He opened his locker, popped a Xanax.
He leaned against the cool metal, closed his eyes.
And the fist was there.
From the darkness.
His father’s clenched hand strikes him in the chest.
The summer of 1978.
Cockrell Hill, a tiny blue-collar town deep in the southwest corner of the county, surrounded on all sides by the least prosperous sections of Dallas.
Potholed streets, knife fights at the bars on Saturday nights. Cheap Mexican speed sold at the truck stops. Food stamps and foster parents.
Crime and violence, everywhere. Suffering you can never seem to get away from, even when you’re a nine-year-old boy.
Mason falls to the ground, the dirt that makes up the lawn in front of their wooden shack.
“Where’s your bike?” Daddy says. The still air between them stinks of Marlboros and Budweiser.
Shirley, Mason’s stepmother, is not around, so that makes what’s coming even worse.
“I locked it up.”
Daddy strolls over to the rotten railing around the front porch. One picket has been broken.
“They stole your bike,” he says. “You let some nigger come into our yard and steal your bike.”
“I locked it up, Daddy. Like you told me to.”
“Honest folks can’t even make it in this world.” He shakes his head. “And then I got you to contend with.”
Mason struggles to hold back the tears as he gets to his feet. He’d locked the Schwinn up, but they’d broken the wooden railing. It wasn’t his fault. But that didn’t matter.
“You know how hard I had to work to get the money for that bike?”
Mason’s daddy is a deputy constable, an occupation that doesn’t pay well but offers a certain amount of respect for a man without much in the way of education or family connections.
“Real hard, Daddy,” Mason says. “You work real hard.”
“Damn straight.” His father sticks a cigarette in his mouth, flicks a lighter.
Mason flinches.
“Where’s Shirley?” Daddy lets a trickle of smoke escape his nostrils.
“Please, Daddy, no.”
“Where is she?”
Mason shakes his head, eyes welling with tears.
“That fellow from the tire store?” Daddy moves closer. “He come around, didn’t he?”
Mason shakes his head harder, blinking back the tears.
Shirley is a fine-looking woman, feathered hair like Farrah Fawcett-Majors’s, and a tight little body with big boobs. She’s the kind of woman that makes men stop and stare, and a boy like Mason Burnett wonder what strange power she possesses.
The man who’d come by earlier had been a new one, Larry, according to the nametag sewn on the front of his shirt. Larry worked on the lube rack at Sears and had him some righteous weed, according to Shirley, as she got into his El Camino.
Mason can’t tell any of this to Daddy. That would make what is coming all the worse.
“Who’d she leave with?” Daddy is next to Mason now. The cigarette smoke tickles Mason’s nose, makes him want to sneeze.
“Please. No.” Mason shakes his head.
“Won’t tell me, will ya?” Daddy takes the cigarette from his mouth.
Mason vows he won’t cry or make a sound. He’ll be a man.
But, like everything else, he’s wrong about that, too.
Mason came awake, breath caught in his throat. He was on the floor of the locker room, cold concrete pressed against his face.
He sat up, looked around, making sure no one had seen him.
The attacks, whatever they were—panic, some weird form of PTSD—were getting worse, something he hadn’t told that bull dyke of a shrink about.
He had enough trouble already. That hug-a-thug libtard Raul Delgado was making waves about the gangbanger who’d fallen out of the window of the boardinghouse in Oak Cliff.
He got to his feet, stumbled into the shower, letting the cold water run over his head for a long time. Then he dressed in civilian clothes—khaki pants, an untucked golf shirt, tan tactical boots. A pistol in his waistband.
As an afterthought, he grabbed a change of clothes, a fresh black tracksuit, and strode out to his Suburban.
Ten minutes later, he parked in the rear lot of the Iris Apartments.
- CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO -
I let the silence drag on.
Why had this woman asked me about Tremont Washington?
We were in the rear office of the Helping Place, in the expensively remodeled Victorian house just north of downtown.
The woman was attractive. She had a fashionable hairstyle. Layered, shoulder length. Colored to a shimmering brown that seemed to change in hue each time she moved her head. One moment it was henna-red, the next it was the color of chestnuts.
The nameplate on the desk identified her as “Hannah J. McKee.”
“A reporter called yesterday,” she said.
Her voice had no accent or emotion, bland like a newscaster’s.
“About Tremont?” I said.
“Of course about Tremont.” She slapped the desk.
A touch of twang crept into her inflection, no doubt unbidden, something she worked hard at erasing from her speech.
I noticed her hands. They were big. Thick knuckles, calloused fingers, at odds with the rest of her appearance. I imagined a childhood in one of the blue-collar suburbs, Garland or Mesquite. High school weekends at the 4-H show or rodeo, personal factoids she didn’t bring up very much on the cocktail-party circuit.
She said, “I told you people that someone would come asking about him.”
I nodded, one hand touching the hem of the black jacket. She thought I was a cop.
“Have you heard anything else about him?” I asked.
