Good Day In Hell (2 page)

The girl looked up at the man in black. “Like we agreed?” she asked.

The man nodded. “Yeah.”

The girl handed the gun to the man in black, who stepped over until he was standing with one foot on each side of the body still writhing and flopping on the ground. He looked at the girl, a slight frown on his face. “You’re startin’ early,” he said. He aimed and fired downward. The body beneath him gave one last convulsion and lay still. The man in black stepped over to the counter, where Stan was still rooted to the spot. He pointed the gun at Stan.

“Open the register, kid,” he said.

Stan tried again to speak, but all that came out was a low moan. His hands were apparently smarter than his tongue; they seemed to move of their own accord as he hit the button to open the register. The girl stepped forward and pulled out the cash drawer. She was smiling at Stan. She looked back at the body on the ground.

“I used to fall down a lot myself,” she said. She poured the contents of the cash drawer into her shoulder bag, her eyes still on Stan, that scary smile still on her face. He felt as if his legs would give way any second.

“Roy,” the girl said over her shoulder. “Hand me the gun.” He handed the gun over. She placed the barrel almost gently under Stan’s chin. The barrel was hot, a circle of pain against his flesh. “Hey, Stan,” she whispered. “You want to be famous?”

Stan finally rediscovered words. “Wh … wh … what?”

“We’re gonna be famous,” Roy said. He was grinning. “Yeah,” Laurel said. “And you can come along. If you want.”

“Hey,” Roy said. “That’s not—”

“What about it, Stan?” Laurel interrupted him. “You wanna be famous? We can make it happen.” “Laurel,” Roy said, “we’ve gotta get moving.” “Come with us, Stan,” the girl said. “What have you got here? Some dipshit gas station out in the country? We’re gonna be on TV. In the papers. Books, movies … you name it. Or.” She
looked a little sad. “I can put a bullet in you. Then Roy’ll put a bullet in you, ‘cause we agreed. Your choice. But you need to tell me now.”

Stan swallowed hard. He cut his eyes toward the figure of his stepfather on the ground. It began to dawn on him that he wasn’t going to have to get slapped around anymore. He looked back. The girl saw his eyes and her smile got wider. She lowered the gun. “Okay,” he said.

“You sure you want to do this?” Keller said. He pulled the big car up to the curb and put it in PARK.

“Si” said the brown-skinned man in the passenger seat. He sounded calm, but the way he nervously stroked his thin moustache betrayed him.

“Don’t worry, Oscar. This will be easy,” Keller said. “This guy Olivera’s got no record of violence, he just has a problem with showing up for his court dates. We find him, you explain the situation to him, we bring him back. No problems.”

Oscar Sanchez regarded Keller with no expression in his dark eyes. He spoke with the precise diction of someone who had learned his English in a classroom rather than on the street. “Of course. That is why you have brought a gun.”

“I always do that,” Keller said. “It doesn’t mean I think the guy’s going to get rowdy. It just helps to be prepared. I have an extra one in the trunk if you want it.” Sanchez smiled thinly. “Gracias, but no. I prefer to be just the interpreter.”

“You’re sure you’re okay?”

Sanchez nodded. “I am sure, Jack. I have rested long enough. It is time I made myself useful.”

“Okay, let’s go then,” Keller said as he opened the door. He stood up and tucked a stubby Glock 9MM pistol into the holster at the small of his back. He waited at the curb, looking away uncomfortably as the other man retrieved a dark-colored wooden cane from behind the seat and struggled to his feet. He was in his mid-forties, but the pronounced limp and the cane gave him the look of an older man. Keller slackened his pace to allow Sanchez to keep up. When they reached the door to the small duplex, Sanchez’s face was shiny with sweat and he was breathing hard, as if he had climbed a flight of stairs. Keller knocked on the door. There was no answer. He knocked again.

After a moment, a teenaged girl opened the door. She was barefoot, dressed in a denim skirt and a brightly colored floral blouse. Her skin was the same shade as Sanchez’s, but her eyes were hooded and unfriendly.

“Que?” she said.

“Buenos dias,” Sanchez said. “Estamos buscando Manuel Olivera. Es el casero?”

