Absolution (10 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The
driver’s
window slid all the way down.
“Need a lift into town, Logan?” Mel said.

He put his hand on the sill and hunkered down a little to face her.  “Any other time I’d say yes,” he replied.  “But I wouldn’t want for you to be seen in my company tonight.”

Mel gave him a puzzled look.  “Why’s that?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

Mel was intrigued.  The tall man’s demeanor conveyed emotions that she believed to be those of a totally ‘in control’ individual.  He was like a magnet, but probably didn’t know it.

“Trust me, Logan, I do,” Mel said.

“After tonight I’ll probably never be in this part of the world again,” Logan said.  “So thanks for the offer, but I’d be obliged if you just drove off and forgot that you ever met me.”

Mel smiled at him, but stayed put with the engine idling.  And then oncoming lights in the distance lit up the asphalt.

Logan walked round to the passenger side of the light-colored Buick and got in.  Racked the seat back as far as it would go, then bent forward with his head below the dash until the other vehicle sped by.

“So you’re on the run?” Mel said as she put the car in drive and set off.

Logan straightened up.  Buckled the seat belt.  “Not exactly,” he said. “But I need to keep a low profile.”

“Because?” Mel pushed.

Logan sighed.  “Because there’s a guy in the area that I need to…to visit with, and I don’t want him to get wind of me before we meet.”

“So you’re in trouble?”

“No, he is.”

“Do you think I’d know him?”

“I’m sure you’ll know
of
him, but I’m not going to tell you his name, so drop it.”

Mel grinned in the semi-darkness.  Her face was illuminated green by the lights from the dash.  On the outskirts of town she made a right onto N Well Road, drove past the Palo Verde 11 Neighborhood Park and turned into a warren of avenues, to stop outside a small, well-maintained bungalow.

“Your house?” Logan said.

“Yes.  Thought you might like a coffee before you go and find Zack Slater.”

Logan felt his eyes widen in surprise.

“I read the papers,” Mel said.  “You’re the guy that found a body on the railroad track.  And rumor has it that Slater could have been responsible.”

“So you know that being associated with me isn’t the smartest thing you’ve ever done.”

“I didn’t wind up running a crummy diner in the desert because I’m smart, Logan.  I do what I do.  Same as you.”

“Okay, a coffee sounds good, and then I’m out of here,” he said.

They sat in the kitchen, drank coffee and talked.  Logan opened up a little; didn’t see any point in lying.  Mel was astute.  Knew that he was going after Slater, so he filled in a few blanks for her, but didn’t name names.

“Do you make a habit of getting mixed up with stuff that could be dangerous to your health?” Mel said.

“It happens from time to time,” Logan said.  “But I don’t look for it.”

“I read that you were a cop.  Is that why you get involved?”

“I don’t think so.  I just find it hard to turn my back on some things that need to be dealt with.”

“Slater is a mean piece of work.”

“So am I, Mel.  And I always have the advantage, because I’m off the grid.  I’m constantly moving on, and I have no ties.”

“Why?”

Logan shrugged.

Mel waited for an answer.

“I don’t have the need to be in one place for too long,” he said after a lengthy pause.  “And I don’t think that my life is anyone else’s business.”

“And that’s enough for you?”

“Is running the diner and coming back here every night enough for you?”

“No, it’s just how things turned out.  I didn’t plan on it.”

“And I don’t plan anything.  I just go with the tide like a message in a bottle.”

Mel wrote her phone number and address down on a Post-it and handed it to him as he made ready to leave.  He read it, memorized the content and gave it back to her.  “Thanks,” he said.  “If this works out, I’ll call, or drop in at the diner.”

Mel hugged him and told him to take care, as if he was a friend that she had known for years, not a virtual stranger.  He left by the kitchen door and made his way on foot to another house, across town, to talk to the border patrol agent, Glen Cahill.

Clem Addison was closing up the Longhorn Saloon when two guys pushed open the door and walked in.  They were Native Americans, and both of them were short, stocky and mean looking.

