The Exiled (10 page)

He felt his head nod as he walked. He stopped in a café, ordered two double espressos. Men sat at the tables lined up against one wall, drinking beer and talking. He heard a voice say
policía:
the only scenario that fit a white guy drinking espresso in a Mexican hood at a little before midnight.

Raney felt his paranoia flare. There was a question he needed answered.

“Teléfono?”
he asked the bartender.

The man nodded toward the back. Patrons stared as he walked past. The telephone hung on a wall between a door marked
GAUCHO
and another marked
VAQUERA
. The space smelled faintly of vomit. Raney pulled a fistful of coins from his pocket, dialed his old lieutenant.

Hutchinson answered.

“It's Raney.”

“Wes? You in trouble?”

“No.”

“Then why the fuck are you calling me?”

Raney could see him at his desk, leaning back in his swivel chair, gut bulging, phone pinned between his neck and shoulder, chucking darts at a board he'd sketched himself on the back of his office door.

“I'm kidding,” Hutchinson said. “What is it?”

“I need to know who put me forward for this case.”

“You know that already. It wasn't a who—it was the boxing thing. It made sense.”

“That wasn't all of it. It couldn't have been. I barely had a year out of uniform. Someone backed me, and I know it wasn't you.”

“All right,” Hutchinson said. “Fuck it, I don't think it's any big secret. You can send the thank you card to my esteemed colleague Lieutenant Kee. He pushed hard. Said he saw something in you. I figure it's capital for me down the road. Kee's up for promotion.”

“I'm sure he'll get it,” Raney said.

“You're welcome,” Hutchinson said.

Raney hung up. Kee had been at Ferguson's side all through his captaincy. Before that, he'd been Ferguson's partner on the street. He'd been sitting in a squad car outside the Queensboro Apartments the night Ferguson killed Bruno. And he'd never so much as laid eyes on Raney.

The stoop granny was gone. Raney passed through a small crowd with his head down. No one seemed to notice him.

The elevator reeked now of onions and ammonia. The fluorescent bulb stung his eyes. He walked to the end of Mora's hallway, knocked. No answer. He heard children fighting somewhere behind him. He knocked again. An eye showed at the peephole. The door swung open. Mora pulled him inside, pressed a blade to his throat.

“Tell me why I shouldn't kill you,” he said.

Raney laughed. He kept laughing. Once he'd started, he couldn't stop. Tears striped his cheeks. Mora backed away, confused.

“Yo, man. What the fuck's wrong with you?”

“Nothing. Nothing's wrong.”

“You high?”

“I'm coming down.”

Mora pocketed the knife, kicked the door shut. The milk crates were back in place, the Murphy bed folded out. Mora gestured for Raney to sit.

“You want some of that wine you left me?”

Raney waved it off.

“All right, let's hear how you're going to get me the fuck out of this,” Mora said.

“I'm making a case. Dunham and Meno will be locked up before you step in the ring.”

“It's one thing to say it. What if you can't make your case?”

“I have the DA's ear. I'll get protection for you and your family.”

“Protection don't come free.”

“He'll want you to testify.”

Mora looked hard at Raney.

“Hell,” he said. “If you can keep yourself alive long enough to arrest those cocksuckers, I'll testify day and night.”

“Good.”

“Will I have to give back the ten grand?”

“It's evidence.”

“How about we say it was five thousand and I get half for my hardship?”

“You'll have a nice purse from the Malone fight.”

“In other words, fuck you.”

Raney stood to leave.

“By the way,” Mora said, “that split decision was bullshit. I won every round.”

“Doesn't change the knockout,” Raney said.

“I could've kept going. The ref was a pussy.”

“I just hope you've worked on your defense. You were easy as hell to hit.”

T
heir campsite was surrounded by scrub pine. Raney got a fire going in the adobe pit. Clara set out two folding chairs, placed a cooler between them.

“Drink!” Clara said.

Raney uncorked a bottle. Clara took it from him, read the label.

“South African,” she said. “Is that good? I don't know anything about wine.”

“The man at the shop recommended it.”

“Spirits and Live Bait? It's like this is still a mining town.”

“Bay says I'm living in the former brothel.”

“It's true. They've kept some of the old bedposts.”

“I'm not sure they changed the mattresses, either.”

