Dixie yelped in surprise then pain as the desk edge cut into his bad leg, all the junk on the desk sliding into his lap.
Evan kept on pushing. The desk came right off the floor, its full weight balanced on Dixie’s legs. Evan kept the momentum going, dug his feet in, thrusting until Dixie and the chair toppled over backwards. He landed on the floor with an almighty dust-raising thump, desk upturned on his chest, Evan on top of the whole sprawling pile.
It was a good start. Especially for a man full of beer. Made the most of the element of surprise. Thing was, the surprise was over.
Dixie’s arms had been resting on the desktop. They were thrown up and backwards as he fell. Not trapped under the desk. The gun was still in his hand. He brought his arm around in a fast swinging arc. Clubbed Evan viciously on the temple with it. Evan hissed in pain, skin splitting open, blood welling up out of the cut. He scrambled off the desk, blood in his eyes, blinding him, as the gun smashed uselessly into one of the desk legs a thousandth of an inch away from where his head had been just moments before.
He wiped his eyes, dived at the gun. Clamped his fingers around Dixie’s wrist. Dixie punched him twice with his left hand. Two quick blows, one in the ear and one in the mouth, split his lip. Twisted and jerked his gun arm ripping his wrist out of Evan’s grip.
A heavy glass paperweight from the desk lay on the floor next to the broken switchblade Evan used as a letter opener. Evan threw out his arm, grabbed the paperweight with fingers slick with sweat. Swung it at Dixie’s chin, missed, caught him where his collar bone met his shoulder instead. Then backhanded him across the jaw and cheekbone, the paperweight lending the blow a savage, devastating force.
Dixie’s head whipped sideways as if his neck had snapped. The gun slipped from his fingers as his arm and hand went numb, a nerve-jangling ache-cum-stab of pain resonating from fingertip to shoulder.
Evan snatched up the gun, rolled away. Dixie got his hands under the desk top and shoved, pushed himself out from under it before Evan got a chance to hit him again. He scuttled away backwards on his butt, out of Evan’s range, scooped up the switchblade as he went.
Evan got himself onto his knees, the gun held loosely in his hand. Stared at him with stinging eyes. Head ringing, chest heaving. Blood ran down his face, dripped from his chin onto the carpet.
Dixie stared back, his breathing equally ragged, the side of his face already swelling, jaw numb. Just no blood. He didn’t look as if something with sharp teeth had chewed his face and spat it out again like Evan did, but you’d have to call it a draw anyway seeing as Evan now had the gun. And that’s always a good thing.
‘What the hell was that all about?’ Dixie said, dropping the switchblade as he saw the gun in Evan’s hand.
‘My wife.’
‘Your wife? What? You think I’m screwing her or something?’
The comment took Evan by surprise. He didn’t think that at all, was surprised it was the first thing came to Dixie’s mind. As if he had a guilty conscience. Maybe he was screwing somebody’s wife. But there was no sign of a guilty conscience about forcibly extracting information from anybody’s wife. He’d have seen something in his eyes. There’d been nothing except confusion.
But there was still his hand to explain away. He waved at it with the gun.
‘What happened to your hand?’
Now it was Dixie’s turn to look surprised. Trouble was, he also looked flustered. Obviously, he knew what happened to it—he just didn’t want to say.
Beating a woman with it would make you reticent that way.
‘I punched through a kitchen cabinet door. It was full of glasses and crockery.’
Evan nodded, unconvinced.
‘It do something to annoy you?’
Dixie didn’t say anything for a long time. Looked down at the hand. Then back up at Evan. Evan knew from what he saw in his eyes his next words would be God’s honest truth.
‘I had a very good reason.’
Then suddenly his face changed as if he’d experienced a minor epiphany. Or sat on something hot.
‘That’s what you meant about your wife? You think I got this from hitting her?’
Evan was doubting it already. Shock and disbelief didn’t come any more genuine than what he saw on Dixie’s face.
‘Let me tell you what Carly told me about you.’
Dixie shrugged, be my guest. His face already told Evan what he thought about it even before he opened his mouth.