Wrong question.
She stared at me. Her gaze took in the black warm-up jacket and then traveled down to my jeans.
“What’s your name?” The woman’s eyes were slits, voice back to being smooth like a TV announcer’s.
“Jon Cantrell.”
“Show me your badge, Officer Cantrell.”
“I don’t have one. Because I’m not a police officer.”
She sucked in a mouthful of air, eyes fearful. She stared at the black jacket.
“Toby, the guy outside. He gave me the jacket.” I paused. “Is he gonna disappear, too?”
The fear vanished from her eyes, replaced by anger. “Screw you, Jon Cantrell.” She pointed to the door. “Get out.”
I didn’t move.
“Funny you should mention Tremont Washington,” I said. “That’s why I came here. To find out what happened to him.”
The fear returned.
“Tremont was a good kid.” She looked at her nails.
“Was?”
“Is. Whatever.”
“You think he’s dead?”
She didn’t respond.
“Why do you say he’s a good kid?”
“He never missed a day of work. Always on time.”
Based on what I had gleaned so far, the Helping Place functioned as a way to arrange employment for people who suffered from some sort of intellectual disability. The pictures in the hallway had been of young adults handling files or bagging groceries, semi-repetitive tasks that required little mental horsepower.
“Where did Tremont work?”
She didn’t reply. Instead, she crossed her arms and stared outside.
“I’m assuming you want him found, too,” I said.
“You like to piss people off, don’t you?” She didn’t turn her head.
I shrugged.
“Tremont worked here,” she said. “In this office.”
“Was that usual?”
&nbs
p; “We have strict confidentiality policies, Mr. Cantrell. I’ve told you too much already.”
“Did I mention I’m working for his grandmother?”
Not exactly true, but who’s going to quibble at this point?
Hannah McKee ran a hand through her perfectly trimmed and colored hair. She unplugged an electronic cigarette from a USB cord, twisted the filter end, and stuck it in her mouth.
“Do those things really work?” I asked.
She blew a plume of water vapor toward the ceiling. The mist looked exactly like cigarette smoke but was completely odorless.
“Do you know how many charitable organizations there are in Dallas?” she said.
I didn’t reply.
“Cancer this. Heart disease that. They get all the cash.” She took a long pull on the e-cig. “Raising money for organizations like the Helping Place is brutal.”
“So what do you think happened to Tremont?”
She didn’t reply. She put the fake cigarette in her mouth but didn’t puff.
“His grandmother told me she got him to the bus stop in front of the Iris Apartments on the day he disappeared,” I said. “That would be eight days ago.”
She plugged her fake cigarette back in. Shuffled some papers.
I took off the black jacket, dropped it on her desk.
“Just leave, okay.” She looked up. “I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“There are some powerful people in DC who want Tremont found.”
Again, not strictly true, but I didn’t think she’d argue the point.
Theo Goldberg, my employer, wanted his hooks in Raul Delgado. Delgado wanted Tremont found, as did I. Interconnected goals.
“Tremont’s dad and I were friends. Back when I had a badge.” I paused. “He was good police.”
A squad car pulled into the back parking area visible from where we sat.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
No one got out of the vehicle. Exhaust spooled from the muffler.
“I have friends on the force,” she said. “DPD likes what we do here.”
I looked at the black jacket.
“Do you have children, Mr. Cantrell?”
I shook my head, envisioning Piper’s herd of adoptees, far-flung across several hemispheres.
“I thought I’d have kids by now.” Hannah McKee spoke softly. A wistful look came over her. “I’d be going to charity events with my husband, instead of doing the grunt work putting them together.”
Still no movement from the squad car.
“Who was the reporter that called?”
“What?” She blinked, looked up at me.
“You said a reporter called asking about Tremont.” I stood. “Who was it?”
She scribbled on a notepad, handed me a slip of paper. “You need to leave.”
The driver’s door opened and a uniformed officer got out.
I slipped the information in my pocket and headed to the front door.
- CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE -
Mason Burnett parked in a handicap spot in front of the manager’s office at the Iris Apartments. He got out of the Suburban, clipped his badge on his belt by the duty-issue Glock.
The complex seemed pretty quiet at the moment.
Mason remembered the departmental e-mail from yesterday. There’d been a shooting and several arrests, a small quantity of narcotics confiscated—a kilo or so of cocaine packaged in individual doses.
In the entire complex, on any given day, there were probably a hundred kilos of contraband. So yesterday, the Dallas police managed to confiscate one percent.
He shook his head. Burn the whole place down. Solve a lot of problems.
The grandmother lived toward the back. Mason headed that way.
After the building that housed the manager’s office, he entered a bare dirt area that served as a courtyard.
Several groups of young men were there, standing around, watching him. Saggy jeans, wifebeater shirts, quart cans of beers.
Mason watched back, eyes unwavering.
