The Lost Ones (33 page)

“We didn’t exactly have a heart-to-heart when I asked him about his girlfriend. He pretended like he didn’t know her that well. Or know what she was hooked into.”

“DEA arrested Ramón Torres in Houston a few years back,” Caruthers said. A light blond beard was showing up on his jaw, his skin reddened and wind-chapped. He took a break to spit, feeling comfortable away from a federal office. “And he was connected to a case last year with teenage girls being turned out in a motel in south Memphis. Some of them were twelve, thirteen. Class-act stuff. We think he sold a lot of babies, kept some for himself and his wife or whatever she was. We figure he met her moving children and teenage girls up to Memphis. Made more money trafficking in people than crystal meth.”

“I don’t think anybody can make heads or tails of that relationship,” Quinn said.

“Business partners,” Dinah said. “She had a very active online life, trading dolls and collectibles. I heard from some people in town she was involved in beauty pageants.”

“Only contest she could’ve won was for livestock,” Quinn said.

“Lillie told me about Mara confessing,” Dinah said. “You think she’s taking a hit for her mother? I don’t see her acting out on a child like that. She’s pretty meek.”

“Bets are off in that house,” Quinn said. “I can’t imagine what it would do to a girl that age, having a mother like that.”

“And a stepfather like Ramón,” Willis said. “You know he’s hooked into some cartel folks. Men on the coast by way of Houston and El Paso, MS-13, Los Zetas. Some real nice people.”

Quinn nodded, trying to see just where the Feds wanted to take it, making sure it was an easy transition muscling him out of the way. He just listened, waiting for them to get the hell on with it.

“These folks make those meth peddlers you ran up against last year look like church deacons,” Willis said.

“Well, one of them was a pastor,” Quinn said, smiling.

“That the one they hung from the cross?” Caruthers asked. “I read about it in the
Commercial Appeal
.”

Quinn nodded.

“OK,” Caruthers said, leaning back into his seat, smoothing down his tie as he spit. “We believe Donnie Varner entered the picture through Ramón Torres. Torres may have sought him out at the gun range, hoping to make a few straw buys with Janet and then moving on down the line. When they found out Mr. Varner had access to more military-grade weapons, they must’ve thought they hit the damn jackpot.”

“And now what?” Quinn asked.

Dinah looked to Willis, and he noted a subtle nod.

“We have an informant that says Varner has one more shipment moving in the morning,” Dinah said. “Looks like an eighteen-wheeler loaded down with a couple hundred assault weapons is headed for Tibbehah County in the next twenty-four hours.”

Quinn leaned back and blew out a long breath. “Terrific.”

NEARLY TWENTY MINUTES BEFORE
, Ramón Torres had showed up at Donnie Varner’s gun range and asked to speak to Alejandro. Donnie hadn’t seen Ramón since before he’d sent him up Highway 78 to the carnival, and, truth be told, the little Mexican had looked much better. He was skinny and smaller now, with stick-thin arms and a teenager’s mustache. Ramón sported a pair of rubber farm boots and one of those jackets you get from Marlboro after smoking a thousand packs of cigarettes.

“Alejandro ain’t here,” Donnie said. “Aren’t you supposed to be on the run? I seen your picture at the post office.”

“I have a message for him,” Ramón said. He didn’t have much of an accent, just a weird way of screwing up a couple words. Message sounding a lot fancier coming out of his mouth.

“You got a cell?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll have him give you a ring.”

“I’ll wait,” Ramón said. “What about Luz?”

“She ain’t here, neither.”

“Go get her.”

“I don’t like the way you’re saying that, partner,” Donnie said. “Guess you didn’t see my name out there on the property sign.”

Ramón just looked at him, a black-eyed little banty rooster. Donnie wasn’t sure, but he could bet on a semi-auto under that cheap-ass coat.

“I will wait.”

“Go ahead,” Donnie said, motioning to an empty strip of land. “Take a seat on that stump over there. I’ll be back sometime tomorrow.”

“You tell Alejandro to call Tony,” Ramón said. “Do you understand?”