Evan gave him the background of Sarah’s disappearance. Then told him what Carly had said. As he listened, Dixie’s face ran through the whole range of emotions from utter amazement through outright disbelief and settled on mild amusement. Or was it pity? He shook his head, gave a soft laugh.
‘And you believed that crap, did you?’
‘It sounded plausible.’
But what it sounded now was lame. Laughable.
Dixie nodded. He had an irritating smirk on his face. Evan couldn’t blame him. He’d have liked to wipe it off, even so. Something else he’d have liked was to know what made Dixie put his fist through a cabinet door, but it didn’t seem relevant now.
Things would have gone a lot better if he had pushed him on it. He wasn’t to know that at the time.
‘Christ, what a bitch,’ Dixie said.
‘Tell me about it. Is any of it true?’
‘Some of it.’ He held up a finger. ‘None of the stuff about your wife, though. I really did punch a door. It’s true we stole the money together. Carly took off with it. Suddenly I can’t get hold of her. When I went to the place we agreed to stash it until things died down—’
‘The money was gone.’
Dixie smiled.
‘I can see you made the right career choice.’ He rubbed his hand across the rough stubble on his chin. Inclined his head at the upturned desk and chairs. ‘I think we’re past all that, don’t you?’
They righted the furniture, put everything back in place. Dixie leaned against the wall by the window, raised an eyebrow at the gun. Evan gave him it back, then perched on the edge of the desk.
‘She said she wants to do a deal.’
‘Really?’
‘Said she can’t spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder.’
‘I can understand that. But what made her think she’d get away with it in the first place? And why change her mind back again now?’
Evan shook his head, then remembered the cut underneath her breast she’d shown him.
‘Somebody scared her. They cut her’—he ran his finger along his own ribs—‘and said they’d cut her breast off.’ Dixie was nodding to himself. ‘You look like you know who did it.’
‘Oh yes. And it’s exactly his style. He got the idea from a movie. He’s obsessed with movies.’ He paused, thinking. ‘You’ve seen the cut . . . which means Chico had her and then let her go . . . and suddenly she wants to see me. You can’t help asking why. I need to think this through before I agree to anything.’
He moved towards the door, stopped again.
‘You know, I hate to see somebody put so much faith in a lying ball-breaker like her. Especially when it’s something as important as this is to you.’
‘It’s not like I’ve got a whole bunch of other options.’
‘I’ll ask around if you like. We know—maybe that should be knew—a lot of the same people.’
Evan wasn’t about to hold his breath, but it couldn’t hurt.
‘I’d appreciate it.’
‘Got a photo?’
Evan eased a picture of Sarah out from behind a clear plastic cover in his wallet.
Dixie had his hand out to take it when his phone rang. He took the photo without looking at it while he pulled his phone out. He checked the screen. Jackson.
‘I need to take this.’
Evan nodded, said ‘Keep it,’ when Dixie held up the photo.
Dixie put it in his pocket. He still hadn’t looked at it.
‘I’ll be
in touch,’ he called over his shoulder as he left.
***
CARLY WAS GLAD DIXIE had left his car a couple blocks away from Evan’s office. She’d spent all day schlepping around after Evan. First waiting outside his office, then to a bar and finally back to his office again. She told herself she’d give it another hour before calling it a day. She’d parked on the far side of the lot, slumped down in her seat to wait.
And now her patience had been rewarded.
Good things come to those who wait, as her mother had always said. She thought it was a crock—good things come to those who hustle in her opinion—but on this occasion her mother had been proved right.
Dixie had just come out of Evan’s office building. He was gimping his way across the parking lot, not more than twenty yards away, his phone clamped to his ear. She slid lower into her seat. Whoever it was he was talking to, they were laughing at something.
He wasn’t making for any of the cars parked in the lot. He must have parked down the street. She let him get all the way across the lot. Got quietly out of the car, headed after him. A sudden pang of remembered irritation hit her—his obsession with getting some fresh air. She imagined him saying it, pictured the look on his face as he said it that made her want to poke him in the eye. It made the hairs on the back of her neck bristle, even after all this time.
