Absolution (4 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

Wayne
had no idea as to how long he’d been out.  He sat up and groaned aloud as bolts of pain shot through his head and face.  He turned, put his hands on the top of the bed and levered himself up to his feet, but then had to sit down on it for a minute as dizziness affected his balance.  He took deep breaths and watched as drops of blood dripped out from his nose into his lap, and swore aloud to God that he would find Logan and kill him, very slowly.  If the ex-cop had had any sense he would not have left him alive.  It demonstrated that Logan didn’t have the guts to kill someone in cold blood.

Wayne got to his feet again and went to the bathroom door, to open it and be faced by the sight of Gary sitting in the tub, trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey. He had a gash on the side of his head, and was still unconscious.

Wayne turned on the shower and waited until the ice-cold water brought Gary back to shivering awareness, then turned it off and unpicked the knots of the cord that bound his partner.

“What the fuck happened?” Gary slurred.  “Did you nail the sonofabitch?”

“Do I look as though I did?” Wayne snarled.  “Get the fuck out of there and let’s go.  The bastard knows everythin’.”

Gary climbed out of the tub and stood bowed over with his hands on his thighs.  He felt nauseous.  He was suffering from double vision and he thought he may have a mild concussion.

Wayne went back into the room and assessed the position they were in as Gary got his act together.  Logan had taken their guns and phones, and had left with a young woman who was obviously pissed with them and had wanted the big stranger to blow him away.  What was that all about?  And why did Logan give a shit?  This wasn’t his business, so what the fuck was he doing poking his nose in where it didn’t belong?

Wayne sat back down on the bed.  There was nothing he and Gary could do at the moment.  They had no idea where Logan had gone, and were both hurting and unarmed.  And worse than that, he would have to phone Zack and tell him what had gone down.

Zack took the call at home.  “Yeah Wayne?” he said.  “Tell me that you took care of the problem.”

“Sorry, boss, it went south.  He was waitin’ for us.  Someone must have warned him.”

“Come out to the ranch, now,” Zack said before disconnecting.

Wayne swallowed hard.  A part of his brain told him to go back to the car and put as many miles as he could between himself and Ajo.  Zack didn’t tolerate failure.  The Apache was a psychopath with an evil temper, and was totally unpredictable.

“What’d he say, Wayne?” Gary said.

“He wants us to go out to the ranch,” Wayne said as he racked the motel phone.

“You think we should?”

“Yeah.  It wasn’t our fault.  Logan knew that we were comin’ for him.”

“He’ll be pissed at us.”

“Shit happens.  He’ll probably blow his stack and then calm down and figure out who gave Logan the nod.”

Gary frowned.  “The deputy followed him into town and phoned Zack.  Who else could it be?”

“How the fuck should I know?” Wayne said.  “Lance wouldn’t let us know where he was and then warn him.  The guy’s a hobo.”

The Ba’cho ( Eagle ) Ranch was situated on the eastern boundary of the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, facing east toward the Gunsight Hills. It was not a working ranch, just a beautiful white two-story house with stately pillars at either side of the main entrance door.  It was an almost exact copy of the Southfork Ranch in Dallas, which Zack had always aspired to owning, since watching the TV series as a boy growing up with his widowed mother and her parents in a rundown four room ship-lap house on a reservation, before Bob Parker had married his mother and set up home in Phoenix.

Zack tolerated whites, but had a deep-seated loathing of them in general for how his nation had been treated down the years.  His stepfather had been a hard-working guy, but Zack’s ingrained mistrust of whites had been instilled in him by his mother’s father.  They were takers, and he had studied their greed for power and money and was now in a position to never have to be subservient to any man, whatever his color or creed.  He had learned very early in life that knowledge was the key to
real
power over others; that and the capability to intimidate and use extreme violence, if necessary, to ensure that people did his bidding.

“Miller and Foley have arrived, boss,” Martin Keno said from the open door to the study, in which Zack was on the Internet checking the balance of one of several encrypted offshore accounts that he used to hide laundered money that he had not paid tax on.

