Land of Entrapment (30 page)

“You see this? Get a good look. Because the next time you see it, you’ll be looking up after I beat the living shit out of you.” She shoved him backward. He stumbled a couple of steps, almost losing his balance.

“I don’t know what the fuck is going on here and I could give a shit about a buncha low-life Nazi morons.” She glared at Ray-Bans then Skinhead Girl and me in turn. “And I might just be irritated enough to let the owners of this fine establishment—” she gestured at Eight Ball—“know about this little situation outside the shop. You think your white power amigos—” she put a deliberate emphasis on the Spanish word—“would appreciate that? You losers starting crap outside Eight Ball?”

Skinhead Girl licked her lips nervously. Ray-Bans said nothing.

“I didn’t think so.” She turned her attention to me.

“Is there a problem here?” She was distant and formal.

“No. Just a little misunderstanding,” I said, voice shaking. I felt Skinhead Girl watching me.

Chris’s eyes narrowed slightly but she was too good a cop to blow anybody’s cover. To Ray-Bans and Skinhead Girl she said, “Get your stupid fucking gringo asses out of here. And hope you don’t run into me again.”

We watched as Ray-Bans quickly retrieved his sunglasses from the parking lot and followed Skinhead Girl to one of the cars parked nearby, an older Ford Mustang. Skinhead Girl got into the driver’s seat and Ray-Bans took the passenger side.

She gunned the engine and peeled out, whipping toward the alley. I sagged, my knees trembling. Chris pulled me into her arms.

“Jesus Christ,” she said quietly. “You okay?”

“Fine, now.” I was shaking. She was Chris again and I held on to her like she was a tree in a flood.

“Fuck. Kase, I am so sorry.”

“For what? It’s broad daylight. I didn’t think they’d pull shit like this.” I held on a bit longer then stepped back. “Maybe a skinhead scare tactic or something.”

“I—” She stopped.

“Chris, hey.” I held her hand. “I know you would’ve gone medieval on their asses if it wouldn’t blow my cover. Do I need to remind you that you’re a cop and you know what you’re doing? I’m okay. A little shaken up, but okay.”

She was still really upset.

“They just wanted to scare me. And it worked. But I don’t think they would’ve tried anything else because if Cody found out, they’d be in deep shit and if Dragon or Eddie found out, all of ’em would lose their tat privileges and their free meeting space.

Besides, I might’ve scored points ’cause I didn’t turn them in. Not that I wouldn’t like you to have the chance to open a can on their asses.”

Chris started chuckling. She gave my hand a final squeeze and released it. “Dammit, Fontero. If anything happened to you, my life would not be worth living.”

“I know.” I smiled sweetly at her but became serious immediately. “Thanks for watching my back.”

She hugged me again. “For real. You okay?”

“Yeah.” I still felt shaky, but I was all right.

“Good. C’mon. I’ll buy you a beer.”

“Damn right you will,” I teased her. “Meet you at Kelly’s.”

“I’m there.”

She followed me to my car and waited until I got in and started driving before she went back into Eight Ball.

Chapter Seventeen

AN HOUR LATER I pulled up in front of Sage and Jeff’s. My disposable cell phone rang. I checked the number. Megan’s pay phone. “Hey. How are you doing?”

“God, K.C., I am so glad you’re here. I don’t know what to do. He took my car and I don’t know where he went. I can’t get away from him. There’s never enough time and there’s almost always somebody watching me. I thought about telling somebody at Allsup’s, but they know I’m his girlfriend and they wouldn’t get involved.”

“Are you ready to leave, then?”

“Yes.” No hesitation. “Oh, God, I’m so fucking stupid. I can’t believe—”

“Time enough for that later,” I interrupted gently.

“How often can you use the phone?”

“Not very. Fortunately, Timmy—one of the guys who’s always around—smokes and he’s addicted to PlayStation. That’s all most of them do all day. So he sends me out for cigarettes and other stuff and he times me. If I’m longer than twenty minutes, he sends someone looking.”

That sleazy son of a bitch. I tried to keep my voice calm. Megan needed cool heads right now. “Okay, I heard there’s an ADR meeting there on Thursday.”

“Yeah. That’s all they’ve been talking about because they’re also planning something big. I think they want to blow something up but I don’t know what.”

