The Searcher (20 page)

H
ECTOR
R
ODRIGUEZ
A
LVARADO
—“E
L
D
IABLO
”
BEHIND HIS BACK
, “P
APA
Tío” to his face—sat in the center of a semicircular desk that resembled a huge bagel with a bite taken out of it. It was lined with flat-screen monitors, seven in total—one for each deadly sin, someone had once said. Right now they were displaying a stock chart, an Arizona news station, and an article on the Forbes Web site detailing how Hector “Papa Tío” Alvarado had made it onto that year's list of billionaires again. The rest of the screens were filled with photographs blown up and arranged like exhibits at a gallery, blue tattoo lines on dead flesh; numerals; outlines of guns; a pale man with a red burn on his arm; and a blackened skull in the rain, the metal plate shining out of the shadows. He selected this photo and sent it to the printer then rolled his chair back from the bank of screens and stood up slowly.

His knees cracked as they straightened and he leaned back to stretch the tension from his spine and walked stiffly over to where the printer was steadily spooling out the picture on a full sheet of paper. He opened one of the drawers in the unit beneath it, selected one of
the cell phones inside, then switched it on and peered through the slats in the blinds at the dry, rocky world outside.

His compound stood on a steep hill in the Sierra Madre Mountains, fifty miles from the U.S. border, impossible to approach without being spotted and therefore easy to defend. It was also windy as hell, the grit-filled wind howling in the roof timbers and making it sound like the whole place was haunted. It had been Tío's home for the last eight years, ever since he had gotten sloppy and ended up in a jail cell that he'd had to expensively bribe his way out of. He'd gone into hiding after that and this had become his bolt-hole, a kind of freedom, but one that looked and felt like captivity.

He took in the dim, double-garage-size space that had become his world, the screens, his eyes and ears on the world beyond. He lit upon the one showing the news channel. It was still broadcasting live from the desert, rain pouring down and steam floating up. Happy, soot-streaked faces waving at the camera as it flew overhead. His son had died and these people were happy. It made him want to go there and stab them all in the face.

The printer went silent and he picked up the photo and stared into the empty eye sockets of the skull. He remembered the hate he had seen in those eyes the last time he had been with Ramon. It had been a while back, a few months, after some trouble he could not now remember. He tried to remember the last thing he had said to his son, something angry no doubt. He couldn't remember. It hadn't always been that way. They had been close until Ramon turned seventeen and was beaten up so badly he ended up with the plate in his head and an addiction to strong painkillers that eventually progressed to heroin. Ramon blamed him for that, and he was right to. If Ramon had not been Tío's son, none of it would have happened. And now he was dead, just like his sisters. All his children dead.

He checked the battery and signal on his phone, took one last look at the room he had spent much of the last eight years in, and flicked the master switch on the wall. The seven screens blinked to black and the happy faces of the fire survivors vanished. It was as easy as that—flick a switch and they all disappeared. He could do that for real, had done it many times, sitting here, staring at these screens, but he didn't want to do that now. Not this time. This time he wanted to do more than send out orders and wait for results. This time his family had been hurt, so it was down to him to avenge them personally.

He took down a battered Western Express cattleman hat from a hook on the wall and from his shirt pocket took an old pair of sunglasses with rainbow lenses like oil spilled on water and slipped them over his eyes, opened the door, and stepped outside.

The sunlight was nuclear after so long in the gloom. The heat was brutal too, as if the whole world was warming up and getting ready to burn. He smiled at this thought and walked out into the sunlight. Two men sprang from the shadows and hurried over, making a big show of scanning the surrounding hills for movement while their hands rested on the stocks of their M60 machine-gun pistols.

“Get the car and load some full gas cans in the back,” he said.

The guards looked at each other, puzzled, then one scurried off toward an outbuilding while the other stayed close and checked for intruders who couldn't possibly be there, given the small army of guards patroling the wider perimeter, and the minefields and Claymores lining the roads leading up to the compound.

