Death is Not Forever (Barefield Book Book 3)

by Trey R. Barker

  So, moving slowly, Bean chose to talk. “Tommy-Blue said it was murder. You hear me, Andy?”

  There was moment of surprised silence.

  “Uh...we got other things to think about right now, Judge.”

  “If I’m going to be dead soon, I’d like to know.”

  “Damn straight, fairy,” Murph said. He laughed and fired again.

  Glass exploded and came down on Bean like sparkling rain.

  “Dead’ner shit,” Murph said. “Maybe I’ll feed what’s left of you to what’s left of my goats.”

  “Idiot,” Faith said. “Goats are herbivores.”

  The shooting stopped for a moment. “They’re what?”

  “They eat plants, you effing moron.”

  Murph answered with more shooting.

  “Andy?” Bean called. “What’s the story?”

  “Are you cra—”

  Murph fired again. But now he was moving fast, faster than Bean could scoot. So Bean shoved himself under the car, banging his head on the undercarriage.

  Oh, Jeremiah, honey, that’s bad. You’ve got nowhere to go. He looks under the car and—

  I know, Mariana, I know. Gimme a minute to think.

  Behind him, at least as well as he could tell, Faith had climbed outta the car and was moving slowly toward the .380. He willed her to move quietly but quickly, to see it and grab it and get it into Bean’s hands. Or Andy’s.

  Except where the hell is Andy? Fucker’s voice is coming from everywhere.

  “Tommy-Blue’s a junkie, Judge, and he spots for cartels now. Running Mexican meth through the heart of Texas. How’s that for a former Ranger?”

  “Is it Zapata’s finger?” Bean asked.

  Andy chuckled, a muffled, weak sound. “We’re NVA now? Taking trophies like we’re all in ’Nam? Come on, that ain’t us.”

  “Zetas, maybe?”

  “Zetas what? Belongs to them or taken from them?”

  “You guys know I’m doing me some killing, right? I mean, you ain’t forgotten I’m here, have you?” To punctuate his question, Murph fired. The trunk popped open.

  “Gonna kill me, too, Murph?” Andy asked. “What the hell for?”

  Murph hesitated, thought. “Well, I guess ’cause today ends in the letter y.” Murph howled and fired again, toward something the other direction from the car it sounded like.

  Toward Andy? Which meant he was probably hiding behind some rocks or mesquite bushes or maybe even dead goats.

  “Damnit, Andy, I’m just trying to find out what happened the night my wife was shot. Someone in the World knows about that night and they’ve sent me a piece of it.”

  “Nobody lost any fingers that night, Judge. On my honor. I have no idea where that finger came from.”

  Murph, still laughing, a cat playing with terrified mice, fired again. Bean didn’t hear what the buckshot hit, if anything. Murph stopped and Bean heard him reloading. Slip...snick...slip...snick...slip...snick. Five times.

  Five new shells.

  “Tommy-Blue said the place was empty,” Bean said.

  “As a whore’s heart,” Andy said. “I knew it was a set up that very second. And Tommy—” Bean heard the derisive snort clearly. “Son of a bitch flew outta that place. Scared to death. Pissing himself probably.”

  “And yet you guys made him one of the heroes to the media.”

  “I sure as hell didn’t. That was all JD’s story.”

  “Will you shut up?” Murph said. “Yabbling about some goddamned fight twenty years ago while you’re getting killed. Nobody gives a good goddamn.”

  “Well,” Faith said. “Not quite killed yet.”

  “Huh?”

  Bean saw Murph’s feet spin around. His attention had been outward, probably focused on Andy. He’d forgotten about Faith.

  Faith had gotten to the gun. And obviously had found the extra mag because she fired once, a bright snap in the afternoon air.

  From beneath the car, Bean saw Murph’s legs tighten, then get mushy. Murph fell right there and hit the ground hard. His body kicked up a cloud of dust. When it cleared, the man was staring straight at Bean, most of his left eye socket gone.

  Bean held his breath, stared at Murph for maybe forty-five seconds. Murph never moved.

  The air pounded on his ears with its sudden stillness. Somewhere distant, a bird called, maybe a coyote howled. Or maybe it was the surviving goats, mourning the loss of their owner.

