Mission Road (Tres Navarre #6)(31)

“People are looking into it,” Etch said. “Last week, Sergeant DeLeon. Now other people are stirring things up.”

Roe’s eyes narrowed. “And?”

“Maybe the person who did the crime should be nervous.”

He offered Roe the slip of paper he’d printed out.

Roe read the information. He moistened his lips, stared at the crucifix above the altar. “Lieutenant . . . what exactly do you want?”

“Loose ends are difficult, Titus. That old gun of yours, for instance—if it should ever be found, come to the attention of the DA . . .”

Titus shivered. “I’m trying to go straight, Lieutenant. If this is some kind of test—”

“It’s absolutely a test, Titus. I need a solution. I need to retire next month, understand? And when I do, your problems retire with me. You’ll have nothing to worry about but selling paletas and dating the T-shirt girl.”

“I—I can’t.”

“You can,” Etch told him. “You’ve got no choice. Now memorize that paper and light a candle with it, you understand?”

Etch left him in the pew. When he looked back, Titus Roe was praying almost as if he meant it.

ETCH DROVE NORTH.

He passed Hildebrand, turned into Olmos Park, past Guy White’s mansion on Contour. A mile further into the basin, he passed the wooded ridge above the dam where Lucia and he had once sat talking, the whole city spread below them, bloodred in the sunset.

Cops weren’t supposed to fall in love on the job. They weren’t supposed to break the law, or hate criminals, or kill, either.

Etch had tried to follow the rules.

He’d failed miserably.

After Lucia died, he’d thrown himself into the career track. He made lieutenant, just like she said he should.

The higher he rose in the department, the more he realized that professional ethics were like Kevlar vests. Cops wore them only because they were required to. They were supposed to be good for you, but what beat cop hadn’t slipped off the damn vest once in a while, just to get rid of the scratchy hot confinement?

Etch vowed never to forget what had happened to Lucia.

He’d do whatever he had to. The truth could never come out.

He drove across the dam and parked downhill on the utility road.

Late afternoon, the sky was dark and cloudy. Cold seeped into the car the moment he cut the engine. Through the trees, he saw the deck of the house, the windows glowing large and yellow like the eyes of an enormous predator.

He got out of his car and opened the trunk.

IN AN ALLEY BEHIND SAN FERNANDO Cathedral, Titus Roe opened his ice cream cooler.

He moved aside boxes of banana paletas until his fingers hit cold metal—the Colt .45 he had promised himself never to use.

He unfolded the paper Lieutenant Hernandez had given him and read the information again. Two addresses. One in town, one in Austin. The car’s make and color, with a license plate. A bad printout of a driver’s license photo and the woman’s name.

He folded the paper and put it back in his pocket.

He looked up at the rose window.

Retirement, he thought. One month and the bastard will stop hounding me.

He decided to start with the local address, go from there.

He muttered a silent apology to God and to the woman he didn’t even know.

Maia Lee.

ETCH HERNANDEZ UNLATCHED THE LONG BLACK case and assembled the pieces.

He tried the scope, saw nothing for a moment but fuzzy leaves. Then he readjusted the lens and saw Jaime Santos standing on his porch, still drinking his atole and watching the clouds.

How could the old man stand the cold?

Go inside, Etch thought.

But the old man stood his ground.

Santos had sold out an officer. He would be dangerous in court. Whatever happened now was his own damn fault.

Etch murmured Lucia’s name. He was hollow, nothing else inside him except her memory.

He lined the X-hairs on the old man’s chest, and exhaled as he squeezed the trigger.

Chapter 8

“ARE YOU SURE THIS TIME?” I ASKED.

“Yeah,” Ralph said from the front seat. “That’s the bastard.”

Nothing is more embarrassing than siccing the mob on the wrong person. Ralph’s eyesight may have been laser-corrected, but thirty minutes ago at the Poco Mas Bar he’d mistakenly identified a burly Latino with a peroxide red buzz cut as one of the thugs who’d jumped him the night before.

We’d unleashed Madeleine White and watched the alleged thug get reduced to hamburger meat over the hood of the limo. The whole time, he swore up and down he didn’t know anybody named Zapata. Finally Ralph realized we’d screwed up.

We left the poor dude sixty bucks for a new shirt, called an ambulance and scrammed.

Now, after three more conversations with my street friends and several twenty-dollar bribes, we were parked across Roosevelt Avenue from Mission San José, watching another burly redheaded Latino order a burrito at Taco Shack #3. The dilapidated look of the place made me wonder what had happened to Taco Shacks #1 and #2. I imagined they were turning into fossil fuel in the sedimentary layers below.

I squirmed in my new black suit.

A hot shower with scented soap and designer shampoo hadn’t changed the feeling that I’d washed myself in grease, using a mobster’s bathroom. My borrowed silk slacks were too tight in the crotch. The shirt collar was stiff with starch. Sitting in the back of the limo with Madeleine White, I felt like I was on my way to the mafia prom.