“I know what you’re trying to say.”
“Yeah.”
Tom turned his head, as if to look back over his shoulder and through the wall to the blood-splattered living room. “Two shotgun blasts wouldn’t have caused that much blood,” he said.
“No. They, uh . . . they used knives . . . machetes, maybe, from the looks of the wounds, Lauren said . . .”
“They chopped my folks to pieces.”
“After they were dead, Tom,” Buddy said. “You got to remember that. Your mom and dad were already gone when it happened.”
“Then they used some of the blood to write that warning on the wall.”
Buddy nodded. “That’s the way we’ve got it figured.”
Tom clasped his hands together and stared out at the small yard in front of the ranch house. He had played there as a kid. He had ridden his bicycle up and down the dirt road that led to the highway. He had sat in this very swing with his mother beside him, a book open in her lap as she read to him. Over there on the porch steps, he had sat with his father and learned how to whittle and listened to the yarns that Herb had loved to spin . . .
Tears welled up in his eyes as he said, “This is my fault.”
“What? Hell, no, Tom—”
“You told me more than a week ago that Mara Salvatrucha likes to strike back at their enemies through their families. I knew right from the start that I needed to get Mom and Dad out of here. I said something to them about it more than once.”
“We all know how stubborn Herb was,” Buddy said. “And your mom wouldn’t go against his wishes.”
“Yeah, well, I could have marched in here, picked him up, and carried him out. He couldn’t have stopped me.”
“Don’t be too sure about that. He was a mighty tough old bird.”
Tom gazed down at the porch. “Still my fault . . .”
Buddy suddenly shot to his feet, unable to contain his anger. “Goddamn it, Tom!” he shouted. “You know whose fault this really is?” He pointed toward the living room. “It’s the fault of the bastards who did it, that’s who! The same evil sons o’ bitches who’ve been murdering our friends and neighbors and getting away with it! That’s who’s to blame!”
Tom didn’t say anything. He kept staring at the porch floor for a long moment and then finally lifted his head to look at his old friend. He stood up and started down the steps.
“Where are you goin’?” Buddy asked.
“Home.”
“That’s a good idea. Bonnie’s there, and that’s where you should’ve gone to start with. I told you it wouldn’t do any good to come out here.”
“Going to get my guns,” Tom said without looking around.
Buddy frowned, gave a little shake of his head, and then hurried after him. He grabbed Tom’s arm and pulled him around. “What did you say?”
“That I’m going to get my guns,” Tom answered dully. “You’re right, Buddy, at least part of the way. I still think I bear some of the blame for this, but most of it belongs to M-15. I’m going to Nogales to settle the score with them.”
“Nogales!”
“That’s where their headquarters is, from everything I’ve heard and read about them.”
“So what’re you gonna do?” Buddy asked. “Just march across the border loaded for bear and start asking everybody you see where to find M-15?”
“If I start asking questions, I’m willing to bet that they’ll find me.”
Buddy’s eyes narrowed. “And it never occurred to you that’s exactly what they’re hoping you’ll do?”
Tom’s jaw tightened. “You mean this wasn’t really a warning? They killed my parents just to bait a trap for me?”
“It could be that way,” Buddy said. “A warning, if that’s the way you took it, and bait if it’s not.”
“I can’t just—” Tom looked toward the house and shuddered. “—ignore this.”
“Nobody’s askin’ you to. But you can’t go charging into Nogales with guns blazing like the Lone Ranger, either.”
“Then . . .” Tom’s voice broke. “Then what can I do?”
“Go home,” Buddy said gently. “Go home to your wife, and the two of you hold on to each other as tight as you can for a while. Forget about the Patriot Project and everything else. Get some rest. Let things sort themselves out for a day or two.” He paused. “Let me sort some things out.”
Tom’s eyes narrowed. “You? What are you talking about, Buddy?”
“I’m still the sheriff of Sierrita County, you know. This is my jurisdiction, and it’s my job to investigate this crime.”
