Before The Killing Starts (Dixie Killer Blues Book 1)

by James, Harper

  Instead, his face split into a massive grin. 'Miguel, make yourself useful and get us another drink,' Alvarez shouted with a wave of his arm.

  Dixie relaxed his shoulders and noticed he was holding his breath. He let out a slow exhale and grinned back. It seemed the right thing to do although he had no idea what he was grinning about.

  'Luckily for you, we're not as stupid as you think we are,' Alvarez said, getting up and walking around to Dixie's side of the desk. 'Or as stupid as you are.' He jabbed Dixie hard on the shoulder with a meaty finger.

  Dixie sighed and put the rest of the water on the desk and waited for him to continue.

  'We put a GPS tracking device in the lining of the case containing the money. Simple, eh?'

  The look of expectation on Alvarez's face made Dixie think he was expected to clap or cheer. He nodded instead. That was good to know. The thing that he wasn't so happy about was why had Alvarez done it? So that he could send his men after the money later?

  Alvarez still had the grin plastered all over his big face. He drained his drink and swirled the ice cubes in the bottom of the glass. He was enjoying the fact that Dixie looked an idiot. Behind him, Miguel was smirking too.

  'Have you got a Smartphone?' Alvarez asked.

  Dixie got his phone out of his pocket. Alvarez turned to Miguel.

  'Miguel, have you got that number?'

  Miguel fished a slip of paper out of his wallet, unfolded it and passed it over. Alvarez leaned over Dixie's shoulder and laid it on the desk in front of him. Dixie smoothed it out.

  'Put that number into your phone,' Alvarez said, tapping the paper with his finger 'and don't call it money.'

  He slapped Dixie on the shoulder and roared with laughter. Miguel laughed too. Dixie would have laughed if he hadn't been the butt of the joke. Crispy didn't get it. He had a look that was a mix of confusion and suspicion that people get when they're not sure if they're the butt of a joke. Dixie sat and waited until Alvarez stopped laughing. In the scheme of things, he felt he'd got off pretty lightly if all he had to worry about was this beaner drug dealer laughing at him.

  They'd all see who was the stupid one soon enough.

  'It's simple,' Alvarez carried on, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. 'You call the number; it sends you a text message back with a link. Click the link and it displays a map on your screen showing the location,' He sounded like he'd invented it himself.

  Dixie didn't like to show it but he was impressed. 'Really?' he said.

  'Yeah, really,' Alvarez said, 'and it only costs about a hundred bucks. Tell Chico he should get his ass into the twenty-first century. And tell him not to be such a tightwad.' He laughed some more but then he grabbed the back of Dixie's chair and spun it around. Dixie started to get up but Alvarez pushed him back down and pointed his finger directly at the middle of Dixie's face. 'But I don't want him getting any ideas about putting one of those things in my merchandise.'

  Heaven forbid. Dixie thought it sounded a good idea if Alvarez was going to put one in with the money, but he decided to keep that to himself.

  'Now ring the number,' Alvarez said, spinning Dixie around to face the desk again.

  Dixie rang the number and, sure enough, a text message pinged back. He clicked the link and a map opened up on his screen. He couldn't help but smile when he saw the location.

  Alvarez took the smile as confirmation of his own good sense and planning.

  'There's your money,' Alvarez said, leaning over and tapping Dixie's phone screen. 'Now all you have to do is go get it, make sure it's not sitting in one of my'—he pointed at his chest—'warehouses like Chico thinks, and everyone's happy.'

  It seemed to Dixie that Alvarez was putting a bit too much faith in the technology. He was ignoring the human element. Dixie didn't want to be negative, but what Alvarez seemed to be overlooking in his enthusiasm was that what he was actually looking at on his phone was a map showing the location of the tracker—and that wasn't the same thing as the money. Not by a long shot. The thought set off a nasty niggling doubt in the back of his mind.

  Alvarez straightened up and put a massive hand on Dixie's shoulder and gave it a bone-crushing squeeze. 'And you can tell that old bastard Chico there's no hard feelings because he thought I cheated him.'

