Montana’s expression was somber, and a vein twitched in his temple. He pointed at the photo. It was part of a gossip feature headlined “Behind the Screens.”
In the picture a young couple in formal dress smiled brightly into the camera. The girl was a petite blonde with long hair and a full-length, clinging dress of sky blue. The young man was dark and handsome, and he had three moles on his left cheek, exactly as Trace and Rickie had described.
“My God,” breathed Jefferson.
Laura read the caption beneath the picture. “Tori Byrd looks like the Blue Bird of Happiness in this stylish frock. The sixteen-year-old star of Days of Our Lives attends an AIDS benefit with steady Reynaldo Comce. The dashing Colombian is the grandson of his country’s president.”
The boy looked no older than seventeen or eighteen, and he had an engaging smile, wide and boyish. He somewhat resembled the film star Tom Cruise.
Laura’s heart seemed to both plummet and to soar. She felt frightened and giddy and half faint. She took the paper from Montana and thrust it right in front of Rickie’s face. “Tell Laura who the man is,” she said, pointing. “Tell Laura about this man.”
“Moleman,” Rickie said, sounding bored. “Moleman shot walking man nineteen times. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang …”
Jefferson’s face was taut. “The grandson of the President of Colombia?” he said. “Christ. No wonder they’re after us.”
Montana stared wordlessly at the photo, and Rickie turned back to his cards. “Bang.” He sighed peacefully. “Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang …”
Laura’s chest tightened; she couldn’t get her breath. She heard Trace come out of the bathroom.
Montana shot a glance in Trace’s direction. “See if he’ll verify it. Get Rickie out of the room.”
She put her hand on Rickie’s shoulder to get his attention. “Rickie,” she said as evenly as she could, “go into the bathroom. Run the water in the sink for five minutes. Don’t splash.”
He glanced at his watch, gave something like a sigh, and rose, clutching a red plastic lizard. He dearly loved to run water, and she seldom let him. For a moment he looked down yearningly at the cards and pennies, but the lure of the water was stronger. He headed toward the bathroom, passing his brother on the way, but neither acknowledged the other.
Trace sat down on the sofa with a thump, looked at Jefferson’s empty hands, and gave a vague frown. “Read,” he demanded. He picked up a yellow lizard and twiddled with it. “Read papers.”
Laura knelt before him. She put her fingertip over the moles on the young man’s cheek before showing Trace the picture. She held the paper before him.
“Tell Laura who this man is.” She held her breath. Without the moles, the picture might mean nothing to Trace; perhaps Rickie would have called anyone with similar marks Moleman.
Trace slouched listlessly, propped against pillows and turning the yellow lizard around and around between his fingers. He barely glanced at the picture.
She felt the drumming of her heart and pulses.
“Moleman,” he murmured, letting his gaze drift back to his lizard. He frowned. “Jefferson read. Not Laura.”
“Jefferson,” she said softly. “You take the paper. Keep that part of the face covered. Have him show you.”
The paper rattled slightly as Jefferson took it. He held it so his thumb covered the edge of the boy’s face. “Trace,” he said, his voice cajoling, “who’s this dude here?”
Trace frowned impatiently. He poked the lizard’s tail at the photo of the young couple. “That’s Moleman. With moles. Moleman has a gun. He shoot it thirty times. The old man fall down. The people fall down.”
Montana rose and bent over the boy, taking him by the shoulders. Trace flinched.
“The man in the paper—he’s the one you saw?” Montana asked. “Are you absolutely sure?”
Trace’s face screwed up as if he was about to burst into angry tears. He tried to shrug off Montana’s hands, and his lower lip thrust out dangerously.
“Let me,” Laura said, and Montana edged out of her way.
“This man in the paper,” she said, smiling brightly. “Trace saw that man really—not just his picture? Tell about the day Trace saw the man.”
Trace sighed resentfully and stared down at his own lap. “Moleman has a car. January eighteenth. The car has license number MPZ one oh four eight one nine. Moleman shoot the gun. The old man fall down. The old man fall down on the one hundred twenty-ninth step.”
Then he raised his eyes and looked at the picture, his expression irritable. “Moleman,” he said emphatically, “has moles.”
