by Jon Land
“I watched you skating the other day,” he told Dylan.
The boy brushed the black hair from his face. “Huh?”
“I was parked across from your house,” Cort Wesley said. “Down the street a ways.”
“Orange Ford.”
“Yeah. Surprised you remember.”
“Ugly-ass color like that’s tough to forget.”
“I borrowed it.”
Dylan looked at him more curiously. “So, what, you skate or something?”
Cort Wesley smiled slightly. “Never, nohow. I prefer other things to skating.”
“Like what?”
“Guns.”
“What kind?”
“Any kind. I knew your mom,” Cort Wesley added, pushing back the heaviness that had formed in his throat. “We kind of dated a long time ago.”
“You trying to tell me you’re my dad?”
Cort Wesley could only look at him.
“My mom told me he was the toughest man she’d ever seen, both inside and out.”
“Guess she had things right,” Cort Wesley heard himself say.
Dylan held his gaze downward, rolling his wheels over the ridges in the pavement. He stepped off his skateboard and kicked it up into his grasp. “Those men dressed as cops who killed my mother, was it ’cause of you?”
“Yup.”
“Would they have killed Luke and me?”
“I don’t think so. Think they wanted to use you against me, something like that.”
The boy stared into a pair of deep-set dark eyes that were identical in all ways to his own. “What’d you do to them?”
“You know that woman who shot the fake cops?”
Dylan nodded.
“I shot a man was about to do the same to her.”
“Shit,” the boy said.
“Yeah.”
“You wanna play?” Cort Wesley’s younger son asked her.
Caitlin watched Luke blowing away monsters with skulls for heads, leaving bloody, dismembered corpses behind. Blasting one and moving on to the next, simple as that. Closer to real life in some cases than he realized.
“I’m not much good at these kinds of things.”
Luke’s character missed a shot on screen and got hit as a result. The screen lit up with ONE LIFE LEFT, making Caitlin think, If only.
“Your mom ever tell you anything ’bout your dad?” she asked the boy.
“That he was trouble.”
“True enough, I suppose.”
Luke finally turned from the game toward her. “You know my dad?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Who is he?”
“Well, he’s outside with your brother right now.”
Luke held her gaze and lost his last life in the video game, the screen flashing GAME OVER in bloodred letters set inside a grinning skull.
“What’s the game called?” Caitlin asked him.
“Night Raiders. It’s not mine. It was already in the console when I got here. Found some others, if you wanna check around, see if there’s one you might be good at.”
Caitlin shook her head. “I don’t think there’s any such thing.”
“But you’re good with a real gun. I saw you. At least I think I did. I’m not sure if I really remember.”
“You were in shock.”
“I was trying to get to my mother.”
“Brave move.”
“The man you say is my dad looks brave. Tough too. Is he tough?”
“Very.”
Luke moved his gaze down to her badge. “What’s it like to be a Ranger?”
“Well, it’s a real proud thing. Lots of years and tradition behind it that make you feel like you’re worth something.”
“They got a game here called Texas Ranger. You want me to look for it?”
“Sure.”
Luke stated sorting through the pile of video games strewn over the hardwood floor. “Gotta promise me something, though.”
“What?”
“You can’t let me win.”
“I don’t think that’ll be much of a problem.”
66
ALAMO HEIGHTS, THE PRESENT
“I always wanted to learn how to shoot,” Dylan was saying, skateboard clutched tightly against his side. “Mom wouldn’t let me.”
“Be glad to teach you. Here, lemme see your hand.”
Dylan held his free one up for Cort Wesley to study.
“Gotta find you the right weapon that feels good in your grasp.”
“What do you use?”
“Anything I can get my hands on. A Smith & Wesson 9 millimeter right now, but that’s not in the same league as a Glock. Best damn gun on the market.”
“The Ranger lady carries a SIG.”
“You recognized it?”
“From my gun magazines and, ’sides, everybody knows SIGS are standard issue for Rangers and plenty more cop types too.” Dylan pursed his lips and blew the hair from his forehead. “You gonna get the men who killed my mom?”
“Every last one of them.”
“Promise?”
“Yup. I take my responsibilities seriously too. I didn’t always, but I do now. You and your brother, you’re my responsibilities. Whole different kind of ilk entirely.”
“What’s ilk?”
“Measure of a man,” Cort Wesley said, repeating old Leroy Epps’s words from inside The Walls. “Where he comes from, where he’s going.”
“What’s my ilk?”
Cort Wesley let Dylan see his eyes before he answered. “You’re looking at it.”
“I don’t wanna hear anymore, not now.”
“Whatever you say, podner.”
“I’m not saying I don’t ever, just not now.”
“I understand.”
“But you’ll be around.”
“Ain’t going anywhere.”
Luke popped the Texas Ranger game into the console and sat back as the screen brightened back to life.
“Here,” he said, handing Caitlin a controller.
“What do I do?”
“Kill as many bad guys as you can. You aim with the toggle wheel and fire with either of the red buttons. My score’s on the left, yours is on the right.”
