Homesick Blues

by Steve Brewer

  "We can't trust the police," she said. "You said so yourself after you saw that police captain at the apartment."

  "Yeah, but—"

  "And we sure as hell can't trust the marshals. Not with Ellis McGuire running things."

  "But—"

  "Right now, that guy in there is leverage," she said. "If we give him to the cops, we lose that leverage."

  "I don't get it. What kind of leverage?"

  "With his boss."

  "You want to talk to his boss?"

  "Don't you think we're more likely to get a straight answer from Grant Sheridan than we are from Joe Dog?"

  "Maybe, but—"

  "Joe Dog's got nothing to lose," she said. "But Grant Sheridan? The guy who gets his picture in the paper? He can't afford for Joe Dog to get into the hands of the cops. Not if they killed Nancy."

  "No reason for him to tell us the truth. He'll lawyer up and deny everything."

  "Maybe it won't come to that. Once he knows we've got Joe Dog and his information, he might be willing to pay us to keep quiet."

  "Now you're talking about blackmail."

  "No, I'm talking about selling Joe Dog back to his boss."

  "Selling him."

  "For a reasonable price," she said. "Say, a hundred thousand dollars?"

  Chapter 40

  Fifteen minutes later and four miles away, Grant Sheridan pulled up to his office building in his Mercedes. Still early, and downtown was eerily quiet as he got out of the car. He slammed the door to make his mark on the silence. The boom echoed through the concrete canyons.

  He let himself inside the brick office building, then locked the door behind him. The rest of his staff wouldn't arrive for an hour. He'd have the place to himself.

  He flicked on lights as he moved through the central hallway to his personal office at the back of the building. It was a fine office, airy and sleek and modern. On the wall behind his streamlined desk was a huge skyscape by local painter Angus McPherson: Dark purple clouds roiling over slump-shouldered mountains. Today, Grant thought, the painting perfectly mirrors my mood.

  He booted up his computer and checked his messages. Still nothing from Joe Dog. Grant was beginning to worry.

  He did have a message from a competitor, Bill Broder, who'd left him a slyly-worded e-mail, asking if it were true that Grant had suffered a "financial setback." Did he still have the funds to make over that little shopping center he'd purchased recently? If not, Broder might be willing to take it off his hands, strictly as an investment for down the road. And, hey, they should get together for golf sometime soon.

  That bastard. Grant had been competing with Bill Broder since they were frat boys at the University of New Mexico. Sometimes, he felt he was in a lifelong race with Broder to see who could erect or redo the most properties in this town.

  The result was that Grant spread himself too thin sometimes, thin enough that a missing hundred grand really pinched. He needed to juggle some accounts today, move some money around, to refill his personal coffers. He'd dressed in a black suit, white shirt and dark tie, all business, ready to make an impression with the bankers. He didn't want anyone raising questions about his recent need for so much cash.

  He'd also been thinking about the police when he chose his somber suit. Good chance they would identify Nancy's charred remains today. If so, some detectives were likely to show up here at the office, asking questions about her. He wanted them to believe he took her disappearance seriously.

  Hell, he thought, I might even end up on the television news, talking about poor Nancy. Wouldn't that be a kick in the pants?

  But now to work. He used his high-tech desk phone to dial Joe Dog's number, sitting very straight while he listened to it ring. No answer.

  When voicemail finally picked up, he said, "What the hell? Why haven't I heard from you? Where are you?"

  Hmm. Joe Dog might be screening his calls. A flurry of questions probably wasn't the best way to get him to answer.

  "It's important that we talk right away," Grant said, his voice calmer, all business. "Call me."

  He hung up, tempted to call right back in case the first call had awakened Joe Dog. But he decided to wait. The man would call in soon enough.

  And he'd better have good news.

  Chapter 41

  Joe Dog snapped awake to the sound of his vibrating phone.

  "What the—" he said to greet the day. "Where am I?"

  The phone vibrated again, extra loud because it sat flat on the surface of an oak coffee table. The table had been pushed away from the sofa, beyond his reach. Joe Dog lay on his side on the sofa. His wrists were tied tightly together with a brown extension cord. A white one bound his ankles.