  Chapter 14

  'I wondered why they moved the money there,' Alvarez said to Miguel after Dixie and Crispy had left. He had his feet up on the desk, his hands clasped behind his head, rocking gently back and forth in his chair. 'Did you see the look on Dixie's face when I asked him if he was accusing me of stealing it? I thought he was going to crap himself.'

  Miguel turned back from the window where he'd been watching them drive off and laughed. He pulled a chair up to the desk and sat on it backward. 'Looks like the woman stole it, eh?'

  'Looks that way.'

  'She must have had somebody else working with her.'

  Alvarez nodded absently, a distant smile on his lips. 'Probably. I wouldn't want to be in their shoes. Chico's an evil son of a bitch.'

  'Do you think she's working with Ricardo?'

  Alvarez stopped rocking and looked at Miguel, his eyes widening. Where the hell did that come from? 'What? You think maybe the retard's trying to cheat his old man?'

  Miguel shrugged. 'Who knows? Everybody knows the kid hates the old man.'

  'Do they? I didn't know that.'

  'Yeah. I think it's something to do with Dixie as well.'

  Alvarez raised an eyebrow at that.

  'There's something else not right,' Miguel said.

  Alvarez swung his feet off the desk. They landed on the floor with a thump. A frown creased his forehead.

  'Did you see the tattoo on his hand?' Miguel said.

  'Who? Dixie?'

  'Yeah.'

  Alvarez shook his head. 'I don't think so. Why?'

  'It's not like anything else I've ever seen before. It's not a prison tat. Guys like him normally have 666 or AB or the number 12—'

  'That's Aryan Brotherhood.'

  Miguel nodded. 'That's what I'm saying; it's not any of the normal white guy stuff—'

  'So what is it?'

  Miguel thought about it. 'It's like a triangle with a line across it and the number 29 underneath.' He picked a pen up off the desk and drew a picture. Alvarez looked at the drawing.

  'You're right, it's not anything I've ever seen either. So what about it? The guy made up his own tattoo.'

  'It might not be anything—'

  'Just spit it out, for Christ's sake.'

  '—but, even though I've never seen it before, I've heard about something that sounds like it.'

  Not for the first time Alvarez wondered if this was going anywhere. Miguel was a good man—if there was any dismembering to be done, Miguel was the go-to guy—but he was also the sort of guy who’d try to piss out a window without remembering to open it first.

  'What did you hear?'

  'It's just rumors. You know. Rumors about a couple of guys who both had a tattoo that sounds just like that.' He jabbed his finger at the drawing on the desk and told him what he'd heard.

  Chapter 15

  The glass in Chico's hand exploded with a loud crack. He stared at his hand as if he didn't understand what had just happened, then opened his fingers letting the shards of broken glass fall to the floor. Tequila mingled with blood in his palm, the fiery, stinging liquid seeking out the deepest cuts before dripping onto his pants. It could have been water for all the pain he felt.

  One of his men stepped forward and offered a handkerchief but Chico shooed him away with a dismissive flick of his hand, little droplets of blood and Tequila spraying across the room. In his other hand the plastic case of his phone flexed and creaked in protest.

  'What the hell was that?' Alvarez said on the other end of the line.

  'It's nothing,' Chico snapped. 'I broke a glass. Are you sure about this?' He extended his arm over his desk and curled his fingers into a fist, clenching hard lik
e he was trying to squeeze the juice out of a lemon. He felt the pain now, sharp and bright, as he watched his blood drip onto the desk. He could feel a sliver of glass caught in his flesh and squeezed tighter still.

  'Not one hundred per cent, no,' Alvarez said. 'Miguel's a retard, a bit like . . . but I thought I should let you know. So you can make your own mind up.'

  Chico closed his eyes and breathed deeply, concentrating on the throbbing pain radiating out from his hand, clean and cathartic, keeping at bay the other, far worse, torment that waited its turn somewhere close behind.

  'Chico?'

  'Yes, yes, thank you Enrico. That was the right thing to do.'

  Chico heard Alvarez chuckle softly on the other end of the line.

  'Lucky you sent him to see if I stole your money, eh?'

  Jesus wept.

