American Blood (34 page)
At four
P.M.
he reassembled the phone and switched it on and found a message.
Rojas’s number, but a new voice: “Call me back.”
He waited thirty seconds, coming down off the little jolt of discovery. Trancelike he was so still, the gun in one hand and the phone in the other, Marshall contemplating how things might come to a close.
An end of some sort approaching and maybe it’s yours.
He dialed.
“Yes?” The same voice from the message.
Marshall, watching Shore, said, “Is my friend Troy there?”
“Marshall. I’m glad you rang back. This is Leon. We spoke yesterday morning.”
He took himself back there. The hot car and the circling of the birds. He said, “I remember. Life and death and that sort of thing.”
“That’s right.”
“Is Troy there?”
“He is. He can’t actually talk, though. A bit indisposed right now.”
Marshall said, “I need to come see you. Ask you about Alyce Ray.”
“All right. You sure you want to do that?”
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure.”
“Remember what I said yesterday. About how looking for disappeared people’s a good way to end up disappeared yourself.”
Marshall said, “I’ll take my chances. I’ve done all right so far.”
“Not going to last forever, nothing does. But okay. You know where Calor is? Central Avenue in Albuquerque?”
Calor. He remembered it from the DEA photographs. That pink building where Alyce Ray had last been seen.
Marshall said, “When?”
“Where are you?”
“Close.”
“Well, how about thirty minutes, then?”
Marshall said, “Good,” and clicked off.
Shore had noticed him talking and was coming in from the living room. Marshall finally stood up, pushed the chairs in. He took a step back to check everything was correctly spaced and put the gun in his belt.
He said, “I’ve found him.”
* * *
He went into the bathroom and locked the door. On the shelf above the basin a long display of pill bottles, prescription and off-the-shelf. He turned them so he could read the labels. Sleeping pills. Anti-anxiety. Codeine. Vicodin.
He placed the gun on the medicine cabinet and rolled up his sleeves. Blood from the Bronco men still on him, hair on his arms crusted with it. He ran a basin of hot water and soaped his forearms, and using a small nail brush removed the lather one long stroke at a time, elbow to wrist. A delicate pinstripe of foam remaining. He splashed water from the faucet to get the residue and rinsed his face and hunched dripping over the bowl. A pink tint in the dimpled water and this odd distorted figure looking back. Just the shape of a person.
He leaned close to the mirror and ran a hand along his jaw. His beard just showing. He took a step back and crouched slightly to see his reflection and turned his head left and right and then up and down to check his hair. Scissors from the medicine cabinet to clip a rogue strand. It fell in a gentle curve on the water and frayed slowly to its composite threads.
There was a five-pack of razor blades in the cabinet as well, and he unwrapped two of them and set them on the shelf in front of the pills, short side flush with the edge. Then he removed his belt and held it up to compare widths, blade to leather, and marked the midpoint of the belt with his thumbnail. In a drawer beneath the basin he found a single Band-Aid and cut the adhesive tab from each end, and one after the other peeled off the protective paper and taped the razor blades to the inside of his belt at the position he’d marked. Then he threaded it carefully back through the loops and did the buckle and turned and looked over his shoulder to check his reflection, but all was hidden.
He drained the basin and ran the tap to get the last of the blood and dropped the scrunched remains of the Band-Aid and the razor papers in the trash can beside the toilet. He stood square to the mirror and crouched again to center his face.
Could be the last time you see it.
He turned some pill bottles to restore disorder and then he picked up the gun and walked out.
Wayne Banister
He hadn’t changed motels yet. He was still at the Gibson Boulevard place, guest numbers low enough the safe option was to stay put rather than be seen at the desk.
Sitting at a table in a Starbucks just up the road, working through coffee and a newspaper, the blue phone rang. He checked the time. Four thirty
P.M
. He looked out the window as he answered. Not even the traffic moving. A clear afternoon, and on the sidewalk the long shadows of the streetlights reaching eastward.
The Patriarch said, “Thanks for the file. It’s taken a while to break the encryption, but there’s a lot here.”
“Anything useful?”
