The Contractors Page 15

- CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN -

  We woke at dawn in an old motor court motel in Plano, thirty miles north of downtown Dallas. We cleaned up in a mold-ridden bathroom, dressed in fresh clothes we’d bought yesterday with our dwindling supply of cash.

  Most of Plano was white-bread suburbia, a farming village transformed during the last part of the twentieth century into Anytown-Subdivision, USA.

  The little pocket of town where we spent the night missed the trip to the mall. The clerk at the motel was named Patel, and the restaurant across the parking lot where we ate breakfast was an old Denny’s. The manager there was Iranian.

  After we ate, I sent Piper to get a battery at the auto parts store the next block over while I called Milo from a pay phone on the side of the restaurant.

  “Who the hell is this?” Milo answered after one ring.

  “Your pal, Jon.”

  “Dead to me, that’s what Jon is.” He hung up.

  I drummed my fingers on the Plexiglas cover that shielded the phone and waited. Probably only three pay phones in all of Plano; I was lucky to find one. A tweaker in a flannel shirt appeared from behind the Dumpster and asked if I had any change. I badged him, and he left.

  Ninety seconds later, the phone rang.

  “Hello,” I answered.

  “An address and some advice.” Milo’s voice sounded far away. “That’s what I am going to give you.”

  “Go.” I pulled a pen and pad from my pocket.

  “Which would you like first?”

  “C’mon, Milo. Make with the address, will you?”

  “The advice first then.” He cleared his throat. “The organization that owned the property in the trailer yesterday at the warehouse.”

  “The stolen pharmaceuticals?” I said. “The cartel?”

  “Jonathan?” He spoke very softly. “We don’t use the c word.”

  “Whatever.”

  “This organization, they are very angry with you over the two missing items, the product and this Eva person.” He breathed heavily into the phone. “Their bosses and those above them are angry. You need to leave the area, Jonathan. This is my advice. Leave, in an expedient manner.”

  “The bosses of the bosses?” I said. “Who’s above the head of a cartel?”

  “Remember what I told you yesterday.”

  Milo’s hypothetical question from the day before: Don’t you ever wonder if there’s something beyond the cartels? That little nugget had come after his musings about Sinclair being the Shield, a traffic coordinator for the various narcotraffickers. Which led to his conjecture that perhaps Sinclair had been skimming from the traffic he coordinated.

  Piper pulled the Tahoe into a vacant space by the pay phone. The tweaker approached her window. She gave me a thumbs up; the tweaker got a middle finger.

  I nodded at her. “Tell me the address, Milo.”

  After a long pause, he did, a house in South Dallas. Then he hung up.

  Piper moved to the passenger seat, let me drive.

  I entered the address into the GPS and headed south on US Highway 75, Central Expressway, following the instructions issued by the British-sounding voice.

  Piper had also bought a new disposable phone at a convenience store, so she set up an email account and logged in to the main contractor job site.

  The traffic was heavy, commuters from the far northern suburbs of McKinney and Allen heading toward downtown. After a few frustrating miles, I hit the lights and siren and pulled onto the shoulder. After that, we made good time.

  As we skirted the fringes of downtown Dallas, Piper swore and tossed her new phone on the console.

  “Our rating has changed,” she said. “We’re both D-2s.”

  D-2 was code for “Do not hire, pending criminal investigation.”

  “The fake IDs,” she said. “You think they’ll work for the Border Patrol in Tucson?”

  “Probably not.” I got on Interstate 30.

  She swore again.

  The highway served as the border between downtown and Oak Cliff, one of the oldest parts of the city. We exited at Sylvan Avenue, a main thoroughfare through the southern section. The first few blocks were filled with remodeled Tudor bungalows, quaint little places on tree-lined streets that surrounded a hospital.

  After that the area changed. Some streets were full of restored homes with picture-perfect landscaping. Others contained structures that seemed to be on the verge of collapse: peeling paint, weeds instead of lawns, cars on blocks.

