by Jon Land
“You have an investor or something, Mr. Jackson?” Braga had asked.
“Something,” Jackson said, smiling broadly. “I been waiting for just this day and just this time. What you helped me with tonight, what you did on the company’s behalf, has proven your loyalty and made me consider you for a gift I’ve found no one else worthy of bestowing it upon. And you do seem like a man well capable of taking a secret with him all the way to the grave. Am I right about that, son?”
“Mr. Jackson, we’re hauling three bodies on that bed behind us. I think that should answer your question.”
Jackson nodded. “Gonna take us a trip soon. We’ll be gone a couple days. I’ll tell you the story in the course of the drive back to where I was born and bred.”
“You don’t speak about your family very much,” Braga noted. “When that subject comes around, we always speak of mine but never yours.”
“Well, sir, my grandparents were sharecroppers on both sides, but my father, he had higher ambitions until he lost his life to a policeman’s bullet and my mother not long after to malaria of all things. My grandfather’s still around, though, and that’s who we’ll be traveling to see. He’s a Cajun man steeped in ways so old nobody else near remembers them.” Jackson grinned again. “You might say he moves around a lot, since the bayou land he claims for his own shifts from time to time. He don’t have a mailbox, or running water, or ’lectricity. But he got something else you and me can both use for sure, yes, sir.”
It was the first time Alvin Jackson had ever opened up to him to that degree, but Braga had no idea of the ultimate ramifications or the miracle that was about to be bestowed upon him.
“I got only one concern I need to raise,” Jackson had continued. “That temper of yours.”
Braga cocked his gaze back toward the bed beyond them again. “It wasn’t me who planted those bodies in the sludge, Mr. Jackson.”
“That was business, son, and temper never entered into the picture. You, on the other hand, got a get-even attitude that knows no bounds. I know it firsthand ’cause, truth be told, it’s what bought me a stretch in jail where the guards mixed gravel with the dirty rice they fed us just for a laugh. That’s where I first learned the waste business, by cleaning up the raw sewage overflow after storms as part of a chain gang. I had resolved not to squander those years and I suppose I didn’t. And what I’m saying to you here and now is your temper could take you down a similar path ’less you get it measured and tucked in your hip pocket to be used like a credit card when somebody’s check needs cashing. You get that temper under control and you’ll have no limits, even the sky, and I am here to help you toward that end.”
But that temper continued to get the better of Braga lately, most recently with the umpire whose brains he’d bashed in and now with Caitlin Strong. Braga looked up and saw Jalbert Thoms standing on the bank of the lagoon with a kerchief over his mouth. Thoms’s face was wrinkled in displeasure, his gaze now fastened on the SUV that was approaching the lagoon.
63
ROUND ROCK, THE PRESENT
Braga jumped down from the Waste Handler’s cab. “Follow my lead, Mr. Thoms,” he said, watching the two men climb out of the SUV.
Thoms was wearing the same suit as the night before, wrinkled and creased in places as if he’d slept on a floor somewhere. His shoulder holster made a hollow clacking sound against his rib cage and his spurs jangled as he walked. His skin looked stretched over his thin, egg-shaped face, as if extra folds of it had been sewn into place. Removing his hat revealed matted-down hair with the texture of straw riding his scalp like a bad paint job dripping down over his forehead. But his other hand stayed within easy range of his shoulder holster.
“Yes, sir,” Thoms acknowledged.
He fell into step behind Braga toward the two men who had remained by the SUV. Braga looked them over as he approached. Having expected only the one he’d met previously, the presence of the second man threw him for a slight loop. The stranger was hardly intimidating—he looked almost too calm, too compliant. The kind of man Braga had learned to be leery of above all others.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Braga said to the stranger when he reached the two men, comfortable with Thoms riding his back.
The stranger extended his hand. “We are business partners by association.”
Braga took the hand, finding the grip dry and flaccid. “One deal doesn’t make us partners, especially when it leaves a Texas Ranger crawling up my ass.”
The two men exchanged a glance, quick but not too quick to hide the concern it carried.
“Perhaps if you could be more specific,” said the man with whom Braga had made the deal.
“Specific? Okay. The Rangers have video evidence of several of the barrels I contracted you to move in Gulf waters. And I don’t believe that makes a very good case for you following the discretion I’m paying for.”
“An oversight,” said the stranger, rolling over the other man’s words.
“Why am I talking to you?”
“Because we’re associates, as I said.”
“No, we’re not,” Braga said, finger thrust toward Harrabi. “You’re his associate, not mine. I don’t know you. You’re not the one I paid to do this job for me.”
The stranger remained emotionless, speaking with his eyes on the other. “But I pay him, which means you are now dealing with me.”
“Let’s take a drive. There’s something I’d like to show you gentlemen.”
* * *
Braga and Thoms rode in the cab of the tanker, now full to the brim with sludge pumped from the lagoon, the two men following in their SUV. They parked in the lot of his processing plant and Braga led them inside under Thoms’s watchful eye.