“What can you do? The bastards are long gone.”
“As a law enforcement official, I just might have some resources available to me that you don’t, Tom. Let me look into it, all right?”
Tom frowned and rubbed a hand over his close-cropped hair. “Bonnie would pitch a fit if I went down to Mexico right now.”
“Damn right she would.”
“I guess . . . I guess you’re right, Buddy. I’ll go home.”
“You’re not just telling me that so I’ll leave you alone, are you? Got any plans to sneak off and head down there later?”
Tom grimaced and shook his head. “No, you’ve got my word on it.”
Buddy nodded emphatically and said, “That’s good enough for me. Come on, now. I’ll give you a ride, get you through the mob of reporters.”
“Lord, is this ever going to end?” Tom muttered under his breath.
“It’ll end. We’ll get through it, and one way or another, it’ll end. Good people won’t stand for this. You’ll see, Tom. This is the beginning of the end for M-15.”
Tom wished with all his heart that he could believe that. But as he glanced back at the house where two good people had met an untimely and unholy end, he wasn’t sure.
Maybe this was one time when the good guys weren’t going to win.
Buddy Gorman was as weary as he’d ever been in his life when he walked into the sheriff’s office after dropping off Tom at the Brannon’s house. He could trust Bonnie to look after his old friend and keep him from doing anything foolish. At least, Buddy hoped that was the case.
He stopped just inside the door, a frown creasing his forehead as he saw who was waiting for him.
Agents Ford and Berry stood up from the straight-backed wooden chairs just inside the door, in front of the wooden railing that divided the public part of the office from the section for authorized personnel only. Both of the FBI agents wore sunglasses, even though they were inside a building. Buddy wondered if that was part of their training at Quantico.
“Sheriff Gorman,” Ford said, “we heard about what happened to Brannon’s parents. Is there anything we can do to assist you in the investigation?”
“Murder’s a state crime, not a federal one,” Buddy said tightly.
“That’s true, but if there’s an indication that the crime was committed by foreign nationals—”
“Nobody said there was.”
Berry said, “There are rumors that M-15 was behind it, that a warning was left for Brannon to back off on what he’s been doing.”
“The sheriff’s office isn’t going to comment on any rumors.”
“Come on, Sheriff,” Ford said impatiently. “You know very well that this matter is too big for you to handle. You need to turn it over to us—”
“So you can bury it,” Buddy cut in, “the way you’ve tried to bury everything else M-15 has done down here?”
“Why would we do that?” Berry asked angrily. “We’re law enforcement officers, too, damn it. Why would we want a bunch of killers to get away with their crimes?”
“Because it makes your bosses in the Justice Department and their boss in the White House look bad to have the border so open that killers can go back and forth without any trouble. You’d rather sweep it all under the rug so that the rest of the country will forget about it, rather than doing the hard work of actually putting a stop to it.”
“You can’t be talking about closing the border,” Ford said.
“No, that wouldn’t work at all, would it?” Buddy said scathingly. “If the border were closed, then all the businesses in Texas and Arizona and California that rely on illegal immigrants for their work force would be out of luck, wouldn’t they? Those businesses represent a lot of campaign contributions for politicians on both sides of the aisle, not to mention the one in the White House. She can talk all she wants to about feeling sorry for the illegals and wanting them to have a better life, but we know it’s all bullshit. It’s all about the money. It always is.”
Both of the agents glared at Buddy as he concluded his angry remarks. But at the same time they looked uncomfortable, and he knew his words had hit home. He was right—the federal government didn’t really care about the people of southern Arizona. The bureaucrats just wanted the whole thing to go away so it wouldn’t be an embarrassment for them anymore.
That wasn’t going to happen. Not while Buddy Gorman was the sheriff of Sierrita County.
He stepped past them, through the gate in the railing. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he said curtly. “I’ve got work to do.”
“You’d better reconsider, Sheriff,” Berry said.
“I don’t think so.”
