Texas Sicario (Arlo Baines Book 2) Page 14

  - CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN -

  Despite the assurances I’d given Quinn earlier, I knew we needed a weapon.

  I’d spent most of my adult life with a pistol on my hip. Ditching the compromised Glock left me feeling exposed, underdressed, like I had on summer beachwear at a black-tie ball.

  Back in the pickup, I asked Quinn how she was doing. She said fine, the eating helped, thanks for insisting. I told her she was going to feel wired for the next few days, senses heightened, emotional for no reason, that sort of thing. She shrugged, eyes half-closed, food coma setting in.

  I pulled out of the IHOP parking lot and headed back to town, avoiding the area around Mendoza’s, since it was likely to be crawling with police.

  My destination was a gun shop on Irving Boulevard, a small place sandwiched between a print shop and a nude-modeling studio.

  In addition to dealing in firearms, the owner was an occasional loan shark and seller of stolen jewelry, the latter being how I’d met him back when I was a law enforcement officer.

  He’d tried to sell a diamond pendant to the husband of the woman who’d had the item stolen in the first place. Words were exchanged, threats made, and at least one shot fired before I’d arrived on the scene. The husband was reluctant to press charges because of a heretofore undisclosed relationship with one of the nude models, so no arrest was made.

  I parked by the front door.

  The proprietor owned the entire building as well as the modeling studio and lived in the back, in a section that jutted behind the print shop.

  Quinn and I exited, meeting at the front of the store.

  A sign on the metal door read STODGHILL’S FINE SPORTING GOODS—PLEASE CALL FOR AN APPOINTMENT. I rang the bell and looked up at the camera mounted under the eaves.

  An intercom attached to one side of the door crackled to life, and a disembodied voice said, “What part of ‘call first’ don’t you understand, Arlo?”

  “Are you closed?” I asked.

  “I’m always closed.”

  “I need a gun. Sooner rather than later.”

  A moment of silence followed by the buzz of a solenoid releasing a dead bolt.

  I pushed open the door, stepped into a room that was long and narrow. A glass display counter ran along one wall. The display was filled with handguns along with various knives and expensive-looking flashlights. The gun racks on the wall behind the counter were filled as well—a few hunting weapons and lots of assault rifles.

  A heavy wooden door on the back wall opened, and Stodghill entered the room. He wore a multipocket khaki vest over a white oxford cloth shirt, concealment for who knew how many guns on his person, and an LBJ-style Stetson.

  “Look what the bobcat dragged in.” He ambled to a spot behind the counter, plopped his hands on the glass. After a moment, his attention focused on Quinn.

  “Something from the LadySmith & Wesson line, perhaps?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t like guns.”

  Stodghill’s eyes narrowed. He squinted at her like he was trying to figure something out.

  Quinn didn’t make eye contact with him.

  After a moment, Stodghill turned to me, one eyebrow raised. “You mentioned needing a firearm?”

  I told him what I wanted.

  “What happened to the one I sold you a couple of months ago?”

  “I need another one. You keeping score or what?”

  He opened his mouth like he was going to reply. Then he looked at Quinn again.

  “Forgive the intrusion, but is everything all right?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  He stared at her for a moment and then blinked several times, breaking his trance, and turned toward me.

  “Let me get one from the back.” He disappeared into the rear.

  Quinn started shaking again. She looked at me, eyes fearful.

  I stepped closer, grasped her arm, afraid she might faint.

  “I don’t feel so good,” she said.

  “Take deep breaths. In and out.”

  She did as I told her, leaning against me, steadying herself. After a moment, her coloring improved.

  “Why don’t you wait in the truck?” I pointed to the door.

  She nodded and left.

  A minute later, Stodghill returned carrying a box and a clipboard. “Where’d your friend go?”

  “Getting some fresh air.” I handed over my driver’s license for the background check.

  Stodghill held the license in his hand and stared at the front door. Then he started the paperwork.

  Ten minutes later, I stuck the new pistol in the spot behind my hip.

  “Thanks for the gun.” I headed to the exit. After a few feet, I stopped, turned back around. “You got a silencer for this?”

  He cocked his head but didn’t reply.

  “You do sell them, right?”

  “I can get ’em,” he said. “If you have the right paperwork.”

  A silencer was the equivalent of a machine gun in the eyes of the law. Legal to own if you paid an exorbitant federal tax and navigated your way through a jungle of red tape. You couldn’t just plop down your money and a few minutes later walk out the door with one.

  Silencers and machine guns were available illegally, but not as readily as one might think, the prison sentences for trafficking or possessing either item without the proper paperwork being stiff and mandatory.

  “You sold any lately?” I asked.

  He stared at me without replying, eyes deadpan.

  “You been reading the papers? Heard about the murders by the bazaar?”

  “Where you going with this, Arlo?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “There’s a cone of silence here at the gun store,” he said. “I don’t kiss and tell.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “You need anything else?”

  I shook my head.

  “Next time, call first.” He paused. “Or better yet, go somewhere else.”

  Quinn was already in the truck.

  I hopped in behind the wheel, cranked the ignition.

