The fire chief started to object and Able said, “Tell Lyon here is chief of police of New Austin. So you can’t expect him to arrest himself. I’m county sheriff, and I say this citizen of mine was justified in his desire to kick your man’s ass. You should fire this cocksucker, and you may do just that soon to cover your own ass. My man Tell is right about what we all have to do with these Mexicans overrunning us. I’ve got me some Spanish language tapes in my cruiser. Listen to ’em all day, to teach myself Mex’. You best get to doing it too, for nights like this one. Because I’m here to tell you, when word gets out to the media that a baby and a family burned to death because your boys don’t speak Spanish, you’re gonna be toast yourself.”
Hawk was just getting started. “And if your boy here and his dumbass statement about them ‘deserving’ their fate for not speakin’ English goes public? Best grab your ankles now for the lawsuits coming your way, cocksucker.”
Able squeezed Tell’s arm. “Now, you use this man here while there’s maybe still time—time to find out if anyone else is burning to death in those townhouses while you sit around jawing in the wrong language.”
Tell said to the fire chief, “Just please promise you’ll call me, day or night, next time you come into this neighborhood with a fire or emergency. That’s all I ask. I’ll translate. And I’m very sorry for attacking your man.”
The fire chief said, “Anyone still left in any of those units is dead. I can’t use you anymore tonight, Chief.” He looked around and then nodded at the sobbing woman. “Well, there is one thing you’ll do for me. You give the bad news to that poor Mexican bitch there. Tell her in her own language, so she’ll understand. Then you can go home and crawl back into your bottle, asshole.”
Able Hawk wrapped an arm around Tell’s shoulders. “I’ll help you with delivering that bad news, Tell. Well, you do the talking, Tell, and I’ll see to the aftermath. Then you best get along home, Chief. Tomorrow we start fresh. Maybe get us some ideas together for bringing these kinds of backward bastards behind us up to snuff for dealing with our crazy West Side.”
Tell and Able squatted down next to the Mexican woman who was crying and holding her young daughter.
The woman looked up at Tell. His eyes had already told her all that he was just beginning to explain to her in Spanish.
THEN
In Ohio, Thalia’s father developed a cough that worsened.
Sofia and Francisco had yet to become citizens, so Thalia’s father resisted seeing a doctor.
Lack of insurance kept Francisco from seeking treatment as his cough became deep and wet; as the coughing made him see black spots and he couldn’t lie down without feeling as though he was suffocating.
Sofia was less than a week from taking her citizenship exam. She was much more fluent in English than her husband and making the better wage, so they had decided it made sense for her to be the one to become a citizen first. But as capable of communication in English as she was, Sofia was still nowhere near as bilingual as Thalia or her other two children.
Sofia saw it as a grim race now. She needed to become a legal U.S. citizen to secure insurance at work so that Francisco could be treated.
Two days before her scheduled test, Francisco collapsed on a public street. He was dead before Sofia could be notified.
An emergency room nurse tried to comfort her. The nurse listened in horror as Sofia talked of trying to become naturalized in time to save her husband.
“Oh, honey,” the nurse said, “illegal or not, we would have had to treat him anyway.”
“Don’t say that,” Sofia said, stricken, “please don’t say that!”
Thalia looked on, confused and crying.
Francisco had died of pneumonia.
The man who had survived the so-called “Devil’s Highway”—who had staved off fatal dehydration by drinking his own urine—had drowned in his own tissue fluid. Sofia thought that must be what the whites called “irony.”
They buried Francisco in a potter’s grave, sealed up in a box constructed of materials just a grade or two above the sheetrock that Francisco spent the last year of his life hanging for half minimum wage.
SEVEN
Tell awakened early, reaching again for his wife. He hated waking up alone.
He started coffee, showered, then dressed. He’d showered twice, but could still smell the stench of the fire in his hair and on his skin. Or at least he thought he could smell it.
