Duke City Hit (11 page)

Vic had ridden the Sandia Peak tram a dozen times over the years, but he still got a kick out of it. The view at sunset, when western clouds glow orange and red, can't be beat.

He and Ryan and Tina and two dozen tourists packed into a tram car the size of a small bus, standing room only with windows all around. Dangling from steel cables that stretch more than a mile to the crest, the car glided above jagged rocks and canyons hundreds of feet deep. The tourists pressed against the glass like kids at an aquarium.

Turned out Tina was afraid of heights, poor kid, and Vic felt bad when she went pale. But he and Ryan stood close to her in what Ryan jokingly called “a Tina sandwich” and that seemed to help.

She was better once she got solid ground under her feet again, out in the fresh mountain air, the icy wind whipping her red skirt.

“You know,” she shouted over the wind, “it doesn't help that they call the building at the end of the ride the ‘terminal.' ”

“I feel the same way about airports,” Vic said.

Tina clutched her denim jacket closed with one hand and held her skirt in place with the other as she and the men hurried to get indoors. Stairs and boardwalks led from the terminal to the High Finance Restaurant, which perched on an overlook with a view of the entire sparkling city, the snaking Rio Grande and the sun-streaked horizon. The elevated walkways were swept clean, but snow dusted the evergreens.

Vic charmed the young hostess into giving them a table by the windows, and they settled in with menus and cocktails.

“Got to be careful drinking up here,” he said. “We're ten thousand feet above sea level. At this altitude, a little alcohol goes a long way.”

“Really?” Ryan rattled the ice cubes in his glass.

“The air's thinner,” Tina said. “Feels like you can't quite get your breath.”

“You'll get used to it in a while,” Vic said. “People ski up here all day. Very few keel over dead from the altitude.”

“ ‘Very few'?”

“Hardly ever happens,” Vic said. “Good thing, too. Long way to the nearest hospital.”

“I bet they'd send a helicopter for you,” Ryan said.

“It's always pretty windy up here. Might not be safe for a chopper.”

“You ever flown in a helicopter?”

“Couple of times. For work.”

“I've never been on one. What's it like?”

“Noisy. Nice view, though. You fly much lower than we are right now. You can see right into people's yards, see 'em sunbathing by their pools.”

The waiter arrived, and conversation switched to steaks and salads. Once that was done, Tina said to Vic, “It must be interesting. Your work.”

He exchanged a loaded look with Ryan.

“I'm just a paper-pusher. The exciting stuff like you see on TV, the bounty hunters? That's hype. Most of those guys get their jobs done pretty quietly. They're not geniuses, maybe, but they know how to find people.”

“What happens when they find them?” Ryan asked.

“Exactly what you'd expect. Handcuffs and cops and an immediate downturn in lifestyle.”

Tina laughed.

“They don't try to run?” Ryan said. “Or fight back?”

“Most bounty hunters carry stun guns and pepper spray. They can be very persuasive.”

“Sounds exciting,” Tina said.

“Not really,” Vic said. “It's a lot of sitting around in cars in bad neighborhoods. Or sitting in front of a computer, checking credit reports and stuff like that. Once in a while, something unexpected happens that gets the adrenaline pumping, but even then, it's mostly up here.”

He tapped a finger against the side of his head.

“Guys get jumpy and hurt themselves. Or shoot their partners. That's why I always worked alone. I tried to empty my mind before I walked into every situation, so I was open to whatever happened and not taken by surprise.”

“Ah,” Tina said, “so you
were
a bounty hunter.”

“For a few years,” Vic said. “When I was a young man like Ryan here, full of piss and vinegar. I soon learned it was much safer to work at a desk.”

“Safer how?”

“People never shoot at me at my desk,” he said. “But whenever you go knocking on doors, there's always that possibility.”

“Have you ever been shot?” she asked.

“No, but I came close a few times.”

“What happened?”

“I got lucky.”

“You don't want to talk about it.”

“Not over dinner. Please.”

“We're not eating yet.”

“Soon.” Vic signaled the waiter for another drink. “And some of the things I could tell you, they'd turn your stomach.”

“I doubt it,” she said. “I've volunteered at Legal Aid. I've seen a lot of heartache already. A lot of the dark side of life.”

“I'm sure you have, my dear,” he said. “But it shouldn't touch someone as sunny as you.”

She flashed him a smile. Her teeth were very white against her coppery skin, and she wore her long hair pulled back in a ponytail, which accentuated her high cheekbones. Vic had a lifelong attraction to such Latina beauties. Yet another reason to love the Southwest.

“You're planning to be a lawyer, right? That's what Ryan told me.”

“That's right.”

“You've got to be careful. As an officer of the court, you can't associate with unsavory characters.”

Vic waggled his eyebrows at Ryan, who frowned at him.

“Unsavory?” she said. “You mean people like your clients?”

“I was talking about bounty hunters. But the criminals, too. You can't let that stuff get on you.”

Ryan slipped an arm around her shoulders. “I'll protect you from the mean old world.”

“I can take care of myself, thank you.” She jabbed him with an elbow. “And I think the world's not as dangerous as you two pretend.”

