“Shady Hills probably can’t match what they’re making in the private sector,” one of the other councilmen said.
“Yeah, but these are cops who’d rather be doing actual police work instead of being bodyguards and things like that,” Stark said. “Somebody want to make a motion that we hire Reuben Torres as police chief?”
“I’ll make that motion,” Nick said. Stark and Hallie seemed to have won him over.
“Second,” one of the other men said.
“All in favor?” Stark said.
Five hands went up.
“It’s unanimous, then. We’ll move back into public session now.”
As they left the meeting room, Hallie commented, “You seem to have a knack for this, John Howard.”
Stark grimaced. “People keep accusing me of being good at this politics business,” he said. “I’m not sure I like that.”
“Better get used to it. You’re in charge now.”
Stark thought about that and muttered, “Lord, what’s the world coming to?”
CHAPTER FIFTY
Once everyone was seated again, Stark called the meeting back to order and announced, “The council has voted to offer the job of chief of police of Shady Hills to Reuben Torres.”
Reuben was sitting in the audience with his father, not really paying much attention until he heard Stark say his name. Then he lifted his head and said in surprise, “What?”
Stark smiled.
“You heard me, Reuben. The job of police chief is yours if you want it. Unless you had something else lined up . . .”
“No,” Reuben said quickly. “No, I don’t. But . . . I don’t understand. I was in prison—”
“And fair or not, that disqualifies you for a lot of things The town’s legal counsel says you’ll have to take some courses, but I figure you can handle that. What do you say, Reuben? You don’t have to give us an answer tonight . . . but the sooner you say yes, the sooner you can start doing your job.”
Reuben looked over at his father. Henry nodded and said, “It sounds like a fine idea to me, son. I know the town couldn’t get a better man for the job.”
A dubious frown appeared on Reuben’s face.
“I can’t carry a gun anymore,” he said.
“We know that,” Stark told him. “Can you lead men who are armed?”
The frown disappeared, to be replaced by a look of resolve.
“I can,” Reuben said. “And I know some hombres who might be happy to sign up.”
“That’s exactly what we were all hoping to hear you say, Reuben,” Stark said. “Nobody here has forgotten how you went into that burning mobile home and saved Roy Devereaux.” He stood up and started to applaud. Within seconds all the citizens in the room had joined in.
The members of the news media who were on hand, standing in the back of the room, took it all in, obviously glad they had been there to get this story.
“In a surprising move, the newly elected leaders of the town of Shady Hills, Texas, have voted to hire a convicted felon as their chief of police. Former Border Patrol agent Reuben Torres was sent to prison for violating the rights of a suspect he was arresting. On second thought, maybe it’s not so surprising that a town founded because its citizens believe in vigilante justice would hire such a man to enforce their laws.”
Hallie glared at the TV and said, “Damn it, that’s not reporting the news. That’s editorializing! It’s rabble-rousing, that’s what it is!”
“All the same thing, this day and age,” Stark told her. “I wouldn’t worry about it. The media’s made fun of us and condemned us every step of the way, and they haven’t stopped us yet. They haven’t even really slowed us down.”
“I know it. It’s just so infuriating, listening to their lies.”
“Then don’t listen to ’em. Go for a walk. Read a book. There are plenty of things that’ll be better for your blood pressure than listening to them spout their claptrap.”
“I know,” she sighed. She moved closer to him on the sofa in Stark’s living room. “Or you and I could make out.”
“If we were thirty years younger.”
“The hell with that,” Hallie said. “There’s no rule that says people our age can’t make out.”
“Except that it grosses out the young people.”
“I don’t see any young people here. Do you?”
“No,” Stark had to reply honestly. “Come to think of it, I don’t.”
By the time a week had passed, Reuben had hired four police officers. Since the city hadn’t collected any taxes yet, their salaries would be paid by a group of the citizens who had banded together to provide some operating funds for Shady Hills. For the moment, the police department’s communication system consisted of walkie-talkies and cell phones, and the officers provided their own vehicles, although the city was able to afford detachable flashing lights of the sort that were placed on the roofs of unmarked vehicles in larger cities.
It was far from an ideal situation, but the officers, all of whom were friends of Reuben’s, were willing to put up with the disadvantages for the time being if it meant they would be able to do some real police work with the actual backing of their employers.
“We don’t have any city ordinances yet,” Reuben explained to them, “so we’ll concentrate on enforcing the state laws.”
“What about the speed limit on the highway?” one of the new officers, Dave Forbes, asked. “Will it be lowered?”
“So Shady Hills will get a reputation as a speed trap?” Reuben said. “No way. As far as I’m concerned the speed limit stays sixty, like it always was.”
In addition to Forbes, the other officers were Miranda Livingston, Luiz Garcia, and Keith Hamlin. Forbes, Hamlin, and Garcia were former Border Patrol agents like Reuben. Miranda Livingston had worked for the San Antonio PD and the DEA. All of them were looking forward to working in a small town and maybe making a real difference, as well as to working with Reuben as their boss.
With such a small force, the shifts would be long and the officers would have to cover quite a bit of ground. From the high school in the south to the Dry Wash community in the north was about seven miles. The city limits were shaped somewhat like a dumbbell with a bulge in the center, that bulge being the retirement park itself.
