Southtown Read online

Page 5

 

  Another metal ic groan. The guardrail bent, and the Lincoln shifted a half inch downstream. My side of the car began to levitate. For a moment, a ton of Detroit steel balanced on the fulcrum, my armpits the only thing keeping it from flipping.

  “Now!” I told Dimebox. “Over here now!”

  “Mother of Shit!” Dimebox lunged in my direction, wrapped his arms around my neck, damn near pul ed me into the car with him.

  A few more seconds—an eternity when Dimebox is hugging you—and I hauled him out the window. The Lincoln seemed to settle with both of us pressed against it, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. We inched our way back toward the van, the rain driving needles into my cheeks, Dimebox reeking a lovely combination of wet sewage and Calvin Klein. On shore, Lalu and Kiko yel ed wildly, brandishing their hand grenades.

  We’d just reached the van when Dimebox’s Town Car rose on its side with a huge groan, flipped the guardrail, and crashed upside down in the creek bed, its body submerged, wheels spinning uselessly in the foam.

  The guardrail bent like licorice. Our van would go next.

  Erainya yel ed at me, “Throw them the rope!”

  “What?”

  “The cousins!” she yel ed. “Throw it to them!”

  Only then did I realize that Lalu and Kiko weren’t waiting around to kil us. They wanted to help.

  Forty minutes later, after Erainya’s van, Jem’s PlayStation, and a bagful of perfectly good spanakopita had been washed into oblivion down Rosil io Creek, Erainya and Jem and I sat in the Ortiz cousins’ living room, wrapped in triple-X terry cloth bathrobes, eating cold venison tamales and waiting for the police, who were coming to pick up Dimebox.

  The guest of honor sat on the sofa, stripped to his jockey shorts and T-shirt, his ankles and wrists tied in plastic cuffs. He kept muttering cuss words, and Jem kept tel ing him he owed us quarters.

  “You okay,” Kiko told me, smashing the top of my head with his paw. “Save Dimebox’s sorry ass. Put him in jail. Kiko not have t’sleep on the couch no more. ”

  “Won’t do you any good, Erainya,” Dimebox snarled. “Bounty money won’t help you worth shit, wil it?

  We’re both screwed. ”

  “Shut up, Ortiz. ” Her voice was harsher than I’d ever heard it. “Don’t curse in front of my son. ”

  “Stirman’s coming. He’s got plenty of friends in the county jail. You lock me up, you’re signing my death warrant. ”

  “I said shut up. ”

  I looked back and forth between them, wondering what I’d missed, or if my brain was stil waterlogged.

  Then the name clicked.

  “Stirman,” I said. “The escaped con on the news. ”

  “I ain’t staying in jail,” Dimebox said. “You know what’s good for you, you’l run, too. ”

  Erainya wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  I remembered her reaction to the radio news, the intense, almost frantic look she’d given me.

  “What?” I asked her. “You helped put this Stirman guy away?”

  Dimebox laughed nervously. “That ain’t the fucking half of it, Navarre. Not the fucking—”

  Lalu whacked his fist against Dimebox’s skul , and Dimebox slumped on the couch.

  Lalu grunted apologetical y. “Lady wanted no cussing. ”

  I said, “Erainya . . . ?”

  She got up and stormed into the cousins’ bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

  I turned to Jem, who was paying a lot of attention to the pattern in the couch fabric. I asked him if he stil had his mom’s cel phone.

  I checked the readout, but the cal history didn’t help my confusion. I could make a dozen guesses who Erainya might cal in an emergency, if she were truly faced with an urgent dilemma.

  Al my guesses were wrong.

  The person she’d been so anxious to talk to when she stepped into the storm wasn’t her doctor boyfriend.

  It wasn’t the police, or any of our regular helpers on the street.

  She’d cal ed I-Tech Security, the direct line to the company president.

  Her archrival.

  A man she’d sworn never to cross paths with again, until one of them was dancing on the other’s grave.

  Chapter 3

  Special Agent Samuel Barrera spent breakfast trying to remember the name of the ax murderer.

  The guy had tortured and kil ed six il egal immigrants on a ranch up around Castrovil e, left their body parts scattered in the woods like deer corn. What the hel was his name?

  Sam had a feeling it would be important in the case he was working on. He’d talk to his trainee Pacabel when he got to the office. Pacabel would remember.

