The Innocents

by Richard Barre

  Zavala opened up from the mouth of the tunnel. Exposed now, Wil scrambled to where he could cover his advance. With the third of his clips, he drove Zavala back, firing as he ran toward the entrance. Feet pounded inside: Wil flattened and rolled, warhorse pointed toward the retreating sounds.

  There—silhouetted against the sunset down the tunnel’s length, halfway across, stooped over running. Wil fired all seven rounds, saw the figure stagger and fall, get up and lurch forward. Two clips left, his odds dropping: He could bang away from where he was, hoping for another hit, but if he missed, Zavala would make the other side, hold him off, counterattack, or split. Crossing above the tunnel was out, more lives put at risk in a firefight across four lanes of traffic. Wil reloaded, bolted after the stumbling figure.

  He nearly made it.

  Ahead, the tunnel suddenly emptied and then an arm extended back toward him. Flashes came again; bullets ricocheted. Wil hit rough damp concrete, fired to drive the arm back, then rose up zigging, making slim progress before the bullets drove him down again. Slowly he cut the distance, his shots raising acrid fog, their noise savaging his eardrums. Ten yards from the tunnel’s mouth, on his last clip, the firing stopped.

  Meaning what?

  Wil could picture Zavala scrambling up the rocks, tires burning rubber, his own rage. Worse, the man waiting in ambush. In the sunset’s afterglow he’d be an easy target.

  Shit.

  Wil launched himself toward the opening. The surf was loud, his breath came in gasps. Five yards, two—still no flashes; the knife, maybe: happy thought. He pressed against the south wall. Traffic jammed by overhead, and he could see shapes of the boulders supporting the roadway. He darted to the opposite side. The man was either gone or tempting fate; by now someone had to have called in. Assuming no unit was already close, a black-and-white could make Ventura-to-La Conchita in about ten minutes, fifteen at most. As if to confirm it, reeirr-reeirr-reeirr became audible rounding the Shoals.

  Wil leaped for planking that served as a small platform outside the tunnel; twisting, he landed in a crouch facing the upslope. Zavala was there, but not the way Wil expected. He lay spreadeagled, eyes shut and head to one side, gun in his left hand. There was a hole above his left eye; another wound darkened the shirt under his open leather jacket. Wil flipped the gun away and felt the neck for pulse.

  The eyes opened.

  Wil jerked, steeled himself. Reflexes—had to be. And yet he knew the unpredictability of head wounds, believe-it-or-not survivals from Nam. He’d about given that up when the lips began to move. The voice was faint but distinct, a scratchy tape playing over and over.

  “No mate a la niña, no mate a la niña, no mate a la niña, no mate a la niña—” The tape stopped.

  “Who killed the children?” Wil said. “You?”

  There was a cough and a struggle to speak, a focus now in the eyes. “No más,” Zavala said. “No más—”

  “Who, damn you?”

  Another attempt without sound, then the eyes rolled back; this time Wil found no pulse. Slowly he stood over Bolo Zavala, over the orange hair, spotty complexion, scar. He was close to the composite, and yet he was different—less imposing somehow. Menacing the way a troublesome adolescent might be.

  And then Wil locked in on the Llama automatic, the razor blade tattoo where the leather sleeve had pulled up, and he had no further illusions. All that remained were the voices of the victims of Bolo Zavala, crying in the night above the sirens closing in.

  Wil laid the .45 on a rock and stepped up onto the fringe, hands clasped over his head.

  TWENTY

  The cemetery lay on land a developer would die for; oaks grew there and cypress trees and, beside the bluff overlooking the ocean where the five were gathered, purple-flowered succulents. Wil parked the Harley on the downslope and walked the rest of the way, gloved hands in the pockets of his overcoat.

  Worse places, he kept telling himself.

  He shook hands with the caretakers and the two longtime friends of Paul’s who still lived in town. After a few attempts, small talk ceased as they waited for the family to arrive.

  Lisa kept her eyes on the ground.

  He felt like shit. Parts that didn’t ache were cut and scraped; bone-weariness and the alcohol had him floaty. Last night had been an onslaught of questions, accusations, fraying tempers, Dietrich hauling him into the Ventura County sheriff’s office. Lisa waiting when they finally let him go.