Well, make the most of it. Enjoy it while you can.
Chapter 28
JACKSON WATCHED ORTEGA’S MAN, Miguel, as he knocked on the door of the house, a bottle of wine in his hand. A woman in her late sixties, dressed all in black, opened it. Her face lit up as she hugged Miguel to her matronly breast. His mother. Aw. Miguel might be a drug-dealing low-life in his day job, but at night he was a dutiful son who loved his mamma.
Jackson moved his car so that he was parked directly behind Miguel, then settled in for a long wait. A couple of hours later, the door opened and Miguel emerged. He tried to get off with a quick peck of his mother’s cheek but she had other ideas. Jackson took the opportunity to ease himself out of his car, ducking down behind it while she clamped her son to her breast once more. Miguel finally wriggled free, made his way to his car. He fumbled in his pocket for his keys, his back turned towards Jackson.
‘Hey, Miguel,’ Jackson called in a friend-you-haven’t-seen-for-a-long-time voice.
Miguel turned to face him.
Jackson buried his fist in his stomach.
Whoosh.
Out came all mamma’s good home-cooked food, all over Miguel’s shoes and the sidewalk. He drew in great gasps of air like an alien trying out oxygen for the first time and finding it didn’t agree with him. He dropped to his knees, stayed there gently swaying. Then his stomach gave a burping lurch as he threw up the last of mamma’s lovingly prepared dinner.
Jackson leapt backwards out of the way.
‘That’s gross.’
Without waiting for him to recover, he hauled him up, dragged him coughing and wheezing to his car. He pushed him into the front, climbed in the back behind him. Tapped him on the head with the gun Chico had loaned him.
‘Let’s drive Miguel. Both hands on the wheel where I can see them. And turn on the radio.’
Miguel didn’t bother asking where to. He pulled away, a quick flick of his eyes in the mirror. Jackson gave him a sideways grin. Miguel turned the radio on, the sound of Bowie’s Drive-in Saturday filling the car.
‘You know who I am?’
Miguel nodded, caught Jackson’s eyes again, didn’t look away this time. They stared at each other, a childish game of eye-contact chicken. Neither of them blinked.
‘You know my brother too?’
‘Dixie, yeah. Everybody knows Dixie.’
‘I hear you’ve been making stories up about us.’
Miguel shook his head. But then he would.
‘Was that your mother?’
Miguel’s eyes shot to the mirror. Chingado. Jackson gave him a big smile back.
‘I bet if I told her you’d lied to me she’d make you go to confession. What do you think you’d get? Ten Hail Marys? Twenty?’
Miguel looked at him like loco didn’t even come close. The asylums were full of saner people.
‘Pull over here.’ Jackson put the gun on the seat beside him. He slipped his hand in his pocket, found what he was after.
Miguel pulled over, sat staring at Jackson in the mirror.
‘Turn the mirror.’
Miguel reached up, twisted the mirror away.
As soon as their eyes lost contact Jackson whipped his arms up and over Miguel’s head. Miguel caught a momentary flash of silver as the piano wire looped over his head and around his neck. Behind him Jackson gripped the wooden handles, pulled the wire tight.
‘I made it myself,’ Jackson said proudly as if Miguel gave a damn.
Miguel tried frantically to get his fingers under the wire. He gurgled something incomprehensible, gouging great chunks out of his skin with his fingernails.
‘I think the Catholic Church has gone soft. You used to get burned at the stake if you did something to annoy them. Now you get ten Hail Marys. Twenty, if the priest’s in a bad mood because the altar boys sassed him when he tried to . . . you know. Well, I’m old school. You lie to me, you’re going to get a lot more than that.’
He pushed his fists harder, tugging at the ends of the garrotte in time to the song on the radio. He bet Miguel’s eyes were popping in time too. He was making a rhythmic ungh, ungh, ungh sound in his throat, the sort you normally only hear in a bad porno movie.
‘I’m giving you one last chance to tell the truth and shame the devil.’
