Southtown (Tres Navarre #5)(54)

Standing over the crib, Barrow’s wife was panicked, her voice desperate: “Christ, Fred. It’s not breathing.”

Sam had tried to forget the rest. He had tried for years.

Now God, with His sense of humor, was answering Sam’s prayer for forgetfulness with a vengeance.

The Barrows had argued. Fred insisted that his wife leave before the police arrive, get the hel away. The two men would clean up.

And they had.

The division of the duffel bags—one each, no discussion. Such a simple matter to haul them downstairs, throw them in the trunk of the car, while Wil Stirman was upstairs bleeding, dying, and the sirens were stil a long way away.

Sam stared at his gun. He was getting farsighted. The match-grade handle pattern was only clear at a ful arm’s length.

His memory was like his vision. He had to hold something at several years’ distance to see it clearly.

Soon, he would be living in an eternal present. He would be unable to remember the beginning of a sentence long enough to reach the end.

He thought about the visit he’d taken, at his doctor’s request.

They needed a decision by Friday. When was that—tomorrow?

Sam could live in that brightly lit room, singing “This Land Is Your Land” with a group of old ladies, his name on a kindergarten tag to remind him who he was.

But he suspected the memory of the reggae music would only get clearer, the face of Irene Barrow as she looked into that crib.

He put his gun away.

There was stil time to decide.

He walked downstairs, out of the abandoned warehouse, remembering the weight of the duffel bag so clearly it made his shoulders ache.

The car parked outside wasn’t his BMW. It was a Chevy Impala, but it had already been hotwired, so Sam took it.

He drove toward downtown, then east, under Highway 281, until a scent caught him—a current, steering him toward the place he needed.

Wil Stirman wouldn’t have gone far from his old home. He would’ve chosen another warehouse, a place very much like the first. Sam had seen something on a video.

Every East Side street held memories for Sam, sunken like land mines. The margarita-green house with the unpainted gables. The chop shop with the tiny American flags stuck on the fence posts. The abandoned lot, its cedar trees tangled with birdhouses and plastic grocery bags, the sidewalk bearded with wild cilantro. Sam had been to al these places. He had saved people, arrested people, discovered bodies. He was tempted to stop at every point, and stare, and try to remember why each was familiar.

But he kept driving.

He was looking for a red-brick building. It would be northeast of the Alamodome, in sight of the spires.

He’d seen it on television.

The Impala rumbled down a desolate stretch of crumbling asphalt cal ed Rosa Parks Way. The name struck Sam as pathetic. He remembered Rosa Parks. Al that civil rights work, and the City Fathers made sure Rosa’s memorial street was the geographic equivalent to the back of the bus.

A few blocks east of St. Paul Square, he pul ed into a gravel lot.

Across the street, next to the Southern Pacific tracks, was a dismal four-story wedge of red brick. The faded black and white paint along the top proclaimed: CARRIZO ICE CO. 1907.

A loading dock wrapped around the building, an aluminum awning frayed and hanging down in pieces.

The square freezer doors were thick wood, spray-painted with orange and blue gang monikers. Some of the windows had been bricked up. Others were boarded, or turned into doors for a fire escape that was no longer there. On the top floor, the windows were stil intact—shiny glass, steel frames.

Sam thought he had the right place. He would have to watch it. He would wait for someone to arrive or leave.

He couldn’t afford to move from this spot. If he did, he might lose his sense of purpose. He’d be swept off into the East Side, hunting memories.

He needed to stay here, and stay focused.

He patted his coat pocket, found a cel phone.

In his vest, he found a crumpled note—the name Tres, and a number.

After a moment’s hesitation, watching a shadow move behind the fourth-floor windows, Sam decided it would be proper procedure to cal for backup.

He looked at his watch: 1:34 P.M.

He dialed the number and got an answering machine. Sam left a message. He gave his position, reading the street sign N. CHERRY from half a block away. No problem with his vision, as long as he was at a distance.

Sam took out his gun and placed it next to him on the seat.

He had been on stakeouts before. He knew how to be patient.

He would wait for an opportunity.

He ignored his thirst, his irritated bowels, his dress shirt col ar cutting into his throat. He ignored al discomfort, though he looked down from time to time, and wondered about the blood drying against his knuckles.

Chapter 18

Maia leaned in the doorway of her condo, casual y holding the Smith & Wesson eight-shot miniaturized cannon that passed for her sidearm.

She said, “You brought batteries, I hope.”

Her ensemble du jour was topped off by a white linen jacket—the summer-weight fashion statement she’d had tailor-made to accommodate the Magnum’s shoulder holster. Breezy, yet lethal.

“Batteries . . .” I looked in my bag of Whole Foods Market picnic supplies, which had seemed perfectly adequate a moment before. “What happened, the laser scope on your grenade launcher go out again?”