Fade the Heat (20 page)

“Jesus Christ,” one muttered. “Now I’ve seen everything.”

“I can see it now,” the other told him, “the front-page headlines saying, ‘
Promising Youth Gunned Down for Doing Homework.
’ We’d be the ones who ended up doing time.”

“Maybe not the only ones,” said his partner as he watched the doctor walking toward his car.

“I think you’re wrong on that,” the other answered. “I don’t figure Jack Montoya’s ever going to serve a day. Even if you could get a jury to convict him—which would be one hell of a trick—you can’t put a guy like that in prison.”

“Why the hell not? He wouldn’t be the first doctor to do time.”

“A doctor can, for certain, but how’re you going to put a dead man behind bars?”

The following morning, before the memorial service started, Reagan drove to the transfer office and put in for an EMT position at one of the busiest stations in Houston. The ambulance job, located in a dilapidated East End station not far from the bungalow where she’d once lived, came open periodically, as soon as whatever unfortunate rookie assigned to it was able to transfer to a better position.

The station was the kind of place that was either a firefighter/EMT’s first stop or the last, the kind of place where the shift captain—a half-derelict old slacker cruising toward retirement—wouldn’t ask too many questions about where she’d come from or why. He’d simply be grateful to have a warm body filling the position instead of a succession of fill-ins, all of whom most likely griped nonstop about being sent to what was popularly known as Hell’s Rat-Hole.

Reagan had driven through the old neighborhood before she’d visited Jack’s clinic Friday, so she understood how far down the area had slid since the days
she and her family had lived there, just as she knew that her patchwork of high-school and street Spanish would be pressed into daily use. But she couldn’t care less, as long as the move took her away from the station where she’d worked with Captain Joe Rozinski, Beau LaRouche, and her old crew. By changing shifts, she’d upped the odds of avoiding them almost indefinitely.

Yet until the memorial service, Reagan didn’t fully comprehend how necessary such a transfer would turn out to be. As she cut through the sea of uniforms gathering at the head of the march route to the church, she ran into a number of people she knew from her days at the fire academy, along with men and women she had worked with during her time on the ambulance, and those she’d trained with for the annual competition with the cops. As these firefighters, EMTs, and paramedics offered quiet words of comfort, shook her hand or embraced her, Reagan for a time regained the feeling of belonging to something larger and far nobler than herself, a huge family that accepted her, for all her failings, because she was one of them.

But when she reached the vanguard of the assemblage, the coldness of her current crew permeated the warm, late-October Monday morning. From Beau to Zellers to C.W., not a man among them spoke a word to her; instead, they let their expressions do the talking for them. Beau looked as if he would like to punch her in the face again. Several others accused her with furious glares. For his part, C.W. seemed confused and sad, although she thought she read concern in his dark face as well.

But it was the district chief who took her behind a ladder truck and lowered the boom on her.

“I don’t exactly know what your involvement is,” he
told her, “but at times like these, feelings run hot. Since you’re still on sick leave, I think that under the circumstances it would be best if you went home.”

“You can’t do that,” she protested, pinching the tender skin inside her wrist to keep herself from dissolving into tears. “I’m just a witness, that’s all, and I have to be here. Nobody was closer to the captain.”

District Chief Anderson fidgeted, readjusting his hat to hide his gray-brown comb-over. He appeared to struggle to look her in the eye. “Mrs. Rozinski doesn’t want to see you. And she doesn’t want you at the funeral tomorrow either.”

“What?” Reagan’s shoulders drooped, and she grew conscious that she was sweating within the confines of her blue dress uniform. This was even worse than the nightmares she’d been having about being trapped while a noose of flame tightened all around her. Had Beau poisoned Donna Rozinki’s mind, too, instead of just their crew’s?

She twisted the skin within her fingers, not caring if she left a mark. She’d be damned if she would cry in front of the district chief—or anyplace where that traitor LaRouche might spot her.

Anderson frowned at her wrist before offering, “If you insist on attending, at least go to the back and march with the other firefighters instead of remaining with your crew. We don’t want harsh words taking the focus of the service from the man we’re here to honor. And we certainly don’t want anything adding more pain to the family’s burden.”