They were all considered to be on-call twenty-four hours a day, to serve as backup for each other if needed. Hamlin and Forbes rented a trailer in Dry Wash together, while Livingston and Garcia both lived in Devil’s Pass.
The first week on the job, all the officers did was stop a few speeders on the highway. Then Livingston answered a burglary-in-progress call in Dry Wash. She happened to be fairly close, and she got there in time to see the suspect running across a field in an attempt to escape. Livingston drove after him, cut him off with her car, and then tackled him. She had him restrained and in custody by the time Reuben got there to help.
“I’ve got this, Chief,” Livingston said as she manhandled the suspect into the backseat of her car. She was a petite blonde who looked about as dangerous as a high school cheerleader, but Reuben knew better. Miranda Livingston had a gung-ho reputation, and she lived up to it.
“Good job, Officer Livingston,” Reuben told her with a grin. “You can take the prisoner to Devil’s Pass and turn him over to the sheriff ’s department. I’ll talk to the people who called in the complaint and handle the paperwork up here.”
“Really?” Livingston said. “But you’re the chief.”
“Yeah, but I’ve got to have something to do to keep from sitting on my butt all day and getting fat.”
Livingston grinned and shook her head, as if she thought that possibility was pretty unlikely.
Despite the easy start, worry nagged at the back of Reuben’s brain. He knew things weren’t going to stay so calm. It was only a matter of time. . . .
And he was right, of course.
He was at the community center about ten o’clock one night, sitting in the meeting roo
m that was serving temporarily as his office and working on a proposed budget to be delivered to the city council, when the walkie-talkie lying on the chair beside him gave its familiar chime and then crackled to life. He heard Keith Hamlin say, “Got a suspicious vehicle out here on the highway, Chief. I’m going to check it out.”
Reuben picked up the walkie-talkie, keyed it, and asked, “Suspicious how, Keith?”
“It’s stopped on the side of the road. Looks like four passengers. All male, I think, but I’m not sure of that.”
Reuben came to his feet and asked, “What’s your location?”
“Three-quarters of a mile north of the park entrance.”
Reuben was already headed for the door.
“Do not approach them until backup arrives, Keith,” he said. “Repeat, do not approach—”
“Too late, Chief, I’m right behind them—”
A sudden discordant racket make Reuben’s hand clench hard around the walkie-talkie. He said, “Keith! Keith, do you read me?”
Nothing but static came back at him.
Reuben burst out of the community center and ran for his dad’s Jeep, which he’d been borrowing for police work until he could get something of his own. The car he’d had before he went to prison had been sold, along with just about everything else he owned, to help pay for his legal bills.
As he piled into the Jeep, Reuben said into the walkie-talkie, “Miranda! Luiz! Dave! Anybody copy?”
“I heard Keith’s call,” Luiz Garcia responded. “I’m on my way!”
“So am I,” Dave Forbes said. Reuben heard the fear in Dave’s voice, fear for Keith, who was his best friend.
Reuben was glad that two of his other officers were responding to the potential emergency, but it would take them several minutes to reach Keith’s position.
He, on the other hand, was less than a mile away and could get there in a matter of seconds.
He cursed that felony conviction under his breath. He’d feel a lot better about charging into trouble if he had a shotgun or a revolver. Maybe the approach of more flashing lights would scare off anybody intent on causing trouble, he thought as he clamped the magnetized light on top of the Jeep.
In this flat country, a person could see a long way. Reuben spotted the lights on Keith’s car as soon as he pulled onto the highway from the retirement park. His foot came down hard on the gas and sent the Jeep surging forward. He saw more flickers of light up ahead and knew they were muzzle flashes. There was a gunfight going on.
That meant Keith was still alive, anyway, Reuben thought desperately. The suspects wouldn’t still be shooting if he were dead.
As he came closer Reuben saw that the driver’s door of Keith’s car was open. Keith hadn’t taken cover behind it, though. He had retreated all the way to the back of the car, where he crouched now, occasionally leaning out to send a couple of rounds at the other vehicle.
With a shower of sparks, a bullet spanged off the hood of Reuben’s Jeep. They had seen him coming and at least one of them was shooting at him now. He swerved the Jeep back and forth to make it a harder target to hit. The aluminum baseball bat that lay in the passenger seat—something that it was legal for Reuben to have in his possession—rolled from side to side because of the violent movement.
A cloud of dust billowed into the night sky as Reuben skidded the Jeep to a stop on the shoulder behind Keith’s car. He grabbed the bat and rolled out on the passenger side, then scrambled to his feet and went in a crouching run to join his besieged officer.
“Reuben, what are you doing here?” Keith asked as Reuben dropped to a knee beside him.
“Backup,” Reuben said.
“No offense, Chief, but I don’t think that slugger’s gonna do much good against four guns.”
“They opened fire on you just as soon as you pulled up, right?”
“Yeah.”
“They’re bound to have something in there they didn’t want you to see.” Reuben turned his head to look over his shoulder toward Devil’s Pass. He saw flashing lights in the distance.
