Texas Sicario (Arlo Baines Book 2) Page 4

  “You see the bartender?” I asked.

  Throckmorton glanced toward the bar. A second later he looked back and nodded.

  “A couple of weeks ago, I caught some crackhead trying to jack his pregnant wife in the parking lot. She’s four months along. Their first child.”

  He continued to stare at me, face impassive.

  “Anyway, long story short, for the foreseeable future, the crackhead won’t be able to use either hand to hold a pipe, and the bartender, well, he feels like he owes me big-time.” I paused. “His three brothers who are sitting at the bar feel the same way. You know how the ‘taco humpers’ are about family.”

  He glanced away again, jerking his head back like the movement had been involuntary.

  I continued. “All it takes is me scratching my nose the right way, and the four of them will turn you inside out. They don’t give a damn if you’re a Texas Ranger or not.”

  A long few moments passed.

  I wondered if the bartender even had a girlfriend, let alone a wife. He was new, and I didn’t know him all that well.

  “When did you turn into such a ballbuster?” Throckmorton slid the Styrofoam container from the side of the table to a spot between the two of us.

  I pulled the box close to me, resting my hands on top.

  “How about we go at this a different way?” he asked. “May I run the prints for you? Pretty please.”

  “Why do you care about whoever last held that beer can?”

  “I have a new assignment.” He looked across the room again, staring at the bartender. “Liaison between the Texas Department of Public Safety and the DEA.”

  I remembered Fito’s expensive watch and Javier’s certainty that he was a narco.

  “New initiative out of DC,” he said. “The feds are supposed to play nice with the state and local authorities.”

  “And they picked you. Mr. Congeniality.”

  “Give me the box, Arlo. That way we don’t have to get bogged down in subpoenas and all that malarkey.”

  I hesitated for a moment and then pushed the box back across the table.

  Throckmorton was a stand-up guy, as bigoted assholes went. He’d run the prints and get me an ID on the man with the silver-toed boots, probably quicker than Ross would have.

  He tucked the container under his arm and stood by the side of the table. He wore a tooled leather belt and matching holster. He rested one hand on the butt of his pistol.

  “One more thing.” I described the man who called himself Fito. “I’m not a big believer in coincidences,” I said. “Strange that this guy just shows up right after Alejandro at the tire store gets his library card canceled.”

  “We live in strange times.” He adjusted his hat and left.

  The crowd grew silent as they watched him go. Then they looked at me, and for the first time since I’d started working for Javier, I felt a slight trill of unease run up my spine.

  - CHAPTER EIGHT -

  I left the bar, got into my pickup, and headed to my domicile du jour, an extended-stay motel on the other side of downtown near Baylor Hospital.

  As I drove, I checked in with Javier, who sounded sober. He said that he and Señor Torres and Miguel were watching a Fast and Furious movie and eating pizza. I told him I would pick them up in the morning and ended the call.

  Fifteen minutes later, I parked at the back of the Value Rite Inn, near the stairs leading up to my room, a second-floor unit offering a nice view of a convenience store run by a family of Iraqi refugees and a Vietnamese restaurant.

  The neighborhood was a hodgepodge—dive bars and places to sell plasma, new apartments and old houses, used furniture stores, a guy slinging dope in the parking lot of the Burger King—the usual for this section of east Dallas.

  I’d been there almost four weeks and would move to another place soon.

  The transient lifestyle was not a money issue. I could afford to buy a home or rent an apartment. But since the death of my family, I preferred not to have entanglements, not to set down roots. Movement, or the illusion thereof, was important.

  I parked, chirped the locks, and headed to the Vietnamese place, an old IHOP now decorated with lanterns and statues of Buddha.

  Maria was sitting at a table by the front window eating an egg roll when I walked in. She motioned for me to join her.

  I hesitated for a moment and then sat on the other side of the table, for some reason not all that surprised to see her there even though she lived in a suburb south of the city, a long way from this particular neighborhood.

