by Max Austin
“There was a shot?”
“Just into the roof. But the FBI heard it, I guess.”
“What were you doing when he fired the gun?”
“We were giving him and Jasper the high-heel treatment. Like in high school.”
“Oh, Rosa!”
“The light is green.”
So it was. Carmen kept her eyes on the road as she said, “They didn’t charge you with assault or something?”
“No, no.” Rosa started laughing. “Antony and Jasper had heel marks all over, but they wouldn’t tell the cops what happened to them. I think they were embarrassed.”
“I’m sure.”
“Since they wouldn’t press charges, the cops let us girls go.”
“Did they keep Antony?”
“Oh, yeah. Jasper, too. ’Cause of what they did to Oscar. That cop told me they’re charging ’em with kidnapping and battery and other shit. We might have to testify against them.”
An image of Rosa on the witness stand flashed through Carmen’s mind. She nearly drove up on the sidewalk.
“What?” Rosa said. “Why are you laughing?”
“I’m just relieved. I’m glad you didn’t get shot or hurt or put in jail.”
“Oh, chica, you shouldn’t worry about me. I had those cops eating out of my hands.”
“Your big, strong hands.”
“That’s right.”
The sisters laughed.
Chapter 63
When Dylan and Katrina rose from their postcoital snooze, it was time for the ten o’clock news. They huddled in their underwear on the black sofa in front of Katrina’s TV, her bedspread wrapped around them, and munched peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches while they waited through the opening theme music.
The anchorwoman had black eyebrows painted high on her forehead, so she looked to be in a state of constant surprise. She was dressed in bright blue satin. Her chunky necklace appeared to be manufactured from auto parts.
“Tonight’s top story,” she began, “involves two men who tried to stick up a drive-through bank in Albuquerque yesterday.”
Dylan groaned.
“Police say this man”—Doc’s scowling mug shot filled the screen—"Wilmer Wayne Burnett, is in serious condition after being stabbed by another inmate at the county jail.”
Dylan felt gut-punched. He couldn’t quite catch his breath.
Katrina said, “Is that Doc?”
He shushed her.
“Burnett was arrested yesterday while trying to rob a First State Bank of Albuquerque branch near Nob Hill. He was being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center, awaiting trial, when he was stabbed.”
As the picture switched back to the always-astonished anchorwoman, she said, “An inmate identified as Valentino Blanco is accused of stabbing Burnett numerous times with a shank made from a toothbrush. Authorities say Blanco was injured in the attack as well.”
“Good,” Dylan said.
“Burnett is being treated in the secure wing at University Hospital,” the anchorwoman said. “He is expected to recover from his wounds.”
Before Dylan could whew in relief, his own face filled the screen.
“Police are still searching for another Albuquerque man, Dylan James, who’s wanted for questioning in the attempted bank robbery. Police say he should be considered armed and dangerous.”
As Dylan’s mug shot disappeared and the news went on to the next story, Katrina used the remote to kill the TV. They sat in silence for a few seconds, then he said, “Wow. Poor Doc.”
“I’m surprised you feel sorry for him,” she said. “Isn’t he the one who ratted you out to the feds? Sounds like he got what he deserved.”
“I suppose you could see it that way. But Doc gave me a place to stay when I could’ve been homeless. We spent a lot of time together. We’re friends. I hate to hear he got cut up.”
“You can send him some flowers from the road,” she said. “Now let’s get dressed. My stepfather’s place is halfway across town. And we’ve only got a couple of hours until he gets home from his card game.”
“You sure you want to do this?” he said. “You’re only getting involved deeper.”
“No one will know but you, and you’ll be gone. When my stepfather tells me about the burglary, I’ll act very surprised.”
“What if he suspects you anyway?”
She smiled. “Thanksgiving will be a lot more interesting this year.”
Chapter 64
Doc Burnett kept pressing the button, but the morphine wouldn’t come. He complained to the nurses that the button must be broken, but they just rolled their eyes and told him to wait. How could he wait, when he was punched full of holes? He needed pain relief and he needed it now.
Without the morphine haze, Doc could too clearly see his own situation. He’d survive his wounds, but he might never be the same. And when he was deemed well enough, they’d take him right back to jail. The only times he could expect to be on the outside for the foreseeable future would be court dates. That’s when you can tell your life is completely in the shitter. When you look forward to a court appearance.
He thought about his attorney, Jeff Moorcock, in his oversized suit. If that was the best help he could get, Doc was screwed for sure. No way out of a long stretch in a federal pen.
He sure wished he’d handled things differently. He’d screwed things up at that bank, then he’d screwed up his getaway, then he’d screwed up some more as soon as he was arrested. He remembered how easily he’d handed over Dylan’s name to the FBI agents, and a wave of remorse flooded him.
He pushed the morphine button again. Nothing.
The kid was blameless in the bank robbery attempt—a victim, if anything—but Doc tried to pin it all on him, soon as the FBI asked. A butt-load of guilt to be had there, and he could look forward to dwelling on it for years to come.
So far, however, it seemed the cops hadn’t caught Dylan. Maybe the kid gave them the slip. Maybe he got out of town in time. Maybe the police would never catch up to him.