  After a couple of miles, I arrived at a narrow street where the homes were small, two-bedrooms at the most. Some brick, some wood, about half had been restored, the others fell along the bell curve between eclectic and crack house.

  “This is the place?” Piper said. “Looks like something a tornado blew up here from Austin.”

  I turned, drove past the address, a corner lot, and checked the address again.

  The house resembled a folk art museum that had been turned inside out and then splashed with neon paint. The picket fence surrounding the property had been whitewashed in hot pink, the posts topped with overturned coffee cans encrusted in rhinestones. The front yard was concrete, painted green and dotted with metal sculptures made from discarded car parts.

  On the side street, I parked and we got out.

  A little after nine on a Tuesday morning. Not much traffic, pedestrian or otherwise. A couple of people pulling out of driveways, a couple more getting newspapers.

  I opened the gate and threaded my way through the metal sculptures. Piper moved a few feet behind me. We both had our badges clipped to our belts, guns out.

  The front door was ajar.

  I placed my left hand on the wooden surface and pushed it open the rest of the way.

  A living room that might have been from the Addams Family’s summer cottage loomed in front of me. A collection of empty birdcages on one side, two suits of armor on the other. Paintings everywhere, abstract oils with vibrant blues and reds, swaths of green.

  The cold air spilling out of the entryway smelled like patchouli oil and death.

  I stepped inside. Piper flanked out to my right. We didn’t speak.

  The body lay sprawled in the space where the living area turned into the dining room.

  A woman in her thirties. Attractive, even dead. Hispanic, wearing paint-spattered jeans and a faded Jerry Jeff Walker concert T-shirt. She was on her back, head twisted at an odd angle, neck clearly broken.

  The house was utterly silent, no movement at all other than dust particles that danced in the shaft of sunlight pouring in from the side windows.

  I moved around the corpse and into the dining area. More art, paintings and bronze sculptures.

  Piper knelt beside the body for a moment and then looked at me, her face devoid of expression. She mouthed the words: “The witness?”

  I shrugged and took a closer look. Could be her. Or a sister. Several of the woman’s fingers had been broken, twisted at odd angles. My hunch: she was a relative and the bad guys had been interrogating her, looking for info on the witness.

  A floorboard creaked beyond the set of swinging doors on the far wall.

  Piper rose. Slid across the room as quietly as possible.

  No easy way to proceed. We hand-signaled the action. I’d go first; Piper would come in as backup.

  Another creak, softer than before, barely discernible.

  I rushed the door. Kicked it open, rolled into a crouch to the left, ending up with my back against a refrigerator.

  The kitchen. Empty.

  Navy blue tile countertops, worn linoleum floors. Windows formed the back wall, overlooking a rear yard filled with more pieces of art.

  A whoosh of air. Movement.

  The attack came from behind me, from atop the refrigerator.

  Everything fast. No time to think, only react.

  I leapt for the other side of the room, twisted, brought the Glock to bear.

  A foot kicked the gun from my grip. The weapon cla
ttered across the floor, coming to rest against the baseboard by the sink.

  A figure in tight-fitting sweatpants and a narrow tank top.

  Olive skin, arms sinewy with muscles. Hair pulled back in a ponytail.

  The woman from the warehouse, the kidnap victim. Eva Ramirez.

  Piper banged on the swinging door, yelled. A broom had fallen, wedging the door closed.

  Eva Ramirez slapped my ear with an open palm, knee headed for my groin.

  I rolled away from the crotch shot and fell to the floor, skull ringing from the blow. I kicked and connected with a knee, dropping her, too.

  She jumped up at the same time as I did, and we dashed straight at each other, coming together in a lover’s embrace, fingers and knees going for pain instead of pleasure.

  My palm jammed under her chin, pressed upward as I jerked my face away to avoid the thumb headed for my eye.

  She sidestepped my sweep kick and leveraged the momentum to slam me against the countertop, the edge like a knife against my spine.

  We broke apart for an instant and then parried blows, a right this and a left that and every combination in between until everything blurred into a flurry of limbs.