The Texas Ranger character appeared on her side of the screen. Big man with a big chest, narrow waist and pair of guns strapped to his hips. Looked a lot more like Cort Wesley Masters than her. A virtual spitting image, in fact.
“Level one,” Luke said, working the controller. “My mom never said much about my dad. I’d ask her sometimes but it was pretty clear she didn’t wanna talk about him. I thought he was probably dead or something.”
“He paid for your house, been making sure you lived good.”
“Well,” Luke corrected, “lived well. Hey, you gotta start shooting or you’ll get yourself killed.”
Caitlin did, trying to get the hang of things while Luke effortlessly blasted away at outlaws and desperadoes. No Indians or Mexicans, she noticed, to be politically, though not historically, correct.
“That gun you’re shooting, it’s called a Colt Peacemaker. Became standard Ranger issue around 1875.” Caitlin was finding a rhythm to the game, syncing with her words. “First handgun the Rangers carried was the original Patterson five-shooter which turned into the first ever six-shooter named after none other than Ranger Captain Samuel Walker who helped Colt develop it for shooting on horseback.”
Luke kept blasting away, expending hundreds of shots instead of just six, reloading with bonus points.
“Key was replacing the old paper cartridges ignited by a percussion cap to rim-fire metallic cartridges in the 1860s,” Caitlin continued, “and then the more powerful center-fire variety that accompanied the debut of the Peacemaker you seem to have quite a touch with there.”
Luke glanced from the game toward her without missing a single shot. “What happens to us now? You think we’ll be able to live with my dad?”
“That’d be my guess.”
/> Luke leaned in against her as he knocked off a fresh slew of bad guys. Caitlin resisted the temptation to draw the boy in closer to continue working her console, feeling her throat go heavy.
“That big guy gonna be back?”
“No, he won’t.”
“You can’t know that, even if you are a Texas Ranger. I’ve been dreaming about him. Wakes me up every time.”
“We’re gonna take care of him.”
“Who?”
“Your dad and I.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
Just as her game figure got caught in a vicious cross fire and was blown away.
“Guess you’re gonna have to do better than that,” Luke told her.
67
HOUSTON, THE PRESENT
Harmon Delladonne was seated behind his desk in the darkness of his office when his private line rang, the caller ID lighting up with the ten zeroes he’d come to recognize.
“It’s about time,” he said.
“Time for what, Belladonna?” greeted the thick, nasally voice of Guillermo Paz.
Delladonne checked the caller ID again. “What are you doing, calling me from this line?”
“Man it belongs to doesn’t have need for it anymore. Where he is, they don’t use phones.”
Delladonne suddenly felt chilled. “He was supposed to give you a message.”
“He did; then I gave him one of my own.”
“Maybe you’re forgetting who you work for here, Colonel.”
“Not at all. That’s the problem. Wind’s picking up. There’s a storm brewing. My mother was a good woman and strong. Only saw her cry once when I told her I’d killed Carnicero, the local crime boss, ’cause she knew it meant I’d have to go away. She had visions, saw things before they happened enough so the neighbors stayed clear because they thought she was a bruja. I came home after killing Carnicero with money for her, she was already crying, like she saw it in advance. Something like that can take its toll.”
“What does this have to do with anything?”
“I think I may have some of that bruja shit in me too. Hits me like electricity. Makes the hair on my arms stand up. I got that feeling now. You never told me if you believed in God, Belladonna.”
“I want you out of the country, Colonel.”
“You didn’t answer my question. About God. I figure if He gives you certain powers, abilities, you’re supposed to use them, not let them go to waste. God made me who I am for a reason. Makes me figure I’m working for Him more than for you.”
“Your Services are no longer required. Go home, Colonel.”
Paz didn’t bother telling him that was now impossible. “Those my new instructions?”
“They are.”
Delladonne heard Paz breathing heavily, thought he could smell his thick, oily scent of something spoiled over the line. Reminded him of the smell wafting up from a corpse laid out on a mortician’s table.
“Job’s not finished yet” was all Paz said.
“You’ll be paid in full. I’ll see to that. And we’ll do something extra for the families of your two dead men.”
“They don’t have families.”
“More for the rest of you to split then.”
“You think it’s only about the money, Belladonna?”
“Yes, Colonel, I do.”
“I’m gonna have to think about this.”
“Listen to me, Colonel—”
But it was too late. The line was already dead.
Delladonne looked up, realized his office blinds had been open the whole time, but the day had darkened to a near nighttime shade. Outside wind lashed against the windows and thick black clouds continued to roll in from seemingly all directions at once.
A storm was coming all right.
68
HOUSTON, THE PRESENT
Caitlin sat in the terminal, waiting for her flight to be called. The first of several that would ultimately bring her to Bahrain. She had maxed out a credit card to handle the expense, then packed lightly in a single carry-on piece of luggage since she didn’t expect to be in Bahrain too long. The extra time she had given herself to check in left her looking at her fellow passengers, as if in search of something she had in common with them.
