“You okay?”
“Yeah. How’s it going?”
“I’m in Tucson working with Special Agent Sanchez again.”
“I heard. She any more agreeable?”
“Not that I’ve noticed.”
“Anything new on her ex-partner, Tyner?”
“Nothing yet, but I’ll get to it.”
“In my spare time I’ve been following Rindo on Facebook. I know you don’t believe in social media.”
“It’s not that I don’t believe in it, it doesn’t interest me.”
“You were born a hundred and fifty years too late. Anyway, I just sent you a shot of Rindo posing in a desert location with mountains in the background. Might help you find him.”
“Why do you suppose Rindo’s sending out clues to his whereabouts?”
“He thinks highly of himself and thinks we’re a bunch of dumbasses.
“I’ll stay on it and send more when I can.”
“I appreciate your help, but you’re supposed to be taking it easy.”
“Don’t worry about me. We’ve got to find this guy.”
•••
Thirty minutes later, Raylan was in the chief’s office studying framed photos of Victor Hernandez on the wall while he was on the phone. There was a shot of him in camouflage holding an AR-15 when he was with special ops, and a shot of him in a helicopter, transporting two restrained, blindfolded Sinaloa capos.
The chief hung up the phone, shook hands with Raylan, and offered him a seat in his light-filled corner office in the federal building. Victor reminded him of an older, more compact version of Bobby. He sat behind a spotless desk, muscles bunched in a white dress shirt. At forty-nine, Victor looked like he should still be out hunting fugitives.
“We’re up to speed on Jose Rindo. We know about the Cadillac Escalade the PD found in Las Cruces, and Maynard Summers, the senior citizen that was carjacked, his whereabouts and that of his 1995 Mercedes still unknown. I want to assure you, Deputy Marshal Givens, you have the full support of the district. Anything you need, just let me know.”
“A UAV and an AR-15 would be helpful.”
“I’ll introduce you to Rudy Llanes in the gun vault, he’ll fix you up.”
Victor Hernandez paused, folded his hands in a pious gesture. “I don’t recall ever seeing a case like this. Man escapes three times, he’s still at large. Where the hell’s he at?”
“You see this?” Raylan took out his phone and showed him the Facebook picture. “Looks like it was shot somewhere in the foothills outside the city. Rindo’s saying, ‘here I am, come and find me.’”
“You need backup, the fugitive task force is at your disposal.” Victor Hernandez paused again. “Only complication, aside from Rindo himself, is the FBI’s involvement. They do things their way, we do things our way. I understand you’re acquainted with Special Agent Sanchez. Can she cut it?”
“I wasn’t sure till we were ambushed transporting Rindo from Columbus to Detroit. She held her own with an eight seventy, allowing us to get away with the prisoner.” Raylan didn’t tell Victor his concerns about Nora. Why complicate the situation? He’d work with her and hope for the best.
“You find out his location, we’ll get the team over there, take him down.”
•••
Raylan had an hour till Nora was gonna pick him up. He drove to a western apparel store on Campbell Street, bought a white Ariat shirt with snap pearl buttons, and tried on a black Stetson. Looking at himself in the mirror, he fit the hat, adjusting it on his head, pulling the brim down just over his eyes. The salesman, a bowlegged old coot, looked like he’d spent a lifetime on horseback, said, “Sir, where’re you from, you don’t mind my asking?”
“Harlan County, Kentucky.”
“Well I’ll tell you something, you sure know how to wear a hat.”
•••
Raylan waited, standing on the courthouse steps, the UAV at his feet, an AR-15 slung over his shoulder, working the brim of the Stetson the way you do with a new hat. He could feel the morning sun already baking him and it wasn’t yet 10:00 a.m. Nora pulled up a couple minutes later. Raylan picked up the vest and walked down the steps to the car, opened the rear door, set the AR on the seat and the vest on the floor. He got in and tipped the brim of the Stetson.
“You look familiar except for the hat. At first I thought you were an out-of-work cowboy. The UAV looked like a bedroll. When did you get the hat?”
“How do you like it?”
“It’s black. What’re you, a bad guy now, or just a bad ass?”
“You seen this?” Raylan had his phone out, showing her a shot of the fugitive standing next to a fifteen-foot-tall saguaro.
“What is it?”
“Rindo’s Facebook page.”
“I didn’t know he had one.”
“This is his new profile picture. Bobby Torres, who you met, found it and sent it to me. Can you tell where this is?”
“Seriously? You think we’re going to find the location based on this?” Nora held him in her gaze, dark curly hair framing her face. “You know how many places this could be?”
He handed her the phone. “Look in the left corner of the picture. What is that?”
Nora put on her readers, studied the image. “It looks like a trash can.”
“What does that tell you?”
“It’s a hiking trail. Could be Catalina State Park, the Tortolita Mountains, Saguaro National Park, or any number of other places. But Rindo wants us to know he’s in Tucson. What I don’t understand is why.”
“He’s escaped three times. I’ve got to believe that figures into it.”
Raylan turned off the phone, slid it in his shirt pocket. “All right, what’s your plan?”
“You mean our plan, don’t you?”
