by Kit Frazier
I started to say, “Who are you and what have you done with my boss?” but I figured the answer to that question could take a whole other lifetime.
Chapter Twenty-three
I’d been wrong about the amount of people who knew about the new and improved amateur sleuth-fest sponsored by Tres Ainsworth and his millions of dollars.
A hodgepodge of hopped-up trucks and urban assault vehicles lined the long driveway from the formidable, camera-security, wrought-iron fence to the gargantuan house.
Posted at the gate were two heavily tattooed, dark, disreputable looking men with mean, thin lips that scowled at us as we climbed out of the car. “Great,” I grumbled. Chino and Jitters.
Mia said, “Que?”
“The light and sound guys from Faith’s video,” I whispered to Mia. Both wore wide-waisted, low-rider jeans with chains pouring from the pockets and long-tailed, short-sleeved Mexican-style shirts over white tee shirts, attractively accessorized with thick gold necklaces and long-muzzled, intricately carved wood and black steel guns, the likes of which I’d never seen before. As we moved closer, I saw Chino was leading the show. He had an absence about him that seemed to leave a hole in the air around him. They both had elaborate tattoos and scarring that interrupted their arms, like someone had sliced skin off their biceps. I wondered if it was some sort of hazing ritual. There was a dangerous, sexual charge around them that had the little hairs on my neck at full attention. It was times like these I wondered if they still sold chastity belts.
“Cholos,” Mia whispered, and I nodded. “Yes,” I agreed. “Gangsters.”
Chino grinned, revealing a desperate need for orthodontia. “La fresa y la gringa,” he said in a pretty decent Clint Eastwood, except I didn’t think he was kidding.
“Si,” I said. “Whitey and the berry.”
Mia jabbed me hard with her pointy little elbow, and I fought the urge to gasp and check for puncture wounds.
While getting my breath back, I looked more closely at the alpha dog peering behind the sunglasses. “Chino, right?” I said. “Remember me?”
Suddenly, he grinned a snake’s smile. “I thought all us Mexicans looked alike to you.”
“We keep running into each other in the most unusual places,” I said.
He stared at me, and not knowing what else to do, I stared back, which was easier said than done.
After a long, uncomfortable moment, he said, “What do you want?”
“We’re here to see Tres Ainsworth. He asked us to help look for Faith.”
He reached behind him and extracted one of those nifty Nextel phones and buzzed the main house. “E, Jefe, there’s a couple of chucha cuereras here. What do you want me to do with them?”
I couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, but Chino looked disappointed. Probably thought he’d get the go-ahead to shoot us.
Instead, he buzzed open the gate and let us in.
As we hiked up the driveway, I could feel the glint off the pistoleros’ sunglasses starting a fire on my behind.
“What was up with those guns?” I said.
“HK 45,” Mia said, her voice breathy. “Mi Tio Alejo used to have one.”
“Your uncle the drug dealer?” I said, my voice rising an octave.
“Yes. They’re like the bling of weapons. I bet they had .44s in the back with their talkies.”
I blinked. “Lot of help you were back there,” I said. “I particularly liked the part where you choked.”
“You are going to get us killed,” Mia finally said, her accent heavier, her breath still coming hard. “They may look like they watch too many Robert Rodriguez movies, but those two cholos are not playing around. Did you see those tattoos?”
“Chino had a Virgin Mary half cut off on his bicep. I didn’t look hard at the other guy,” I said, feeling smaller as we walked.
“Yes, but if you look more closely, you would have seen a snake curving around a cross.”
My blood froze in my left ventricle. “Like an S?”
She nodded.
“You think he defected from the Syndicate?” I said.
“Jeez, I don’t know, but things like that really could start a gang war.” Mia shook her head. “They looked like they were going to take us out behind the bushes and break seven of the Ten Commandments.”
I blew out a breath and said, “My lips are zipped. That was careless of me.”
She nodded but said, “It was dangerous, but you probably did the right thing. Nothing los asquerosos hate worse than a smart-mouth white girl.”