He had tried for years to have more kids. God knows he had fucked enough
putas
to seed a whole dynasty, but that, in the end, had been his problem. The life he had led when he was younger and the women who inhabited it were from the street, same as he was, their bodies and youth just another form of currency that, like all coin, got
dirty from too much handling. He had caught about everything going and been proud of the fact, like it was proof of what a man he was. He had three kids too, further proof of his virility, and had thought that was plenty. He had a son to hand his empire on to when the time came, and that was all he needed.

It was only later in life, after his relations with Ramon had soured, that he spotted a pretty girl on a TV singing contest, bought his way into her heart with record contracts and diamonds, and discovered the cycle of infection and cure, infection and cure, had burned away any ability he had to father more children. And now the three he'd had were all dead. His bloodline had ended and his name would die with him.

“Wait here,” Tío said, then pushed through the sun-gnarled door of a barn with a tortured shriek of old hinges.

The inside was dark and stifling and smelled of oil and trapped heat and dust. The windows were covered with boards that leaked sunlight through thin cracks that slashed through the darkness and threw light on two figures slumped on their knees in the center of the space. They were tied by their wrists with climbing rope and hanging from the central roof beam, their arms raised above their drooping heads as though they were silently pleading with God for a forgiveness they had little chance of getting. Their clothes were ripped, their jeans and shirts wet with dark blood. The faces of two young women looked down at them like angels in the dark, blown-up photographs that accentuated the family resemblance to their father.

Tío pulled off his shades and blinked away the darkness as he walked around the edge of the floor, keeping close to the walls and avoiding the middle where the men were. The tin roof ticked above him and threw down so much heat it felt like someone had lit a fire on it.

“Man, it's hot in here,” Tío said to the darkness, and took a five-gallon container down from the shelf. “But I'll tell you something,” he said, unscrewing the cap and walking over to the far wall, “hell will be hotter.” He placed the container on the ground and pushed it over with his foot.

Fuel spread across the hard dirt floor, fouling the air with its fumes, and a moan rose up from the center of the room, followed by panicked breathing. It sounded wet and wheezy, the man's broken nose and the tape over his mouth making it hard for him to catch his breath.

“You smell that?” Tío said, taking down another can and unscrewing the cap.

The rapid breathing intensified. One of the men had lifted his head a little and was staring over at Tío out of one eye. The other was swollen shut. The second guy still hadn't moved. Maybe he was dead. Lucky for him if he was.

Tío took a step forward and splashed fuel over the conscious man, who flinched then yelped as the jagged edge of a broken rib sawed at swollen flesh inside him. Tío threw more fuel over him, splashing the other man too, who still didn't move. The conscious man was hyperventilating now, his eye wide and staring as he pulled at his bindings, ignoring the pain that came from it.

Tío emptied the can and threw it at them. It struck the unconscious man on the head and he grunted but didn't rouse. Tío smiled. He wasn't dead after all. The conscious man continued to freak and Tío watched, enjoying his frantic attempts to pull free, knowing each move must be agony with all the damage he'd done to him. It didn't take long for him to wear himself out. He looked up at Tío, blood and snot blowing in and out of his ruined nose, knowing what was coming.

“You're Raoul, right?” Tío asked. The man nodded. “You know
what happened to Ramon after you dropped him off at the airfield, Raoul? You know what happened after you packed him away on that old plane and called whichever fucking scumbag had promised you money or pussy or whatever fucking thing you thought you wanted more than the painful and horrible death you're going to get?”

The man shook his head fiercely, his open eye wide and pleading. A sound squeezed out from behind the tape on his mouth.

“What's that? You didn't sell him out, that what you telling me?”

The breathing faster. The head nodding.

“You sure about that?” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a box of matches and shook them.

Raoul reacted as if an electric current had passed through him. He yanked hard on his bindings again, rubbing flesh from his wrists and shaking dust from the roof. Tío took the phone from his pocket, tapped an icon of a fly, and selected a number from a list. Raoul was crying now, a wheezing, mewling noise that sounded like a whimpering dog. Tío stepped forward and ripped the tape from his mouth. “Anything you want to say, Raoul? Anything you want to tell me?” He threw the bloodied tape aside and dialed the number he had selected.

