A Desperate Silence (Dr. Sylvia Strange Book 3) (39 page)

     
In the room beyond Serena's, a desk lamp illuminated books and papers on a large desk. Big Jim Teague was ensconced in the swivel chair; while Sylvia watched, he stood and walked from the office.

     
Noelle Harding turned her back on the city. She gazed calmly at Sylvia. Muted ambient light caught the angles and planes of her face. Wisps of her blond hair danced in the breeze.

     
Sylvia clutched the robe tightly around her body as she walked toward Noelle. When she stood only inches from the other woman, she asked, "Was it worth it?"

     
"You would never understand." Harding spoke with icy calm.

     
"I've been trying to put the picture together . . . the orphanage, the drugs, the charity, the money, the access to power . . ." Sylvia held out her hands. "But none of that really matters, does it?"

     
Noelle didn't respond. She didn't speak, didn't move. She just stared passively, as if waiting for a tiresome child to finish a tantrum.

     
Sylvia had stopped shaking—she was angry enough to regain control. She caught sight of Serena through the glass. The glow of the night-light washed her small form with a rosy tint. Calm flowed into Sylvia's body.

     
She took a breath. "Did Elena Cruz find out you were dealing drugs? Is that why she was killed? Or was it just that you couldn't bear to see your brother in love with another woman?"

     
Noelle Harding gave a small, impatient shake of her head. Sylvia reached out a restraining hand but stopped short of touching the other woman. "You knew your brother was innocent. You let him rot in a twelve-by-eight-foot cell. You'd let him die."

     
The rumble of a jet taking off from El Paso International Airport reverberated across the night sky. Sylvia wrapped her arms tightly around her torso. "Your money won't buy the child's love. Your connections won't bring back Elena. They won't save your brother."

     
"Eventually, with patience," Noelle said, "Serena will come to love me."

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

M
ATT
E
NGLAND KICKED
open the door of Room 13 at the Buenas Noches Motel. He crouched, gun raised, aimed at an empty room. A tattered table lamp cast a ring of light, not much, but enough to see that the bad guys had come and gone.

     
Matt stepped inside and moved quickly to check behind closed doors. Except for a few twisted hangers the closet was empty. The bathroom stank of urine. It looked as though the toilet hadn't been flushed for weeks; the bowl was wadded with toilet paper and more toxic material. Blood was smeared around the sink, and droplets had spattered the floor. A soiled towel blocked the shower drain. No curtain. One very small frosted window.

     
Matt caught sight of his reflection. The guy in the mirror fit right in with the rest of the decor—tired, beat, grim. When he moved back into the bedroom, he saw Victor Vargas standing by the rumpled bed staring down at a mess of food containers, pornographic magazines, and a filthy hypodermic needle.

     
With a grim countenance, Vargas said, "Looks like they threw a party."

     
Both men swung around abruptly toward the door when they heard the crunch of glass underfoot. The face staring in at them was barely level with Matt's belt.

     
"
Hace treinta minutos que se fueron
." He raised his small arms, elbows tucked into his waist, and shrugged. "We jus' mees 'em."

     
Matt stepped over to Chupey; he hunkered down to the boy's level, questioning him in Spanish. Chupey sputtered something too quick and too regional for Matt to catch.

     
Victor filled in the missing information. "A friend of his runs numbers, booze, whores—whatever they want. Amado's men use the Buenas Noches as a home away from home."

     
Vargas went back to poking through the trash on and around the bed. He was reluctant to touch anything, so he used his pen to prod and move various pieces. He reached for the used syringe, then shook his head. "Un-uh. Not with that needle—
está sucio
."

     
Matt was talking to Chupey. In Spanish he asked, "Your friend, will he talk to us?"

     
Chupey shook his head. His eyes were big and much too old for his face; right now they were focused on the fifty-dollar fountain pen in Matt's breast pocket. The yellow frosted pen was a rebuilt, vintage 1948.

     
Jeepers creepers, where'd you get those peepers
. . . The old tune ran through Matt's head. He moved his hand to his pocket, fingers stroking the smooth surface of the writing instrument, and he repeated his question to Chupey.

     
This time, the little-old-man-of-a-boy nodded.

B
OBBY
D
OWD HIT
the cement headfirst, and that's where Amado Fortuna's boys left him while they went outside to smoke. He was so stoned, so sick, he didn't feel a thing. He thought his eyes must be open, but it was dark inside . . . wherever he was. He saw the dim shadow of walls surrounding him. High walls, very close. He shoved himself over onto one elbow, and he kept rolling until he hit something solid. While he recovered—on his back on the floor—he rested his hand against plaster. No, not plaster. This wall was peeling away under his fingers.

     
Bobby decided he would try to sit up and clear his head. He leveraged himself with a knee and an elbow, hoisted his body, and promptly fell flat.

     
He knew Fortuna's men were going to kill him tonight. They'd lost interest in him. He'd deciphered enough of their whispered tête-á-têtes to know it was time to say good night.

     
The stuff they'd injected into his veins had made him swear off contraband for life. If, by some miracle, he lived through this, he vowed to himself he would get clean. It made him feel better just to know he meant it. He hoped his old man, Smoky Joe Dowd, was watching from the Big Ranch in the sky.

     
He hadn't given up any useful information—he was certain of that—not even when he'd been drugged crazy. Not even when they'd cut him, burned him, broken his insides.

     
That was small consolation for the way he'd failed Paco. The last act of Bobby's Paco dream had finally come clear in his fevered brain.

     
Paco had stood over the table at Rosa's, their usual meeting place, nailing the cop with his myopic stare. In his impeccable English, he'd whispered something . . . Bobby couldn't quite hear . . . something about a
straw
house, which got the cop thinking about three little pigs.