He pushed Jefferson’s thumb out of the way to reveal the moles on Reynaldo Comce’s face.
“Moles,” Trace repeated, then turned his attention back to the yellow lizard.
“Hoo, baby,” said Jefferson. “He knew they were there. He didn’t see them, but he knew.”
Laura felt Montana’s hand on her shoulder. He said, “Is he sure? Do you think he’s right?”
She was so shaken, so excited, she felt light-headed. She looked up at Montana. “He’s never wrong about things like this. Never.”
“I may have seen his picture before,” Jefferson said, picking up a stack of the papers he’d discarded. “He’s always with that blonde. She’s some soap opera chick.”
“If you saw the picture before, why didn’t Trace recognize him?” Laura asked.
“ ‘Cause half the time he’s not lookin’ at the pictures. He just listens. Christ. That’s our Moleman? He’s only a kid.”
“He’s old enough to shoot a gun,” Montana said.
“But the grandson of the president?” Laura asked in bewilderment. “Why’s he going around shooting people?”
“No wonder we’re in trouble,” said Jefferson.
“No wonder we’re in trouble,” Trace said in a singsong tone, spinning the lizard. “No wonder. No wonder.”
Laura put her hand over her stomach. She felt queasy. “What do we do?” she asked Montana. “Call Conlee?”
“No,” he said. “We don’t know if we can trust him.”
“Will we turn ourselves in? Or keep running?”
“If we turn ourselves in, they can’t keep us safe. We know that.”
Jefferson sat, his head thrown back, staring at the ceiling as if dazed. “Hell, man,” he said. “This is bad news. You don’t just have an old Mafia man gettin’ shot here. This is an international incident. A diplomatic disaster.”
A shudder, cold and snakelike, crept down Laura’s back. She touched Montana’s sleeve. “What’s this mean?”
His face was grim. “He’s right. It’s a diplomatic disaster. Nobody’ll want it made public. Not our government, not theirs. Our relation with the Colombians is dicey enough.”
“I never liked this diplomatic stuff,” Jefferson muttered. “The government thinks if we don’t baby the Cartels and the politicians they got in their pockets, we lose clout in South America.”
“I don’t care who this boy is,” Laura said. “The facts need to be known. This is the truth they’re scared of. This is what they don’t want out in the open.”
“This is the truth,” Trace said mechanically. He shook Jefferson’s arm so the paper rattled again. “Read,” he ordered.
Jefferson ignored him. “Would Conlee believe us even if we told him? We still don’t know if these kids’ testimony is admissible.”
“You have to tell somebody,” Laura insisted. “Maybe once the truth’s out, they won’t want us any more. They can’t prevent us from talking if we’ve already talked.”
Montana shook his head. “Talking’s not the same as testifying. Not in a court of law. If you or I say it, it’s only hearsay. The authorities have to hear it from the kids themselves.”
Tears of angry frustration sprang to Laura’s eyes. “Put them on the phone, then—the boys, I mean. They can talk on the phone. You said you know they’re taping our calls. There’d be a record the
n. It’d be official.”
“Laura, I know how you feel,” Montana said. “But it could still seem like you’ve coached them, that we’ve coached them. It wouldn’t stand up in court without a judge okaying it, without a defense lawyer able to question them—”
Laura turned away from him, biting her lip, sick unto death of bureaucracy and the labyrinth of the law. She put her hand to her forehead in concentration.
“All right,” she said. “Forget the courts. How about this? You’ve got the video camera. Make a tape of them. Make it, but don’t let Conlee see it. Forget him and the lawyers, too. But make sure everybody else sees it—everybody.”
A moment of silence followed. Both men stared at her.
Now I’ve said something incredibly stupid, she thought. Everybody’s thinking how emotional and stupid I am.
“Wait a minute,” Montana said, putting his hand on her arm.
“I don’t get it,” Jefferson muttered.
“What’s the difference if this isn’t a mug shot?” Laura said, gesturing at the paper. “Tape the boys identifying the picture. Send the tape to somebody we trust. Have that person copy it and—and send it to every television network—newspapers, too. Then everyone would know, the whole country would see it. And nobody’d dare touch the twins. If anybody did, everybody’d know who was responsible.”
