The Rules Of Silence (36 page)

Elías Loza stared at him. “Why am I doing that all of a sudden? That wasn’t in the deal. ”He glanced at Titus. “It looks to me like shit’s coming apart here. There was no driving a car in the deal. If this … if shit’s coming apart here—”

“Nothing’s coming apart, ”Macias said. “We’re just staying flexible. You gotta be flexible, too.”

“I don’t want flexible. I want the rest of my money.”

“Well, your money’s flexible … it’s not here. It’s in the other car … in San Marcos.”

Loza stared at Macias. Titus could see him thinking: Either the money’s in the other car or … this son of a bitch could shoot me right here.

“That’s it, then?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

Disgusted, but more scared than anything, Loza bent down and got his camera bag. When he straightened up he looked at Titus and then back at Macias.

“I don’t know what’s going down here, ”Loza said, “but, me doing this, it doesn’t feel right. And I don’t have a gun, nothing… .”

Macias swore. Titus guessed he’d love to just shoot the guy and get the hell out of here, but he wanted the tag that he thought was on the Navigator to be headed out of the city. Suddenly he lifted his shirt and pulled the automatic from the waist of his trousers. He tossed it to a surprised Loza, who caught it against his stomach with his free hand.

“Get the hell out of here, ”Macias said.

Loza looked at the gun, then at Macias, and cut a glance at Titus. For a brief, sweet moment, Titus thought Loza was going to shoot Macias. But it was a fool’s moment, and Loza turned and walked out of the garage.

Chapter 58

Romo Calò found the Navigator in a cluster of other cars in front of the supermarket. Rather than trying to work at a distance, he decided to barge in close and go for broke. He parked three cars away from the Navigator so that he was on the opposite side of it from the grocery cart storage rack.

Walking away from his car, he fiddled with his keys as he passed the Navigator on the way to the cart storage. He saw nothing. He pulled out a cart, pretended he forgot something in the car, and walked past the back of the Navigator again. Still he saw nothing. At his car, he opened the door and pretended to get something and then once again walked toward the Navigator on the way to the cart he’d left at the storage rack.

Still seeing nothing that made him suspicious, he got even with the back of the Navigator, left the cart, and slipped in between the cars and looked in. Nothing. Quickly he went to the cart again and headed toward the front of the supermarket as he pulled out his cell phone.

“The car’s empty, ”Calò said to the van.
“Nada.”

“Keep your eyes on it, ”Burden said. “We’ll get back to you.”

As Calò closed the phone, he glanced back just in time to see a man walking toward the Navigator through the aisles of cars. He was looking around, pausing, looking, and coming on. Finally his attention focused on the Navigator, and he headed straight for it. Quickly, Calò reversed his direction, pushing his cart. The guy glanced around and saw Calò, but disregarded him.

Calò watched the guy as he began checking out the Navigator as if he were unfamiliar with it. The guy looked up and looked around. What was this? Was he going to steal it? Then the guy walked up to the door and pointed his remote key lock at it; the Navigator squeaked, and the guy opened the door.

He still had one leg outside on the pavement when Calò moved around the rear bumper of the Navigator and blocked the door just as the guy tried to swing it closed. Instantly Calò‘s automatic was in his face.

“Don’t breathe, ”Calò said. “Are you alone?”

The guy nodded yes.

“Who are you?”

“Elías Loza.”

Calò moved the barrel of his automatic to Loza’s mouth, touching his lips. Now he saw that Loza had been carrying a bag, and it was sitting in the seat with him.

“What’s in the bag?”

“Camera.”

“Armed?”

The guy nodded yes.

“Where?”

Loza looked down. “Right here.”

Calò moved the barrel between Loza’s eyes and reached in and found the automatic in the front waistband of his pants. He was surprised to see it was the same gun he’d jammed down between the car seats for Titus. He hit the clip release, but it was empty.

“Where the fuck’d you get this?”

Loza didn’t even have to guess if the name would have any meaning. “Jorge Macias.”

“Where is he?”

“Look, I don’t have anything—”

“Where!?”

“Over there … other side of the shopping center … one of those houses …”

“What are you doing here?”

