Mission Road (Tres Navarre #6)(9)

And I did know. There wasn’t a single doubt in my mind.

But I also knew—given Ralph’s mental state and the mood of the cops—that if I let Ralph go downstairs, somebody was going to die.

“They mentioned Frankie White,” I said.

Ralph nodded, unsurprised. “So you understand why I can’t give myself up.”

“Aw, Ralph—shit.”

“That fire escape work?”

Kelsey’s voice from downstairs: “Navarre?”

“We can’t just run,” I told Ralph.

“There is no ‘we,’ vato. I’m going out that window. I’m going to find the guy who shot my wife. Somebody’s going to pay.”

So simple. So incredibly insane.

The cat stared at me, his eyes half closed, purring contentedly from his allergic friend’s lap. Robert Johnson’s motto: Never abandon a friend as long as you know you’re bad for him.

Footsteps started up the stairs.

Out of time. No options. When in doubt, listen to the cat.

I slid open the window. “I’m driving.”

God or the devil was with us. We were a block away in Ralph’s Lincoln Continental before we heard the sirens.

NOVEMBER 24, 1965

IF SHE’D LEFT FIVE MINUTES EARLIER, she wouldn’t have been his first victim.

But she stayed for one last drink, trying to drown the bitterness of her day.

Above the bar, a black-and-white television played something she’d never seen before—a “Vietnam report.” Ninety thousand American troops had just arrived in this place, halfway around the world. The reporter didn’t explain why.

Around her, working-class cholos showed off for her sake—talking loud, drinking too much, swatting each other with pool cues. The men all looked the same to her with their blue work shirts and their hair like polished wood. They smelled of mechanic’s grease and unfiltered Mexican cigarettes. Their eyes hovered over her like mosquitoes—always there, taking bites when she wasn’t looking.

She shouldn’t have been in the bar. She was old enough to drink, but just barely. She was out of place in her college clothes—her wool skirt and pantyhose, her white blouse. She nursed her fourth beer, thinking about her professor, getting angrier as she got drunker.

That’s when the gringo came in.

Conversation in the barroom died.

The newcomer looked even more out of place than she. He wore a beige Italian suit, a loosened silk tie, a felt hat cocked back on his forehead. A blond Sinatra, she thought—someone straight out of her parents’ record collection.

The regular cholos studied him apprehensively, then went back to their conversations. The way they turned from him, making an effort to pretend he was invisible, made her wonder if the gringo had been here before.

He walked to the bar, ignoring the uneasy stir he’d caused. Men moved out of his way.

He gave no indication of having seen her, but he slid onto a bar stool next to her, placed his hat on the counter. He shook loose a Pall Mall, offered her one.

“I don’t smoke,” she told him.

She did, of course. She wasn’t sure why she’d lied.

He lit his cigarette.

“You drink,” he noticed. Then to the bartender: “Jorge, dos cervezas, por favor.”

The bartender didn’t look surprised to be called by name. He dipped his head deferentially, brought out two ice-cold Lone Stars.

“No thanks,” she said.

The gringo finally looked at her, and she caught her breath. His eyes were startlingly blue, beautiful and distant like stained glass.

“Lady comes to a bar,” he said. “If she isn’t here to smoke or drink, there’s only one other possibility.”

She braced for the inevitable proposition, but he surprised her.

“You got a problem,” he said, “and you need somebody to talk to.”

She studied his face.

How old was he? Mid-thirties, at least. As old as her professor. But so different. He had an aura about him, as if he owned this bar and everyone in it. He was important. Powerful. No man in the bar dared look him in the eye.

He pulled a clip of money from his jacket pocket—a thick wad of twenties—peeled one off carelessly and tucked it under the beer glass.

She couldn’t help feeling impressed. She felt like she was caught in a riptide. An irresistible force was surging around her legs, pulling her toward deeper water.

“You want to tell me about it?” he asked.

“I don’t even know you.”

He grinned. “We can fix that.”

HIS CAR WAS A NEW MERCEDES 230SL, a hardtop two-seater gleaming white. Red leather interior, radio, air-conditioning. The dashboard glowed like hot caramel. She’d never seen a car like this, much less driven in one.

They glided along the dark streets, cutting through neighborhoods she knew well, but from inside the Mercedes everything looked different—insubstantial. She felt as if they could go anywhere. They could turn and drive straight through her old high school and they’d pass through it like a mirage. Nothing could stop them.

“Where are we going?” she asked him.

She tried to sound suspicious. She knew she shouldn’t have gotten into a stranger’s car any more than she should’ve gone to that bar. But something about this rich gringo . . . He treated her presence as a given. As if she deserved to be next to him. As if there were nothing strange about the two of them riding through the South Side in a car that cost more than the houses they were passing.