“No se cualquier persona Manuel nombrado,” the girl said.

“She says she doesn’t know anyone by that name,” Sanchez told Keller.

“Uh-huh,” Keller said.

The girl made as if to close the door, but a boy of about seven or eight forced his way around one of her bare legs and blocked the door open. He stared at the two men in the doorway with grave interest. “Porque usted desea ver el Manuel?” he asked.

The girl made as if to yank him out of the doorway, but the boy evaded her grip with the ease of long practice and shot past her onto the small concrete stoop. “Who are you?” he demanded in English, looking at Keller.

“Ramon!” the girl hissed. “Consiga detras en la casa…”

“My name is Mr. Sanchez,” the man with the cane said to the boy. “You can call me Oscar. My friend here is Mr. Keller. Do you know Manuel Olivera?”

“Sure,” the boy said. “He’s been making out all morning with my ugly sister here.” He raised his voice. “HEY MANUEL!” he yelled. The girl shouted something unintelligible at her brother and tried to slam the door, but Keller stiff-armed it the rest of the way open. He shoved his way past the girl and into the apartment. “You can’t do that!” the girl yelled in English. “You got no warrant!” Keller ignored her. The front door opened into a tiny kitchen and an equally miniscule space that the landlord probably optimistically described as a breakfast nook. Keller moved past them and into the living room. The girl turned to Sanchez, her face dark with impotent fury. “He doesn’t have a warrant,” she said in Spanish.

Sanchez shrugged apologetically and replied in the same language. “He isn’t a policeman.”

Keller found himself in the living room. The only illumination was provided by a color television, which was playing a game show in Spanish. A sagging couch rested against one wall. Beside the couch, a darkened hallway led to the back rooms of the apartment. Keller pulled a pair of handcuffs from the back pocket of his jeans. He drew his gun from the small of his back with his other hand. “Manuel!” he called out. “Come on, man, let’s make this easy on everybody.” According to Keller’s information, Olivera spoke no English, so Keller tried to sound as calm as possible, hoping Olivera would respond to the tone of voice, even if the words meant nothing to him.

It didn’t work. Keller heard the slamming of a door at the far end of the hallway. He plunged into the darkness toward the sound.

What do you mean, he’s not a policeman?” the girl said in Spanish. “Why is he in my mother’s house, then?”

“He works for Manuel’s bail bondsman,” Sanchez said. He leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb to take more weight off his knee. “Manuel missed his court date. If Senor Keller doesn’t bring him back, the bondsman loses the money.” Sanchez took a handkerchief from his back pocket and mopped the sweat from his brow.

“Hey, Mister Oscar,” the boy asked. “What’s wrong with your leg?”

Sanchez hesitated. “Some bad men shot me in it,” he said finally.

The boy’s eyes widened in amazement. “Cool,” he said in English.

There was only one door closed, the one at the end of the hall. Keller stopped short of it. He raised his right knee nearly to his chest, then shot it out parallel to the floor, pivoting on his left leg until his left heel pointed at the door. The heel of his boot smashed the door off its hinges with a shriek of rending wood. The door fell inwards, revealing a narrow bathroom. The window next to the toilet was raised. The room was empty. Keller heard a grunt as a body landed on the ground outside the window. He tried to reach the window, but stumbled on the ruins of the door. Keller cursed as he fell full length on top of the splintered wood. He could hear footsteps outside the window, growing fainter as his quarry got away.

“Did it hurt?” the boy asked. “When the bad men shot you?”

“I hope it did,” the girl said spitefully. She sat down on the stoop and crossed her arms on her knees.

“You shouldn’t be so hateful,” Sanchez told her. “It will put lines on your face.” The girl gave him the finger.

Sanchez heard the sound of running footsteps. He turned toward the sound in time to see Manuel Olivera come tearing around the corner of the house. Sanchez could see the whites of his eyes. He raised his hand as if to signal Olivera to a stop. Then he saw the knife in the other man’s hand.

