She didn’t finish the thought. She didn’t need to.
“Just a couple of hours,” I said. “I’l cal you tonight.”
She looked at Major Cooper, two tables away. She shook her head.
“You didn’t see what Gerry Far looked like when we pul ed him out of the river, Tres.” She slid out from the booth, pul ed on her raincoat. “For Erainya’s sake, don’t wait too long.”
When I got home to 90 Queen Anne, the two-story craftsman was dark except for my little in-law apartment on the side. Rainwater streamed down the driveway, carrying away petals from my landlord’s purple sages and blue plumbagos.
Sam Barrera waited on my stoop in the glow of the porch light. He was catching moths and shaking them like dice.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“It’l cost you.”
Sam studied me.
I tried to remember if I’d ever seen him with a five-o’clock shadow before, or with his tie loosened.
He said, “Cost me?”
“Yes, sir, yes, sir. Two bags ful .”
He released his moth, watched it flutter up the side of the screen door. “So you know.”
In my younger days, I would’ve hauled off and decked him, but I’d mel owed over the years. Now I was perfectly wil ing to breathe deep, thinking rational y, and invest the few extra minutes it would take to invite him inside, find a gun, load it, and shoot him.
“Mi casa es tu casa,” I told him.
I unlocked the front door, just missed stepping on the dead mouse Robert Johnson had left for me on the carpet.
The offending feline sat smugly on the kitchen counter. He had one paw in the middle of his empty food dish. A subtle hint.
“Nice to see you, too,” I said.
I cleaned up the present and fil ed Robert Johnson’s dish with tortil a chips and flaked tuna.
Sam Barrera made the grand tour of my apartment. That takes about thirty seconds. Once you’ve seen the futon and the built-in ironing board and the tai chi sword rack above the toilet, you’ve pretty much seen it al .
“Talk,” I told Barrera. “If I have to ask, the bathroom sword is coming unsheathed.”
Barrera sat down on the futon. He opened that annoying notepad of his.
“Sam, it’s not a lecture,” I said. “Put away the notes.”
“Fourteen mil ion dol ars,” he said, quietly.
I set down the tuna can. “Fourteen mil ion.”
“How much we stole. Yeah.”
My fingers felt numb. I wanted to say that was a hel of a lot of money. Large change. A truckload of kitty nachos. Two big goddamn duffel bags. Al I could say was “Damn.”
“Stirman cal ed an hour ago,” Barrera said. “He wants an exchange for Erainya. Tomorrow night. Any police involvement, she dies.”
“Great,” I said. “That’s fucking great, Sam. So we just hop over to Stop-N-Go with our ATM cards, and we’ve got it covered.”
“I don’t have any money. I used my half to build up I-Tech a long time ago. I don’t know what Erainya did with Fred’s share. She sure as hel didn’t put it into the agency.”
“Erainya’s been scraping for money ever since I’ve known her. She’s got no hidden cash.”
“She had to know.”
I thought about the note to Erainya from H., tel ing her the package from Fred was safe.
“She would’ve turned it in,” I said, trying to believe it. “You should’ve turned it in.”
“We had to take it,” Sam said. “Stirman would’ve paid for the best defense. That kind of cash . . . we didn’t even trust the cops. Stirman had friends in the department, in the state attorney’s office. We didn’t want any chance he’d get off the hook. There was no choice.”
“Doing your civic duty,” I said. “A real self-sacrifice. What about Stirman’s baby, Sam? Was there no choice on that, too?”
His eyes took on the kind of deadness I was used to seeing in victims of violence, or col ared criminals.
“We didn’t mean to,” he said.
Rain rattled at the window screens.
Robert Johnson pushed his food dish around.
I tried to think of something to say—some condemnation strong enough.
The phone rang. I pul ed the ironing board away from the wal .
Sam said, “You’ve got a phone behind your ironing board.”
“You must be a detective.” I reached into the alcove, which had been constructed by some day-tripping carpenter in the sixties, and picked up the receiver. “Tres Navarre.”
Silence.
Then Wil Stirman’s voice said: “Shitty little apartment, Navarre. Can’t she afford to pay you better?”
I snapped my fingers to get Barrera’s attention, but I’d lost him. He was stil staring at the ironing board, trying to come to terms with the phone’s unorthodox location.
“Put Erainya on, Stirman,” I said. “Let me hear she’s okay.”
He ignored my request. “Instructions: I’l cal Barrera’s mobile number tomorrow evening, around midnight.
I’l tel you where to bring the money. You, Sam and Erainya’s boy. Nobody else.”
“You think I’m going to bring Jem anywhere near you, you’ve been locked up in the wrong kind of institution.”
There was a pause I didn’t like at al . “We’l al be better behaved with the kid around. A lot less anxious for the guns to come out.”
