him. After opening the PI agency, he’d taken on a number of cases, either pro bono or at reduced fees, to help families in Mexico find missing kin in the north, or to help prosecute coyotes like Will Stirman.
He liked fishing and hunting.
He relished divorce cases. Even his enemies admitted he was a tenacious investigator.
He almost lost his PI license once when he’d assaulted a federal agent who’d questioned his integrity in a high-profile drug trafficking case. Fred Barrow had been working for the defense. The federal agent made a comment about Barrow’s testimony being “the best fabrication money could buy.” Later, at a bar near the courthouse, Barrow decked the agent with a left hook. A judge friendly to both parties managed to smooth things over, at least legally. The federal agent’s name was Samuel Barrera.
There was nothing to indicate the two men had framed Will Stirman. Just meticulous notes on their interviews with Gerry Far and Dimebox Ortiz, outlining Stirman’s operation, and confirming that McCurdy had been a regular client. In exchange for their testimony, Far and Ortiz had escaped prosecution. Far had taken over Stirman’s operation. And Dimebox Ortiz… what had he gotten out of the deal?
I wrote on my otherwise blank notepad: Dimebox Ortiz?
I set that question aside for the moment. If Dimebox had any brains, he was several hundred miles away by now.
Robert Johnson dive-bombed the stack I’d just gone through and sent papers flying.
“Thanks,” I said.
As I was picking them up, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. It was a piece of stationery that must’ve been stuck between envelopes in Erainya’s correspondence. The note was from a woman. I could tell that from the handwriting. She wrote:
Irene, You’ll be acquitted and back with us before you know it. Don’t worry. And the package from Fred-relax. It’s safely hidden.
Love, H.
The package from Fred?
I read the note again. It still said the same thing.
Will Stirman wanted something from Barrera and Barrow, something Erainya felt guilty about.
I looked at the cat. “You’re a genius.”
He looked at me wild-eyed. He probably couldn’t believe it had taken me so long to catch on.
I needed to strong-arm somebody for more information. Somebody who wasn’t Sam or Erainya; they would only lie to me more. Somebody who knew Will Stirman, and wasn’t dead yet.
I looked at my notes. I’d written two words: Dimebox Ortiz?
At this point, under normal circumstances, I would’ve called my friend Ralph Arguello, Ana DeLeon’s husband. He specialized in finding lowlife scumbags. He delighted in strong-arming them. But I hadn’t talked to Ralph in almost a year. The longer the silence got, the more stubborn I felt about not breaking it. Besides, I had an unreturned message from his wife on my answering machine, asking why I hadn’t shown up at the police station last night like I’d promised.
I’d have to go this one alone.
Was it worth searching for Dimebox?
I looked at the cat. “If he has any brains, he’ll be far, far away.”
The cat’s expression told me I’d just answered my own question.
“You’re right,” I said. “He’ll be in town.”
I told Robert Johnson to sort the rest of the files for me. Then I grabbed my car keys.
The normal axiom is Follow the money. In the case of Dimebox Ortiz, it’s Follow the poultry.
Dimebox might’ve been a bail jumper hiding from a crazed killer, but he still had to place his cockfighting bets. Sooner or later, I knew he would show up at the pits, or with a bookie. I asked around, said I had a couple of grand to spend on the right bird, and within an hour I had a list of places to try.
I found Dimebox back in Southtown at Rosario’s restaurant, about to enjoy a skillet of sizzling fajitas with a particularly oily cockfighting bookie named Travis the Spur. There were various rumors about how Travis had gotten the nickname, none of which involved the local basketball team.
I came up behind Dimebox, pulled his arm behind his back, and slammed his head onto his flour tortilla, making sure his face was close enough to the heated skillet so he would catch the pops from the grease.
I told Travis the Spur to cluck off. He was only too delighted to oblige.
Dimebox struggled.
I applied a little more pressure to his arm. “Nothing like a good fajita.”
“Navarre?” He was blinking from the grease, drooling on the tortilla. “Jesus, thank God it’s you.”
“Saved you again, have I?”
“Stirman’s looking for me. He got to Kiko and Lalu-I think… shit, he might’ve killed them, man. I was just leaving town-”
“You seem to have trouble finding the city limits.”
“Just gonna make a couple more grand for the road. You know. How the hell did you find me?”
“Talk to me about the night Stirman was arrested.”
“What?” He tried to shrug, which was not easy to do in his position. “What’s there to say?”
“Your face needs garnishing, Dimebox. How about some of these?”
I made a lightning grab for the jalapeno bowl, poured them on Dimebox’s face, then reapplied pressure to keep his head against the plate.
“Agghh!” he said. “Jesus!”
The juice started running into his eyes.
I let him struggle.
There wasn’t much of a crowd in the restaurant, this time of afternoon-a few guys drinking margaritas at the bar; a couple of businessmen having a late lunch. They’d been admiring the wraparound view of the corner of Alamo and Presa, but they all stopped watching that and started watching me.
A waiter came over nervously and asked if there was a problem. Did he have to call the police?
“Everything’s fine!” Dimebox groaned, blinking pepper juice out of his face. “No police! Everything’s cool!”
“Cable company,” I informed the waiter. “He’s three months behind on premium service.”
“Oh.” I could see the waiter’s mind working, trying to remember if he’d paid his cable bill. He left quickly.
“You testified against Stirman at his trial,” I said to Dimebox.
“Yeah. Yeah, okay. Jesus, Navarre. Lemme up.”
“Gerry Far took over the operation. What was in it for you?”
“Stirman was a maniac. You guys would get along. You think I liked working for a maniac?”
“Not good enough. What does Stirman want from Erainya and Sam? What did they take from him?”
“I don’t know.”
I picked up some pico de gallo and splashed it in his face.
He struggled a little more, spit the tomato chunks out of his mouth. “Jesus, Navarre!”
“You’re looking pretty appetizing, Dimebox,” I said. “I think we’re about ready to pour on this sizzling meat here.”
“No! Look- His wife. Stirman’s wife.”
“What wife?”
“Soledad. She died in the gunfire. One of the PIs shot her. I don’t know which.”
“I heard the woman who died was a prostitute.”
“Yeah, well-she was more to Stirman. She was… you know… pretty fine. They killed his woman.”
Something in his tone…
“That’s what you wanted,” I decided. “You wanted her.”
“No. Hell, no.”
“You figured with Stirman out of the way, you would get his woman. You set him up because you wanted to get laid.”