“Show them through to the kitchen,” Zack said. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

Martin nodded curtly and made his way along the wide hall, dipping his head so as not to catch it on the top of the archway halfway along it. Martin Keno was six foot eight; a full-blooded Apache with a face that could have been carved from the red rocks that his ancestors had lived among for millennia, before the whites had all but driven them from their lands at the back end of the nineteenth century. Martin had the physique of a rangy basketball player.  He wore his black hair short, and the gray at the temples made him look older than his forty years.  He had known Zack since childhood, and they had become almost inseparable, linked by a similar upbringing, and the fact that neither had any intention of becoming the stereotypical deprived Indians that scraped through life by the skin of their teeth.  They had soon acknowledged that crime would be their salvation, and it had been Zack that had been the natural leader, with the acumen to build a small empire by muscling in on the illegal transportation of Mexicans, and then branching out into drugs, prostitution, protection, and any other criminal activities that he thought profitable enough to be involved in.

Martin opened the main door, where he had left Wayne and Gary standing on the flagstone walkway that ran along the frontage of the ranch.

“Go through to the kitchen,” Martin said.  “The boss will be with you in a few minutes.  And Wayne, your nose is bleeding. Don’t let any drip on the floor, or you get to clean it up.”

Wayne glared up at Martin, before trudging through to the rear of the house holding a crumpled Kleenex to his throbbing nose.  Gary followed on behind, his shoulders slumped; scared of what Zack might do to them for fucking up.

It was ten minutes later that Zack ambled into the large dining kitchen and switched on the coffeemaker.  Wayne and Gary had been sitting in two of the six carver chairs at the polished maple-topped table, and both of them stood up as he turned to face them.

“You both look like you walked into a moving truck,” Zack said.  “Sit down boys, I’ll make the coffee.”

Wayne could hear his heart beating in his ears.  He was more than nervous; knew that Zack’s amiable demeanor was like the calm eye of a hurricane.

“So start at the beginning, Wayne,” Zack said as he placed two mugs of coffee on tile coasters in front of the two men.  “Don’t skip any details.  What the fuck went wrong?”

“Like I said, boss,” Wayne said, his voice a nasal twang, due to the blood clotting in his nostrils. “He was waitin’ for us.”

“I said the beginning,” Zack said, his voice now lower and charged with menace.

Wayne swallowed hard.  “We saw him on the street.  He went in a diner, so we parked in the side lot, and when he came out he walked back to the motel.  We waited for quite a while after the lights in his room went out, then picked the lock and entered.  He was ready for us.  Just…just took us out.”

“Was he armed?” Zack said.

“Wayne shook his head slowly.  Winced at the pain it generated.

“You’re supposed to be pros, and you’re telling me that this no account drifter went up against two armed men and came out on top?”

“He knew we were coming, boss,” Gary said.

Zack’s right hand was a blur.  He picked up one of the steaming mugs and threw the contents at Gary.

Gary screamed and cupped his scalded face with his hands as he reared backwards, causing the chair to tip over and deposit him on the tiled floor.

“I was talking to Wayne,” Zack said.  “Go and dunk your face in cold water, then find something to mop the floor with.”

As Gary climbed to his feet half-blinded and lurched over to the large enamel cast iron sink, Zack turned his attention back to Wayne.  “The deputy, Deerbolt, was the only one that knew where this creep Logan had gone to earth,” he said to Wayne.  “And he wouldn’t warn the guy, that wouldn’t make sense.  Am I right?”

“Yeah, boss, you’re right,” Wayne said.

“So maybe Logan saw the deputy and was on his guard.”

Wayne nodded.

Zack walked over to the solid marble counter, poured himself a cup of coffee and took a couple of sips.  “So what did you tell him, Wayne?  And don’t lie to me, or you’ll wish he’d put a bullet through your thick skull.”

“He knew everythin’, boss,” Wayne said.  “Asked me why we’d killed Sam Benton for you.  I told him that Benton had been rippin’ you off.”

“Keep talking,” Zack said as Wayne dried up.

“He didn’t say much.  The broad with him told him to whack me.”

“What broad?”

“I don’t know, boss.  I never saw her before tonight.”

“Okay, Wayne.  To summarize, this big, tough ex-cop finds Benton’s body in the desert and for some reason decides to make it his business.  And he wouldn’t know about me or make a connection unless someone pointed him in the right direction.”

Wayne just nodded.  He didn’t want coffee in his face, or worse.