Raoul gulped air and shook his head. “Idindoit,” he said, his swollen mouth turning the words into one sound. “Idindonothin.”

Tío put the phone on speaker. “You swear that, Raoul?” The phone rang, the sound of it echoing in the dark space. “You swear it on your mother's life?”

“
Bueno
?” a woman answered.

Raoul howled when he heard his mother's voice. “Mamá!” he called out, but Tío cut her off before she could hear.

Raoul slumped down, sobbing, his body wracked with pain, his spirit broken. Tío put the phone away and took a single match from the box.

“You believe in heaven, Raoul?” He struck the match and it flared
in the dusty dark. Raoul stared up at the tiny flame burning above him. Nodded slowly.

“That's good,” Tío said, turning the match in his fingers and watching the flame grow. “But if you believe in heaven, you also got to believe in hell, no?”

He flicked the match and it arced through the air. Raoul screwed his eyes shut, anticipating the whoosh of fire. He didn't see the match land in the spreading puddle of fuel and snuff out with a barely audible small hiss.

“Well, would you look at that,” Tío said, his head cocked to one side and staring down at the blackened twist of match floating in the fuel. “A miracle. God must have spared you for a higher purpose.”

Raoul gulped air, his mouth hanging open, blood drooling thickly down from it. Tío laughed, a great hoot that rang inside the confines of the cabin. “It's diesel, ya moron, you can't set light to diesel with a match. You need to heat it up or pressurize it first, get some fumes going, then it burns real good.” He turned back to the shelves and started hunting through the boxes of supplies, looking for something. “The other thing that works is a wick.” The sound of ripping plastic cut through the gloom and Tío turned around, holding up a large roll of paper towels. “This'll work.”

He unwound a few sheets then stuffed them into the central tube so the whole thing resembled a huge candle. “Diesel got a real nice steady burn, not like gasoline that'll blow up in your face and burn itself out quick. Diesel will burn long and slow and hot and leave nothing behind but ash.”

He crouched down and dipped the wick into the diesel, turning it slowly to let the fuel soak in. “If you want to get rid of anything and leave no trace, diesel is what you use. Aviation fuel is a lot like diesel, did you know that?”

Raoul was hyperventilating again and a strange noise came out of
him. “Idindonothin,” he said again between panicked breaths. “Idindonothin.”

Tío placed the diesel-soaked roll of towel upright in the puddle of fuel and struck a fresh match. “You know what?” he said and touched it to the wick. “I believe you.”

He stood back, watching the yellow flame creep down the paper and start spreading over the main roll. He moved over to where the photographs of his daughters were hanging from nails in the wall, took them down, and grabbed a couple more gas cans. Then he put his shades back on and stepped out through the door with another tortured shriek of dry metal.

Outside, the two guards were waiting by a white Explorer with its engine running. One was behind the wheel, the other standing by the open passenger door, still holding his M60 and checking the empty hills like a moron.

A shrill scream pealed out from the building and the guard's eyes flicked toward it. Smoke was starting to seep through the cracks in the door, but Tío didn't see it. He was taking his last look at the group of shacks, the center of his vast empire that turned over more money each year than most countries. It had taken him a lifetime to build and it was all for nothing. He was still living in a house not much bigger than the one he had been born in. He thought of all the smiling faces he had just seen on the TV screen, people who genuinely did have nothing—nothing except their lives and their freedom.

“Where to, boss?” the driver called out.

“America,” Tío replied and got into the back of the Jeep.

“Land of the free. Land of Redemption.”

T
HE SWAMPY ODOR OF THE INTERVIEW ROOM HIT
H
OLLY THE MOMENT
Donny McGee opened the door for her. He pointed at one of the chairs, the one reserved for suspects, and metal legs screeched against concrete as she pulled it out and sat down. Another chair faced her across a table that was bolted to the floor.

“You want anything, Mrs. Coronado?”

“I want to give you my statement and then go home again.”

“I mean like a cup of coffee, water, something like that.”

