Southtown tn-5 Read online

“You’ve got no case, Sam.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Pacabel’s eyes watered, and Sam realized it was from embarrassment. Embarrassment for him.

  “Sam, you retired from the FBI,” Pacabel said gently. “You haven’t worked here in twenty years.”

  Halfway across town, Gerry Far was pulling dead people out of a trailer.

  He hated this part of his job, but he had to help out personally. Otherwise his employees would panic. He’d learned that from his mentor, Will Stirman.

  The driver this time was a fruit trucker from Indianapolis. This was his first run. It was all Gerry could do to keep him from calling the police.

  “Help me with this hombre, ” Gerry told the trucker. “Jesus, he’s heavy.”

  The smell in the truck was enough to kill-overripe mangos and excrement and body odor. When they’d opened the trailer, the temperature inside had been about a hundred and ten degrees.

  As he hauled the big corpse over to the incinerator, Gerry did the math. Fifty-three illegals. Three hundred dollars a head. Twenty-one had died, but of course they’d paid up front.

  The thirty-two who lived would be sold off to Gerry’s clients-sweatshops, labor ranches, brothels-to “earn credit” for further transportation to Chicago or Houston or wherever they dreamed of going. In reality, none of them would ever be allowed to leave. They’d bring Gerry a sale price of two to five hundred dollars each, possibly more for young women. That was the beauty of the Stirman system-the illegals paid to get here, then Gerry got paid again for selling them into slavery. Welcome to America.

  Gerry would have to give the driver his cut, plus a little extra to calm his nerves. There would be a hefty fee to the guy who ran the incinerator. Still, Gerry figured he would walk away with ten grand from this load.

  He was dragging out the last body when his spotter, Luke, ran up, looking paler than the corpses. “You hear the news?”

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” Gerry said. “Watch the goddamn gate.”

  “Stirman’s free. Broke out yesterday afternoon.”

  Gerry dropped the body he was carrying. “You sure?”

  Luke swallowed, held up his cell phone. “I just got the call.”

  “From who?”

  Luke hesitated. If Gerry had been thinking more clearly, he might’ve picked up on the fact that something was very wrong with the way Luke was acting.

  “Just a friend,” Luke said. “Wanted to be sure you were warned.”

  “Shit.”

  “Where you going?” the trucker called.

  But Gerry was already fishing out his car keys, running toward his TransAm.

  He’d always known a life sentence wouldn’t stop Will Stirman. Not after what Gerry had done to him. But damn it-yesterday afternoon? Why hadn’t somebody told him sooner?

  Gerry drove toward downtown.

  He regretted what he’d done to Stirman. He regretted it every day, but there was no going back now. He had to go through with his emergency plan.

  He ditched the TransAm near the Rivercenter Marriott and caught a taxi to the East Side. St. Paul Square. From there, it was a short walk to one of his properties-a place Stirman didn’t know about. Nobody knew about it except a few of Gerry’s best guys, like Luke. Gerry could lay low there for a few days, make arrangements, then get out of town for good, or at least until Stirman was recaptured.

  The property was an abandoned ice warehouse, a four-story red-brick building that didn’t have anything to recommend it-no electricity, no water. Just a whole lot of privacy, a good vantage point from the fourth floor to watch for visitors, and the stash Gerry had squirreled away-a few days’ worth of food, clothing, extra cash, a couple of guns. Not much. Gerry should’ve been more serious. But it was enough to get him started, to make a plan.

  He was starting to relax as he climbed the stairs. He needed a vacation anyway. Maybe Cozumel.

  At the top of the stairs, two men were waiting for him in the shadows.

  A familiar voice said, “Gerry Far. Been praying for you every day, son.”

  The I-Tech corporate offices looked out over the wreckage of north San Antonio-streets pulsing with police lights, swollen creeks turning neighborhoods into lakes. The gray ribbon of Highway 281 disappeared into water at the Olmos Basin. On the horizon, clouds and hills boiled together in a thick, fuzzy soup.

  Sam Barrera said nothing to his secretary, Alicia, about why he was late. He hoped Joe Pacabel wouldn’t call to check up on him.

