Before The Killing Starts (Dixie Killer Blues Book 1) (16 page)

Chapter 34

'Do you know . . . what
happened?' Evan asked, as he came out of the bathroom.

She took a deep breath
and nodded, a small smile on her lips. 'She's okay. I've seen her. She's badly
shaken up but she's okay.'

Thank God for that
. He felt his whole body slump and
relax, like a large lump of Jell-O that hadn't quite set. He let out a massive
breath and dropped onto the bed. Couldn't she have told him that in the first
place, instead of all the warnings about
you're not going to like this
.

'So Dixie's got the
money. That's why you want to find him.' He laughed. 'You think he'll give you
some of it if you ask nicely?' Thinking back to the display he'd just been
given he imagined she could ask very nicely indeed if she had the mind to.

'No, he hasn't got it.'

'I'm getting lost here,'
he admitted.

'You underestimate your
wife.'

He was glad she called
her that, rather than
ex-wife
which is what it felt like now, although
he was starting to wonder what he did feel any more. It certainly seemed like
he didn't know the first thing about her.

'How so?'

'She gave Dixie the key but she told him the wrong storage facility. He took her along with him when
he went to pick up the money. They were stopped at a traffic signal and she
jumped out and got away. He couldn't just leave the car where it was and chase
after her. Plus he thought he had the right address so he wasn't too concerned.
What was she going to do? Call the cops?'

Evan was impressed. He
wouldn't have thought Sarah would have had the presence of mind to give him the
wrong address after he'd beaten her up at the least, if not actually tortured
her. And then to give him the slip as well.
That's my girl.
Or was.

'I can see you're
impressed,' she said.

He couldn't help
grinning. 'I'd never have believed it.'

'It's obvious who wore
the pants in your household.'

He thought that was a
bit below the belt. He didn't want to take anything away from what Sarah had
done but even so . . .

'So what happened next?
He had the key.'

Now she grinned. 'He had
one
of the keys. They give you two. She called me and I went and picked her
up. Then we drove to the right facility, picked up the money and moved it to
another one. It's easy; they're all over the place.'

'So you've still got the
money.'

She nodded. He thought
her face might split in two if she grinned any wider.

'What about Sarah?'

The grin melted away.
Evan's stomach clenched without permission. He pushed himself off the bed and
stood over her. His hand itched to slap her.

'What about Sarah? Where
is she now?'

She shook her head, a
helpless gesture. He bent down, took hold of her shoulders and shook her, his
fingers digging into her flesh.

'I don't know.' She
blinked in quick succession. He wondered suddenly if she was going to cry. He'd
give her something to cry about if she kept this up much longer. 'She said
she'd call me and then ran off.'

He let go of her arms
and stood up.

'I'm not surprised after
you put Dixie onto her—'

'I didn't
put Dixie onto her
,' she screamed, 'he
found
her.'

'Maybe she doesn't want
to be
found
again.' He walked over to the bathroom door; felt like
punching a hole through it. 'So you don't actually know where she is.'

'I just told you—she's
going to call me.'

'Yeah, right. And even
if she does, you won't tell me anything until I've found Dixie for you.'

She shrugged as if to
say:
that's the way it goes.

'Unless you're going to
beat it out of me, of course.' The smugness was back with a vengeance.

She was a little too
full of herself for his liking but he was between a rock and a hard place. It
was the fact that she knew it that really got his goat.

'Why do you want to find
Dixie anyway? I'd have thought he was the last person you wanted to meet.'

The mention of Dixie
wiped the smile off her face about as fast as Chico's secateurs would have
done, but without it being so much fun. He could feel her get wary, see it in
the way she deliberately leaned back into the chair, spread her arms and
pretended to be casual.

'I need to come to an .
. . arrangement with him.'

'Do a deal, you mean.'

'Yes.' She leaned
forward, rested her elbows on her knees and clasped her hands together.
Earnest, you-can-trust-me face. Nitty gritty time. 'I'll split the money with
him. In return he leaves me alone. I can't spend the rest of my life looking
over my shoulder.'

'And Sarah.' He raised a
questioning eyebrow as if to say:
sorry to bring up such a trivial matter.

'Yes, and Sarah.' Her
tone of voice implying:
what sort of a person do you think I am?

They stared at each
other a few beats. Evan felt as if he was being asked to decide on Dixie's behalf whether it was an acceptable proposition or not. He'd not met the guy yet,
but as far as he was concerned, he'd have been happy for him to take the lot
and give her a swift kick in the cooter for good measure.

'Why are you so worried
about him?'

The look on her face
suggested she was having a problem believing anybody could be so stupid. He
wanted to slap that one off too.

'You were quite happy
having the drug dealers after you. Or were you going to do a deal with them?
Offer them half of their money back?'

She laughed out loud at
that.

'You haven't met Dixie have you? There's a world of difference between a guy like him and a bunch of wetback
drug dealers. I was willing to take my chances on them never finding me, him,
not so much.'

