Illegal

by Paul Levine

  "Where'd he pop up next?"

  "He didn't. Hasn't been seen since he left the Rutledge office a couple days ago."

  "So you never met him."

  "Afraid not." Cardenas met Rigney's gaze. Turning away or blinking would make the lie too obvious. The less said, the better the chance the L.A. cop would leave town.

  "Then you just dropped it? Never followed up, even though you knew about those warrants."

  "Not my jurisdiction, and it's been busy up here."

  "I'll bet."

  Cardenas cursed himself for having made the call to the L.A.P.D. He needed Rigney here like a farmer needs a February freeze. But Uncle Sim had ordered him to do it. Charlie Whitehurst was right.

  The old man's losing it.

  "If Payne's still looking for that woman," the chief said, "he's probably checking out other growers. It's a big valley."

  "And filled with a lot of horseshit." Rigney dropped into one of the soft leather chairs. He didn't seem in any hurry. "I pictured your office like something out of a black-and-white movie. Paddle fans, an old sergeant pecking away at a manual typewriter, a holding cell for the town drunk. But the place looks like Mission Control."

  "I'm not following you, Detective."

  "I'm just wondering, if the Attorney General started poking around in Hell's Little Oven here, what would he find?"

  "An efficient police department, I suspect." Cardenas got up and walked to his glass-doored mini-fridge. He took out a pitcher. "Lemonade, Detective? Made from Rutledge lemons."

  "No lemonade. No sarsaparilla. No peeing on my leg and calling it champagne."

  Cardenas poured two glasses, anyway. "Seems like you're under some stress, Detective."

  "No shit."

  Another friendly smile. The lies weren't working; the chief decided to change his approach. He remembered some advice Simeon had dished out years ago, when he was still sharp as a cactus.

  "Never been a horse that can't be rode. Never been a man who can't be sold."

  "We get a lot of city cops who take early retirement and move up here," Cardenas said. "Got a couple working for us, couple more over at the Sheriff's Department. One or two even had some blemishes on their records."

  "What the hell are you saying?"

  "Just that a man should always be open to new opportunities."

  "So I should move here and arrest artichoke poachers?"

  "You'd be surprised how easy it is to make money in the Valley." Letting it hang there, like bacon dangling above the koi.

  "Just how would I do that?" Rigney didn't jump at the bait, but he didn't swim the other direction, either. "Make easy money, I mean."

  "You hungry, Detective? Clara over in Zoning makes the best B.L.T. s you've ever eaten."

  Rigney studied him a moment, scowling. Then he answered, "Yeah, I'm hungry. In fact, I'm starving."

  SEVENTY-EIGHT

  I must be dead, Payne thought.

  If I'm not dead, why don't I feel any pain? Why don't I feel anything?

  "Are you conscious, Jimmy? Can you hear me?"

  Sweet voice. Quiet voice. Sharon's voice.

  Yep. I'm dead.

  He mustered all his effort to open his eyes. As easy as lifting a ten-ton truck by cranking a hand jack. But there she was, reddish-brown hair, honey-colored eyes looking down at him, filled with compassion and caring, and…

  "You stupid bastard," Sharon said.

  And maybe a tad of anger.

  "Himmy, I knew you weren't dead."

  Tino looking down at him, black hair falling into his green eyes.

  "Hey, kid."

  Where the hell am I?

  Payne tried sitting up, felt a tugging, found a tube stuck into the back of his hand. An IV bag dangled from a cart. Putting two and two together and being decent at math, he figured he was in a hospital. If that weren't enough proof, the place smelled like laundry bleach.

  "I told you not to come here," Sharon reminded him, in case he'd forgotten. "I knew something like this would happen."

  "Why is everything always my fault?" he said.

  "Oh, I don't know. Maybe because you're reckless and self-destructive."

  "Himmy's a good man," Tino said. "I trust him with my life."

  "Thanks, kid. As soon as I get feeling back in my right arm, we'll play some catch." Payne's lips felt dry and thick.

  "How'd I get here? How'd you get here?"

  "You came by ambulance," Sharon said. "I came after the local police chief called me."

