The gunman was baffled by the question. “Ten. Why?”
Keller grimaced. “Too small.” He stood on one leg and pulled a boot off, then switched the gun to his other hand and repeated the process. He glanced at the bottoms and saw the leather eaten away. He grimaced. “Damn. I’ve had these for years, too.” He nodded toward the dead gunman with the gloves. He looked bigger than Kiko. “Go get me his boots.”
“Wh-what?”
Keller raised his gun and spoke slowly, as if to a stupid child. “That man’s boots. Go get them and bring them to me. And if he’s got the key to any vehicles outside, bring me those, too.”
Kiko still looked stunned, but he started to rise. “No,” Keller said. “Crawl over there. I don’t want you getting the idea to do anything stupid. And if I see you so much as look at that weapon he was trying to get, I’ll shoot you in the spine. Best-case scenario, you’ll spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair, shitting into a little bag. Now MOVE!” The last word was snapped out like a drill sergeant’s command and it seemed to galvanize Kiko. He got to his hands and knees and scuttled over to the dead man.
Keller took a deep breath and took stock. The adrenaline was wearing off and he felt a sick twisting in his stomach. What have I turned into?
Another voice answered him, a darker one he’d been trying to silence all his life. You haven’t turned into anything. You are what you’ve always been. A killer. He no longer had the strength or conviction to argue.
Kiko came back, awkwardly trying to hold onto the boots with one hand and the keys in the other as he scuttled over on his hands and knees. Finally, he rose up and walked on his knees, looking at Keller like a whipped dog. He held the boots out. “Please,” he said in a small voice. “Don’t kill me.”
Keller took the boots. “You were about to record it while that sick fucking bastard over there dissolved me in acid an inch at a time. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t shoot you. Or why I shouldn’t whip up another batch of that hell-brew and pour it down your fucking throat.”
Kiko’s voice was shaking. “If you do that, there’ll be no one to deliver your message.”
Keller nodded. “Good answer.” He held out his hands. “Keys.” Still trembling, Kiko handed them over. “What vehicle are these to?” Keller asked.
“Black Escalade,” Kiko said. His face brightened as if he’d just remembered some good news. “And there’s money in it, too,” he said with an ingratiating smile. “The payment Zavalo was going to give the Soupmaker.”
“How much?”
Kiko shook his head. “I don’t know. A lot.”
Keller looked over at the dead Soupmaker. “Why’d he shoot the guy?”
Kiko shrugged. “He talked back. You don’t do that to Jerico Zavalo.” He looked at the body where it still lay. “Didn’t,” he amended.
“Well, you go back and give my message to whoever ends up oozing his way into the top seat now. I don’t want your business, I don’t want your money, except what I’m taking with me. Just leave me alone. And don’t try to get to me through any of my friends. Or I’ll be back. Believe me, none of us wants that.”
Kiko nodded rapidly. “I sure don’t.”
“Stay there. Where you are. On your knees. Count to one thousand, then go. If you try to follow me, I’ll kill you. Understand?”
“Sí,” Kiko said. “I understand.”
KELLER COULD hear the young man counting in Spanish as he gathered up the weapons the dead men had dropped and walked outside. The black Escalade was there as promised, alongside the van they’d brought Keller in and a rusted and dented panel truck that must have belonged to the Soupmaker. Keller propped the rifles in the passenger side of the Escalade. When he looked in the back seat, he saw an aluminum case. It wasn’t locked. When he popped it open, he found stacks of hundreds, banded together. He thought back to the night when he’d first met Oscar Sanchez, the night when the man who would become his best friend was holding a gun on him. “Right now, I am a man with a bag of money and a gun,” Oscar had said. “Soon I will have a big truck. It is the American Dream, no?”
It seemed like a million years ago. Now he had all those things for himself, but he realized that the troubled years between then and now had stripped everyone away from him. Everyone and everything. He was alone and empty, back where he always seemed to land. But someone had put him there. He’d been, if not totally content, at least at rest for the first time in years. This time, he hadn’t been seeking trouble. Trouble had come to him, and it had torn his life apart, leaving a trail of dead bodies in his wake.