Reagan dropped her gaze. “Yes, sir.”

“And Ms. Hurley, if I may be frank…”

She shrugged, too beaten down to care if he found the gesture disrespectful.

“I’d suggest you transfer to another station,” he said, “to another district—and another shift.”

She nodded in answer, unable to tell him she had taken care of it already. And barely noticing that her fingernails had bitten deeper, deep enough to draw blood from that delicate, pale skin.

The thin crescents of pain didn’t bother her, nor did the rust-colored swatches she found later on her sleeve. All that mattered was tamping down her despair throughout the long, long service.

And keeping her tears from leaking through the cell-thin barrier of her self-control.

“What makes you think she don’t know?” the Firebug demanded. Or tried to, anyway, but what came out was a harsh crow’s squawk overlaid by the rasping of his breath.

Fuck it anyway
, he thought, and forced himself to repeat the question, for the answer was important to him, more important than anything had been in months and months.

“I told you, she doesn’t,” said his visitor, his words rough with annoyance. “If she’d recognized me from the car, I would have seen it in her face. If she’d put things together, I would have heard it, too. Hell, you woulda heard the goddamn screaming all the way from here.”

Though his outer ears were gone, the Firebug had gotten good at judging voices. He’d had to, since his goddamn eyes had melted in the sockets and even his stinking nose had peeled off like a scab. Yet a man could learn a lot by listening, and what the hell did he have but hours and hours to dissect every word thrown his way like scraps tossed to a half-dead dog?

But nose or no nose, this dog was on the scent. His visitor wasn’t near as sure as he was letting on.

“Sometimes,” hissed the Firebug, “sometime they put the shit together later. It co—co—”

He began to cough, silently cursing his charred lungs. A cup was pressed into his hands, and he sipped noisily from his straw, wishing for something more than water, something to take the edge off of the ever-present pain. But the one time his visitor had humored him that way, that bitch of a nurse had taken it away before he’d gotten his first taste. Then she’d carried on for half an hour in that high-pitched, insect whine of hers, about how alcohol and his pain medication would form a lethal combination.

Like he gave a flying fuck.

“It could come to her all of a sudden,” he finally managed. “When somethin’ happens to remind her. And then she’s gonna think, where’d I see that guy before? Besides, there’s gonna be a lot of heat on this, the stiff being a fireman and all.”

“And that’s not all,” said the visitor. “There’s some federal task force on it, too. I heard it on the news.”

The Firebug paid no attention. “I goddamn
hate firemen.
They know what kind of job they’re takin’, know what kinda risks they draw. And then they act all surprised when one gets killed, act like no matter what you
meant
to burn, you set out to charbroil one of their own.”

“I never meant to kill him, just that goddamned doctor.”

But the ’bug was floating now, drifting on a raft of bitter memories. “I killed one once, in some pissant warehouse fire. An insurance job, for Christ’s sake. But they turned the heat so damned high, I had to leave town for six years.”

“I know,” his visitor told him. “I remember how you didn’t send us money.”

The Firebug attempted a shrug, but his skin, still healing from the last graft, sent agony streaking up his arm. “I got picked up on some other deal then. Twenty months on some chickenshit little deal where I lit up this—”

“I don’t want to hear it. Not now, not when I just told you everything I did, just the way you asked, and all you can do is talk about what you did a freaking hundred years ago.”

He sounded sulky, thought the Firebug, the way he had as a snot-nosed kid. That voice used to mean he was about to get kicked out of school again, or the cops were gonna drive by for another threat-laced chat. Something told the Firebug his visitor had made even more mistakes than he’d let on, and the thought of it made his heart pick up speed, as if his crippled body could outrun his fear.

The fear that unless the woman died, too, his last remaining hope would be joining his brothers in the pen. Only this son, unlike the others, would be doing his time on death row.

Since Joe Rozinski’s funeral last week, Reagan had given Jack excuse after excuse as to why she couldn’t see him. She had to see a doctor—a
reasonable
doctor, she’d stressed—about her release to return to work. She had to talk to the head of the task force to find out when shecouldgetherhousebackintoorder.Shewasexpecting a call back from her insurance agent, or she had to see somebody regarding her transfer.