  “He knew, didn’t he?” She stared at the front of the shop.

  “Knew what?”

  “The way he looked at me. He could tell something bad had happened.”

  “He doesn’t know anything, and he never will, so long as neither of us talks about what went down at Mendoza’s.” I turned on the AC.

  “I’ve met him before,” she said. “A long time ago. He’ll remember eventually.”

  I was about to put the transmission into gear. I stopped, my hand on the lever.

  “Frank did some legal work for him.” She paused. “What if he says something to Frank?”

  “What would he say? I saw your wife, and she looked nervous?”

  She didn’t reply.

  I felt my phone vibrate. I looked at the screen, read the message from Kiki. I yanked the transmission into gear.

  “What’s wrong?” Quinn asked.

  “Miguel is missing.”

  - CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT -

  They’d had a good time at the zoo, Kiki told me.

  They saw the apes and the giraffes, a crocodile and a rhinoceros. And the zebras, oh how Miguel loved the zebras.

  After the zoo, they’d come home. Kiki’s son, the one closest in age to Miguel, had gotten sick, a stomach thing; you know how kids are.

  They were going to order pizza instead of going to Chuck E. Cheese’s. Kiki had put her son to bed while the rest of her brood, along with Miguel and several kids from the neighborhood, had gone outside to resurrect the soccer game from the day before.

  Her husband, Tony, ordered the pizza and then popped a beer, relaxing in front of the TV, the children visible in the backyard through the window.

  Everything was fine until the rain started.

  Then the kids trooped inside, muddy and wet, jabbering with each other.

  There were so many of them, she
said. So many it was hard to keep track. And the lightning and the thunder, the noise from the video games. The general chaos.

  That was why it took a while to notice Miguel wasn’t there.

  Quinn and I were in Kiki’s living room. She stood beside her husband, eyes filled with tears. The children were in another part of the house.

  “I’m sorry, Arlo. I don’t know how this could have happened.” She wiped her eyes. “Have you checked his cell?”

  I’d bought Miguel a phone several weeks before, a safety measure, a way to keep track of his location.

  The problem was, unlike every other kid on the planet, he didn’t like carrying the device. Javier speculated that his reluctance must have had something to do with the people he’d been with after his parents had died, who I now knew to be a gang affiliated with one of the cartels.

  “I looked already,” I said. “His cell is off.”

  The last location was Kiki’s house, so at least he’d had the phone with him. I wondered if he had turned it off or if someone else had done so.

  The rain had stopped. Early evening sunlight filtered through the room. The TV was on mute; toys littered the floor.

  “You want me to call the police?” Tony asked.

  And tell them what? I wanted to say. A boy with no parents or legal guardians, one who didn’t even exist in the eyes of the law, was missing?

  I shook my head. “Let’s start at the beginning. Describe for me everything you saw when you got home.”

  Kiki and Tony stared at me blankly.

  “You turned onto your street,” I said. “And then what? Did you see any cars or people who didn’t belong? A repair truck, a UPS guy, anything?”

  They thought about it for a moment, glancing at each other. Finally, Tony shook his head.

  “Did you notice anybody following you on the way home from the zoo?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so.” Kiki looked at her husband. “Did we?”

  Tony shook his head again.

  “What about at the zoo itself?” I asked. “Anything unusual happen?”

  “No,” Kiki said. “Everything was fine. We all had a good time.”

  “What do the other children say?” Quinn spoke for the first time.

  Kiki crossed her arms, obviously uncomfortable with having the well-to-do Quinn Vega in her modest home.

  “Nothing,” Tony said. “One minute he was there, and then he wasn’t.”

  “I’m going to want to talk to them,” I said.

  “Of course.” Kiki left the room.

  Thirty minutes later, I’d visited with all the children, even Kiki’s son with the stomach bug.

  Nobody remembered anything.

  They’d been playing soccer, but Miguel hadn’t wanted to participate. It took some artful questions, but gradually I picked up on the fact that the children regarded Miguel as odd. He wanted to be part of their activities, but he was reserved, like something was holding him back.

  If you’re forced to work as a prepubescent assassin, I guess that makes you a little off.

  I turned to Tony and said, “Let me see the backyard.”

  He led Quinn and me outside.

  Even at this time of day, the air was hot, the humidity thick because of the storm.

  We marched across the wet grass to a wooden gate leading to the alley.

  “This is the only way out,” Tony said. “I keep it locked on this side with a—”

  He stopped talking when it became apparent the gate was no longer secure.

  I pointed to a carabiner lying on the grass. “Is that what you use to keep the gate locked?”

  He nodded, looking perplexed. “I don’t understand. There’s no way into the yard except through the house.”

  “He left of his own accord. He wasn’t kidnapped.” Quinn looked at me. “That’s good, right? No one’s taken him.”

  I remembered the dread I felt when I’d heard about my family’s death. Icy sweat all over my body, brain not functioning right. Right now, in Kiki’s backyard, the air felt cold. My vision tunneled, sounds muffled.

  My mind raced, trying to figure out where a street kid from the border region of Mexico would go in Dallas, an unfamiliar city.

