“Why do you think I wanted company? Going in there solo would be stupid. My mama didn’t raise no stupid kids.”
When Hunter finally beat his way through traffic to the address, he was glad he and Jase were bilingual. In this area, English wasn’t even a second language.
“I get to be the bad guy,” Hunter said as he parked the Jeep.
“You always get to be bad.”
“People look at your big brown eyes and trust you with their firstborn.”
Jase grinned. “I always knew you were jealous. Serves you right for those icy Anglo eyes.”
Hunter parked along the cracked, dirty curb a block away and half a block down a side street. Bits of paper trash lifted on the occasional breeze. With an automatic motion, he pulled the Jeep’s key, shoved it deep in his front pocket, and got out. He didn’t need to worry about locking up. Most of the time there was nothing inside the Jeep but dirt from both sides of the border. No radio, no antenna, no tire iron, no tools, no baggage. Nothing worth stealing.
A few minutes later Jase studied the two-story apartment building. “Hard to imagine it new.”
“Instant slums, built to sag and lean and rust overnight.”
“Bet the rooms smell like mildew on a good day, cat piss the rest of the time.”
In the heat, the smell reached right out to the curb.
“Tell me this is the wrong address,” Hunter invited.
“I never lie to you.”
“What about the blonde, the redhead, and the Siamese twins?”
“What about them?” Jase asked.
Hunter shook his head and walked around the broken glass security door that hung drunkenly, allowing wind, dirt, and anyone who was interested into the hallway beyond. Inside, an aggregate concrete stairway held up by rusty iron gave access to the second floor. Every step was broken, cracked, or both. A ragged pyramid of Tecate cans stood unevenly off to one side of the bottom step, waiting to fall.
“If this guy’s a thief,” Jase muttered, following Hunter, “he’s lousy at it. Like a pickpocket with no hands.”
“Poor impulse control has been the downfall of more than one master criminal,” Hunter said dryly. “Is this call hard or soft?”
“Soft. Just wondering how he is, we haven’t heard from him, blah blah.”
The steps up from street level grated underfoot. The crumbling stoop was crusted with dirt and greasy debris.
Behind an apartment door, a dog barked madly. The dog’s bark changed to hysteria when he caught their scent. Someone yelled in Spanglish for the dog to
Hunter scanned the upper balcony for unpleasant surprises. Nothing moved.
“Looks like everyone’s tucked in with TV and cerveza,” Jase said.
Hunter grunted.
“You armed?” Jase asked.
“The usual.” For Hunter, that was a knife in his boot. “What’s the dude’s name?”
“LeRoy Ramirez Landry. First door on the right.”
“Let’s hope Mr. Landry doesn’t do anything stupid.”
“Paying rent here is stupid,” Jase said.
“You take the door,” Hunter said. “I’ll cover you.”
Jase stepped past Hunter, whose narrowed eyes were scanning the other closed doors. Landry’s apartment was closest to the stairs. That would make a fast retreat easier.
Feeling watched from behind, Hunter looked over his shoulder and out at the street. His neck had felt like he was in someone’s crosshairs since he’d left the lecture room with the professor on his arm. It wasn’t a good feeling.
Nothing moved below but a feral cat scrounging for fast-food scraps and slow rats.
Jase knocked on Landry’s apartment door. The door sounded dry and hollow, empty as a cracked bone.
“It’s been kicked out of the jamb,” Jase said in a low voice.
“Saw it from the stairs.”
“Cat eyes. You’ve been out in the jungle too long.”
“I like being in one piece,” Hunter said.
“Not arguing, just saying.”
Jase knocked again. He didn’t want to shout out “ICE” if he didn’t have to. No reason to get trampled in the stampede out of the building.
A gust of wind licked through the broken street door, toppling the empty beer cans at the bottom of the stairs. Across the hallway, a dog whined once.
Silence spread like dirt in the hallway.
Hunter and Jase knew that all the televisions had just been turned down.
“Dude isn’t home or he’s hiding,” Hunter said in a low voice. “Everyone else knows we’re here.”
“What a surprise.”
“Yeah. If you happen to lean on that door and it gives way, technically it isn’t breaking and entering,” Hunter offered.
He pointed to the finger-wide gap between the barely open door and the frame.
“Man, and I was hoping to get in another misdemeanor today,” Jase said.
“Stay tight. A felony might be just around the corner.”
Jase scratched at the spot where his reversed baseball hat met the back of his head. “Well, I’m concerned about the well-being of this citizen who may or may not have become involved in a crime. We really should check out the place. I mean, it’s for his own safety.”
“You’re such a good citizen,” Hunter said. “How do you do it?”
“Clean living.”
“You forgot constant prayer.”
“That’s Ali’s job.” Jase put the back of his hand on the door, pushed. It scraped open. “Oops. Look at that. Busted. We better check that Mr. Landry is okay.”
Jase pushed the door wide open and stepped to the other side of the frame. Hunter was already at Jase’s blind side. They had both been trained the same way, by the same life.
Nothing was behind the door. No one was within sight. Curtains shifted. They were dirty enough to have been used as napkins.
Not one sound came from inside the apartment.
The cramped room seemed to cringe at the afternoon sunlight flooding through the open door. A coffee table was littered with envelopes torn open carelessly. Empty bottles of malt liquor stood sentinel by crushed cigarette packs and overflowing ashtrays. Cigarette butts stuck out of the ashes like finger bones.
“Guess he lives on nicotine and alcohol,” Jase said. “No fast-food trash.”
“Lotto tickets,” Hunter said.
The colorful stubs were ripped up, tossed everywhere in a kind of loser’s confetti.
Jase walked a bit farther into the room. Hunter’s movements mirrored his partner’s.
The television was off, and Hunter could see where the screen had been dusted with an open palm. The ring of grime at the edges clung. He moved the back of his hand close to the screen. Cold. Like the room, despite the cracked door. Air-conditioning hummed and rattled as it came on.
“Looks like he hasn’t been here for a while,” Jase said. “But I’m not going to open that fridge to check expiration dates.”
“How long?” Hunter asked.
Jase understood the rest of the question. “Feels like days. Maybe more.”
“It smells bad, but not dead-body bad. Back room?”
Nodding, Jase headed farther into the apartment.
“Unmade bed,” Jase said, looking into the tiny bedroom.
