“Got you something,” said Pedro.
“A bottle of La Familia?”
“Nah. Something we were talking about.” Pedro reached beneath the bar and came out with a braided leather quirt. “Not exactly a buggy whip, but pretty close. It’s yours. Help you figure out what to do now that you’re not a journalist anymore.”
Before Tank could respond, Pedro left to help another customer. Tank set the riding crop on the counter and lifted the beer to his lips. Who said he wasn’t a journalist anymore? Al Soletano? Mary Grant? Edward Mason?
If you’re a journalist, what are you doing in Pedro’s?
Tank looked at the crop. A journalist tracks down sources and gathers evidence. He digs out the truth, no matter how cleverly it’s hidden. He doesn’t give up until he has his story. A journalist has a sacred obligation to the truth.
Once he’d believed all that garbage.
And now?
He ran his fingers along the crop, waiting for an answer.
—
Shanks slipped into Pedro’s through the back entrance. The dining room was dimly lit and he needed a few moments for his eyes to adjust. The first thing he noticed was the colorful plastic fish hanging from the ceiling. Then the velvet paintings of Hispanic stars. Real class. Only a few tables were occupied. None of the diners matched Potter’s description.
A din was coming from the bar area. He crossed the room and ducked his head around the corner. The place was a madhouse. Students, young professionals, even a few oldsters. Many wore dated clothing and sported old-school hairstyles. He noticed a sign advertising THROWBACK THURSDAY and BEERS $1.
Shanks edged his way through the crowd, keeping low, eyes scanning the faces. He was intent on finding Potter. This was his chance. He didn’t have the gift like the Mole. He wasn’t an electrical engineer or a code pounder, or in any way technically gifted. He hadn’t gone to Harvard or MIT. But he wasn’t dumb.
William Henry McNair—Shanks to his friends—was a proud graduate of King College Prep on Drexel Boulevard in Chicago. And not just a graduate, an honors graduate. His diploma had the words cum laude printed right below his name. With distinction. That didn’t matter much when your mother was loaded all day and your father was doing time in Joliet. No one in his family had even thought about college.
Shanks didn’t want to follow his brothers onto the street. He was a good kid, with only two smears on his rap sheet. The day after graduation he was on a bus to Parris Island, South Carolina. The Marine Corps Recruit Depot. He saw action in Iraq, made sergeant in three years, and was offered a slot in Officer Candidate School. By then, though, the headaches had begun, and he decided he’d had enough of the Corps. While he liked the idea of getting his butterbars just fine, the prospect of earning $100K a year was more appealing, and that was what his brother had promised.
His brother had lied. Instead of $100K, he got a ten-year sentence for armed robbery. He served six, but six was more than enough. Shanks was done working with thieves. He liked having a real job with a real company with a real salary and real benefits. As of this fine day he was pulling down ninety-four grand a year, with health, dental, and a 10 percent kicker to his 401(k). He aimed to keep it that way.
It was lighter in the bar area and he had a good view of everyone’s face. He made a circuit of the room, keeping his eyes peeled for a tall, shaggy guy with drooping cheeks and sad eyes. He saw no one, and after double-checking the dining room, he made a second tour of the bar. There was a single unoccupied stool. A $10 bill was tucked beneath a full bottle of beer on the counter. Whoever had left the money had left a shot of tequila, too.
And something else. A fancy braided leather riding crop.
Where in the world was Tank Potter?
Shanks hurried out the front entrance.
The Jeep was gone.
—
“Get out of my seat.”
Shanks slammed the door and handed back the stiletto.
“You missed him.”
“He left.”
The Mole moved to the work bay and took his place at the console. “Briggs is going to be pissed when he finds out you let him get away.”
“I told you, he left,” said Shanks. “Anyway, we have another nail to take care of. You know how to get to Buda?”
52
Time to make money.
Carlos Cantu hurried in from his car and ran upstairs to his bedroom. He couldn’t believe it was already six and he was only now getting home. Buda was a good thirty miles south of Austin, and this evening traffic had been snarled owing to an overturned fertilizer truck.
Carlos threw off his sweat-stained scrubs and jumped under the shower, keeping the water on full cold, which at this time of year was no better than 80°. As he washed, he thought of only one thing. Money. He wanted $35,000 for the watch. Not a penny less.
Finished showering, he dressed in shorts and a Longhorns T-shirt, then opened his nightstand and picked up the evidence bag containing the Patek Philippe watch he’d lifted yesterday. Now that he was clean, he tried it on. The gold sparkled dully. The second hand swept smoothly across an ivory guilloche face. The crocodile strap complemented his skin.
Carlos returned the watch to the evidence bag for safekeeping. If it weren’t worth so much, he’d be tempted to keep it for himself. But $35,000 would go a long way. It would pay off his mother’s medical bills, help his sister with college, and, hopefully, leave enough to buy himself a new car.