He thought of Julianne. She’d loved him, and though he hadn’t loved her back, he had felt real affection for her. He might have come to love her, but his troubles had come to her first. Now she was gone, dying broken and in agony. On his account.
You bring death, Harland had said, and Hell follows with you.
Fine, then, he thought savagely. Death and Hell. So let’s fucking bring it. He knew now what he needed to do. He meant to find the person responsible for fucking with him, and he meant to extract every last ounce of payment from them.
What had made Keller such a successful hunter of human beings had been his utter relentlessness, his unfailing and pitiless dedication to the chase, ending only when he’d brought his quarry to ground. Once again, there were people out there who he needed to find. And when he did, he meant to hold them responsible for the deaths they’d caused. Unlike his former life, however, he wouldn’t be hauling them back to face their day in court. Despite the fact that he’d worked in the justice system, at least the edges of it, when he’d done bail recovery, he’d never really believed in it. The same people kept going through it. Nothing seemed to change, and no one seemed to get any better. And he had no faith that the kind of people who could put him on a national no-fly list would ever see a day of jail time if they were caught. There would be only one form of justice for these people.
He snapped out of his reverie and looked at the money again. If each of those bundles contained, as he suspected, a thousand dollars, then there was at least twenty-five thousand in the case. Making “soup” was apparently a lucrative business. Or had been. He stuffed one of the rolls of bills in his pocket and snapped the case shut. He slid behind the wheel of the big SUV and cranked the engine. It came alive with a roar that quickly subsided to a purring rumble.
The eight-inch glass screen in the dashboard baffled Keller for a moment, but after a bit of experimentation, he found the navigation system. He was just south of the border, east of Nogales. A second thought had him scanning through the vehicle’s memory. There. There was a route, clearly marked, through the rough terrain that led across the border and back into Arizona. Bet the immigration and DEA would give a lot for that info, Keller thought. Then it occurred to him that they may already have known it. There was no way of knowing who might be in the pocket of Jerico Zavalo or any of the other narcos. Here on the border, his best bet was to stay clear of everyone.
He didn’t have a plan as he started onto the rough, cracked pavement of the desert highway, but as the miles rolled out beneath him, he began to ponder what he had to do. Whoever the people were who’d been trying to get him locked up, then killed, they somehow stood in opposition to the man claiming to be his father. That man would know who they were. He would probably know where to find them. He had no love and no trust for the old man; just the opposite, in fact. But the answers he needed lay with him. And Keller had something the old man wanted. Himself. The old man wanted to see his “son”; well, Keller had the time and no commitments other than vengeance. He may not trust the old bastard, but he could surely use him. But only if he could get there before Trammell died. The thought made him frown. He’d need to call as soon as he was somewhere with a decent signal. He continued to head north.
MADDOX COULD see as he entered the sickroom that it was one of Trammell’s bad days, the kind he always thought might be the last. The old man lay in the hospit
al bed he’d had moved into the sunroom, the natural light only serving to make him seem more pale. The cancer had melted away fat, then muscle, seemingly leaving nothing behind but baggy, wrinkled, nearly translucent skin lying slackly over bone that seemed ready to snap at too hard a touch. His breath came in long, wet, shuddering snores.
Maddox hated to wake him. He got so little rest these days as the agony stabbed and prodded him. Trammell had told Maddox he fully expected to go to Hell for some of the things he’d done, and now maybe the devils were getting an early start. It had been the kind of dark joke his old mentor had been fond of. Maddox, ever the faithful mentee, had usually laughed along, but that time he couldn’t bring himself to even fake a laugh. He didn’t believe in Hell anyway. From what he’d seen on Earth, there was no need.
Maddox had been walking as softly as he could into Trammell’s room, but the old man’s eyes snapped open, the piercing gaze fixing Maddox like a prison camp spotlight. Maddox froze. Trammell took a long, wheezing inhalation that ended in a gurgling cough. He tried to push himself to a sitting position with arms like twigs, then fell back with a groan. He looked up at the ceiling, panting as if he’d just run the hundred-meter dash. When he’d caught his breath, the old man lay there wheezing for a moment before he spoke.
