El Gavilan (35 page)

“What?”

Tell steered the mayor under the shade of an exhibitor’s tent. He said, “New Austin’s police department making an arrest—working under the auspices of your administration—would be a huge coup for you and for me.”

“You don’t need to spell that out for me, Tell,” Rice said. “So, again, I ask, why tell me this in confidence and then ask me to spread it around?”

“As you say, Mayor, my present evidence is too scant for prosecution. But if you were to be liberal with the information in the right quarters, in some way and company that wouldn’t result in some kind of slander suit, you might enhance my case.”

“I see,” Rice said. “You aim to force this son of a bitch to react. To maybe incriminate himself or do something precipitous that would allow you to arrest him and build on that.”

“Something like that,” Tell said. “Hell, anything would do. I just want to take this bastard out before he rapes or kills again.”

“Any hesitation I have about doing what you suggest stems from the fact I really like you. You’re an asset to me. And having met this woman who plans to marry you … ?”

“She’s out of harm’s way,” Tell said.

“But what of you?”

“I’m vigilant,” Tell said.

“Right …” The mayor said, “You’re sure? Really sure you want to me to set this in motion?”

“Dead sure.”

“Wish you’d chosen your words more judiciously just there,” Mayor Rice said. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

“Any idea who you’ll tell?”

“My opposite number in Vale County, Mayor John Fitzgerald of Janssenville. He’s very tight with Walt Pierce. I’ll be seeing him later this evening. We’re judges for the New Austin Latino ‘Little Princess’ contest.”

* * *

Shawn pushed the power button of the new laptop the hospital had found for him. When it powered up, with his left hand, he pulled down the Applications menu and opened Microsoft Word.

Across the room, Billy Davis said, “Going okay for you, brother?”

Shawn shot him a thumbs-up with his left hand.

“Give ’em hell, Shawn,” Billy said.

Shawn winked and typed: “A Portrait of Law Enforcement Incompetence.”

* * *

Able pushed his new couch to its third position in the sitting room. “Better?”

“Perfect,” Sofia said.

“I can see it—your vision, I mean.” Able slapped Amos’s back. “Once my painter here gets this room finished, it’s going to look great.”

Able’s cell phone vibrated. Two callers were listed on his missed calls log. The first was from Tell Lyon. The other was from Walt Pierce. Pierce rarely made direct calls. Able decided to return Walt’s call first, figuring to get the potentially bad news out of the way first.

* * *

Tell was watching a talent show. Eleven- to fifteen-year-old girls were taking their best swings at lip-syncing and dancing to Shakira singles. Tell told himself he wouldn’t let any daughter of his participate in such a contest. He felt his cell phone vibrate in his left breast pocket.

He checked the caller ID panel: Patricia. He said, “So you’re okay?”

“Wonderful,” Patricia said, calmer-sounding now. “We’re fine. Of course I wish you were here.”

Tell said, “No more signs of gangs? I mean, apart from the ones you two cowboyed off the road?”

“
Nada
,” Patricia said. “All is well. How are
you
?”

“Frustrated,” Tell said. “Nothing is going to plan.”

“Your voice carries,” Patricia said. “Chris says he’s offering a last time to come out and bunk with you. He’s been reading old Louis L’Amour paperbacks in what he calls ‘an unseemly spasm of sentiment.’ Citing ‘contrition,’ he says he feels like you and he should ‘do an Earp’ on New Austin.”

“That’s Chris’s synonymous terms for a ‘killing floor,’” Tell said. “Let Chris know I’m going for subtle, or else I’d take him up on that offer. We haven’t budgeted body bags in bulk this year.”

Patricia said, “Chris says that ‘subtle’ would be a first from you.”

“He should talk, after shooting out tires,” Tell said. “But, no, I’m fine. Really. Plans aren’t going right, that’s all.”

“I so wish you were here. Then it would be perfect.”

“I wish I was too,” he said.

“So you and
El Gavilan
shut this thing down, now, right? End this and get to me, Tell. Our future is right here.”

* * *

Shawn typed with his left hand, picking out characters:

“It’s time to take it all back from them.

“Since my last column, I’ve been falsely accused of a terrible crime and I’ve been fully exonerated.

“Upshot: The cops can’t be trusted.

“Since my last column, I was nearly beaten to death by Mexicans.

“Upshot: Illegals are killing our city.