  Chico cut off a strangled groan in his throat. He held his cut hand to his brow, felt the wetness of his blood on his skin and counted to five in his head. No, make that ten.

  'I hope he didn't give you that impression, Enrico,' Chico said in a calm, measured tone. Where it came from he had no idea. 'That was never a possibility in my mind.' He coughed a cheerless laugh. 'Given what you just told me, I think we can assume he was trying to cause trouble between us.'

  Chico didn't really care whether Alvarez believed him or not, but it never hurt to say what people wanted to hear.

  'I'm sure you're right, Chico,' Alvarez said, managing to make it sound like whatever.

  Chico cut the call and threw the phone at the wall. Everybody in the room looked at their shoes, the damp patch on the ceiling that always came back however many times they painted it, anywhere, basically, apart from directly at Chico. He bent and picked up the jagged base of the glass and threw that at the wall too and went to wash the blood from his hand.

  In the bathroom he picked a long sliver of glass out of the deepest cut and held his hand under the water until it ran clear. He couldn't believe what he'd just heard. But then again, it didn't surprise him. In the mirror his face looked resigned more than angry, as if someone had finally told him something he’d never wanted to hear but had always known was coming. In the end everybody disappointed you, everybody let you down, it was just a matter of how long it took.

  We enter the world alone, we leave the world alone.

  He could see a vein throbbing in the center of his forehead, smeared with his blood. He put his finger on it and held it down but couldn't find his pulse anywhere. He'd been let down before and it would happen again, but this time it hurt more than he could have imagined. And to think that not more than a few short hours ago, he had wished to himself that Dixie was his son, rather than that . . .

  If he had been a weaker man he suspected he would have wept but he hadn't wept since he stood in the desert all those years ago, his father balanced on his shoulders.

  Chapter 16

  As soon as he'd finished on the phone with Ellie Evan put a call in to Ed Guillory. Guillory was a detective with the local police department and they'd almost become friends after the case that had thrown then together. Since then Guillory had helped Evan out on a number of occasions, probably because he thought Evan was such a nice guy. And—as Evan liked to point out whenever he got the opportunity—Evan's taxes were paying his wages after all.

  Unfortunately, it wasn't Guillory who answered the phone; it was his partner, Ryder. Evan and Ryder had got off to a bad start and it had gone rapidly downhill from there. Their mutual animosity was a constant source of amusement to Guillory.

  'How's the diet going, E-Z?' Evan said when Ryder picked up. Evan knew they were never going to have a good relationship, so he may as well have a bit of sport with the guy.

  'Up yours, Buckley,' Ryder responded with all his usual ill-humor. 'And don't call me that. Friends, colleagues and all the other normal human beings I meet call me that. Last time I checked, you didn't fit into any of those categories.'

  'Is your boss there?' He knew it wound him up when he said that.

  'You mean the lieutenant? No, he's not here.' Before Evan could think of anything else to say, he carried on. 'And if you meant Guillory, he's not here either. So you're going to have to look elsewhere for all the free help and information that you're not entitled to.'

  The phone went dead in his ear. He called Guillory on his cell phone.

  'I thought I told you to burn this number,' Guillory said in his laid back tone. He was the most unflappable guy Evan had ever met despite some of the patience-trying antics Evan had got up to in the past.

  'Having a nice, relaxing day at home while poor old Detective Donut looks after the shop?'

  Guillory laughed. 'Something like that. And I told you, don't call him that. It's disrespectful.'

  'So, what's happening? You break a leg?'

  Guillory snorted, the sound loud in Evan's ear. 'I'll tell you later. What d'you want?'

  'I was just calling to see if I can buy you a beer some time.'

  'No you weren't.' Guillory laughed again. 'And I've told you this before as well, if I drank all the beers you owe me, I'd be fatter than Ryder.'

  Evan laughed with him. 'Yeah, I asked him about his diet.'

  On the other end of the line Guillory sucked in air between his teeth. Evan pictured him shaking his head, the hint of a smile on his lips. 'I bet that didn't get you far.'

  'Funny you should say that . . .'

  'Anyway, what do you want?'

  Evan could hear the sound of a spoon stirring something, coffee or tea, and then a metallic rattle as it was thrown in the sink. He could do with a good strong coffee himself, right now.

