“Real estate agent called. She’s got an offer of a quarter million. A quarter goddamn million.”
I hesitated. “This is your family place?”
He kept his eyes on the house. “I was walking home as a kid-right on the corner there. Couple of cholos drove by and shot at me. The bullet ripped a hole in my jacket, embedded in our front porch. You can still see the groove in the floorboards.”
“Wow,” I said. He was starting to scare me.
“Mom was too afraid to call SAPD,” he continued. “They wouldn’t have done shit anyway. Next day at school, those cholos asked me how I liked the drive-by. They laughed, like it was a big joke. I beat the shit out of them. Otherwise, they would’ve tried it again. That’s the day I decided to become a cop. Not the local assholes. Somebody bigger. FBI.”
“Sam?”
No response.
I touched his shoulder. “Sam.”
He started, as if I’d appeared from nowhere.
“Just remembering,” he said.
His face had gone pale. He looked sick with worry.
“Let’s call the police,” I said. “You’re not in any shape to be running down Will Stirman.”
“I’m fine. I’m just tired.”
He started the car, pulled away from the curb. In a few minutes, we were back on 281, heading toward the North Side.
“What did you take from Stirman?” I asked Sam. “What is it he wants back?”
Sam kept driving, checking his rearview mirror as if looking for a tail. “I got a full slate of meetings today. Missed a lot, carting you around. Unlike Erainya, I’ve got accounts to handle.”
“You’re not sure,” I said. “Are you?”
He shifted the strap of his shoulder holster. Sweat stains had appeared in the armpits of his shirt. “I know where to find Stirman. I don’t need anyone’s help bringing him down. Not from you. Not from that goddamn Manos woman.”
It was something he might’ve said at any time during the years I’d known him, as his company rose to power at the expense of that goddamn Manos woman.
Same old Barrera. Irritating, arrogant, dependable.
But as he drove me home, I felt an uneasy pull in the pit of my stomach.
Barrera’s hands stayed steady on the wheel, his left turn signal still blinking from the entrance ramp on Commerce, blinking all the way across town with a reassuring, meaningless rhythm.
11
“That your old place?” Pablo asked.
Will didn’t answer. He closed the car door, brushed the rain off his shoulders.
They had parked outside the abandoned plumbing supply shop on Avenue B-a big white building with a razor wire fence and stacks of corroding pipe in the yard.
Will had walked the perimeter first. He’d noticed how much thicker the honeysuckle was on the fence, how the roof was falling apart. The windows on the second story, where he once lived, were now painted over. There was still a bullet hole visible in one pane of turquoise glass.
Finally, he’d built up the courage to go inside.
Upstairs, ratty sleeping bags, old needles, piles of clothes indicated junkies had been using the place to shoot up. Nobody there at the moment, which was fortunate for them.
Will found what he was looking for under a loose floorboard, right where he’d left it, as if it were too small, too insignificant to have been disturbed. He took what he needed to take, then left his sketch of Soledad in exchange. It seemed the right thing, to leave her image here in this building-the place she’d been happy.
Or perhaps that wasn’t his only reason.
Crouching in the silence of the ruined apartment, Will thought about his encounter with Tres Navarre and Jem Manos. Revenge would be much harder, much more complicated than he’d imagined.
Perhaps he was leaving Soledad’s picture here because he was no longer sure he could do what she would’ve wanted.
It was a long time before he trusted himself to get up, walk outside again, and join Pablo in the car.
“We shouldn’t be here, man,” Pablo said.
Will knew he was right.
Dimebox Ortiz had found this place for him, years ago. He had said, Nobody will ever think to look for you here, man. It’s one of those places that you just drive by. It’s invisible.
They had searched all morning for Dimebox Ortiz. Will wanted to make him eat those words.
“Any news?” Will asked.
Pablo shook his head. He’d been manning the phone. They had hired a guy to tail Erainya Manos, just to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid.
Pablo had made the calls, dropped off the payment, just like he’d done the face-to-face work asking after Dimebox Ortiz. Nobody knew Pablo in San Antonio. That’s why Will kept him alive.
Across the street, the San Antonio River was flooding its banks. Soledad used to walk along the edge of the water there. She used to talk to the man who sold hubcaps from his front porch. She’d make jokes with the boys who fished off the oil drums in the shade of the sycamore trees.
The tail on Erainya was costing them two hundred bucks. The video camera they’d gotten for a hundred bucks at one of the Arguello pawn shops.
Even with the stash Gerry Far had provided, they were getting low on money and food. Will hated banks. He hated anything that left a paper trail. But he should risk a trip to the ATM, dip into the emergency fund his friend had set up for him. He didn’t have time to be knocking around the old neighborhood.
Will put the car in drive.
He eased across the Grand Avenue Bridge, through a half foot of water. He parked in front of the San Antonio Art Museum.
“Hey, man…” Pablo again, nervous.
The museum was a big limestone castle with two turreted towers, a glass skywalk connecting them. It used to be the Lone Star Beer Brewery, and in Will’s opinion that had been a better use for the building. He’d only been here once before, with Soledad, and for her sake, he hated the place.
It had been two weeks after the McCurdy Ranch story broke. Will had been pissed about the media coverage. It would mean trouble for him, for everybody in his line of work. Then came the call-the invitation for a meeting he never should’ve attended.
He got out of bed at midnight, as quietly as he could. A full moon was coming in the window.
Soledad sighed in her sleep. Her silver Saint Anthony medal glinted at her throat.
Four months she’d been sharing his bed. He kept waiting to get tired of her, for the feeling of wanting her to pass. But the feeling didn’t pass. He was no longer worried about her running away. He didn’t have her watched, or lock the doors when he left.
She said she loved San Antonio. This was where she was meant to live. And the way she treated him in bed-maybe it was a lie, but she acted as if she wanted to be with him. If it was a lie, he didn’t want to know.
She had put on some weight since he’d bought her, but he didn’t mind. She had been too thin, anyway. Now she looked healthy. Her skin and hair had a glow that hadn’t been there before.
She stirred as he was getting dressed, and opened her eyes. “Where are you going?”
“The museum.”
The answer, he realized, was absurd. She laughed, and it was impossible not to laugh with her.
“It’s closed, loco boy!”
