Brass stopped in the notch between two boulders he had just climbed down and scanned the back of the house again. All was still. He couldn't hear anything from the house. In the distance, a raven cawed, and muffled conversation from around front sounded as if Aguirre had reached the pair of police officers standing guard. The only smell was the dry tang of desert.
Waiting any longer wouldn't do him any good. He drew his duty weapon and stepped out into the yard. Walking briskly, he made for the back door. No one raised an alarm, and in seconds, he had the doorknob gripped in his left hand. It turned easily. The window was smudged, greasy on the inside, preventing him from seeing through.
Brass took a deep breath and let it out again, willing the hammering of his heart to slow. He had more years on the job than he liked to think about, but no matter how many times he had done it, going through a door blind, into a place he didn't know, where anybody might be waiting, was a nerve-wracking thing. To make it worse, he had to trust that Aguirre was really working on distracting the men out front and not warning them. Ray's friend had speculated that most tribal police would be on Domingo's side. Whether that extended to Aguirre he couldn't know.
He twisted the knob and yanked the door open, inserting his gun into the space first, ready to fire if lie needed to.
He was looking into a kitchen, its counters yellow tile, cabinets old, scarred wood. The floor was linoleum, some of the squares peeling up at the corners. A refrigerator and stove, both olive green, had scrapes and rust spots on their doors, and on the side of the refrigerator. Brass could see black mold inching its way up from the floor. More of the same dotted the floor and ceiling. A butcher block stood in the middle of the floor, a few pots and pans hanging from hooks on its sides.
Announce himself? Or not? He didn't have a warrant. But there were people dead and wounded from the assault on Meoqui Torres's home and a potential connection to the murder of Robert Domingo in Las Vegas, and he had probable cause on his side. He had called in for backup and to have search and arrest warrants written up, but, as he had told Aguirre, he didn't want to wait for those to arrive.
He decided not to announce. Surprise would be the best ally he had. He shut the door silently and crossed the kitchen, testing each step to make sure a squeaking floor didn't give him away now that he had come so far. His breathing was shallow, but his heart had started to calm. He was in it now, in the groove. Things would unfold as they unfolded, and the best he could do was to meet events head-on.
From the kitchen, a stub of a hallway led to a carpeted living room. Brass heard someone swallowing liquid, then the clink of a bottle being set down on a hard surface, and finally a soft belch. Two males laughed. "Your mom should have left a TV or something, dude," someone said. "I'll go crazy, we stay here for much longer."
"That won't be a problem, then," Brass said as he swung around the corner.
Two young Native American men faced him, a slender one sitting on an old yellow sofa, so mildewed that it had been left behind, and the other, stocky and as solid as one of the boulders outside, with tattoos all up his arms and wrapped around his neck, cross-legged on the floor. They wore almost identical looks of surprise. An assortment of guns filled most of a low table, including a big.50-caliber automatic rifle and some handguns, with a couple of sweating beer bottles standing amid them. There were more bottles and food wrappers and other trash scattered around the room. Holes at shoulder height looked as if they had been made by someone punching the walls or throwing things into them.
The slender guy snaked an arm toward the table. Brass covered the distance quickly and kicked out, feeling a satisfying crunch under his dusty shoe as the heel smashed into the man's hand. The gun he had been reaching for dropped back onto the table with a heavy thump. "I wouldn't try that," Brass said, growling out the words.
"You freakin' hurt me!" the man complained. He held his arm by the wrist, shaking the hand loosely.
"Like you wouldn't have shot me?" Brass kept the gun aimed between the two men, ready to shift it to either side in a heartbeat, and he drew back his blazer to show the badge hanging from his belt. "LVPD," he said. "Just so you don't think I'm trying to jack you or something. Which one of you is Ruben Solis?"
The two men glanced at each other, and then the slender one shrugged and answered, "You must have the wrong house, man."
"There a lot of houses around here with squatters in them?"
"You might be surprised," the slender one said.
"Who says any of us is whatshisname?" the big guy added. "Guy you're looking for."