  “Uh...yeah...you can come out now, boys,” Faith said. “Big, bad boogie man’s all done. He went night-night.”

  “Sassy bitch.” But Andy sounded weak.

  Swallowing, Bean scooted backward, away from Murph. He hit his head on the undercarriage three or four times, then stood and brushed the dirt from his clothes.

  Faith stood in front of him, small streaks of blood along her face. “Cuts from the glass. I didn’t get shot.”

  “But you shot,” Bean said.

  “And?”

  Bean shrugged. “Surprised me, I guess. The gun was empty.”

  “Duh. You emptied it on that guy.” She pointed vaguely toward Sombrero Man. “There was a magazine in the glove compartment.”

  “Yeah, there was. But now you’re a killer.”

  “Now?”

  Bean stared for a moment, then turned away. “Where is Andy?”

  “Hiding behind some rocks over there. You guys are both lucky you’re not dead. Murph focused on one, then the other. Back and forth. Couldn’t make up his mind who to shoot first.”

  “Yeah...lucky me. Thank you.”

  “Now we’ve both saved each other. That make us even?”

  After what my driver did to you? Not even close.

  Bean went to Andy. Blood spattered the rock and most of his right arm and face. “You dying?”

  Wincing, using the rock to steady himself, Andy stood. “Fuck no. Flesh wound. Hurt myself worse banging my pud.”

  Bean went to Murph, tore part of the man’s shirt off, and tied it around Andy’s wound. “You’re getting pale.”

  “Just a flesh wound.”

  “Right,” Bean said. “’Tis just a scratch.”

  Andy frowned, wiped the blood from his face. “The hell does that mean?” He pulled his cell and made a call. “It’s me. I need some help. Got a mess to clean up. Yeah. A wet mess. Yeah, your usual rate, no problem.”

  After he hung up, Bean said, “So the cantina was empty and Tommy-Blue left. Then what?”

  Andy stared at Bean. Blood seeped through the make-shift bandage. “Goddamn dog; get something in your teeth...” Andy’s eyes were lost with what might have been pain, but might also just as easily have been something secret and terrible.

  “What happened to my wife?”

  “Judge, I—”

  “Who shot her?”

  “Not a clue, asshole.”

  Bean’s eyes rolled. “Nine thousand cops there and yet not one of them saw how my wife got shot.”

  A tight grin slipped over Andy’s face. “Not as many there as you think.”

  “Meaning?”

  Andy wiped some blood from his face, shook his head, stared into the dead goats, over the hills into the floating dust. “There were three of us, Judge. When Tommy-Blue walked out, there were three of us and Zapata came in with...what? Four of his guys? Five? I don’t remember.”

  “Newspapers all said Zapata plus six.”

  “Yeah, and they also said innocent civilians and blah blah blah. JD’s story, fed to the animals. Poisoned meat and they stuffed it down their gullets. Fucking idiot reporters.”

  “So how’d you get the drop on them?”

  Andy laughed. “‘Get the drop on them?’ Like a bad western.”

  “This whole thing is like a bad western,” Faith said.

  “JD knew what was going to happen, that’s how. He knew. He had us set up hidden but so that we’d hit them with cross fire and then he shot three of them in the head as they walked in the back door. Pop, pop,
pop. Evened the odds pretty damned quick. Then everyone started shooting. We killed all of them except Zapata.”

  Bean frowned.

  “Yep,” Andy said. “Zapata disappeared, had no idea where he went. He was shooting, then he was gone. I thought he’d gotten hit and was down. But then his soldiers were all dead and we found Zapata behind some tables, head bloody and a cracked bottle of tequila right next to him.”

  Faith laughed. “Seriously? Somebody brained him with a bottle of hooch?”

  “Not somebody,” Andy said. “JD.”

  Andy was a liar and a braggart but this time, Bean believed him. The man’s eyes were open, his words clear. “Why?”

  “JD restrained him with zip-ties and then we waited so why do you think?”

  “JD sold him,” Faith said. “Sold Zapata.”

  Andy nodded. “Give the little girl a gold star.”

  “What?” Bean was shocked. JD had been a complete asshole, and his moral compass had been stomped beneath his own ambitious boots long before he became a state trooper and then a Ranger. But selling one bad guy to another bad guy?

