Southtown (14 page)

“I’ll make some calls,” Ralph said. “Give me a couple of hours.”

“Be faster if we hit the streets.”

Phones were unreliable for the kind of information we needed. We both knew that. Hell, Ralph hated phones.

But I sensed his hesitation—his completely un-Ralph-like reluctance to move.

The baby was pulling at his hand, trying to get the spoon.

“Haven’t set foot in the shops for months,” Ralph said. “Nowadays, I run my business from right here, you know? Some of the stuff I was into . . . I let it slide,
vato
.”

I didn’t respond.

“Ana and me—if we were going to stay together, something had to give. You understand?”

“And that something was you.”

He acted like he hadn’t heard.

He crushed an Apple Jack on the baby’s tray, made a line of brown dust. “From what you’re telling me, Barrow and Barrera stepped way over the line. They stole Stirman’s money. Now you’re telling me they killed his wife and kid, too.”

“What’s your point?”

“Stirman’s got a legitimate gripe.”

“Stirman’s a sociopath. Doesn’t mean Erainya and Jem should suffer.”

Ralph stared out the windows toward Rosedale Park, the way he had always stared at the landscape of San Antonio—as if it was his private domain, as if he could feel everything happening out there. In a way, it
was
his domain. When he and Ana had moved into this house, their combined reputations had been enough to permanently halt all gang activity within a five-block radius. Nobody wanted to mess with Arguello and DeLeon’s domestic bliss.

Ralph said, “You think Erainya kept the money?”

“No . . . I don’t know. It just feels wrong.”

“And if Barrow hid it from her—what would he have done with it?”

I shook my head. “Something self-destructive—something pathetic. Gambled it away. Maybe a whore stole it. Maybe it mildewed in a bus station locker until some lucky attendant busted the lock. Who the hell knows? I’ve gone through Barrow’s case files. I’ve run every angle in my mind.”

“Maybe he had better plans. Maybe if he’d lived, he would’ve tried to use it for a fresh start.”

“Like hell.”

“That’s what I’d do.”

The baby had gotten hold of her spoon now. She was trying to pull it away from her father, but Ralph kept his finger hooked around the handle.

“Good people do bad things,” he said. “No surprise. Funny thing, though—you never think about it going the other way. Even fucking sociopaths can do something good once in a while. You know that? Nobody wants to live in hell,
vato
. Nobody.”

“You’ve been reading too many picture books.”

“Maybe you need to look at Barrow from a different angle, man. All I’m saying. And maybe Stirman can be dealt with short of killing.”

“A minute ago—”

“I said if you went after him yourself, you’d have to kill him. But you could listen to Ana instead. You could let her help.”

Ralph Arguello, lecturing me on trusting the police.

“I’ll let you eat your lunch,” I said. “Good seeing you, Ralph.”

“Streets ain’t mine no more,
vato
. You ain’t gonna hold that against me, right?”

I listened for regret in his voice, heard none—just protectiveness of his new family, his new self. I tried to be happy for him. I tried not to feel unwelcome in his den.

“Sure,” I said. “Hey, I understand.”

“Call me in a while. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

I promised, though I knew I wasn’t going to call.

Ralph walked me out. We shook hands at the door.

“What’s the baby’s name, anyway?” I asked.

“Lucia.”

“Lucia.”

“It was Ana’s mom’s name,” he said.

“I remember.”

“I’ll be here, man, if you need me.”

He meant it. But he was offering support, not backup, and there was a big difference.

I walked down his front steps. I felt like I’d just been fitted with someone else’s Kevlar vest, and it was way too big for me.

When I turned at the curb, Ralph’s expression was a mix of concern and relief, as if he was glad to watch me walk away, his violent past entrusted to the keeping of another man.

He turned inside and closed the door, leaving a thumbprint of tapioca on the doorjamb.

17

The note on Sam’s refrigerator read:

I’ve got your car.
I’ll come by this morning to check on you.
Stay put until then—Tres. 821-6643.

Hell of a thing. Somebody steals your car and leaves a signed note with his phone number. Tres was apparently the guy’s name.