“You got a face screwed up tight as a cat’s ass,” he said, the words coming out in a grating rasp. “What’s the problem?”
“I’m afraid it’s bad news, sir,” Maddox said. “About Keller.”
Trammell looked up at the ceiling, then said, with a total lack of affect, “Is he dead?”
“No, sir. He was released. Then, apparently, he went home with his lawyer.”
Trammell turned his head to regard Maddox with the most interest he’d seen in a while. “I thought you told me his lawyer was a woman.”
“Yes, sir.”
Trammell let out a horrible strangled sound that could have been a chuckle. “Don’t tell me he’s fucking his lawyer.”
“Doubtful, sir. She’s married. To another woman.”
“Huh.” Trammell swallowed, with difficulty. “So what happened?”
“The lawyer, her wife, and two servants were found dead. Shot. Keller is missing.”
Trammell closed his eyes. “And I suppose he’s blamed for the killings.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Even though that makes no sense.”
Maddox hesitated. “His prints were found on the murder weapons.”
Trammell opened his eyes. “Weapons. Plural.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And that makes sense to the local police.”
“I can’t speak to that, sir. All I know is that a BOLO has been put out for Mr. Keller.”
The man in the bed was silent, his eyes fixed in the ceiling. After a long pause, he spoke. “Of course. Blame the crazy, violent, Gulf War vet for all the local murders, then close the files. Put out a BOLO that will never pan out because the person they’ve accused is dead. Taken off by the real killers and buried in a desert somewhere. It becomes a cold case, but no one ever looks into it again. Very nice.” He struggled again and this time he did sit up. “Get me Kathryn Shea on the phone.”
“Sir,” Maddox said, “it’s time for your medicine—”
“Fuck my medicine,” Trammell rasped. “I want that cunt on the phone. I want her to know what I’m going to do to her.”
Maddox pulled out his cell phone and paged through the contacts, looking for Kathryn Shea’s private number. He had a bad feeling about what was about to happen, but he had followed orders all his life, many of them coming from the man in the hospital bed. He wasn’t inclined to stop now. He found the number and began to dial.
“Get the film,” Trammell said. “Get it ready for release.”
“Yes, sir,” Maddox said. He’d finished dialing the number and was preparing to hit “send” when the phone vibrated in his hands. He looked at the screen. There was an incoming call. “Sir,” he said. He didn’t recognize the number, but the area code seemed familiar. “We’re getting a call. I think it’s from the area where Keller disappeared.”
The old man smiled. “Take it.”
Maddox pushed the “answer” button. “Hello?”
“Maddox,” Jack Keller said. “Let me talk to Trammell.”
KELLER SAT in the cool of the air-conditioned SUV at the far edge of an expansive concrete parking lot, the pavement showing long cracks where it had fractured under the relentless desert sun. Across the parking lot, a huge bright yellow sign stretched across the frontage of a low-slung brick building. Giant dark-blue letters enticed visitors: THE THING? Keller had seen the signs for miles along the desert highways, advertising the mysteries of the cheap roadside attraction. There were other signs for souvenirs, T-shirts, and cheap jewelry, but it was the enigma of whatever lay at the heart of the advertised “museum” that was supposed to bring in the tourists. MYSTERY OF THE DESERT, the signs had promised. Keller didn’t have time for that kind of mystery.
The man on the other end sounded surprised to hear Keller’s voice. “Jack. This is unexpected.”
“Yeah, Maddox. I’ll bet. Let me talk to him.”
“Okay,” Maddox said. “Let me just say first, though, that we’re glad you’re—”
“Save it,” Keller snapped. “Put the old man on.”
There was a brief silence. Keller wondered if he’d gone too far, if he’d finally worn out Maddox’s patience. Finally, a different voice came through the phone. “Jack.” It was a weak, quavering voice, but tight with strain.
“Mr. Trammell,” Jack began.