“I’m closed,” Clem said, sensing trouble and wishing that he was behind the counter and in reach of the sawn-off shotgun that was loaded with plastic bullets, to wound but not kill.

“Shut the fuck up and sit down,” Taza Blackclaw said as Charlie Lupe locked the door.

“What do you want?” Clem said as he sat on a wooden chair at one of the tables.

“Fran Wallace,” Taza said.  “She works here.”

“She quit, but I can give you her address.”

“We know her address.  Her house is a pile of ash.  We need to know where she is now.”

“I don’t know,” Clem said.

Charlie Lupe took a step forward and hit Clem hard in the mouth.  The turquoise stone set in the silver ring he wore on his middle finger broke one of Clem’s front teeth, and the jagged stump pierced his top lip.

“Wrong answer,” Charlie said as Clem fell off the chair and struck the back of his head on the varnished floorboards.

Clem spat out a gobbet of blood and a piece of tooth and sat up.  He felt groggy.  Had to put his hands palm down on the floor to steady himself.

“When did she quit?” Taza said.

“Two days ago,” Clem said.  “She phoned.  But I don’t know where from.”

“Get your phone,” Taza said, pulling a gun out from under the buckskin jacket he was wearing and pointing it at Clem’s stomach.  “And if you try anything stupid I’ll gut shoot you.”

Clem walked over to the counter.  His cell was laid next to a glass of beer he’d poured just a few minutes before the two Indians had arrived.

“Phone her back,” Taza said.

Clem scrolled for the number that he’d saved.  Called it, but was told by a robotic voice that it was unavailable.  “It must be switched off or need charging,” he said.

Charlie snatched the phone from Clem and simultaneously pushed the muzzle of the handgun up tight against his left eye.  “Where do you think she is?” he said.

“She has a sister in Ajo,” Clem said.

Charlie shook his head.  “She isn’t there.  Where else would she go?”

“She mentioned a cabin a couple times” Clem said.  “It was left to her by an uncle.  It’s somewhere out near Ruby; that ghost town in the Coronado National Forest.  But she didn’t give me the address.”

“That’s better,” Charlie said.  “Now all you have to do is forget we were ever here.  If anyone finds out that we came-a-calling, or you contact the bitch we’re looking for, then you’ll die, slowly.  Do you understand?”

“Y…Yeah,” Clem said.

After they had left, Clem drank a large scotch.  And then another.  The liquor burned his swollen lip.  He liked Fran and hoped that she would be okay, but was not going to say or do anything that would bring the fucking Indians back to his door.  He knew that they were just muscle, and that whoever had sent them wasn’t someone you got on the wrong side of, unless you had a death wish.

Taza phoned Zack.  Gave him the number that Fran Wallace had called the saloon from and the details of the cabin.

“Nice work, Taza,” Zack said.  “Stay in the area.  I’ll get a fix on the phone, and then you can check it out.  If Logan and the women are there I’ll send extra men.”

Zack made a call to the sheriff.  Gave him what he had and said that he needed a location ASAP.

Lucy pulled into the driveway and hit the remote to open the door of the two car garage.  As it slid up she carefully drove her small Kia in and parked next to Glen’s Chevy Malibu.

Logan moved fast.  He had been waiting in deep shadow at the side of the house on N Thompson Avenue; just sitting on a low wall, thinking about Fran and Andy, and even Mel.  And about how to handle the guy he was hoping to confront in the not too distant future.

Ducking low under the descending garage door, Logan withdrew the Glock from his pocket and aimed it at the young woman who had just switched on the overhead lighting and was now standing as still as a statue, just staring at him with a look of growing fear twisting her features into something ugly.

The door clanged shut behind him.  The woman’s shoulders jerked as if the noise had been a physical blow.

“You need to take a few deep breaths and relax,” Logan said.  “I’m not here to rob or harm you.”

