River Run

by J. S. James

  “Well, you’re right. Grice. It’s just me and you.”

  Gus swirled the amber liquid, waiting to see where Bannock’s mind reading was headed.

  “You’re also thinking there’s no way I can go after the Bastard, gimped up like this.”

  “Hafta admit, John …” Gus sat up, perched the glass on his knee, and gave a single headshake. “You, coming here alone? Being at a—a disadvantage?” He clucked his tongue. “Nowhere close to what I expected.”

  “Well, you’re wrong. Grice. Dead wrong. Not when this gimp’s got an equalizer.”

  Gus nodded toward the dresser. “The MP5? You’d need a helluva lot more than that little piss-sprayer. Not the way Bastida leaves bodies in his wake.”

  “Believe me, he can be stopped.”

  Gus started to get up. “Now about that, John. I just don’t see—”

  “Sit your fat ass down.” Bannock’s free hand was at his side.

  Gus noticed a bulge under that butt-ugly Hawaiian shirt and sat. Bannock was still Navy SEAL. Even injured, he’d clear his side arm before Gus could think about unsnapping.

  He gave Gus a wave-off. “Relax, Grice. We’ll come back to my equalizer. When I’m convinced you’re still in.” At least he’d gone back to using his inside voice. “One way or another, I’m here to collect. And you’re going to help.”

  Gus drained his Scotch and set his glass on the floor. He might’ve defied the sit-down order and made for the door, but his paydar had started pinging when Bannock said collect.

  “You owe me, Grice.” The claw-hold Bannock took on the chair arm whitened his knuckles. “But the Bastard owes me more. More than you can imagine.”

  Gus leaned in. “Tell me, John—how much is more than I can imagine?”

  37

  Mutilated fenders rasped at the Camaro’s radials when she turned too sharply. Delia straightened the wheel and goosed the car off Buena Vista Road, into the farm lane Bastida had pointed out. The snowy field ahead of them lightened the darkness by several shades.

  Acres of unharvested corn shocks doubled over, bent from the fall wind and rainstorms. She feathered the clutch, fighting to keep the car crawling ahead as its wheels spun. The car’s left beam floodlit a row of treetops, maybe lining a river bluff, while the shaft on the right dove between rows.

  Bastida had refused to answer any questions. Just handed back the car keys and said, “Not here. To a place where my brain doesn’t numb out.”

  They were barely a hundred yards up the lane when the Camaro stopped altogether. She pulled the emergency brake. His open palm appeared between the seats.

  “Give me the keys and roll down the passenger window.” She switched off, peering at the neglected crop as she plopped the keys in his hand.

  “This is where you denumb your brain? In a fucking cornfield?”

  He made a circling gesture toward the far door. She leaned over the center console and cranked on the handle. Heard the keys drop into her gym bag. Watched the bag fly out the window. He unlatched the door and moved up to the front seat.

  She killed the headlights but kept the panels on, then folded her arms across her chest. “Getting cold in here.”

  He pulled the door shut, rolled up the window, and sat, staring ahead. She studied his profile.

  Young, yet somehow older, the man seemed vulnerable, holding his chin so low it nearly rested on his chest. He wore the same boot-length leather coat she’d seen on the river. The hat allowed her to make out only that he was dark-skinned and angular, almost gaunt. His features were decidedly Latino.

  “What happened to your ear?” he asked.

  Her hand touched gauze. He didn’t know. Off the hook? Or could he be one of two—a serial tag team?

  “Had a close shave.”

  He rubbed at his knees in a fury, as if he were trying to spark them into campfires. “I think you know something about me.”

  “I know the Navy wants Robert Bastida in a brig. I know my boss thinks Robert Bastida is a dangerous fugitive and a serial killer. Which reminds me, uh”—in her what’re-you-thinking flash, dumbest idea ever lost out to go for it—“if you have a knife, I want to see it.”

  His hat tilted.

  “Just show me, then put it back.” Her self-hug tightened as her fingers dug in. Protecting what, stabs to her elbows?

