But you waved him back, Jude thought. “So why are we talking about it?”
“This Malvasio character, he’s slipped onto the back burner down here with al Qaeda and the maras to worry about, but I get the feeling the Feds would be thrilled if he turned up. McGuire didn’t get callbacks in time to bring this up when he was here, but an agent in California finally got in touch. Malvasio torched a whole neighborhood in this town north of San Francisco. About twenty people died, damage in the major millions. The weird thing? He confessed. Malvasio. After a fashion—called a cop by satellite phone, nobody knows from where, admitted the whole thing, just to get even with the guy who’d hired him because he only paid half the fee. The guy was some political honcho who couldn’t get the city council to move off the dime on eminent domain, so he just had Malvasio burn the place down. Emptied nine thousand gallons of gas from a tanker into the sewers, the fumes backed up into the houses. Boom. Nobody’s seen him since. But I get the sense he’s got a whole lot more hanging over his head back home. That’s where he does his dirty work—uses different aliases, then hides down here.”
Jude felt the walls of the room quivering from the heat. But it wasn’t the walls. Or the heat. “How do you know that?”
“Know what?”
“That he hides down here. How do you know that if nobody can find him?”
“Just a hunch, a theory. Whatever.”
“And this other stuff he’s supposedly part of, back in the States, how do you know that?”
“After McGuire told me about the thing in California, I made a few calls. Most came up dead ends, and the few guys who did get back to me had nothing solid, rumors chasing rumors. Still, when I called McGuire back to follow up, he got very cagey and quiet. That’s when I figured I was on to something.”
But there’s been no follow-up with me, Jude thought. They’re not interested in me. He felt craven and small, being worried about that, and yet it sprang to mind unbidden. “So why are we talking about this, Fitz? The guy’s a menace, okay, but that doesn’t change the fact I haven’t seen him in ten years.”
“I’m just trying to give you some good advice. This would be an excellent time to play things straight.”
“I’m doing that. It’s called my job.”
“Your job is keeping Axel safe, not agreeing to whatever he wants.”
“Christ, Fitz, the man wants to stay with his lover. This is hardly the first time the issue’s come up. And, yeah, I’ll keep him safe—no matter who pays the freight. Everybody can work out the money on the back end. But if you’re going to pull the plug, let me know so I can arrange for a driver and everything else I’ll need.”
After he hung up, Jude went out to his balcony to think. The sun had dipped toward the horizon. Soon the late-day heat would turn bearable, given the city’s altitude, but that was little solace. So, he thought, Malvasio hadn’t kept his nose clean the past ten years—Christ, his little game of pin the fork on the cowboy tipped you off to that much. Working for a prominent family? He has connections here, no doubt, but his employers are up north, it turns out. And apparently, for whatever bit of work he’s up to now, he needs a sniper. Strock. And I was just the rube to serve as go-between. Malvasio couldn’t risk tapping Strock himself. No, he needed a patsy. Me. The son of the man who saved the guy’s life—how could he refuse? And leaving a rifle for him at the rancho—it was genius, really. Making everybody feel safe, Strock all alone out there.
And yet none of that made sense. He couldn’t picture Strock falling back in with Malvasio, given the hate he still carried around. So maybe it was true, he thought, somebody down here really did want Strock’s services. For what? A little guard duty on the ol’ plantation seemed unlikely, given the kind of services Malvasio provided now. Strock was here to kill somebody. And as soon as that idea formed clearly, Jude felt his insides coil up.
He couldn’t tell his guilt from his fear—my God. Axel. Then: No, get a grip. Strock wouldn’t do it, not when he owes his life to the old man. What if they threaten him. Better yet, what if they threaten his little girl? They don’t know where to find her. You led them to her, idiot.
Jude rushed back inside, checked that Axel was packing in his room, then dialed down and asked the hotel operator to connect him to a number in the Chicago area that he recovered from his briefcase: the investigator’s report on where to find Peggy Check. A variety of clicks and hums and then a sheen of white noise, followed by the blurred ring of her phone: once, twice, three times. Four. The machine picked up. No, he thought, listening to that drawling familiar Appalachian twang: “Hey, it’s me. You know what to do—”
The message broke off. A voice came on. “Hello?” A child.
