Southtown

Page 17

Stirman said, “Why?”
“Flood damage.”
The guard said it like it should be obvious. The broken windows. Plastic covering the patio tables. Pools of water on the tile floor.
Perfect.
What had Sam Barrera told him, when he cal ed to set up the meeting, eight years ago? It’ll be a private place to talk. Secure. Hell, I own the security.
Wil smiled apologetical y at the guard. “Okay. Sorry.”
The guard locked the door. He stood at the glass, his hand stil on his holster as Wil walked back to his car.
Pablo waited on the hood of the car, trying to ignore the rain.
He wanted to throw the phone across the museum parking lot. He’d just heard from their man watching Erainya Manos, and the last thing he wanted was to share the news with Stirman.
It had been bad enough, dealing with a private investigator. It brought back too many memories of his big mistake—the stranger he’d found in Angelina’s bedroom, four and a half years ago.
So far, Pablo had resisted the urge to cal his wife. He needed to be on the plane first, on his way to Mexico. He just hoped Angelina had read his letters from jail, and understood his veiled directions about what she should do if he ever got free.
But what if she’d burned the letters? He kept thinking about the look on her face the night he came home with the shotgun.
In the month or so leading up to that night, she’d acted cagey, nervous. Money had vanished from their checking account without explanation, and they never had any extra money to spend. She would go out and tel him she was visiting a sick friend, or seeing a doctor—little excuses that didn’t add up.
At first Pablo was too bewildered to be angry. He was used to Angelina depending on him for everything.
She’d come to the country il egal y years before, gotten separated from the rest of her family in transit, when they’d run into some vigilante ranchers in the high desert. She had only Pablo, who’d given her citizenship through marriage, a good home, al the love she could want. She would never betray him.
Then his next-door neighbor told him about the man who was visiting her while Pablo was at work—twice he’d come to see her, over the last week.
And when Pablo had walked in that last night, and found the man talking with her on their bed—on his bed . . .
Angelina had looked up, and screamed at Pablo to stop.
He would give anything to take back those few seconds, as the man rose to face him, and Pablo’s finger found the trigger.
“Yo, amigo. Wake up.”
Stirman’s presence jarred Pablo out of his thoughts.
“What’s wrong?” Stirman demanded.
“Bad news,” Pablo managed to say.
He told Stirman about their private eye, who had fol owed Erainya Manos out of town that morning. She’d taken I-35 north—her and her boy, Jem.
“Running?” Stirman asked.
“No. She came back.”
“Where did she go in Austin, then?”
Pablo shifted uncomfortably. “Our guy lost her when she turned off on Ben White. He missed the exit, never found her again. He drove back to San Antonio and sat on her house, in case she came back. She did—a few minutes ago. Without the boy.”
Pablo saw the rage building in Stirman’s face.
They both knew what the PI’s news meant. Erainya Manos had hidden her son. She was trying to protect him, insulate him from danger, which meant she probably wasn’t going to cooperate. She would try to double-cross them.
“The woman is a problem,” Stirman decided.
“She’s stil got twenty-four hours,” Pablo said halfheartedly. The last thing he wanted was another death, especial y a woman’s. “Maybe she’l come through. We just got to stay low and wait.”
“No,” Stirman insisted. He took a deep breath, and Pablo knew he was fil ing himself with that cold, homicidal sense of purpose Pablo had seen too many times over the last few days. “Change of plans, amigo. We’ve got work to do.”
Chapter 12
Robert Johnson was a great help going through the agency’s old files.
He would crouch at the far end of the living room, get a running start, and dive straight through them like a snowplow. Then he would look at me, wild-eyed, a manila folder tented over his head.
“Yes, thanks,” I said. “That’s much better.”
In terms of finding important information, however, neither of us was having much luck.
The only things that belonged to Erainya in the locked file cabinet were mementos of her transitional year, from Barrow’s wife to self-made PI. There were stacks of clippings about her defense trial in Fred’s murder.
Her change-of-name paperwork, official y declaring her to be Erainya Manos. Her U.S. passport, stamped for Greece. Jem’s adoption paperwork from a Texas-based agency cal ed Children First International. His birth date, which Erainya had told me was a guess—April 28, 1995. His birth parents’ names: Abdul and Mariah Suleimaniyah. The usual signatures and medical work. A letter from some government official in Bosnia-Herzegovina, authorizing Jem’s release to Erainya’s custody.
An early picture of Erainya and Jem. Jem looked about one year old. His dark eyes were wide with amazement as the woman with the frizzy black hair held him up to the camera and kissed his cheek.
I went through some of Erainya’s correspondence. Several notes of support from women’s advocacy groups. Fan letters from women who admired her for shooting her husband.
I put those down. They made me nervous.
The rest of the stuff was from Fred Barrow’s time.