“It suits you. Legend has it Wild Bill Hickok slept there. Another itinerant lawman.”

Raney filled two plastic wineglasses. They toasted.

“We're a ways from New York, huh?” Clara said.

Strands of auburn hair seemed painted against her off-white sweater.

They ate long skewers of vegetables and shrimp, then sat watching the fire and talking until after the sun had set. Raney wanted to kiss her, couldn't decide if this was the right or wrong moment, didn't know how to close the distance between the chairs. Would she have brought him out here if she didn't want to be kissed? Maybe, he thought. Her friend and mentor had died. Her future was uncertain. Maybe she wanted companionship. Maybe she didn't know what she wanted.

“It's a bright night,” Clara said. “If we walk away from the fire, it will be like the stars are on top of us.”

“Okay.”

“Bring the booze,” she said.

They stood, circled the fire in opposite directions, met on the other side. Raney took her hand.

“Brave man,” she said.

She bumped him with her hip.

“It's been a while.”

He'd almost said eighteen years.

“It's easy to be chaste in the desert,” she said. “Unless you're Mavis.”

They navigated the scrub, sat with their backs against the bole of a juniper tree. The breeze was cool and dry. Raney put his arm around her shoulder, felt her lean in.

“Can you name the constellations?” she asked.

“I know some,” he said. “The Big Dipper. Orion.”

He pointed.

“Don't bother,” Clara said. “People have been trying to teach me since I was five, and I've never been able to see them. I usually just nod. It was Mavis who put up the stickers in Daniel's room. Maybe there's something wrong with my brain, or maybe I just don't want to see them.”

“Why not?”

“It's hard to be in awe of something once you've named it. It's like you're done with it. You never have to look at it again.”

“For me it's the opposite. When I came here, I had to train myself to look. I had to learn the names of every tree and shrub so I'd stop feeling overwhelmed, so I could calm down and actually see them.”

“That's because you're a detective. Your job is to keep identifying the parts until you have a whole. I like my world ill-defined and vaguely mystical.”

“That isn't frightening?”

“Do I seem frightened?”

“No.”

“Of course I do.”

She leaned forward, pressed her palms to her eyes.

“There's something I have to tell you,” she said. “Or at least I
feel
like I have to tell you. It's stupid. We only just met. But then that was Mavis's problem, wasn't it? Once you've let a lie live for too long, it becomes impossible to back away from it. It's too late to ask for help.”

Raney let his hand rest on the small of her back.

“What is it?”

“Daniel's my brother,” she said. “My half brother.”

“Okay.”

“No,” she said. “It's not okay.”

“Why not?”

She took up a juniper needle and rolled it between her palms.

“I think I know why Daniel's always reaching for your badge,” she said.

“Why?”

“One of my first memories is of my father nearly beating a man to death. This was in the trailer park where I grew up. I was watching from a window. He was out of control, pounding this guy in the head when he was already unconscious. There were people gathered around, most of them cheering. The sheriff drove up. My father didn't stop. The sheriff grabbed his neck, pulled him off, put a knee in his back, and cuffed him. No baton, no pepper spray, no gun. I remember my father screaming into the dirt. The sheriff just looked annoyed. He wasn't afraid of my father. He was the only one.”

“And Daniel has similar memories?”

“The man with the badge makes his father stop doing scary things. I wasn't there for the first years of Daniel's life. I didn't even know he'd been born. But I know my father.”

“When did you find out?”

“That I was a big sister?”

Raney nodded.

“I was interning at a museum in Baltimore. I bumped into a woman I hadn't seen since high school. She'd just moved to DC. She asked me how my brother was. I said I didn't have a brother. I thought she must be remembering someone else. ‘Holy shit,' she said. ‘You don't know.'

“Two days later I was on a plane to California. I rented a car and drove straight to the trailer. Nobody was home. The door was open. It was always open. My father ripped out the doorknob. According to him, a man with a reputation doesn't need a lock. I found Daniel sitting naked in a dog pen, slapping at puddles of urine. He had bruises all over his back and thighs. He wasn't crying. He didn't seem to notice me. I took him. I just took him and left. Neighbors saw me. I don't know if my father tried to follow us. Last I heard he was back in prison. This has been the perfect hideaway. There's no reason he'd look here. And now…”

“And now?”

“I have to leave. I need a job. An income for two.”

