Southtown (Tres Navarre #5)(27)

“They won’t catch him,” the woman said. “Even if we told them he was here, even if they believed us, Stirman would vanish. He’d be back next month, next year, five years from now. I won’t live like that, knowing he’s out there. I won’t risk my son.”

The coach could probably sense there was more, just as Sam could. The woman, Sam remembered, had never been a good liar. It was one of her professional liabilities.

“What’s on the video?” the coach asked.

“Gerry Far’s execution,” Sam put in. “Stirman’s old lieutenant.”

“One of the men who testified against him,” the coach said.

Sam nodded. The young man was making him uncomfortable. He was a little too intel igent, a little too curious. He was the kind of detective who would dig for the sake of digging, who wouldn’t abide loose ends even when he was told to. If he’d worked for I-Tech, Sam decided, he would’ve been fired long ago— insubordination, breach of policy, something. Sam decided he would never let himself be alone with the coach. The coach would dig into him. He would sense the cracks.

“There were two other witnesses,” the coach said. “What about them?”

“Dimebox Ortiz,” the woman said weakly. “He skipped bail again yesterday. He’l be long gone.”

“And the il egal alien woman?”

“Long gone as wel ,” Erainya said.

“Gloria Paz,” Sam said. “That was her name.”

It bothered Sam that he suddenly remembered that, the same way he’d remembered Erainya Manos had shot somebody in her den. His mind seemed to spit out only the most dangerous facts, like rocks from a lawn mower.

“Ana DeLeon can help us,” the coach said. “I told her I’d come by.”

“You’ve already talked to her?” the woman demanded.

“I haven’t told her anything yet, but she can be trusted.”

“No.” The woman was adamant. “I’l take care of this myself. With Sam, if he’s got any guts. But you can’t go to the police, honey. You can’t do that to me.”

Her tone made the coach hesitate.

The coach put his hand inside the courier envelope. “If Stirman just wanted to kil you, you’d be dead. He’s pressuring you. What does he want?”

“I don’t know,” she murmured.

The coach wasn’t buying it.

Sam wished he could lie for her. He wished like hel he could remember what they were trying to hide.

Most of al , he wished the woman had fired this young man a long time ago. No wonder she did so badly in the business. Never hire operatives who are better than you are.

“I’l wait on talking to DeLeon,” the coach decided. “And you two won’t do anything stupid. That’s the trade-off.”

The woman wiped her nose. “I have to take care of Jem.”

“Austin.”

She winced.

“There’s no one better suited to protect him,” the coach said. “You know that. And Jem likes her.”

He offered Erainya the phone.

Reluctantly, she placed a cal .

“Maia,” she said into the receiver. “It’s Erainya Manos. Yeah, I bet you didn’t. Listen, I . . . Tres and I . . . we have a favor to ask.”

Another minute making arrangements, and the woman hung up.

“I’l take him up in the morning,” she said. “Jem and I can spend tonight at J.P.’s.”

The coach nodded.

He looked at Sam. “One more condition. You tel me what you’re holding back. Now.”

He hadn’t asked Erainya Manos. He had picked out Sam as the weak link, just as Sam would’ve done in his place.

Sam tried to keep the panic off his face. He stared at his notes, but he knew they wouldn’t help him.

Places. He did best with places. This den, for instance. The past had come back to him when he sat here.

He thought about the ax murderer, McCurdy. The ranch near Castrovil e. He remembered something about Gloria Paz, the woman who’d gotten away.

Don’t be alone with the coach, he warned himself. He’ll try to manipulate you.

But Sam needed a delay. Time to remember. He needed a place.

“The third witness,” he said. “You can hear it straight from her.”

That threw the coach off balance. “I thought she was long gone.”

Sam felt the initiative shifting back to him, the way he liked it.

For once, he wasn’t afraid of not remembering.

He was afraid that once he got to the McCurdy spread—once he breathed the evil air of that ranch house again, the stone wal s would tel him more than he wanted to remember, and some of it might be about him.

“I’l pick you up in the morning,” he told the coach. “I’l show you why if you were going to kil anybody, Wil Stirman would be a damn good candidate.”

Chapter 10

“Have to walk a piece,” the deputy told us. He swung open the gate. “Road’s out ’cause of the floods.”

I gave him credit for understatement. The strip of yel ow mud that led into the McCurdy Ranch looked like it had been used for heavy artil ery practice. About a half mile back in the soaked hil s, I could just make out the glint of a metal roof.