“I thought they’d murdered you,” the old man interrupted. “I thought you were dead. But you escaped.” There was a wet, gurgling chuckle. “You’ll have to tell me how you did that.”
“We’ll sit around and swap stories by the campfire,” Keller said. “But first you need to tell me who’s trying to kill me. Your lapdog shows up with a DVD and suddenly…” Keller took a moment to swallow past the lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat. “You need to tell me what’s going on that was worth killing an innocent girl for. And you need to tell me who was responsible. “
“Jack,” the old man said, “what I sent you was only a teaser. A preview to get you interested. What I have waiting to put into your hands will be real power. Real influence.” The last word trailed off into a spasm of coughing.
Keller had to force the next words out through clenched teeth. “That ‘teaser’ drew down a shit storm on me and someone I cared about, you manipulative bastard. Now she’s dead, along with a few other innocent people that didn’t do anything but try to help me. Oh, and I’m apparently being blamed for their deaths. Now I want to know what the fuck is going on, and why I’m caught in the middle of it.”
“I really wish you’d call me Father,” Trammel said. There was a note of pleading in the cracked voice.
Keller wasn’t moved. “You really think you’ve earned that?”
The voice grew harder. “Maybe that’s the price for what you need.”
Keller felt the black tide rising in him again. He spoke before he could consider the words. “Everything is a goddamn trade with you, isn’t it, you son of a bitch? Well, die soon, motherfucker, and I hope you die alone.” He closed the connection and threw the phone into the floorboard of the truck. He grabbed the steering wheel as tightly as he could, put his forehead against the black plastic, and screamed. He put all of his rage, fear, and frustration into that scream.
When he looked up, he saw a boy standing across the parking lot, staring at him. The kid was about twelve or thirteen years old, dressed in jeans and a new crisp yellow T-shirt that had THE THING? printed on it in the same lurid bright blue lettering as the sign on the museum. He was standing by a dust-covered blue minivan next to the gas pumps and looking goggle-eyed at Keller screaming in the front seat of the truck. An older man who must have been the boy’s father was filling the tank, and a harried-looking woman w
ho was obviously the mother of the family was shouting something at a small girl in a white sundress who was running around in circles on the sun-baked concrete, shrieking at the top of her tiny lungs.
Keller watched the little girl for a moment, then looked back at the boy. He was still looking at Keller. As the little girl’s orbit around the minivan intersected the boy’s position, he scooped her up, still hollering, and put her in the back seat of the minivan, his eyes wide with terror but resolute, never leaving the truck.
So we’re back to this, Keller thought. The place where I scare children. He was suddenly overcome with the desire to be somewhere, anywhere, other than this sun-hammered roadside gimcrack stand where normal people congregated. He broke eye contact with the kid as he cranked the engine and headed out of the parking lot. He didn’t know where he was going. If he went back to Arizona, he’d be slammed back into jail, where he’d be a sitting duck. He wasn’t going to deal with Trammell. He was just going to have to try to find out what he needed to know on his own. He thought of the money in the back seat. That much cash could allow him to live off the grid for a while. But he needed a place to lie up and figure out his next move. With no particular plan in mind, he got onto the first highway he found that headed east.
Toward the place he’d once called home.
KATHRYN SHEA was on fire.
She stood at the podium, in front of a thousand cheering supporters, getting to the part of the speech that always brought the audience to its feet—the part about her father.
“My father,” she said, her voice booming out across the cavernous space, “spent his life, from his young manhood on, defending this country and what it stands for.” Applause rippled through the crowd and she paused to let it crest and die back. “He never once backed down from a fight. Never surrendered a principle.” Her voice rose. “And he never, ever quit until he’d done what he believed in.” More applause, this time louder and more sustained. She dropped her voice to a near whisper, only audible because of the amplification. “He was taken from us too soon.” A hush fell over the room, the sudden quietness in her voice causing all ears to have to strain to pick up what she was saying over the click and whirr of the cameras. “Too soon,” she said in that same quiet voice.
Hellhound On My Trail Page 12