She slid back beside him.

“Unless you plan to arrest me for kidnapping.”

Raney kissed her forehead.

“The truth is,” she said, “I don't know what Daniel remembers. Maybe nothing. Maybe just an impression he can't get past. When he tries to talk, it's like there's an image in his mind blocking the words. It's more than a stutter—it's like he's choking to death. It's horrible. The sign language is supposed to take the pressure off.”

“He'll be all right,” Raney said. “He has you as a mother now.”

She turned toward him, traced his lips with her fingers.

“I wish we'd met under different circumstances,” she said. “But these will have to do.”

In the dark, Raney felt years fall away.

I
t was the Mexican who turned up first. He'd driven a hundred miles, bleeding, looking for the closest doctor on the cartel payroll: a veterinarian with a back room. He landed in the right town, stumbled into the wrong clinic, soaked in sweat, muttering, half exsanguinated. The vet in charge sedated him, called nine-one-one.

“Now he's in some backwoods hospital,” Bay said, “surrounded by feds. They've ID'd him as Mongo Rivera. Dumbest goddamn name I ever heard. Apparently he's a mainstay on their watch list. They're willing to let us talk to him so long as he's conscious. Let's hope the bastard doesn't check out before we get there.”

Bay broke a hundred on the speedometer, ran his siren whether or not there was traffic. The country seemed to deaden a little with each passing mile, the mountains growing leaner in the rearview mirror, the colors fading, the scrubland flattening.

“It's my turn to take lead,” Bay said. “Junior was my man.”

“Just make sure you know what you want from him.”

“I want him to confess.”

“A confession won't change anything. He's in fed hands now. What we need is information. We need to know who he fought with. We need to know if he killed Mavis or if she was dead already when he got there. We need to know what kind of operation Jack was running.”

Bay smacked the steering wheel with the heel of his palm.

“For a detective,” he said, “you have a real tendency to leap out ahead of the facts. You can't say that because the son's room was messy someone else fucked up Rivera. It's too big a coincidence. Mavis has a mobbed-up kid whose record says he's plenty good at killing folks. There's a bloodbath in her living room. Two plus two is four. Case closed.”

“Then who took the Jaguar? The DNA hasn't come back yet. Rivera hasn't ID'd Kurt. We don't have forensics on his vehicle and clothes.”

“Is this you telling me to keep an open mind? That's rich. You've convinced yourself there was a third man. You want everything good and complicated so you can be the one to sort it out.”

“Let's see what Rivera says.”

“You tie me up in knots, Raney. Honest to God you do.”

It was a small but state-of-the-art hospital, built just a year earlier with funds raised in part by the archdiocese. Three flags hung out front: American, Roman Catholic, Mexican.

“Looks like he wound up in the right place,” Bay said.

A nurse directed them to a third-floor suite. Two feds in custom suits flanked the door. Two more sat in the waiting area, watching the news on a wide-screen TV.

“He must be a four-star prize,” Bay said.

“They think they can squeeze him,” Raney said. “By now the cartel knows he's in custody. He's damaged goods. The feds will offer him protection in exchange for information.”

“You mean they'll put him up in a shiny cell with a television and a private shower.”

“If they don't find him a house in Alaska.”

“I'll kill him first.”

Raney flashed his badge to the feds outside the door. One was tall and lean with coat-hanger shoulders and a severe widow's peak; the other was short and stocky, his scalp shaved to the bone.

“I'm Detective Wes Raney. This is Sheriff Joshua Bay. We were told we could have a few words with Rivera.”

“You better hurry,” the stocky one said.

“That bad?”

“It's a miracle he's talking at all,” the tall one said. “Someone tore him from the floor up. Punctured this, fractured that. He left more blood in his car than he had in his body. I guess killing people for a living teaches you how to survive. The interpreter is sitting with him now, in case he mumbles something in his sleep. They've got him doped up pretty good, which should work in your favor.”

“Thanks,” Raney said.

“I hope he makes it,” the stocky one said. “I really do. He could be a gold mine.”

Bay grunted.

“We'll be gentle,” Raney said.

“And brief,” the tall one said. “Doctor's orders.”