She was unfailingly polite, asking after Luz Maria, who was recovering at home while claiming to remember nothing about her accident and little more than that about Sergio Cardenas. Reagan inquired, too, about Jack’s mother, and she had expressed the appropriate concern when he told her he’d been placed on administrative leave from the clinic until his supervisors completed their own investigation. But whenever he asked how she was or tried to arrange to see her, she dodged each attempt with the grace and deftness of a
matadora
spinning away from the bull’s horns.

But not tonight, Jack told himself. Tonight, Peaches—
who had inexplicably taken up his cause—informed him that Reagan was moving back into her own house. Jack had decided on the spot to drop by unannounced and find out, once and for all, if he’d only imagined the connection he’d felt to her in the park that evening a week earlier.

But first he needed wheels, as he still couldn’t get anyone to tell him when the task force would release his Explorer.

With Reagan on his mind, Jack took the keys to the second rental Paulo had pressed on him, then followed the larger man to a lot outside of the dilapidated garage he used to squeeze every last mile from his junkers. Back in the farthest corner, they found a funky yellow compact, its sheet metal pitted beneath a layer of road grime. In the dusky light, it looked more like a hail-damaged kumquat than a car.

“Thanks, man,” Jack managed over the barking of the pair of pit bulls temporarily locked in one of the closed bays. “I really appreciate the loan.”

He did, too, even though it might have been the sorriest-looking heap in Harris County.

“You don’t think I’m crazy enough to loan you another sweet ride after last time?” Standing in the murky glow beneath a security light, Paulo shook his head. “You’re already into me for over twenty grand.”

Jack’s mouth went dry. When he had called earlier with the news that his insurance company was refusing to cover the damage to the Mustang, Paulo hadn’t said word one about money. Jack wondered, had he been an idiot to come to this isolated garage to meet his old friend after hours?

Yet Paulo’s serious expression broke into a grin, and
he jabbed Jack’s shoulder playfully with his fist. At least, Jack
supposed
the blow was meant to be playful—even if the force of it had sent him back a step.

“Just kidding,
compa.
Can’t you take a joke?” asked Paulo.

“If you ever say something funny, we’ll see about that.”

“Don’t worry about the Mustang. When it comes to my good vehicles, I got insurance policies up the ass.”

Jack dredged up a grin. “Wouldn’t it be more comfortable to keep ’em in a file cabinet like everybody else?”

Above his white-streaked goatee, Paulo floated a half smile. But his eyes looked deadly serious. “Just do me this one thing,” he said, his voice taking on a rumble as ominous as an approaching thunderstorm. “Now that you got Winter’s nuts in a wringer, you make him sing real pretty—when it comes to the neighborhood, at least.”

“
Chingado
,” Jack cursed. “You still don’t get it, do you? The feds don’t think Winter or even one of his disciples did the crimes. From what I get, they’re focused on tracking down those guys from BorderFree-4-All. They feel like the whole thing’s some kind of scheme to discredit Winter, which is the story he’s using with his listeners, from what I understand. Those people
love
a good conspiracy.”

“The reporters ain’t buying it, though, are they? They’re still all over Darren Winter, shining laser beams up his ass and lookin’ for dirt on him with a freakin’ microscope. And you’re coming out the good guy, Saint Do-Gooder getting picked on because the guy hates Mexicans. It’s spreading through our peo
ple, too. Mamas are taping your picture up between the Pope and Jesus,
vatos
are talkin’ you up out front of the cantinas. You’re their goddamn hero, man. They’d do anything for you.”

“You and I must not be listening to the same stations. And neither are my bosses.” It was easier to deny Paulo’s words than to live with them. Jack didn’t want to be a dividing line in the community, didn’t want anything except to do his work in peace.

Paulo shook off the idea with a wave of his huge hand. “Nah. You’ve got Winter where we want him. So why not milk it, get him to talk up the area—you know, to pay us back for the harm he did before?”