  "Javier Cardenas?"

  "He found my card in your wallet. Asked if I knew who would do this to you."

  "And you said…?"

  " 'Lots of people.' "

  Payne's laugh was a pitiful wheeze. "Cardenas knows who did it. Rutledge must have called him to scrape me off the ground. His way of saying, 'Don't bother filing charges.' "

  "Simeon Rutledge did this?" Sounding suspicious.

  "I'll kill the pendejo, " Tino said.

  "Calm down, Ace," Payne cautioned. He gripped the bed railing, struggled again to sit up. The room whirled, and he sank back into the pillows.

  Sharon adjusted the IV tube, which had twisted itself around Payne's forearm. He winced, thinking of the bullwhip.

  "You're supposed to rest," she said.

  "Screw that. There's something I gotta do." He looked toward Tino. "I think I know how to find your mother."

  "You mean it?"

  "I thought of it when I was getting the shit kicked out of me. Or maybe when I was unconscious. I don't know exactly. But I've got a plan."

  The boy's eyes glistened with hope.

  Sharon cocked her head, her skeptical look.

  "Trust me, Sharon," Payne said. "Marisol's here. Somewhere close. But she's in trouble."

  "Atticus, you sound like one of those palm readers. What's going on?"

  "I need to get out of here. There's something I gotta do."

  "You've got a concussion. You're on painkillers. The doctor wants to keep you overnight for observation."

  "I don't want to be observed." Payne glanced toward the window. A pink glow of sunset. The last he remembered, it was breakfast time, and he was getting his ass whomped. As soon as the room stopped spinning, he intended to get out of bed.

  "Sharon, I need you to take care of Tino tonight."

  "What do you think you're going to do?"

  "Gonna need your gun, too."

  "Not unless you pry it from my cold, dead, out-of-ajob fingers."

  "Listen to me for a second. Rutledge offered me two hundred grand to go away."

  "A bribe?" Her accusing look, little vertical lines creasing the middle of her forehead. "Are you sure?"

  "I didn't get it in writing, but yeah, I'm sure." He swung both legs out of the bed.

  "Dammit, Jimmy!" Sharon blocked him from standing.

  "What's your plan, Himmy?" Tino's face taking on the character of a man. Worry weighing on him, the mortgage of adulthood.

  "Rutledge didn't offer me money for the hell of it. He knows where your mother is."

  "How do we make him tell us?"

  "We can't, kiddo. But I can get him to lead me to her."

  "?Como?"

  "Rutledge is the king of the county. His whole adult life, he's been in control of everything around him. I can knock him off balance. Make him lose that cowboy calm of his."

  "What are you talking about?" Sharon asked.

  "I'm gonna hit him right in his weak spot."

  "Which is what?" she demanded.

  "His pride. His sense of tradition passed down from grandfather to father to son."

  "That's pretty damn vague, Atticus."

  "You ever know a man who loves some old trees so much he thinks of them as his children?"

  "No."

  "I do," Jimmy said, getting to his feet. "And I know how to hurt him in a way nobody ever has."

  SEVENTY-NINE

  Fifteen minutes, Marisol thought, neatly folding the whit
e damask tablecloth, squaring the corners.

  In fifteen minutes, she would be gone.

  She placed the tablecloth in the top drawer of the mahogany sideboard. She had already cleared the dirty dishes and silverware from the dining room. Tonight's guests-all male, all older than forty-had not lingered over their meals. They had headed for the parlor to choose their companions and soon were hidden away in upstairs rooms.

  Marisol checked the antique grandfather's clock that ticked loudly in the corner. Nearly midnight. A brass plate affixed to the clock read:

  Hot Springs Gentleman's Club. Established 1899.

  The Vietnamese guard sat at the bar in the library, just down the corridor. Every twenty minutes, he would pass the dining room on the way to the parlor. Then he would circle back to the kitchen and return to the bar, where he sipped an endless supply of club soda. Every third trip, he stopped in the rest room at the end of the corridor. Like the grandfather's clock, very dependable.