Evan supposed it made
perfect sense but there was one small matter that was giving him a problem.

'And I'm meant to help
you in setting up this deal? Breaking I don't know how many laws in the
process.'

She shrugged and as much
as a shrug can say anything, it said:
it's your choice
.

'The door's right over
there.'

That's what came out of
her mouth. What Evan heard was:
good luck finding Sarah.

He felt like throwing
the glass of water in her face.

Chapter 35

He knew when he was beaten.
There'd never really been any doubt that he'd do whatever it took. He wasn't
about to just up and walk out, even though it was a very different kettle of
fish to when she'd first come to see him. Well, actually it wasn't—it was
exactly the same, it was just that he'd been let into the secret now.

He picked his jacket up
off the bed and pulled it on. He remembered the other thing he'd wanted to ask
her. It felt as if he'd been in the room with her for about three weeks. He got
his wallet out again and pulled out the other piece of paper he'd found in her
diary.

'What's this about?' he
said, holding it out to her.

She took it from him.
'Where'd you get this?'

'Same place as the
photo.'

'Remind me to keep
everything under lock and key when you're around, will you?'

'Says
Little Miss
Trustworthy
.'

'Anyway, it's not
important.'

He shook his head. 'Were
you aware that's the answer you give to every question you're ever asked?'

Her eyes narrowed.
'Maybe you shouldn't ask so many questions.'

He started to point out
that he wouldn't get very far in his job if he didn't ask lots of questions but
she talked over him. It made him feel like he was married again and his next
turn to talk wasn't until next week.

'Questions about things
that don't concern you.' She put her fists on her hips. It made her look
pissed, just like it was meant to, but he wasn't sure if she knew how much it
hitched her breasts up and pushed them towards. Body language mixed messages,
he thought, and considered reaching out and squeezing one of them playfully
with a cheery
Parp, Parp
.

'Did I ask you to
rummage through my personal belongings and interrogate me about everything you
find?' she carried on. '
Did I?'

He really didn't know
what to say to her. No answer would’ve worked, so he didn’t try one. He just
wanted to get away from her.

'No. I didn't think so,'
she said in that supercilious tone of voice that took him straight back to when
he'd known her years ago.

He took the piece of
paper back from her.

'I'll keep it anyway.
I'm sure I'll find out the significance at some critical point in the future
when I'm being attacked by another couple of Mexican hit men.'

He studied it again,
making sure his lips didn't move as he read it.

'MacQuaid's is obviously
another bar.' He looked at her expectantly and she nodded wearily.

'It's one of the places
I used to meet Dixie. Okay. Happy now?'

'Who's 'J'?'

She just shook her head.

'Okay, I'm going to
assume that two days ago you had to meet somebody called 'J' at MacQuaid's.
Either that or you sent somebody else to look for him there.'

'Jesus Christ, Evan.
Why's everything got to be connected to everything else? I suppose if you'd
found my grocery list you'd be expecting to get it all served to you for your
dinner in one go. It's just a few notes to myself.' She sounded almost as sick
of talking to him as he was of her.

He didn't believe her
for a second. He laughed, putting the piece of paper back in his pocket.
'That's an even worse assignment than I got. At least I got a whole name. Some
other poor sap had to go in and say
pardon me, I'm looking for somebody
called 'J'?'

'I have to use the
bathroom,' she said, not bothering to respond to his complaint. 'You don't have
to wait for me. You've got work to do.'

She gave him a tight
little smile.

For once in his life, he
bit his tongue and headed off to try to find the elusive Dixie. Sadly, he got
the impression that if he just sat still long enough, Dixie would find him.

Ellie went into the
bathroom and waited until she heard him close the door before coming back out.
Her eyes flicked all round the room and came to rest on the water glass that
he'd left on the nightstand. She crossed to the closet and found a plastic
laundry bag in the bottom. She carefully picked up the water glass, dropped it
into the laundry bag and put the whole lot in her handbag.

Chapter 36

Chico
heard the ping of his phone. He
looked at the message and laughed out loud, despite himself:
I've lost him.
We met up with a guy called Evan Buckley. The two of them gave me the slip.
What do you want me to do?
He knew Dixie's hand at work when he saw it,
although he wasn't sure he knew what he was trying to achieve. He ought to feel
insulted that Dixie thought it would fool him. Unless he'd sent it as a joke.

He closed his eyes and
leaned his head against the headrest. The whole situation made him sad more
than anything; he was really going to miss the guy. After his initial rage had
subsided, he'd started thinking about all the good times they'd had—or at least
he'd thought they were good times—and how things were going to be very
different in future. He'd miss the humor, although now he thought about it
there'd always been a hard caution in his eyes even when he was laughing. He'd
miss the confidence, the loose, wary way he had of carrying himself and the
fact that you only had to tell him something once. And every time he looked at
Ricardo he'd think it all over again. He opened his eyes and looked at his
shredded palm and laughed softly to himself—if he'd been a younger man he'd
have been reminded every time he knocked one out too. He shook his head at how
much things had turned around in the space of a few days.

