by Ben Sanders
He was southbound on I-25, still very conscious of the tracking unit somewhere on the car, Leon probably watching on his screen, pissed off but not worried.
Getting south toward the airport now. He took the 223 exit and coasted down the ramp. The shoulders just brown-yellow and as he turned west into the suburbs he could see a thin shelf of desert wavering beyond the city, arid out there, like a vision from his new watchman.
He made a right onto Broadway Boulevard and pulled to the curb and sat idling with the turn signal still counting tick-tock. Quiet residential, stunned lifeless in the heat. The bag on the seat beside him with the zip open and the .44 Anaconda waiting beneath the flap.
He patted his pockets for the phone, feeling light when he came up empty. A frenzied dig through the money and he found it at the bottom of the bag. He called Troy Junior, but the kid didn’t pick up. Probably spaced out on something, too fried to reach the phone. He tried his mother. It went to voice mail. He almost hung up, but he stayed with it.
“Um, Ma, thought I’d just leave you a message, let you know where things are at.”
He tapped the back of his hand on the wheel as he spoke, make it an absolute promise: “I got some things to fix up and then I’ll be on the way. I’ll be coming. It’ll just take some time.” He leaned back and pinched the bridge of his nose with his other hand. “I know I keep saying it, but it’ll just be a couple of days. No more than that. Anyway, I dunno, I just wanted to say, all the things I’ve done or been involved with or whatever, it was always because of other people. Like, I kinda get swept along by it. All my life, I dunno, I’ve been in other guys’ slipstreams and it’s all just bad luck. But I’m fixing it. I’ve just gotta do these couple of little things and then I’ll come see you, bring you that money.”
He paused, thinking of something nice to finish on. He wasn’t sure if promises were any good if you made them in a stolen truck with a dead man in pieces in back and three million bucks on the next seat, but he said, “I’m on the good path, Ma. I’ll see you soon.”
He hung up and tossed the phone aside. Then he bit his lip and sat with his elbow on the sill and the web of his thumb like a visor across his brow. Instinct told him to vanish, never surface again, but he couldn’t. Leon would kill his mother, kill his boy.
You have to get rid of him.
He sucked a breath and checked the mirrors, tasting blood. How long had he been sitting here, three or four minutes? He pictured the transmitting unit on the truck, the little dot on the map just hovering there.
Scalding hot in the car. The fan was fucked. He wound the window half-down and reached in the bag and put his hand on the gun. It had a nice clearing effect, made plans come together.
They’re tracking the car, so you need new wheels.
Cyrus was still in back, but Rojas had never touched the plastic. Plus Vance and Leon’s prints would be all through the car. There was nothing that definitively said:
Troy, you cut the guy up.
Even if they hung it on him, he’d held a police detective at gunpoint last night. Killing an ex–federal convict would just be like a bonus round.
He checked the mirrors again. A car maybe every fifteen seconds. He shut off the turn signal but left the motor running. One knee jiggling anxiously. He could just picture that shot-up Audi creeping nearer in the mirror, swimming out of the haze. Leon with some god-awful weapon on the seat beside him: No rush, just looking for my money.
3.1 million cold.
It had felt good this morning, but his brush with dying made it feel more like a liability.
He kept his hand on the gun. Come on. Shitty little sedans, good to no one. He needed something with guts. A cop car cruised through a junction up ahead and the world went very quiet as he held his breath. But it didn’t turn around.
He leaned back in his seat and tried to relax. How long is it now, five or ten minutes?
A little beat-to-shit hatchback coming toward him, and then a white car in his wing mirror. He sank lower. Oh Jesus. Like he’d had a premonition.
Please don’t be an Audi.
The vehicle’s image sharpening in the heat shimmer as it neared and he saw it was a Mustang, two-door, only a couple years old. Some shaven-headed moron in a flat-peak cap driving. One hand on the top of the wheel, head doing a back-forth rooster thing to the stereo.
He swallowed and felt the adrenaline, and everything mapped itself very quickly. He let the brake off and started rolling, and as the Mustang drew level he swung in behind and accelerated. He reached in the bag and cocked the Anaconda and then he closed in on the guy’s fender and started hitting the horn, flicked his lights a few times for good measure.
They reached a red light and both cars came to a stop. Rojas waited a few feet back and put the car in reverse and kept his foot on the brake. Then he leaned on the horn and wound his window down at the same time. He saw the guy check him in the mirror and throw up his hands. Rojas flashed his lights. The guy popped his door. Thud, thud, thud off a subwoofer.
Out you come. Good boy.
Rojas reached across the console and took the cocked .44 from the bag and held it upright just below sill level with the butt resting on his thigh.
The guy got out of the car and left the door open. He had his arms wide. “Man, the fuck. You got a problem?”
Rojas took his foot off the pedal and the Jeep starting rolling backward at walk speed, the guy from the Mustang keeping pace easily.
“Yeah, I thought so. Actually comes down to it, you ain’t much. Man, the fuck’s your problem?”