Raylan didn’t think of them as a team, but if she did, it was a step in the right direction. Nora put the car in gear and they took off, heading through Tucson to the Catalinas. There was a haze that hung over the city like a dark cloud.
“Follow Ms. Lyons is what I thought we were going to do. Unless you have another idea?”
“No, I think that’s a good place to start.”
•••
There was a pool maintenance truck in the driveway when they drove past the house. The garage door was open. There was a convertible inside. Nora drove higher into the hills, turned around and parked off the road on a flat graded lot with a For Sale sign.
It was 10:33 a.m., and already ninety-two degrees. Raylan lowered the window and felt the heat. He picked up Nora’s binoculars and rested his elbows on the door sill. He looked down at the house, didn’t see anyone, and turned to Nora. “I’m gonna take a closer look.”
“You’re going to need this.” Nora handed him a cold bottle of water.
“That’s two I owe you.”
“Are you keeping score?”
Raylan stepped out of the car and crossed the road. He put the binoculars around his neck and climbed down the hill, sliding in his boots. He ducked behind a rock formation with an unobstructed view of the house and pool area about fifty yards away. He could see the pool man crouching near the diving board, testing the water.
Deanna Lyons appeared in a light blue bikini, wrapping an orange towel around her waist that hung to her ankles. She talked to him for a couple minutes. Then he grabbed his equipment and started up the stairs.
Deanna spread the towel on a lounge chair and sat, rubbing suntan lotion on her arms and legs. At the top of the stairs, the pool man stopped, looking over his shoulder, checking her out.
Raylan was doing the same thing from his perch on the side of the hill. When the pool man disappeared, Deanna took off her top, and now Raylan had the binoculars up and was holding on her perfect breasts. He continued down her flat, brown stomach and
the curves of her hips to her long tan legs and feet with orange toenails. She had a body all right.
“Hey, what’re you doing?”
Raylan looked up at Nora and felt like a teenager busted by his mother looking at a Playboy centerfold. Deanna glanced in Nora’s direction, got up, covered herself with the towel, and went inside.
In the car, Raylan said, “She saw you.”
“So I’m looking at the lot across the street. What were you looking at?”
Raylan didn’t say anything.
“She didn’t have any clothes on.”
“I noticed.”
“I’ll bet you did.”
Deanna, in a convertible with the top down, backed out of the driveway.
Now they were speeding after her, Raylan seeing glimpses of the car as it snaked through the hills and through the city to the Tucson Mall.
“I want to go with you,” Nora said.
“She knows what you look like. I hope she’s telling herself you’re a realtor trying to sell that property up the road, but if she sees you again it’s all over.”
It was crowded in the mall, so he didn’t worry about Deanna Lyons making him. Her first stop was Arizona Watch and Jewelry on the lower level. Deanna, in a white T-shirt and black Capris, took the stairs and Raylan hung back, giving her time and distance. She came out of the store looking at her watch, moving along the concourse to a Starbucks and going inside.
Raylan watched a couple of teenage girls on their cell phones, texting. He’d never seen anyone move their fingers that fast. He had his back to Deanna when she walked out of the coffee shop but could see her reflection in the store window in front of him. He turned and followed her up the stairs to the second level.
She moved along the crowded concourse, taking her time, looking in store windows, sipping coffee. Her next stop was Victoria’s Secret. Raylan was standing a couple stores away when Nora called. “Where are you?”
“Outside Victoria’a Secret,” Raylan said, moving toward the front of the store.
“What’s she doing?”
“I imagine buying something. I’m going in. You need anything?” Silence on the other end. “How about a limited edition cutout corset?” Raylan said, reading the display in the window. “That sound like you?”
Now Raylan looked through the doorway, saw Deanna Lyons at the counter, handing a credit card to the sales girl. He turned off the phone, walked in the store, looking at tiny skimpy underwear on hangers. A girl’s voice behind him said, “Sir, may I help you?”
He turned, “Just looking.”
“Is this a special occasion?” The salesgirl was cute and young and could see he was out of his element.
“I’ll know when I see it.”
Deanna Lyons was moving away from the counter, coming toward him now, carrying a shopping bag, her phone out, punching keys, sending a text maybe or an email.
Raylan, feeling like a fool, moved to the left behind a display of Nude Add-2-Cups Push-up Bras.
The sales girl said, “Do you know what size she is?”
Deanna walked out of the store. Raylan followed along the concourse to the stairs. He was half way to the lower level when Nora called again. “Where is she?
“Going into a store.”
“Which one?”
He looked at the sign. “Forever Twenty-One.”
“Stay with her.”
Raylan took off, ran in the store, and stopped. Deanna, her back to him, was moving along the main aisle but then disappeared behind a grouping of mannequins.
She was sitting in the shoe department as he walked by and kept going. He went to the far end of the store, and when he came back she was gone. He moved as fast as he could without running, went back in the mall. Sunlight was streaming through a wall of windows at the entrance. Raylan saw a quick glimpse of her going through the door.
He felt the searing midday heat as he went outside. Deanna, carrying a pink striped shopping bag, cell phone pressed to her ear, was moving across the parking lot, and then standing next to a white SUV.