  “A van pulled up and we took Zapata outside. Three men got out and each one took a turn punching him in the face and kicking him in the balls. Knocked him out cold, then stuffed him in the van.”

  Mariana...was nothing you told me the truth? Was every word of that night a lie?

  She didn’t answer and Bean took her silence as answer enough.

  “So you guys handed Zapata to...Zetas? Sinaloas? Who?”

  Andy held up a finger for each word. “Zetas...Sinaloas...Gulf.”

  All three, Bean realized.

  “Just before they closed the door, JD got in.”

  Bean’s gut tightened. “What?”

  “In. The. Van.” Andy spat. “With that fucking smirk he always wore. Jumped in the passenger seat, waved us off, said everything was cool. Said he was working a long deal with the cartels to keep them from killing tourists.”

  A heavy silence rolled through the group. A long deal? With the cartels? How had anyone every believed such crap?

  “Like David Hartley,” Bean said.

  Andy nodded. “Hartley wasn’t until years later, but yeah, killing tourists was already hot and heavy when we were in the cantina, just without any media coverage. Media was still all about the gangs in Chicago and Compton and the Bronx. Crack wars and CIA importing crack and all the rest of that shit. No one was looking at the border.”

  “Who’s David Harley?” Faith asked.

  “Texan...shot and killed by cartels a few years ago,” Bean said.

  “He and his chick were water skiing or boating or something. Fucking border runs right through the middle of Falcon. The border and at least two drug routes. Hell, probably more than that. Hartley got caught in something, no one’s really sure what. He was killed, she was injured. Bad business to kill tourists. Just brings more cops and more guns and more media.”

  “So JD said he was working a deal to keep the cartels from killing tourists.” Bean frowned. “What was he really doing? Trying to ease the cartel wars, maybe?”

  “Maybe not a war,” Andy said. “Not like now...but cartels have been killing each other since Cain and Abel.”

  “Come on,” Bean said. “You believed that? It’s so obviously bullshit.”

  “Yeah?” Andy fronted up to Bean. “Were you there? Was your hearing gone to hell because of all the shooting? Were you covered in blood from five or six dead soldiers? Were you sitting behind the bar wondering if Texas was going to pay out a death benefit for you? Huh? Were you? No? Then shut the fuck up about what made sense and what didn’t. After your first firefight, you can come talk to me.”

  Bean stood tall, let his chest gently bump Andy’s. “We going to talk or fight? I’m up for either.”

  After a minute, Andy shook his head and offered a half-hearted grin. “Before he left, JD told us to meet him in Ozona at a pump jack on the south side of town.”

  “You guys show up, he shows up, and you decide to lie to the world?”

  Andy smiled. “Straight up. That’s how it happened.”

  Bean tried to stop the bubbling lava exploding up his throat, burning his teeth and tongue, blasting into the afternoon air toward Andy. He grabbed Andy and slammed him to the ground. He jammed his boot against the bullet hole in Andy’s arm. Andy screamed. “Then who the fuck shot my wife?”

  Andy tried to roll away but Bean held him tight.

  “Goddamnit, get off’a me,” Andy said.

  Jeremiah! Stop! This isn’t his fault.

  “It’s somebody’s, Mariana,” Bean yelled, spittle dancing between his face and Andy’s.

  “Judge, you have to stop,” Faith said.

  “You freak. You fucking lunatic.” Andy spit in Bean’s face. “Are you talking to her? She’s dead.”

  “Not as dead as you’ll be.” Bean hammered a fist into the wound. Blood spattered, warm on Bean’s face. “Tell me who shot her.”

  “Judge. Stop it.” Faith put a hand on his shoulder.

  Jeremiah! Stop it, it wasn’t his fault. It was mine.

  What? Bean’s fist froze, hanging above Andy, dripping the man’s blood.

  Yes, Jeremiah.

  What are you talking about?

  He wasn’t there when I got shot, baby.

  Bean’s eyes flicked to Andy. “You weren’t there...when she got shot?”

  “How the fuck did you—” Andy winced. “No, I wasn’t there.”

  Faith sat heavily in the dirt. “You are fucking kidding me with this? You weren’t there? Neither was Tommy-Blue. Was anyone? Was Mariana even there?”