There was something about his tone I couldn’t quite nail down. What the hel did he want with Jem?
“Nothing that happened to you was Erainya’s fault,” I said. “It damn sure wasn’t her son’s.”
I looked out the dark windows. Stirman could be on the street right now. Or in the al ey. He could’ve cased my place days ago.
“Mr. Navarre,” he said, “eight years ago there was another mother and child. They hadn’t done anything, either. I won’t hurt the Manoses, as long as you and Mr. Barrow don’t disappoint me.”
“What makes you think the money is stil around, or that I can get it?”
“You’re a resourceful young man. And Mr. Navarre, be smart. If I get indications you have talked to the police, it wil go very hard on you and everyone you care about. And don’t think Austin is far enough away.”
He hung up.
Robert Johnson leapt onto the ironing board. He pushed his back against my hand. I wanted to think he was consoling me. More likely, he was reminding me that he liked dessert after tuna nachos.
“Wel ?” Sam asked.
I told him the details. “How much cash could you raise?”
“If I liquidated everything? Took everything out of savings? I don’t know. Nowhere near three mil ion.”
“Seven,” I said.
“What?”
“Your half was seven mil ion.”
He kept his hand on his notepad, as if it were a railing.
“Right,” he said. “That’s what I meant.”
“Where would Fred Barrow stash his loot?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Sam said. “The money won’t save us. Stirman wil kil her. We have to find him before tomorrow night. We have to get to him first.”
For once, I agreed with him.
“I have to cal Maia,” I said. “I need to tel her . . .”
What?
Sorry, honeybun—the psychopath knows where you live. Don’t forget your AK-47 when you take Jem to the playground.
“We’l figure something out,” Barrera told me. “We’l talk on the way.”
“The way to where?”
“Castrovil e.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“The McCurdy Ranch. I’m supposed to take you there.”
The air thickened around me.
“Sam,” I said, “we already went to Castrovil e . . . this morning.”
He hesitated a couple of heartbeats. “I just meant . . . That’s what I said. This morning.”
I stepped around the ironing board, sat down across from him. “Sam, let me see your notebook.”
He didn’t move.
I took the notebook out of his hands.
Inside, meticulous notes—where Barrera worked, directions to his house, who he had cal ed that day.
Addresses. Phone numbers. Names—his secretary Alicia, Erainya Manos, Wil Stirman. Descriptions of each person. My name, with a small notation: Erainya’s PI. Be careful about him.
“Sam,” I said, “do you know who I am?”
His eyes were watery with frustration. “Of course I do.”
“What’s my name?”
He glanced at his empty lap. “I never forget a name. The whole damn case is in the details.”
“When were you diagnosed, Sam?”
Barrera stared at the wal , his jaw tightening. “I’m fine. They gave me some pil s.”
“Do you remember what happened, the night you took down Wil Stirman?”
A long silence. “There was something . . . something important . . .”
He gazed across the room, helpless.
“We’re going to get through this, Sam.” My voice didn’t sound like my own. “I’m going to help you, okay?”
“I don’t need any help.”
“Are you better in the mornings?”
“Yeah. I’m fine in the mornings.”
“I’m going to drive you home then, and keep your car for the night. I want you to sleep. We’l talk tomorrow.”
“Damn it,” Barrera said. “Goddamn it.”
He pushed away my hand, and got up by himself.
We took our second ride together in his mustard-colored BMW.
As the windshield wipers slashed back and forth, I realized I was going to need other help finding Stirman fast.
I was going to have to cal on an old friend. A friend I’d rarely cal ed for help without somebody ending up dead.
Chapter 15
Just before the news hit the networks, the Guide cal ed Wil from Omaha to warn him.
Luis and Elroy had fucked up.
The Guide had told them to steal a new set of wheels. He didn’t give a shit what kind. Anything from the Target parking lot across the road. A van would be good. Tinted windows, for sure.
It wasn’t a fucking calculus problem.
The Guide told them to fil up with gas and meet him back at the motel. They only had to go, like, two blocks. Shouldn’t have taken them more than fifteen, twenty minutes.
Luis and Elroy ended up boosting a Toyota Sienna—two child seats in the back, the whole floor littered with Cheerios and juice boxes and trading cards. It was parked on the side of the store, nice and secluded.
Doors weren’t locked. Might as wel put a STEAL ME sign in the window.
But did they notice the FOP sticker? Did they know that stood for Fraternal Order of Police? Fuck no.
Apparently what happened, the police officer’s wife came out with her kids, saw her van driving away without her, and cel -phoned her husband. Must have happened that fast, because in a matter of minutes the whole fucking Omaha Police Department knew some stupid shits had stolen an officer’s car, and every unit in the area was closing in.