  For two seconds at most, a fixed-blade knife appeared against the dash lights, then disappeared. Heavy handle. Wicked cutting surfaces—but no serrations. She let up her grip, lowering her hand into her lap. Still …

  “My hunch? Robert Bastida is someone else. So, who are you?”

  He removed the hat and set it on the console between them. Turning, he looked directly at her. “Who do you think I am?”

  His gaze stopped her heart. She felt as if she were viewing an old tintype. Distant ancestor? Possibly. From eyes hard as bullets, the features of Emiliano Zapata stared back. All he needed to complete the picture was a mustache and bandoliers across his chest.

  One of her relatives had claimed to be a great-grandniece of the famous Mexican patriot. Entranced, her eyes mined for similarities in the face of this disturbed man.

  Bastida’s hand dove into his coat, and she flinched. Instead of a potential murder weapon, he brought out the two crucifixes, leather cord and silver chain in a tight wad. He untangled and spread them around the brim of his hat. Bastida’s gaze met hers in the sparse light. His eyes seemed larger, softer than before. Starved looking.

  She buried a fist inside her palm and squeezed. Couldn’t be him, could it? Words came on a quiver of fear.

  “Your—the other crucifix. Where did you get it?”

  His hands tightened over his kneecaps. His silence was agonizing. He looked around the interior, then out at the big moon breaking from a thinning overcast. “Can’t say. Had it from way back.”

  She studied what she could make of his face, then heaved a ragged sigh. He showed no sign of deceit. No found it on a riverbank or bought it at a pawnshop. Or worse, took it off a dead boy’s body. But he was holding back.

  Once more, his Zapata gaze captured hers. “You have no idea how lucky it is to know who you are.”

  She swallowed and sat back, her doubts crumbling like the dried mud pies of her dreams. “But you don’t? Is that the point of abducting me?”

  “The whole point.” He leaned over and picked up his cross and held it out in the moon’s fullness. “This was how we’d get away from the poacher for a while.”

  “Who?” she said, baffled.

  He jabbed at his temple. “Me, I meant. In here, where my made-up family lives.” Then he shook the dangling cross in the space between them. “It was my … my house key. Now it rates a boatload of answers.”

  Her body thrummed with anticipation.

  He laid the cross with the cord back on his hat brim. Aligning hers with his, he flipped both onto their backsides and stroked the matching pairs of engraved letters, three sets on each crucifix.

  “I figure D.C. for you.”

  Trembling, she flexed her hands, curled them up tight, and managed to get off a nod.

  He fingered her crucifix, the pad of his thumb pressing on her initials—introduction by way of touch. Then he slid his thumb downward, exposing the next set.

  “Who is E.C.?”

  Delia felt a jagged lump form in her throat but couldn’t swallow. Her answer came out a series of croaks. “Enrique. Enrique Chavez. Our—an older brother.”

  There it was, kinship nearly implied. Tears welled in her eyes. For a while, he just looked at her, his eyes glistening in the naked moonlight. Imploring eyes, the eyes of her family? Her ancestors?

  “And R.C.?”

  The tears ran as her chin quivered with near certainty. “Rob—” Again, the ache in her throat choked off her answer.

  He filled in. “Robb? Robbie?”

  She swallowed on the hurt and shook her head. “Roberto. Roberto Chavez. The little brother I—I lost on the river.” S
obbing shudders racked her body. Her rib cage felt like it had caved in on her spine, breaking up the clots of grief and guilt she had borne inside. In a matter of seconds, the long-gone brother, buried in her heart for all those years, was laid bare.

  Tentative fingers touched the backs of her hands, slid over her closed fists, and wrapped them in warmth.

  Time passed and the wash of emotion ebbed. Hands withdrew and he retreated to his side of the car. Bending forward, he retrieved a wad of paper napkins from the floor and handed it to her. She took the clump and blew her nose.

  “Huh. Roberto.” He turned the cross over in the light. “I go by Robb, so it could be—”

  “I sure hope so.” She said, dabbing her eyes and stuffing the soaked ball of paper in the ashtray. “Papa was a silversmith down in La Paz. He made the three crosses for his children.”

  “Three?”

  She nodded. “Enrique has the other. He’s in … away for a while. Mama had them consecrated at baptisms.” Delia leaned toward him. “Both parents, Carlos and Maria Chavez, are gone. Farm truck accident.”