  The morning was humid after last night’s downpour, just enough drizzle to keep everybody sour-faced, staring at the gray sky, thinking, Enough already.

  Not even Alamo Street Market’s coffee and migas were enough to compensate.

  Sam pul ed on his jacket over his sidearm.

  He left a ten on the table, got annoyed when the waiter cal ed, “Hasta ma?ana, Sam. ”

  Like Sam knew the guy. Like they were old friends or something. What the hel was wrong with people these days?

  Down South Alamo, yel ow sawhorses blocked the side streets. Asphalt had come apart in huge chunks and washed away. The sidewalk was buried in a shroud of mud.

  Sam picked his way through the debris.

  The last few years, people had started cal ing this area Southtown. Art studios had opened up in the old barrio houses, funky little restaurants and curio shops in the crumbling mercantile buildings. The changes didn’t bother Sam. He liked seeing life come back to his old neighborhood. But it did make him miss the past.

  His family home at the corner of Cedar was fal ing apart. He’d owned it since his parents died, back in the seventies. He hadn’t lived there for years, but he always parked in front of it. Force of habit. The FOR SALE was up. The real estate agent cal ed him every day with glad tidings. They had their choice of offers.

  For this old dump. Sam never suspected he’d grown up in a Victorian fixer-up dream. To him, it had just been la casa. Back then, nobody lived here but the Mexicans, because this was where they could afford to live.

  He opened the door of his mustard-yel ow BMW.

  The car was getting old. Like him. But Sam kept putting off a trade-in, irritated by the thought of unfamiliar controls, a different paint job. Too much to keep track of, when you got a new car.

  He drove north to the field office on East Houston, stil thinking about that rancher whose name he couldn’t remember. He’d kept the six il egal immigrants as slaves, kil ed them slowly, one at a time. It had something to do with Sam’s present case.

  When he got to the FBI suite on the second floor, he walked into the reception area and found some rookie fresh out of Quantico blocking his way to the inner offices. “Sir, can I help you?”

  Sam scowled. There was a time when he would’ve chewed out this asshole for standing in his way, but Sam didn’t feel up to it today. He felt a little off. Preoccupied. “I work here, son. ”

  Something disconnected in the kid’s eyes. It wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting. “You have identification?”

  Sam patted his jacket, where the ID should be.

  Hel . Was it in the car, maybe? On the coffee table?

  Held up from work by a fucking detail.

  A couple of agents came out from the interior offices and sized up Sam. One of them was an older guy— must’ve been nearing mandatory retirement. He had thinning silver hair, a big nose blazed with capil aries.

  Sam knew him, couldn’t quite place his name.

  “Must’ve left it at home,” Sam told the rookie. He felt the situation slipping away from him. “Cut me some slack. ”

  The agents exchanged looks. By some silent agreement, the silver-haired one stepped forward. “Hey, Sam. ”

  “Yeah?” Sam said.

  “Let’s take a walk. ”

  “I don’t want a walk. ”

  The old guy put a hand on his shoulder and steered him back toward the entrance.

  “You know me?” the old guy asked.

  “Sure,” Sam said.

  “Pacabel,” the guy said.

  Immediately, the name slipped around him like a comfortable shoe.

  “Joe Pacabel,” Sam said, confident again. “Sure, Joe. Let me get to work, wil you? Tel these jokers. ”

  Pacabel looked at the floor. Beige tiles, which seemed wrong to Sam. It should’ve been carpet. Green industrial carpet.

  The other agents were trying not to stare at him.

  “Look, Sam,” Pacabel said, the words dragging out of him. “You’re a little confused, is al . It happens. ”

  “Joe, my case . . . ”

  “You’ve got no case, Sam. ”

  “What the hel 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 pul ing dead people out of a trailer.

  He hated this part of his job, but he had to help out personal y. Otherwise his employees would panic.

  He’d learned that from his mentor, Wil Stirman.

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

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

  The smel in the truck was enough to kil —overripe mangos and excrement and body odor. When they’d opened the trailer, the t
emperature 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 il egals. Three hundred dol ars 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 al owed to leave. They’d bring Gerry a sale price of two to five hundred dol ars each, possibly more for young women. That was the beauty of the Stirman system—the il egals paid to get here, then Gerry got paid again for sel ing 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. Stil , 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 swal owed, held up his cel phone. “I just got the cal . ”

  “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.