“Danger sometimes turns up in unexpected places,” Vic said. “Before the food gets here, I'll tell you one story from my younger days. A little lesson in human nature.”

“Here we go,” Ryan said.

“Pay attention, young man. You might learn something.”

Ryan grinned. He still had his arm around Tina, and his fingers did a little dance on her shoulder.

“How old are you, my dear? If you don't mind my asking.”

“I'm twenty-four,” she said.

“That's what I would've guessed. So, this story I'm going to tell you, it's something that happened when I was about the age you are now. I'd only been working a short time in the bail bond business, and my boss sent me after this skip.”

“ ‘Skip'?”

“A runner. We pay the bond to get some jerk out of jail, then he skips on his court dates. We get stuck paying the full bail unless we can find him.”

She nodded.

“This particular skip was a young man named Dwayne Dixon. He was mixed up with gangs here in Albuquerque. Tattoos all over him, gold on his grille, the works. A very unsavory character.”

“Maybe,” Ryan said, “he was just misguided.”

“That's always the story,” Vic said. “ ‘He's a good boy. He just fell in with the wrong crowd.' Not Dwayne. He
was
the wrong crowd. The other skip tracers tore up the town, looking for this kid. The cops were on the lookout for him statewide. Nobody could turn him up.”

“So they called in the expert,” Ryan said.

“You want to hear this or not?”

Tina gave Ryan the elbow again.

“My boss asked me to give it a try. So what do I do? I don't go out on the streets, talking to gangbangers. They're never going to tell me anything anyway, and they might just shoot me for their trouble. No, I went to the records. I checked the address of Dwayne's last arrest. It was his mother's house. She lived over on South Broadway. Handed the kid over when the police asked.

“I check the arrest before that, when Dwayne was arrested on a drug charge. Where did the cops take him down? At his mother's house. I went back through the other arrests. Almost always, he was picked up at that same address.”

He paused to sip his drink, and Ryan jumped in again. “So you went to check Mom's house.”

“Everybody else had been there already, but I figured I'd give it another shot. I knocked on the door and talked to the mother. Very nice lady. Invited me into the kitchen. Gave me some coffee. The whole time, telling me she's got no idea where Dwayne might be.

“But I keep looking at this pot on the stove. Big pot of soup bubbling there. Dwayne's mom lives alone, and she's making enough soup for an army?”

Tina leaned forward. “Did you check the rest of the house?”

“I was trying to figure a way to do that very thing. I've got no warrant, no authority to be there. I'm sipping my coffee, thinking I'll ask to use the bathroom, maybe get a look into the other rooms. But before I can make my move, the back door flies open and Dwayne walks in.”

“No way,” Ryan said.

“Walked right in while I was sitting there. He got one look at me, there at his mother's table in my suit, and he turned and ran for it. I had to chase him outside and tackle him in the yard. Remember, I was twenty-four years old, probably in the best shape of my life. Still, he nearly got away.”

“But you did get him,” Tina said.

“Oh, yeah. We were wrestling around on the ground, getting filthy, so I punched him a couple of times to make him hold still.”

Her dark eyes went wide. “Then what?”

“Then I put the cuffs on him.”

They sat back. Seemed a little disappointed with the story.

“So,” Vic said, “what does that teach us about human nature?”

Ryan said, “Most crooks are stupid?”

“That's true, but it's not really the point.”

Tina gave it a try. “People are predictable.”

“Also true, if you know how to look for patterns. But again, not the point I'm trying to make. My point is there's no stronger bond than family. That urge to be among your own is very strong. That's why Dwayne kept going home to his mom. That, and she was a helluva cook.”

“So that's the point?” Ryan said. “People like their families? Pretty lame, Vic.”

Vic showed them his killer smile.

“You only say that because you haven't heard the end of the story.”

He took another sip of his drink, making them wait, then said, “After I put the cuffs on Dwayne, somebody stabbed me in the back.”

“What?”
Surprise made Tina speak louder than she intended. She clapped her hand over her mouth.

“Right here.” Vic reached over his left shoulder to touch the scar above his shoulder blade. “A steak knife. Buried to the hilt.”

“His mom,” Ryan guessed.

“That's right. It was okay for the cops to come and haul Dwayne away; Mom was cool with that. But when she saw me punch him, the family thing kicked in. She couldn't help herself. Flew right out the kitchen door and stabbed me before she could regain control.”

“My God,” Tina said. “Were you hurt badly?”

“I've been better. It didn't do any permanent physical damage, but it did shake my faith in humanity.”

“I'll bet,” Tina said.

“I spent two days in the hospital, and Dwayne and his mom spent years behind bars. But I learned a valuable lesson: Never turn your back on the mama bear when you're messing with her cub.”

Tina smiled. “That's quite a story.”

“You can see why I got out of the skip-tracing business,” Vic said. “Much safer to stay in the office and do the paperwork.”

“You don't miss the excitement?”

“Oh, it's very exciting to take a steak knife in the back. I'd much rather take a knife to a steak. Speaking of which, here comes our food.”

The waiter arrived, carrying a tray on his shoulder, and set steaming plates before them.