“Is this Chelsea?”
A long pause. “Yeah?”
“Is your mom home?”
Another pause, punctuated with a sigh. “She’s sleeping.” Jude checked his watch. Four o’clock. Chicago was in the same time zone. An afternoon nap. Maybe Peg was working again.
“Could you get her up, please? Tell her it’s real important.”
He heard the receiver drop, then the girl keened for her mother as she thumped away from the phone. Jude hadn’t even considered what he’d actually say, and was only halfway to something he thought might work when a new voice came on the line, murmuring groggily: “Real important? It damn well better be.”
“Peg? This is Jude. The guy you met last week, I was looking for Phil?”
A bleary, ragged moan, followed by a bottomless yawn: “Where the hell are you?”
“I’m down here. El Salvador.”
Another drawn-out silence. Finally, she said, “So what’s up? Anything wrong?”
“No. No. It’s just Phil asked me to check in, find out how you were. Nagged me half to death, actually. You know what a pill he can be.”
“How’d he find out you know how to reach me? You said you wouldn’t tell.”
“I didn’t.” It was the truth, buried inside lies. “He just assumed.”
Her voice turned cold: “He doesn’t know where I am, does he?”
“I promised you I wouldn’t do that. I’m good for my word. Just trying to be a nice guy, play the go-between.”
“There’s no ‘between’ to talk about, not with me and Phil.”
“I get that. He just wants to know you’re okay.”
“Little late for that. Besides, why shouldn’t I be?”
Jude wiped the sweat from his face with his hand. “Well, the thing at the club. He knows you got tapped around.”
“You told him that?”
“No, he just figured, given the trouble he caused and the kind of people we’re talking about, it was more likely than not you got roughed up.”
“Ah jeez, you kno-o-o-ow …” She drew the word out like taffy. “Look—my business ain’t his business, not anymore. It’s over.”
Let’s hope so, Jude thought. “Okay. But for my piece of mind, not his, anything suspicious going on? Anybody following you around?”
“Like who?”
“I dunno, the guys from the club. Maybe somebody working for them. Hassling you, whatever.”
“You serious? That sounds like work, and we’re talking Vince’s guys here. They called me into the office, slapped me around, called me names, told me to get the fuck out of Dodge. That’s enough strain for a month, those losers. Anyway, old story, boring boring. I’ve got a new job now—”
“That’s great,” Jude said. And it was, on more levels than she knew.
“Yeah, and I’m on tonight, so I could use a little shut-eye, okay?”
“No problem.” His body relaxed. Only then did he realize how hard he’d been gripping the phone. “You’re okay then. That’s all I wanted to know.”
“Good as ever, which could be better, but hey.”
“Same all around, I suppose.”
“Listen, just so I’m real damn clear—there’s no more need for Phil or you or anyone else to know diddly about
me or my girl, okay? I get you were just checking in, but I want you to listen to me now. I don’t hate Phil. I don’t spend my days putting everything that’s gone sour with my life on him, okay? I was young and stupid and full of pity and I’ve learned my lesson. Only good thing to come out of that whole sorry episode is Chelsea, and I’m gonna do right by her. I know I seem like a heartless bitch keeping Phil away from his own little girl, but I want her to grow up a little before she has to deal with him any more than she already has. If at all. Not the kind of lesson I want her to learn. Man who throws his own damn life away and blames it all on bad luck? No. She don’t need that. I don’t want her thinking who he is and what he’s let happen to himself is normal.”
This from a stripper, Jude thought. And yet he wondered what his life might have been like if his own mother had seen things like this, had the sense, the foresight, whatever, to recognize his father for who he was and act on it, rather than seal herself away in bitterness and blame, call it a marriage. But then again, no one else saw his father clearly either, not till it was too late. “I hear what you’re saying,” he told her.