Again there was a moment of silence. Laura didn’t know if her idea was insane or inspired.
Jefferson massaged the bridge of his nose wearily. “Put her on the payroll, Montana. She’s got it.”
“Yeah,” Montana said. He almost smiled at her, but not quite.
“Except,” Jefferson added, “who do we send the damn tape to?”
“Not Conlee,” Montana said. “Even if he’s clean, somebody higher up would make it disappear. You know it, I know it.”
“But if we have somebody copy it and send it out, it can’t disappear. There can’t be any cover-up,” Laura reasoned. “And maybe, at last, they’d have to leave the boys alone.”
Jefferson glanced up at Montana. For the first time, there was a trace of optimism in his expression. “I like it. How do we send it? Just by mail?”
“It’s the only way we’ve got,” Montana said. “And we should send it out as soon as possible, tonight, just in case.”
The just in case gave Laura another shudder. Just in case what? Just in case we’re caught? Or we die?
But she refused to utter such a thought. Instead she said, “How can we mail it tonight? The post office is closed. We don’t have stamps—do we?”
Montana took his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans. He flipped it open. “I’ve got two. You got any?”
“No,” said Laura, feeling foolish and vulnerable. How could she have known so much would depend on carrying a few stamps? If we get out of this, she promised herself, I’ll never go anywhere without a whole roll of stamps in my purse.
“What about you?” Montana asked Jefferson.
“No, man.”
Montana gritted his teeth. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll check out the post office. Sometimes a small-town post office keeps its lobby open. So people can get to their post office boxes. There should be a stamp machine. I can mail a tape and have it on the way.”
“And what you gonna do if that stamp machine’s broken?” Jefferson asked sarcastically. “Like most government stuff is?”
Montana shrugged. “Improvise. We’ve still got two stamps. I’ll drop it in the damn box with two stamps and no return address. Whoever gets it has to pay the insufficient postage charge, that’s all.”
“But who can we send it to?” Laura asked, her throat so tight with anxiety that it ached.
Jefferson shook his head. “There’s my mama. But I hate to drag her into it.”
“No,” Montana said. “It shouldn’t be family. It shouldn’t be anybody obvious. But it’s got to be somebody who’s not afraid and that we can trust. Absolutely. Not Marco. I’ve turned to him too often already.”
Laura’s mind churned. She could think of no one.
“There’s a retired agent I know,” Jefferson said. “A real straight arrow. Most honest guy I ever met. But …”
“But what?” Montana asked.
“But he’s got a bum heart. He was in the hospital again over Christmas. But I’d trust him with my life. Still—”
“No,” Montana said. “Too chancy. We need somebody in good health.”
They took turns throwing out one name after another. Laura had to go fetch Rickie from the bathroom and dry him off. She led him back to the living room and sat him down again with his coins and cards.
She’d run out of names, but Montana hadn’t, and neither had Jefferson. At last they seemed stymied, too, and fell into thoughtful silence.
“Read,” Trace begged, tugging on Jefferson’s sleeve.
“In a minute,” Jefferson said. “Let me think.”
Montana’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. I thought of somebody. A nun, a teacher. Sister Agnes Mary. I had her in high school. They transferred her to Sioux City, Iowa, a couple years ago. She runs the what-you-call-it. The school media center. She knows videotapes and stuff.”
“A nun?” Jefferson said. “You’re gonna drag a Bride of Christ into a drug hit conspiracy?”
“Toughest woman I ever met,” Montana said. “Not afraid of the devil himself. She’d chew Clint Eastwood up like a stick of gum.”
“How old is she?” Jefferson asked.
“In her late fifties, maybe. A spring chicken for a nun.”
“You could get the tape to her?”
“Sure. I could call her old diocese, get her address, not give my real name.”
Jefferson raised his eyebrow appreciatively. “A nun. Sister Mary Drug-Bust. I like the sound of that.”
“Fine,” Montana said. “Done.”
“But you’ll have to tell Conlee sooner or later, won’t you?” Laura asked.