  “Small world,” I said.

  “The girls in the office, they told me you come here a lot.”

  I wondered how the girls knew this. Miguel or Javier, perhaps?

  “Seemed like the only way we were ever going to have dinner.” She smiled.

  I smiled back to be polite but didn’t speak. Without asking, the waiter brought me a glass of ice water and an order of spring rolls.

  “How’s Miguel?” Maria asked.

  “Fine, all things considered. He’s a good kid.”

  “You have a happy look on your face when you talk about him. That’s nice.”

  I fussed with my napkin, took a drink of water. She did the same, both of us nervous.

  “You closed early today,” I said.

  “I suppose I did, come to think of it.”

  We sat in silence for a few moments.

  “Why don’t you ever want to come to my house?” she asked.

  “You know about my wife and children, right?”

  She nodded. “You know about my husband, don’t you? What happened to him in Afghanistan?”

  I nodded in return.

  The waiter came back to take our order. Maria got the beef with snow peas. I had my usual, a bowl of chicken pho. The waiter left, and it was just the two of us and our dead spouses, a really screwed-up double date.

  We gossiped about people at the Aztec Bazaar for a while, then the conversation petered out.

  After a few moments, Maria said, “Your wife. When you close your eyes, do you still see her face?”

  I looked out the window, unsure how to respond. I wasn’t used to talking about my grief. I remembered my wedding day, the taste of the cake, the sun on my shoulders, my wife’s dress.

  “I used to see my husband, as clear as day. Now, not so much. He’s still with me, but there’s less of him. Like something that’s getting smaller in a rearview mirror.”

  “Like you’re forgetting something you swore you never would,” I said.

  She nodded.

  A betrayal was another way to put it, but one you couldn’t control. Worse than the loss itself in some ways.

  I didn’t want to tell her that my wife’s features were slowly disappearing, too. Each day her smile became less distinct, her face blurrier, writing on a piece of paper left out in the rain.

  We didn’t speak for a while, both staring outside.

  The waiter brought our food.

  We ate, made small talk. When we were finished, she said, “Who was that man you were asking about today?”

  “No one important.” I wondered who had told her about my inquiries. “You know anything about him?”

  She shook her head.

  The waiter slid the check onto the table.

  “If I tell you why I closed early, you’re going to think I’m nuts.” She stared down at her plate.

  “Maybe.” I smiled. “Try me.”

  “I had this idea that my husband needed me.” She paused. “Like he was calling out for help, but I couldn’t get to him.”

  I remembered the times I’d had the same sensation.

  “I drove to the cemetery, just to see his grave.” She lifted her chin. “Pretty crazy, huh?”

  “The mind’s a funny thing.” I paid the bill.

  She turned to face outside again, and we were silent for a short period of time.

  When the waiter brought my change, she said, “You live around he
re?”

  Five minutes later, we stood at the foot of my bed. We were only a few inches apart, but the gap that divided us felt like a canyon.

  She leaned in and kissed me.

  I kissed back, enjoying the feel and taste of a woman I hadn’t met in a bar, someone I might actually care about at some point. I pulled her close, our bodies pressed together.

  A few moments later, we broke apart, each moving away at the same time, like something unseen had come between us, an invisible wedge.

  Tears glistened in her eyes.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “It’s not you.” She wiped her cheeks. “It’s too soon.”

  We sat on the bed, side by side, staring at the black screen of the television.

  After a couple of minutes, she stood, walked to the door. “They say that you like to be on the move.”

  I shrugged.

  “Why’d you stop at the Aztec Bazaar? Why there of all places?”

  “Javier, I guess. He and I are friends.”

  I didn’t want to tell her how we met, how a grief-stricken Javier was about to jump from an office tower in downtown, and I stopped him. If I told her any of that, then I would have to think about why I sometimes found myself at that office tower, looking down at the hard, cold pavement below.

  “You’re a nice man, Arlo. Maybe you should keep traveling.”