“Yeah. The Frazers seemed to think their main rival is a guy called Jackie Oswald Grace, working with someone called Leon. No surname. I’d like to know who did their intel, it’s good stuff. Spreadsheets and everything.”
“Junior said they used some ex-Mossad guys.”
“Interesting. We might have to look into that.”
Wayne said, “Sure.”
“Anyway, they’ve catalogued all their assets, including the vehicles. It says Leon’s got a red 1994 Jeep Cherokee, a white 2013 Audi Quattro SQ5, and a black 2013 Chrysler 300C.”
“Okay.”
“But I saw just now the State Police down there have a BOLO out on an Audi SQ5 involved in a shooting yesterday, and APD’ve caught a homicide, someone dead next to a red Jeep Cherokee.”
“I haven’t seen the news.”
“No, well I checked the local stations to see if TV had caught anything, and there’s been a shooting at a motel in Bernalillo too, looked like they tried to reenact the O.K. Corral. But one of the cars there is a Chrysler 300C.”
Wayne said, “So Leon’s been busy.”
“Seems so. Either he’s after someone, or someone’s after him.”
Wayne closed the paper and folded it. People at adjacent tables hunched over laptops. He was just background, no one even glanced. He said, “You want me to look into it?”
“Yeah, I just don’t like the coincidence. First I hear Marshall’s in Albuquerque, and then the news is full of shootings involving drug dealers.”
“That’s pretty standard down here. Cops love it.”
“Yeah, I’ve just got that feeling. And I don’t want any missed opportunities. Even if it’s a slim chance it’s still worth checking.”
“You think he’s hunting dealers?”
“I don’t know. It’s the kind of thing he might be up for, though.”
“I’ll look into it. How many people has this Leon guy got?”
“Four. Assuming they’re not all dead.”
Five-on-one, potentially. Wayne thought about it a second and said, “Okay. I’ll check it out.”
“Thank you. I don’t have the file in front of me, but it says he’s got a place up in Santa Fe. I’ll text you the details.”
“Sure. I’ll head up there now, see what’s going on.”
“Great. The file said there’s no alarm, and the lock’s a Schlage Camelot, apparently. I’ll send you the code.”
“Thank you.”
He finished the coffee as he walked back to the motel, the paper under one arm. Camouflage against anyone not focused on the car ahead.
In the room he put the bag on the bed and checked the load in the guns. He clipped the SIG on his hip and tugged his shirt over it. Then he put a foot on the edge of the mattress and strapped the .22 in its holster to his ankle.
A nice added weight. He always liked that comfort of metal.
This is your place in the world.
In the bathroom he took a leak and looked at himself in the mirror as he washed his hands, tipping his head different ways to check his hair. He turned off the tap and leaned on the sink so his reflection was centered.
Could be the last time you see it.
He checked that both phones were in the bag before he left.
* * *
Afternoon traffic pushed the trip out to an hour.
When he pulled into the driveway he saw the garage was empty. He slowed and came popping in over the gravel. The broad curve of a house becoming evident as he drew nearer, and he saw the windows were all curtained. He stopped and set the brake and with the engine running opened his door and sat half off the seat with a foot outside and the SIG held low.
Ding, ding, ding.
He thought of Frazer and Chino, probably still out west, getting pretty leathery by now.
He shut off the engine and removed the key. Without looking he reached across and took both phones from the bag and pocketed them. He got out and closed the door. Very quiet without road noise. The car slowly ticking. He felt the heat from the wheel arch. The house dark and lifeless.
And you’re going in.
Gun raised, he ran lightly to the entry and punched the lock code. The mechanism clicked. He turned the handle and nudged the door back with his knuckles and waited, staring down the sights. Just the creak of the hinge as it eased back around. He went in. The weapon held close and two-handed, snapping left and right to cover doors as he passed them. No one in the living room. The place a mess. Needles and coke. The crack house standard.
He checked the hallway. Empty bedrooms, an empty bathroom, two locked doors. He kicked them both in. Product and gun storage. Stairs to a basement as well, but he decided to check them later. He headed back toward the entry. There was another door with a combination lock, maybe an office.