“How’s the wife, Ramón?” Donnie said. “Those pictures I seen of her in the paper sure put on a few pounds. I know she’s looked better.”

“She’s a fattened pig.”

“No arguments there, brother.”

“When I came to you,” Ramón said, those dead eyes fixed on Donnie, “I was told you were a man I could trust. A man good to his word.”

“And?”

“You brought those lawmen to where you traded the guns,” Ramón said. “I could have been arrested. You’ve made some men I work with very unhappy.”

“Sorry to piss down your leg, but I didn’t do jack shit,” Donnie said. “That’s the cost of living, doing business up in here in north Mississippi. Sometimes the law gets wind of business. They ain’t all on the take like the taco brigade down in Chihuahua.”

Ramón stared at him. In the silence, Donnie fired up a smoke.

He blew out a long stream and said, “Well, it’s been good seeing you, Ramón. Best to the little woman.”

Ramón turned and walked back to a white Nissan pickup, kicking up loose gravel as he hit the road.

Donnie pulled out his cell and punched up Luz’s number.

“Let’s get this thing done,” Donnie said. “Just saw Ramón Torres. Better put in a word with Mother Mary. Some bad motherfuckers are truckin’ this way.”

QUINN WALKED THE AGENTS
out to the parking lot, Dinah hanging back, waiting while Caruthers and Willis made cell phone calls by their vehicle. She stopped a few feet outside the sheriff’s office door and peered up at Quinn, smiling at him a whole lot more than she did in the thirty minutes she’d sat in his office.

“How’d I do?” Quinn said, giving a lazy salute to Willis.

“Just fine.”

“You want to tell me about this source of y’all’s?”

“Might be easier to introduce you,” she said.

“OK,” Quinn said. “That mean you’re staying in town?”

“They’re staying, too,” Dinah said, motioning to the other agents and squinting in the harsh sun. “Got a recommendation for a good motel?”

“Sure,” Quinn said. “I always stay at the Traveler’s Rest. Just make sure they request the room without the blood on the floor.”

“I’ll let them know.”

“You want to ride with me?” Quinn said, walking toward the new truck.

“I do like the new ride,” Dinah said.

“We hit some back roads, and I’ll even let you turn on the siren.”

“I WANT TO GO WITH YOU,”
Donnie said.

“You’re crazy.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Do you know what you’re in for?” Luz asked. “Once we get to Cherán, we won’t leave for a long while.”

“I love Mexican food.”

“Listen to me, this is a poor place,” Luz said. “This isn’t going down to the beach and drinking a six-pack of Tecate.”

“Don’t they sell beer?”

“It’s dry,” Luz said. “They made alcohol illegal so the loggers working for the narcos wouldn’t stay.”

“Well, shit,” Donnie said. “Maybe I can bootleg some in.”

“These men have killed nearly fifty villagers this year and promise only more violence and killing until the people stop fighting back.”

Donnie slid up on the tailgate of Luz’s truck and passed the cigarette into her waiting fingers. They looked down into the empty ravine, stripped of trees and littered with busted car parts and rusted refrigerators and the like. Donnie thought about things as they smoked, starting a new one, passing it on, thinking some more.

“When I thought I was dead,” Donnie said. “I’ll explain the whole thing to you sometime later. I wasn’t quite awake and not quite out, but I had some crazy, crazy dreams about angels and Jesus and my dead momma, who still looked the same as she had when I was a kid. Somewhere mixed up in all of it, I remember standing in the middle of some land that looked like the other side of the fucking moon. I was alone and cold and guess it was night or outer space or whatever. But everyone was gone. The whole show was done. I felt like all the air had been sucked from me and I woke up gasping, goddamn promising myself that I would never die here in Jericho.”

“But you would die in Mexico.”

“I’m headed out with you, Luz,” Donnie said. “I don’t give a good goddamn what happens. I am pretty sorry at saying good-bye.”

Luz nodded, passed the smoke back to Donnie.

“OK,” she said. “When can we leave?”

Donnie looked at the old Airstream and ratty trailer where Tiny was sleeping one off. He shrugged. “Just waiting on the phone call.”