The leader, a black guy in his late twenties with his hair in long dreadlocks, sauntered toward Mason, a cigarillo clamped in his mouth. As he got closer, the sunlight glinted off the diamond grill on his teeth.
He stopped in front of Mason, blocking his path. When he spoke, he affected an English accent and phrasing.
“I say, good chap, whatever brings you to our corner of the globe?”
“Move your ass, Prince Charles.” Mason snapped his fingers. “You’re in my way.”
The man slowly stepped back. After a few feet, he swept his arm toward the rear of the property, a welcoming gesture.
“Until we meet again, good sir.”
Mason strode toward the next building but stopped. He looked at the man with the strange accent.
“If we come across each other again, Prince Charles, you’re gonna be picking that grill out of your ass.”
The man with the dreadlocks squinted at Mason like he was trying to commit his face to memory, but he didn’t speak.
Mason continued on his way. For the rest of the walk no one approached him. A minute later, he climbed the stairs of the rear building and knocked on the door to apartment 6225.
Timid footsteps.
The door opened a sliver, the crack filled with an old woman’s wary face.
Mason badged her. “Are you Alice Simpson?”
The woman nodded.
“I’m here about your grandson, Tremont.”
No response.
Mason said, “I’d like to talk to you about the day he disappeared.”
“Did that Mexican fellow send you?”
“Who?”
She frowned. “Why’s everybody so interested all of a sudden?”
Mason’s turn to frown.
“Two white men in two days.” She shook her head. “The Mexican, he quit coming around, though.”
For no reason, Mason wondered if the Mexican could be Raul Delgado. If it was, he wondered how he could use this information. But who was the other person?
“I think it was two days ago.” She shook her head.
“When did you last see the Mexican?”
“Was that you that came around?” She squinted at Mason’s face. “Wait a minute. Don’t you work at CVS down the street?”
He couldn’t tell if her eyesight was bad or if she was suffering from some sort of dementia.
“These people that have been asking about your grandson,” Mason said. “You remember anybody’s name?”
Alice Simpson nodded. “I got his business card, the one from yesterday.”
Mason put his hand on the door. “Perhaps I could come inside and we could talk about this a little more?”
The old woman remained wary. After a moment, she nodded, then removed the chain and opened the door.
- CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR -
I left the renovated house that served as the headquarters of the Helping Place, shutting the front door softly.
Toby was gone from the porch.
I jogged to the Navigator, jumped in, and sped away.
Instead of heading downtown to arrange for the pickup of Tommy Joe Culpepper’s misplaced shipment, I drove north on Central Expressway. Traffic in this direction was light, and about ten minutes later I exited at Lovers Lane and headed east.
A few blocks after the apartments and shopping centers clustered around Greenville Avenue, I turned south on an interior street called Rexton Lane and found myself in a neighborhood of low-slung brick homes, snug little places built in the 1950s and ’60s. Most had tiny front porches with painted wrought-iron railings, picture windows overlooking the street.
I stopped midblock in front of a house with two towering sycamore trees in the front yard. Piper’s domici
le du jour, a rental she kept on a six-month lease, her version of commitment.
From the console, I grabbed the manila envelope that contained her pictures. I got out, strode across the lawn, and knocked on her door.
She answered a moment later, out of breath, hair damp. One arm was behind her back.
“What do you want?” She slowly eased her hand down, fingers grasping a pistol.
“Here.” I held out the envelope.
She was barefoot, wearing a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt from the Broken Spoke in Austin, the fabric so worn it had the consistency of cheesecloth.
She took the package. “Thanks.”
Neither of us spoke.
After a moment, she stepped away from the door. “You want to come in?”
I shrugged, entered her home.
The living room was decorated in early Pier 1. Wicker and bamboo, veneer woods that had been stained mahogany. Brass-plated knickknacks.
The coffee table had been moved to one side and a yoga mat set in its place. Candles and incense peppered the flat surfaces, making the air smell like vanilla-scented patchouli.
“You’re doing . . . yoga.” I tried not to sound incredulous.
“Keeps me centered.” She shrugged. “Good for my chi, too.”
“Your, uh, chi?” I paused. “It needs to be centered?”
Piper’s idea of self-improvement was to read the Sunday papers. Yoga was a sign of maturity, or some damn thing. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.
She cocked her head to one side. “What do you want, Jon?”
“The pictures.”
She shut the door behind me.
“You said to take care of them. So I did.”
She did a couple of stretching exercises, bending at the waist, palms flat on the floor. Then she stood up straight and exhaled slowly.
I clenched my hamstrings, aching just from watching her.
“Did I tell you my sergeant asked me out?” She picked up a bottle of water from a side table.
I didn’t reply.
“Guy’s got the IQ of a speed bump,” she said. “And his mustache, jeez, it makes him look like a walrus.”
On the wall opposite the front door were a half dozen pictures of children, eight-by-tens, framed in black. For some reason their presence filled me with a sadness that was hard to describe. Roads not taken, holidays spent alone, opportunities missed.
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