“No.”

“All right then. Sit tight, someone will be along soon to talk with you.” He closed the door behind him and she noticed there was no handle on the inside.

She turned to face the table and placed her hands flat against the scarred surface. It felt cool. She could hear sounds beyond the door, footsteps and conversations, but they all remained distant. None came her way.

She sat perfectly still, staring at the gray-painted walls, the daylight leaking in through the bars of a small window, and the camera fixed high in the corner.

She waited.

Morgan and Mayor Cassidy were waiting too.

They were in Morgan's office, Morgan behind his desk in his antique chair, Cassidy pacing. Morgan was feeling calm and in control. His hands were stinging beneath his dressings and he glanced at his computer screen showing the feed from the camera in the interview room. Holly Coronado looked small in the picture. Small and isolated. He liked that.

“What if this doesn't work?” Cassidy asked.

He was driving Morgan nuts with his pacing. “Then we switch to plan B.”

“Which is?”

“Why don't we wait and see if plan A works first.” Morgan glanced down at the cell phone lying on his desk. “As soon as it's done, we'll know—and so will Tío. Then we'll see how things sit.”

“But what if it turns out this Solomon Creed or whoever he is hasn't got anything to do with anything?”

“I told you, Tío won't care. He was there, that's good enough for him, and he's connected to James Coronado.” He nodded at the camera feed. “He's also been talking to the not-so-merry widow, so whichever way you look at it, it's going to be better for us when he's gone. One less problem. It's like the fire; that was our most immediate problem and we dealt with it. This guy is a problem too, so we're dealing with him. Maybe that helps us with Tío, maybe it doesn't. We deal with each thing as it comes.”

The desk phone rang and Cassidy jumped.

“Try and get a grip on yourself,” Morgan said, snatching the phone from its cradle. He nodded, then pushed a button. “Hi, Pete, I got Ernie here too. You're on speaker.”

“Well, there ain't nothing for either of you to hear.” The voice was dry as sand. “Didn't find a damn thing. If Jim had the files, they wasn't at his house.”

Morgan and Cassidy exchanged glances. More loose ends. “Where are you now?”

“I headed back to the ranch soon as the wildfire was out.”

“Everything okay there?”

“A few horses spooked is all, the storm drain kept the fire back. Ellie was spooked too.”

“Did you hear about Bobby Gallagher?”

“I did. Terrible thing. Can't pretend I'm sad that he won't be bothering Ellie no more, but he was harmless enough. Hell of a thing to get himself burned up in a fire like that. I wouldn't wish that on no one. What about this stranger Ernie was telling me about—you got it in hand?”

Morgan rubbed at the spot between his eyes. It was typical that somehow all of this was his responsibility. Morgan looked up at Nathaniel Priddy staring out from the wall of sheriffs. He'd always wondered exactly how much he'd done to help build this town; more than he'd been given credit for, he guessed. They'd named this building after him but there were twenty others with “Cassidy” written on the side. Just the way things were. Poor people did the dirty work while the rich people kept their hands clean and took all the glory. Least that's how it ran until someone staged a revolution.

“I got it in hand,” he said, and ended the call. He knew Tucker would be pissed at being cut off like that, which is exactly why he'd done it.

Cassidy huffed and turned way. Started pacing again.

Morgan sat back in his seat. The truth was, he didn't need a backup plan because his original one was working just fine. Solomon
had been an unexpected variable, but he would be out of the way soon. Holly Coronado was angry, but he didn't think she was dangerous, even though she had shot him. Tío was the only major thing to worry about. Mayor Cassidy and Old Man Tucker were shitting in their pants at the thought of him coming, but not Morgan. Morgan wanted him to come. He was counting on it.

The cell phone vibrated against the desktop and Cassidy stopped pacing and stared down at it. Morgan picked it up. Opened the message. Frowned.

“What?” Cassidy asked.

“He's gone,” Morgan said.

Cassidy nodded. “Well, that's that then.”

“No,” Morgan said. “I mean he's gone. He wasn't in the house. Solomon Creed has disappeared.”