  Starting bad, it then got ugly. She’d heard about Gringo on the radio, been frightened, hadn’t been able to reach him, didn’t know if he was hurt or missing, and then the shootout at her own house and the not knowing until he called her from Ventura. Goddamn him for putting her through that. She went into the bedroom, slammed the door; he could hear her banging things. Then the banging stopped, and when she came out she was icy calm.

  He’d lied! What had they talked about? How did he expect her to go on like that, and she didn’t think she could, and she was going back to her folks until she could sort it out. He hadn’t helped by lashing back at her. On her way out the driveway, she’d dug ruts in the gravel.

  Gulls squealed in an updraft.

  Having her look stunning today only made it worse. Her hair shone in the flat light; she carried a bouquet. He wanted to put out a hand to her. Instead he shifted his stance to ease an aching tendon, then regarded the rows of headstones, confirmation that life was short—one of the things you never quite appreciated, he thought, like a gift you couldn’t take out of the box.

  Paul’s Chevy came over the rise and down.

  What there was was over quickly. Tommy Rodriguez, in uniform and reminding Wil of a darker version of his father’s Cam Ranh photograph, read something from the Bible. Lisa put the flowers down; Wil stuck a small flag he’d brought in the soft earth. The old friends, in their plaid coats and hopsack pants, embraced Raeann, then moved off. Tommy shook hands, then headed for the Chevrolet as she came over.

  “Put it behind you, honey, he’d want that.”

  “I know, Raeann, thanks. You okay?”

  She managed a smile. “Praise God for Tommy and the letters that came. I’ve decided to go back to Texas with him for a while. Did you know that?”

  “I had a feeling,” he said.

  “You’re welcome to use the house if you want. The key’s where it always is.”

  “Thanks.” Guessing it might comfort her, he said, “You might want to know, Zavala didn’t make it.”

  “Later on that may mean something,” she said softly. Her dark eyes lowered to the patch of grass. “He was a good man, my Paul, always stood up for me. I’d like to think you two’ll come to see him once in a while.” She paused. “Funny, isn’t it—how you have to lose something to really appreciate it?”

  She walked away without looking back.

  Wil and Lisa watched the station wagon curve around and disappear. For a moment they said nothing, then she turned on him, her eyes flashing. “What’s sad, Wil, is that maybe—just maybe—I could have helped. Guess we’ll never know, will we?” She spun around, ran for her car, and drove away.

  For a while he fixed on the spot where the black coupe had been, then he walked up the rise to the motorcycle, kick-started it, and glanced back. The scene was different from the graveyard in the desert, but the same: lonely as hell and hard to leave. He thought of Paul and the final strangled defiance coming from the car phone. Then his eyes stung, and he packed it in and left.

  It came as it always did, with too much bourbon and too little sleep.

  Bits and pieces out of sequence: Devin laughing, water flying off long hair he liked to swing forward and flip back; rust on aging I-beams; the sound of flatline.

  Then, as though the projectionist took notice, the dream settled in at the beginning. Picketline. Named for the chest-high picket of decaying oil pier supports running out into the surf—their spot when the Rincon got crazy. Like Rincon, a right break with a rocky bottom; swells appr
oaching in tight, regular formations. Forming up and breaking sweetly.

  A succession of quick cuts then. Dev and Wil surfing together; hours later the warm sand feeling good; eating sandwiches Lisa’d packed; watching the hotdoggers get radical as the swells begin picking up; Dev wolfing his lunch, chafing to go back in until Wil relents. Them hitting the water again, everything fine until the big set hits.

  “Stay here,” Wil says. “Wait for me.”

  Dev nods. Dissolve to Wil taking the breaker in, special moves to impress his son, looking back then, expecting to see Devin bobbing up and down where he’d left him. Suddenly the dream projector slows from twenty-four frames a second down to twelve, to Dev mouthing “Waaaaatch meeeee, Daaaaad,” slow-motion distorted, him paddling to catch the biggest wave of the day in half-speed. Wil trying to shout him off it.

  At first Devin makes him proud with the obvious emulation, father recognizing himself in his son’s form. Then something wrong, the wave carrying the boy directly toward the picket, Dev not cutting out where he should, nobody but Wil noticing.