  The phone vibrated again.

  He remembered where he was now and how he'd arrived in this situation. The woman in the red truck. Her friend with the limp. They'd been waiting in ambush for him at Nancy's house. When he wouldn't answer any more of their questions, they'd left him to sleep here, tied up tight.

  The phone vibrated again, doing its little dance on the tabletop. Joe Dog tried to sit up, pushing with his arms, only to find that his bound hands were completely asleep from lack of blood flow. Numb as two bricks. He couldn't answer that phone, even if he could get to it in time.

  As if sensing this, the phone abruptly stopped its table dance.

  Joe Dog cautiously sat up, looking around Nancy Ames' tidy living room. No sign of Gwen Rogers or her friend Romeo. Not a sound from anywhere in the house.

  "Hello?" he called. "Anybody home?"

  Nothing.

  Maybe they weren't awake yet. He could tell from the way the sunlight slanted between the drapes that it was early. He yelled louder.

  "Hello? Hello?"

  Not a sound in return.

  "Son of a bitch," he muttered. "They've left me here alone."

  He tried to wiggle his toes, but his feet were as numb as his hands. He was all tied up, no one to hear his cries. He was hungry and thirsty and dizzy. His bruised face ached. He needed to pee.

  Okay, don't panic. You're tied up, but you're not completely helpless. You can squirm across the floor, if necessary. You only have to get to that phone and find a way to dial it.

  He needed to slide off this couch onto the floor. Maybe he could land on his knees and sort of crawl on knees and elbows, like an inchworm. Hard to get off a squishy sofa when your hands and feet are tied and numb, but he rocked back and forth a couple of times, gaining momentum, then lunged forward, his hands together in front of him as if he were diving into a pool.

  It worked. He plunged forward, headed for a spot on the floor between the sofa and the coffee table. From there, he'd be able to reach the phone.

  Just as his body cleared the edge of the sofa, no going back, Joe Dog realized he had miscalculated. His numb hands hit the floor, but did nothing to stop his momentum. The rest of him kept going.

  He saw the wooden coffee table coming at him, so fast it was as if someone had thrown it at his face. He caught the edge of the table squarely with his forehead, right on the lump where the woman hit him with the pistol the night before.

  Lights flashed behind his eyes.

  Joe Dog went back to sleep.

  Chapter 42

  U.S. Marshal Ellis McGuire settled into surveillance mode. He had a Thermos full of black coffee and a one-pound sack of trail mix to munch. He'd parked his black Jeep in the shade of a young elm tree and there was a nice breeze. From where he sat on a hill two blocks away, he could view through binoculars the entire parking lot of the Stellar Arms Apartments and the front doors to all the apartments. No one could come and go without him seeing.

  He knew Romeo Sandoval wasn't home. He'd checked his door when he first arrived and seen that the jamb was busted, the wood splintered. Same with the unoccupied apartment next door. Somebody had forcibly entered the apartments, recently enough that nobody had tried to patch up the damage yet. Ellis had listened at the doors but hadn't
gone inside. Instead, he'd come back to the Jeep to wait and watch.

  Sooner or later, he'd be rewarded. Romeo Sandoval would show up here, and Ellis would get him face to face. The motherfucker could deny it all he wanted, but there was some connection between him and Jackie Nolan and whatever's going on here in Albuquerque. Let's see him explain away these kicked-in doors.

  There was something more behind Jackie fleeing WitSec and running back to Albuquerque. Ellis had first thought she was simply running away from the constricted life of a protected witness. But now he believed she was running to something or someone. Was it Romeo Sandoval? Some other man back here in Albuquerque? Was there some friend or family member Ellis had never heard about? Someone he didn't know to check out?

  Stop it. You can't know everything. All you can do is persevere. Stick with the plan. Watch this apartment building until Romeo Sandoval comes limping home. Brace him and demand that he hand over Jackie. Get this settled, once and for all.