Lucy actually did what he’d told her to.  Took three deep gulps of air and then said, “Who the fuck are you, mister?”

“My name’s Logan, and I’m here to talk with Glen.”

“Glen isn’t here,” Lucy said.  “He’ll be on duty for another two hours.”

“No problem,” Logan said.  “Let’s go in the house, drink coffee and wait for him.”

“You want I should give him a call,” Lucy said as she reached for the flap on her shoulder bag.

“No,” Logan said. “I want to surprise him.  And don’t put your hand in the bag, because if you pull out a gun I’ll have to shoot you.”

Lucy turned away from Logan and opened the door that led through the mudroom into the kitchen from the integral garage.  He followed her.  Told her to close the drapes at the windows, and watched her as she did.

“What do you want with Glen?” Lucy said as she put her bag on a counter and then slipped off her lightweight coat and tossed it on top of the bag.

“What’s your name?” Logan said.

“Lucy.”

“Okay, Lucy, put the coffeemaker on and we’ll talk about it.”

Lucy set the coffee going and then sat down on a flimsy-looking tubular chair in front of a round, glass-topped table.

Logan sat opposite her.

“Are you going to shoot Glen?” Lucy said.

“Not if he doesn’t give me good reason to,” Logan said.  “I’ll have to tie you up and stash you in the bathroom before he gets here.  If you make a sound when he comes in, then I can’t guarantee he’ll survive.”

“Why do you want to talk to him?”

“Because he has some kind of arrangement with Zack Slater, and I need to know all that he knows about him.  I’ve got no beef with your husband.”

“We’re not married,” Lucy said.

“Whatever,” Logan said.

They drank coffee, and a half hour before Glen was due home Logan walked Lucy up the stairs to the bathroom and into the shower cubicle, where he tied her hands behind her back with gaffer tape that he’d found in a cupboard, and told her to sit down.  He then bound her ankles together.

“I’ll leave the light on,” he said. “And remember, silence really is golden.  Don’t put your boyfriend’s life at risk.”

Lucy had no intention of doing anything stupid.  The big guy had a look in his eyes that she recognized.  It was one of total sincerity.  He wasn’t the type to issue idle threats, and she loved Glen to bits and didn’t want to be the reason for him being hurt or killed.

Logan sat in an easy chair with the living room light off and the Glock in his hand, and waited.  He thought that when he’d finished his business with Zack Slater he would head east and north, to eventually arrive in New York City.  And after a few days there he would make his way down to New England to enjoy the splendor of fall in all its glory.

Twenty minutes later he heard the sound of a vehicle approach and stop outside the house.  He went across to the window and slowly pulled a drape back a half inch to look out.  There was a Chevy Tahoe at the curb.  One guy got out of the passenger side and said something.  The driver said something back and they both laughed before the vehicle pulled away.

Logan went back to the chair, sat down and waited.  He knew three things; Glen Cahill was a highly trained Border Patrol Agent, was armed, and would, given the chance, shoot to kill an intruder in his home.

He took a deep breath for a count of three, and then exhaled slowly as he held the Glock two-handed and pointed it at the door.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Fran
parked at the side of the cabin and cut the engine.  The sun was going down and the sky was on fire, with pink coral-tinged clouds that seemed to be hanging motionless above distant mountains.

“I need to go for a pee,” Andy said as she climbed out of the car and headed up the trail to the privy.

Fran unlocked the cabin door and went inside.  It was cold.  The fire was now just a bed of hot, gray ashes.  She picked up a log from the stack at the side of the hearth and placed it in the grate.  It began to spit and smoke almost immediately, and burst into flames as Andy walked in and locked the door behind her.

“You and Logan are making out,” Andy said.  “I know it’s not my business, but please don’t get serious about him, Fran.”

“You sound more like mom did, than my sister.  I didn’t know that my love life was of any interest to you.”