“These Mexicans beat me with impunity. Beat me so badly I can no longer speak or have children.

“As I lay in my hospital bed—missing most of my teeth, missing my kneecap and rendered infertile … missing most of my nose—as I lay here in bed, I was attacked by another Mexican. I was attacked in my sick bed because of the incompetence of the Horton County Sheriff’s Department, and New Austin police who didn’t have the brains to post a guard on me. Because of that, this Mexican strutted into my room and broke the middle finger of my right hand. So I slowly type this short column with my left hand.

“I indict Able Hawk for not seeing that I’m protected.

“I indict New Austin police chief Tell Lyon for not seeing that I’m protected.

“I live in New Austin. I edit New Austin’s newspaper of record. Yet I’ve learned I can be attacked in my hospital bed by some illegal scum.

“With all these young illegal Mexican gang members running amok, how safe can any of you be in your own homes?

“I repudiate Able Hawk for hypocrisy; for talking a big game, then taking an illegal into his own family.

“I repudiate New Austin police chief Tell Lyon and the politician who hired a Border Patrol thug with no prior municipal policing experience or training—a vicious incompetent.

“I urge you to think hard when making your vote this November. I urge you to vote for
change
. We don’t need the likes of these losers. We need change, and we need hope.

“And I say it’s time to take it all back—to drive out all these illegal Mexicans. Arrest them, deport them—I don’t care which. These taco munchers have to go before they foul our city further. That’s the bottom line.”

THEN

Bing Crosby crooning on the radio: “White Christmas,” then a jaw-dropping duet with David Bowie on “The Little Drummer Boy.”

Their Christmas plans had changed; Marita’s mother had come down with a virus, so Marita had decided to stay home the extra couple of days. She’d wait for Tell to finish his hellish work week, then together they would drive to her folks’ home for the holiday. Burl Ives on the radio now: “Holly Jolly Christmas.”

“You’ve been parked on that station for a week,” he said.

“It’s wall-to-wall to Christmas music,” Marita said. She stroked his cheek and said, “I love this season.
Feliz Navidad
, sweetheart.”

“And to you,
mi corazón
.”

Marita was finishing packing his lunch; Claudia was sleeping in.

Tell said, “She’s still out? She never sleeps this late.”

“It was staying up late last night to watch ‘
Rudolph
,’ I think.” Marita folded down the top of the lunch bag and taped it closed.

“I hope that TV special didn’t give her nightmares,” Tell said, watching Marita and wishing he had an extra hour. “I was four, maybe five when I first saw
Rudolph
on TV. The Abominable Snowman terrified me.” Christmas—it didn’t feel that way out here in the West for a Midwest boy, not even after several years. The holiday had felt hollow since he’d left Ohio with its cold and snow and all the seasons in all their fury.

Marita bit her lip, thinking. “I don’t remember that monster doing that to me. Mostly, I remember thinking Santa Claus seemed very mean in that one.” She smiled. “Last night didn’t change my mind about any of that.”

He smiled back, shook his head. He looked up at the ceiling. “I should go up there and say good-bye. She hates it when I don’t do that.”

“Just try to be home early tonight instead,” Marita said. “She sleeps lightly, like you. I don’t want her taking a nap today or she’ll be up late again tonight, and I have
other
plans for us.” Marita began to fill his thermos—his most recent Father’s Day gift. “You
will
be home early, won’t you?”

“I aim to be.” He always did
aim
for that. Maybe tonight he could really pull it off. After all, they had Angel Valenzuela on the run; his organization was in tatters.

There was already more talk of another promotion in the offing for Tell. He hadn’t confided that to Marita yet; he didn’t want to get her hopes up. The position also opened up the possibility of relocation. Of course none of those prospects offered the possibility of snow, either.

Tell stared at their Christmas tree—something he’d assembled a week ago. He thought again of home. Ohio, often as not, offered at least a dusting of Christmas morning snow.

Marita hoisted his thermos. “You want some cream in this?”

“Not this morning. I’ll take it black, please. Going to be a long day and I need to stay sharp.”

Sharp? By noon his hands would probably be shaking. His skin would be itching. He’d been running on high-test java for at least two weeks.

“Think you might have time to hit the mall? I have Claudia’s Christmas list.”

Marita’s car was in the shop … and anyway, they were between babysitters.