Loza told him.

“What’s the address over there?”

Calò was already pulling out his phone as Loza gave him the address.

“Another man with him? ”Calò asked.

“Yeah.”

“Anybody else?”

“No.”

“Where’re they headed?”

“I don’t know.”

Calò hit Loza in the mouth with his gun so fast, the barrel was already back between his eyes by the time Loza could react.

“No no no … , ”he pleaded, blood pouring from a busted lip and a tooth knocked out of his gums. “Oh, oh, shit, ohhh … really, no no no … I don’t know where the hell they’re going. I don’t … I don’t know anything about this… .”

With his eyes focused on Loza’s eyes, the barrel of his automatic still pressed between Loza’s eyebrows, Calò spoke fast to Burden and told him everything.

“And the bad news, ”Calò said. “I’m holding the damn gun with the mole on it.”

“Check the gun, ”Burden said. “Is the mole still there?”

“What’s your signal say?”

“Says it’s about five hundred meters west of you.”

“Really? ”Calò shoved Loza over and told him to curl up on the floor. Loza did as he was told, moaning, moaning, and Calò held the gun up to the interior light. It took him almost a minute of searching to decide it wasn’t there.

Burden got into the Cherokee with Rita and the others, and they headed across the expressway, where Janet and Ryan took charge of Loza, driving away with him in the Navigator to check out Macias’s safe house and make sure Titus hadn’t been left there.

Calò returned to his car, and Rita continued in the Cherokee with Burden and Kal. In the backseat alone, she listened as the three men discussed the best way to handle the encounter with Macias. But before they could even get out of the massive parking lot, the signal left the address to which they were headed six blocks away.

“Calò, ”Burden said, watching the LorGuide, “get in behind him again. I don’t know what’s happened to the damn mole, whether it was moved from the gun deliberately or accidentally, but we have to play it safe and assume Macias doesn’t know we’re still with him. First thing, though, try to get close enough to the signal to get a sighting of the Honda. We’ve got to find out if it’s carrying the signal, or if Macias has managed to somehow put it on a decoy vehicle.”

After that, the transmissions fell dead, and everyone was glued to the LorGuides.

Again Macias got into the back and Titus drove, following directions that took them through the neighborhoods to Loop 1 South, where they headed for Oak Hill. Titus took stock of his situation. It wasn’t good. Now that the mole had taken off for San Marcos, and Burden’s people had no visuals on Titus, he was on his own. He knew that Burden had had a small crew to begin with, and if everything was going according to plan, there was no one else to spare for this little unexpected development. Another blindside for Burden.

Macias had made it plain that Titus’s life was only as good as Macias’s own personal security. Titus understood that, but what happened when Macias decided he was safe? And how safe would he have to be before he made his decision about what to do with Titus? No matter how many times he went over it, Titus couldn’t see how there would be any profit in it for Macias to kill him when he no longer needed him.

On the other hand, Titus didn’t know what other factors waited in the background that might completely change that simple deduction. God knows he had seen reversals in spades during the last few days. Despite the fact that he told himself his odds were better as a hostage if he remained optimistic, he found it impossible. Right now the darkness outside was a pretty good metaphor for the way he was feeling about his situation.

“Watch the speed limit, ”Macias said behind Titus’s head. “No cops.”

Titus checked Macias in the rearview mirror. He was still monitoring the traffic behind them. He was nervous, maybe feeling a little better now that he thought he had some breathing room. But Macias was a realist. He knew that the margin of his advantage was hair thin.

Titus wanted to try to get some feel for his state of mind. He wanted to hear him say something, maybe give Titus a little insight into his intentions.

“There’s not any money in San Marcos, is there, ”Titus said. “I’ll bet there’s not even another Navigator there.”

“That’s his problem, ”Macias said. “He’ll deal with it. You’ve got a different set of problems you need to think about.”

They were moving through the incorporated village of Oak Hill on the southwest edge of Austin. In a few minutes Macias had a decision to make. Either way, the traffic was about to get scarce, and it was going to get easier to spot a tail.

“How are you going to make sure Luquín’s dead? ”Titus asked.

