“Regál is almost an hour faster to Asunción,” Torrez said. He glanced over at Estelle, then into the rearview mirror at Naranjo’s Toyota.
“I know. But we can cross at Palomas just as easily, and then catch Route Two back toward Janos.” Torrez had already started to slow for the intersection with State 56, the highway west toward Regál. “I just have a feeling,” Estelle said.
“All right.” Torrez said. He passed the intersection and drove south on State 61. Naranjo followed, a discreet hundred yards behind. “So what’s the feeling?”
“Mamá y Papá is the feeling,” Estelle said. “We haven’t talked to them. Francis and I stopped in Lucy’s place for a few minutes whenever it was, but other than that, nothing. I’d be interested to hear what they have to say. Things have tumbled so fast, I haven’t had the chance.”
“I think they’d be the first ones to say that their boys are on their own,” Torrez said. “It’s Benny and Isidro who chose to live in Mexico. Their folks didn’t force them that way.”
Estelle sighed. “But they’re up here all the time. That’s what’s bizarre.” After a minute, she held up two fingers a quarter inch apart. “We were this close, Bobby.”
“To what?”
“If those two had followed me across the arroyo, and then just a few yards farther into this country, we’d have had them. Dead to rights.”
“The dead part is probably true,” Torrez said. “And hopefully it would have been them.”
“We were so close.”
“And now…” Torrez said, and stopped in mid-thought.
“And now what?”
He accelerated the unmarked Expedition up to eighty to pass a pickup pulling a livestock trailer. “And now you’re hoping that Isidro and Benny might slip back across the border to find out from Mama and Papa just what’s going on. Try to find out what we know?”
“I would if I were them. Then maybe take off for some place that’s a little cooler.”
“For instance?”
“Guaymas, Guadalajara, Mexico City…somewhere out of the state, that’s all.”
“Or even Denver or Coeur d’Alene,” Torrez said. “Or Central America someplace. Hell, with some money, they can go anywhere.”
“We know they have a little,” Estelle said. “The money from Osuna, the money from the woodcutters. At least that much.”
“Nickel, dime,” Torrez said. “We’re not exactly talking about masters of the big haul here. I’m surprised that they haven’t put the touch on the old man or the old lady yet.” He turned and glanced at Estelle, the figurative lightbulb coming on over his head. “That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it.”
She nodded. “And their aunt,” she added.
“Paulita?”
“Why not? The taberna probably earns a pretty good bundle. Easy pickings. And after last night, they’re not just going to sit around and wait for something to happen. They don’t know if someone just dragged Eurelio’s body away, or if he’s still alive.”
“Except for the ambulance siren on our side of the border. And they know that Mexican authorities aren’t involved. Nobody chased them. They saw a figure running in the darkness-that’s all.”
“That’s right. If Eurelio is alive, the Madrids have to assume that this time, he’ll talk. But he’s on our side of the border, and that makes for a nice, convenient complication that works in favor of the Madrids. I think that they beat Eurelio to scare him silent. Maybe he sold them that rifle in good faith, as a favor to a relative. Maybe they coerced it out of him. They figured a good beating would convince Eurelio to keep his mouth shut. And then one of them changed his mind and shot Eurelio, almost as an afterthought…one of them is trigger-happy.”
“Not smart, but trigger-happy,” Torrez said. He thumped his index fingers on the steering wheel in a fast drum roll. “A great combination.” As they passed the dirt road that followed the power lines northward, he slowed the car. “Paulita is at the hospital with the boy?”
“Yes. And Jackie’s with her.”
“Okay. That’s one out of the way then. I told Tony Abeyta to stay there until he heard otherwise.” They rounded the sweeping curve that led into Maria, the red tile roof of the taberna visible on the right, and several abandoned, slumping buildings on the left. Torrez slowed the vehicle to an amble.
From the other direction, a large RV sporting white Texas license plates appeared, a small SUV hitched to its back bumper. The rig blinked its directional signal and turned into Wally Madrid’s gas station. The RV was certainly taller than the small adobe building, and probably more square feet on the inside.