Buddy stalked past the dispatcher’s desk. Dusty gave him a big grin. Lauren was at her desk over in the corner, going over some reports, and she was smiling, too. They had enjoyed being on hand for Buddy’s reaming-out of the FBI agents.
Buddy went into his office and shut the door. He sat down behind the desk, and a moment later a knock sounded on the door. “Come in,” he said, knowing that it couldn’t be Ford or Berry. The agents would have left by now, both of them steaming.
Lauren came in carrying a sheaf of papers. “Here are the preliminary forensics reports, Buddy. I picked up a few fingerprints, but nothing that matches so far.”
“I’m not surprised. Most of those M-15s have never been arrested over here on this side of the border.”
“We might get something back from Mexico or Guatemala or El Salvador in a few days.”
“Or we might not.”
Lauren shrugged and admitted, “We might not.”
Buddy nodded toward the desk. “Just leave the reports. I’ll look at ’em later.” He added, “And thanks for all your hard work, Lauren.”
“No problem, boss.” She hesitated. “How’s Mr. Brannon doing?”
Buddy shook his head. “Not good. He thinks it’s his fault, and I had to talk him out of going down to Nogales to shoot up the place.”
“He would have just gotten himself killed.”
“Yeah.”
Nogales . . . That was the key, Buddy thought as Lauren went back out, leaving the reports on his desk.
And he believed he had a key of his own that just might break things wide open.
Every law enforcement officer, even the most straight arrow, bent the rules a little every now and then, for the simple reason that no law could be truly universal and cover every case. Bad cops crossed that line for their own benefit, but good ones ventured over it only for a good reason, usually to help somebody else.
In Buddy’s case, he had let Diego Vasquez off the hook on a possession rap because Diego was just a kid and because his father, Jaime Vasquez, had been one of the starting guards on the Little Tucson High School basketball team at the same time Buddy and Tom Brannon had been the starting forwards. Buddy had truly believed that Diego was a good kid who would get straightened out if he just had a chance.
He had been wrong, at least partially. Diego wasn’t a good kid, and he hadn’t straightened out. He had run off to Nogales and fallen in with an even worse crowd than the one that had given him the joint Buddy could have busted him for. But Diego hadn’t completely forgotten the favor Buddy had done for him, and on several occasions during the past five years, Buddy had gotten a phone call from Diego, tipping him off to something bad that was about to go down in Sierrita County. It was kind of like having a deal with the devil and it made Buddy a little uncomfortable, but every cop had his sources and had to make use of them, even the unsavory ones.
Now Buddy used his cell phone to call the number he had written on a piece of paper he took from his wallet. A man’s voice grunted in answer, “Flora’s Café.”
“Tell Diego his dry cleaning is done,” Buddy said, feeling foolish as he always did when he got in touch with Diego this way. He understood that codes and passwords helped keep Diego safe, though.
The man on the other end of the phone grunted, and then a few moments of silence went by. The next voice Buddy heard belonged to Diego, who said, “What is it?”
“I’m coming to Nogales,” Buddy said. “Tell me where to meet you.”
“Oh, man,” Diego responded quickly, “that ain’t a good idea. You can’t—”
“I can,” Buddy said. “Come on, Diego, you owe me, and you know it.”
Diego sighed. “All right. There’s a place just this side of the border called Ochoa’s, sells cigars and candy and magazines. Tell me when. But I don’t like this, Buddy.”
“Neither do I,” Buddy said. “I’ll be there tonight. Eight o’clock.”
“Don’t come dressed in your sheriff suit, okay?”
Buddy just grinned and said, “I’ll see you then, Diego.”
20
There were towns called Nogales on both sides of the border, or if you preferred to think of it that way, you could consider it one town split down the middle by the international boundary line. Either way, it was a dusty, ugly, heat-blasted place, a typical pair of bordertowns with plenty of cantinas and whorehouses and seedy little shops.
One of which Buddy Gorman found himself standing in that evening, leafing through a pornographic magazine that contained some of the filthiest pictures he had ever seen.
