A Flower in the Desert (36 page)

I took four blue chips, tossed them onto the pile. “Does your heart do a little leap when you get a letter from Ed McMahon?”

“Deal.”

Hector's last card was the ace of hearts. He grinned. My last card was the four of diamonds.

“Pair of aces bets a grand,” he said, tossing in two red chips.

“It's yours,” I told him.

Hector scooped the chips toward him. “The Lord takes care of his own.”

“You and the Lord owe me four grand.”

He gathered the cards, began shuffling the deck. “Prepare to taste the agony of defeat.”

The transceiver suddenly crackled. “Sarge?”

Holding the deck of cards in his left hand, Hector picked up the transceiver with his right. “Go ahead, Diego.”

“What we got here is a Chevy Blazer, a new one, gray. Looks like two males inside, but the windows are tinted. Came up the street past the van, turned around, drove back. They're parked about fifty yards down from the house.”

“You run the plates?”

“I just called them in. They're not rentals.”

“The men get out of the car, come toward the house, you let me know.”

“Right.”

“Okay, Diego. Thanks.”

He put down the transceiver, set the cards in the center of the coffee table. “Cut,” he said.

Three minutes later, the transceiver crackled again. “Sarge. This is Alpha One.”

Hector picked up the transceiver. “Stop fucking around, Diego.”

“Just got the word on those plates. They don't belong on the Blazer. They belong to an eighty-nine Oldsmobile registered to a Timothy Griegos. You want I should inform these guys someone made a mistake and put the wrong plates on their car?”

“They're still inside the Blazer?”

“Yeah.”

“Hang loose. Monahan?”

“Yeah, Sarge.”

“Another fifteen, twenty minutes.”

“Okay.”

Hector put aside the transceiver. He looked down at the cards. “Your bet.”

I was showing ace high. My jack of hearts was paired to the jack of clubs in the hole. I tossed in a chip. “Fifty,” I said.

Hector threw in two chips. “And up fifty.”

“It's a privilege watching you work.”

Fifteen minutes later, when Hector was into me for another two thousand dollars, he looked at his watch. He tossed his cards to the table. “Showtime,” he said.

“Let me call Rita.”

He nodded.

I picked up the phone, dialed her number.

She answered on the first ring. “Hello.”

“Hi. My performance is about to begin.”

“Don't do anything stupid.”

“Do I ever?”

“And call me afterward. I found out something you should know.”

“What?”

“Later. Call me. Hello to Hector.”

“Bye.”

“Be careful, Joshua.”

“Yes dear.”

She hung up.

I put down the phone, stood up, walked around the coffee table, lifted the sheepskin jacket from the sofa. “Rita says hello,” I told Hector.

He nodded, picked up one of the transceivers, held it out to me. I took it, slipped it into the jacket's right-hand pocket.

“No improvising,” he said. “Stick to the script.”

“Right.”

He lifted the other transceiver, spoke into it. “Diego?”

“Yo.”

“He's leaving now.”

“Gotcha.”

“Monahan?”

“With you, Sarge.”

“Mendez?”

“We're ready.”

He looked at me. “Okay.”

I said, “You owe me six thousand dollars.”

“We'll cut for it. Double or nothing.” He scooped up the cards, shuffled them, put the deck on the table. He cut, showed me a ten of clubs, put the deck back together. I leaned over, cut the deck. Seven of spades.

Hector smiled. “Not your lucky day.”

The two men in the Blazer made no effort to hide. But they didn't pay any attention to me, either, as I drove past them. They simply sat there, chatting calmly. I didn't turn to look.

Beside me on the seat, the transceiver crackled. Diego's voice: “And they're off.”

Hector's voice: “Monahan?”

Monahan: “I got 'em.”

At Acequia Madre I stopped and glanced in the rearview mirror. The Blazer was about seventy yards back, and moving closer.

I signaled a left turn, and then made it.

Monahan: “They're stopping at the sign, signaling a left.”

Hector: “Diego, come and get me.”

Diego: “On my way.”

Monahan: “They're turning left onto Acequia.”

In the mirror, I saw the nose of the Blazer edge out onto the road.

I drove.

Monahan: “Proceeding down Acequia. Got 'em in sight.”

Hector: “Don't get too close.”

Monahan: “Piece of cake, Sarge.”

At Paseo de Peralta I turned right.

Monahan: “Approaching Paseo. They're turning right.”