The interpreter was sitting at Rivera's bedside, filling in a crossword puzzle. He looked up, nodded. Rivera's eyes were shut. A morphine drip and a sack of blood hung from metal hooks on the wall behind him. His hair was long and greasy, his face a patchwork of old scars and freshly stitched gashes. Whoever he fought with had missed his right eye by a centimeter, jerked the blade straight down his cheek.

“Tough bastard,” Raney said.

“I'd be more afraid of the guy who did this to him,” Bay said.

The interpreter placed a hand on Rivera's shoulder, said his name. Rivera's eyes opened in slow motion. Raney and Bay stepped closer, stood hovering over the bed. Bay glowered.

“All right, gentlemen,” the interpreter said. “Best make this quick. He's in and out.”

Bay had three photos in his hand. He held up Adler's mug shot first.

“Ask him if this is the man he fought with. The man who put him in this bed.”

Rivera tried to speak, tried to cough, found his mouth too dry. The interpreter picked up a Styrofoam cup and slid an ice chip into Rivera's mouth. Rivera moved it around with his tongue, swallowed.

“No,” he said.

“He sure?” Bay asked.

“Sí,”
Rivera said. The man he'd fought with had blue eyes and a square face. He was short and thick and bald, like the man outside the door.

“Shit,” Bay said. To Raney: “You ever get tired of being right?”

“Had he ever seen his attacker before?” Raney asked.

Rivera answered no.

“How badly did Rivera hurt him?”

Translation: “He jumped me from behind. When he left, he had my knife in his thigh.”

“Can't you afford a gun?” Bay said.

The interpreter smirked. Bay held up a second photo: Mavis.

“You kill her?”

Rivera shut his eyes.

“No,” he said in English. “Already dead.”

“But you were sent to kill her?”

“Sí.”

“By who?”

“You know who.”

“Tell us anyway.”

“Gonzalez,” he said.

Bay showed him Junior's picture.

“What about him?”

“Sí,”
Rivera said. “I did that one.”

“You take over, Raney,” Bay said. “I feel my objectivity slipping.”

“He won't last much longer,” the interpreter said.

“Just a few more questions,” Raney said. “How did he get to the Wilkins ranch so fast? How did he know already that things had gone bad?”

Translation: “Someone called up Gonzalez, said the kids are dead and I got your stuff.”

“Ask him if he found the drugs at the house.”

No, Rivera said. There hadn't been time to look.

“Did he know where the drugs were supposed to end up? Did he know who Wilkins sold to?”

Rivera nodded off. The interpreter tapped his shoulder, asked the question. Rivera shook his head no.

“She never said.”

“She?” Raney asked.

“Sí.”

“Who?”

Translation: “The woman in the picture.”

“Bullshit,” Bay said.

Rivera's eyes shut. His mouth hung open.

“I'm afraid that's it,” the interpreter said.

The tall fed had been right: whatever cocktail they were serving Rivera worked like truth serum. Or maybe beneath the narcotics he was running scared, playing model snitch, looking ahead to his new government-sanctioned life. Assuming he survived.

“We got what we came for,” Raney said. “Thank you for your help.”

They sat in the cafeteria, eating breaded pork chops and canned green beans.

“This tastes about how I feel,” Bay said.

“I know it,” Raney said.

Bay snapped the tines from his plastic fork, one by one.

“It's taken me this long to realize I'm just a guy with a badge who likes to fish,” he said. “Usually that's enough out here. The peace more or less keeps itself. But I got lazy. I stopped knowing the people around me. I stopped believing anything very bad could happen. That's why that piece of shit they're keeping alive up there was able to kill Junior like it was nothing. Twenty years old. That boy had family in his future.”

“You're talking about things beyond your control,” Raney said.

“It don't feel that way.”

“I know.”

“I'm not sure I want it to, either. This is it for me. The town needs fresh eyes. And my eyes need a rest.”

“Then go out on top. Help me solve this one.”

“You believe the Mexican when he says he didn't kill Mavis?”

“Her wound didn't match the others.”

“Then how do we track this bald fucker?”

“We start with the forensics.”

“They're slow as shit around here.”

“You've got someone on Mavis's computer?”

“Yeah. I had to send it to him. He says he'll drive it back tomorrow, but it'll more likely be a few days.”

“Keep on him.”

“I will,” Bay said. “And I'll find out who Mavis was if it takes me from here to my grave.”

“It almost doesn't matter now.”

“It matters to me,” Bay said.