  More important, I tried to figure out why he would leave Kiki’s home, a place where he felt safe.

  What could make him leave?

  After a moment, I realized what wasn’t the right question.

  Who could make him leave?

  - CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE -

  We searched the neighborhood, Quinn and I in my pickup, Tony in his vehicle. Kiki stayed at the house with the other children.

  We drove in ever expanding circles, checking out alleys and side streets, vacant lots and half-built homes, the hiding places of the neighborhood.

  Nothing.

  After an hour, we returned to Kiki’s house.

  Eight in the evening. The sun was setting, but it was still hot. Quinn stayed in the truck, kept the air-conditioning on.

  Kiki met me in the front yard. “I’m so sorry, Arlo.”

  “It’s not your fault.” I tried to smile. Tried to show my sincerity, to indicate that I wasn’t placing any blame on her.

  But my facial muscles wouldn’t respond. My cheeks felt wooden and numb. Fear coiled itself around my gut, my palms clammy.

  “We’ll put the kids to bed,” Tony said. “Then I’ll go out again.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Have you told Javier?” Kiki asked.

  I shook my head.

  “I’m so sorry.” She leaned against her husband.

  This time I didn’t know if she was sorry about Miguel or that I would have to tell her boss. I got back in the pickup, dreading what would come next.

  Quinn said, “Are you OK?”

  I put the transmission into drive. “I have to talk to Javier.”

  El Corazón Roto was rocking, Saturday night in full swing.

  People stood three deep at the bar, customers occupying every seat. From the back corner, the jukebox blared accordion music.

  Even with the AC, the room felt warm, the air heavy with the smell of sweat and alcohol.

  Several men cast appraising glances at Quinn Vega when we entered, staring at her trim figure in the skinny jeans and form-fitting, sleeveless blouse. There weren’t very many women in the place, a half dozen at most, and she was the only one who looked like she didn’t work on a lube rack.

  The bartender caught my eye. He jerked his thumb toward the rear.

  The crowd grew thicker as we made our way toward the back. Quinn grasped my hand as I threaded my way through the people. Her touch felt warm and comforting, a soothing moment in an otherwise desperate time.

  Javier was alone, sitting in the same booth that Aloysius Throckmorton had used two days before. A bottle of Modelo and an empty shot glass sat in front of him.

  He looked up. “Well, what do we have here?”

  Quinn let go of my hand.

  “I need to talk to you,” I said.

  “Have a drink first.” He enunciated each word carefully, the way people do when they’re intoxicated but don’t want others to know.

  I shook my head.

  “You too good to drink with a Mexican?” he asked.

  I laughed in spite of the circumstances. “All the time I’ve been working here, you think I don’t like Mexicans?”

  He stared across the room but didn’t reply.

  “How about I get us some coffee?” Quinn asked.

  “Get whatever the hell you want,” Javier said. “Just tell the bartender I’m ready for another round.”

  She glanced at me, wordlessly asking what to do next. I pointed to an empty spot at the end of the bar, told her to wait there. She snaked her way through the crowd and hopped onto a barstool that had just freed up.

  A new tune started playing on the jukebox, one of the so-called narcocorridos, a song glorifying the cartels, Robin Hoods of the modern era in the eyes of certain
people.

  The song served as a reminder that for all the death and devastation visited upon society by organizations like the Vaqueros, there were some who held them in high regard. The cartels offered an opportunity for the little man to succeed, a chance for greatness. They also promised adventure, the romance of battle, something men had dreamed about since the invention of spears and fermented beverages.

  “We need to talk.” I sat across from Javier.

  “You find out who killed Sandoval?”

  I tried to breathe through my mouth, the stench of alcohol coming off him overpowering.

  “What kind of investigator are you?” he asked, one eyelid drooping.

  “How much have you had to drink?”

  “Besa mi culo, puta. That’s how much.”

  Translation: kiss my ass, bitch. Subtext: he’d had a lot to drink. And he was angry. Booze and rage, never a good combination.

  The anger served as a mask for the sadness, a coping mechanism I was all too familiar with. I felt the weight of his loss mix with mine, a sodden overcoat settling on my shoulders, pulling me down.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” I said.

  He whistled at the bartender, the sound shrill and loud even in the crowded bar. He held up the empty bottle and shot glass.

  “Javier.” I leaned close. “Miguel is missing.”

  No reply.

  “He left Kiki’s. Didn’t tell anybody anything.”

  The bartender brought over another round and left.

  Javier took a drink from the fresh beer.

  “Did you hear me?” I said.

  He nodded but didn’t speak, his face blank. A moment passed.

  “Did you take him?” I asked.

  The thought had crossed my mind as we drove away from Kiki’s. Miguel was pretty levelheaded, all things considered. He wouldn’t have just left without good reason.

  “He doesn’t belong with you,” Javier said.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I felt a red-hot rage shoot down my arms and legs. “Because I’m white? Is that it?”

  No reply.

  “He wasn’t with me,” I said. “He was with Kiki. And her kids. They all went to the zoo, like a normal family.”

  Javier downed his shot.

  “You know how worried we all were?” I asked.

  He shrugged.