So they do have Armageddon fever. “Do you know what time the meeting is?”

“Eight. Timmy was talking about it yesterday.”

“Will Cody be there?”

“Oh, definitely. He lives there.”

Really. How convenient.

“I have to go. My time’s almost up.”

“All right. Now I need you to hang in there. We’re working on some stuff on this end and we’ll see how things go come Thursday. Do not do anything out of the ordinary. Promise?”

“Promise. Bye.”

She hung up and I fervently hoped she got off the phone in time. Rage crept through my veins until I felt like I honestly could dismember each and every one of them with my bare hands. I got out of the car and headed down the walk to Megan’s. Neither Sage nor Jeff was around so I settled in and called Mark. I got his voice-mail and I left a message, telling him to check with Chris about the wire and about what happened today. I automatically left my cell phone number though he probably had it.

I went into the kitchen and started working on getting the temporary tats off my arms now that I wouldn’t need them anymore. Chris and Mark weren’t going to let me attend any kind of meeting with white supremacists. Especially not one where guns were being stockpiled. They’d get a real cop to infiltrate. Plus, Megan said the meeting was at the Partridge address. She might not be able to pretend she didn’t know me. And what if that asshole Watkins was there? He could recognize me, if he was the guy who tried to break in. This situation was on its way to being a stake-out and sting operation. Still, I wanted to be involved somehow. Had to be. I owed that to Megan. The Sharpie ink was proving stubborn and I scrubbed harder. Anything to keep me from driving to Edgewood and ripping Cody’s head off. My Austin phone rang while I was engaged at the sink. I turned off the water and checked the ID. Chris.

“What’s up? Can’t get enough of me, huh?” I teased.

She gave a little laugh. “I just heard from Cody’s probation officer in Colorado and they’d sure like him to return and do some time for skipping town without permission. APD has the go-ahead to pick him up.

And I called my guy in Utah and we’ve got the go-ahead to pick Watkins up, too. I’m thinking we should do it Thursday at the meeting. Have us a nice, big, New Mexico-style rodeo.”

“That is the best news ever.”

“I have to make some calls to figure out how it’s gonna go down. And no, you are not going to the meeting. Not with these guys. Not on my watch. So get those damn things off your arms.”

I looked down at the faded Sharpie tats and sighed. “Gladly. But I have to be there in some capacity.”

“Kase—”

“I know these guys are dangerous. Today proved that. But Megan’s in a freaky place right now and I think it’s best for me to be there for her. I don’t have to be anywhere near the action.”

“Let me think about it.”

She was noncommittal but I knew Chris would make a good decision and she would have excellent reasons, whether I agreed with her or not. I also knew that what happened today would not play in my favor for going with them on Thursday.

“Okay,” I continued carefully. “I think you’ll need more than a couple of cops on this because I think they’re stockpiling. Megan said that she thinks they’re planning to blow something up and if they have explosives on the premises...”

“Fuck. Okay, listen. Let me consult. I know Mark’s had Edgewood under surveillance for a while now and I told him about the Partridge house. He knows the address. Let’s see if he thinks it makes sense to go in now or if we need to hold off. I’ll let you know.

Right now, I need to go home and grab some sleep, which I think you need, too.”

“Thanks.”

“Esa,” she began. She paused for a bit, then continued. “Promise me you won’t do anything else between now and then.” She didn’t have her cop tone on, but she was serious and this was her way of telling me that what had happened bothered her and that she was really worried about me.

“No, ma’am,” I said meekly. I trusted her judgment.

Her voice softened. “What happened today—I can’t put you at risk like that again. It scares me. And if you go running off, you could also fuck it up for Megan. Do you understand where I’m coming from on this? Did what happen today tell you something about these assholes?”

“Yeah,” I admitted.

“And if anything else happened to you, I would never forgive myself. I’m serious. I can’t imagine not having you around. This is bad shit. Are you hearing me?”

“Yes.” I felt like a kid getting lectured.

“And I feel so bad about even suggesting that you go ahead with that meeting. Fuck, I even asked you to wear a wire. What the fuck was I thinking? I am so sorry.”

I heard pain in her voice. I tried to put her at ease.

“We’re both adults. I was going to meet with them regardless. Think how pissed off you’d be if I didn’t tell you what I was doing and all that shit went down.”