  'I could do with a nice cup of coffee myself.'

  There was a loud slurp followed by a long aaaaaah. 'Sorry, that was the last of it.'

  'Some free information, then, hopefully stuff I'm not allowed to have. You know the sort of thing.'

  Evan could almost feel Guillory's sideways grin coming down the line. 'The usual, you mean. What is it this time?'

  Evan gave him the license plate of the two guys' car and asked him to find out who it was registered to.

  'Is that it?' There was genuine astonishment in his voice. 'That's hardly going to be an inconvenience at all.'

  'Well . . . there is something else.'

  'That's more like it.' There was another loud slurp. 'Good coffee, by the way.'

  'I can hear you're enjoying it. It sounds like a pack of thirsty bloodhounds. Anyway, have you ever come across a guy called Dixie?'

  'Dixie? I know a country music band called the Dixie Chicks . . .'

  'Well, that's useful. His real name's Richard LaBarre—'

  'But everyone calls him Dixie.'

  'Damn. I can see now why you're a professional detective and I'm just an amateur.'

  Guillory let out a hoot like he'd just won the lottery. 'Ryder would give his right arm to hear you say that.'

  'Ain't gonna happen.'

  'Anything else you can tell me about this guy, maybe help to narrow things down a bit?'

  'I was told he hangs out at Kelly's Tavern—although everyone in there denies ever having heard of him.'

  Guillory snorted in disgust. 'The low-lifes in that pigsty wouldn't admit to knowing their own mothers.'

  'You got that right.'

  'You actually went in there and asked for him?'

  Evan shrugged, an apologetic smile on his lips, even though Guillory couldn't see him. 'No point in beating about the bush.'

  'You never cease to amaze me.' In his mind Evan pictured the slow head shake. 'So how did that pan out?'

  'I thought it went pretty well, considering it was my first time.' He ran the morning's events through his mind, felt and heard the satisfying snap. 'I broke a guy's finger and squashed his nose a bit, then got chased and pistol whipped by a couple of beaners. Just a normal day at Kelly's I suppose—the beer was awful though.'

  'You know I'm going to be genuinely upset the day I get called out to some bloody, br
oken body lying crumpled in an alley and turn it over and see your stupid face looking up at me. Probably with that stupid grin still on your face.'

  Evan knew he meant it too. Knew he honestly believed it was going to happen some day. 'You don't need to worry about me.'

  Guillory knew there was no point wasting any more breath on that subject. 'Anyway, would these guys happen to own the car we're talking about?'

  'Uh huh. No flies on you.'

  There was an exasperated, why do I even bother? sigh. 'Why do you want to find them? You like being pistol whipped?'

  Evan thought about telling Guillory the real, underlying reason that was driving him. Guillory knew his history after all, knew all about Sarah. He just didn't want to get into it over the phone. He also didn't want him to tell him not to be so gullible.

  'I'll let you know right after you finish telling me why you're not at work.'

  'Like you taxpayers pay me to be, you mean?'

  'Well, I wasn't going to mention it . . .'

  They carried on the inane banter for a while longer before Guillory ended the call, promising to get back to him as soon as possible.

  Chapter 17

  Jackson sat in the warden's office and stared at a dirty stain on the wall while the warden droned on. Blah, blah, blah, pom tiddly pom. He cocked his head and tried to work out what it was. And why hadn't it been cleaned off? Another five minutes of this and he'd be out. After two years he could wait a few more minutes. Behind the warden, a clock ticked noisily, its hands jerking erratically like a cockroach that some small boy had pulled most of the legs off. Then it clicked. That's what it was—the warden had squashed a cockroach or a water beetle against the wall. Next to that there was a rectangular outline where something had been tacked to the wall. Jackson just knew it was one of those cheesy, motivational posters with a bear or an eagle (never a cockroach) that said something like Believe in Yourself: Because the rest of us think you're an idiot or perhaps Ambition: The journey of a thousand miles sometimes ends very, very badly. He stretched his neck out and glanced at the clock again. He didn't think he'd be able to wear a wristwatch or hang a clock on the wall ever again.