“Luiz is on his way. He’ll be here in a couple of minutes.”
“They’re not gonna wait that long,” Keith said. “Here they come now!”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Reuben rose up enough to glance through the bullet-shattered front and back windows of Keith’s car and saw that his friend was right. Three of the gunmen were charging while the fourth hung back and sprayed the car with shots to keep the police officers pinned down.
It wouldn’t do any good to sit there and wait for death to come to them. Clutching the baseball bat, Reuben rolled out from behind the car. A bullet kicked up dirt close beside him. Footsteps slapped the ground. He twisted and rammed the bat up into the groin of the dark figure looming over him. The man screamed and the gun in his hand roared, but he had already started to clutch at himself and the bullet went almost straight down, smashing through his right foot and making him howl even louder.
Reuben came up swinging the bat. It slammed into the man’s head with an resounding clang!
As the man went down, Reuben scooped up the gun he’d dropped. The letter of the law didn’t mean a damned thing when it was stacked up against survival. Reuben came up and fired through the car’s open windows at one of the menacing shapes on the other side. The man grunted and went down.
More shots had been blasting while that was going on. Keith and the third gunman were trading bullets. Reuben dived for cover again as the fourth man, the one who had stayed back, sent a slug whipping past his ear.
“This one’s down!” Keith called. A surge of relief went through Reuben at the sound of his friend’s voice. “The guy behind the other car is the only one left!”
The fourth gunman knew that, too. He broke from cover and dashed toward the open field at the side of the highway, firing as he ran. Clearly, he intended to flee on foot.
Reuben threw the bat. It spun through the air and struck the running man’s calves, getting tangled up between them. With a startled cry, the man lost his balance and pitched off his feet to go sprawling facedown in the dirt. Reuben charged toward him, grabbed up the bat again, and brought it down on the man’s wrist as he reached for the gun he’d dropped when he fell. Bone broke with a sharp crack.
Tires squealed as Luiz Garcia reached the scene. He jumped out of his car, revolver in hand, and ran to join Keith. Together they covered the gunmen while Reuben kicked the men’s weapons well out of reach. Three of them were either unconscious or dead, and the fourth lay on the ground cradling his broken wrist and whimpering.
Breathing slightly hard, Reuben asked Keith, “Do you have any idea what this battle was about?”
“Not a clue,” Keith replied, “but like you said, Chief, I bet if we look in that car we’ll find something they didn’t want us to see.”
The “something” turned out to be a trunk full of cocaine, more than a million dollars’ worth. Reuben waited until he had a properly executed search warrant to open the trunk. He didn’t want any sort of procedural glitch to taint this bust.
All four of the men who’d been in the car were illegals. Two had been killed in the shootout, and the other two were in the hospital in Devil’s Pass under police guard. An examination of the car turned up more than just the cocaine and some assorted weapons. It also found a busted water pump, which explained what had happened. The car had broken down. Reuben figured the frantic mules had called their bosses for instructions and been told to wait there until somebody could come to pick them up along with the drugs. Unfortunately for them, Keith had come along first and they had panicked and opened fire.
The story made headlines all across the state. A million-dollar cocaine bust might have anyway, but its location, in the notorious town of Shady Hills, made it even more newsworthy.
“You were lucky,” Stark told Reuben the next day after Reuben finished filling him in on all the details. “You and Keith were outnumbered and outgunned. That ruckus cou
ld have ended very badly.”
“I know,” Reuben admitted. “Maybe I was a little reckless going out there that way.”
“No, I’d say it was a lot reckless, since you were unarmed. It’s a good thing Keith was able to shoot those two fellas himself.”
The look Stark gave Reuben made it clear that he had a pretty good idea what had really happened. The official report didn’t say anything about Reuben using a gun, though, and that was just fine with Stark.
“From now on, it might be a good idea if you didn’t get mixed up in things like that,” Stark went on. “Since you can’t be armed and all.”
“I swing a mean bat,” Reuben said with a faint smile.
“That you do, but most of the time a bat’s not gonna do any good against a gun.”
“You’re right, Mayor, but I’m not going to leave one of my officers hanging out to dry, either.”
For a moment Stark didn’t say anything. Then he chuckled and said, “Between you and me, son, I probably would have done exactly the same thing. And I mean everything.”
Reuben nodded, understanding what Stark meant. He said, “You realize that much cocaine meant this was a major run. It had to belong to the cartel.”
“I agree,” Stark said. “And they won’t be happy that they lost it, either.”
“You send that much cocaine north in a car that’s going to break down?”
Nacho Montez managed not to wince as Señor Espantoso’s angry words lashed at him.
“There was no way to know in advance that the car was going to break down, señor,” he said, hoping that it wouldn’t sound too much like he was making an excuse. “It seemed to be in good working order.”
That was the truth, but clearly the señor didn’t seem to care. He stalked back and forth across the expensively tiled floor in the living room of the ranch house he had taken over as his headquarters and said, “Those gringo police never should have even been there. The sheriff ’s department never patrolled that stretch of the highway that closely. This was the doing of those old dogs in Shady Hills!”
The Bleeding Edge Page 24
