Southtown (Tres Navarre #5)(26)

“Did I do anything to you, Gerry?” Stirman was saying. “Did I deserve this?”

“I’m sorry, Will,” Gerry Far whimpered. “I’m sorry.”

“Was I innocent?”

“You were innocent. It was their idea. Their idea.”

“You hear that, Sam?” Stirman asked. “You tell Fred’s widow—she’s not off the hook either. Forty-eight hours.”

That’s when the woman opened the desk drawer and took out the gun.

Barrera didn’t think she would shoot him. Then he flashed on a memory—she had shot someone, hadn’t she? In this very room. Her husband.

How had he known that?

“Gerry,” Stirman said. “Tell them I’m serious.”

“You’re serious, sir,” Gerry said. “You are f**king serious.”

“I think they need proof.” Stirman pressed the muzzle of a gun to the man’s temple.

Gerry Far blinked furiously, his lips trembling.

Just as Sam was about to watch him die for the fifth time, the woman raised her own pistol and blew out the television screen. Glass cracked. Electronic innards sparked.

The woman ripped the video from the machine and started tearing out long silky loops of ribbon.

Two men burst into the den.

“Erainya?” The older of the two men stared at the gun, then at Barrera, accusingly, as if Sam had done something wrong. “What the hel ’s going on?”

He was a gray-haired Latino in an expensive blue suit. Soft hands, gold school ring, silver pen in his lapel pocket. Sam pegged him for a doctor. His accent was buried deep under years of affluence, but Sam recognized it—Southtown Spanish. A local boy, a self-made vato, like Barrera himself.

The woman said, “Everything’s fine, J.P. Just go. Tres, you, too.”

The younger guy was in his mid-thirties, Anglo, dark-complexioned, jeans and a white American flag T- shirt that said YMCA COACH.

Barrera had seen this guy before.

He was a PI. He worked for Erainya. She’d just said his name, but Sam hadn’t been prepared to catch it.

“Put the gun down, Erainya,” the coach said. “Jem’s taking a nap.”

She threw the pistol on the desk, which gave her two free hands to better destroy the videotape. She cracked it across the edge of the TV, wrapped it in a section of newspaper, tossed it into the fireplace. She took a box of matches off the mantel.

From a professional point of view, Sam was thinking this was a highly inefficient way of destroying evidence. Acid would be better. Or a wood chipper.

The doctor was stil glowering at him. Must be her boyfriend, Sam figured. Meanwhile, the young coach was zeroing in on the important stuff—the battered courier’s envelope, the video in the fireplace, Barrera’s notepad.

He tried to read Barrera’s expression.

Good luck, Sam thought.

Sam calmly picked up his pen and wrote, YMCA Coach. Erainya’s PI.

He underlined it. He’d had a run-in with this guy in the past. He was sure of that.

The woman crouched by the fireplace, striking matches. She lit the corners of the newspaper.

The coach scooped up the woman’s gun, unloaded it. “Videotape won’t burn that way.”

She said, “I know what I’m doing.”

“Erainya, we need to talk. Jem’s al right. He’s fine. But we had a visitor at school.”

Her eyes blazed. Sam was suddenly glad the coach had taken her gun.

“J.P.,” she said, her voice tight, “would you check on Jem, please?”

The doctor started to come toward her. “Erainya . . .”

“Please, J.P. Go see about Jem. I’l only be a minute.”

Sam could tel the doctor wasn’t used to feeling unwanted. He swal owed, nodded reluctantly, then closed the door on his way out.

“Al right, what happened?” the woman demanded.

The coach told them about Wil Stirman visiting the school soccer field, trying to take Jem.

Sam took notes—put a question mark after the name Jem. The woman’s son?

“Stop that,” the woman snapped.

Sam looked up, realized she was talking to him.

“Put away the damn notebook,” she said. “You should have kil ed Stirman when you had the chance. You and Fred couldn’t even do that right.”

“We weren’t out to kil anybody,” Sam said. He felt pretty confident it was the truth.

The woman rose. “We are now. We have to find Stirman.”

The flue of the chimney must’ve been closed. The smel of burning paper and melted tape fil ed the room.

A rag of ash sailed past the woman’s head.

The coach said, “You seriously think the two of you can track him down alone? You think you could pul the trigger?”

Judging from the woman’s expression, Sam thought he could answer the second question.

“You’re not thinking straight,” the coach said. “Cal the police.”

The woman slapped the air. “I can’t.”

“No police,” Sam agreed.

The coach picked up the courier envelope. There was nothing inside. No sender’s address. Sam Barrera’s office address had been typed.

“You refused police protection,” the coach said. “You knew Stirman was coming. Now he’s threatening Jem. And you won’t cal the police. Why?”