  “Why do you say that?” I wondered if she was referring to what was going on at the bazaar.

  “Just an observation. Maybe traveling suits you.” She opened the door and left.

  I pulled the shades back, watched her get into her car and drive away.

  Even though it was early, I went to bed anyway, hoping to dream about my wife, but there was nothing, only the blackness of sleep.

  - CHAPTER NINE -

  Javier and Miguel reported an uneventful night when I picked them up at nine the next morning. I dropped Javier at the bazaar and then took Miguel to the mall to buy new clothes. The kid was growing like an irradiated weed.

  It was a little before eleven when the boy and I pulled in to the parking lot of the Aztec Bazaar for the second time, and I saw a four-door Maserati in my slot next to Javier’s pickup. I double-parked behind Javier’s Chevy, and—resisting the urge to key the side of the expensive auto—I entered through the front door with Miguel.

  The place was teeming with shoppers, promising a very busy weekend.

  I walked Miguel to the office, intending to leave him with Kiki the receptionist.

  Much as I hated the veiled threats issued by the man who called himself Fito, he did have a point. We needed a long-term plan for the youngster, not just shuffling him around among Javier’s employees and family members. A time would come when he’d need to be in school, with kids his own age. Have a semblance of a normal life.

  That time would arrive another day, however. For now, I wanted nothing more than to keep him safe, something that I failed to do for my own children.

  Kiki was at her desk in the front, head down, tapping on a keyboard.

  Across the room, on the worn leather sofa that passed for a waiting area, sat a woman in her forties, slender with dark hair pulled back in a shoulder-length ponytail. She had olive skin and wore a form-fitting, sleeveless dress, peach-colored, the hemline stopping a few inches above her knees. A strand of pearls hung around a neck that could best be described as elegant and shapely. I wondered if she’d made a wrong turn on her way to Neiman’s.

  She was leafing through an old copy of People magazine and looked up. She smiled at Miguel. “Hola, señor.”

  The boy clutched my hand but didn’t reply.

  “Es un poco tímido,” I said.

  “Maybe he’s just wary of strangers,” she said.

  The accent indicated that English was her first language.

  “Yes. Perhaps.” I didn’t add that his wariness was with good cause.

  Kiki, uncharacteristically quiet, came around from behind her desk, took Miguel’s hand, and led him to the back.

  I looked at the woman. “I didn’t catch your name.”

  “No, you didn’t.” She returned her attention to the magazine, flipping through the pages.

  “Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “I don’t think so.” She spoke without looking up.

  I headed down the main hall, an extrawide walkway running through the middle of the building.

  The Aztec Bazaar had its own unique smell, a heady mix of roasted corn, perfume, cooked onions, leather, and pine-scented cleaner.

  The place was starting to smell comforting, like a home to me, and I wondered if Maria might be right. Maybe it was time to hit the road again. Then I thought about Miguel and his needs at the moment, one of which was to not be a drifter.

  In the middle of the building was an open area used for meetings and get-togethers, blood drives, bake sales, and the occasional lucha libre, or Mexican wrestling matches.

  Javier stood in the exact center of the area, looking up at the ceiling.

  A man in his forties stood next to him, staring at the same spot. The man was vaguely Hispanic-looking, olive skin with reddish-brown hair.

  Javier noticed my arrival. He called me over and introduced Frank Vega, the owner of the building that housed the Aztec Bazaar.

  Vega squeezed my hand extra hard and told me in American-accented Spanish how nice it was to meet.

  Before I could reply, he said, “Perdona, hablas español?”

  “Está bien,” I said. “I speak the language fairly well.”

  Vega wore faded jeans with holes in the knees, the fabric artfully torn so as to appear distressed but not worn out. On his feet was a pair of alligator-skin cowboy boots that probably cost a month’s wages for the average customer of the bazaar. A black silk T-shirt covered by a tan linen sport coat completed the look of a GQ model sashaying into middle age.