He made eggs and bacon and toast and watched cable news while he ate his lonely breakfast. He came across yet another feature on Mexican border security. Some heartland politician was calling for a fence along the entire expanse of the border—a multi-billion-dollar proposition. “Better to spend the money there than trying to prop up a sinking Louisiana,” the senator said. Smiling, he’d said, “Tell me I’m wrong.”
Tell switched over to a music video. Shakira, enticingly shaking it.
Sipping his coffee, Tell continued to channel surf, settling on Country Music Television. Billy Joe Shaver was singing “Live Forever.” The sentiment was lost on Tell, but he liked the Mexican visuals well enough.
The eggs, surprisingly, weren’t bad. Tell had asked his cousin’s wife, Salome—a black haired, black-eyed gypsy beauty whose coloring reminded Tell more than a little of Marita—to teach him how to make some basic meals for himself.
Tell had never learned to cook: He’d gone straight from his parents’ home to school and then on into police work that started early each day and ended late. After he left home, it had been a steady diet of school cafeteria and then take-home meals and fast food until he married Marita. Salome spent two days teaching Tell to fend for himself in the kitchen and gave him a notebook filled with handwritten recipes. Tell had found himself spending most of his daylight hours with Salome and with his cousin’s pretty daughters. Tell and Chris tended to catch up in the late evenings.
While sitting together a night or two before on the back porch of his cousin’s cabin, Chris Lyon, five years older than Tell, had urged his cousin, “Get back out there as soon as you can, Tell. It’s not a betrayal, though I know you’re going to think of it like that. But the sad fact is, us Lyons, we don’t do that well without a woman in our life. We just aren’t built for solitude, my brother.” Chris hadn’t been the first male Lyon whom Tell had heard make that assertion.
Tell had paraphrased the lyrics of a song back to Chris, “Mom always said don’t fall in love too quickly … you know—before you know your own mind.”
But Chris shook his head. He’d said, “Huh-uh. Our kind? We’ve likely got more days behind than ahead of us. We maybe don’t have the luxury of time.”
Tell sipped some more coffee and stared up at the mantle. Pictures of black-eyed, black-haired Marita and their baby girl, Claudia, stared back at him, smiling forever in the only pictures he had left. The rest had perished in the fire that killed them.
* * *
The city fathers hadn’t stipulated that Tell live in New Austin. But Tell thought it bad form to live outside the community he was sworn to protect and serve. He hadn’t yet found a house to his liking, and he hadn’t really settled on exactly how much house he wanted or needed. And his cousin’s cautions kept eating at solitary Tell.
So as a stopgap, Tell had settled on a temporary apartment near the West Side.
Tell locked up, toting his sack lunch—something he’d made to Salome Lyon’s specifications—and a metallic flask of coffee. The thermos, brushed chrome with black highlights, had been his last Father’s Day gift.
He walked out to his civilian wheels, a 2000-model Suburban, and pressed the fob to disarm the alarm.
“Hey you!”
He turned as Patricia Maldonado trotted up next to his truck. She brushed damp strands of hair from her forehead. She was panting; her chest heaving. She wore sneakers, black shorts and a damp, maroon sports bra. Her long black hair was pulled back in a thick ponytail. She glistened with sweat. Tell made a consciou
s effort to keep his focus on her face.
“You’re up early, Chief,” she said.
“It’s when I like to go to work,” Tell said. “Get more done in an hour or two when I’m alone than I do the rest of the day once the others come in with their distractions and the phones start going. And you should talk about being out early.”
“It’s when I run,” Patricia said. “You know, before the heat sets in. What are you doing here, Chief?”
“Tell.”
“Sorry, right. Tell. What are you doing here, Tell?”
“I live here. In 308.”
She smiled, hands on hips and chest still heaving. “How strange! Me too—304. You’re just down the hall. At least I feel safe now.” She drew an arm across her forehead. “Maybe it’s an omen.”
“Actually, it’s probably not the safest thing for you to be jogging on this side of town, Patricia.”