Perhaps Dylan would find a better life elsewhere. Get a straight career, something with more promise than residential burglary, something with regular pay and benefits. Doc could see him growing old in the suburbs somewhere, surrounded by his family, who’d never know about his days as a youthful criminal in Duke City.
Doc blinked against hot tears. He knew they were for himself and not for Dylan. He wept for the life he’d never had—a wife and kids and a dog on the lawn—and now would never enjoy. He’d emerge from this hospital a wrecked man, hobbled by his past and doomed to years in prison.
It just didn’t seem fair. Doc had made mistakes, sure, but they had been drug-induced and out of character. There was larceny in his heart, yes, but not menace. Other men did much worse, actually hurt people, and walked away scot-free, laughing their way through the system. But Doc was going away for years. Because of an impulse.
A sob escaped his lips. He could barely stand the injustice of it all. Here he was, poked full of more holes than a harmonica, and his only incentive for healing was a bleak future full of bad food and orange jumpsuits and bloody fistfights.
What was the point? What was the fucking point?
Doc angrily thumbed the morphine button, not expecting any relief, but warmth flooded up his arm.
Oh, yeah.
He rubbed his face against his pillow to wipe away the tears, then sniffled his way to silence. No matter how sad and guilty a man might feel, a flood of opiates will take the edge right off.
As he slipped into a doze, Doc realized he was smiling.
Chapter 65
Dylan couldn’t believe his good fortune. From the way Katrina had talked about her stepfather, he’d expected the man to have a simple bachelor pad. But she drove him to Tramway Boulevard, then climbed into the foothills of the Sandias. Every time they turned a corner, the houses got bigger and farther apart. Finally, she nosed the Prius into the driveway of an adobe rambler wi
th a three-car garage. It looked like a sand castle, sprung up from the chamisa and broomweed on the hillside.
“Wow,” Dylan said. “This is it? Why did you ever leave?”
“I told you. My stepfather lives here.”
“A place this big, you could both live here and never see each other.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But we were in each other’s way. That’s why he springs for college.”
“So he can have the house to himself?”
She rolled her eyes. “So he can have bimbos over for athletic romps on the dining room table. That’s the sort of thing he enjoys. A daughter so gets in the way of a fella’s good time.”
“What an asshole,” Dylan said.
The house had a little entryway tucked inside a curved adobe wall. Katrina pulled the Prius up next to it and killed the headlights. They sat there for a second, their eyes adjusting to the dark. The streetlights of the city sprawled below, filling the valley with a grid of orange stripes sprinkled with white dots. The Rio Grande curved through the middle, a black ribbon among the lights.
“So,” she said, “are we doing this or not?”
“I’m waiting for you.”
“Let’s go.”
“Turn off the engine.”
“It is off,” she said.
“It’s humming.”
“It does that. It’ll stop in a second.”
“Oh.”
“Are you getting cold feet?” she said.
“Who, me? Nah, I’ve done this a hundred times.”
“Let’s go then.”
“You’re sure he’s not home?”
“He hasn’t missed a poker game in fifteen years.”
“And you have a key?”
“We can go right in the front door.”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
He popped open the door, which flooded the interior of the Prius with light. Katrina said, “Eep,” and hurriedly got out of the car. They shut the doors and the light went out. They stood in the chill darkness for a few seconds, listening to the whistling wind, then Dylan followed her into the flagstone-floored entryway.
“Stay back,” she said. “Let me open the door and handle the alarm.”
“This is the easiest break-in ever.”
“We’re not breaking in,” she said. “We have a key and a standing invitation. We’re family.”
She turned the key in the dead bolt, then hustled inside to punch keypad buttons on a white alarm console on the wall.
“He’ll know someone put in the code,” Dylan said.
“He’ll think he forgot to set the alarm. He’s done it before.”
She leaned forward to check a readout on the panel. “There. We’re all set. Wander around to your heart’s content.”
He walked past her into a sunken living room with a stonework fireplace and leather furniture and granite floors. The light fixture overhead was made of interlaced deer antlers.
“Very manly,” Dylan said.
“You think he’s trying too hard?”
He laughed as he looked around the room.
“Lots of nice things here,” he said. “That TV. The laptop. The stereo. Some original art. Doc would clean this place out.”
“Feel free,” she said. “Take whatever you want.”
“I don’t have time to fence anything. I’m traveling light.”
“You could start with some fresh clothes. My stepfather’s about your size, only a little heavier. Let’s go to his closet.”
He followed her down a paneled hallway to the master bedroom, which had plush carpeting and a ceiling fan and a king-sized bed covered in black satin. One wall was all mirrors.
“Classy, huh?” she said. “I’m sure it wows the bimbos.”
The opposite wall had two closets with louvered doors. Katrina went to one and slid open the door. Suits and shirts and slacks and jeans hung inside on rods. Shoes were arranged neatly on the floor. Hats sat on a shelf.
“There are a couple of suitcases in the back there,” Katrina said. “Pack up some stuff to take with you.”
“What’s in here?”