  He must have been connected to the expensively dressed woman in the office—and both had arrived in the Maserati currently occupying my parking space. Couldn’t get much past a veteran investigator like me.

  “A white guy who understands Spanish.” He arched an eyebrow. “Isn’t that something?”

  Other than his clothes, Vega’s most distinguishing characteristic was his height. Even with the heels on the boots, he was only five three or four, a good five inches shorter than Javier, who was three inches shorter than I.

  Javier had previously told me about the landlord, a criminal defense attorney who had invested in real estate, buying properties in low-income parts of town. Vega was also an activist—Hispanic rights, immigrant issues—who’d been mentioned in the media of late as having a political future, perhaps running for a seat in the Texas Legislature or even the US House of Representatives.

  Not bad, Javier used to say, for a half-Mexican boy from Waco.

  I was curious if he’d get jeans without holes in them if he decided to run for office. Probably best not to ask.

  “Mr. Vega and I were just talking about the roof,” Javier said. “There’s a leak. Whole thing needs to be replaced.”

  I looked up. The ceiling was discolored from what appeared to be water damage.

  Vega said, “You know how to fix roofs, Señor Baines?”

  I shook my head.

  “That’s a job for Mexicans, isn’t it?” Vega’s tone was on the edge of belligerent. He chuckled after a moment, presumably in an attempt to show he was just joking around.

  “Or a roofer,” I said. “Doesn’t really matter if he’s Mexican or not, does it?”

  Vega stared at me, eyes like slits. I couldn’t tell if there was something about me in particular he didn’t like or if it was just gringos in general. On my end, ten seconds after meeting the man, I’d had enough of Frank Vega.

  “Arlo handles security.” Javier sounded nervous. “He’s not involved in building maintenance.”

  “Security. Of course.” Vega nodded. “What happened next door? Poor Mr. Sandoval.”r />
  “Last I heard, he was murdered,” I said.

  Vega looked at Javier. “He’s a funny guy, your security man.”

  I wondered if it would be too impolite if I just walked away, then decided I didn’t much care.

  “Nice to meet you. I have work to do.” I turned and headed toward the office.

  Behind me, the sound of fingers snapping followed by Vega’s voice: “Hold on. I’m not done talking to you yet.”

  I stopped, turned around as slowly as possible, and said, “And yet, I’m leaving anyway.”

  Vega’s lips twisted into a frown. He flexed his fingers.

  Javier stepped between us. He whispered, “Por favor, Arlo. A favor for me, OK?”

  I took a deep breath, gave my best fake smile. “What can I do for you, Mr. Vega?”

  “My wife. She needs to do some shopping. I’d appreciate it if you escorted her while she’s on the premises.” He paused. “Considering the crime around here.”

  Javier, still between us, looked at me, pleading with his eyes.

  Vega crossed his arms. “You are a security guard, aren’t you?”

  A moment of silence.

  “I’m not carrying her boxes,” I said. “Just so we’re clear on that.”

  - CHAPTER TEN -

  The woman in the peach-colored dress was indeed Vega’s wife, Quinn.

  Quelle surprise, as they say in France.

  We were in the office. The receptionist’s desk was empty, Kiki and Miguel in the back somewhere.

  Vega introduced me to her, Javier hovering behind him.

  Quinn stood and shook my hand. “We saw each other earlier.”

  “Nice to put a name with a face,” I said.

  Vega cocked his head and stared at me.

  “You wanted to look at the books.” Javier touched his arm. “Let’s go to my office and make ourselves comfortable.”

  Vega ignored him, spoke to me. “Take care of my wife, Mr. Baines.”

  Quinn rolled her eyes. “I’m fine.”

  “That’s not what you said this morning.”

  She sighed heavily and picked up her purse, a small black handbag with a designer logo.

  “There have been several robberies in our neighborhood,” Vega said. “Home invasions. We’re on edge, as to be expected.”