It was obvious Dixie had done something with that idiot Crispy. It made him wonder why he kept him on. How
had he ever thought Crispy was up to the job? Had Dixie killed him or just put
him out of action somehow? It didn't really matter one way or the other. The
end result was the same—Dixie was out there without his minder. The fact that
he'd done something with Crispy and was using his phone also meant he knew Chico was keeping tabs on him.

Or did he? Was he
jumping to conclusions based on what Alvarez had told him? It was the reference
to the investigator that puzzled him. Ellie had claimed that Buckley told her
he was looking for Dixie. Chico was well aware that the golden rule was
don't
believe a word the bitch says,
but now Dixie—if it was him who sent the
text—had brought Buckley into it again. Who the hell was he? Was he was working
with Dixie? Or with Ellie? Or were all of them in it together? It made his head
hurt thinking about it all.

He knew he wasn't going
to get anywhere just sitting around thinking about it. He had to make something
happen. There was no reason why he shouldn't carry on with the texting game. He
needed to think of something to say that might worry Dixie (although that was
easier said than done). He leaned his elbows on the desk and dropped his chin
to the heel of his hand and stared at his phone.

It came to him in a
flash of genius. He tapped away with one finger, a satisfied smile on his lips,
and after a couple of minutes sent a reply that he hoped would give Dixie something to think about:
No problem. Come back here. We've got Ellie. We're
picking up the money now.

He couldn't help
laughing to himself as he hit send. Two can play at that game. Like all good
lies, it was as full of the truth as it was full of shit. It would give Dixie a couple of things to think about. It would be interesting to see what he would do.
Come back to rescue poor Ellie? Not if he had any sense. But the fact that Dixie was out there on his own, most likely going after the money himself, meant they had
to get things moving.

He opened his desk
drawer and got out the piece of paper that Ellie had scrawled the details on.
The writing was shaky which wasn't surprising since she'd almost had a breast
sliced off, but it was still perfectly legible. He imagined that would make
most women's handwriting suffer. He must be getting old; back in the day he'd
have just got on with it, rather than give her a little scratch. He swallowed
thickly. Well, maybe not so old, he thought, feeling something stir
appreciatively south of the border.

He almost felt sorry for
the woman whose name and address was written on the paper. She had a nice name,
an old fashioned biblical name, the sort of name he'd have given his daughter
if he'd had one, although he knew his wife would have insisted on
Maria
.
(Ricardo would never know how close he came to being called
Jesús
.) Chico was something of an Old Testament man himself, particularly when it came to crime and
punishment. There were some great ideas in there that had sadly slipped out of
favor—the death penalty for bestiality, for instance, or for being light in
your loafers, had a lot to recommend it, although death for screwing a woman on
the rag was a bit harsh.

He tried to think back
to his studies at the seminary, tried to remember what the name meant in
Hebrew. Was it
princess?
He couldn't remember, it had been almost fifty
years ago, but it didn't sound right. Maybe something else, then. It didn't
matter. He laughed to himself and wondered if any of those old Hebrew names
meant
stupid
or
dead meat
. She probably had no idea what she was
getting herself into when she agreed to look after a bag for her friend. She'd
have caught on pretty fast if she'd looked inside, that was for sure. She was
collateral damage, that's all, which was the Army's fancy way of saying:
Into
each life some rain must fall
.

He turned to look at
Juan and José and felt another twinge of pity for her. She didn't deserve these
two. José in particular, leaning against the wall, picking at his nails with
his knife. There was something evil that lived behind his eyes, something you
didn’t want to look at.  

'Go see this woman,' he
said, giving Juan the piece of paper, 'and get my money back.'

'I thought Ellie was
getting it.'

Chico
shook his head sadly like Juan was
a dog he couldn't teach to beg. 'You didn't really think I'd let her go and
hope she'd get it and bring it back like a good girl, did you?'

Juan's face creased into
a frown. 'So why did you let her go?'

'Because she's our best
chance of finding Dixie, dickbrain,' Chico said, forgetting about the cuts on
his hand and slamming his palm on the desk. It started to bleed again. 'She might
not want to give the money back, but I get a feeling she's happy to hand him
over—or kill him herself if she gets the chance. If they're in this together,
she doubles her share at the same time.'

'What about the friend?'
Juan waved the piece of paper at him, a look of hopeful expectation on his
face. José stopped picking at his nails.

'What do you think?'

Juan's face split into a
massive grin. He drew his finger across his throat. José sniggered obscenely
behind him, the sound of the knife snapping shut loud in the room.

'Knock yourself out,' Chico said, 'but don't let him'—he gestured towards José with his chin—'stretch it out too
long. She hasn't done anything to deserve that.'