“I mean, you seem like a reasonably okay guy, but I really, really, really don’t wanna hear from you again.”
“Understood.”
“Okay then. Well, take care of yourself.” She seemed to be hanging up, then: “By the way, what was so damn important about this call?”
“Honestly?” Jude had to mentally backtrack, fast. “I just, you know, wanted Phil off my case. I was sick of being pestered.”
She chuckled acidly. “Get in line.”
She hung up, and Jude sat there a few more seconds, bobbing the damp receiver in his hand. He felt light-headed. All right then, he thought, setting the phone down in its cradle. She’s okay. Nobody’s come around, threatened her, followed her that she knows of. And if anybody was planning to twist Strock around, that’s the leverage they’d have, and it would’ve happened by now. It doesn’t make it all better, he realized. It just means Axel’s most likely not the target. But somebody is. You may never know who—or even when or where it happens—but there’s a dead man on your conscience. Maybe it’s already done. Call McGuire, he thought. Call him, tell him, explain it any way you need to but make the call—and say what? I’m sorry? What information have you got that would save anybody? The name of the cop, Ovidio Morales. But if Malvasio lied about so much else, would he really tell the truth about that? And if he had, no doubt Morales had been contacted before when the fugitive units passed through. A dead end. I’ve got the name of a restaurant in San Marcelino, the location of a rancho on the beach near the Estero de Jaltepeque that’s most likely long deserted, a junk cell phone number that’s already worthless. I’ve got nothing.
He reminded himself he couldn’t get distracted by all this, he had enough to occupy his mind. Axel trusted no one else. He needed somebody keeping an eye out now more than ever, even if Strock and Malvasio weren’t the issue. And maybe it wasn’t Chelsea Check, but a little girl’s life was still at risk. You fail at all that, he thought, on top of everything else, what you’re feeling right now will seem like peace of mind.
35
As it turned out, Fitz didn’t pull the plug—shortly after sunset, Carlos arrived with the Mercedes, bringing the hardware Jude had requested. Sensing that something had changed, the former paratrooper packed a little hardware of his own—an old G3 salvaged from his war duty, plus a Beretta 9mm. He stored the big rifle, loaded, in the trunk; the pistol he slipped under his seat. He made no secret of his indignation, pulling Jude aside to whisper, “You’re letting him make a fool of himself. That woman’s nothing but trouble.”
Jude shook himself free. “Let me guess—you told Fitz the same thing.”
“I was asked a question.” Carlos blanched, he looked caught. “I answered honestly.”
“I don’t have a problem with that,” Jude said. “Just make sure you do the same with me.”
He kept especially alert as they traveled by twilight out the Alameda Juan Pablo II, past the stadium and the Iglesia San Francisco and the old bus terminal with its little circle of junk-food huts like McServipronto’s, the area notoriously poor and ripe with gang activity. His mind boiled with imagined threats, the possibilities seemingly endless now. There was so much he hadn’t seen with Malvasio—what was he missing now? He had to keep reminding himself that even if a new threat source existed (and he had no proof it did), the means of likely attack were still ones he’d been trained for. He gestured for Axel to sit low in the backseat, then kept an eye trained for trail cars, or vehicles poised at cross streets, waiting to veer out suddenly and cause a collision. He paid a little more mind than usual to the roof lines as well, checking for irregularities in the shadows—silhouettes, men with weapons. He relaxed a little once they reached the city limits—though roadblocks and carjackings, he knew, could happen anywhere, and the last five minutes’ safety never guaranteed the next. They continued east out the two-lane Pan-American Highway past the shabby, crowded suburbs and the Lago de Ilopango.
In time, they left the central plateau’s moderate climate behind for the dense heat of the lowlands. The increasingly long stretches between towns—flanked by vast cane fields, massive volcanoes looming in the distance—seemed eerily desolate in the cloudless moonlight. Random stabs at chat got strangled quickly by the tense mood, so they switched on the Haydn and said nothing, mile after mile. Finally, just before midnight, they pulled up to the gate at Villas de Miramonte.