  The next time he stopped to relieve himself, Marisol would walk into the kitchen-but not too fast-and retrieve the key from its place in the pantry. She would unlock the door to the cellar, head down the wooden staircase, and with a mallet she had found on top of a wine cask, break the old padlock on the tunnel door. For a weapon, she had the pruning shears.

  If all went well, she would not be missed until morning. With luck, she could flag down a trucker on a late-night run. If not, she would walk. She was strong. She could cover twenty miles a day. She would pick fruits and vegetables from the fields. She would travel at night, using the stars for guidance, heading due south. Toward Mexico. Toward her son, she hoped and prayed.

  Again, she looked at the ticking clock. The guard's bathroom break was ten minutes away.

  Marisol was wearing the required maid's outfit, a ridiculously short black satin dress with velvet choker, white apron, lace fishnet stockings, and garter. The black stiletto heels that completed the look of a lascivious lavandera would not do for her escape or cross-country walk. She had hidden a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers in the cellar.

  Now, standing on tiptoes, she returned a soup tureen to the top shelf of the sideboard. She looked toward the ceiling and let herself smile ruefully at the frescoes of a blue sky and white clouds. It was the only sky she was permitted to see without the supervision of the guard.

  Her work finished in the dining room, she moved briskly down the corridor, a lighted path of Tiffany lamps and polished hardwood. Passing the library, she glimpsed the guard on one of the bar stools. Once in the parlor, she emptied ashtrays and brushed cigar residue from the red velvet upholstery of the overstuffed chairs.

  The room had stained-glass windows, but unlike a church, these were illustrated with naked nymphs and frolicking satyrs. A huge fireplace rose at one end of the room, the hearth as tall as a man.

  When the ashtrays were clean and the upholstery brushed, Marisol returned to the kitchen. To her relief, her timing was perfect. Just as she reentered the corridor, the guard disappeared into the rest room.

  Two minutes later, Marisol padded quietly down the staircase to the cellar. She carried a flashlight she'd found in a utility closet, leaving the cellar lights off, fearing they could be seen beneath the pantry door.

  She had taken off the stiletto heels but hadn't yet put on her change of clothing. Now she grabbed the wooden mallet. She would have preferred a steel hammer but recognized the wood as iron bark. Marisol had been swinging hammers and sawing wood since she was five years old, her father teaching her to hit hard and true. The mallet could do the job.

  She placed the flashlight on a shelf, aiming the beam at the padlock on the metal, slatted door. Her first swing caught the curved shackle just where it entered the body of the lock. So did the second and the third. The shackle was thin and graceful, as was the antique lock itself, which seemed to have been designed by an artist, rather than an engineer. Another swing, and the lock clattered against the iron door frame, but did not break.

  Another blow, and this time, a tiny pin flew out the side of the lock. Excelente. Just a tap now, and the lock should break apart.

  What's that noise?

  Did the stairs just creak?

  She froze.

  The lights were still out. No one would come down those steps without turning on the lights, would they?

  She clicked off the flashlight and blinked against the darkness.

  Another sound. Maybe just the groan of the caissons that supported the ground floor. Or was it the squeak of leather boots on wooden stairs? Or nothing at all.

  She remained motionless.

  There it was again. Louder this time. Was someone coming closer?

  She forced herself to remain calm, listened with all her concentration, tried to see into the darkness. Heard her own breathing, as hot and fast as a cornered animal. She waited another thirty seconds. Then thirty seconds more. Nothing.

  She swung the mallet again. The lock banged against the door frame, and the latch sprang from its slot.

  Marisol pulled the lock free and yanked at the door. Stuck. She grabbed one of the vertical bars and put her weight into it. A squeal of rusty metal, and the door opened a few inches. Just as she pushed her shoulder against the frame, a strong hand grabbed her by the hair and yanked her sideways.

  "Where you think you're going, chica?" A man's chilling voice. Mr. Zaga.

  She reached for the mallet, but Zaga's foot swept her legs out from under her, and she tumbled to the dirt floor. He twisted one of her arms behind her back, pinned her down with a knee digging into her ribs. Leaning close, he whispered in her ear, his breath caressing her neck. "Just like always. Sim makes a mess, and I gotta clean it up."