He eased the pressure. Miguel’s body stopped bucking so violently.
‘Turn the mirror back. So I can see your eyes.’
Miguel turned the mirror. Their eyes locked. Miguel’s were bloodshot, full of hatred. Jackson’s were somewhere south of sane.
‘You told Ortega you’d heard something about two brothers with a strange tattoo?’
Miguel nodded.
‘Who told you?’
‘Just some guys,’ Miguel croaked.
‘What about us?’
‘You’re cops.’
Dixie had been right after all.
‘I don’t believe you.’
He gave the wire a sharp tug. Miguel made the distressing ungh, ungh, ungh noise in the back of his throat again. It wasn’t nice to have to listen to, made Jackson ease off until it stopped and Miguel could talk again.
‘It’s true. I swear on my mother’s life.’
‘I ought to kill you now,’ Jackson said, putting his lips close to Miguel’s ear, the odor of Miguel’s fear sharp in his nose. ‘I spent two years in prison because of a deal that went wrong between your boss and Chico. Now you’re trying to tell me I’m the one who was a cop, the one who snitched. Or was it my own brother who sent me to prison? Then took a bullet in the leg for the fun of it.’
He gave the wire a hard pull to reinforce his point.
‘I don’t know what you want,’ Miguel squealed, the words barely intelligible.
‘I want to know who set me up, pendejo, what do you think?’
Miguel shook his head. Jackson saw the terror in his bloodshot eyes. He could see his nose in the mirror too. There was a green bubble of snot in one of his nostrils. It expanded and contracted as he breathed like the vocal sac of a rare tree frog. It made Jackson feel ill watching it.
‘I don’t know for sure. It’s only rumors.’
‘Rumors sounds good. Spit it out.’
‘I heard it was a woman.’
Miguel flinched, expecting retribution for words Jackson didn’t want to hear. But it was the opposite. The wire went slack.
‘Are you sure?’
‘No! I told you, it’s only rumors. But that’s what they say.’
It could only be one person.
‘You got a name?’
Miguel shook his head. Jackson knew he was telling the truth. All the guy
cared about now was saving his own skin.
‘Why didn’t anybody do something about her? Other people must have heard the rumors.’
‘The word was she was with Diego.’
‘Diego? Chico’s idiot son?’
‘They say he’s really pissed about you and your brother. I mean really, really pissed. That Chico treats you—Dixie mainly—more like a son than him.’
Jackson laughed out loud.
‘What’s so strange about that? Diego couldn’t win a game of checkers against a plate of refried beans.’
Miguel gave a short laugh. It hurt his throat so much it turned into a coughing fit.
‘You’re saying he set us up to get us out of the way? What about the woman?’
‘They say she was pissed at Dixie too.’
Everything fell into place for Jackson. He didn’t need to ask Miguel why that might be. How had Dixie been so blind?
‘Dixie was the one meant to get caught?’
‘Maybe. Both of you would have been good too.’
Jackson saw a quick gleam in Miguel’s eyes. Good for him if he still had a sense of humor with a wire around his neck.
‘I don’t understand why nobody did anything about it. What about Chico? He lost a ton of money.’
‘It’s just rumors, like I say.’
‘Still doesn’t make sense.’
‘It’s pride. Loss of face. What’s Chico gonna say? My own son ripped me off because I’m a bad father to him? Because the boy I raised is an idiot and I wish this gringo was my son? Get real. That’s never gonna happen.’
Jackson shook his head in disbelief.
‘Families. Who needs ‘em?’
Miguel shifted in his seat, pulled at the wire around his neck.
‘Any chance you can take this off me?’
‘Why didn’t Dixie do anything?’
‘He wouldn’t have heard the rumors. He’s a gringo like you. Nobody talks to gringos.’
Jackson reckoned he had everything he was going to get from Miguel. He took the garrotte off him, stuffed it into his pocket. If he’d been a fastidious man he might have wiped it down first, avoided the risk of the next person he used it on getting septicaemia—because it wouldn’t be very long before someone else felt it around their throat.
Hunting Dixie Page 12