  Ellis munched on some almonds and washed them down with a slug of coffee. Not so bad here in the Jeep. He had sunshine and a comfy seat and a crunchy breakfast.

  Sweet anticipation for dessert.

  Chapter 43

  Jackie kept the glossy-haired secretary occupied with "good mornings" while Romeo limped down a carpeted hall in search of Grant Sheridan's private office.

  "Hey!" the secretary shouted. "You can't go back there!"

  Jackie smiled at her. "I think he already did."

  "I told you, we're not open for business yet."

  "That's okay," Jackie said as she followed Romeo. "We're not here on business. This is strictly a pleasure."

  By the time she reached the chief executive's office in the back of the building, Grant Sheridan was on the intercom, telling Gina, the secretary, to call the police.

  "Joe Dog says you don't want to do that," Jackie said as she closed the door behind her.

  Sheridan looked up at her, his bony finger still on the intercom button. He was tall and thin with a patrician air and a ripple of slicked-back hair. Tailor-made black suit, white shirt, dark tie. He looked like money on the hoof.

  Could a guy who looks like this, who works in a sleek downtown office, who sits on civic boards and plays golf with the mayor, could a guy like this order the killing of Nancy Ames? And, if he had, was there anything Jackie and Romeo could do to keep him from getting away with it? Hard to believe that anyone would take the word of a gimpy ex-marshal and a WitSec runaway over this slick guy here.

  "I don't know anyone named Joe Dog," Sheridan said. "I assume that is someone's name?"

  "That's funny," Romeo said. "He's got business cards on him that say he works here."

  "You know as well as I do that you can get business cards made up to say anything. But I'm telling you, there's no such person working here."

  "Maybe we should get Gina in here and ask her about him."

  Sheridan snatched his hand away from the intercom. Then he caught himself and pushed the button again.

  "Gina, don't call the police yet. Stand by for now."

  He looked up at Jackie and said, "I believe she's already dialed '9' and '1.' It wouldn't take much to get her to push that other '1.'"

  "We just want to talk," Jackie said.

  "My time is valuable," Sheridan said.

  "So is ours."

  He said nothing for a moment, making up his mind.

  "Very well. I can spare you a few minutes. Sit down."

  The chairs facing his desk were black leather slings over a framework of chrome tubes. Surprisingly comfortable.

  "You must like all this chrome," she said. "All the reflective surfaces. You can watch yourself conduct business all day."

  He smiled tightly, not showing any teeth.

  "Perhaps we could get on with it," he said. "Who are you people and what do you want from me?"

  Jackie and Romeo looked at each other. Romeo said, "After you."

  "All right," she said. "Let's say we're friends of the late Nancy Ames. She worked here, right?"

  "As far as I know, she still works here. She was here yesterday. Are you saying something's happened to her?"

  "Really?" Jackie said. "That's the way you want to play it?"

  "I don't know what you mean."

  "Nancy's dead. You know that."

  "I know no such thing. What happened?"

  Jackie swapped another look with Romeo. He looked as impatient as she felt.

  "What does she do here?" Jackie asked.

  "Nancy's a secretary. Handles lots of our paperwork. And she's dead? That's too bad. She'll be hard to replace."

  The snub-nose pistol was jabbing Jackie in the back where it was tucked in the waistband of her jeans. She shifted in the sling chair, trying to sit forward so she could look Sheridan in the eye.

  "Could we please cut the crap?" she said. "Joe Dog told us she took a hundred thousand dollars of your money – in cash – and tried to run away with it. Is that not true?"

  Sheridan's eyes widened briefly, than he chuckled.

  "Do I look like I do business in cash?" he said. "I don't even carry cash on me anymore. I guarantee you, if I had a hundred thousand dollars lying around, it wouldn't be in cash. It would be invested somewhere."

  "Joe Dog said—"

  "I still maintain I don't know anyone named Joe Dog."

  "His real name is Joseph Dominguez," Romeo tried.

  "Doesn't ring a bell."

  Jackie was getting exasperated. "We know he works for you. Do we need to drag him in here to prove it?"