I’d always thought of Fred as an old man, but the only photograph I found showed him looking not much older than me. It must’ve been from the early eighties. Fred’s greasy black hair was parted in the middle, too long at the col ar. He had a square face, battered from years as an amateur boxer. His eyes were sly and shal ow, his smile insincere. He looked like a wife-beater, in the middle of saying, Look, officer, you know how these women are.
I didn’t want to find anything that would make me like him, but he did seem to have a soft spot for il egal immigrants. His first job out of col ege was ten years with the Border Patrol, and the experience must’ve affected him. After opening the PI agency, he’d taken on a number of cases, either pro bono or at reduced fees, to help families in Mexico find missing kin in the north, or to help prosecute coyotes like Wil Stirman.
He liked fishing and hunting.
He relished divorce cases. Even his enemies admitted he was a tenacious investigator.
He almost lost his PI license once when he’d assaulted a federal agent who’d questioned his integrity in a high-profile drug trafficking case. Fred Barrow had been working for the defense. The federal agent made a comment about Barrow’s testimony being “the best fabrication money could buy.” Later, at a bar near the courthouse, Barrow decked the agent with a left hook. A judge friendly to both parties managed to smooth things over, at least legal y. The federal agent’s name was Samuel Barrera.
There was nothing to indicate the two men had framed Wil Stirman. Just meticulous notes on their interviews with Gerry Far and Dimebox Ortiz, outlining Stirman’s operation, and confirming that McCurdy had been a regular client. In exchange for their testimony, Far and Ortiz had escaped prosecution. Far had taken over Stirman’s operation. And Dimebox Ortiz . . . what had he gotten out of the deal?
I wrote on my otherwise blank notepad: Dimebox Ortiz?
I set that question aside for the moment. If Dimebox had any brains, he was several hundred miles away by now.
Robert Johnson dive-bombed the stack I’d just gone through and sent papers flying.
“Thanks,” I said.
As I was picking them up, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. It was a piece of stationery that must’ve been stuck between envelopes in Erainya’s correspondence. The note was from a woman. I could tel that from the handwriting. She wrote: Irene, You’ll be acquitted and back with us before you know it. Don’t worry. And the package from Fred —relax. It’s safely hidden.
Love, H.
The package from Fred?
I read the note again. It stil said the same thing.
Wil Stirman wanted something from Barrera and Barrow, something Erainya felt guilty about.
I looked at the cat. “You’re a genius.”
He looked at me wild-eyed. He probably couldn’t believe it had taken me so long to catch on.
I needed to strong-arm somebody for more information. Somebody who wasn’t Sam or Erainya; they would only lie to me more. Somebody who knew Wil Stirman, and wasn’t dead yet.
I looked at my notes. I’d written two words: Dimebox Ortiz?
At this point, under normal circumstances, I would’ve cal ed my friend Ralph Arguel o, Ana DeLeon’s husband. He specialized in finding lowlife scumbags. He delighted in strong-arming them. But I hadn’t talked to Ralph in almost a year. The longer the silence got, the more stubborn I felt about not breaking it.
Besides, I had an unreturned message from his wife on my answering machine, asking why I hadn’t shown up at the police station last night like I’d promised.
I’d have to go this one alone.
Was it worth searching for Dimebox?
I looked at the cat. “If he has any brains, he’l be far, far away.”
The cat’s expression told me I’d just answered my own question.
“You’re right,” I said. “He’l be in town.”
I told Robert Johnson to sort the rest of the files for me. Then I grabbed my car keys.
The normal axiom is Follow the money. In the case of Dimebox Ortiz, it’s Follow the poultry.
Dimebox might’ve been a bail jumper hiding from a crazed kil er, but he stil had to place his cockfighting bets. Sooner or later, I knew he would show up at the pits, or with a bookie. I asked around, said I had a couple of grand to spend on the right bird, and within an hour I had a list of places to try.
I found Dimebox back in Southtown at Rosario’s restaurant, about to enjoy a skil et of sizzling fajitas with a particularly oily cockfighting bookie named Travis the Spur. There were various rumors about how Travis had gotten the nickname, none of which involved the local basketbal team.
I came up behind Dimebox, pul ed his arm behind his back, and slammed his head onto his flour tortil a, making sure his face was close enough to the heated skil et so he would catch the pops from the grease.
I told Travis the Spur to cluck off. He was only too delighted to oblige.
Dimebox struggled.
I applied a little more pressure to his arm. “Nothing like a good fajita.”
“Navarre?” He was blinking from the grease, drooling on the tortil a. “Jesus, thank God it’s you.”
“Saved you again, have I?”
“Stirman’s looking for me. He got to Kiko and Lalu—I think . . . shit, he might’ve kil ed them, man. I was just leaving town—”
“You seem to have trouble finding the city limits.”
“Just gonna make a couple more grand for the road. You know. How the hel did you find me?”
“Talk to me about the night Stirman was arrested.”