  EIGHTY

  Payne peered up at the second-floor windows of Rutledge's sprawling farmhouse.

  Dark and quiet.

  The only sounds came from the fields, crackling insects, and whirring sprinklers. That would change soon enough. Payne wondered if Rutledge was a sound sleeper.

  Payne's plan was both simple and dangerous. Rutledge had no wife and no children. But he had those three old peach trees he treated the way perfumed ladies treat their French poodles.

  Payne had parked on a side access road and, lugging a chainsaw, crawled over a fence of painted white logs. Thanks to the wonders of Vicodin, he wasn't in pain. More like numb and light-headed. Very little feeling from the shoulders down, other than a tingling in his fingertips, as if he'd grabbed the wrong end of a sparkler on the Fourth of July.

  Something in the air had changed. What was it? A sizzle. Not quite a sound, more like a scent. Overhead, the stars were obscured by thick clouds.

  It smells like rain.

  Payne used two hands to muscle the machine-a McCulloch Xtreme he'd bought at a twenty-fourhour Wal-Mart-to the base of the nearest peach tree. He should be wearing a helmet, work boots, and cut-resistant pants. Instead, he wore U.C.L.A. shorts, black Nike Zooms, and a T-shirt with the slogan "I'm Already Against the Next War."

  Payne tried yanking the cord, but his right hand wouldn't close properly. Awkwardly, he used his left hand. The starter kicked over and the chainsaw coughed and sputtered to life.

  He bent over in an awkward crouch. If the chain slipped or bucked, he could slice his thigh. With all the painkillers, would he even feel it? The chain bit into the wood, making a high-pitched whine, like a frightened horse. Chips blasted his bare legs. He shot a look over his shoulder toward Rutledge's house. Still dark.

  The tree trunk was less than two feet in diameter, the wood soft, and the task did not take long. He put the saw on idle, yelled "Timber!" and pushed. The tree fell with a whoosh of branches and leaves, ripe peaches smushing into the ground. The air smelled of wet earth and sweet fruit, mixed with gasoline fumes.

  Still no sign of life from the farmhouse. In the distance, to the southeast, summer lightning backlit the clouds that shrouded the Sierra Nevadas.

  Halfway through the second tree, the chain jerked
and kicked back. Payne got control just before the saw would have pierced his femoral artery. A moment later, a light came on at a second-floor window.

  Hurrying, Payne finished off the tree. The silhouette of a large man emerged onto the balcony.

  Simeon Rutledge.

  Shouting something Payne couldn't make out over the roar of the chainsaw. Rutledge disappeared from the balcony, and the second tree toppled.

  Payne crouched at the base of the third tree just as Rutledge reappeared on the balcony. Gun in his hands. Rifle or shotgun, too dark to tell.

  A blast. Definitely a shotgun. But the trees were a good two hundred feet from the house. The buckshot ran out of steam before reaching Payne, the pellets pelting the leaves like a soft spring rain.

  Another blast, another shower of buckshot, dribbling through branches and rolling harmlessly across the soft earth.

  Payne kept at it, the chainsaw chunking through the last tree.

  One more gunshot echoed across the yard.

  Payne pushed the tree over and clicked off the chain-saw. In the distance, the rumble of thunder. Yep, rain was coming.

  Rutledge shouted something. His ears still ringing from the chainsaw, Payne waved at the old man, the way a gardener might acknowledge his boss.

  "?El jefe!" he shouted. "You were wrong! The trees didn't outlive you."

  "Dead man!"

  Now Payne could hear him.

  "You're a dead man, Payne. And she's a dead woman!"

  His blood aflame. Rutledge burning for revenge.

  Payne dropped the chainsaw and took off at a trot. He would disappear behind a stand of live oak trees and circle back to where Rutledge would never look for him. The front of the house. Enraged that Payne had gotten away, Rutledge would move quickly to fulfill his threat. And, without knowing it, he would lead Payne right to Marisol.

  Payne could not be sure about any of these things. All he believed with absolute certainty was that if he did not rescue Marisol, within the hour she would be dead.

  EIGHTY-ONE