wide Western belt with a turquoise-and-silver buckle. A weathered face with Hispanic features. His age difficult to determine. Fifty? Sixty? Older?
Tight black pants tucked into fancy cowboy boots made of a green hide that might have been rattlesnake. And on his hip, in a Western holster, a handgun that looked as big as a cannon, way outsize on the trim little man.
A revolver. Maybe. 50 caliber. Bigger even than Dirty Harry's. 44 Magnum.
The man had a fine head of long hair, somewhere between gray and white, the color of spit. The hair was parted in the middle and fell to his shoulders, Wild Bill Hickok style.
'You fellows lost?' the man called out.
Payne kept his right hand on the gearshift and didn't answer.
The big man's right hand rested on his hip, inches from the gun. 'I'm asking you nicely to back up. There's a turnoff not far behind you.'
Payne depressed the clutch, slipped the gearshift into first, and revved the engine. The throaty roar had a rattle in it.
The man's hand wrapped around the gun butt. 'You deaf? Someone's got to back up, and it's you, fellow.'
Like two gunslingers.
'Not asking you again.'
Payne leaned out the car window and shouted, 'Why don't you kiss my sister's black cat's ass?' Not a great line, but Bo Hopkins said it in The Wild Bunch.
The question seemed to startle the little man with the big gun. 'There something wrong with your brain, son?'
Payne took a stab at it. 'Nope. Something wrong with yours, Zaga?'
The man froze at the mention of the name. Still as a boulder, he seemed to size up the situation. 'You a dope fiend? One of Chitwood's asshole friends?'
Yep. Zaga, all right.
' 'Cause I warned that tweaker to get off the meth. If you're supplying him, I'll bury you without a second thought.'
'Brace yourself, Tino,' Payne whispered.
Payne let out the clutch and put the pedal to the rusty metal. Dirt spun from the rear wheels. The Mustang rocketed forward, right at Zaga, who vaulted to one side, drawing the handgun in a smooth motion.
The Mustang flew by, sheering off the Escalade's side-view mirror.
On its passenger side, the Mustang scraped the roadside boulders with metallic shrieks of dying soldiers.
Payne barely heard the first gunshot.
The second bullet clanged into the Mustang's trunk.
'Get down, Tino! On the floor!'
But the boy was propped on his knees, looking back at the man with the gun.
'Tino!' Payne tried to shove him down into his seat.
'In a second, vato.'
Two more gunshots sounded.
When they slid around a bend in the road and Zaga was no longer in sight, Tino dropped into his seat.
'Jesus! What the hell's wrong with you, kid? You could have been killed.'
'I memorized the pistolero 's license plate.'
'Oh.'
Tino rattled off the numbers and letters.
'Okay,' Payne said. 'Good. Very good. How'd you think of that?'
'It's what Rockford would have done,' Tino said.
FIFTY-THREE
Marisol's lips were crusted together, and her mouth felt as if it were filled with sand.
The sheets were cool and clean but sweat poured from her. She tried to open her eyes, but the lids were heavy as church doors.
Her head throbbed.
Somewhere, a man's voice echoed, the words overlapping.
'You'll get used to it. It's better than picking melons.'
She was naked under the sheet. She tried to remember where she was and how she got here.
A drink. She remembered being given a cold Pepsi. Then growing sleepy.
A patchwork of images. A man carrying her over his shoulder. Women's voices. Carpeted rooms. Soft music. Twinkling chandeliers.
The bed felt like a raft in a stormy sea. Her fingernails dug into the mattress to steady herself. In her mind, an eagle's claw gripped a tree limb. But if she were an eagle, she would fly away.
The man was talking again. The voice seemed familiar, but it bounced off the walls. Her eyes clouded over, and she could not put a face to the voice.
'You'll learn to like the club. No field hands. Gentlemen only.' He laughed, a throaty growl. 'Like me, panocha.'
Panocha! Now, she remembered those first few moments after the van dumped out the migrants like a truckload of melons.
' I'm sixty-six and still filled with piss and vinegar, panocha.'
El Patron. Mr. Rutledge.
Marisol felt his callused hand under the sheet, moving up her thigh.
Her eyes opened just enough to let in a slit of light. She saw his lips tighten, then crease into a smile sharp as a razor. A smile devoid of joy, but born of power and wickedness.
She closed her eyes and thought of the priest blessing her back home.
'Vaya con Dios, mija.'
Wherever I am, Marisol thought, it is not with God.
FIFTY-FOUR
Sharon loathed restaurants where the waiter's haircut cost more than hers, but she made an exception for the California Club. It was a century old, a quiet place of quiet money. Travertine archways, dark woods, and wall tapestries. A decorative, thirty-foot-high carved ceiling with a vaguely baroque look, as if you were dining in a sixteenth-century castle. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling by chains heavy enough to moor a cruise ship.
The young waiter in this staid old establishment had soap opera good looks and Superman's black hair, right down to the spit curl. An aspiring actor, no doubt. At the moment, he was politely whispering in her ear that she had a phone call.
Who even knew she was here?
Sharon left Cullen Quinn slurping his gazpacho and headed to a private booth of polished mahogany.
'Didn't want to call you on your cell,' Payne said, when she answered. 'I tried Philippe's and Langer's Deli. Then I figured Cullen asked you to his club. You were always a slut for sliced tenderloin.'
'Jesus, Jimmy. Where are you?'
'I've picked up Marisol's trail.'
'Have you lost your mind? There's a manhunt after you.'
'At first, I was afraid it was hopeless. The hardest part was figuring out where to start. Turned out, it was