It was particularly not safe for a striking and voluptuous young woman like Patricia. Tell had been reviewing weekly crime logs going back four months. Tuesdays through Sundays in their neighborhood seemed especially treacherous. “No kidding,” he said, “you really ought not to be running alone.”
“I can believe that,” Patricia said. “Do you run, Tell?”
“I used to, back in the day. But it’s been a good long while.”
“So start again. Run with me tomorrow?”
He could spare an hour or so for a morning run.
But hell, what was Patricia? Maybe twenty-four or twenty-five?
Marita had been twenty-seven to Tell’s thirty-seven when she died. Somehow that didn’t seem quite the age gulf it should have been.
But this was just a jog.
Yet it smacked of a mistake … and certainly an excellent way of getting on the wrong side of the local press.
He said, “Patricia …”
“It’s not safe for me to run alone, Chief. You said so yourself.”
“And that’s true. But I don’t think your boyfriend—who is scheduled to interview me in a few hours—would take it real well.”
“Not my boyfriend. I’m well past boyfriends.”
“Begging your pardon,” Tell said, “but last night Shawn said—”
“We’re not seeing each other anymore.”
“He know that, Patricia?”
“Shawn will know soon.”
“Okay. Maybe when he knows how it is, you’ll ask me again?”
“It’s just a jog, Tell. Not a date.”
“Absolutely. But all the same.”
“Tell, I’m just asking for you to go out running with me. To get all sweaty and out of breath protecting me. That’s all.”
“You’re relentless, Patricia.” He smiled. “Okay, sure. Tomorrow morning, this time, let’s go for a run. But only if you lay back. Like I said, it’s been a good while and I’m apt to lose my legs, fast.” He smiled. “You know CPR in case this goes really south for an old man like me?”
“Sure, old man. And great—great you’ll do it.” Patricia smiled and brushed more hair back from her face. “You’re on my way so I’ll knock on your door.”
“Perfect,” Tell said, half looking forward to Saturday morning, and already half regretting it.
* * *
Able Hawk sat at the breakfast table with his grandson, Amos, who was in his second year of studying criminology in neighboring Vale County. Able was frustrated he couldn’t find more time to help the boy, who he sensed was struggling with his studies.
Amos—Amos Tudor Sharp—had been living with his lawman grandfather since his junior year of high school. Able’s wife, Katy, had died after a swift but brutal bout with cervical cancer several years before. Their daughter, Nancy, driven by her mother’s sharp decline and death, had gone in for her own testing, fearing there might be something genetic at work. Nancy had checked out fine in that area, but the doctors had found a lump in her right breast. Turned out it was indeed cancer, and it had already spread to Able’s daughter’s lungs and lymph nodes. Nancy was dead in less than three months. Little better than a bald skeleton when they buried her, Able’s daughter was wasted by the disease and weeks of aggressive chemo and radiation therapy that doctors later admitted probably hastened her decline and did flat nothing to stop the course of the cancer raging through her body.
Nancy had been deserted by Amos’s father when their boy was only two months old. So Able had, in every sense, been Amos’s father for the boy’s entire life.
Chip Sharp was so long missing and presumed dead by most around Horton County that no one bothered looking when Amos was orphaned. It was a presumed thing that Able would take the boy in after the cancer killed his mother.
Amos looked like his father’s side: tall and slender with natural muscle tone, not big-boned and husky like the Hawks tended to run. But Amos Sharp shared his grandfather’s law enforcement career ambitions. And Amos had a slightly darker, mistier shade of his grandfather Able’s strange gray eyes.
“You still seein’ improvement this quarter?” Able asked around a mouthful of cornflakes.
“Think I’m gonna be okay,” Amos said.
“Good. That’s good, Amos. I’m proud of you. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know you are, Grandpa.”
“Met the new chief of police of New Austin last night,” Able said. “I’m having lunch with him later today. Seems a solid sort. Former Border Patrol agent who paid a terrible price for doing the job. Fella name of Tell Lyon. New Austin’s police department has always run internships for up-and-comers like you. I’ll see if maybe he’ll consider taking you on come winter, if you keep your grades up.”
