Down Among the Dead Men (A Thriller) (25 page)

Despite this, it felt good to be home.

After taking a shower to wash off the day and shampooing his hair for the first time since he’d been attacked, he checked his wounds and saw that they were healing nicely.

He knew he should sleep, but there was something he wanted to do before hitting the sack. Taking the SD card from his wallet, he went to transfer the data and crime scene photos to his desktop PC, only to discover that it was turned off.

Not unusual in most households, he supposed, but Vargas always kept his computer
on,
even when he was away from home. A techie at the
Tribune
had once told him that the circuits lasted longer that way.

So why was it off?

He glanced at the clock next to his bed and saw that it was still keeping time, no flashing digits that would indicate a power loss.

It was possible that the PC could have died, but as he looked around the room he started to get a funny feeling in his gut.

Something not quite right, here.

Not that he could see it. Everything was in its usual place.

But somehow it just didn’t
feel
right. As if his space had been invaded by a foreign presence.

The building manager, maybe?

No.

The guy was useless. Wouldn’t even change the lightbulbs in the stairwell unless the day ended with something other than a
y.
 

So it wasn’t the manager.

And no one else had the key.

Vargas stared at his computer a moment, trying to fight the sudden chill in his bones, then leaned down and turned it on.

A couple of beeps later, it came to life, booting up Windows, and he was starting to second-guess himself, wondering if maybe he
had
turned it off, that maybe this feeling was just a touch of paranoia rearing its ugly—

His landline rang.

Vargas snatched the receiver from his desk, checked the screen, and saw an
UNKNOWN CALLER
message.

But he didn’t need caller ID to tell him who it was.

And while he’d made his decision to move forward with this story—damn the consequences—that didn’t keep a wave of dread from washing through him.

He clicked the receiver button. “Yes?”

“Imagine my surprise,” Mr. Blister said, “when I drove so far to see you and you were not at home.”

The dread deepened. Did they know what he’d been up to? Confronting Rojas had been a risk, yes, but since he was still alive, he figured he’d gotten away with it.

“I stopped off in Vegas to see an old friend,” he said. “Wanted to try my luck at blackjack.”

“There is no luck, Mr. Vargas. Only destiny. And at the moment, yours does not look promising.”

“Wait, now. I did what you asked and got the hell out of Texas. I didn’t think it would matter if I took a detour.”

“Then you were mistaken. Were we mistaken as well?”

Vargas said nothing.

There was silence on the line and he tucked the phone under his chin, quickly grabbed his pants from the floor, and started pulling them on, just in case he had to move fast.

“As difficult as it may be for someone on the outside to understand,” Mr. Blister said, “it is counter to our beliefs to do harm to those who do not deserve it. As I told you, Mr. Vargas, we have no desire to punish the innocent. But perhaps we misjudged you. Perhaps you are not quite so innocent after all.”

“I’ve never claimed to be.”

“I do hope you realize that you are benefiting from our strong sense of benevolence.”

“So you keep telling me.”

“But we are not fools, either. So consider this call a reminder. Stay out of our business and we will stay out of yours.”

“You’ve made that pretty clear, too.”

“I do hope so. Because if you hear from us again, Mr. Vargas, it will not be over the telephone. Understood?”

An image skittered through Vargas’s mind. Mr. Blister shooting Junior point-blank, then peering suspiciously into the darkness of the warehouse.

Staring straight at him.

“Understood,” Vargas said.

58

T
HE MOMENT THE
line clicked, Vargas moved.

He didn’t give a damn what he’d been promised; he wasn’t about to hang around hoping they’d leave him alone.

No matter how you sliced it, these were
not
benevolent people. He’d seen that firsthand. And despite his instinct to ask Mr. Blister about La Santa Muerte, he had resisted. If you don’t want a hornet to sting you, don’t start poking at its nest.

But then that was exactly what he’d been doing, wasn’t it?

And Mr. Blister hadn’t come all this way to sit in Vargas’s hot tub.

Throwing on the rest of his clothes, Vargas grabbed his keys, the SD card, and the backpack in his closet that held his spare laptop, then doused the light, and went to his door.

Stopping short of opening it, he waited a moment, listening. The hallway outside had a cement floor and tended to echo, so he strained to hear any sound of movement.

Nothing.

Maybe a little too quiet.

Sucking in a breath, he opened the door a crack and peeked out, saw that the hallway was clear.

But just as he pulled the door wide and stepped past the threshold, a voice said:

“Mr. Vargas?”

Turning with a start, he saw an LAPD patrol officer topping the stairwell and heading in his direction. A powerfully built Hispanic guy with the requisite cop haircut.

“I’m looking for Ignacio Vargas. Is that you?”

Vargas’s heart was pounding. “What’s this about?”

“We had word of a disturbance. Is everything okay here?”

Disturbance, Vargas thought. What kind of disturbance? Had one of his neighbors heard Mr. Blister breaking into his apartment and called the cops?

A nice theory, but most of the people living in this building—which leaned toward off-duty prostitutes and low-rent hucksters—had no interest in contacting the cops for any reason whatsoever. It seemed that the only time the LAPD ever showed up around here was to harass or arrest someone.

Besides, he doubted that Mr. Blister would be so careless.