“What you two need to do is redeem yourselves,” Zack continued.  “Find out who in Madison Bend spoke to him, apart from the sheriff, and locate the woman and Logan.  When you know where they are, we’ll let Martin take care of them.  Can you handle that?”

“Yeah, boss.”

“So get the fuck out of here and do it.  Call me before noon tomorrow with good news.”

As Wayne and Gary made to leave, Zack’s Nokia trilled.  The caller ID was Wayne.

Zack accepted the call.  “Yeah,” he said.

“How are the two morons you sent to make my acquaintance?”

“Are you Logan?” Zack said.

“Yeah.  I thought you’d like to know that Wayne sang like a canary.  I know all about you and your set-up.  You won’t find me, or see me coming, Slater, but I’m letting you know that you’re on the clock.  The law may not be able to put you away, but I’m not on your payroll, and I don’t let legality get in the way of taking scum like you out.”

“Why have you got involved, Logan?” Zack said.

“I’d planned on moving on in the morning,” Logan said.  “But then your guys paid me a visit, and I reassessed the situation and decided to finish what you started.”

“I
will
find you and the woman, Logan,” Zack said. “And kill you both.”

“I don’t have to find you, Slater.  I already know where you are,” Logan said before ending the call.

Zack walked to the front door and opened it for Wayne and Gary.  He didn’t say a word as they stepped out into the cool night air that was lit by an almost full moon, just kicked Wayne hard in the crotch, and as the man fell to the ground he kept kicking him; in the head, his face, his stomach and back, and kept up the onslaught as Wayne curled up in a fetal position and moaned, before a final devastating blow from a silver-tipped boot fractured his skull and ended his life.

Gary didn’t move as Zack sat on his haunches and regained his breath.  Just stood and waited, and hoped that he was not about to suffer Wayne’s fate.

Martin appeared at the door.  “You okay, boss?” he said.

Zack stood up and dusted off his pants.  He could feel the droplets of Wayne’s blood that had adhered to and then soaked through the material of his shirt.  “I’m fine,” he said.  “Get rid of the body, then we’ll talk about how best to find and deal with Logan.”

As if an afterthought, Zack turned to face Gary.  “Go home, get yourself cleaned up and be back here at daybreak,” he said.  “You’ll be working with Martin now.”

“Right, boss,” Gary said and walked to the car on shaky legs, thankful to still be able to walk at all.  He could hardly see out of his left eye, which had been splashed by the red hot coffee, but considered that to still be breathing was a bonus.

CHAPTER SIX

Andrea
drove out towards Pisinimo, but stopped at a diner that was still open. Parked in the lot and switched off the lights and engine.  Said to Logan, “I need some coffee and to talk.”

“Okay, Andrea,” Logan said.

“Call me Andy,” she said.  “Everyone I know does.”

“You don’t know me, Andy.  Best thing you could do right now is let me get out, then drive away and put all this behind you.”

“That guy saw me.  I won’t be safe until Zack Slater is dealt with.”

“And you think that I’m going to deal with him?”

“Yes.  My guess is that you’re here in Ajo because of him.”

“I came here with the intention of getting involved, but decided not to.  I was going to head east tomorrow and forget all about it.  What happened back at the motel has changed my mind again.”

“Good.  People like Slater need to pay for what they do.”

“There always has and always will be lowlife like Slater, Andy.  I was a cop.  His types are like flies on a hot day.  They don’t go away, however many you swat.”

“This is personal,” Andy said.  “He had someone I cared for killed. And you said that Sam had been mutilated.  What happened to him?”

“You know that a train had gone over him.”

“That isn’t all though, is it?”

“How long had you known Sam?”

“Only six months.  I thought that I knew him, but obviously I didn’t.”

“I doubt that anyone really knows another person,” Logan said.  “Sam chose to live off crime, and apparently got greedy and bit the hand that fed him.”

“And what did they do to him, Logan?  Tell me.”

“Removed his teeth and the tips of his fingers and thumbs, disfigured his face, and tied him to the track and waited for the train to finish him off.”

Andy felt sick to the stomach.  Opened the door and exited the car, to slide down with her back against the front fender and hug her knees.  The image that assaulted her mind was graphic, and impossible to expel.