“Can you drive?”

“Baby, I’m hell bound and down.”

DINAH DROVE QUINN OUT
to the Indian mounds on the Natchez Trace and parked right by the historic marker telling them about the race of hunter-gatherers and basket weavers who’d lived there. Dinah got out of the car and stretched, walking out to an empty welcome center with a few tables and chairs under a tin roof. There were four mounds out in a wide field, subtle bumps that hadn’t made a lot of sense to the white settlers until they cut into them to plant crops. Inside, they found bones and arrows and hatchets and broken pottery. Some at least had the sense to understand these were holy places and leave them the hell alone, not like most of Tibbehah that had been stripped to the bone time and again by soulless men who grew fat from timber and on the backs of unskilled workers.

“Until this is over, let’s calm this down a bit,” Dinah said.

“You already told me that.”

“In case you were trying to get me to stay with you tonight.”

“Wouldn’t think of it.”

“I know you,” Dinah said. “You would ask me over for coffee or a drink or to say hello to your dog.”

“Hondo has taken a shine to you.”

“But it won’t work.”

“Till this is over.”

“I just hope we can end this thing as friends.”

Quinn had his hands deep in the pockets of his rancher coat, sheriff’s office ball cap low over his eyes. He studied her face and smiled, thinking she was being coy and funny but not seeing any of that, only a stern face looking down the Trace for whoever in the hell was going to tell them about Donnie Varner’s gun deal.

“I thought this was a temporary cooling off,” Quinn said. “What are you saying now?”

“You got to understand I don’t make the decisions here,” Dinah said. “I came here to look for Ramón Torres, work with the locals on what comes next.”

“Sure.”

“But I don’t have anything to do with a lot of this.”

“OK.”

“But you’ll blame me,” Dinah said. “Hate me. I don’t have any doubt about that. I know a lot about you, Quinn Colson. You are a man to hold a grudge.”

Quinn reached out for her hand and pulled her in close. He brushed back strands of hair from her cheek and leaned in to kiss her on the forehead, make sure that she knew that he wasn’t ready for any of this to end.

“Don’t get crazy,” was all Quinn said, before seeing a maroon Cadillac slow on the Trace and flick on its blinker, taking a lot of time to round into the lot and slow to a stop.

He let go of Dinah’s hand. Dinah walked back a few paces and dropped her head.

Johnny Stagg crawled out from the driver’s seat and waved to the federal agent like an old friend.

43

DONNIE GOT THE CALL AT ONE A.M., LUZ ASLEEP IN HIS ARMS, TELEVISION
playing some infomercial about the history of classic country music, pictures of Hank Williams and Patsy Cline flashing across the screen. A grizzled old Mickey Gilley, wearing an open shirt and showing off a hunk of gold jewelry on his hairy chest, telling everyone they’d be a fool not to buy this collection of the best music that was ever made. Donnie pushed himself upright, not recognizing the caller’s number, and just said, “Start talking.”

The whole conversation was one-sided and took about three seconds.

“Go time,” Donnie said, shaking Luz awake. She was wearing one of Donnie’s old Tibbehah High baseball T-shirts, the one with the Wildcat head, and a pair of cotton panties speckled with blue flowers.

They were dressed and back in Donnie’s truck in fifteen minutes, down to the Rebel Truck Stop in thirty. They sat there in the cold, heater cranked, waiting until they’d get a second call about a truck rolling in and where to leave the money.

“Riding around with all this cash makes me feel like I got a target on my forehead.”

“Don’t you trust these people?” Luz asked. “The man who you met in Memphis?”

“I trust him about as far as I can sling a piano.”

“But you trust me?” Luz asked.

“You know it.”

“Why?”

“I guess you got to trust somebody.”

She nodded. That was good enough for her, the time coming up on one-thirty. The radio station out of Tupelo had called for a freeze that morning, the first of the season. All the truckers heading into the Rebel wore thick jackets and ball caps, coming out with hot coffee and biscuits. A sign outside the diner advertised a steak dinner special with pumpkin pie.