Torrez turned left in front of the gas station, drove far enough up the lane that he passed Lucy Madrid’s restaurant and another abandoned building. Just ahead was a cluster of five homes, situated helter-skelter with lot lines that would have made a surveyor groan. Dominating the north end of the village, at the end of J Street, was la Iglesia de Santa Lucia, a low, flat-roofed structure plastered a rich rosy pink.
The dusty margins of the lane opened a bit so that Torrez didn’t need to drive all the way to the church’s parking lot to turn around. He swung the truck in a U-turn, idling back the way they’d come. Torrez pulled to a stop where a curb would be if Maria had sidewalks, just beyond view of the little café’s front window. As they stopped, they saw Tomás Naranjo drive by on the state highway.
“I’ll check the station,” she said. Torrez sat with his chin resting in his left hand, gazing at the front door of Lucy Madrid’s restaurant. Estelle climbed down out of the unmarked Expedition and strolled past the café, her hands in her trouser pockets. She continued up the lane to the service station. She rounded the corner in time to see the driver of the RV peering through the front door, his hand up to shade the glass.
“Don’t guess they’re open,” he said when he saw Estelle. A smile split his round face. “You from these parts, señorita? ” His voice carried the twang of west Texas. His eyes ran appreciatively up and down Estelle’s trim figure.
“Yes, sir,” Estelle said. “But they don’t sell diesel here, anyway.”
“They’re missin’ a good bet,” he said. Estelle smiled pleasantly. The Texan was right, of course. But it was just one of many good bets that Wally Madrid had passed on over the years. “Probably should have filled up in Columbus, then,” the man said. “What’s the closest westbound, you happen to know?”
“Posadas is sixteen miles,” Estelle said. “There’ll be a big station on your left, just after you go under the interstate. They’ll fix you up.” She glanced toward the RV and saw a white-haired, plump woman peering out the door. The man appeared to be in no hurry to break off his conversation, perhaps happy to have found a native who spoke English in complete sentences. “You folks have a good day,” Estelle said even as his mouth opened to say something else.
He nodded. “You too, young lady.”
Estelle walked past him, glancing inside the front window as she did so. Wally Madrid’s cluttered desk was visible in the far corner. If each piece of litter that constituted the landfill of his desk represented a successful business deal, Wally Madrid would have been a millionaire. The single overhead light was off.
She glanced down the street and saw that Naranjo had turned around and stopped at the curb fifty yards away. He lifted a finger off the steering wheel in salute, but stayed in the vehicle. Unlike Estelle and Torrez, Naranjo was in uniform.
The station, one room with a bathroom off the side, had been built onto the original adobe house nearly half a century before. Estelle walked around the side of the station, pausing at the door of the restroom. The door was ajar, and she pushed it open with her toe. The door cleared the commode with an inch to spare, revealing a dark, dank interior where the white porcelain of the sink and toilet had long ago stained to match the adobe walls. The fragrance was deep and pungent, and Estelle couldn’t imagine stepping into the tiny room and actually closing the door on the flow of fresh air fr
om outside.
She continued toward what appeared to be the front door of Wally Madrid’s home. Two cinderblocks served as a front step, both loose in the dirt and waiting to tip should an unwary foot be planted wrong. She knocked on the door and waited, then knocked again. The blue porcelain doorknob included no provision for a lock. She turned it and pushed. The door opened effortlessly. The air inside was cool, and she could see an old sofa with an afghan on the back, a television with the round-cornered screen of the ‘sixties black-and-whites, and a coffee table piled high with magazines.
“Mr. Madrid?” she called. The house was silent. From where she was standing, she could see the rump of the owner’s red International Carry-All parked beside the house. She called his name again, a bit louder. With no response, she stepped inside and quickly walked through the house, taking no more than thirty seconds to tour all five rooms.
By the time she walked back outside, glanced inside the Carry-All and then rounded the front of the station, the huge Texas RV had trundled back out onto the highway, a plume of diesel hanging behind. She glanced back at Naranjo and shook her head, then walked back the way she had come, ignoring the restaurant.