“How is that good?”
She grinned. “They’re mad at you, amiga, not me. If the ball drops, I got time to get away.”
We continued up the drive, and I decided silence was probably not at all overrated in a situation such as this.
Despite the relative shade of the overarching trees, the sun had warmed the paved driveway so we got heat from both ends of the earth. Sweat beaded along my spine, and I really hate to sweat.
The grounds were large and well-watered, and several gardeners plodded along, shaping a row of hedges with tools that looked like deli knives. Based on the gate guards, I wondered if Tres hired trained assassins for all his housekeeping needs.
While the landscaping was incredible, the house itself was something to behold, and Mia and I had a lot of time to behold it as we trudged up the long-ass driveway. It was a log home, ridiculously large and uber-manly, even by Texas standards.
Cullen Wallace Ainsworth III’s house was located high on a hill overlooking Blackland Creek. I wondered why Faith lived in a trailer and Tres lived in a woodland palace on the same plot of land?
Mia gasped as we drew closer to the house. “How many trees do you think had to die for this house?” she said, her accent swelling with anger.
“No telling. Jeez those logs have to be at least three feet in diameter.”
Mia was breathing hard, and it wasn’t from exertion. She was wearing a short, swingy red skirt and a white tank, with strappy, murder-red sandals, her omnipresent camera bag bouncing off her hip. She showed no sign of exertion as we hiked up the hill. But then, she never did.
I’d decided to go conservative with a white Sentinel tank and a pair of khaki shorts, armed only with my mini recorder and my little red notebook. I
“d opted for casual because I assumed we’d be doing at least some hiking, depending on how serious Tres was about the alternative search group. Judging from the sheer number of wheels on the pavement, I was guessing he was pretty serious.
The house rose three stories above the high limestone hill looking down on the spring-fed Blackland Creek. Wide, cedar-pillared porches sheltered all four sides of the house.
I started to knock on one of the colossal, rough-hewn doors when it swung open.
“Good afternoon, ladies. May I take your things?” The man who answered the door was small and dark like Mia, but his biceps bulged through his black polo shirt.
Mia whisked her camera and bag out of his reach, her lips curled into a formidable snarl. Probably channeling the spirits of the dead trees.
“Cauley MacKinnon and Mia Santiago. We’re here to see Tres,” I said. “He’s expecting us.”
“I bet,” he said, and winked at Mia as he swaggered off in search of Tres.
“Take a deep breath,” I told Mia. “We’ll hit him up for a donation to Tree People on our way out.”
I took her by the hand and walked through the open door and into the melee of Tres’s Super Search. The little concierge could find us later.
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
It could have been a reality show on Fox TV. The middle of the house was a lodge that reminded me of the entrance to the Longhorn Caverns. Huge cypress beams supported the high ceiling, and windows provided a clear and commanding view of Blackland Ranch.
“Let me get this straight,” Mia said. “Tres lives here, and Faith and her brother lived in rundown, rat-infested trailers out back?�
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I nodded.
“They must really hate their stepbrother.”
About a dozen men dressed in fatigues and flack jackets milled about, examining huge commissioned maps. Probably had battle plans spelled out in one-syllable, easy-to-read words.
Most carried weapons in shoulder holsters, although some opted for the old-fashioned, tried-and-true “gun tucked into the back of the pants” trick. I’d have tried it too, but I didn’t have a gun, and if I did, it would ruin the side silhouette of my khakis.
From what I could tell, all of the weapons were the size and caliber to stop a herd of charging rhinos. The only thing missing was a flamethrower. But we hadn’t even made it through the foyer, so there was always hope.
There were some women there, but they seemed to be some kind of naughty catering staff—short shorts and baby tees. I could have sworn I’d seen the redhead at Boners.
Mia was snapping shots like she was auditioning for America’s Most Wanted.
Mia has good instincts.
“Miranda,” I swore, and Mia looked up.