  I blocked a hook with my forearm and managed a solid shot to her jaw, rocking her head back. She countered with a kick to the ribs that vaporized the air in my lungs.

  No oxygen. Pinpricks of light swirled on the edges of my vision. I staggered back, heard Piper banging on the door harder, the sound of wood splintering.

  Eva Ramirez gave no quarter. She moved close for the kill, a trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth. Her foot swung toward my temple just as my head cleared.

  I grabbed her ankle and pushed up.

  She fell. Landed on her back with a meaty thud that rattled the china in the cabinets.

  I jumped on top of her, forearm against her windpipe, our faces only centimeters apart.

  She struggled to free herself.

  “G-game over.” I tried to clear my head, reach for my cuffs. “You’re under arrest.”

  She wriggled harder. Got a hand free. And grabbed my testicles.

  The light in the room went from yellow to red to black to white hot. A keening sound filled the air, a locomotive screaming through a high mountain pass. Took a moment to realize the noise was me, shrieking.

  Then it was over. Light and sound returned more or less to normal. I was huddled in a ball on the floor of the kitchen, whimpering.

  The door leading to the dining room was shattered, chunks of wood lying on the linoleum.

  Eva Ramirez was face down, arms behind her as Piper knelt on the small of the suspect’s back, slapped on the handcuffs.

  “Yo, bitch.” Piper pulled the woman to her feet. “You are under arrest.”

  I groaned.

  “You done whining?” Piper slid my gun across the floor with her foot. “We need to get out of here.”

  I struggled to my knees, grabbed the Glock, holstered it.

  “You killed my sister. Tortured her.” Eva swore in Spanish. “I hope you burn in hell.”

  “We didn’t kill anybody,” Piper said.

  “Los federales.” Eva spat on the floor. “You are all the same.”

  “Let’s get us some gone.” I pushed myself to my feet. “Oww, that smarts.”

  Piper kicked the rest of the kitchen door away, cleared an easy exit.

  “I have money.” Eva took a deep breath. “Tell me how much you want to let me go. Name your price.”

  “A bagrillion dollars.” Piper shoved her toward the front of the house. “You got that much?”

  I followed them into the dining room.

  From the street came the sound of car doors slamming.

  Eva Ramirez shook her head. “Too late.”

  - CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT -

  I heard men talking from the street in front of the house.

  The dining room windows were stained glass, green and violet, surrounding an opaque but color-free center.

  “Jon.” Piper pointed to a corner of the room where wall met ceiling. “Check it out.”

  A tiny gray object that didn’t belong had been mounted there, about half the size of a matchbook. A wireless sensor, video definitely and maybe sound as well. The device couldn’t be seen by anybody entering from the front door. It looked toward the rear of the house and the door leading to the kitchen.

  I stepped over the deceased woman, Eva’s sister, and eased to the side of the room directly underneath the camera, hopefully out of view. I peered outside through a purple pane.

  Two white Tahoes and a handful of men I recognized from the day before were in front of the house.

  Paynelowe contractors.

  Several held silenced submachine guns. Windbreaker One, the lead man from the entry team yesterday, cradled a grenade launcher in his arms.

  “Out the back.” I pointed to the kitchen. “Hurry.”

  Before we’d moved more than a few steps, the window disintegrated as a couple thousand shards of colored glass spewed inward, tiny little daggers that sprayed the room like an aerosol of razors.

  The outside noises were louder. Men yelled. A dog barked. Doors slammed.

  Then a hiss from inside.

  The tear gas grenade had landed on the far side of the dining room. Clouds of noxious fumes wafted toward the ceiling.

  Piper shoved the witness toward the back of the house where we’d just come. Both women were coughing.

  I covered my mouth and nose with the tail of my T-shirt, ran after them. And tripped over the dead body, Eva’s sister. Landed on my hands and knees, jostling my still-tender groin area. Slivers of glass everywhere. I pushed myself to my knees, ignoring the tiny cuts in my palms. Tears streamed down my face.