And this morning? It was already ten-thirty. No sign of the guy.

Sam thought about calling the field office, having this joker picked up and sweated in a locked room.

He paced around the kitchen in his three-piece suit. He ate a bowl of dry Frosted Flakes, took his medicine with a glass of orange juice and had to visit the restroom. When he came back, the WOAI radio news was talking about two fugitives shot dead in Omaha. Police were still looking for the leader of the group.

The leader’s name made Sam anxious.

Will Stirman.

Sam went to his bedroom closet. He moved the shoeboxes aside. The rifle case. The suitcases. He pulled out a large black duffel bag and looked inside.

The bag used to be fuller. And a lot heavier. He was pretty sure of that. He was also pretty sure he’d been waiting to do this for years.

He took his old service revolver and buried it in the bottom of the bag. Then he zipped it up.

He toted the bag to the kitchen and read the refrigerator note again.

He ripped it off and stuffed it in his vest pocket. The hell with staying put. He checked his regular sidearm, a Glock 9. He locked up his house, strolled across the street and hotwired his neighbor’s Chevy Impala.

By the time the owner stumbled into his front yard, yelling obscenities, incredulous that the friendly neighborhood private eye was heisting his wheels, Sam was halfway down the block.

Should’ve left him a note,
Sam thought.

It felt good to smile.

He didn’t know where he was going.

He patted the empty seat next to him, looking for something—notes maybe? A case file?

The more he thought about it, the more anxious he felt, so he decided not to think. Just drive. If he kept the
why
and
where
below his radar screen, his instincts would take him where he needed to go.

Stirman,
he reminded himself.
Will Stirman.

He exited I-10 just before downtown, wove his way through the light industrial district by the Art Museum. The streets were a patchwork of railroad tracks, greasy rainwater and cement-frosted manhole covers.

He almost stopped at the museum. He managed security there. Maybe that’s where he was heading. Something about the location, with the name Will Stirman—something seemed familiar.

But he didn’t stop. He was looking for something he’d seen on television. Something on a videotape.

At Avenue B and Jones, the river had flooded its banks. A steady sheet of green shredded through the cement teeth of the bridge railing. In the swampy woods behind the museum, two young Latinos in black T-shirts and cutoffs were sitting on oil drums, fishing for God-knew-what.

Sam eased his stolen Impala across the bridge.

On the opposite bank was an old plumbing supply business. The storage yard was ringed in razor wire laced with Christmas lights and honeysuckle. PVC pipe was stacked on rotting flats. The two-story building had been imperfectly whitewashed, its boarded-up windows and garage-sized doors painted an odd assortment of olive and turquoise, like a little girl’s face after playing with makeup.

This place didn’t feel right either. It wasn’t what Sam was looking for.

But something about it was familiar.

He parked by the gate.

Sam trusted his nose for locations. His tracking skills hadn’t left him, any more than his ability to hotwire a car or shoot a gun.

He’d been here before.

He couldn’t remember the names of the people he’d come with, but he remembered their faces with absolute clarity.

A husband and wife, and not very damn happy with each other.

The woman had sat in the back of the car. She had frizzy black hair, sharp features, eyes like chips of volcanic rock. She was scared of her husband—you could see that in the tenseness of her shoulders, the guarded way she spoke. But she was determined, too. She clutched the top of her handbag like it was a grenade pin.

Her husband rode shotgun next to Sam.

Sam didn’t trust the guy. He was a big man, maybe a former boxer. Definitely a drinker. He had puffy eyes and a butterfly rash on his cheeks and nose. Cheap brown suit, a sidearm holstered sloppily at his belt. He had a casual way of telling his wife to shut up whenever she tried to speak.

The boxer turned to Sam. “You loaded?”

“What do you think?”

The boxer grinned in an unfriendly way. He was crude, but Sam remembered thinking:
a crude tool for a crude job.

The woman said, “I’m going with you.”

The boxer lifted an eyebrow. “You’ll stay in the fucking car.”

“
I
tipped you off,” she insisted. “I got the information.”

“Yeah, you give my informants hand jobs real well. So fucking what? Come on, Sam.”