He opened the other closet. It was full of uniforms. Black uniforms with lots of gold braid. Epaulets. Badges.
His hands shaking, Dylan pulled out one of the jackets. The shoulder patch said: “Albuquerque Police Department.” The name tag pinned to the right breast pocket said: “Schlitz.”
Dylan felt dizzy. He gently hung the uniform back in the closet. Then he turned to find Katrina smiling at him.
“Your stepfather is the police chief?”
Chapter 66
Katrina watched the emotions play on Dylan’s face, and she was glad she’d saved the surprise for now.
“Cool, huh?”
He flushed red.
“No,” he said, “not cool. Not cool at all. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to chicken out.”
“What makes you think—”
She stepped in front of him and closed the closet door. “Leave his uniforms alone. They won’t do you any good anyway. But you might look good in one of his suits.”
“Yeah?”
“You need a whole new appearance so people won’t look at you twice,” she said. “How about that charcoal-gray suit?”
“I’ve never worn a suit like that in my life.”
“Really?”
“In my family, we wore T-shirts to church.” He reached out and felt the smooth fabric. “You think I should?”
“Hurry up and change. Pack a bag.”
“Where are you going?”
“To pry open his desk drawer.”
“His desk?”
“His office is down the hall. My old room.”
“Soon as you moved out, he changed it into his office?”
“Yeah.”
“Nice. This fucking guy.”
“I know, I know. Hurry up?”
She was almost out the door when he said, “What’s in his desk drawer?”
“That’s where he keeps his money.”
She left Dylan pawing through the clothes and went down the hall to the carpeted office.
She still couldn’t believe her stepfather had lined two walls of her former bedroom with bookshelves. She’d never once seen him read a book. The other walls were covered in grip-and-grin photos of Chief Schlitz with mayors and governors and other dignitaries. With his comb-over and big, watery eyes, he always looked startled in the photos, as if he were an accountant who’d been caught playing dress-up.
The desk was a carved mahogany wonder that must’ve weighed three hundred pounds. The drawers were locked, as expected. He’d kept them locked ever since she walked in on him once, seven years ago, and saw him putting a fat deck of greenbacks into a drawer. Even at that tender age, she knew it was unusual for a policeman to keep a wad of cash on hand. Unusual for a policeman to even have any extra cash.
She’d seen other evidence of corruption over the years as her stepfather rose through the ranks. Gift hams at Easter and free turkeys at Thanksgiving and hookers for New Year’s Eve. Shady men dropping off paper sacks in the middle of the night. Late-night phone calls from the local gentry, asking the chief to rescue offspring from fresh arrests. No wonder her stepfather wanted her out of the house. She was always a potential witness.
While the wooden desk looked formidable, its locks were surprisingly flimsy. And her stepdad had been so kind as to leave a stainless-steel letter opener right there, handy as could be. She stuck it in the keyhole and wiggled it until the lock turned.
Once she had the drawers open, she started going through them, finding items Dylan could use: a banded deck of twenty-dollar bills, an envelope fat with larger denominations, her stepdad’s spare car keys. In the bottom drawer, she found an unopened bottle of Jack Daniel’s, which she set aside, and a black plastic stun gun she was almost afraid to touch.
She closed the drawers and looked over the ha
ul she’d spread across the desktop.
“This,” she said aloud, “ought to be enough to get him started.”
She called Dylan’s name.
No answer.
She yelled again, louder this time.
Chapter 67
Dylan was admiring himself in a full-length mirror when he heard Katrina shout his name. He was dressed in the gray suit, with a white shirt and a black silk necktie and black wing-tip shoes. A black leather belt cinched up the pants, which were a size too large. He’d topped off the ensemble with a pearl-gray fedora. Like the suit, the hat was a little big for him, but his ears kept it from sliding down over his eyes.
The crowning accessory was a pistol he found in a sock drawer. It was a Colt revolver with a five-inch-long barrel, a cowboy-style six-shooter. He stuck the barrel under his belt at a jaunty angle.
“Armed and dangerous,” he said to his reflection in the mirror.
The gun and the suit and the hat made him look like a mobster. An outlaw. The rightful heir to Jesse James.
“Dylan!”
“Coming!”
He’d already filled a blue duffel bag with some of Chief Schlitz’s casual clothes and his own dirty ones. He lugged it down the hall to where light streamed from an open door. He found Katrina standing behind a fancy wooden desk in a book-lined den. Money and whiskey and other stuff littered the top of the desk.
“Look at you,” she said. “You look like a gangster.”
“Too much?”
“I remember that hat. He bought it for some benefit where they all had to dress up in old-timey clothes.”
“Too corny?”
“No, I like it. It’s got pizzazz.”
“That sounds like me. Mr. Pizzazz.”
“Dressy’s good,” she said. “Nobody will mistake you for a guy in a hoodie, that’s for sure.”
He moved closer to the desk to look over the loot.
“Wow. Lots of money here. Just like you promised.”
“Look at this thing,” she said. “It’s a stun gun.”
He snatched it up. “I saw a cop use one of these on a guy in a bar. Big ole drunk cowboy. Went down like he’d been shot.”