  More noise from the front yard. Men moving, actions on weapons being checked. Another entry team on its way.

  The ruined door was across the room, maybe ten feet away.

  I lunged toward the entryway leading to the kitchen and the backdoor. Behind me, bullets pockmarked the wall like a contrail following my body.

  The kitchen was empty. Piper and Eva were already outside. I sucked in a lungful of relatively fresh air and ran to the open back door.

  Piper, her hands zip-tied, was stomach down on the lawn next to Eva.

  Windbreaker Two, the guy who had shot the two cartel soldiers with Piper’s gun, was at the base of the steps, three feet away. No telling how long we had before the group of agents at the front of the house made their way to the backyard.

  He reached for his sidearm.

  I rushed him, and we fell to the ground before he could get to his weapon.

  One of his hands jammed my chin upward like I’d just done to Eva. The other locked on a wrist, trying to jerk my arm behind my back.

  His nails dug into my cheek, a finger headed toward my eye.

  I locked my teeth on his thumb and chomped.

  “Arrghhh.” He jerked his hand free, rolled away.

  I scrambled after him, tried to keep the distance between us to an absolute minimum to eliminate the chance for him to use a gun.

  He got far enough away to stand, fingers reaching under his coat as he jumped up.

  I lunged, tried to ram my head and shoulder through his gut to a point on the other side.

  A sound like a punctured tire whistled from his throat as he bent in two, an invisible hand yanking the rear of his belt, and fell, landing by a Weber grill on a small patio. His head snapped back, skull slammed into the concrete with a crunch, a coconut hurled against a stone wall.

  He lay still. His legs jerked erratically.

  I stood, shaking. Looked over at Piper.

  Her eyes were full of a fear that had no name. The hopeless feeling that came from each move, no matter how carefully planned, leaving you in a worse place than before.

  A Toyota Prius with the driver’s door open sat in the driveway, a McDonald’s sack on the front seat. A large bag from the Gap rested on the passenge
r seat, clothing visible at the top. Eva must have been getting supplies when the Paynelowe crew arrived at her sister’s home.

  Shouts from inside the house. The entry team from the front was moving our way.

  I knelt beside Piper and cut the plastic ties. She jumped up, grabbed her Glock from Windbreaker Two’s waistband. Together, we pulled Eva Ramirez to her feet.

  “Is he dead?” Eva was staring at the DEA agent.

  I didn’t answer. Piper and I pulled her toward the rear of the property, the only avenue of escape at the moment.

  Bamboo and torpedo grass lined the alley behind the house.

  We stopped for a moment behind the garage, out of sight. My heart raced, breath coming in heaves.

  The Tahoe was at the end of the alley, only a few yards away.

  I strained to hear, searching for a sound from the backyard.

  Nothing.

  “Let’s go.” Piper pulled the woman down the narrow roadway.

  I followed.

  Thirty seconds later, we were in the Tahoe. Eva Ramirez sat in the backseat, hands cuffed in front of her waist, her wrists hooked by a length of chain to a D-link on the floorboard.

  I drove away from the street where the Paynelowe crew had just attacked the house.

  “Where are you taking me?” Eva said.

  “To turn you in.” Piper opened a bottle of water, drank half of it. “Collect the reward.”

  “So you want to die, eh?” The woman shook her head.

  I stopped at a light, felt my heart rate start a slow descent to normal. A pair of Dallas police cars, lights on, blew through the intersection heading in the direction of the house we’d just left.

  “Y-y-you see what happens to people who get near me.” She shook her head. Tears welled in her eyes.

  “Sorry about your sister.” I accelerated away when the light changed. “If we’d gotten there earlier, maybe it might have played out a little differently.”

  “How do you say in English?” She wiped her eyes, the movement awkward because of the restraints. “Go fock yourself.”

  Silence for a few blocks.

  “Let’s call Phil.” Piper finished her water, tossed the bottle on the floor and patted her pockets.

  “W-w-who is Phil?” Eva sniffed and leaned back, trying for a tough-girl look.