“Sounds great,” Amos said.
“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” the old man said. “Want to head out to the cabin for the weekend, Aim?”
Able owned a small piece of property on a private pond on the far side of Vale County, a stocked pond with a small cabin built on the pond’s wooded northern rim. It was about forty-five minutes’ drive from Horton County.
Amos said, “Maybe for the morning into afternoon? Kind of have plans for tomorrow night, Gramps.”
Able shook his head, talking with his mouth full. “The mystery girl again, huh? Gonna have to let me meet her soon, Amos. Or am I gonna have to go sleuth on your ass?”
Amos smiled and said, “Soon, Grandpa, if it looks like it’ll last. Your time’s too valuable to waste.” Amos tried to sound casual about it—not tip the old man that there might be something there that Amos thought would be an issue for Sheriff Able Hawk.
The old lawman said, “Okay. Let’s plan on bein’ up extra early then. We’ll hit the road at four thirty so we can be there just after five, when they start biting. You can do that, lazybones?”
“Hell yeah, I can do that, Grandpa,” Amos said.
* * *
Shawn O’Hara awakened to snoring from someone other than the woman who was jammed up bare-assed against him.
He awakened realizing he was in a strange bed—too short and narrow to be his own. He realized he was naked next to the woman he’d met the night before. In the dim light, Shawn could see that her hair was dark, like he always liked them, and her skin darker than his own.
Shawn had been more attracted to her friend, Carmelita Martinez … yeah, that was her friend’s name. As to the name of the woman Shawn had fucked in a drunken stupor—the one sprawled naked next to him now—he couldn’t recall her name just yet.
And for his part, Shawn had been cagey; he’d never gotten beyond “Shawn.”
And thank God he’d had the good sense not to take her back to his own place.
Shawn slid quietly from the bed and lifted the sheet to take another look at her bare brown body. Jesus—she was a bit heavier than he would ever go for sober. Big breasts … thick ankles. She was already showing signs of being one of those Mexican women who’d run a bit more to fat with each passing year. Stretch marks! Christ, she probably had a kid somewhere. Maybe she was sleeping
around in search of a father for her child. He eyed the red and blue butterfly tattooed on the small of her back. Shawn remembered staring at it while he was doing her doggie style.
The snoring was louder down the hall. Carmelita, maybe? Drunk as they all were, why the hell hadn’t he pressed for a three-way?
The reporter didn’t want to risk waking anyone, so he slipped on his underwear and jeans, then picked up his socks, shoes and shirt and slid out the front door, leaving it unlocked behind him.
He threw his clothes over his shoulder and quietly let himself into his car. He was parked on a sloped driveway in front of a string of West Side townhouses. Shawn knew the neighborhood from dozens of crime reports. He was damned lucky his car hadn’t been broken into overnight.
Shawn held the door with his left hand, steadying it so he wouldn’t have to slam it and maybe awaken anyone in the apartment he’d just snuck out of. He turned the ignition to Auxiliary but didn’t start the car—just engaged the electrical system enough so he could put it in gear and let it coast backward down the driveway onto the sloping street with the engine off.
Shawn backed onto the street, shifted into Drive and let it roll a few dozen yards from the apartment he’d snuck out of. Then he started his car and drove away fast with the lights off so nobody could get a look at his license plates.
The journalist checked the dashboard clock—time enough to go home, shower and grab a breakfast at McDonald’s. Then he’d maybe see about smoothing things over with prettier and skinnier Patricia Maldonado so he wouldn’t be forced back into the clubs next Friday night.
* * *
Thalia stood naked in her girlfriend’s bathroom, surveying the ruin of her face. She frowned at the marks on her neck and breasts from his “kisses.” Felt the soreness between her legs and in her ass.
Sweet Jesus, what had she done?
Down the hall, Carm was snoring up a storm. Carmelita had allowed Thalia to borrow her vacationing roommate’s room.
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