  He stared out at the drowned city, the streets he’d known all his life.

  He wanted to weep from shame.

  The first time he’d passed on his medication. One sorry-ass morning he’d tried to go without the little beige pills and the goddamn diarrhea they caused. And what had happened? A nightmare.

  So you got confused, he consoled himself. It could happen to anybody. You were thinking about…

  What?

  Something had thrown him. Something on the television.

  Sam made fists, wishing he could squeeze the confusion out of his mind.

  Today was Monday. His doctor had only given him until Friday to make a decision.

  It’s got to be next week, Sam. I have to insist. Think about it. Talk to your family.

  But Sam had no family. No wife, no kids. His other relatives he’d had a falling-out with years ago, over something Sam couldn’t even remember now. He’d taken down all their pictures, stuffed them away in the back of his closet.

  He had only his work-his talent for weaving facts into patterns, making the perfect investigation. And now, at the unreasonable age of fifty-eight, that talent was betraying him.

  Twenty years since he quit the Bureau… Hell, of course it had been.

  He’d gone into the PI business, built I-Tech from scratch, made himself a reputation.

  He reviewed those facts in his head, tried to hold on to them, but it was like those tests at the neurologist’s office-name the presidents in reverse chronological order, count backward by sevens from one hundred.

  The last month, work had gotten progressively harder. Case files were now almost impossible for him to understand.

  Mornings were better. He tried to finish work early, get home before afternoon when his mind got cloudy.

  But he relied on Alicia more and more. She knew something was wrong. She’d stopped teasing him about getting absentminded in his old age. Now, she just watched him uneasily.

  Five days to decide.

  He stared at his desk-a disgraceful clutter of unread reports, notes to himself stuck everywhere. The work surface had once been pristinely organized. Now it was deteriorating into chaos.

  Across the room, a bank of televisions played security footage from I-Tech’s major accounts, along with news from the three local stations.

  The news was all disaster coverage-befuddled weathermen predicting the second hundred-year flood in four years.

  Sam doubted that’s what had unnerved him.

  Why should he be surprised if the town hit a century mark every four years? He’d lost twenty years in a single morning. Time was collapsing around him. Chronology meant nothing anymore.

  He got out his Post-it notes and a pen, checked his private line for messages.

  There was only one-last night, 10:48 P.M. Erainya Manos.

  The name snagged on his memory as he wrote it down.

  The case he was working on… but Joe Pacabel said there was no case.

  Erainya Manos said they needed to talk. Absolutely urgent. Sam would know what it was about.

  But he didn’t know what the woman wanted.

  He stared at her phone number until something on the television caught his attention-a reporter breaking in, a convenience store shooting in New Braunfels. Three masked gunmen had fatally shot a clerk, made away with several thousand dollars. Police were investigating for a possible link to yesterday’s jailbreak-the Floresville Five. Will “the Ghost” Stirman
, four other wanted men.

  A mug shot of Will Stirman filled the screen, and the world shifted under Sam’s feet.

  The convict’s face was gaunt and hard, like weathered marble. He had dark, preternaturally calm eyes, and a faint triangle of buzzed black hair. If Sam didn’t know better, he would’ve pegged the man as a white supremacist, or an abortion clinic bomber. His expression suggested the same quiet confidence, the same capacity for fanatic violence.

  Sam knew this man. This was who he’d seen on television earlier. This was the news that had shaken him.

  He reached into his pants pocket, pulled out a crumpled yellow Post-it note he’d forgotten.

  In his own shaky cursive, the note read:

  Stirman is free. He’ll be coming. I can’t go to the police.

  Sam stared at it, then looked at the newer message from Erainya Manos.

  He picked up the receiver, began to dial Erainya Manos’ number, then hung up again.

  He had a bad feeling about this woman.

  He had to think clearly.

  Sam felt bitterness rising in his throat. It wasn’t fair for life to throw him one more problem. Not now, when he was struggling just to get by.

  But it wasn’t Sam’s nature to surrender. He never played defense. The only way to survive was to plow forward, like he’d always done, right the fuck over anything and anyone who stood in his way.