     
Then, like a condemned man, Paco had warned Bobby that time was running out. The bookkeeper had one chance left to bring down Amado Fortuna: Arb. 37—arbitrageur
numero uno
. . . the only person powerful enough to beat the Tuna at his game.

     
Arb. 37 would help Paco settle the score with his
primo
. And after Paco was gone, Arb. 37 could protect a "dwarf" and offer her a future . . . and her true father.

     
All in trade for the Tuna Diaries.

     
Paco had disappeared before Bobby had a chance to chin himself out of the dope haze and warn the bookkeeper—Arb. 37 was a "girlfriend," a snitch who was sleeping with the feds and playing all sides against the middle. Arb. 37 was poison. She was Snow White.

V
ICTOR
V
ARGAS DROVE
the taxi. Chupey rode in the front seat—his habit these days. Matt was in the back with Chupey's friend, Delora.

     
Delora was fourteen years old, she stood five-feet-three inches tall, and she wore red-hot skintight Lycra leggings with a sequined crop top. She had thick frosted hair that brushed the cheeks of her tiny butt. She wore a crust of makeup, and her lips glowed with a lipstick so red Matt feared it might have a half-life.

     
But under all the trimmings, Delora was a
he
. A transvestite.

     
Now, the teenager powdered his/her nose. The trip had cost Matt fifty dollars cash, his prized 1948 fountain pen, his new underwater sport watch, and the promise of a portable CD player. Delora granted credit only because Chupey vouched for the big gringo cop.

     
Victor Vargas was guiding the taxi along the route Sylvia had followed this morning. Except he was on the other side of the river, and he was headed downstream, not upstream. He skirted the barrio of Anapra, and when the dirt road became a narrow track of ruts—a challenge even for an off-road vehicle—he slowed to less than ten miles per hour.

     
When Vargas braked the taxi to a stop, Matt could see Smeltertown across the river. Here, Mexico's border cut directly west, adjoining New Mexico. The trail skirted Cristo Rey—the white cross riding the high point on the rough mountain.

     
The barrio of Anapra had continued to creep and sprawl over these mountains although this area wasn't officially marked on any map. Victor maneuvered them past shanties and tents. Matt was reminded of the nomads who lived in the great deserts and moved with the winds. He knew that just over the crest of the next hill, U.S. border-patrol vehicles were parked in U.S. territory waiting for jumpers.

     
It was another twenty minutes before they came to the old Mexico-New Mexico border crossing near the railroad tracks of the Pacific Transportation Company. Delora had painted her face twice during the final leg of the journey.

     
In between blotting lips and powdering cheeks, she waved glossy red fingernails.
Aquí. Allí
. This way . . . no, that way, to the norteamericano.

     
Matt hoped Delora was right. More than that, he hoped they weren't too late.

     
Victor braked the taxi when he reached the end of the trail. He shut down the engine and tipped his head to signal they would have to walk from here. The vehicle had barely made it to this point. Matt climbed out quietly, then tensed when Delora slammed the door.

     
The night air was stale, warm, and dense. Only one or two of the brightest stars were visible in the sky. The moon had just begun to crest the mountain, providing milky light.

     
Delora's sandals quickly filled with dirt; the teenager cried out when she cut a painted toe on a broken bottle. Matt finally took Delora's arm to help her over the rough terrain—shooting Chupey a withering look when he caught the boy grinning.

     
Delora led the group downhill to the fence. There she pointed to a warehouse roughly three hundred yards away. It was long and narrow, with a sloping corrugated roof. A windmill creaked nearby.

     
The warehouse was within easy striking distance except for one problem.

     
"It's in
New
Mexico," Matt whispered, shaking his head.

     
"
Sí
."

     
The two cops stared at each other. They knew the border patrol was parked within a quarter mile. They usually set up numerous patrols along this stretch because crossing was a relatively easy prospect—and people regularly paced the hillside waiting for their chance.

     
Whether you were a felon, a civilian, or a member of law enforcement, border jumping was illegal.

     
But the cops were going to cross, and they were going to do it now. They'd just seen three men moving from a parked car toward the entrance to the warehouse.

M
ATT TORE HIS
pants crawling under the fence break. He almost didn't make it through, but Delora and Chupey pushed from the Mexico side. He carried at least a hundred pounds more than most border jumpers. Vargas followed. They warned the boys to stay away from the fence—and to watch for border patrol.

     
Matt crouched low, following Victor's lead down the sloping hillside. He stumbled once, straining something in his ankle, but he didn't slow his stride. They split off from each other when they were a few hundred feet from the warehouse. Matt could hear fractured Spanish phrases drifting on night air.

     
Two of the men were still outside, talking. The other one had disappeared carrying a metal gas can.

     
Matt found cover behind a thicket of high weeds; the thorny, scratchy stalks were probably the by-product of cesspool drainage.

     
He caught a flash of Victor's white shirt disappearing behind a rusted-out junker. He could tell that the two men had been drinking, and one mumbled something about taking a leak. When the shorter man stepped five paces toward Matt, his buddy turned away to light a cigarette.

     
Victor got the smoker; Matt got the pisser.

     
Victor made his move, darting out from behind the vehicle and scrambling across dirt. He caught the smoker on the side of his head with a bat—no, a goddamn two-by-four.

     
Matt lunged for the other guy, who was busy nosing his penis from his pants. The criminal investigator caught his target around the knees, felt something wet against his elbow, and took the guy down.

B
OBBY
D
OWD HEARD
the door open as someone entered the warehouse. Amado Fortuna's boys had finished their bullshit session. They'd probably killed a bottle of tequila. Now it was time to kill a cop.

     
Screw you, little pig!

     
That was it. The "straw house" fell out of some cubbyhole in Bobby's brain, and he remembered. Paco had told him the
straw
house was made of cash.