He didn’t look like a sheriff now. He wore a gaudy shirt and light-colored trousers, and anyone glancing at him would take him for an American tourist out to wallow in the squalor found south of the border. He had seen plenty of guys who really fit that description, so it hadn’t been much of a challenge to duplicate their appearance. His jaws worked as he chewed gum and flipped through the pages of the skin mag.
Diego sidled up beside him and said quietly, “Man, you are one fuckin’ crazy gringo.”
Buddy grinned sideways at him. “You don’t know the half of it, amigo. Is there some place around here we can talk?”
“Talk right here,” Diego said. He was a handsome young man, well-dressed without being gaudy about it. Buddy wasn’t sure exactly what sort of things Diego was mixed up in down here—drugs almost surely, prostitution probably, maybe swindling a few lonely American women who came here on vacation, although there wouldn’t be many of those—but his crimes were on a small scale, the sort that wouldn’t bring him to the attention of the big-shots like Mara Salvatrucha. “Tell me what you want,” Diego went on, “and then get back on the other side of the border where you belong.”
Still holding the magazine, Buddy said without looking at the young man, “I want M-15.”
Diego started to turn away. “You crazy, all right. Get outta here. I can’t help you.”
“Just give me a name or a place to go,” Buddy said quickly. “A place to start.”
Diego sighed. “This is about what happened up there in your town, that SavMart Massacre?”
“Some of it, yeah. And it’s about a couple of old people who were slaughtered like animals in their own home. They were the parents of a good friend of mine. My best friend.”
“Yeah, that sounds like somethin’ M-15 would do. But I can’t help you, Buddy. I don’t have nothin’ to do with those hombres. They’re loco.”
“I know that. But I want to get my hands on one of them, anyway. Somebody I can take back to Little Tucson to testify about what happened to Tom Brannon’s folks.”
Diego’s eyes narrowed. “M-15 don’t testify. You can’t get
’em to talk, man. Especially not with all the rules you gringos got to follow.”
“Maybe I’m getting tired of following all the rules,” Buddy said softly.
For a long moment Diego studied him intently, and then the young man sighed again and nodded. “You gonna be stubborn about this, ain’tcha?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Gimme a minute. I’ll make some calls, see what I can find out.”
Diego took a cell phone out of the pocket of his expensive jacket and sauntered toward the rear of the store. Buddy glanced over at the elderly proprietor, who was the only other person in the place. The old man didn’t look at him, just stared straight ahead as if Buddy and Diego weren’t there. Buddy put the magazine back in the rack and started to pick up another one, then stopped when he saw the Great Dane and the girl on the cover. Maybe he would just wait without looking at any more magazines.
Diego rejoined him in a few minutes. “There’s a guy named Ortiz,” he said. “A real bad-ass hombre. He’s been braggin’ about how he and some other guys killed a couple of old gringos.”
Buddy stiffened. “Then he’s the guy I want to talk to.”
“He’s supposed to be payin’ a visit to a girl I know in a little while. If you want . . .” Diego grimaced and shook his head. “Man, I don’t know why I’m doin’ this. You gonna wind up gettin’ me killed. But if you want, you could be there when Ortiz comes in.”
Buddy nodded. “That’s exactly what I want. Thanks, Diego. Muchas gracias.”
“Save it,” Diego snapped. “Tell me again in an hour . . . if we both ain’t dead by then.”
If the girl in the sleazy hotel room was a day over fifteen, Buddy would be surprised. She wore a thin slip that clung to the lines of her slender body, and her dark nipples showed through it. She sat at a dressing table running a brush through her long dark hair while Diego talked to her in Spanish, and when he finished she said, “Hokay.”
Diego turned to Buddy and said, “When Ortiz comes in, you’ll be in the closet. Wait until they start fuckin’, then you can take him. Be quick about it, though. After you knock him out, bring him into the hall. I’ll be waiting, and we can take him down the back stairs and into the alley where you left your car.”
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