Southtown (Tres Navarre #5)(52)

He didn’t know where he was going.

He patted the empty seat next to him, looking for something—notes maybe? A case file?

The more he thought about it, the more anxious he felt, so he decided not to think. Just drive. If he kept the why and where below his radar screen, his instincts would take him where he needed to go.

Stirman, he reminded himself. Will Stirman.

He exited I-10 just before downtown, wove his way through the light industrial district by the Art Museum.

The streets were a patchwork of railroad tracks, greasy rainwater and cement-frosted manhole covers.

He almost stopped at the museum. He managed security there. Maybe that’s where he was heading.

Something about the location, with the name Wil Stirman—something seemed familiar.

But he didn’t stop. He was looking for something he’d seen on television. Something on a videotape.

At Avenue B and Jones, the river had flooded its banks. A steady sheet of green shredded through the cement teeth of the bridge railing. In the swampy woods behind the museum, two young Latinos in black T- shirts and cutoffs were sitting on oil drums, fishing for God-knew-what.

Sam eased his stolen Impala across the bridge.

On the opposite bank was an old plumbing supply business. The storage yard was ringed in razor wire laced with Christmas lights and honeysuckle. PVC pipe was stacked on rotting flats. The two-story building had been imperfectly whitewashed, its boarded-up windows and garage-sized doors painted an odd assortment of olive and turquoise, like a little girl’s face after playing with makeup.

This place didn’t feel right either. It wasn’t what Sam was looking for.

But something about it was familiar.

He parked by the gate.

Sam trusted his nose for locations. His tracking skil s hadn’t left him, any more than his ability to hotwire a car or shoot a gun.

He’d been here before.

He couldn’t remember the names of the people he’d come with, but he remembered their faces with absolute clarity.

A husband and wife, and not very damn happy with each other.

The woman had sat in the back of the car. She had frizzy black hair, sharp features, eyes like chips of volcanic rock. She was scared of her husband—you could see that in the tenseness of her shoulders, the guarded way she spoke. But she was determined, too. She clutched the top of her handbag like it was a grenade pin.

Her husband rode shotgun next to Sam.

Sam didn’t trust the guy. He was a big man, maybe a former boxer. Definitely a drinker. He had puffy eyes and a butterfly rash on his cheeks and nose. Cheap brown suit, a sidearm holstered sloppily at his belt. He had a casual way of tel ing his wife to shut up whenever she tried to speak.

The boxer turned to Sam. “You loaded?”

“What do you think?”

The boxer grinned in an unfriendly way. He was crude, but Sam remembered thinking: a crude tool for a crude job.

The woman said, “I’m going with you.”

The boxer lifted an eyebrow. “You’l stay in the f**king car.”

“I tipped you off,” she insisted. “I got the information.”

“Yeah, you give my informants hand jobs real wel . So f**king what? Come on, Sam.”

“Fred, I’m coming with you,” the woman said.

Fred, Sam thought. That was his name.

Fred tried to stay cool, but Sam could see he was ready to blow up. Sam wanted to warn the wife, for her own safety. He wanted to tel her to hang back. You didn’t make a guy like Fred lose face in front of another man.

The best Sam could do was look away, pretend he wasn’t seeing it.

“Fine,” Fred growled. “You want to come, Irene? Fine. You get shot, don’t cry to me.”

Back in the present, Sam opened his car door. He left the duffel bag in the trunk, and walked toward the warehouse.

The turquoise door wasn’t locked.

Inside were pyramids of cardboard boxes, some stil wrapped in plastic, some gutted by hopeful looters.

The open boxes spil ed bathroom tiles and brass sink fixtures across the floor. Scattered around an impromptu fire pit were dirty clothes, drug paraphernalia, broken lawn furniture.

Metal stairs led up to the second floor. A loft apartment, Sam remembered. He could hear movement above, footsteps trying not to creak.

The boxer had stopped at the top of the stairs. He drew his weapon, gesturing for his wife to stay behind them. Sam’s FBI background gnawed at his gut, reminding him this was not the way to proceed, barreling into a high-risk situation with no backup, no reconnaissance, no plan of attack. Nevertheless, he fol owed the boxer’s lead.

Reggae music pulsed from inside the apartment. There was another sound, too—one Sam couldn’t quite place.

Just as the boxer kicked open the door, Sam realized the sound was a baby crying.

In the present, a scrawny young Anglo said, “Shit!”

He had been creeping toward the apartment door when Barrera busted it open. Now the Anglo kid stood blinking, bleary-eyed in the morning light that peppered down from the holes in the ceiling.

Sam pegged him for a two-bit junkie. He had piss-colored skin, deep bruises under his eyes. He wore smel y thirdhand fatigues. Behind him was a rats’ nest of clothes, empty beer bottles and crack pipes. Al the comforts of home.

Piss-face’s expression was pure cornered-animal. Stil , there was understanding, and fear, as he sized up Sam—a big wel -dressed Latino, clearly some kind of cop. That aura never went away.