I had them in the mirror. I followed Paseo around town, and the Blazer stayed sixty or seventy yards behind.

Monahan: “Proceeding down Paseo.”

At Washington, I caught the red light. I signaled a right turn. The Blazer was three cars back, behind a Ford wagon and a Mercedes sedan.

Monahan: “Stopped at the light on Washington. They're two cars ahead.”

I made my turn.

Monahan: “Okay. They're still behind Croft. Turning right onto Washington.”

I signaled the turn for the Ski Basin Road. A few moments later, Monahan said, “They're heading up toward the Basin.”

Hector: “I've got you in sight, Monahan.”

I drove east, climbing the mountainside. Rita's house was off to the right, invisible from the road among the trees, but I knew that if she were out on the patio, she could've been watching our little parade in comfort.

There was very little traffic coming from the other direction. Tourist season was over and the ski season wouldn't begin until after Thanksgiving.

Hector's voice came from the transceiver: “Okay, Monahan, fall back. We'll take it in the van.”

I passed Ten Thousand Waves, a Japanese bathhouse that offered hot tubs and massages, and that was pretty much the last sign of civilization for a while. No homes, no commercial buildings. Just the forest and me and the two men in the Chevy Blazer. And, behind them, Hector and Diego in the unmarked blue van. And, behind them, Monahan and his partner.

Hector: “Mendez.”

Mendez: “Yeah.”

Hector: “We're about three miles from your position.”

“I hear you.”

Hector: “Josh, as soon as you stop the car, you jump out and you get down and stay down.”

The air was colder up here, and snow still covered the ground between the pine trees. I passed the Evergreen Restaurant, perched up on the hillside among the ponderosas. Only two cars were parked in the lot.

Hector: “Mendez.”

“Yeah.”

“Less than a mile.”

“We're ready.”

The road became more winding, twisting back on itself through the forest. The mountain dropped off to my left, giving me a view of snowy, pine-studded hills rolling off into the distance. I passed a stand of aspens, their leaves faded to a dull brown now, their knobby white trunks skeletal against the snow, bones on a bedsheet. Then I made a turn and the state police cruiser was parked directly across the road, fifty yards away. I pulled up beside it, braked, jumped from the jeep.

Mendez and Green were behind the cruiser, both holding guns, and Mendez was waving at me. “
C'mon, c'mon!
”

I ran around the car and looked back.

The Blazer had just made the turn and the driver was braking. Suddenly, behind him, the blue van appeared. Diego swung it around to block the road and then Hector was out of the door and standing in a crouch, gun upraised. “
Police!
” I heard him shout. “
Out of the car!
” Diego came around the van, gun in hand, just as another unmarked car—Monahan's—pulled in behind it, lurching to a stop. Two men jumped out, both armed.

The driver of the Blazer didn't hesitate. He slammed into reverse, spun around, and aimed the big car directly at Hector.

Hector fired, one burst of two rounds, and then another. The Blazer kept coming. Then all four cops were firing, the sound of their gunshots rattling the still air, and suddenly the Blazer careened off to the right and left the road and sailed for a moment through the air before it crashed back down and then spun over on its side, once, twice, and then smashed broadside into a pair of ponderosa pines. The trees snapped like Popsicle sticks, their green branches collapsing over the Blazer as though enfolding it in an embrace.

Twenty-Eight

H
I, RITA. IT
'
S ME. IT
'
S ALL OVER.
”

“You're all right?”

“I'm fine.”

“Where are you?”

“At the Evergreen.”

“The Salvadorans?”

“They tried to run. One of them's dead. The other's pretty busted up, but it looks like he'll live. The ambulance is on its way.”

“Is Hector all right?”

“He's fine. Everybody's fine. The bad guys are the only ones who got hurt.”

I heard her let out her breath. “Good.”

“What was it you wanted to tell me?”

“Sam Davenport.”

“Who?”

“Sam Davenport. The leader of the commune up in Palo Verde.”

“What about him?”

“He has an interesting past. Do you know where he was, about twenty-five years ago?”

“Is this something hot off the computer?”

“Yes.”

“All right. Where was he?”

She told me. We discussed it for a bit.

I said, “It's not proof of anything.”

“No,” she said. “But it's suggestive.”

“Yeah, it's suggestive, all right. I think I'm going to go talk to the Coopers.”

“Why the Coopers?”

“It could be that I've been showing people the wrong photograph.”

“Would you like to explain that?”

I did.