Rojas raised the gun six inches to bring the muzzle above the sill and pulled the trigger. The hammer dropped too light: a misfire, just the click. It was like flipping a switch on the guy’s attitude: all that posture gone, face suddenly slack. In his hurry to get away he tripped and hit the ground. Rojas opened his door and put a foot on the road and leveled the gun across the sill and waited for the guy to come upright again, and when he did he pulled the trigger a second time and shot him through the back.
The boom took his hearing. World mute beneath ringing, like being deep underwater. He swapped the pistol to his left hand and dragged the bag across the console and stepped out of the truck and didn’t bother to close the door.
The guy from the Mustang was spread-eagled, staring at the sky. The left half of his chest in tatters. A pool of blood beneath him, the edge creeping in a very careful pattern through the blacktop. His back arching as he coughed feebly. Pink foam at his mouth. Rojas stood there a moment, as if paying his regards. Like a fleeting overseer embodied some small mercy.
Everything fading out. In what order did the world dissociate? Was there vision till the last, or were there a few seconds’ darkness, just before the very end. Alone with yourself long enough to think:
Well, this is it.
The Mustang’s engine was still running. Rojas wondered if a broader context could make a thing less wrong. Then he got in the car and drove away.
FORTY
Marshall
Early afternoon by the time Shore arrived. She parked in the garage and came in through the door he’d used earlier, Marshall quietly waiting. When she saw him at the table she stopped with a jolt like she’d walked into something. “Holy shit.”
She closed her eyes briefly and glanced in the living room.
Marshall said, “Just me.”
She didn’t answer. She came around the edge of the counter and leaned against it, not looking at him. She placed her keys in a bowl. “You’re lucky I wasn’t carrying, might’ve shot you on reflex.”
He said, “I didn’t think you’d have a gun.”
“What made you think that?”
“I just knew.”
“You just knew.” Spoken under her breath. “What are you doing here?”
“Protecting you, hopefully.”
She seemed more worn out than impressed.
He said, “You escaped a kidnapping. I can guarantee there’s
at least one person who wants you dead.”
“That’s why there’re cops out front.”
“I’m backstop.”
She didn’t answer.
Marshall said, “Sorry I had to ditch you last night. At the diner.”
She folded her arms. “I thought you were going to say sorry for breaking into my house.”
“No. The break-in’s doing you a favor.”
“Right.”
“Well. You’ve had at least two now, so I think you need a better alarm.”
She didn’t answer.
Marshall said, “Your junction box’s been clipped. And it wasn’t me.”
“Might have happened today. You could have come in and had someone waiting for you.”
He shook his head. “Guys out at the road would have seen it. So it wasn’t recent.”
She didn’t answer. Arms still folded she walked around the counter into the kitchen. Very upright and sort of regal, the way her head didn’t really move. She lifted the kettle to check how full it was. “Coffee?”
He shook his head. “I’ve had a few already. But you go ahead.”
She leaned against the counter and watched him sitting there while the water boiled. Making an effort to seem composed.
She nodded at him. “How long were you planning on sitting there?”
“I don’t know. Until one of you turned up. Which I figured wouldn’t be long.”
“And I’m first?”
“Evidently.”
“How did you get in?”
“Drove past in a taxi and then I went round the other side of the block and jumped over your back fence.”
“And then picked the lock or something?”
“Yeah. On that door by the garage.”
She nodded slowly but didn’t answer. Steam from the kettle flattened beneath the cupboards above the counter. He watched the door and listened to her find a mug and spoon. A metallic grating as she opened a jar. The jug clicked. She poured, and then she came and sat down, just off to his left so she wouldn’t block his view of the door.
He laid the gun on the table and lowered the hammer. Not that he felt any safer than a minute ago, but it seemed like the polite thing to do. Someone else’s kitchen.
She said, “How’d you get my address?”
“I called the MVD and asked them. Kind of a long shot. Most cops’ info’s protected.”
She didn’t answer.
Marshall said, “Which makes me think it isn’t actually your car.”
She had a sip of coffee, two hands on a big mug. She said, “Some kind of shootout up in Bernalillo this morning.”
“Yeah. I heard about that.”
She looked at him. Long dark bags curved beneath her eyes. “You heard about it.”
He rocked his head a fraction. “I was actually responsible for some of the shooting.”
“What happened?”
The table was circular, no way to place the gun tidily without putting it dead center. He liked a square edge on his furniture so he could line things up parallel.
He said, “Rojas called me and said he was in a motel in Bernalillo and if I came and talked to him he’d tell me what happened to Alyce Ray.”
“Your Albuquerque girl.”
“Not mine. I’m just looking for her.”
“You didn’t tell me why, though.”
“Yes I did. I told you I wouldn’t feel good if I did nothing.”
“So this is your standard routine whenever someone’s missing?”
Marshall didn’t answer.
She said, “So did you talk to Rojas?”
“No. He’s ended up on bad terms with whoever’s he’s working with. There were some other guys there wanted to talk to him, too.”
“And that’s how the shooting got under way?”
He said, “Mmm.”