Miranda was laughing and chatting with a very large man with a very big gun. He looked like Rambo, if Rambo had gone to prep school. He handed her a drink that looked like bourbon, and she took it, looking up at him from under her lashes.
I scowled. “Is this a search party or a hunting party?” I whispered to Mia.
“Ah, Lois Lane and the photographer,” Tres said, gleaming blondly down the cavernous hallway off to the right, showing all of his very white teeth in a smile. He wore some kind of safari suit he probably had custom-made for him and new, heavy-duty hiking boots. His arms stretched out for a hug. I reached into the hug for a shake and said, “Mia.”
His left brow arched. “Excuse me?”
“Mia. She’s too polite to tell you her name, but I suffer no such delusions.”
He looked at me for a moment, trying to decide if I was kidding, and apparently decided I was, because he took Mia’s hand and kissed it. I couldn’t be sure, but I’d bet this month’s 401(k) deduction she’d just blasted him with some ancient Mayan curse.
“Mia, then. If you’d be so kind as to take photographs of the search team,” he said. “I think it’s important that the man who took Faith know what he’s dealing with. Lois, I have something else in mind for you.”
This time, it was Mia who cast me a warning glance. There are few things in life I enjoy more than people telling me how to do my job.
I bit my tongue because a girl was missing, his stepsister no less, and not a lot seemed to be getting done about it.
Tres led me down an arched hallway made of logs bigger around than Mia’s and my butts put together. We stepped through a large door and entered what had to be his home office. I was glad Mia wasn’t there to see it.
The room did all but shout Men Doing Manly Things here! It was larger than my kitchen, living, and bedroom put together and was swathed in various exotic animal furs. The tiger fur by the office fireplace still had its head attached.
Unconsciously, I touched my collar, making sure my head was firmly attached to my neck.
A menagerie of stuffed heads deer and elk and some other game animals I couldn’t identify lined the upper walls close to the ceiling, where they stared grimly out into an empty eternity. Very symmetrical, not very artistic.
A stuffed bear stood upright, baring his teeth at a stuffed cougar frozen in a pounce, locked in a mortal combat that never happened in life. Beyond the bear and cougar was a large window that revealed a rugged-looking deck. Probably a place for Tres and his friends to smash beer cans on their heads and pee outdoors.
There was something Freudian about the size of the house and all the weapons and stuffed wild animals, and I had to try hard to avert my eyes from Tres’s groin area to see if I was right.
“Ah, you like my mounts?” he said, catching my gaze.
“Decorating with carcasses is probably an acquired taste,” I said.
“Are you a vegetarian?” he was making himself a drink at the handcarved Mexican bar, talking to me over the chinking ice.
“I’m a borderline vegetarian,” I said. “I eat meat, but I feel bad about it.”
He laughed at that and offered me a drink. I accepted it because it was polite, but more importantly, people often talk more freely when they’re playing host they’re in control. Looking around at the openmouthed animal heads peering ominously down at me, I was guessing control was important to Tres.
“Is this your family’s ranch?” I said, and he nodded, pleased with himself. “But the house is new?”
“Ain’t it great?” he said. “I bulldozed the old house, had this built on the same spot. Bigger and better, right?”
“Sure,” I said, wanting to wash my mouth out with soap.
“Bought Kimmie a house on the hill like she always wanted. She’s set for life.”
“Does she know that?” I said.
“Know what?”
“That she’s set for life.”
“‘Course she does. She’s lucky, and she knows it. She’s grateful for what she’s got, and let me tell you, you’d be surprised how many people just don’t appreciate a good thing when they’ve got it.’
“All this and a philosopher, too,” I said. “But Faith and Wylie?”
Tres’s amiable smile faltered. “Hey, I tried to help them, but they don’t wanna play by the rules.”
“Your rules?” I said.
He looked at me like I’d spoken Swahili. Ignoring the question, he ushered me over to a brass-nailed, distressed leather chair and took his place behind the vast space of a desk constructed of a kind of wood I didn’t recognize.