Nora pulled up. Raylan got in the car. “Where is she?” He pointed to the SUV that was moving now. Nora floored it, speeding through the lot, and was half a dozen car lengths behind a white Range Rover when they turned onto West Metmore Road. “I want to run the plate.”
“Let’s give them some room, see what they do. Why rush it?” He could see Nora was tense, wound up, but he couldn’t blame her. It was always stressful in a situation like this: trying to speed and not look like it, trying to stay close to suspects without letting them see you.
Annoyed, Nora said, “What was that you were saying about Victoria’s Secret?”
“I followed her in the store—that actually happened. The rest of it, I was having fun with you.”
“Do you think I shop there?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen you in your undergarments.”
“And you’re not going to.” Nora passed a car, glanced at him and frowned. “Undergarments, are you kidding? That’s seriously what you call them?”
“Those were the words my momma used for female panties, brassieres, and such. She’s since passed, or I’d call and let you talk to her.”
Nora looked embarrassed now and said, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Your mother passed away.” She didn’t want to look at him, kept her eyes on the road. “You’re…” But she didn’t finish the thought.
“I’m what, what were you gonna say?”
“Pieza de trabajo.”
“I don’t know what that means but the way you said it, it can’t be good.”
Twenty
First thing, Mr. Boy said, “Seen anyone follow you? He want me to ask.”
Deanna rewound. There was the real estate lady up the hill but she didn’t count. There was the dude in a cowboy hat outside Victoria’s Secret on his cell. That one just looked lost. There wasn’t anyone else Deanna remembered, and she’d been paying attention. She could see Mr. Boy’s face in the rearview, looking at her in the back seat. Did he want her like most guys, was it that kind of look? She couldn’t tell.
Every time she saw him he was bigger: shoulders two feet wide, head the size of a beach ball, but he had that high Michael Jackson voice that didn’t fit. And he acted like a little kid. She could see him smiling in the mirror, checking her out again. “Yo, so what’s up?”
“Nothing much,” Deanna said. “How’s everything in Detroit?”
“Oh, you know, it’s cool.”
“You like Arizona?”
“It’s like the heat’s on. I wish somebody’d turn it off.”
Even in the air-conditioning he had sweat running down his face. “You get used to it.”
Mr. Boy smiled now, showing tiny teeth that had gaps between some of them and deep pink gums. “I don’t know, he tell me I gotta shower two times a day. What’s up with that?”
“How is he?”
“Crazy, you know, but I never said that, right?”
She shook her head. “You never said anything.”
Mr. Boy smiled again.
Most of the time Deanna liked the situation. Liked living in the house. Beat the apartment her parents rented for her. Liked the blow—as much as she wanted. That was the real draw. Liked spending time with Jose at first. He was a gangsta. There was this excitement, this element of danger. But that had worn off, and now he was boring, kinda dumb, too. It was tough spending time with him, walking on eggshells, waiting for him to freak out, go ballistic about something that didn’t matter. The worst though was having to be available when he was in town.
It was tougher now, and more complicated since she had been seeing Richard, this normal, low-key guy. Richard, of course, knew nothing of her arrangement. At first she was afraid to get involv
ed with him. But it happened so effortlessly. They’d met at a coffee shop. He stood behind her in line and they started talking. As it turned out, his company had built the house she was living in.
Richard was smart, good-looking, fun to be with. They’d hit it off and now Deanna was worried that Rindo would find out and go schizo. She was going tell Jose she didn’t want to see him anymore. All she had to do was figure out what to say.
“A car been following us since we leave the mall.” Mr. Boy’s face was serious now, his tiny teeth and big gums filling the rearview mirror. He reached under the seat and brought up a gun.
“Do you know who it is?”
Mr. Boy shook his head.
“Why do you have a gun?”
“Jose say I’s a gangsta, and gangstas pack.”
“What’re you going to do with it?”
“Shoot the bad guys.”
Deanna didn’t know how to break it to him: he was one of the bad guys.
•••
“I think they made us,” Nora said.
The Range Rover pulled into a little shopping area on El Camino del Cerro, cruised to the far end of the lot and backed into a space. Nora kept going, made a U-turn, passed the shopping area going the opposite way, turned left into a gas station, and now they were behind the SUV. They could keep an eye on it without being seen.
Nora turned in her seat. “Think someone is going to pick her up? That someone being Jose Rindo?”
“You were him, would you take the risk?”
“You’re asking me to get in Rindo’s head?”
“That’s how you do it.”
Nora unscrewed the cap and took a drink of water. “No, he has people working for him that will take the risk.” Now Nora brought the binoculars to her eyes. “The plate number is NRX zero zero five. Arizona.” She punched the number in her computer, waited for it to process the information.
“It’s registered to VIP Limousine Company,” Raylan said. “Detroit, Michigan.”
“My God, you’re right. How do you know that?”
“Rindo has or had some kind of deal with the owner, guy named Joey Yalda. VIP provides cars that can’t be traced in exchange for money or drugs, or both. There was the Escalade in Las Cruces and a BMW in Ohio.”
Raylan Goes to Detroit Page 13