  He would let Erainya Manos do the talking. She would fill in the gaps. He had become an expert at covering his lapses that way, letting others talk into his silence.

  He couldn’t remember why, but Will Stirman was lethal. If Sam didn’t handle this just right, if he didn’t stay in control, he would be destroyed.

  He picked up a pen and wrote himself a new note: I’m calling Erainya Manos. Be careful. I’m pretty sure she’s my enemy.

  4

  Tres Navarre’s dating advice: If you’re going to meet your girlfriend for dinner, you might as well do it in the middle of a flood, when there are dangerous convicts on the loose.

  While you’re at it-go to a restaurant where the maitre d’ wants to kill you. It makes your romantic outing so much more special.

  The forty-five-minute drive to San Marcos took me three hours, thanks to a flooded stretch on I-35 and a police roadblock north of New Braunfels. By the time I got to Pig Falls Cafe, the rain clouds had broken for the first time in twenty-four hours, and an insultingly beautiful sunset was bleeding to purple.

  I spotted Maia Lee at a balcony table overlooking the waterfall. Robert Johnson in his carrying case was tucked discreetly under her chair. Since Maia moved to Texas, we’d had to work out a joint custody arrangement. It was now my week to play servant to the Cat Almighty.

  Maia was tapping her fingers on a menu, nursing what probably wasn’t her first margarita.

  I was working up my nerve to walk over, formulating my most sincere apology, when the maitre d’ put his hand on my arm. “May I help- Whoa, shit.”

  He was in his mid-twenties, stocky and bald, with freckles the color of nacho-flavored Doritos.

  I spun the mental Rolodex, came up with a name. “Quentin Yates.”

  “If I had a fucking gun…”

  “Tough break,” I agreed. “How’s life on the lam?”

  He started to make a fist.

  “Careful,” I said. “Bet your employer doesn’t know your history.”

  His orange brow furrowed… kill Navarre or stay out of jail. A decision that has troubled greater criminal minds.

  “You gonna snitch me out?” he demanded.

  “Of course I’m going to snitch you out. But I want to eat first. Gives you a good head start, doesn’t it? See you, Quent.”

  I strolled out to the balcony and sat across from Maia Lee.

  She pretended to study her menu. “Trouble at the low-water crossings?”

  “Don’t say those words.”

  Under her seat, Robert Johnson said, “Row.”

  Maia arched an eyebrow, glanced over my shoulder. “What’s your history with Freckles?”

  Very little escapes Maia’s notice. I had no doubt that if the need arose three weeks from now, she would be able to tell me what I was wearing tonight, how much the meal cost, and what most of the people around us had been talking about.

  “That’s Quentin Yates,” I told her. “He isn’t running away in terror yet?”

  “No. He just…” She muttered what must’ve been the Chinese word for ouch. “He just seated an old lady, gave her the Heimlich maneuver. Now he’s glowering at you.”

  “Quent was a buddy of mine for two weeks, a few years ago, while I was working undercover at his boss’s restaurant.”

  Maia’s beautiful face turned grim at the word undercover. “Embezzlement?”

  “Credit cards. Quentin was the bartender.”

  “Capturing account information,” she guessed.

  “Well, hey-you got these perfectly good numbers, why not charge a home entertainment system or two? After I turned him in, he skipped bail, beat up his ex-boss with an aluminum bat, threatened to come after me. Then he disappeared. Apparently Pig Falls doesn’t do background checks.”

  “You want to call the police?”

  “Dinner first. I’d recommend we pay in cash.”

  “Sensible.”

  Maia, I soon discovered, had already arranged things. At a nod from her, the waitress cranked into high gear, bringing plates of crabmeat flautas, bowls of tortilla soup, Gulf Coast shrimp with fresh avocado slices. Having spent the whole day staring at a computer monitor and sorting through paperwork, I should’ve been more interested in the food, except that Maia herself was pretty damn distracting.

  You’d think, after twelve years, I would no longer stare.