“Seeing you get hurt is.  You always seem to pick the wrong type of guy.  And if you hadn’t made so much noise while you were screwing Logan, I wouldn’t have known you were with him.”

“Not jealous are you?” Fran said.

Andy smirked.  “If I had been, I could have always come through and made it a threesome.”

“Kinky.  We tried that once, way back with Carl Palmer, remember?”

“How could I ever forget?  We’d gone skinny-dipping with him in the river, and he was no more than a hundred ten pounds soaking wet, and thin as a whip.  I think young Carl thought he’d died and gone to heaven when we’d finished with him.”

“We were very naughty girls,” Fran said, and started giggling.

“So tell me, Sis, how was it with Logan?”

“You heard me letting off steam, so what do you think?”

“You could have been faking it, for his sake.”

“I didn’t need to.  He pressed all the right buttons.”

Andy frowned.  “As long as you know he’s not a keeper, Fran.  Whatever happens, once this is over he’ll walk, if he survives.”

“You could be right, but I’m not planning to spend the rest of my life with him.  I’m beginning to understand his philosophy, though.  Having your house burned down and knowing that someone is intent on killing you concentrates the mind.”

“Meaning?”

“That I think he’s really got his shit together. I reckon he’s spent a lot of his life living with danger, and knows that nothing is forever.  He doesn’t believe in or want permanence, so chooses to keep moving and not let the dust settle on him.”

“He’s scared of any kind of commitment,” Andy said.  “Maybe he can’t deal with life the same way as most ‘normal’ folk do.  I think he’s running, but you can’t run away from yourself.”

Fran shrugged.  “He’s a free spirit, like a wild animal.  Being in the army and then the police was like being caged, in captivity, and now he’s been liberated and goes his own way, and doesn’t have to conform to anything, or anyone else’s requirements.”

“Wow, you should have been a shrink.  That’s one hell of a psychological evaluation on a guy you don’t really know anything about.”

“Logan got me thinking about what’s really important.  Said stuff that struck home.  I asked
him
if he was some kind of shrink.”

They drank coffee, talked about old and present times for a while, and then went to bed.  They had the submachine gun and a pistol within easy reach, and had locked the shutters at the windows and slid-pushed-heaved a heavy dresser in front of the door.  They thought that it would be impossible for anyone to sneak up, break in and take them by surprise.

They were wrong.

Zack was at the ranch, in his den, sitting on a sand-colored leather wingback chair with a snifter glass containing a large measure of fine French cognac in his right hand.  He was swirling the brown, barrel-seasoned liquid in the balloon-shaped glass as he watched a Bond movie on the 60 inch 3D LED TV that stood wafer thin on a low oak table.  He liked Daniel Craig; the actor had stony eyes and strong features that gave him a cruel look; the look of a man like himself, determined and unforgiving.  That caused him to think of Logan, which dampened his spirits.  The stranger had proved just how capable and dangerous he was.  Maybe he was a full-blown psycho.  Sending Wayne and Gary to deal with him at the motel had been a mistake.  The guy had found a mission in life, and would in all probability keep coming at him.

Zack stood up and took a sip of the brandy before he started pacing up and down the room.  Considered the problem.  Logan knew where he was, so had the advantage.  Hopefully that would not be for too much longer.  When the cop dug up the address of the cabin near Ruby, it should be a slam-dunk.  He would have his men confirm that Logan and the women were there, and then burn them out.  He wouldn’t be able to relax until he was standing over Logan’s dead body.

Picking up the TV remote, Zack muted the sound.  Thought it through and decided that he wanted Logan alive.  The meddlesome ex-cop deserved to die slowly.  He thought back to a night several years ago when his men had shot dead eight modern-day Mexican bandits and captured Diego Vargas, their leader, who had been disrupting Zack’s movement of drugs and illegals.

Vargas had been beaten brutally, before being taken to an isolated gas station on a gravel road in the shadow of the Mesquite Mountains.