Brass let his gaze drill into the smaller man. Shep Moran was the one who had done time, and some of the big guy's tats looked like jailhouse ink. "One of you is Ruben, and I'm thinking it's you." He twitched the gun barrel toward the heavier guy. "Which makes you Shep Moran. This is your mom's house, or it was." The big guy turned his gaze toward the floor. "This place has been trashed enough," Brass said. "Let's just go outside and talk."
"Don't make any difference," Moran said. "It ain't her problem anymore."
Brass didn't bother to explain that further damaging the house would only make it harder for this neighborhood ever to get back on its feet. As long as it was mostly empty, the houses occupied by squatters but not by permanent residents, it would be a haven for crime. That would probably suit Shep Moran just fine, but chances were good that his mother wouldn't have felt the same way.
"Outside works for me," Ruben Solis said. His hair was long and straight, his T-shirt baggy and black. The muscles on his arms were toned and firm. Moran strained the seams on his T-shirt, and his pants would have been dangerously droopy on anyone smaller. As it was, Brass thought you could drop a tractor tire through each leg without straining the fabric.
"Let's go, then. On your feet, slow and easy."
The two guys rose, Shep Moran, on the floor, having a harder time of it, using the sofa's arm to brace himself.
They wanted to go outside, Brass knew, because there were more men with guns out there. He hoped Aguirre had them under control.
As he was straightening to his full height, Moran let his right leg snap back into the low table. Guns and bottles went flying. As soon as it happened, Solis took off for the front door at a run. Moran grabbed for one of the guns, and Brass jammed the barrel of his gun against the big man's sweat-soaked neck. "Don't even try," he said. "Try not to be stupid."
Brass pulled out a pair of handcuffs. Now that the two guys were separated, he would have to cuff this one and then go run down Solis. "Hands behind your back."
"Dude, get the gun outta my neck already, okay?"
"I want your hands behind your back, and if you don't do it now, I'll do it for you."
"Okay, okay, whatever. Relax, man." He put his hands behind his back. Brass clicked the cuffs into place over wrists so thick the handcuffs barely closed around them. Now the question was, take him outside and hand him over to Aguirre? Or assume that Aguirre had his hands full with the guards and chain him to something inside while he went after Solis?
Before he had to make up his mind, the front door opened. Brass shielded himself behind Moran and aimed his gun over the man's shoulder. Solis came back inside, his face screwed up with pain and not under his own power. Aguirre shoved him along, twisting Solis's arm behind him.
"You lost one," Aguirre said.
"I was just about to go get him."
"Thought I'd save you a trip."
"I appreciate that."
"This here is Rubin Solis," Aguirre said.
"That's what I figured. Shep Moran and I are already old friends. What happened to the guards out front?"
"I gave them twenty bucks and sent them for beer."
Brass laughed. "Is that how it works around here?"
"You have to know your audience. I happened to know these guys."
Shep Moran spat. "Dudes signed their own death warrants."
"Speaking of warrants," Brass said, "Richie, you want to do th
e honors?"
"Sure," Aguirre said. "Ruben Solis, Shep Moran, you're under arrest."
"For what?" Solis demanded.
"For being stupid," Aguirre said. "Also, for shooting a bunch of folks at Meoqui's place. So let's see, we've got murder, attempted murder, and assault with a deadly weapon, for starters. Okay with you, Ruben?"
Solis shrugged, as well as he could with Aguirre hanging on to his arm.
"Let's go someplace and talk," Aguirre said. "I think we have a lot to talk about, don't you?"
"We got nothing to say to you."
"Oh, I have a feeling you'll feel differently in a little while. In fact, I'm pretty sure of it."
Aguirre backed out the front door, dragging Solis along with him. Brass prodded Moran, hands cuffed behind his back, head hanging down, along with them.
The two tribal cops hadn't been sent for drinks after all. They were still there in the driveway. But instead of chilling in the shade, they were standing on either side of the pickup's cab, arms stretched inside through open windows, cuffed to each other. The cab's rear window was open, too, probably how Aguirre had cuffed them together. Their weapons were piled in the driveway in front of the truck, well out of reach. The men glared at Aguirre with hatred etched on their faces.