He was about to respond when his gaze dropped to the officer’s right hand, which was moving toward the weapon holstered on his hip. In a quick, fluid motion, the cop unsnapped the holster strap and pulled his gun free.

It was at that moment that Vargas decided that either the La Santa Muerte cult had connections that reached far beyond a rogue border patrol agent or this guy was not LAPD at all.

Whatever the case, one thing was obvious: Mr. Blister had help. And as the gun came up, Vargas dove.

The shot cracked, splintering wood somewhere above him as he rolled into his apartment, then suddenly realized that he’d just made a huge mistake.

There was nowhere to hide in here.

Jumping to his feet, he slung the backpack over his shoulder, bolted for the sliding glass door, and flung it open.

Another shot cracked and the door shattered, glass flying everywhere as—

—Vargas vaulted the balcony rail and jumped to the roof of a Grand Caravan parked at the curb below. He hit it hard, denting the roof, and the alarm started squealing as he lost his footing and tumbled to the sidewalk, landing on his hands and knees.

The impact sent a jolt of pain through him. But feeling eyes on him from the balcony above, he pushed past the pain, scrambled to his feet, and ran.

There was a shout behind him but no more gunshots. Then an engine revved and tires squealed and headlights washed across his back.

Chancing a glance over his shoulder, he saw what looked like an LAPD patrol car heading toward him, but again, he couldn’t be sure it was the real thing. The light bar mounted across the top was dark, and the glare of the car’s headlights made it difficult to see.

Not that it mattered at this point. These were subjects for later debate—assuming there
was
a later.

He picked up speed, but he knew there was no way he’d ever outrun a car, so his only choice was to cut into a neighboring apartment building.

This was good in theory but difficult in practice, because the building he was in front of right now was a bit more upscale than his place. The only way in was through one of the security gates that guarded the underground parking garage and the lobby entrance.

He didn’t figure anyone would be buzzing in a half-crazed has-been newspaper reporter with a gun-toting assassin at his heels, so he cut across the street instead, heading toward the all-night gas station on the corner. There was a lot of light there, and surely they wouldn’t try to shoot him in so public a place.

Assuming, of course, he was able to reach it.

The car roared behind him, and as he cleared the curb and stepped onto the sidewalk, his breathing ragged, his body shouting at him to slow the fuck down, the car pulled up alongside of him and—

—all he could think about was his brother, Manny. Manny getting ambushed by a van full of punks, pulling up alongside him and firing that bullet that changed his life forever.

And at that moment, Vargas knew his brother’s terror.

Then a shot cracked, quickly followed by another. And while the first one seemed to have gone wild, the second one made an impact and Vargas felt himself go down, pain blossoming somewhere in the region of his shoulder and the right side of his neck.

And as he hit the ground—knocking what little wind he had left completely out of him—he heard the squeal of tires and the beefy roar of the car’s engine as it tore away, disappearing around the corner.

Then, for the third time in as many days, everything went black.

59

T
HE MEXICAN WRESTLERS
were back.

He caught only fleeting glimpses of them as they grabbed hold of him and tossed him around as if he were nothing more than an oversized suitcase.

One of them said something to him, but in a language he didn’t understand, and all he could do was groan in response. It must have been enough, however, because the crowd watching them cheered.

Then he was picked up again and tossed around and the next thing he knew there were blinding lights in his eyes and the wrestlers were gone, replaced now by angels in pastel greens and blues.

One of them was rubbing his aching shoulder, and suddenly the pain went away and he was gone again, only to awaken in a hospital bed, surrounded by curtains and the sound of voices and beeping machinery, his shirt and shoes gone, a patch of gauze taped to the space between his neck and his right shoulder, an IV attached to a tube in the back of his hand.

Only then did he remember what had happened and was surprised to discover that he was still alive.

He felt a presence nearby, someone moving around next to him, playing with tubes or wires or buttons or whatever. Then one of the angels appeared in front of him, leaning forward, her pastel blue–covered breasts brushing against his arm as she checked something above him.

He looked up at her and saw an attractive short-haired Asian woman who smelled faintly of lilac.

“Welcome back,” she said.

“Did I go somewhere?”

“You drifted off a few times, but that was mostly because of the medication. The effects should wear off pretty soon.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Not long. The doctor will be in in a moment to fill in the details.”

“Somebody shot me.”

“That’s the general consensus,” she said. “But you got lucky. The bullet went straight through and didn’t manage to do much damage. You lost some blood, but nothing substantial.”

“I can’t feel a thing.”

A soft laugh. She patted his arm.

“You will when the local wears off. But then you probably already know that.” She gestured toward his stitches. “Looks like you’ve had extensive experience in that area.”

She fussed with some of the machinery again, checked the tube in his hand, then turned and reached for the curtain.

“I’ll let the police know you’re awake. They’ll want to see you as soon as the doctor is finished.”

Vargas’s stomach dropped. “Police?”

“They’ve been waiting to talk to you. We have to report all gunshot wounds.”

“What do they look like?”

She frowned at him. A question she hadn’t anticipated. “Look like?”

“Black, white, Hispanic?”

“They look like a couple of bored cops in uniform. What difference does it make?”

Vargas shook his head. “Never mind,” he said. “Thanks for your help.”