  “NOOOOOO!” Zoom-lens close: Dev transfixed, attempting a last-second bailout. The big wave crashing through the picket, sending pieces of smashed surfboard beyond it, leaving a limp form draped over a rusted beam like overalls hung out to dry.

  Here the film races, collage scenes of his frantic paddling, of taking a surge into one of the beams himself, noticing the blood only after they’d gotten Devin onto the beach and into the ambulance. Of Lisa, grim-faced, holding Dev’s hand, the tubes coming out of him, of them praying. Of doctors shaking their heads. Slo-mo again: ten days, near-sleepless watches, little eternities until the machine’s monotone, worse than any words telling him his son was dead.

  Wil sat up drenched, snapped off the alarm, and touched the scar between his eyebrows where he’d hit the beam. Dream images decayed, his racing pulse came down slowly. He showered, put on jeans and a sweater, stuffed necessities and the Shetland sport coat into his black leather backpack. Hungry despite the hangover, he wolfed down cold leftovers as he replayed Dietrich’s phone message.

  On the way out, Wil’s eyes took in the Bonnie: rear wheels scrap; six rounds in the right flank alone, ugly holes inside raw metal rosettes. He mounted the Harley. Five trys and a kickback later, he was headed south in cold overcast, Devin’s image forming and re-forming out beyond the windscreen.

  Wil found a Styrofoam cup—glad even for coffee that smelled like asphalt—and dumped in powdered creamer. After two gulps the mix had ambushed breakfast and last night’s bourbon. He put it aside and took a chair beside Mo Epstein, who for some reason was in Ventura.

  “Nine o’clock,” Wil said. “As requested.”

  Dietrich leaned against his desk. “Go back to the ambush, Hardesty, the house one,” he started. “How many rounds did Zavala get off?”

  Wil felt like heaving. “This has to be the fourteenth time. You don’t like my answers, how about multiple choice?”

  Dietrich turned red and said something about memory improving in the lockup, which was where most private dicks belonged anyway. Epstein cut it off with, “Wil, cool it. How many?”

  “I don’t know, as many as I fired back—about thirty. Maybe a few more since he shot first.”

  “All right,” Dietrich said. “Once more—he let loose from the ditch in front of the tunnel. Then what?”

  “I set up in the weeds about twenty yards south and chased him with a clip. He took cover in the tunnel.”

  “Any reason to believe you winged him there?”

  “Outside the tunnel, no.”

  Dietrich began to pace in the small office. “Okay, then what?”

  “I could hear him running for the other side. Must have figured his ambush was trashed and wanted out.” Wil leaned back; despite his acid stomach, he sipped the coffee. “He’d stolen a car, right?”

  Dietrich nodded. “We found the Camaro in Santa Paula. Keep going.”

  “By the time I got there, he’d made it about halfway.”

  Mo Epstein said, “He was running okay then?”

  “Like Walter Payton—at least until I fired—that’s when I saw him fall. I reloaded, he got up and ran again.” Wil tried to get a read from Epstein, couldn’t, and kept on. “I pursued. We had a firefight, him from cover, me down and praying.”

  “Until he stopped shooting,” Dietrich said.

  “Until I shot him in the head. Maybe you recall the wound.”

  Dietrich stopped pacing. He began flipping his ballpoint pen—flipping it, catching it, flipping it again. “You recall seeing anybody, any parked cars?”

  “No.”

  “Hear any gunfire?”

  “Zavala had a silencer.”

  “What did you do with the other gun?”

  Wil sensed a joke. “You mean the one I had up my ass?”

  “No, wiseass, the one that turned out the lights on Zavala.” Dietrich watched the color leave Wil’s face; he started pacing again. “The M.E. did the autopsy last night. Pretty obvious what happened, you got him once in the body then finished him with the head shot. Only it turned out to be not so obvious.” He stopped pacing to pick up a file off his desk. “They found your lead under his ribs all right, would have killed him eventually. But not right then. The other bullet took care of that.”

  Dietrich slapped down the file. Mo Epstein said, “It wasn’t yours, tests confirmed it. Not unless you brought along some reserve firepower.”