“Fred, I’m coming with you,” the woman said.

Fred,
Sam thought.
That was his name.

Fred tried to stay cool, but Sam could see he was ready to blow up. Sam wanted to warn the wife, for her own safety. He wanted to tell her to hang back. You didn’t make a guy like Fred lose face in front of another man.

The best Sam could do was look away, pretend he wasn’t seeing it.

“Fine,” Fred growled. “You want to come, Irene? Fine. You get shot, don’t cry to me.”

Back in the present, Sam opened his car door. He left the duffel bag in the trunk, and walked toward the warehouse.

The turquoise door wasn’t locked.

Inside were pyramids of cardboard boxes, some still wrapped in plastic, some gutted by hopeful looters. The open boxes spilled bathroom tiles and brass sink fixtures across the floor. Scattered around an impromptu fire pit were dirty clothes, drug paraphernalia, broken lawn furniture.

Metal stairs led up to the second floor. A loft apartment, Sam remembered. He could hear movement above, footsteps trying not to creak.

The boxer had stopped at the top of the stairs. He drew his weapon, gesturing for his wife to stay behind them. Sam’s FBI background gnawed at his gut, reminding him this was not the way to proceed, barreling into a high-risk situation with no backup, no reconnaissance, no plan of attack. Nevertheless, he followed the boxer’s lead.

Reggae music pulsed from inside the apartment. There was another sound, too—one Sam couldn’t quite place.

Just as the boxer kicked open the door, Sam realized the sound was a baby crying.

In the present, a scrawny young Anglo said, “Shit!”

He had been creeping toward the apartment door when Barrera busted it open. Now the Anglo kid stood blinking, bleary-eyed in the morning light that peppered down from the holes in the ceiling.

Sam pegged him for a two-bit junkie. He had piss-colored skin, deep bruises under his eyes. He wore smelly thirdhand fatigues. Behind him was a rats’ nest of clothes, empty beer bottles and crack pipes. All the comforts of home.

Piss-face’s expression was pure cornered-animal. Still, there was understanding, and fear, as he sized up Sam—a big well-dressed Latino, clearly some kind of cop. That aura never went away.

Sam felt a twinge of recognition. All users looked alike. Sam had dealt with hundreds. But something told him he knew this guy in particular.

Piss-face apparently had the same feeling. He went slack-jawed. “Barrera?”

Fred had fired the first shot.

Reggae music. A baby screaming. Sam dropped to a crouch in the doorway and Fred cut to the right.

A young Latina ran toward them, her arms raised as if to stop them. On the far side of the room, interrupted mid–phone call, a dark-haired Anglo with pale skin, dead eyes, a gun in his belt. Will Stirman.

Stirman was unprepared for the men busting down his door. He hesitated because of the woman who now stood between him and his enemies.

“Down!” Sam shouted to her. “Get the fuck down!”

The Latina was almost to the door, though what she hoped to accomplish, Sam couldn’t imagine. She had the same grim look as an illegal, halfway across the Rio Grande, when the Border Patrol shows up. They keep running, knowing they are caught, but they have no choice but to try. It was as if she wanted to push the intruders out of her life.

For a moment, Will Stirman looked at Sam. Then Will drew his gun.

Fred Barrow aimed as the woman—who Sam wasn’t sure Fred even registered—stepped in front of the gun, her arms raised like a long-lost relative.

Sam ignored Piss-face and scanned the room. Desolation where there had once been plush furniture, maroon wallpaper, reggae music on an expensive stereo. The only thing left was the crepe carpet, now coming apart in patches, water-stained, discolored in places from very old blood.

Piss-face’s hand slid cautiously toward the pocket of his army surplus jacket.

“What are you doing here, Barrera?” he asked. “Scared the shit out of me.”

Sam tried to refocus on the derelict.

Just his luck to find an old collar—or informant, stool pigeon, whatever the hell this guy was—sleeping in this warehouse, of all places. Then again, Sam had been on the streets so long it was hard to turn over any rock in San Antonio and not find some slimy thing he’d dealt with before.