  At field’s edge, an ice-laden branch broke loose, bouncing off several lower tree limbs on its way to the ground. Snow crystals rained down long after it had landed.

  “Do you remember anything? You know, when you were little?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing much. Things I’d hear at night. After the bad—”

  “Things?”

  “Fuzzy. Like I’m hearing it from someone else. From a boat.” He reeled off a list as if memorized. “It’s smoky all around the boat. Somebody’s calling a name. Not mine, but …”

  Her throat tightened. The name of her dreams—the family endearment she’d screamed across the river toward a boat with a green motor and golden dragons on its sides—was painful to hear in her sleep. Torture to say out loud.

  “Tío? Bebé Tío?”

  His face took on a tortured look. His head dropped back against the seat rest. He stared out the window, then up at the soft top of the convertible. Anywhere but at her.

  When he turned back, his gaze reached past her, eyes vacant. Then he huffed. “Baby uncle?”

  Her misgivings in a rout, Delia laughed and laid her hand on his sleeve. “Because Tío was so bright. Could barely talk, but already Papa said he was clever, like a little old man.”

  The moon shone down from the top of its arc, a disk of burnished nickel.

  “I was Dee-Dee. Sound right?”

  Hesitating. Giving the barest of nods, he folded her cross and chain into her hand, draped the other over his neck, and drew the hat onto his lap. “How did it happen? To—you know, back when he was … little?”

  Delia told Robb how Tío/Roberto had been stolen while she looked after him by the river, of the smoking outboard, the man with a brown hat, a yellow-toothed grin, and a clenched pipe—the details kept alive in her nightmares. She told of the failed bridge that took their parents. Nothing about Enrique’s absence, but how her older brother had put her though school in the law enforcement program, skipping past the funds coming from stolen-car proceeds. She left out her uncertain status on the outside chance she might persuade Robb to come in. Face whatever he had done.

  “How old was … Roberto?” he said.

  “Two.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Five.”

  “Then why blame yourself?”

  “I don’t—” She sat up with a jerk and stared at him. Yeah, as if she hadn’t asked herself that a million times, on each one burying the answer deeper. Who else?

  At the time, no one had blamed her, but she felt blamed. When Mama and Papa were killed, there had been no one to stop the guilt from coming back as something else. Something not to be trusted.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “It’s simple. You were a small child. Unpack it from there.”

  Delia noticed she’d taken one of his hands inside hers. “Maybe you’re right, on some of it. Thank you for that.” She squeezed, let go, and put her back against the door. “Your turn.”

  * * *

  Delia got back only silence from Robb’s side of the Camaro.

  They traded nervous glances, her patience draining. After what she’d just suffered through, he damn well owed her an explanation.

  “Robb, I’ll ask you straight out. Have you killed anyone on the river?”

  “No. Pretty much rescued the ones who got in my way. You two. A few hunters.”

  “There’s got to be a reason why the sheriff is determined to find you. Your fugitive warrant says—”

  “Let me guess. Among other things, that I made off with Colombian drug money.”

  She looked at him. “How much?”

  “Quite a lot. Thirty or so stuffed toy animals’ worth. That’s how I made the transport.”

  “How much in, say, a giraffe?”

  “Average? Twelve pounds of stuffing, so five hundred and thirty each.”

  “Thousand? That’s … ay-ay-ay! Fifteen, sixteen million?”

  “A week’s haul down there. You want it? Takes up space all tucked away.”

  Delia had to let that sit. Wrap her head around the implications. She moved on. “Robb, you said something about a poacher.”

  From him, a snort. She was making progress.

  He banged his door open, lurched out, and disappeared.

  “Shit. Double shit.” Delia shoved at her door and scrambled out in a panic. A bent cornstalk snagged her ankle just as the other foot slipped and dumped her on her tail. Grabbing the Camaro’s side mirror, she levered herself up and scanned the field they’d parked in. First back toward the road, then up the slope. The blanket of snow amplified the tired light from a moon in retreat.

