable company,” I informed the waiter. “He’s three months behind on premium service.”

  “Oh.” I could see the waiter’s mind working, trying to remember if he’d paid his cable bill. He left quickly.

  “You testified against Stirman at his trial,” I said to Dimebox.

  “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Jesus, Navarre. Lemme up.”

  “Gerry Far took over the operation. What was in it for you?”

  “Stirman was a maniac. You guys would get along. You think I liked working for a maniac?”

  “Not good enough. What does Stirman want from Erainya and Sam? What did they take from him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I picked up some pico de gallo and splashed it in his face.

  He struggled a little more, spit the tomato chunks out of his mouth. “Jesus, Navarre!”

  “You’re looking pretty appetizing, Dimebox,” I said. “I think we’re about ready to pour on this sizzling meat here.”

  “No! Look- His wife. Stirman’s wife.”

  “What wife?”

  “Soledad. She died in the gunfire. One of the PIs shot her. I don’t know which.”

  “I heard the woman who died was a prostitute.”

  “Yeah, well-she was more to Stirman. She was… you know… pretty fine. They killed his woman.”

  Something in his tone…

  “That’s what you wanted,” I decided. “You wanted her.”

  “No. Hell, no.”

  “You figured with Stirman out of the way, you would get his woman. You set him up because you wanted to get laid.”

  “No!”

  Which meant yes. I cranked up on Dimebox’s arm. He yelped.

  A businessman in one of the booths got out his phone. He dialed a short number-three digits. I was pretty sure he wasn’t calling directory assistance.

  “What else?” I told Dimebox. “Quick.”

  “Nothing. Honest.”

  “They took something from Stirman. Something he wants back. What is it?”

  “Money, maybe. I don’t know.”

  “How much money?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. The guy used cash for everything. He was leaving the country. I told them that. I said, ‘You get him arrested now, tonight, or he’ll be gone.’ But look, I never thought they’d.. . well, they went overboard. Okay?”

  I glanced down South Presa. Some beat cops were strolling along, coming our direction. The businessman with the cell phone had hung up. I had maybe four seconds.

  I let Dimebox up, pushed his chair around so he was looking at me, pico de gallo chunks dripping off his face. The jalapenos had made burn rings on his cheek.

  “You’re holding back on me, Ortiz.”

  “Honest to God.”

  “Why would Stirman go after Erainya? She wasn’t even part of it.”

  Dimebox stared at me, incredulous. “Are you kidding? When I called the night Stirman was going to escape… shit, don’t you know… ?”

  “Speak, Dimebox. Don’t I know what?”

  He wiped the salsa off his chin. “Erainya was the go-between for me and Barrow. She’s the one I called. When they took down Stirman without waiting for the police-hell, yes, she was part of that. It was her goddamn idea.”

  13

  The phone rang for the third time as Erainya was loading her gun.

  Tres’ voice on the answering machine: “Okay, now I’m sure you’re home. Pick up.”

  She pushed. 45 cartridges into the magazine. It was strange looking in the drawer and not seeing Fred’s photo, but it had felt damn good to rip the bastard up and throw him away after so many years.

  “I’m coming over,” Tres said. “See you in ten minutes.”

  The line went dead.

  In ten minutes, she would be gone. Now that Jem was safe in Austin, she knew exactly what she would do. She would start on the South Side, with a heroin supplier whose little girl Erainya had once rescued. He had excellent contacts at the Floresville State Pen. If anyone could find out who Stirman’s friends were, where he might be hiding, this guy could.

  She slapped the magazine in place, felt the heft of the gun. She would have to use both hands. After firing a clip, her forearms would be sore.

  But she could still place a cluster in a man’s chest at fifty feet. She was confident of that. She’d let a lot of things slip, over the years, but not her Saturday mornings at the range.

  She aimed at the blasted television, kept her sights steady.

  Eight years ago, in this room, she had not been so prepared. It almost cost her life. She’d vowed never to let that happen again.

  She remembered her right eye stinging with blood. Her mouth had been salty with the taste of her own busted lip.

  Fred had never hit her so hard before.

  Then again, she’d never threatened him like that before.

  You will not do this to me, he told her.

  What am I supposed to do? she screamed. You destroyed that family.

  You destroyed them, Irene. That’s what you wanted all along, isn’t it? And now you want to blame it on me? I’ll kill you both.

  He meant it, too. His face was distorted with rage, his limbs heavy with bourbon.

  He knocked her backward into the desk, and she heard one of her own ribs crack.

  She clawed open the drawer, found his gun.

  In that moment, Irene died-docile Anglicized Irene, who’d married Fred because he needed a good helper, who’d cleaned his house, filed his papers, answered his phone. Irene told herself Fred didn’t hit her that much. He wasn’t really as bad as the spouses they were hired to investigate.

  Her fingers closed around the butt of the Colt, and Erainya came back-her childhood self, half remembered like her mother’s Aegean lullabies, a little girl who had known how to fight.

  She turned on Fred and fired. Once in his shoulder, but he kept coming. So aga
in, into his hip.

  He got his hands around her neck, started to squeeze the life out of her as her third shot blew through the side of his chest.

  He collapsed on top of her, wet and warm, crushing her, as if he wanted to prove his ownership.

  She pushed him off, sat trembling on the desk.

  Finally, she called her best friend, Helen Malski.

  She heard herself saying, “Listen, honey, I need your help.” She realized she’d already formulated a plan. She’d known what she was going to do even before she pulled the trigger.

  Self-defense. An easy sell to the jury. Erainya had walked free eight months later.

  She raised the matched grip of the Colt, shoved her palm against the butt, imagining a fast reload.

  Now, it would not be so easy. The stakes were higher. The man she was fighting was more deadly, but she felt a strange sense of calm.

  She would kill Will Stirman.

  He would never threaten her or her son again.

  The doorbell startled her.

  Even Tres couldn’t drive that fast. Besides, that damn truck of his always rattled the windows when he pulled in the driveway.

  Couldn’t be J.P., either. As much as she wanted to see him, she’d begged off his dinner invitation. She’d made it clear she needed the night alone.

  She curled her finger around the trigger of the Colt.

  She was halfway down the hallway when her visitor knocked-shave-and-a-haircut, slow and heavy. Too familiar for a solicitor or a deliveryman.

  She slipped out the back door, moved barefoot through the soaked grass, and sneaked around the side of the house.

  No car was parked on the street. That meant her caller had either walked or pulled into the driveway.

  She cursed the ranch house design that Fred had always loved. The front bedroom jutted out in a useless fin of bricks so she couldn’t see the driveway or front door. If Stirman had someone with him, a helper parked and waiting, she would be stepping into crossfire.