  Bean jerked Andy to a sitting position. “Tell me.”

  “I had a warrant. Guy named Jesse Walters. Wife beater and rapist and God knew what else. I’d been looking for him for months. Had a line on him and I wasn’t going to pass that up. So I drove to Ozona, left Mariana there to wait for JD, blasted out to Big Spring, and snatched up my guy. I dropped him at the Zachary County jail and then beat feet to Barefield.” He blew out a shaky breath. “Fucking media everywhere...Mariana’s in the hospital with a bullet in her...and JD’s peddling that story about us saving civilians and whatall.”

  “And you went along,” Bean said.

  “Goddamned right, I did. A real bad guy was off the street, we were heroes, what’s not to go along with?”

  “It was a lie,” Bean said.

  “The specifics maybe, but not the generalities.” Andy sat as tall and proud as he could. “Fuck you, I’ve got no problems with anything I did.”

  “That’s the difference between you and Tommy-Blue, I guess.”

  “Yeah, he’s a pussy and I’m a man.”

  The throaty rumble of a truck motor slipped over the low hills. They all looked toward the highway and could see a thin dust could slowly coming toward them.

  “My cleaner,” Andy said.

  In the desert, amongst the mesquite and scrub, Bean could see that night in his head. But seeing it put an icepick of cognitive dissonance deep in his skull. None of it jibed with what the Department of Public Safety spokespeople had said, nor with what the newspapers had blared in forty-four point type.

  “And it doesn’t square with what you told me, Mariana,” Bean said quietly.

  He stood, wiped his bloody hands on Andy’s shirt, then headed for his car.

  “That thing gonna run?” Faith asked. “It’s pretty shot up.”

  “It’s what we have.”

  They climbed in and the motor started, though it didn’t sound happy about it.

  “Bean,” Andy called. Behind them, the cleaner arrived, his face shocked at what he saw. “Tell her I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have left her. If I’d stayed...”

  And wasn’t that what Bean had thought about Tommy-Blue? Wasn’t that what he thought now about both of them? If they’d stayed, maybe she wouldn’t have gotten shot.

  Bullshit. Shot or not, Mariana was her own woman,
made her own decisions, and was more than capable of taking care of herself. Which meant Tommy-Blue and Andy staying or going meant nothing.

  Bean turned the around, headed toward the highway.

  He was wrong...Tommy-Blue and Andy’s leaving the cantina did indeed mean one thing. It meant Mariana was with JD when she got shot.

  “JD.” Bean’s voice was a whisper.

  On the highway, Bean gave the shot up car some gas.

  “So we go see JD next?” Faith asked.

  “Gonna be tough. He’s dead.”

  She sighed. “Of course, he is.”

  22

  A half hour after Bean and Faith left, Bean’s head buzzed. Like a good tequila drunk, or the aftermath of a Horse ride.

  Or getting pistol whipped.

  JD had set the entire night up, Bean was certain. Tommy-Blue and Andy both seemed to believe the Quartet had been set up by the snitch and that JD had improvised from there, but Bean knew better. He’d had enough dealings with JD—Jim Dell Perkins—before Perkins got blown away by an enraged husband that Bean knew JD didn’t blink without figuring the advantage and how he could jump that into some cash.

  Sure as shit JD had planned the entire night. From the bullshit meeting set up by his informant to which door Zapata would use (which probably meant at least one of Zapata’s soldiers was talking to JD, too, and obviously JD had known that guy’d end up dead...double-crosses within double-crosses). He’d known the van with cartel representatives was coming.

  And he’d known he was going with them.

  In fact, Bean would lay even odds that getting Zapata in that van and delivering him—in person—to the cartels had been the point of the entire night.

  Because, Bean thought, JD needed to see the cartel boys.

  And the answer to that would damn well answer why JD had shot Mariana.

  Because that’s what happened, isn’t it, Mariana?

  The only answer was the high-pitched whine of the wind through the shot-out windshield.

  The miles passed slowly, the best the engine could do. It wasn’t leaking smoke or gas so Bean hoped whatever injuries the machine suffered weren’t fatal. About a half hour after the shooting, they were only twenty-five or so miles down the road.

  Bean’s phone rang and when he answered it, Digger breathed deep and slow, as though he was trying to keep himself composed.