She wore her badge but not her gun. International law prohibited her bringing one with her and, once in Bahrain, handguns were strictly forbidden. As visiting law enforcement personnel, traveling without formal portfolio, she lacked the efficacy to flaunt the law or seek an exception. The lack of a weapon left her anxious and tight. She felt the same way she did in the kind of dream where you realize you’re naked, so unlike her fellow passengers whose most overt displays of anxiety lay in the frequent checks of their watches.
Caitlin didn’t have to fly to Houston first, but a call placed on a whim to the CEO of MacArthur-Rain determined her itinerary.
“Mr. Delladonne’s office.”
“This is the assistant manager calling to confirm Mr. Delladonne’s luncheon reservation for this afternoon.”
“Seventeen Restaurant at the Alden-Houston Hotel,” the female voice droned. “One P.M. The reservation is for three.”
“We’ll look forward to seeing Mr. Delladonne then.”
Caitlin had made her travel arrangements accordingly and was standing inside the stylish lobby of the Alden-Houston Hotel, appointed in muted tones and black leather seating with white throw pillows, when a pair of bodyguards escorted Harmon Delladonne through the entrance. She recognized his tanned face from the picture on the company’s Web site. He looked younger at first glance, tall and thin enough to wear a narrow cut Eu ro pe an suit—Italian probably, Caitlin figured. She pictured the frame the suit contained as sinewy and lithe, evidence of a man who spent lots of time on the stationary bike or treadmill and watched what he ate.
She didn’t know who Delladonne was meeting at *17, the hotel’s upscale restaurant, and didn’t care. Just waited fifteen minutes to give them time to get settled and ordered before she entered the restaurant, passing the hostess’s station and making fast for Delladonne’s table set slightly apart from the others against the red papered wall.
“Sorry for intruding, Mr. Delladonne,” Caitlin greeted, ignoring the other two men at the table, “but I was wondering if I could have a word with you?”
Delladonne’s eyes locked on the badge pinned to her shirt. “What does this pertain to, Ranger?”
“Be better if we discussed that in private, sir.”
His gaze darted to the lounge area, to summon his two bodyguards no doubt. Delladonne’s lunch guests aimed their eyes downward.
“As you can see, I’m in a meeting. Why don’t you call my office and schedule an appointment? You can tell my secretary what it’s about.”
Caitlin felt her cheeks flush with blood, imagined her face taking on the same color as the bright red wall at her side. “Sir,” she said, over the thumping of her own heart, “I’m afraid that won’t do at all. I told your man Mr. Hollis that, and now I’m telling you.”
And then Delladonne’s bodyguards were at her side. Each several inches taller than she, both of them with pistol bulges beneath their suit jackets.
Delladonne dabbed at the corners of his mouth with a linen napkin and grinned at his guests as if to reassure them. “I’m afraid it’s going to have to do, Ranger. As you can see I’m busy here.”
“You know my husband,” Caitlin blurted out before she could stop herself. Her heart was hammering her chest, feeling as if it were about to cave through the ribs.
“Pardon me?”
“Peter Goodwin. Maybe you don’t know him personally, but he worked for one of your subsidiaries, company called RevCom.”
Delladonne laid his napkin back on the table, looked at her smugly.
“You had your thugs torture him in Bahrain. He told me he was going to Iraq to make cable television available, solve all that country’s problems with a hundred channels per house hold. That�
��s what he told me ’cause that’s what he believed. But he never really went because you never had any intention of sending him there. You sent him to Bahrain instead and had him tortured enough to turn a fine and decent man into a broken mess.”
Delladonne’s expression tightened, his next glance signaling his bodyguards. They reached out for Caitlin’s arms, only one of them getting there. She hammered that man in the face with an elbow, feeling the cartilage of his nose compress on impact. He doubled over, hands going to his face, as Caitlin smashed a fist into the groin of the second. She snatched his gun from its holster first, then ripped the other man’s free amid the flood of blood pouring from his nose.
Caitlin stood back up and dropped the pistols on Delladonne’s serving plate, after ejecting the magazines. His luncheon guests jerked their chairs away from the table, as if afraid they were next.
But Caitlin ignored them, focusing on Delladonne. “I assume your men have licenses to carry those things.”
Delladonne looked up at her, staring. “You said I know your husband.”
“I did.”
“Truth is I’ve never met the man, but I know you,” Delladonne said, seeming to gloat. “Think you would have made Ranger if you didn’t have family tradition on your side?”
“That’s not what I’m here to talk about today, sir.”
“With good reason, I suppose, given the reputations of your father and grandfather.”
“Sir?”
“They were both corrupt, on the take from Mexican drug dealers pushing black tar heroin across the border.” Delladonne’s expression flashed with overly dramatic surprise. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know. I just assumed you picked up where the two of them left off.”
Caitlin took a step closer to the table, not fully registering his comments. She felt cold sweat running straight down the center of her spine. “I know you were behind what happened to my husband and I’m gonna nail you for it.”
“You are sadly mistaken, miss.”
“Sir, I know you are dirty. I know you’re dirty and I know you’re behind the murders of seven innocent people who had survived the wrath of their own governments only to face yours for no good reason at all. I know you’re behind the murder of a woman named Maura Torres and another man named Pablo Asuna, and the attempted murders of two young boys.”