A business-style checkbook lay on top of the desk, along with a collection of snowglobes that contained tiny worlds, tidily captured and preserved in time. The globes were lined up along the edge of the desk, much like the animal heads.
Behind him, there were photos of himself. Tres with the governor. Tres with the former governor. Tres with a past president. Tres dressed in hunting gear with a collection of German shorthaired pointers. All the photos were also lined up, perfectly spaced and aligned along the tops and bottoms like a straightedge. I was beginning to notice an anal retentive theme.
Along the right wall, a large, custom-built gun cabinet housed what had to be at least a hundred guns of all shapes and sizes. Along the top and enclosed in individual glass cases were old flintlock pistols and shotguns that looked about two hundred years old.
I looked around and realized that everything in the office was part of a collection. Because he’d asked me here, I was guessing I was next on his acquisition list.
“I don’t have a lot of confidence in Junior Hollis,” he began.
That made two of us.
“I’ve assembled a team of some of the best hunters and trackers in the Southwest. We’re going to be using state-of-the-art tracking equipment, and we’re beginning our search this afternoon.”
“State-of-the-art,” I repeated. “You mean like night vision goggles and things?”
“Among other equipment. We have heat-seeking radar and access to all kinds of toys that Dawes County doesn’t provide.”
I shook my head, still blown away by the paramilitary forces loading up in the living room. “Where did you find these people? How did you scramble them so quickly?”
“They belong to the Hunters and Killers Club. We meet once a month and…” he swept his arm, indicating the animal heads, “we hunt.”
I set my drink down on the desk, unsipped. I figured polite had flown out the wide window five minutes ago. “But you’re not really hunting Faith, right?”
“Of course not. We’re tracking her, but it’s the same principle. These men are some of the best hunters in the world.”
“So what are your plans?”
“Simple. We’re gonna track her down and bring her back, and then we’re gonna bring the sonovabitch who took her to justice.”
; I stood, and from the right rear corner of the office, I could see ten miles of countryside stretching out toward the horizon, framed in perfect symmetry through the wide pane of glass. Just below us, a large, curved swimming pool was designed to look like a creek falling into a natural pool. A cabana that probably served as both pool house and guest quarters nestled in a crook of the stream.
Farther out, a large cedar barn loomed over a cluster of smaller cedar cabins probably for staff. Beyond the compound, a bulldozer trudged a path through a small stand of live oaks, making its way toward another outbuilding about the size of my house. Around the building, the earth was freshly moved, and building supplies lay scattered about like skeletal remains
“Are you adding on?” I said, nodding toward the new outbuilding. Tres nodded sadly. “That’s the recording studio. I’m still making adjustments.”
I remembered the card he’d given me, declaring himself the “owner” of Incubus, yet another recording company to wash ashore in the river city.
“Is Faith your only client?”
“My first.”
“And you’re still building?”
“Oh, we’ll find her, Ms. MacKinnon.”
That was the first time he hadn’t called me by the nickname he’d bestowed upon me, and it sounded strange coming from his lips.
“Seems like you’ve got the whole thing figured out,” I said. “So why am I here?”
“I need a mouthpiece for the media.”
I felt a bump in my blood pressure. Keep your cool, Cauley.
I nodded. In a voice as calm as I could muster, I said, “You realize I’m an obituary writer, and I don’t have any control over what goes into the newspaper. My editor collects stories. Ultimately, what winds up on the page is his decision.”
Tres smiled. “I bet you got more influence than you think. And what about all that publicity you got for Cantu and his search team?”
“That’s not publicity, that’s news.”
He gave an elegant shrug. “I wanna see everything you write before it goes through.” He slid the big checkbook in front of him and produced an expensive pen. Leveling his gaze on me, he said, “How much?”
“Nobody but our editor reviews our copy before it’s submitted,” I said, fighting the color that rose hot in my cheeks. “I volunteer for Cantu’s team. And if you want to pay for publicity, that’s what the ad department is for.”