Consuela had let the night guard know they’d be coming, and the old man rose from his rickety chair outside the tiny clapboard shack to wave the Mercedes in with the novela policiaca he’d been reading, giving them not so much as a second glance. How diligent, Jude thought, wondering how many strangers, on any given day, just talked their way inside.
Consuela lived on a cul-de-sac named Senda Numero 6, down which the plain two-story row houses lined up chockablock, one nudged tight against the other, to the end. No places for someone to lurk, waiting. Finally, Jude thought, some good news.
While Axel telephoned Consuela from his cell to inform her they’d arrived, Carlos pulled to the end of the street, then circled back so the passenger-side door opened directly toward her house. Jude told Axel to wait, then got out. Carlos, as always, locked the doors behind him.
Jude checked the street in both directions, seeing no one, not even a face at a curtain, though given the darkness someone could have been staring straight at him from a window and he might not have known. The night was still and hot. In the far distance, a glimmer of light came and went too quickly to pinpoint. It didn’t reappear.
He stepped to Consuela’s door and knocked softly. She greeted him wearing a white cotton dress and a tight smile, explaining straightaway in a hushed voice that Oscar and his mother were upstairs. Eileen had dropped them off earlier. They’d left the house where they’d been staying without incident, and she’d felt confident they hadn’t been followed. Needing to get back to where she was staying, though, she’d headed off about an hour ago, saying she’d call Jude’s cell phone if she sensed any trouble.
“Was anyone in the neighborhood watching when the boy and his mother arrived?”
“No,” Consuela said. “And I checked, just to be sure. It was dark, everything was quiet.”
Jude tucked all that away. “Let’s keep the boy and his mother out of sight until Carlos leaves, all right?” Consuela nodded with an expression of calm complicity, and he found himself liking her more by the minute. The time would come when Carlos needed to be filled in, he figured, but that time wasn’t now. Then he explained he wanted to do a quick look around before having Axel come in. “There might be something I see,” he said, “that you wouldn’t notice.”
The entire first floor was the size of a two-car garage. The picture window looked out on the street from the dining room, with small side panels to crank open for a breath of air. The connecting walls along each side of the house
were solid front to back. He smelled no propane leaks in the kitchen and the electrical hookups looked safe. A sliding screen door opened onto a tiny backyard with patchy Saint Augustine grass, but more to the point, the high walls with their thorny vines would be hard for anyone to get over.
Upstairs, the door to the rear bedroom was closed. A flickering light shone through the crack at the floor. He rapped gently. “¿Perdón?”
Bare feet padded against the floor within. The door opened a little, revealing a shirtless boy with eyes that seemed both dull and furious. Oscar, Jude thought. Beyond him, his mother sat on the bed in a threadbare falda, knees tucked to her chin, so lost within herself Jude wondered if she’d even heard him knock. Several candles lit the room, and the raw scent of tallow lingered in the close air.
The boy was tiny and thin, his boniness exaggerating the stoop of his posture and the hard angles of his face—thus the pop of his haunting eyes. And just as the boy was too small for his age, the mother seemed far too young to look so old—the same gaunt thinness, a face creased into a mask. She stared at nothing unless the boy moved, then her eyes flashed with terror.
Jude went to the window, pulled the filmy curtain aside, and looked out at the night. Across the back wall, perhaps as close as twenty yards away, in the house the next street over, another curtained rear window faced the one he was looking through. The same was true for every house up and down the block. A gunman, if patient and positioned correctly, could hit anyone standing where he was, and though he still couldn’t convince himself Strock was his problem, it didn’t mean somebody else couldn’t fill that role. Don’t confuse reasonable preparation with imagining things, he told himself. It’s doubtful anyone knows you’re here. Eileen said she hadn’t been followed; keep the boy and his mother out of sight, they should be safe. As for Axel, the danger wouldn’t be here, anyway, not yet—it would come once they began negotiating for the little girl. After that, sure, it would pay to take every precaution, here and everywhere.
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