It had been Billy Santos that came up with the novel idea.  They had stripped Vargas, and then tied him to a bench in the workshop, face up.  Billy had then uncoiled an airline from a bracket on the wall, forced the nozzle of the blow gun up the bandit’s hairy ass and pulled the trigger.

Vargas had screamed against the gag, and squirmed and bucked and wasted a lot of energy, but could not dislodge the nozzle that introduced a steady flow of compressed air into his body.  It took a while.  His belly had begun to distend, to become drum tight, and his entire body shuddered and his head whipped from side to side as his eyes bulged and rolled, before he literally exploded, sending blood and loops of intestine out from his ruptured guts to coat the onlookers, the walls and the ceiling.

Zack chuckled.  That had been messy, but a real hoot.  It would be a perfect way to deal with the women in front of Logan, because he didn’t believe that the two sisters had flown the coop.  It would be very satisfying to make the guy watch what he was going to get.

Glen unlocked the door, walked in and closed it behind him.  Switched on the light in the hall and called out, “Hey, Luce, where are you?” a second before he saw Logan.

“Go for your weapon and I’ll shoot you in the groin,” Logan said.  “Your call.”

Glen took no more than a second to study the calm, purposeful manner of the guy that he knew to be Logan.  He had been told all about him, and what had happened to the men at Pisinimo, and so just waited to hear what Logan had to say.

“Lose the gun, Cahill,” Logan said.  “You know how to do it, finger and thumb, and then pull your pants’ legs up.  You strike me as the type that would carry a backup piece.”

Glen complied.  He tossed his service pistol and the .32 from an ankle holster onto the carpet a few feet from him.  He realized that the ex-cop would be hard to get the better of.

“What have you done with Luce?” Glen said.

“We had coffee, and then I tied her up.  She’s in the bathroom, unharmed.”

“So what do you want with me, Logan?”

“How do you know my name?”

“Word of mouth.”

“From Keno?”

“Who.”

“Martin Keno.  I had a long conversation with him before I broke his jaw and shot him in the foot.  He told me all about the work you do on the side for Slater.”

“He’s lying.”

“Why would he lie, Cahill?  He had no reason to give you up.  I’d never heard of you, or some of the others he talked about.”

“I’m a Border Patrol Agent, Logan.  Keno is attempting to discredit me.  And you’re breaking the law.  I advise you to put the gun away and leave my house.”

“I don’t think so,” Logan said.  “Take your cuffs out and put one on your right wrist nice and tight, then go up to the bathroom, slow and easy.”

Glen complied.  At no time did Logan get within five feet of him until he had sat down on the floor next to the toilet bowl and secured the other cuff to a metal water pipe that was bracketed along the length of tiled wall behind it, as ordered.

“You okay?” Glen said to Lucy as she stared from him to Logan and back again.

“No,” Lucy whined.  “What’s the hell is happening?”

“I don’t know, honey.  I think that this guy has been given some bum information.  I’m sure we can straighten it out.”

Logan kept the gun trained on Glen as he hunkered down and searched the agent’s pockets.  He found two cell phones, and backed up to check the contact lists in both of them.  He smiled and dropped one onto the floor and said, “You have a few interesting numbers in this burner phone, Cahill; Slater’s, Keno’s, and a few others that I recognize.”

“I got fuck all to say to you, Logan.  You can’t tie me to any wrongdoing.”

“I don’t intend to.  I want information.  If I get it, you won’t need an ambulance for you or Lucy.  Keep acting dumb and Lucy could wind up in intensive care, with you to thank for it.  I’ve already killed a couple of Slater’s men, so don’t hope that I’m bluffing, it isn’t in my repertoire.”

“Jesus, Glen, tell him what he wants to know,” Lucy said.

Glen just looked down at the tiled floor and said nothing.

Logan clenched his left fist, which measured four and a half inches across, and powered it into Glen’s chest.  Glen felt as if he’d been hit with a jackhammer, and that his heart and lungs had been blown apart.