  "Is he here?" Sheridan said coyly. "Did you leave him out in the car?"

  "No," Romeo said. "But we have him."

  "You 'have' him."

  "That's right."

  "You mean he's locked up somewhere?"

  "That's right."

  "I didn't get the impression that you are with the police."

  "We're not," Jackie said. "We play for the other side."

  Romeo cocked an eyebrow at her, but he didn't object to the characterization. At least not out loud. Jackie figured she'd hear about it later.

  "I see," Sheridan said. "And you've come here to tell me that you've, what, kidnapped this person?"

  "We have him," Romeo said. "That's all you need to know for now."

  "Hmm. And I'm supposed to care about this Joe Dog person. Tell me why that is again?"

  "He's your right-hand man," Jackie said.

  Sheridan snorted.

  "He knows your secrets."

  "I have no secrets. My life is open book."

  "Everybody has secrets."

  "He knows what happened to Nancy Ames," Romeo said. "And why."

  Jackie had Nancy's key ring in her pocket. She pulled it out and jingled the keys in the air.

  "These are the keys to Nancy's house. Joe Dog had them in his possession."

  "So?"

  "Don't you think that means he was the last person to see her alive?"

  "I don't see how that tracks, frankly. And I have no evidence that she's even dead."

  "Don't you care that someone in your employ was murdered?"

  "Oh, now I see," Sheridan said. "You think Nancy was valuable to this organization, so valuable that we would care about her private life and whatever terrible thing might have befallen her."

  "And that's not the case?" Jackie said.

  He smiled.

  "I promise you, whatever might've happened to Nancy, it had nothing to do with her employment here."

  "And Joe Dog?"

  "Still don't know him," he said smugly. "But if I were you, I'd turn this fellow loose. If you're holding him against his will, you're breaking the law."

  What the hell, Jackie thought, might as well try for it all.

  "We thought he might be the one who's valuable to your organization," she said. "And that he'd be worth a finder's fee."

  The smug smile again.

  "I'm supposed to pay you for the release of someone I've neve
r met? Is that what you're getting at? This is a shakedown?"

  Jackie glanced over at Romeo, who was frowning. This wasn't going at all the way they'd hoped. The businessman was too oily to pin down.

  "Frankly," Sheridan said, "this entire exchange disgusts me. If Nancy is dead, as you say, don't you think it's predatory to come in here, trying to profit from it?"

  "Oh, come on—"

  "I don't know you people," Sheridan said. "I've never seen you before. You barge in here with a crazy story about someone named Dog and claim that Nancy has been killed. Now you're demanding a payoff. The list of laws you've broken would certainly interest the auth—"

  "Can it," Romeo said. "You're not going to cops. Don't even pretend that you are. Joe Dog is your boy. You sent him after Nancy and he killed her."

  Sheridan leaned back in his swivel chair, his fingers steepled in front of his pointed chin.

  "Now you're accusing me of murder," he said. "This just gets crazier and crazier. Imagine how it will sound to the police when they get here."

  He languidly reached across to the intercom and pushed a button.

  "Gina, you can go ahead and call the police now. These people need to be arrested for trespassing."

  Romeo held up his hands in a placating manner.

  "Take it easy," he said. "We're leaving."

  "No, we're not," Jackie said. "Not until he talks to us."

  "Sounds like he's done all the talking he's gonna do."

  Sheridan smiled at them, his head cocked to the side, as if pleased they'd finally gotten it.

  "You slimy bastard," Jackie said.

  She wrestled up out of the sling chair, but Romeo beat her to his feet. He grasped her elbow and steered her toward the door.

  "I'm not done with him," she said.

  "Yes, you are. Let's go."

  He dragged her down the hall. By the time they reached the reception area, Gina was on the phone with the police.

  "It's okay," Gina said into the receiver. "They're leaving now."

  "No, we're not!" Jackie yelled.

  Romeo tugged her arm. "Yes we are."

  As they went out the door, Jackie flipped Gina the bird. It didn't make her feel any better.