"I thought you sent them to get some beer," Brass said.
Aguirre gave him a big grin. "Yeah, I lied about that. It's a bad habit of mine. But I just didn't think I could trust them with twenty bucks."
27
The two bodies were sprawled on the floor outside an open doorway. Nick stood on the far side of the swinging door for a moment. He didn't know if those men on the floor were alive or dead. He didn't know for sure if Torres was on the other side of that opening. He didn't know how many attackers were inside or if they had finished their work and gone.
But he didn't have much time to find out. Blood was just beginning to flow down the hall, spreading out from the fallen. Nick eased through the swinging door. The smell of gunpowder hung heavy in the air. He hurried down the hall, trying to balance haste with the need to be quiet.
It was unlikely that they'd hear him anyway. Once he was through the door, he heard voices from inside the open room. "… whatever you want with me, but leave him alone! If this rez had ten times more like him instead of people like us, it'd be a better place."
"I don't want to hurt any doctors," another voice answered.
"No witnesses," another one insisted. "That's the rule."
Nick knew that when he showed himself in the doorway, he would be exposed to whoever was inside. There would be no cover. But if he didn't move fast, anything could happen in that room. From the sound of things, there were two people alive, but threatened. Quick and definitive action was needed. If only he had a SWAT team or even a gas grenade.
He decided he had to use surprise to take them off guard. Nick covered the last few feet to the doorway in a few steps and swung around inside. "Police!" he shouted in a commanding tone. "Everybody on the floor, now!"
He saw two men standing around Meoqui Torres, who was on his back in a hospital bed, his feet facing the door, and a fourth man, apparently the doctor in question, pressed into a corner on Torres's left, trying hard to make himself one with the wall. One of the men Nick recognized from Torres's house, while the other one, a few years older, wearing expensive Western-style clothes and pointed boots, he didn't know. The smell of alcohol-soaked sweat rolled off him, and both men reeked of tobacco smoke, those odors blotting out the disinfectant and the gunpowder and blood from the hallway. The doctor was Native American, too, his gray hair neatly combed, blue scrubs wrinkled from the day's work, trembling so hard the stethoscope around his neck danced against his chest.
What Nick hadn't seen was the fifth man in the room, back in the corner behind the door. He didn't know that man was there until Torres raised a hand and pointed, and then the familiar chunk of a weapon's hammer being drawn back sounded behind him. "Drop that piece, lawman," the man said.
Rookie mistake, Nick thought, angry at himself. Stupid – so intent on getting the drop on these guys I didn't watch my corners. Nick took his eyes off the other guys long enough to glance over his shoulder. A Native American man stood there with his right arm extended, the huge muzzle of a.357 Magnum pointed at Nick's head. He, too, was older than Torres.
"I don't think so," Nick said. He froze where he was, keeping his weapon trained on the older of the two men beside Torres.
Nick wasn't a police officer, but he was qualified to use his sidearm, and one of the first rules a cop learned was that you never surrender your weapon. If someone gets the drop on you, you try to talk your way out of it, or you take a bullet. But if you surrender your weapon, the instructors taught, you are going to die, and you'll probably be killed with your own gun. He'd already made one bad mistake; he didn't plan to compound it with another.
"I'm not fooling around here," the man said.
"A doctor and a cop?" Torres said from the bed. His voice was shaky, his face wan. Nick guessed that he hadn't been awake for long before these guys came into the room. There was a tray on a swiveling stand close beside him with a pitcher of water and a plastic cup on it. A few ice cubes floated in the pitcher. "Is that really how you want to spend your day, killing decent men who try to help people?"
"Guys, let's all chill out," Nick said calmly, picking up on Torres's effort. He hadn't moved his gun yet but held absolutely still, not giving the man behind him any reason to worry. "There's no need for anyone else to get hurt here. We've got a standoff here. We could all start shooting, but what'll be left when the smoke clears might not be what we're looking for."