“I heard Lucas Cohen was involved.”
“He was. I’d say he probably still is.”
“You’re not the easiest person in the world to talk to.”
“Yeah, well. Some things’re best not discussed too freely.”
She didn’t answer. Eyes still on the door, he pulled another chair around next to him and laid his arm along the back.
She said, “Why are you doing all this?”
The gun thing was irking him. He put it back on his knee. He said, “Because I want to find out what happened to that girl.”
“Yes, but why?”
She didn’t mind talking in circles.
Marshall took his time, deciding how to say it, how to pitch it as rational. He said, “Because she reminds me of someone I knew. Few years ago now.” The clean and simple basics.
She waited.
He let his breath out, the tough parts imminent, looming in his thoughts. He said, “I thought I could protect her, but I didn’t, and I should have. And I’m tired of regretting it.” He held the gun up, the muzzle flat at eye level. “So this is my atonement. Finding Alyce Ray.”
She didn’t answer.
Marshall looked around the room, a smile on his face as a thought came to him. He said, “It’s good how luck works. You know. Someone just straight vanishes from their bed, not a trace, it’s getting close to the worst kind. But then to have someone like me looking for you just because I’m reminded of somebody else is a hell of a good turn. So I like to think I’m doing my bit to balance things out. Agent of karma, something like that.”
She didn’t answer.
He said, “Anyway. Least you can say about it is I’m party to a hell of a slim chance.”
She said, “Are you in some kind of program?”
He smiled. “Like AA or something?”
“No. Through the marshals.”
“You been talking to Lucas Cohen?”
“He said the marshals know you. I guessed you were more likely witness protection than a federal fugitive.”
“Federal fugitive.” He nodded, like maybe he’d try it sometime. “Reckon I’d give them a pretty good run for their money if I was.”
She had some coffee.
He said, “Yeah, witness protection. Keep it to yourself. Apparently it’s meant to be kind of a secret.”
She smiled. “How’d you end up in WITSEC?”
“I’m not supposed to tell you.”
“Maybe given you’re sitting in my kitchen with a gun you could make a special exception.”
“You first.”
“I don’t have anything to tell.”
“Oh. I think you do.”
“Based on what?”
“I don’t know. This and that.”
She drank and didn’t answer.
Marshall said, “My story takes a bit of effort to talk about. But I figure if I hear yours first it might warm me up enough to share.”
She didn’t answer.
He said, “I won’t ask again. But if you want to hear my story I’ve got to hear yours. And I’m not going first. One of those quid pro quo things I suppose.”
Quiet a little while, and then she said, “What do you want to know?”
He said, “Whose car are you driving round?” It came out more accusatory than he’d intended.
She looked at him and then she took a good long look at her coffee. She said, “My son’s.”
“What happened?”
She pursed her lips, chewed her mouth. She took a breath like she was set to embark on some long telling, but she didn’t say anything.
Marshall tipped his head a little behind him. “That his bedroom?”
She looked at him quickly. “Did you go in?”
“No. I didn’t open the door.”
She didn’t answer.
He said, “What’s his name?”
“Liam.”
“What happened to him?”
She sighed and looked past him, back to whenever it was. She blinked carefully. “We had a break-in, three months back. What’s the date, maybe four, now.” She had some coffee. “I was out. Liam
came home, didn’t realize there was anyone in the house. Just a burglary and they ran, but he chased them, and so, yeah.”
She made a fist and coughed lightly against it. “They shot him.”
She jutted her jaw slightly, moved it gently left and right like it was tender. “Died on the driveway. Stomach, so.”
He waited.
She said, “It wouldn’t have been quick.”
He said, “God.”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
They sat there a while. He figured she knew he was sorry, and he worried verbal condolence would sound insincere. So he didn’t say anything. In light of her story he saw that his uninvited entry had been a fairly sizable faux pas.
At length she said, “I was okay for a while. I could just kind of … You know, cling on by the fingertips for a bit, even after he’d died. But then it got to the point where it was too much. I’ve been off six weeks now.”
Marshall said, “How old was he?”
“Seventeen.”
“Don’t you find it … You know.” He looked around.
“What, hard?”
“Yeah.”
“Of course I do, but … What else are you going to do? Could get even worse.”
“You could move.”
“Yeah, I could. But … This is where he was, so … Kind of a good and bad thing really. I’m not sure what I’m going to do.”
Marshall didn’t answer.
She said, “My dad used to say, you never know if your current self is the person you’ll envy. I always remembered that, because it’s like: any bad luck might be your absolute worst, or it might be a prelude to something harder. So you just carry on, pretend life’s on a downhill trend, right now’s the very best moment you’ll have until you die. Pretty sobering thought, I reckon.”
Marshall didn’t answer.
She smiled, too bright, suddenly self-conscious. She said, “All right. Your turn.”
He said, “Will you ever put the pictures back on the wall?”
“Someone asked me that today.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I said I don’t know.” She shook her head, ridding a thought. “I don’t want to talk about it. Your turn.”
He left it at that for now. He said, “What do you want to know?”