Tell took the folded sheet of paper as she kissed him. He stuffed the letter to Santa in his shirt pocket. Later, he’d throw it away, still never having read it. He couldn’t bear to see what his little girl dreamed of finding under that artificial tree.

Marita kissed him, said, “Remember, try to come home early tonight.”

“I will. I swear.”

Marita said, “Isn’t the Christmas season wonderful?”

She had always lived in the southwest, never even seen snow in person. Little Claudia had pointed at all that white stuff on TV last night and asked, “What
is
it?”

At least he wouldn’t have to try to explain to her how Santa could get into a house with no chimney.

Tell kissed Marita a last time. He said, “Please tell Claudia I wanted to say good-bye.”

He let himself out quietly. The engine on the Crown Vic rolled over; he’d had to turn in the SUV for reissue to some incoming field agent. He backed out, simultaneously fiddling with the radio. He settled on Mickey Newbury’s “Let Me Sleep.”

His mind full of work, he missed seeing Claudia waving to him through the living room picture window.

FIFTY

It was half past nine and Tell was watching a young man trying to upend a Coke bottle by lifting it at the neck with a rubber ring secured to a string dangling from a wicker stick. It wasn’t enough just to get the Coke bottle upright. The bottle also had to be brought into standing position within a circle painted on the wooden platform supporting the bottle.

The game, like most carnival games, was rigged. Tell thought about calling the operator on his scam, but decided against it. He’d chosen a bigger battle, or rather, it had chosen him.

Tell checked his watch: ten
P.M.
One more hour to go.

There had still been no contact with Able Hawk. That worried Tell.

He had reached one of Able’s deputies and put in a request that Horton County post a guard on Shawn O’Hara. The deputy instead arranged for Shawn to be quartered with another recuperating Horton County deputy.

Shawn was moved into a shared room with Deputy Troy Marshall, who had been shot in the leg arresting Shawn’s chief attacker. Marshall was already ambulatory—“Marine tough” as his co-worker put it.

And Marshall was eschewing pain medication. The deputy who spoke with Tell said he would therefore run Marshall’s sidearm to the hospital. “It’s win-win,” he told Tell. “Who better to watch this reporter than his ex-Marine-turned-sheriff’s deputy bunkmate?”

Tell agreed and asked the deputy if he had heard from his superior.

The deputy said, “Nah, Sheriff Hawk’s been scarce. Kind of unusual, although since his grandson married, everything has been kind of unusual, I guess.”

Tell made a last circuit of the festival grounds. As he walked around the fair, he rubbed his naked ring finger, thinking of Patricia. He imagined that she’d probably be sitting out on the back porch with Chris and Salome, talking about their hypothetical cabin’s construction.

He watched the twirl and blur of the carnival. The field was full of fireflies and they looked like little bits of lights flung free from the Ferris wheel and merry-go-round. The air smelled of sugar, popcorn and sweat.

The last band was playing “
La Pistola y el Corazon
.” He checked his watch again: a quarter to eleven and everything was quiet. He headed back to his command cruiser, wary of tails. But he saw no one, friend or otherwise.

Time to bag it, he thought.

As he pulled into the parking lot of his apartment complex, Tell thought about where he would sleep. He still had his own apartment. And the prospect of sleeping alone in Patricia’s place, in her bed—
their
bed—depressed him.

Tell keyed himself into his own place and cranked up the AC He stripped and showered and climbed naked into bed, tucking his gun under the adjacent pillow before quickly falling asleep.

* * *

They were parked in the back lot of the high school, up against the football field, sitting with the lights off.

Able Hawk sat in the passenger seat of Walt Pierce’s cruiser, staring off into the dark. It was drizzling now and raindrops trailed down the windshield and pattered softly against the roof. The windows of the cruiser were cracked and the air smelled of rain and earthworms.

Walt said, “I’ve got you and your grandson nailed on manufacturing and selling false driver’s licenses. That’s a
federal
felony, as you well know, Hawk. A Homeland Security beef. But more than prosecuting you myself, I’ll hand you up to the fucking ACLU for an ass-reaming of unending vigor. I watched your grandson play ball on that field many times, Able. Remember when we’d come and watch Friday night games? Who’d have thought I’d be the one to have to put him in prison? If you survive your sentence, you’ll come out, oh, I figure about eighty. Your grandson will be long past his prime too.”