The building was warehouse-sized, crammed with automated machinery connected by a labyrinthine network of pipes, baffles, exhaust vents, and hoses. In here the bitterly corrosive smell of super-heated lubricating oils mixed with that of the sludge, worsened all the more by the heat friction and the closed confines.
“You have to wear these,” Braga said, handing each of his guests a hard hat and then fastening one atop his own head. “It’s the law and we wouldn’t want to break the law now, would we?”
The men complied, the one he knew clearly anxious while the stranger still showed no emotion whatsoever.
“Follow me,” Braga told them.
“Why have you brought us here?” the stranger asked.
Braga continued on, ignoring him and stopping before the largest piece of equipment on the floor. “This is called a centrifuge,” he explained, voice raised over the constant din of the machinery that churned twenty-four hours a day. “Separates solid from liquid. The water is treated at the adjoining facility, while the solids are pumped down to remove the solvents and allow for drying. The result is this,” he said, reaching a slide that funneled dried sludge in pellet form into orange barrels. “Stores better with less toxicity while taking up much less space than it would have as solid waste.”
“You still haven’t answered my question,” the stranger said.
“Which one of you am I working with?”
“Both of us, but today I am the one speaking.”
Braga nodded in apparent concession. “You see anyone else in this building?”
“Just him,” the stranger said, indicating Jalbert Thoms.
“That’s because this plant is fully automated, requiring only regular maintenance to continue its tasks unabated. You understand the purpose of regular maintenance? To prevent anything from going wrong. The cost of dealing with a breakdown can be catastrophic. You’re here because the business between us had a breakdown and it led back to me.”
“In the person of this Texas Ranger,” the stranger concluded.
Ignoring him again, Braga grabbed what looked like a small, handheld spade from its slot on the wall and moved to a rectangular connecting line that ran from the centrifuge to the pellet processor. He jimmied a catch bracket,
opening the front side of the line to reveal moist, mudlike clumps of black sludge.
“This stuff can clog the line, gum up the whole process,” Braga resumed, using his tool to clear all the sludge from the works, including the portions that had gobbed up behind the pistons and baffles. “Somebody does this every day. Today it’s my turn. Takes several hours but potentially saves the company millions in the event a shutdown is required. You see what I’m getting at here?” Braga asked, scooping an even larger clump of sludge right at the stranger’s feet.
“Preventative maintenance,” said the stranger.
“I’m glad you got my point. That’s what you failed to perform and now we have an expensive breakdown to deal with.”
“Was that your point in summoning us here?”
“My point is that breakdowns, as I said before, are expensive to deal with and this one is going to cost you.”
“So this is a renegotiation.”
“No,” Braga told him. “That implies you have a choice. You’ve moved half the barrels so far. You’ll be moving the second half at half the price we agreed upon.” Then, with his eyes on Jalbert Thoms, “Breakdowns cost.” Braga took a rag from his pocket and began wiping the sludge dust from his face, succeeding only in creating grimy smears where it had collected in the greatest concentrations. “Are we clear on that?”
Anwar al-Awlaki watched him impassively, then picked up the tool Braga had discarded and mimicked his actions precisely in clearing the sludge from the line. “Perhaps our philosophies are closer in step than you think,” he told Braga, swiping at the innards of the pipe through the open hatch. “I have experienced many such breakdowns in my time, but sometimes they are out of our control and cannot be avoided no matter how much maintenance is done. When that happens, one must take responsibility and accept its burden.”
He pulled the curved tool out, tilting it so the sludge he’d cleared fell straight onto the tips of Braga’s work boots. “That particular burden is ours and we will shoulder it. So, yes, we are clear.”
Braga ignored the gesture, aware Jalbert Thoms had tensed noticeably by his side, his hand listing a bit closer to the cannon-sized pistol holstered under his jacket. “Burden,” he repeated. “Is that what you call murdering two dozen oil rig workers?”
“I have no idea what you are speaking of,” al-Awlaki said without hesitation.
Braga looked the man over. “You notice I didn’t ask your name.”
“Just as I didn’t introduce myself.”
“So we have ourselves an understanding. You don’t tell me my business and I’ll only tell you yours when it affects mine. I retained you to do a job and I’ll see that you complete it without any further complications. Is that clear enough for you?”
“You mean, sir,” al-Awlaki began quite calmly, “a complication like the one you’re facing with this Texas Ranger?”
Braga swabbed his face with the rag again, this time succeeding in clearing away a hefty portion of the muck. “You just dispose of the rest of the barrels like you’re supposed to and leave the Ranger to me.”
64
SAN ANTONIO, THE PRESENT
Cort Wesley’s rental car was parked in the shade of a flowering cottonwood tree across the street from Thomas C. Clark High School, when the door opened and Caitlin Strong climbed in.
“Been here long?” she asked him.
“Only all day.”
“So I figured.”
“Couldn’t sleep last night. Kept closing my eyes and seeing Jalbert Thoms showing up on the premises.”
“Captain Tepper asked the San Antonio police to station a cruiser outside Luke’s middle school.”
“But not here.”