“You’re kidding, right? This is the same unofficial candidate who’s going to be our mayor if the polls are right, the same guy whose nose I broke, remember? The one who came out smelling like a rose when he didn’t press charges against the ‘emotionally overwrought Dr. Montoya.’ ‘
You know those Latins and their famous fiery tempers
’—that’s what the jackass said—right before he ripped me on the air again.”

Carlota Sanchez, the young nurse from the clinic, had called to report Winter’s latest bullshit and offer sympathy. Otherwise, Jack wouldn’t have had a clue, since he sure as hell didn’t care to listen to anything Winter had to say.

Carlota had seemed disappointed when Jack turned down her offer of a warm shoulder to cry on. But this past week, the only woman he had thought of—outside of his mother and his sister—had been the one who was avoiding him.

“Things are…this week’s a delicate time.” Apprehension flickered in Paulo’s dark brown eyes. “We can’t afford more bad press for the neighborhood, not
if we’re gonna get the Plaza del Sol reopened. And I don’t mind telling you, I’ve staked everything there. Every fucking favor, every good deed, every dime. I need this, Joaquín. Goddamn therapists and private programs and nurses are eatin’ me alive.”

His son, thought Jack, but Paulo wasn’t finished.

“So you need to come through for me,” he continued, his face gleaming beneath a heavy dew of sweat. “I’m asking you as
un amigo.
”

Jack felt for him, despite the pressure he was exerting. Paulo clearly had his back against the wall. “I’ve heard a little about your boy, and I wanted to say how sorry—”

Though Paulo’s expression froze over, his voice trembled with emotion. “You think it’s me, don’t you? That the apple didn’t fall far from the dumb-ass tree, seeing how I couldn’t even get through school.”

“That’s not the way it works, man. I’ve known brilliant men with mentally challenged kids, college professors and doctors—”

“You can have your goddamn MD—and all your goddamn education. But don’t you dare feel sorry for my son. And don’t you
ever
pity me. You got that?”

“Loud and clear,” Jack told him.

But as he drove the sputtering yellow car out of the parking lot, Jack did feel compassion. Not so much for Paulo, but for the son he clearly wanted to pretend did not exist.

Reagan wouldn’t have bothered going to her front door if she hadn’t been hoping that the overdue repairman might be putting in a late appearance. Earlier today, Beau LaRouche had stopped by, knocking politely and shouting through the locked door that he was
ready to forgive her. After she told him to drop dead, the jerkwad had thrown down a bouquet of red roses, called her a bitch, and kicked her door, which had rattled the reinforced steel in its frame and scared her more than a little.

As Reagan peered out through her peephole, her hand hesitated near the heavy-duty chain Peaches had helped her install a few days earlier. What good would it be, spending all that money on deadbolts and alarm systems, if she still insisted on opening her door to trouble? And this
was
trouble, dressed in dark blue denim and carrying a bunch of irises.

“If you’re not here to fix my disposal, I can’t talk now,” she called.

“It’s the plumber,” Jack replied.

Through the fish-eye lens, she made out his grin. But it was the wickedness in his eyes that made her toes curl and her pulse pound like a war drum.

“I don’t see any tools,” she managed.

“You let me in there, and I’ll show you my tool.”

Behind the safety of her door, she rolled her eyes.

He knocked again and called out, “Candygram.”

Laughing, she took off the chain, unlocked the dead-bolt, and opened the door to him. “You’re that clever landshark, aren’t you?” she quoted from her favorite
Saturday Night Live
reruns.

When she spotted the hideous thing parked beneath the streetlight, she laughed harder.

“You—you’re driving that?” She pointed at something that looked like more like a cat-mauled canary than a compact car.

Leaning against her porch railing, he gave a self-deprecating shrug. “Thought it might jazz up my love life.”

“So what’re you planning? To cruise Richmond Avenue with the rest of the hotshots, then circle back and scoop up all the hot chicks who laugh themselves unconscious?”

He pretended to hunt around for a pen in his shirt pocket. “Hold it, will you? I need to write that down.”