“Get out,” Sam told him.

He tried to put authority in his voice, but he didn’t feel so good. He was remembering the pattern of the young Latina’s dress, the look on Stirman’s face as his lover fell.

Piss-face licked his lips. Hunger was slowly displacing his fear.

In his better days, Sam would’ve anticipated that shift.

“You remember me, right?” Piss-face asked. “Right, Mr. Barrera?”

His voice was dangerously polite, testing.

Sam counted bloodstains on the old carpet—two large ones, a constellation of lesser splatters.

Piss-face took a step closer. “Mr. Barrera?”

“Get lost,” Sam murmured.

It didn’t sound like his voice. It sounded like an old man, asking a question.

Piss-face was close enough now that Sam could smell the rotgut on his breath. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

Sam had a gun. He knew he should draw it.

“What’s my name, old man?” Piss-face asked. “Tell me.”

The woman had fallen to the carpet. Will Stirman had fired, his shot taking out a chunk of plaster next to Fred Barrow’s head. The second shot likely would’ve found Barrow’s skull, but Sam opened up—aiming for Stirman’s chest, getting his arm instead, then Stirman’s shoulder as he went down. The couch probably saved Stirman’s life, because as soon as Fred Barrow got over being stunned, he emptied his clip in that direction.

Sam had only shot twice. No more. He had not fired on the woman. He had not continued to fire, in shock, as Fred Barrow had done.

Sam’s ears rang, and the music still throbbed, but there was a small hole of silence in the room that Sam registered only when Irene Barrow pushed past him, toward the crib. The baby was no longer crying.

In the present, Piss-face drew his gun. It was a small .22, but close enough to kill. He said, “Long as you’re here, old man—how about a loan?”

His breath was downright flammable. His finger was tight on the trigger.

Sam felt something black and hard filling his chest. He stepped toward Piss-face, pushed his sternum against the barrel of the derelict’s gun, forced Piss-face to take a step back.

“Do it,” Sam said.

“I swear to God,” Piss-face said.

“
Do
it!”

Sam slapped the gun out of Piss-face’s hand. He took a handful of the kid’s shirt. With his other hand, he hit the kid in the face, getting blood on his cuff, his coat sleeve, his college ring.

He forced himself to stop before he would kill the kid. He released Piss-face, let him fall in a trembling, whining heap.

“Get out.”

Piss-face scrambled to the door and down the metal steps, his hands over his face.

Sam touched his own chest, where the gun had pressed against his heart. It would have been so much quicker than the darkness ahead, the slow painless disease that had begun wrapping around his brain.

He pulled out his own gun, just to steady his hand. He aimed it at the spot where Will Stirman had gone down.

After the shooting, reggae music had still blared: “Tomorrow People,” a song Sam would find ironic in retrospect.

Fred Barrow had stared at the black duffel bag he’d inadvertently shot—one of two, filled with blocks of cash. A stray bullet had plowed a groove through the top layer of hundreds.

Standing over the crib, Barrow’s wife was panicked, her voice desperate: “Christ, Fred. It’s not breathing.”

Sam had tried to forget the rest. He had tried for years.

Now God, with His sense of humor, was answering Sam’s prayer for forgetfulness with a vengeance.

The Barrows had argued. Fred insisted that his wife leave before the police arrive, get the hell away. The two men would clean up.

And they had.

The division of the duffel bags—one each, no discussion. Such a simple matter to haul them downstairs, throw them in the trunk of the car, while Will Stirman was upstairs bleeding, dying, and the sirens were still a long way away.

Sam stared at his gun. He was getting farsighted. The match-grade handle pattern was only clear at a full arm’s length.

His memory was like his vision. He had to hold something at several years’ distance to see it clearly. Soon, he would be living in an eternal present. He would be unable to remember the beginning of a sentence long enough to reach the end.

He thought about the visit he’d taken, at his doctor’s request.

They needed a decision by Friday. When was that—tomorrow?

Sam could live in that brightly lit room, singing “This Land Is Your Land” with a group of old ladies, his name on a kindergarten tag to remind him who he was.