“After seeing the spook show that was going on back there at that house, I don’t think I have to worry about Tano being alive tomorrow morning. It looks like everybody wants Luquín dead. It’s his time. When dogs smell blood, they all turn on the bloodiest dog first.”

Now they were at the intersection.

“Keep going straight here, ”Macias said, and they stayed on Highway 290. That would eventually take them to Fredericksburg or San Antonio. Titus guessed San Antonio.

“What I want to know is, ”Macias said, “how the hell did you find García Burden?”

Titus told him the truth, without using names.

“And you went to see him the very next day?”

“Right.”

“How?”

Titus told him the truth again.

Macias shook his head. “And that was just three days ago?”

“Right.”

Silence. He heard Macias hiss under his breath.

“Only García Burden could fuck up nearly two months’ planning in just three days, ”he said. “
Completely
fuck it up.”

Well, not completely, Titus thought. Macias was still holding a gun to his head.

They left the city and the suburbs behind. The lights in the flanking hills gradually diminished with the churning numbers on the odometer. Mostly now it was only darkness on either side of the highway.

“How far are we going? ”Titus asked.

“Don’t worry about it, ”Macias said.

Titus could imagine Macias kicking him out of the car at some vacant strip center or on some dark street in San Antonio. Then he could walk to a pay phone, and it would all be over. Titus couldn’t wait for that, for the whole insane thing to be over. He focused on the center stripe in the highway and tried to keep his mind off of … everything.

But he couldn’t keep it off the guy in the backseat. He thought of what Rita had said, that as horrible as it was, she couldn’t keep from imagining Charlie tangled in the chain saw, Carla suffocating, gasping for breath. She couldn’t help but wonder how all of that had happened, how it had actually happened. Neither could Titus. It was infuriating to him that the man who had orchestrated all of that was sitting behind him and that Titus himself was complicit in his escape. God, and neither Carla nor Charlie had even been buried yet.

“Slow down, ”Macias said.

Chapter 59

When it was clear that Macias was taking 290 west, Burden got on the radio with Calò.

“Calò, ”he said, “do you still have your night goggles?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, at this hour of the night the highway’s going to be damn near empty. Put on the goggles, turn out your headlights, and catch up with the signal and see if it’s the Honda. He’s going to be driving the speed limit, so with luck you can catch up with him.”

“What about cops?”

“If you get busted, ditch the goggles and just take the ticket. You’ve got good ID, right?”

“Yeah. I’ll be okay.”

During the next twenty minutes, Kal watched his speedometer while Calò kept up a running commentary of his progress screaming down the dark highway without headlights, the world in front of him apple green and black.

For Rita it was nearly half an hour of unbelievable tension, her eyes glued to the LorGuide, her ears straining to pull more information out of Calò than the typically terse tactical communications provided. Her stomach began to hurt, and she saw nothing of any help in the dash-lighted faces of Kal and Burden as they watched the LorGuide, too, and listened with passionless expressions.

“Got‘em! ”Calò broadcast suddenly. “Brake lights. They’re slowing … way down… .”

“Where? What’s there?”

“Nothing. Dark ranch country. Nothing. I’m braking hard. I’ve got to stop… .”

Titus was startled back to the moment. Slow down? Was Macias just going to shove him out on the roadside?

“Slow down, ”Macias repeated.

Titus was confused. They were out in the middle of nowhere, nothing out there in the darkness.

“Okay, see the red reflectors on the fence up there? There’s a cattle guard there. Pull over and go through it. Now, quickly.”

There were no cars on the highway in either direction, Titus noticed, and that was the way Macias wanted it. And that was what he got.

Titus pulled off on the shoulder and then turned into the cattle guard. His headlights picked up the caliche ruts of a ranch road. The center of the ruts was grown up with range grass that was already burned up in the July heat.

“Cut the lights and stop, ”Macias said.

Titus did as he was told.

“Roll down the windows, ”Macias said.

The car was filled with the sound of night insects and the smell of range grass. As their eyes adjusted to the darkness, the caliche ruts began to glow in the light of the half-moon like dull phosphorus.