Time of Death

Ren shook her head slowly. ‘Oh my God. Have you ever had a conversation with a woman that didn’t begin and end with “Nice rack”?’

Colin said nothing.

‘You have no clue,’ said Ren. ‘Please – stay away from women.’ She called out. ‘Run, Naomi, run. Save yourself!’

‘El Coyote Panzon,’ said Cliff, drumming his fingers on the table.

‘Funny, isn’t it?’ said Ren. ‘Gregory Sarvas wasn’t who his wife and children thought he was. He wasn’t who we thought he was. He didn’t even work as a coyote. He was good, very good.’ She paused. ‘He was fat, though. The big guy with the gray hair and the big beard that reminded someone somewhere of a coyote.’

‘I don’t get how it worked,’ said Robbie. ‘Sarvas was lawyer for the Puente cartel.’

‘Yes,’ said Ren, ‘He knew everything inside out, how the business worked, who the players were, blah blah blah. So he could also see the vast amounts of money coming through. He’s obviously being paid a small fortune to do this job, but it’s nothing compared to what he could be making. He lines up Domenica Val Pando, who’s been sniffing around; he’s seen what she’s done before, but knowing her mistakes he knows how she can avoid making them again. He recruited Domenica Val Pando, not the other way around.

‘But at the same time, Sarvas had hooked up with the Mexican authorities, planning to get safely out the back door of the Puentes – under their protection. The authorities think Sarvas is on their side, but his only interest is in dismantling the cartel. Because waiting in the wings is his very own operation with Domenica Val Pando, who will keep it running in his absence. He does the front-of-house good-guy shit.

‘The problem with these cartels is that, as soon as the authorities chop off one head, a new head grows back – an uglier one. The rest of the drones scuttle off into the darkness, then come out again and regroup. They may have learned some lessons, they may not, but no matter what, things will have to change and the cops are going to have to start looking at them again from scratch. I mean, what else can they do, but arrest and jail the kingpins? It’s just that there are queenpins and jackpins and straightpins…’

‘So,’ said Robbie, ‘Sarvas is getting out of one cartel knowing exactly how it operates. He quietly sets up his own organization to rival it and has all the inside information he could possibly need to beat them—’

‘Yup,’ said Ren. ‘I mean, he may have decided that would be enough, that that would be all he needed to trump them. But I’d say when things got really intense down there over the past few years, he went for overkill – trying to bring the Puente cartel down and get rid of the competition before he even started trading, selling them out and setting himself up as the good guy to the authorities.’

‘What was he thinking?’ said Colin.

‘That he was invincible, that he was smarter than any of them,’ said Ren.

‘Why would Domenica want to play second fiddle to Gregory Sarvas?’ said Colin. ‘I mean, whatever about agreeing to it – realistically, could she follow through?’

‘He was a mine of information,’ said Ren. ‘He effectively had eleven years on her – so much had changed while she’d been gone. He knew how everything worked along the border. And he had a list of the players living in the pockets of the kingpins.’

Colin shook his head. ‘He was crazy to think he could get away with that.’

‘These people don’t live in the real world, or at best they’ve one foot in it. They’re permanently on the edge, they just push themselves further and further until there’s nowhere else to go.’

Gary walked into the bullpen. ‘The lab just got in touch. The reason Safe Streets got that call to that warehouse crime scene was because someone knew the victim was on our Fifty Most Wanted – DNA matched our number four – Javier Luis.’

Ren’s heart started to pound.

58

Ren’s cell phone rang as she was turning the key in the lock of Annie’s front door that evening. She hit Answer and heard the voice of the Czech legal attache.

‘It was Jakub Kral,’ he said. ‘He’s confessed.’ Kral had given police a gas station marker fifty miles west of Catskill and a vague set of directions from there. But almost thirty years on from a random decision on a hot, dark night, no one held out hope much that what remained of Louis Parry would be returned to what remained of his family.

Ren walked into the hallway and stepped on to a small white envelope with her name on it. She picked it up and opened it. She had never seen the writing before. It was beautiful.

Dear Ren

I can’t do this any other way, because it’s too hard. I wish I could take whatever you give me, but, from you, I need more. I don’t know if I’ll ever find someone who’ll give me one hundred per cent and whether, if I do, she’ll be wonderful enough that I have the same amount to give back, but that’s a risk I’m going to have to take. Because this is killing me. I don’t think you know how much it hurts. And it’s worse because I know you are a good person and that you mean everything you say to me and everything you do.

But when you look at me, there’s guilt that goes along with it and I just want to make it go away. But I know I can’t. And I can’t be the guy in the shadows, because with someone as amazing as you, it feels wrong to hide.

Please know that no matter happens, I’m here if you need me…just not in the same way.

Love always

Billy x

Billy no longer Waites. Ren put the letter down. She felt sick. She walked over to the window and looked out. Billy was gone. Billy had left her. Her heart raced. I am not ready for this. She let herself drift away with the falling snow, running through everything she and Billy had together, how perfect and fucked-up the whole thing was.

Screw this. She grabbed her keys and ran to the Jeep. She jumped in, started the engine and headed for Five Points. Billy had to have dropped the car back to Stray Eddie. Or maybe he had let Billy take it wherever he needed to go. Stray Eddie would know.

Ren drove through town, thinking of throwing her arms around Billy and being held there and being kissed and loved and never let go. A multi-colored stream of city lights washed over the windscreen. Bright shiny things. She felt free. Her mind was filled with what they would do and where they would go.

My whole life is Billy Waites.

Her heart was traveling fast, her body felt light. She couldn’t let him go. She would tell him to stay, promise him one hundred per cent. We’ll go out tonight, find a hotel room, drink champagne, have sex all night…

She kept her foot on the accelerator and sped into the turn-off for Five Points.

Billy will be here. Everything will work out. I can not be alone. I can not be alone.

She pulled into the parking space outside Stray Eddie’s. I cannot be alone. The car was gone. I cannot be alone. She looked up at the dark window of the apartment. Where are you Billy? I cannot be alone.

Tears welled in her eyes. She had been here before. The drama of breaking up with someone and wanting them back. The high of pursuing them. The motivation that, when stripped away, was wrong and was the one that was ringing clearly in her ears. Not I love Billy. Not I cannot be with anyone except Billy. Not Billy, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Just I cannot be alone.

And Billy Waites deserved more than a damaged woman not wanting to be alone. With tears streaming down her face, Ren turned on the engine and reversed out.

I want a man whose rings I will wear for the rest of my life. My own Edward Lowell. A man with a yellow tie.