Keller heard the girl scream outside as he picked himself up off the ruined door. Then there was a sharp crack, like the report of a small pistol. He felt the blood drain from his face. Oscar, he thought. Oh, fuck. I shouldn’t have brought him. I shouldn’t have left him alone. He ran back down the hallway as fast as he could.

When he got back outside, the girl was sobbing, crouched over a prone figure on the sidewalk. Keller saw the glint of a knife in the grass a few feet away. There was blood on the girl’s hands. There was blood on the face of the man on the ground. Keller looked him over, mentally comparing the face to the photograph in his file. It was Manuel Olivera.

“I think he needs a doctor,” a voice said from behind Keller. He turned. Sanchez was standing there, propping himself against the house. He held up a dark piece of splintered wood. “And I need a new cane.”

“You can buy one with your cut of the fee,” Keller said.

Sanchez looked surprised. “My … cut?”

“Why not?” Keller said. “You did the takedown.”

“‘Ey!” the man on the ground said as he sat up. He held a hand to his face. Blood flowed from between his fingers. “That son of a bitch,” he said in heavily accented English. “He break my fucking nose!”

Keller and Sanchez looked at each other. “You said he didn’t speak English,” Sanchez said.

“Outdated information, I guess,” Keller replied. He opened the handcuffs with one hand. “On your feet, Manuel,” he said. “We’ll get you a doctor at the police station.”

“I sue you, son of a bitch!” Manuel said as he staggered to his feet. “I sue your ass off!”

“We’ll make an American out of you yet,” Keller said as he put the cuffs on.

It was being alone in the car that Marie found hardest to get used to. In the city, the usual practice had been to pair up officers for patrols. There had at least been another presence in the car, another voice besides the ones on the radio, even if some of the conversations with her male colleagues had left her gritting her teeth. But the county sheriff didn’t have that kind of manpower, and they had a lot more ground to cover out in the county, so deputies rode alone.

Not that that many people were talking to me by the time I left, she thought bitterly. Not only had she lost her partner, she had had the bad grace to testify to the truth: that Eddie Wesson’s death was due to his own bad judgment. After that, conversations stopped when she walked into the room. She was assigned desk work, since no one would agree to ride with her. After two months of that, she had applied for the job with the county. A large number of deputies had signed up for the National Guard to supplement their meager pay. When the Second Gulf War came, the local guard unit was among the first called up and the sheriff suddenly faced the prospect of nearly a dozen deputies being sent to Iraq to guard convoys instead of patrolling the highways and back roads of the county. The department couldn’t afford to be picky.

“Thirty-five, County,” the radio crackled.

Marie picked up the mike. “Go ahead, County.” “Proceed to the Citgo gas station at 4500 Thurlow Church Road. Possible 10-62.”

It took Marie a second to recall the unusual code.

Then she got it. “Say again, County?”

The dispatcher’s voice remained as flat and unexcited as a computer’s. “Possible 10-62, 4500 Thurlow Church Road. Be advised, EMS and detectives en route.” Marie’s heart raced. 10-62. Homicide. She kept her voice steady as she replied, “10-4.” She hit the switch for the lights and siren and stepped on the gas.

“I ain’t sure I like this, Laurel,” Roy said. His accent had thickened with his agitation. “We had a plan. We ought to stick to it.”

They had driven the few miles through the country to the on-ramp for Interstate 95. They turned south and were quickly caught up in the flow of traffic. Roy turned the radio on low.

“Relax, Roy,” Laurel said. “We just got started a little sooner than we planned. But we was about ready anyway. Besides, look at how much more walkin’ around money we got this way.” She fanned the wad of bills in her hand at him. She looked back at Stan in the backseat. “Thanks, Stan,” she grinned.

Stan felt unreal, as if he were dreaming. The adrenaline shock was wearing off, and he was beginning to shake. “Uh, no problem,” he said.

“Hey, kid,” Roy called back to him from the driver’s seat of the Mustang. “How come your old man had so much cash lying around?”

“He wasn’t my old man,” Stan said automatically.

Roy shrugged. “Whatever.”

“He has … had … a system. If you paid cash, he’d give you a big discount on mechanical work. ‘Cause he didn’t have to claim it for taxes.”