“What did you find?” Torrez asked when she returned to the Expedition.
“Nothing. The station’s closed and locked, his house is wide open. The coffeemaker’s on in the kitchen. His truck is parked outside. Engine’s cold.”
“So. Maybe he’s in his wife’s café, having breakfast.”
“He hasn’t talked to Lucy in a dozen years. I don’t think so.”
“Want to go ask?”
“I certainly do.”
Torrez opened the door, then hesitated. “Where’s Naranjo?”
“Parked just down the street.”
“You didn’t see anyone else?”
“Not a soul, other than the Texan tourists.”
“I was hoping that we’d see a big yellow Ford station wagon parked in the shade somewhere,” Torrez said.
“They’re not going to be that stupid, Bobby.”
He shrugged. “And why not? Why change what works?” He stepped out of the vehicle, and then he and Estelle walked to the front door of Lucy Madrid’s café like two curious tourists. Lucy’s was open for business, the fluorescent bulbs in the single ceiling unit providing just enough light for customers to be able to find the saucer with their cup.
The first person Estelle saw was Wally Madrid, sitting at the same table she and Francis had used earlier in the week.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Wally Madrid sat by himself, turned sideways so that he could see the door. His dark, long face struck Estelle as singularly melancholy, as if he were sitting there waiting for the end of the world. The sports section of the Albuquerque Journal rested on the checkered plastic tablecloth. Other than that, the table was bare. No food, no coffee, no utensils.
Wally was not alone in the café. Across the room, another much younger man sat at the far end of the short counter. Smoke from a cigarette in his right hand curled upward, untouched by anything so sophisticated as the downwash from a ceiling fan. The man turned and stared at Estelle when she entered. The light was behind her, and Estelle’s eyes flicked a quick inventory of the room and its occupants. She didn’t recognize the man at the counter, but his expression wasn’t the idle curiosity of a man whose quiet coffee and doughnut break had been interrupted.
From behind, Bob Torrez put a hand on Estelle’s shoulder and said, “Go ahead and find a table. I need to use the restroom.” He made no effort to whisper, and what he said would have been clearly heard by Wally Madrid and the man at the counter. Torrez sounded like any other good tourist, too long on the road, rest stops dictated by the bladder. His grip on Estelle’s shoulder was firm and directed her off to the right.
As watchful as he was, it nevertheless took the young man at the counter another couple of heartbeats before he recognized the possible danger, before he realized that the giant figure walking quickly across the small café toward him wasn’t just a tourist who had brought his wife in for a midmorning snack.
Robert Torrez ducked to one side so that his head didn’t brush the fluorescent lighting fixture in the center of the room. Benny hesitated for another instant, saw that Torrez’s impassive gaze was locked on him rather than the small sign on the open door behind him that announced CABALLEROS.
From across the room, Estelle saw the man’s left shoulder hunch upward. By the time a large revolver appeared in his left hand, sweeping upward to avoid the edge of the counter, Estelle’s own Beretta had cleared her belt and jacket. But Robert Torrez was on the offensive.
As the revolver cleared the edge of the counter, Torrez barged into the man, knocking him off the stool into the lip of the counter. The sheriff’s hand clamped across both the revolver and the hand that held it. With a vicious slam, Torrez smashed the hand down, the weight of the heavy weapon crushing the man’s thumb against the Formica. The revolver discharged with a loud, sharp report and a cloud of blue smoke. The long-unused milkshake mixer on the back counter rocked sideways as the slug punched through its stainless steel housing, blew out the back, and embedded in the wall.
Torrez smacked the gun down again and the man howled, trying to bat him away with his right hand. The revolver skittered down the counter and pinwheeled to a halt, pointing toward the street.
With a deft twist, Torrez forced the young man’s face down on the counter, at the same time pulling both of his arms behind his back. With a loud clack, he slapped handcuffs on both wrists with such force that the man’s face crumpled in pain.