“You can come in for a minute,” she invited, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. She was a mess, wearing a paint-spattered T-shirt and a pair of stained gray leggings, and not a speck of makeup. But it was just as well. “I’m ready for a break, and I want to hear about your family.”

And tell you why I can’t see you again
, she added mentally. As wonderful, as freeing, as it had felt to laugh, she couldn’t for a moment lose sight of her decision to make a clean break. As he stepped inside, he touched her elbow and leaned close to whisper, “I didn’t come to talk about them.”

The warm puffs of his breath made the fine hairs on her neck rise, and she was tempted to ward him off with a coating of the Canyon Dawn from her paint brush. But she couldn’t force herself to speak or even move, not with his soft words fanning embers that turned her blood to liquid fire.

“I want to know how you are,” he said, “how you’re getting through this week.”

“I’m keeping busy, that’s how. I—I’m painting,” she said, despite the fact that she’d just finished.

He pulled back to smile at her, then wiped his finger across the bridge of her nose. It came away a cinnamon hue.

“I see that,” he said. “Nice color.”

“It’s water-based so the fumes don’t get to me, and it covers up the red,” she explained. Her brain was
thrumming—along with less lofty body parts—in response to his touch.

Idiot
, she told herself.
Get him out of here this minute.

Instead, she offered him a glass of Shiraz. “I guess I can take that breather while I wait for the repairman. But let me wash my face.”

She lingered, washing up and throwing on some clean jeans and a light sweater, hoping he would be gone by the time she came back. Instead, he’d found her corkscrew and was opening a bottle of red wine from the rack on her counter. Near his elbow, the flowers he’d brought sat in a vase, not arranged as artfully as Peaches would have done it, but pretty enough anyway, with their deep blue-violet petals and vibrant yellow throats.

“Every time I turn my back on you, you take over my kitchen.” She meant it as a complaint that he was overstepping boundaries, but the words lacked heat. Unlike the traitorous fantasies running through her head.

“I couldn’t find the right glasses,” he said, looking as relaxed as if he’d just come home.

She pulled out a couple of wine stems and watched him as he poured. “I can’t do this,” she told him, sinking onto one of her barstools.

“Can’t do what?” From across the countertop, he handed her a glass.

“Sit around here talking to you, drinking with you—as if nothing happened last week.”

Pain flickered in his dark eyes. “You think I’m asking you to pretend that nothing did? How could I do that, Reag? How could I forget your captain’s death and all my neighbors losing their homes? How could I put out of my mind my sister lying in your bed, with all that red hate screaming on your walls?”

He came around the counter and took the barstool beside hers, then swiveled so he could look her in the eye. “I didn’t come by to see if we could forget it. God knows, I never will, not even if they catch whoever did it and lock the son of a bitch up for a century. I came to find out if there’s a chance—even the smallest—for the two of us to move past this together, or to at least keep that door open.”

She spun her seat away from him and placed her elbows on the counter, her eyes staring at the middle distance of the dining room. “Things have changed. They hate me, Jack. All of them. Donna Rozinski, my old crew—the people I thought of as my family.”

She felt his palm settle on her back, felt him rub a soothing figure eight. Willed herself not to let him see how it affected her, how her body ached to lean into his strength and warmth the way a stunted sapling yearned for the sun’s light.

“Why, Reagan? Those people know you. How could they—how could
anyone
—believe you would have anything to do with hurting your own captain?”

She couldn’t force herself to look at him. “Guess—I guess it must be the company I keep. At least that’s what C.W. told me when I called him at the station. He said…he said word is from arson there was something on your phone bill. Something that suggested a link to BorderFree—”

“I’m sure there was,” Jack told her. “My sister stayed at my apartment a couple of days last month when she and Mama were fussing over something. I’m sure Luz Maria used my phone to call Sergio—and as soon as I found out about him, I told arson, the cops, the task force—the whole damned bunch of them. I didn’t know before, Reagan. I swear it on my life.”

She did look up then, staring into his eyes, seeing the pain and sorrow written in them. She swallowed hard, then said, “I figured it had to be something like that. I believe you, Jack. So why can’t my friends believe in me?”