“Right,” I said. “You’re just toying with him now.”
Cooper took a step toward me.
DeLeon interposed. “Major.”
“You vouched for this son-of-a-bitch,” Cooper reminded her. “He knew Stirman was in town, maybe for days. If he’d given us a few goddamned details-”
“Major,” DeLeon cut in, “as I explained at the hospital yesterday, Tres’ boss may be in danger-”
“Hell with that. I should throw his ass in jail for aiding and abetting.”
“You see that boy outside?” DeLeon asked. “His mother is the one Stirman took. Tres is trying to make sure she doesn’t die.”
“I don’t…” Cooper stopped himself. His temples turned purple with the effort.
“You don’t care,” I supplied, “about anything except catching Stirman.”
“Tres,” DeLeon said, “if we knew where to look right now, it would be the San Antonio SWAT team who deployed. They’re the only hostage force ready. I know them. They would do things right.”
“If you knew where to look.”
Her eyes held mine. “Stirman still wants his money. He might’ve called you after the robbery went bad, moved up the meeting time.”
I thought about Sam Barrera, who would be arriving at Jones and Avenue B about now. Minutes rather than hours.
Cooper grumbled, “This asshole is holding back.”
“I know that, goddamn it!” DeLeon snapped. She turned her attention back to me, tried to moderate her tone. “Well?”
I walked to the answering machine.
“I got home maybe two minutes before you walked in,” I said. “This was waiting for me.”
I pressed play.
As soon as Barrera’s voice mentioned an address, Cooper whipped out his cell phone, but DeLeon said, “Wait.”
She listened until I punched stop, then studied me uneasily. “Why did he call you Fred?”
“I’m the guy who works with Erainya. Sam’s got Fred Barrow on the brain. You’ve never called somebody the wrong name when you were under stress?”
She thought about that. “He told you to call the field office. You’ve been talking with the FBI?”
“He means I-Tech, his agency. Look, I gave you what you want. Now get moving, or let me do it.”
“Let’s go,” Cooper told the uniforms.
DeLeon hesitated. “You will stay here, Tres. You understand that?”
“I’m taking care of Jem. I have no weapon and no money to bargain with. Does it look like I’m charging into battle?”
DeLeon glanced toward the patio, where Jem was teaching Robert Johnson how to block corner shots.
“Sergeant,” Cooper growled. “Now, or I leave without you.”
Her expression was still troubled. She sensed something amiss. She said, “I’ll get her back alive, Tres. I swear.”
Their patrol car disappeared down Queen Anne Street.
I opened the patio door and told Jem to bring the cat inside.
“Time to go?” he asked, setting a relieved Robert Johnson down by his food dish.
“Time,” I agreed. “You’ve got to be brave, champ. Can you do that for me?”
He nodded. “We’ll get my mom back. He can’t take us both on.”
I tried to smile, despite the fact that I was betting everything-including our lives-on a guess.
I pressed play on the answering machine, let the tape continue from where I’d stopped it. I listened again to Sam Barrera’s second message-the one Ana DeLeon hadn’t heard.
21
Erainya dreamed of J.P.
He stood over her, telling her not to worry-he’d have the ropes off in a moment. She could smell his cologne. She was grateful for the familiar silver stubble on his cheeks, the strong line of his jaw against the broadcloth collar. His hands worked deftly at the knots.
But J.P. had been murdered. She had seen him fall in the alley behind Paesano’s.
The man over her became Fred Barrow. He tugged at the ropes, clumsy and insistent, a gun in one hand, which made it impossible for him to get anywhere.
“Goddamn it, Irene.” He smelled of cigars and bourbon. His belly pressed against her ribs, crushing her as it had the night she’d killed him. “Wake up. Come on.”
Son-of-a-bitch.
She brought up her legs and kneecapped him in the face, sending him sprawling.
Erainya blinked, and came fully awake.
She was lying on a dirty pile of blankets, her arms bound behind her, her dress soaked with sweat. The man she’d just kneed in the head was the young fugitive-Pablo.
He got up, cursing, went to the table and exchanged his gun for a knife.
“Hold still,” he growled, “or I’ll cut your hands off.”
Erainya felt the cold metal blade slip between her wrists. Pablo tugged, and the ropes snapped. She sat up, tried to move her arms. She felt like someone had poured boiling water into her veins.
Pablo stepped back, retrieved his gun. “Do the rest yourself.”
Her fingers were numb. She managed to peel back the duct tape from her mouth.
“Get up.” Pablo stood by the plywood-barricaded window, peeking out a sliver of sunset at something below. “We don’t have much time.”
She fumbled with the knots that bound her ankles. She wanted to feel hopeful about being untied, but she didn’t like the urgency in Pablo’s voice. He had that wild, angry look in his eyes he got every time Will Stirman yelled at him.
She must have missed something. Had Stirman called? Erainya cursed herself for falling asleep.
“Stand up,” Pablo ordered.
“My legs are numb.”
He turned toward her, the light from the window making a luminous pink scar on his left cheek. “Get over here if you want to live. You need to see this.”
Erainya got unsteadily to her feet.
At the window, Pablo put the gun against her spine. “Quietly.”
The evening air felt good on her face-better than the stifling heat inside anyway.
At first, Erainya saw nothing special-train tracks, a half-flooded gravel parking lot freckled with rain, empty loading docks and gutted warehouses. The sun was going down through a break in the clouds.
Then she noticed the blue van with tinted windows, parked under a chinaberry tree at the end of the block. She caught a flicker of movement on a rooftop across the street. A glint of metal in an upper window that should’ve been empty.
“Cops,” Pablo told her. “Your friends broke faith.”
The muzzle of his gun dug between her vertebrae.
Erainya tried to steady her breathing. “I don’t see anything.”
“You won’t see them until they break down the door, huh? They’re setting up a perimeter. We’ve been screwed.”
His breath was sour from lack of sleep and canned food, his eyes red with shame, like a kid who’d just been beat up in the locker room.
Give him options, Erainya told herself.
Pablo had used the word we. He was desperate and alone. He was looking for help.