More than five minutes ticked by before the cramping pain in Glen’s chest eased off a little and he could do more than suck in shallow, rasping breaths that didn’t seem enough to oxygenate his blood.  He had almost passed out.

Lucy was sobbing.  In a hitching voice she said, “Please don’t kill him.”

Logan ignored her and placed the muzzle of the Glock up against Glen’s kneecap.  “This is the last chance you get to talk, Cahill,” he said. “I need to be somewhere else.  If I pull the trigger you’ll be limping for the rest of your life, or maybe lose your leg if you don’t bleed out.”

There was a pause.  Logan took up the fraction of slack on the trigger.

“Okay, okay,” Glen wheezed.  “Cool it.  What do you want to know?”

“Everything about Slater.  What you do for him, his habits, where he goes, his security; the works.”

Glen started talking, and fifteen minutes later Logan believed that he had heard all he needed to.

“You’re a total disgrace to that uniform,” Logan said.  “I’m going to give you twelve hours’ start before I call your headquarters and talk to the chief.  And Slater will know that you talked to me before that.  And we know what he does to people that spoil his day.”

“You can’t prove I said a word to you,” Glen said.

Logan reached into his pocket and pulled out the digital gizmo that he’d recorded their conversation on.  Rewound it a couple of minutes and pressed play.

Glen went a whiter shade of pale as he heard himself ratting on Slater.

“You need to run for your life,” Logan said.  “You really are between a rock and a hard place.”

Glen said nothing.  Knew that from the moment Logan made a call he would be a fugitive from the law and worse, from Slater.  He would have to find a deep hole to hide in, change his identity and keep looking over his shoulder.

“Where are the keys to your car?” Logan said to Lucy.

“In my bag on the counter in the kitchen,” she whispered, only now feeling a sense of relief, believing that the big man would leave without hurting or killing her.

Logan found the keys to the Kia and then picked up Glen’s guns from the carpet in the living room and put them in his rucksack.  He went into the garage and looked from the Kia to the Chevy next to it, which was roomier, but decided that the bright yellow paintwork made it too conspicuous, so opted for the discomfort of the smaller vehicle.  He opened the garage door and then got in the car.  Moved the seat back as far as it would go, as he always had to, and started the engine.  He then went back into the house, freed Lucy and told her that the cuff keys were in the trash can in the kitchen, and that if she had any sense she would dump Cahill, because his chances of any future worth having were slim to none.

Driving to a sleazy area north of the town center, Logan parked in an ill-lit lot at the rear of a bar to swap plates with an old Mercury.  He had time to kill: knew from Cahill that Zack Slater would be attending the opening of a Native American art exhibition at a new gallery on W Solana Avenue the following evening.  That was a window of opportunity. From what he now knew, he would never get near Slater’s ranch.

Driving back to the cabin, Logan thought of what choices he had.  The recording of his conversation with Cahill was damning, but was without proof.  Even if he downloaded it to a flash drive and sent it to the State Police, it would not be enough to convict Slater.  They would need Cahill in court to verify what he had admitted, and that wouldn’t happen.  The sad truth was that he would have to kill Slater to ensure that Fran and Andy would be safe from him.  It was a cheerless prospect.  He had never taken any pleasure from ending another person’s life, but at times it was the only way to go.  Some individuals were truly evil, and whether lawful or not, they needed to be eliminated for the good of the many.  He had somehow become a man that stepped over the line and used his experience, training and personal moral values to protect innocent people from harm that they had not courted.  He had a weakness, in that he could not walk away from certain situations.  Maybe it would be the death of him, but that was not something he was overly concerned about.  A clear conscience was more important to him than a safer way of living, or the anticipation of reaching a ripe old age.  Life was
not
safe, and he did not relish the prospect of being elderly and enfeebled, and having to rely on others.  Being who he was suited him just fine.  That was probably why he slept well, because he didn’t have to look back over his shoulder at situations that he should have dealt with but had shied away from.