One of the men standing by Torres shifted his guns toward Nick. The other – the one who had been part of Torres's entourage – kept his trained on the man in the bed. It would be easy enough for him to lift the barrel an inch or so, to shoot over Torres and hit the doctor in the corner. "What the hell are you?" one of the older men asked. "You're not a regular cop."
"LVPD Crime Lab," Nick said. "I think I know what you guys are doing here, but I can tell you definitively that Meoqui Torres didn't kill Chairman Domingo." He hoped he had read the situation right, that the two older men were some of Domingo's enforcers, and the younger guy, the one who had been part of Torres's entourage, was secretly in Domingo's pocket.
"You know who did, why ain't you off arresting him?" Torres's supposed friend challenged.
"Let the man speak," the doctor urged.
"How do you know this?" the older man asked. Traces of white flecked his neatly combed black hair. He had a mole under his left eye that made him look as if he was half-squinting. He and Nick had their weapons aimed at each other, but Nick hadn't forgotten the other gun, the one behind him. If shooting started, he would take two rounds. At these ranges, the men weren't likely to miss.
"Because Domingo was killed by a white man with blond hair," Nick said. "We don't know who yet, but we know it wasn't Torres."
"Damn straight," Torres said, flipping his jet-black hair back with his hand.
"You sure about that?" Torres's hanger-on asked. Almost as if reminding the two older men, he added, "Torres took off by himself last night, said he was going for a drive. But he was gone about the same time as Domingo got whacked."
"Oh, I think Torres was there," Nick admitted. "But he didn't kill anyone."
"Then what…?"
"Let's all put down those weapons, and we can talk about it," Nick said.
"I don't know," the second of the older men said. A network of wrinkles bracketed his eyes, and he had a chin as big as a man's fist and a thick slump of a neck. He was the one with liquor oozing out his pores. His voice had a strange kind of calm to it that Nick had heard before in other people – mostly men, mostly hardened murderers. Instead of being upset about his circumstances, the man was as cool and emotionless as if he had been ordering a burger at a take-out window. Nick suspected that this one had done all of the killing, an
d the other guys were only along for moral – in this case, immoral – support. "We're already in kind of a jam here."
Nick had been hoping they would somehow forget that they had just killed a tribal police officer, a clinic worker, and Torres's two bodyguards. He hadn't expected them to, but expecting and hoping were different things. "Let's not make things worse, then," he said. "Put those weapons on the floor, and slide them to me, and we can take care of this with no one else getting hurt."
The older man's hand was starting to shake a little. Nerves or the booze starling to wear off, Nick wasn't sure which. But the man's gun was twitching, and he tightened his grip on it, and Nick knew that one more involuntary squeeze could jerk the trigger. "Look," he began. "You need to put that -"
The man let his mouth drop open and took a half-step toward Nick. Nick increased the pressure on his own trigger, ready to shoot but knowing that if he did, then lead would fly, and no one would come out unscathed.
But Torres moved first, swatting out with his left arm. The water pitcher flew off its tray into the older man's side. Startled and soaked, the man spun toward Torres.
Nick moved, charging forward. The gun went off behind him, but he was ducking and jumping, and the slug soared past him into the wall, not far from the doctor in the corner. Nick crashed into the older man, driving him back into the wall. The man's gun went off once, pointed toward the floor, and then Nick caught his right wrist and smashed it against the wall while driving his other arm into the man's throat.
At the same time, the younger guy, the one who had been close to Torres, lifted his gun. "I'm sorry, Meoqui," he said. He turned the gun toward the man in the back corner, who was probably trying to line up a shot at Nick that wouldn't also threaten his friend. "Meoqui's been good to me. I love Domingo, but Meoqui's not the man you think he is. Drop your gun, Luis, so I don't have to cap your ass."
Nick banged his man's hand into the wall a third time, and this time, his fingers went limp, and the gun hit the linoleum floor with a loud clank. The man's face was turning purple, so Nick eased off his throat. Still holding the wrist, he sidestepped and twisted the man's arm up behind his back, forcing him to bend forward at the waist, onto Torres's bed. He whipped handcuffs from his belt, wishing he had several more pairs, and snapped them over the man's wrists.
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