He stood straining to hear. Then he took a step back and trained the gun chest-high and kicked the bolt in. The door flung open and bounced off the adjacent wall and swung almost closed, caught by the ruined tongue. He shouldered in.
A computer sat humming on a desk, laser prints spread out next to it, people in various states of dismemberment. Anatomy texts, open at the relevant sections. He turned and trained the SIG on the door and walked backward to the desk, sifted through the papers.
Like a morgue file. Nothing that wasn’t severed.
Next to the monitor he found a printout from the Motor Vehicle Division. A standard registry entry, personal and vehicle stats, together with a photograph.
James Marshall Grade. He kept Marshall as a middle name.
He waited there a moment, gun up, seeing how it all fit together. Then he left the smashed office door hanging wide and went and stood at the top of the stairs. A dull hammering from somewhere. He hadn’t noticed before, but he had an idea what it might be. He started down, back to the wall, gun swinging left and right for cover. Halfway there and he could hear voices. He stopped and listened, head cocked. Two women calling for help, cries going in and out of sync. At the bottom of the stairs, he stood with his ear to the door and listened. Some kind of cutting suite adjacent. The table still wet, a trace of water along the bottom of the drain. Serrated tools on the pegboard. The door beside him shaking as they hit it.
He said, “Jesus Christ.”
He took the red phone from his pocket as he walked back up the stairs, sat in the living room and called his daughter. He was shaking as he held the phone to his ear.
“What are you up to, sweetheart?”
Marshall
Southbound on I-25. Shore driving, Marshall in the seat beside her, looking out the window, but not really seeing the view. He had the pink glasses on and the Colt held two-handed between his knees.
She said, “How do you think she saw you?”
Marshall took a few seconds to surface. He said, “How do I think who saw me when?”
“The Chloe girl. How did she know to come upstairs after you shot him?”
Marshall ran a hand round his jaw but didn’t turn from the window. He said, “Hard to say. She was only one floor below, she could’ve heard the noise. Or she might have seen me on the street, I don’t know. Maybe she just decided to come upstairs. Might’ve just been bad luck.”
She didn’t answer.
Marshall slid low in the seat. He took the lock pick bag from his pocket and put it in the glove compartment.
“What’s that?”
He said, “Lock picks. For breaking into people’s houses.”
She looked out her window. The low sun in the glass of the buildings. The city had a silver clarity against the hard, blue folds of the mountains. She said, “You carrying anything else I should avoid being seen with?”
He said, “I don’t know. The usual.”
“Which is what?”
“Money, and a gun, and my keys. Got a phone too, but that’s kind of an exception.”
She glanced at him. “Carrying it round in three pieces is pretty exceptional.”
Marshall said, “Stops it being tracked.”
“Yeah. Except when you turn it on again.”
He shook his head. “No onboard GPS, so they’d have to triangulate the signal. Less cell towers out here than on the coast so I don’t think it’s that precise.”
She looked at him. “You don’t think.”
“Well. That’s the theory. It’s working for me so far.”
She said, “If you’re going for normal, you could try using a wallet.”
He shook his head. “No. You have to put things in them.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Credit cards and ID and stuff.”
She said, “What’s wrong with credit cards and ID?”
Marshall said, “Nothing. Unless you happen to be in my situation. In which case everything’s wrong with them.”
“So no plastic?”
He shook his head. “No plastic.”
She looked at him. “How do you drive?”
“Easy. You just need a key and a car.” He pushed the glasses up the bridge of his nose. “And to avoid being pulled over.”
She said, “What about voting?”
“I don’t vote.”
“Right.”
She kept working on that for a minute and said, “Don’t you think that’s worth an exception? Like, have some ID on you long enough to mark a piece of paper.”
“Partake in democracy and all those good things.”
“Exactly.”
Marshall said, “I’m on the periphery. Whether the country goes blue or red doesn’t affect me.” He mused a little while, watching traffic overtake, sun flares sliding off the paintwork. He said, “Plus if democracy’s worth anything, the right to
not
vote’s just as crucial as the right
to
vote.”