She didn’t respond for so long I thought the call got dropped. “Chris?”

“I cannot even think about that. Oh, my God.

Please, Kase. Don’t do anything for a while. Let me get some stuff figured out and we’ll see where we are on Thursday.” I heard her swear in Spanish before she continued with me. “I mean it. Please don’t do anything for a couple of days. Please?”

“I won’t. For real.” I meant it.

“Good. I would never—well, if my never forgiving myself isn’t reason enough, Sage would kick my ass, too.” I heard a chuckle in her voice and I relaxed. “I’m on my way home now. Are you okay there?”

“Yeah. Fine. Don’t worry.”

“Call if you need me.” Her voice had softened.

“I will. Bye.” The reference to Sage made me feel sort of goofy. I hung up and examined my forearms.

Though faded, the temporary tats remained visible.

Ick, especially after today. Back to work. I was scrubbing at my arms when I heard a gentle knock at the door.

“K.C., it’s me.”

“Door’s open,” I yelled above the water.

Sage appeared in the kitchen doorway. “I was coming over to see if you were hungry and here you are playing in the kitchen sink.”

I turned to look at her and smiled. “Damn Sharpie.”

She joined me at the sink. “I have some stuff at the house that’ll take care of it. Come on. You’ll rub your skin off this way and you might actually need it.” She grinned and reached past me to turn the water off.

I followed her and locked the outer door. I was grateful she had come by. I really wanted not to think about today for a little bit.

She sat me down on the back porch and went inside for a minute. When she returned she had a box of baking soda, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a bottle of what looked like lotion, and a soft damp rag. She pulled a chair up next to me and poured some of the baking soda on the rag. She set to work on my right arm, talking as she did so.

“River once decided to paint his arms. He must’ve been about eight. Well, he used this blue paint he found in the kitchen. He pried the can open and finger-painted stripes and polka dots all over his arms. Then he started in on his legs. And holy shit, it was all over his face. When my mom got home, she about had a cow right there. I mean, he was a fucking train wreck. He looked like what everybody says the Roswell aliens looked like.”

Sage looked up at me, her eyes twinkling.

“Anyway, my mom got out the baking soda and rubbed him down and most of it came off. He looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy for a minute. What didn’t come off with that came off with alcohol.” She began rubbing again. “He screeched like a dog in heat while she was doing it. It took a couple of weeks for it to wear out of his hair so I called him Smurf for months after that. When he gets on my nerves nowadays, I’ll just say ‘what’s that, Smurf boy?’ ”

I laughed. She stopped rubbing and smiled up at me. I looked down. The “88” was gone.

“Looks like the baking soda’s good enough. Let me see your other arm.”

I held it out to her and she got to work again, gently rubbing. I watched her, trying to sort through the flood of emotions that threatened to overcome me.

She set the rag down and squeezed some lotion onto her hands. She rubbed it into my forearms. Oh, God.

“All right, done. Thank God. That was bad ju-ju.”

She stood and gathered up her cleaning materials.

“So, are you hungry?”

I could only look at her and everything I was feeling must’ve been naked on my face because she suddenly leaned down and pressed her lips to my cheek, just out of reach of my mouth. She let her lips linger there and I closed my eyes, leaning into her kiss. She pulled away and looked at me, searching.

What she saw made her grin wickedly and her whole face light up. “I still have some of that wine left. You want to help me finish off the tikka masala?”

“Please.” I followed her into the house. She had already put it on the stove and it was bubbling when we entered the kitchen. She checked on the rice then retrieved plates from the cabinet.

“Where’s Jeff?”

“Oh, probably at Robin’s. This chick he’s been dating off and on. She’s one of those flaky art girls.

She’s nice, but he might as well try dating wind.” She pointed to the cabinet where I’d find wine glasses and I removed two. The bottle of wine stood on the counter and I divided what was left between the two of us, about a half-glass each.

“He just wants to get laid and Robin puts out,”

Sage said matter-of-factly. She carried the plates to the table and sat down. I joined her, noticing she had the candles burning again and some soft Latin American music playing in the background. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” she said, looking at me with a cryptic expression. “But I think he actually wants something longer-term and he keeps hoping Robin will meet him on that. I told him he’s wasting his time but he keeps hoping. I thought maybe he’d hit it off with Megan, but no deal. She was too busy with Cody.”