  She blew out a puff of relief. Robb stood in the farm lane fifty feet ahead of the car with his feet spread and his back to her, the hat beating against his hip. His attention seemed glued on something seventy yards uphill, where the cornfield ended at a tall band of evergreens.

  Gaining her snow legs, Delia shuffled uphill and stopped beside him, close enough to realize he wasn’t idly staring into the night. If looks could chop down trees, the power of his gaze would turn that stand of Douglas fir into firewood—cut, split, and stacked.

  “Do you believe in the devil? In demons?” His tone was hushed, as if ears of unpicked corn might overhear.

  She cocked a grin. “Horns on head, pointy tail?”

  The thigh-drumming hat paused. He was dead serious.

  She shrugged. “I believe in God. Satan, not so much.” She stepped out and faced him. “Robb, where’s this headed?”

  “Better see for yourself.” He clapped the hat on and shot his wrist out, checking a black watch with a luminous dial. The kind people dropped several large on. “About time for them to move out.”

  “Them—who?”

  “The poacher. His hog-heavy boy.” He sidestepped her and set off up the farm lane in long strides.

  She zipped the top of her sweat suit to her chin and followed him up the hill.

  * * *

  Seated less than three feet away at the end of a motel bed smelling of something rancid, Gus felt the contempt in the man’s smirk, like actual heat.

  “Thought that would get your attention.” Bannock slumped back in his chair with a grimace. “Now that I sense your undying loyalty, and before I make an offer you will not refuse, there are things you need to know.”

  “Okay, shoot.” Gus wished he could’ve taken that back. He eyed his glass on the floor, bent, and picked it up. “How’s about I pour a couple stiff ones while you fill me in on your offer?”

  Before Bannock could tell him to sit again, Gus had scooted across the room, poured and downed rotgut Scotch like it was premium rum.

  “Seven, eight million. Give or take. That’s half of what Bastida owes me.”

  Booze entered the wrong pipe. Gus managed to choke out “Dollars?” as he bent over in a coughing fit.

  “Yeah, dollars. The Carte
l del Norte was flying out its weekly take to a don’t-ask-don’t-tell bank.”

  Gus beckoned to hear more while pounding his chest.

  “The Bastard took one of our unit’s SOC-Rs and made off for Manaus with a boatload of cartel cash. Fifteen million or more, all in hundreds.”

  Gus recovered enough to spit out a few words. “Fifteen total? Wait. Back up. Sock what?”

  “Special Operations Craft–Riverine. That was after he’d scattered the drug runners, disabled their plane, and ruined the coke shipment. Opened up on those bales with our boat-mounted minigun. When we caught up later, that riverside airstrip looked like it’d snowed in the jungle and stuck.”

  “Jesus. Where were you when all this went down?”

  Bannock’s jaw muscles rippled as he spit words through his teeth. “In the Rio Negro, half paralyzed, half drowned.”

  “Whoa, John. How the devil did he get away with it?”

  “Somehow the Bastard caught on to the deal I’d cooked up with Buck Metcalf, our DEA liaison. He had a line on this exchange meet—date, time, and GPS coordinates. My plan with Metcalf was to skip out in the SOC-Rs and bust up their little party.” Bannock looked around the dank room, his eyes glazed over. “That cartel money was our platinum retirement card.” He tapped on one temple. “In my head I already had a fifty-three-foot Ferretti paid for, delivered, and docked at a villa in Cinque Terre.”

  Gus leaned his backside against the edge of the dresser, thought about sitting down. Better to keep his distance. “What about your operatives?”

  “We’d inserted the unit for a raid on a village of FARC paramilitaries that had river punts. Slow, but the teams could use them to make it back to base camp. Once they figured out Metcalf and me had bailed.” Bannock cleared his throat. “Would’ve worked, too, except the Bastard deserted his group and doubled back to our boats. Swam out and caught us napping, right before we were set to take off. Might’ve winged him, though.”

  Gus shook his head. “Damned lucky he didn’t kill you.”

  “Yeah, lucky.” Bannock pummeled the thigh muscles in his bad leg, like he was trying to pound sensation back into it. “Only way I’d have been luckier was if he’d rammed the point instead of the hilt of that fixed blade up under my skull.”