  Wil felt a throb in his temple. “Like what, Mo? You know my forty-five.”

  Dietrich waded back in. “Lieutenant Epstein already told us about that, Hardesty. What we don’t know is how come Bolo Zavala had a nine-mil slug in his head.”

  They spent a few minutes together outside before Epstein left to brief Freiman and Vella. Mo eyed him. “You’ve been busy the last couple of days,” he said. “You doin’ okay?”

  Wil grimaced. “Beginning to think there’s a nice surf shop with my name on it.” He took a deep breath. “Zavala talked, Mo—not much, but some.”

  “You are fucking something.”

  “The first part was Spanish, kind of frantic and unfocused, like he thought I was someone else. ‘No mate a la niña—Don’t kill the girl. Over and over.”

  “His kid?”

  “My guess, too. This new thing with the bullet—I think he mistook me for the one who shot him. Whoever it was had to be close enough for him to recognize from the edge of the road.”

  Epstein cocked the eyebrow. “Makes me wonder if whoever shot him doesn’t have the baby. Somebody Zavala left her with—or who took her.”

  “He’d have killed anybody who tried that. I like the leaving part.”

  “But if he left the kid, why the sudden concern for her life?”

  “Yeah. The only thing I can figure is he wasn’t worried about her as long as he was alive. Makes sense if he was going to pick her up and split for Mexico after he took care of me.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I asked him who killed Benito. What I got was, ‘No más’ —no more.”

  Mo’s eyes widened. “No more dead kids?”

  “Sounded that way to me.”

  “Like whoever killed Zavala is our child killer then.”

  “Maybe. Or his partner in it.”

  “And whoever got him meant for all of it to stop right there with him.”

  Wil watched a flight of birds veer and disappear into a tree. “If they came together, the killer would have left in the stolen car; somehow he or she followed Zavala or knew where he’d be. Odd—he’d be a hard one to surprise, even wounded, unless he knew who it was.”

  “We got lucky finding the bullet, maybe we’ll get lucky with the gun. By the way, Dietrich didn’t bring it up, but this guy had a ten-foot-tall coke habit.”

  “Might have pissed somebody off, you mean.”

  Epstein shrugged. “Could be Sonny Pacheco gets some credit after all. You be around?”

  �
�I think I’ll renew an acquaintance. You?”

  “I was hoping to go back to something simple like gang warfare. Incidentally, Freiman’s mad as hell, talking about busting your ass when I left there, said you withheld about Zavala coming. I told him you asked for my help and that settled him down some, but it’s real iffy.” He rubbed shine from his forehead with a handkerchief. “Before you got here we agreed not to spill the second bullet to the media. Same’ll go for Bolo Zavala’s immortal words. Maybe we can find whoever popped him more easily if they think the heat’s off.”

  They walked to the Harley. Wil straddled the bike and kicked; the motor hiccupped and pooped out. “Thanks for coming, Mo. Maybe you should leave before I draw blood.”

  Mo waved. “Be kind to the ass that bears you. Call me.”

  Wil watched him leave the lot. After two more tries the Super Glide fired up, and he gunned it into the flow, down Victoria Street onto 101 South, his mind grappling with the second bullet. Who knew Zavala was coming back to La Conchita—somebody with him at the Rincon? An old enemy? Vengeful drug dealer? The question was, how? Until Zavala found out his mistake with Gringo, even he wouldn’t have figured he’d be coming back.

  Wil cut off the freeway at Woodland Hills, turned onto Ventura Boulevard, caught the magic of Christmas full-tilt: lights twinkling competitively, decorations vying for attention, windows shouting holiday bargains, shoppers prowling for parking spaces. Off the boulevard it was somewhat less spirited.

  He eased the Harley sotto voce through the expensive neighborhood and parked at the edge of the Reyes’ property. Across the street a couple of well-dressed women disapproved. Wil stowed his helmet and the pack and started up the walk. More leaves had fallen; midway to the door, he nearly stepped in a present left by something that wasn’t a reindeer.

  Reyes surprised him by being in the living room watching TV, the gleam in his eye transcending the glass of white wine he was sipping from. He looked ten years younger. “You got him,” he said. “It’s all over the television.” He turned off the set.