“After the tapes come out,” Montana said. “Then we tell him.”
“And after that?” Laura said, afraid to hope. “Do you think that once everybody knows, we can live normal lives again? And the boys will be safe?”
Montana reached out and stroked her hair. “I can’t promise anything,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
She stared at him, wondering how long they could stay on the run. Their odds were growing thinner all the time, she feared.
But then Trace had a coughing fit, and coughed until tears came to his eyes. “Hurts,” he said, his voice choked. “Hurts.”
Laura went to him and put her arms around him, and he let her, without protest. He coughed again, more raggedly. “Hurts,” he repeated weakly.
She patted his back. “I know it hurts, sugar.”
She carried him into the kitchen to get him a drink of water. “Go home,” he pleaded between coughs. “Go to school, go home—please.”
“Laura’s brave boy,” she whispered. “Don’t worry. Laura’s trying to get Trace home. Laura’s here. Don’t worry.”
Santander was glad he wasn’t the one driving. It was snowing, and the snow swirling in the headlights made him dizzy, filled his head with dark thoughts.
Estrada had sent three real coqueros to help with the killing, and they had arrived at the motel in a van. Now they rode in the back, talking laconically in Spanish. They were all in their late twenties, seasoned and sleekly efficient. Their names were De Mosquera, Alvirez, and Luppler.
De Mosquera was stout and squarely built, and Alvirez was hollow-cheeked and wiry. Luppler was a dandy, so handsome that his face was almost girlish, like Reynaldo Comce’s. Santander found such handsomeness repellent.
The van was a brand-new Chevrolet, and it carried enough assault weapons and ammunition to take over a small town. There were also several ten-gallon cans of gasoline.
This time, Hepfinger had said with his gentle smile, the target must be hit. It was forbidden to fail. Now Hepfinger kept his eyes on the road and did not flick so mu
ch as a glance at Santander or the men in the backseats.
“Your orders are to keep quiet about this hit,” Hepfinger said to the men in the backseat. “The Cartel denies any knowledge of it. Officially, you’re hired by Dennis Deeds, understand? It’s his kill.”
“Hey, man,” laughed Luppler, the pretty-faced one. “I know that. I’m not working for Estrada. I’m working for Dennis Deeds, man.”
“Remember that,” said Hepfinger.
“How far away are we?” asked De Mosquera. “It seems like we been on this road forever. I hate this fucking snow.”
Hepfinger ignored the question. “I had to drive that road up there once before,” he said rather dreamily. “I had to stop. There was a moose in the road.”
“A moose?” De Mosquera echoed. Santander cast Hepfinger a dubious glance. He had never seen a moose except on television.
“A moose as big as the very devil,” Hepfinger said. “He wouldn’t move.”
“Did you shoot him?” De Mosquera asked. Hepfinger kept his eyes straight ahead and smiled mysteriously at the swirling snow. “No. He amused me.”
Santander settled more deeply into his seat and stared out the side window. He would never understand Hepfinger. He didn’t want to.
“How far are we?” De Mosquera asked again. “How long before we’re there?”
“Two hours,” said Hepfinger. “We’ll be there in two hours.”
Two hours, thought Santander. His boredom gave way to edgy anticipation. For the first time, he allowed himself to dwell on the killing to come, to weave his private fantasies of sex and rage. He scratched his cheek so deeply that it oozed. But Hepfinger spoke to him, forcing him back to the present.
“Recite the plan. Have you got it straight?”
Did Santander only imagine, or was there condescension in Hepfinger’s voice? “I know it,” he said defensively. “Once we get on the road to the house, we cut the lights. Alvirez, De Mosquera, Luppler, me—we go by foot to the house. We take a look, make sure it’s them.”
“I’ll wait in the van,” Hepfinger said. “In case anyone comes down the road.”
The pussy’s job, Santander thought uncharitably. He’s not going to dirty his hands. He wondered if Hepfinger thought he was above the scut work of an ambush, or if he simply wanted to keep his fat ass warm in the van. Santander wished the man had stayed behind at the motel. But Hepfinger was so fussy and old-womanish, he had to oversee everything.
See How They Run Page 25