“Besides,” Vic said, winking at Ryan, “I still find ways of injecting a little excitement into my life.”

“Like what?”

“Like the tram ride back down to the city. This time, in the dark.”

Tina moaned.

When the doorbell rang, Penny Randall was already in bed, but she was nowhere near sleep. She'd read three chapters of a fat historical novel and found herself getting caught up in the sexual politics and sword-fighting of dashing Prince Derek. She hated to set the book aside to go to the door.

The bell rang again.

She knew it was Vic. No one else would show up after ten o'clock at night, unannounced and unbidden.

Penny sighed as she slipped into her bathrobe. Vic's late-night visits typically came after he'd had a few drinks. She was an easy option on those nights when he couldn't face being alone. Right next door. Always a sympathetic ear.

She checked the peephole in the front door. Vic knew she was looking. He crossed his eyes and gave her a big, goofy smile. As she unlocked the door, Penny thought: He might've had more than usual.

“Hello, Vic. Come in out of the cold.”

She stepped to the side so he could pass through the doorway.

“How did your dinner go?”

Indoors, in better light, she could see his cheeks glowed and his pale eyes were bloodshot.

“We had fun. I took them up the tram to that restaurant on the crest.”

“I haven't been up there in years.”

“It hasn't changed at all. And the view is still fantastic.”

Vic's speech was slurry and enthusiastic. Penny braced herself for a long night.

“I'd offer you a drink,” she said, “but you don't seem to need any more. Want some water? Or coffee?”

“No, I'm fine. Just want to relive the evening a little. Then I'll get out of here and let you go back to bed.”

Penny curled up in an armchair, her feet tucked under her, while Vic sprawled on the leather sofa.

“I gotta tell you, kiddo, I never thought I could feel this way about a couple of young people. I get a real kick out of Ryan and Tina. You should see 'em. They're real sweet together. Young love, you know?”

“I remember,” she said. “Barely.”

“Oh, come on, it's not too late for romance. You're still young. You're beautiful. You could have any man you want.”

“I'm done with men. I'm too busy. I'd rather make money than take long walks on the beach, holding hands with Mr. Perfect.”

Vic's smile slipped. Penny thought his eyes were a little unfocused, too. How much had he drunk, up there on the mountaintop with the kids?

“So,” he said, “you no longer believe there's a perfect man for you?”

“Kiss enough frogs, you stop believing in princes.”

Vic raised his eyebrows, waiting for more, but she wouldn't give it to him. Not tonight. Not when he's drunk.

Instead, she said, “Did Ryan's girlfriend ask about our business?”

“Just the bail bonds, which she of course finds fascinating.”

Penny rolled her eyes. “God. Keep her away from me.”

“No, you'll like her. Wait and see.”

She took a second, summoning up the courage for the next question. “Are you sure Ryan's for real?”

Vic sat back, gaping at her. “You don't think he's my son?”

“Well, there's no real proof—”

“C'mon, Penny. Look at his eyes! His teeth! The kid looks like me.”

“Sure, but—”

“He showed me photos of his mother. I remember her, Penny. It was a long time ago, but I remember Lisa Mobley. I've been checking them out, and I've come to the conclusion that she's his mother and I'm his father.”

Vic choked on the last word. He looked away, blinking.

Penny kept her voice soft and gentle. “That's wonderful, Vic. I'm happy for you.”

“It's a helluva thing, isn't it? I can't get over it. It's weird, but I
feel
parental all of the sudden. Like I should be looking after the kid and coaching him on life.”

“You certainly have a world of life experience.”

“More experience with death.”

“Lot of lessons to be learned there, too,” she said. “Living and dying is all there is.”

“No, there's living, and there's simply surviving day to day. I'm not sure I've been doing it right.”

She tugged at her robe. “That sounds like retirement talk.”

“Just the booze. It's got me all emotional.”

“Give yourself time to adjust, Vic. Not everybody becomes a family man overnight.”

“A family man. I guess that's what I am. A helluva thing.”

He slapped his knees, as if to stand, but froze there a second, staring at the floor between them. When he looked up at her, his face had gone deadly serious.

“I'd do anything for that kid, Penny. I know that sounds crazy. Couple of days ago, I didn't even know he existed. Now, he's all I care about.”

She smiled as she got to her feet. “That's what parents do. That's the biological imperative.”

“Whoa. Such big words for so late at night.”

“Come on, Vic. You need to toddle off to bed while you can still walk.”

“It's hard to get up off this comfortable leather sofa. It's like sitting in a baseball mitt.”

“You're not sleeping there.”

She pulled him to his feet. For a second, they were only inches apart. She could smell the whiskey on his breath, feel the heat coming off him. It gave her a tingle low in her belly, an old familiar desire. There had been other boozy moments like this over the years, when their physical proximity sparked and threatened to burst into flame, but Vic never let it get out of control. He treated her like a niece, and always would. Whenever he looked at her, he saw his friend Art's little girl.

“Good night, Vic.”

She opened the door and he stepped out into the cold. Paused for a second under the porch light, inhaling the crisp December air.

He gave her a wink.

“Good night, princess.”