“’Cause I knew you’d be here, since it was Dylan that Thoms picked out.”
Cort Wesley turned away from the school building toward her across the front seat. “Can the Rangers really afford to be without you for any stretch of time? Thought they’d learned their lesson.”
“I believe D. W. Tepper would tell you I haven’t learned mine.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I honestly don’t know. I guess I’m becoming more a pain in the ass than I’m worth.”
“You’re a Ranger through and through.”
“Maybe that’s the problem. I’ve got an old school attitude in a new school time and, I’ve gotta tell you, Captain Tepper has a point. I flew off the handle in back-to-back meetings today. My dad and granddad both preached that temper never comes into play for a Ranger. That’s how he—”
“Or she…”
“—can walk into a simmering crowd and shut down whatever was coming. Because of their calm in the face of everyone else about to give in to the tendencies I felt firsthand twice today.”
Cort Wesley flashed her a look. “And what do you attribute this to?”
Caitlin frowned at him. “I think you know.”
“Do I now?”
“I owe you an apology, Cort Wesley.”
“For what?”
“Will you stop asking me questions?”
“Not until I get a straight answer, Ranger. What is it you want to apologize for? No, let me make that a statement: apology accepted.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
The sun had found a straight path through the shade, a swatch of the car’s black fabric upholstery turning hot and pushing Cort Wesley sideways, closer to Caitlin. “You were going to say you were sorry for being critical of me for gunning down the drug dealer who killed Dylan’s girlfriend. You were going to say now you finally understand how kids change you in ways you can’t possibly get until you’re responsible for them and they become your life. You were going to say you finally realized that maybe you really can’t have it both ways, which is why you’ve always kept your distance no matter how close we seemed to get. But it’s what you weren’t going to say that’s most important.”
“What’s that?”
“That you stepped in when I stepped out, and you didn’t hesitate, not even for a second. You didn’t change your priorities, Ranger,” Cort Wesley said, holding her eyes with his as deeply as he ever had, “you just realized where they were all along.”
“Rangering cost my mother her life and my father his happiness with another woman years later in Midland.”
“So you learn anything from that?”
Caitlin’s stare dug into him, vulnerable and relentless at the same time. “I never wanted to kill a man more than I wanted to kill Jalbert Thoms last night.”
“He’s just a peripheral player here.”
“You know what I’m getting at. He pushed buttons in me I never even knew I had.”
Cort Wesley reached over and cupped Caitlin’s head in his hand, stroking her hair. “I like it this way.”
“I think prison made you soft.”
“Nope. I’ve been like this with you since the beginning. You’re just noticing it now.”
Caitlin eased her hand over his. “Maybe they got a pill or something I can take.”
“An antidote to kids?”
“Something like that.”
“Would you take it?” Cort Wesley felt her stiffen under his touch and decided to switch gears. “I’m moving back home.”
Caitlin missed his touch as soon as it was gone. “I’m meeting Captain Tepper up in Marble Falls for dinner tonight. Why don’t you pick up the boys and come along? Be a good way to break the ice now that you’re back in the picture.”
Cort Wesley shifted about uneasily. “I got butterflies in my stomach the size of monster trucks, Ranger.”
“This isn’t like the last time, Cort Wesley. They didn’t even know you existed back then.”
“And I don’t know how long I’m gonna be around again now.”
“Why?”
“Jones.”
“You signed on for one job with him, and one job only.”
“It’s never only one with men like him. They’re a different
breed entirely, Ranger. They see the world a whole different way and everyone else is just a means to those ends. How do I know how long he’s gonna hold this prison thing over my head?”
“I’ll talk to him, if it comes to that.”
Cort Wesley’s face wrinkled in derision. “What good’s that gonna do?”
“You want to trust me on this or not?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“No more of one than you do about joining Captain Tepper and me for supper tonight.”
“Then I guess we’ll be there,” Cort Wesley said with a frown that couldn’t quite hide the pleasure he felt at the prospect. He slid the windows up and started the engine to get the air-conditioning on and flush out the heat for a time. The rush of cold air blasted into his skin, drying the sweat collected there almost on contact. “You want to check with your captain first?”
“He can’t be any madder at me than he is already, and it could be about to get worse.”
“How’s that, Ranger?”
“I’m about to tell him the last thing in the world he wants to hear.”
“You wanna try it out on me first?”
Caitlin turned away, indicating she didn’t. “It’s too crazy to believe, Cort Wesley. Trust me on that.”
65
SAN ANTONIO, THE PRESENT
Cort Wesley was standing outside his rental car when Dylan emerged at the end of the school day amid a rugby scrum of friends all pushing and jostling each other. Pretty much all of them were bigger than he was, but none of them was as good-looking, as attested to by the gaggle of smiling girls seeking him out for attention.
The sight sent a wash of pride through Cort Wesley that felt as tangible as blood flow, until he thought of Jalbert Thoms ogling Dylan and a fresh rush of heat rage pushed the pride out. He didn’t realize his hands had clenched into fists until his son spotted him and froze, his teenage entourage continuing on without him.