“You needed to know exactly what kind of scum killed Sam,” Logan said, hunkering down in front of her.  “Anyone that gets in their way is eliminated.  Zack Slater makes his millions from other people’s needs and desperation, and he doesn’t care if they live or die, only in the use or profit he can generate from them.  They’re just assets.”

Andy raised her head and stared into Logan’s eyes.  Tears ran down her cheeks, but her expression was as hard as steel and full of resolve.  “I don’t think I really loved Sam, Logan.  I cared for him, but didn’t envisage our relationship going much further.  But I can’t just sit back and let Slater get away with what he did.  Are you going to tell the police what that man told you?”

“Let’s go inside and get some coffee and discuss it,” Logan said, helping Andy to her feet.

There were only three other people in the diner; a middle-aged guy in a check shirt, blue jeans and work boots, sitting on a stool at the counter, eating his way through a stack of pancakes that were swimming in maple syrup. And there was an old couple with gray hair, gray skin and gray clothes, facing each other across the table in a booth, both noisily spooning soup from large bowls to their puckered mouths.

Andy and Logan walked to the far end of the small diner, sat down and said nothing until the waitress had been and taken their order for coffee.

“Well?” Andy said.  “Are you going to report what you know, or do I have to?”

Logan sighed.  “Nothing that we heard in the motel room will help put Slater away, Andy.  The guy would deny that he said any of it.  And he was talking at gunpoint, under extreme duress.”

“So murderers like Slater are allowed to get away with anything, even when everybody knows what they’re guilty of?”

Logan paused and waited until the girl in a grubby yellow tunic put a coffeepot down on the table between him and Andy and sashayed away, swinging her oversize ass as if the aisle between the booths was a catwalk.

“Get real,” Logan said as he poured coffee into two large ceramic mugs that he supposed had been gleaming white a decade earlier, but were now more of a dull, pearly gray.  “You have to provide proof.  Knowing something and proving it are sometimes as far apart as New York and LA.”

“Are you going to do anything about it?”

“Yeah.  Slater has made it personal.  And if they can find out who you are, he’ll want you out of the picture.”

Taking the cell phone that had belonged to Wayne Miller from his pocket, Logan switched it on and scrolled through the list of contacts.  Called Zack Slater’s number, spoke to him, goaded him, and then switched off the phone again.

“Did you mean all that?” Andy said.

Logan nodded.  “Yeah.  He needs to be dealt with.  I suppose if I walk away now I’ll regret it, so I’ll do what I can to close him down.”

“You mean kill him?”

“If that’s what it takes, yeah.”

“Thank you,” Andy said.

“It’s a little premature to thank me.  Slater will have made a lot of enemies over the years, but he’s still above ground, so he knows how to protect himself.  There’s no guarantee that we’ll get out of this in one piece.”

“Better to have tried and failed, eh?”

“No. Better to succeed.”

After such a short period of time, Andy had already developed a deep sense of trust in Logan. He was the type of guy that exuded an aura of consummate self-confidence, with a psychological strength to match his towering height and powerful physique.

“I need to phone my sister and ask her if you can stay at her place for a day or two,” Andy said, taking her phone from her purse.

“One night only,” Logan said.  “And then I’ll move out and take care of Slater.”

“Not without me,” Andy said.  “I’m not going to sit back and wonder what trouble you’re getting into.”

“I work best alone,” Logan said, but knew that it was a false statement.  If it hadn’t been for Kate Donner turning up at Miriam Carmody’s Rocky mountain home with a shotgun, then he would have been killed several months ago by the hitman Vicente Mendez.

“I was a tomboy as a kid,” Andy said.  “I can shoot straight, and I won’t freeze up if the going gets tough.”

“We’ll see,” Logan said.  “Phone your sister.  We need to come up with a plan, get some sleep, and find somewhere to stay for a few days where we won’t be found.”

Andy spoke to Fran as she drove.  Told her what had gone down and asked if she could bring Logan back for the night.  The silence on the line told her that Fran was unhappy with the situation.  “Never mind, Fran,” Andy said. “We’ll find somewhere else.”

“No,” Fran said.  “We’re family.  Your problem is my problem.  See you soon.”

Andy put the phone back in her purse and drove the rest of the way to Pisinimo without saying a word.