Shifting her own automatic to her left hand, Estelle crossed the room and picked up the revolver. Wally Madrid hadn’t moved a muscle during the assault on his son. Both hands remained motionless on top of the table. His eyes grew wide as he watched Estelle thumb the revolver’s cylinder open. The remaining cartridges clattered to the floor.
“Como está, Benny?” Torrez said. “Remember me?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but pulled Benny Madrid to his feet and pushed him against the counter. He kicked his feet apart and slipped two nylon ties out of his back pocket. With swift, deft motions, Torrez snapped a restraint around each of Benny Madrid’s ankles, the ties looped through each other so that the man was effectively hobbled.
“Have a seat,” Torrez said, his voice quiet and conversational. He caught Benny by the elbow and steered him toward the table in the back corner of the café, under the 1957 Firestone calendar that featured such striking photos of the Southwest that Lucy Madrid never had been able to throw it out. Benny managed the awkward, hopping journey, and fell into the chair. He glowered up at Torrez, who regarded him impassively for a moment. The sheriff rubbed the palm of his right hand, glanced down at the flash burn from the revolver, and then turned to Wally Madrid.
“You all right?” the sheriff asked.
Wally nodded and his eyes flicked nervously toward Estelle, whose Beretta hadn’t wavered. The muzzle pointed at the light fixture, a short move from any target in the room. “Give me about ten seconds,” Torrez said to Estelle, and he nodded toward the back storage room, the kitchen, and the bathrooms. He turned to Benny. “Where’s your worthless brother?” Benny didn’t reply. “Dumb as always,” Torrez muttered. He pointed a beefy finger at Benny’s nose. “If you move, she’s going to put one right there,” he said, and then rapped Benny hard between the eyes with his right index knuckle. “Comprende, bato?”
As Torrez rounded the end of the counter headed toward the small kitchen, he drew his own automatic, thumbing the hammer back as he did so.
“Nobody’s back there,” Wally Madrid called. His voice cracked as if it had been years since he’d used it. “They went to town.”
“Okay,” Torrez replied, and quickly checked the back rooms. He returned, weapon holstered, and walked across to Wally’s table. The sheriff stepped close and reached out a hand, the fingers touching Wally lightly above the ear. “Did one of them hit you?”
“It’s nothing,” Wally said. As he turned his head, Estelle could see the dried blood near the corner of his left eye.
“Can you stand up for me?”
Wally nodded, but didn’t move.
“I need you to stand up, Mr. Madrid,” Torrez said gently, and the older man’s hands fluttered with embarrassment.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t understand.” He leaned his weight on the table and pushed himself to his feet, the top of his head below Torrez’s shoulders.
“Just stand still a minute, sir,” Torrez said. He quickly ran his hands down the old man’s sides and legs. “No hurts anywhere else?” the sheriff asked as he straightened up. He turned and nodded at Estelle.
“No, no,” Wally said, and collapsed back in the chair. “I guess I wasn’t moving fast enough for him, you know. That’s all. He got impatient.” A hand drifted up to touch his cheek. Estelle felt a pang of sympathy for the man. Impatient was nowhere near the top of her list of the Madrid brothers’ failings.
“This one?” Torrez nodded at Benny Madrid.
“No. Not him.”
“Where’s Isidro, then? And where’s your wife? Where’s Lucy?”
Wally nodded. “They went into town.”
“To Posadas, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“When was that?”
Wally twisted so that he could see the small clock with the Holbein Dairies logo on the face. His eyes squinted. “It must have been about ten minutes to nine,” he said.
Torrez glanced at his watch. “Twenty-five minutes ago,” he said. “It’s twenty minutes in, twenty back.” He looked at Estelle and brushed one hand by the other. “We just missed them on the highway.” Turning back to Wally Madrid, he asked, “What was Isidro after?”
“They went to the bank.”
Torrez frowned, his left hand drifting toward the handheld radio under his jacket. Estelle had crossed to the table, and she sat down in the chair facing Wally.
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