  Everything about her still startled me-her glossy black hair, the caramel skin of her throat against the V of her silk blouse, her fingers, her lips, her eyes. She was a perfect mix of war and beauty, like a Zhou Dynasty noblewoman-one of the imperial courtesans Sun Tzu had trained to fight.

  “It’s been too long,” I said.

  She gave me a dry smile. “One week.”

  “Like I said.”

  “You could solve that problem. A hotshot attorney in Austin has made you a damn good offer.”

  “Lee and Navarre… your stock value would plummet.”

  “I beg your pardon. No one said anything about your name on the billing.”

  Maia let her offer float in the air, weightless and persistent, where it had lingered during our last few dinners together. She snuck the cat a crabmeat flauta. Every so often, her eyes would track something behind me, and I knew she was keeping watch on Quentin, the glowering maitre d’.

  “So, the Erainya Manos Agency,” Maia said, trying hard to keep the distaste out of her voice. “Things have been good… bounty-hunting and whatnot? Driving into floods?”

  The stubborn side of me wanted to rise to Erainya’s defense, but Maia knew me too well. She had trained me as an unlicensed investigator before Erainya turned me legitimate. During our years together in San Francisco, Maia had used me as a secret weapon to keep cases from going to court, taught me all the dirty, borderline illegal, ruthlessly effective methods of investigative blackmail that Erainya had tried so hard to erase when she got me licensed. Each woman thought the other unprofessional, mostly because they both kept bad company-like me.

  “Erainya’s distracted,” I admitted. “Increasingly.”

  “Maybe it’s her boyfriend. Men affect one’s judgment.”

  I decided not to take the bait. I watched the swollen San Marcos River tumbling into the grotto thirty feet below us. The sky darkened. The water churned red.

  “Something’s bothering you,” Maia decided.

  “Those escaped convicts yesterday afternoon.”

  “The Floresville Five.”

  “How much have you heard?”

  She shrugged. “Just what’s on national news. Fugitive Task Force found a map of Kingsv
ille in a cell, so they figured the convicts were heading south. Then there was the holdup this morning in New Braunfels, so maybe the map was a decoy. The cons seem to be staying together and heading north, which is pretty unusual. The ringleader, William Stirman, sounds like a great human being.”

  “Erainya’s husband put Will Stirman in jail.”

  Maia set down her margarita glass. “Fred Barrow. The husband she shot.”

  “Fred and another private investigator. Samuel Barrera, his biggest rival. Eight years ago, they collaborated to put Stirman behind bars. Now Erainya’s afraid Stirman will come after them. Barrera, for sure. Maybe her, too.”

  “She told you this?”

  “She won’t talk about it. I read some of the agency’s old files, some of her husband’s case notes.”

  “Behind her back?”

  “I kind of borrowed her file cabinet.”

  “How do you kind of borrow your boss’s file cabinet?”

  “We closed the Blanco office. A lot of stuff went into storage. I have the keys.”

  Maia looked at something across the room. “The news said Stirman was a coyote, smuggled people across the border. He was convicted on six counts of accessory to murder. You find out details?”

  I picked at a crabmeat flauta. I was reluctant to recall the images I’d seen in Fred Barrow’s files, copies of old police crime scene photos. “Yeah. I found out details.”

  “Knife,” Maia interrupted, suddenly tense. She was looking over my shoulder. Quentin Yates must be coming to say hello.

  I held my fingers three inches apart. “Knife?”

  She held her hands apart twelve inches. “Knife. In four, three, two-”

  I launched a backward elbow strike at groin level.

  Quentin Yates grunted, stumbling forward with his meat cleaver off target. He stabbed the table as I grabbed his shirt and used his own momentum to launch him across our crab flautas-Maia calmly lifting her margarita glass out of the way as Quentin went over our table, over the railing, and into space.

  A tiny galosh, the squawk of a startled duck, and all was quiet again except for the sound of the waterfall. Few patrons had noticed. Those who did quickly went back to their meals. Perhaps, they must’ve thought, this was like cherries jubilee, or a sizzling pan of fajitas brought straight to the table. Perhaps the high-diving maitre d’ was a new kind of food delivery panache.