The small clapboard house was at the end of a dirt track that dipped down to the property and was out of sight from the highway.  Only a rusted metal mailbox affixed atop a wood pole gave a clue to a house’s existence.

Andy parked at the rear, and a dark-haired woman in jeans came out through the kitchen door to meet her and Logan as they got out of the Nissan and headed for the stoop.

Andy hugged her sister, and then introduced her to Logan.

“Hi, Logan,” Fran said.

“Hi, back,” Logan said.

They went inside, and Logan took in his surroundings.  The kitchen was clean and homely and had the smell of coffee and freshly baked bread and furniture polish; welcoming aromas that combined to make him feel comfortable.

“Who exactly are you, Logan?” Fran said as she poured the three of them coffee from a pot that could have graced a campfire next to a chuck wagon in days of yore, when cattle drives were part of the western way of life.

“Just a guy,” Logan said.

Fran grinned.  Could see that the tall man was not used to talking about himself.  He seemed to possess some indefinable apartness, and she guessed, rightly, that he preferred his own company as a rule.

“Humor me,” Fran said.  “Tell me something about the stranger that has suddenly turned up at night with my sister.”

“Long story short,” Logan said.  “I’m an ex-cop from New York City.  I seem to have got myself mixed-up in some mess that I’d rather not have become a part of.  I have a bad habit of doing that.”

“Have you relocated to Arizona?”

“No.  I was just passing through.  Home is wherever I happen to lay my head these days.”

“A drifter?”

“A traveler.  I like to move around and see what’s over the next hill.”

“Andy says you found Sam’s body.”

Logan nodded.  “Yeah, unfortunately.  And now we know more than is good for us, and have a war on our hands.”

“Why not just tell the law what you know?”

“Maybe I will, but that won’t make any difference.  What I know isn’t going to put Zack Slater in a prison cell.”

“So what will you do?”

“I’ll think of something, ” Logan said before draining his cup.  “Right now I need a couple hours’ sleep, to let what’s gone down settle out in my mind.”

Fran guided Logan up the stairs and pointed out the bathroom before opening the door to the spare bedroom.

“Sleep well,” Fran said.

Logan gave her a small smile. “I always do,” he said.

Fifteen minutes later, after showering and brushing his teeth, Logan was fast asleep, lying diagonally in the regular length bed, so that his feet did not stick out over the bottom edge of the mattress.

“What the hell have you got yourself into?” Fran said to Andy as they sat in the kitchen and had a nightcap of Jack Daniel’s.

“Nothing that I went looking for, Fran.  If I’d known that Sam was working for a gangster I wouldn’t have been seeing him.”

“But you wouldn’t leave it be.  You had to get involved.  And this guy Logan could be a total flake.  How do you know that he’s safe to be with?”

“I trust him.  He’ll deal with Slater, and then I can get on with my life.”

“A big, mysterious stranger shows up from God knows where like Eastwood in Pale Rider, and you think that he can set things right.  Remember the quote from The Book of Revelation; ‘and I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him’.  I think that this Logan is a little like some kind of avenger.  He’s trouble.”

“I think you’re wrong,” Andy said.  “He found Sam, and then was told that Slater was probably responsible, but that the law didn’t envisage finding any evidence to link him to it.  He came to Ajo to follow up, but decided that it wasn’t his business, until two armed men broke into his motel room.  He made one of them tell him everything.  I was there.”

“So now you and Logan are a team, willing to risk your lives for what?  Sam was one of the bad guys.  He stole that money, and he must have known what would happen to him if he got found out.”

“And you think that I should just forget about it, move away from Ajo and start over?”

“That could be a better plan than trying to fight a lost cause that could get you killed.  If the man that Logan interrogated saw you, then they’ll find you if you stay in the area.”

“I won’t let them drive me off like a scared rabbit.”

“I didn’t think you would, but I had to try and make you see sense.”

“What would you do in the same position?”

Fran frowned.  “I probably am in the same position, or will be when they find out who you are, because they’ll try to find out where you are through me.”

“You’ll have to come with us,” Andy said as the enormity of the situation hit her: she had put her sister in mortal danger by coming to the house with Logan.

“I’ll pass on that,” Fran said.  “But I’ll keep a shotgun with me until you and your superhero make the problem disappear.”