He didn’t like stealing from the dead. He preferred to look at his action more as “purposeful misplacement.” Things got lost all the time between the crime scene, the hospital, and the morgue. If they happened to find a way into his pocket, all the better.
—
Downstairs, he set up camp in the dining room. A coffee and a frozen Snickers bar counted as dinner. He logged onto eBay. At the moment he had a single auction running. A photograph of the Patek Philippe watch filled the screen. He’d received three bids so far, all for well below his asking price. He checked the bidders’ identifications. Two were watch dealers in Florida. The third was a private individual in Seattle. All of them seemed legit. He frowned. He wouldn’t accept less than thirty. Thirty was the magic number.
His phone chimed. He saw it was a text from Tank Potter asking to come over.
“Not again.” Carlos picked up the phone, unsure whether to respond. He’d already done Tank enough favors. The problem with reporters was that they always wanted more. Then he remembered how Edward Mason had screamed at him to hurry up and load the bodies into the van when they weren’t even ready. The man had a serious attitude problem. Carlos decided he’d be happy to help his buddy, if only to screw the officious little turd.
He texted Tank to come over when he wanted and added that he should enter through the back door.
“See you soon,” Tank texted back.
Carlos put away the phone and returned his attention to the auction. There was a new bidder.
Twenty-five thousand or nothing.
It was his final price.
53
“Do you believe him?”
Mary stood inside her walk-in closet, eyeing the racks of clothing.
Blue blazer.
Navy slacks.
White shirt.
She selected the garments with care, setting them on the bedspread like she used to lay out her Sunday best for church. At the moment, however, she did not entertain any angelic thoughts. The Lord’s Prayer, “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” and the Twenty-third Psalm were the furthest things from her mind.
Mary Grant was angry. She was sick of being pushed around, and sick of being lied to and manipulated. Mostly, though, she was sick of not knowing the truth.
Joe had not called her to say goodbye. He’d called to tell her that something was profoundly wrong with his current situation. He’d called to give a shout for help, even if he knew she could not render the assistance he needed.
He did not call Randy
Bell.
He did not call Don Bennett or Edward Mason.
He didn’t call anyone from the FBI.
He called his wife, a civilian twenty-five miles away driving on a crowded freeway with her two daughters, doing nothing more hazardous than navigating the ordinary, mundane vicissitudes of everyday life.
Joe had called his wife because she was the only person he could trust.
Mary put on her slacks and shirt, tucking in the tails so the fabric pressed across her chest. She slipped on a pair of sensible brown loafers she’d worn exactly twice. Finally she put on her blazer. In the bathroom she brushed her hair and drew it into a ponytail. With a warm washcloth she wiped away a bit of her mascara, scrubbed the foundation off her cheeks, and removed her lipstick.
She appraised herself in the mirror.
Stand straight.
Shoulders back.
Don’t smile.
Still, something was missing.
She opened Joe’s drawer and rummaged through his things. She raised her chin as she pinned the American flag to her lapel. She looked the part but didn’t feel it. She lacked a certain gravitas, an air of authority. She was a mother heading out to address the PTA or the secretary of the neighborhood homeowners’ association. She was not a seasoned law enforcement officer.
Mary returned to the closet. Kneeling, she slid aside Joe’s trousers to reveal a squat black safe a little bigger than a minifridge and ten times as heavy. Joe’s gun locker. She knew the combination, and within seconds she’d opened the door and removed a Glock 17, a box of shells, and a holster.
Mary took the gun into the bedroom. Like any good military brat, she knew her way around weapons. She knew you always chambered a round and kept the safety on, and that when you drew, you fired. She hadn’t taken a shot in years, but that didn’t matter. She had no intention of using the pistol. Joe’s gun gave her the swagger she needed to pull off her masquerade.
She returned to the bathroom and took up her position in front of the mirror.
She looked the same but felt entirely different.
Forty-eight hours ago she was a grieving widow a breath away from becoming a basket case. As of this moment she was an FBI agent investigating the murder of Joseph Grant.
“Do you believe him?”
No, Mary admitted to herself. She did not believe Edward Mason.
Not for one second.
54
Tank made the turn off the highway, grumbling as the Jeep bucked and groaned down the dirt road. He’d bent the axle ramming the Ford, and the steering was pulling to the left. There was a hatchet-sized dent in the front fender, too, but it blended in with several others. It was the axle that needed fixing.
A gray clapboard house appeared around a curve, half hidden beneath a perilously sagging willow tree. Two dingy windows bracketed a door with paint so chipped and flaking that the door looked like a hedgehog. Weeds had overtaken the lawn years ago. The house looked all but abandoned. The only sign of an occupant was Carlos Cantu’s ancient Honda parked out front.
Tank honked and pulled to a halt. Grimacing, he climbed out of the car, his back aching from the kidney punch he’d taken. “Anybody home?” he called. “Carlos—it’s me.”
He made a trail through the waist-high weeds toward the door. The drive to Buda was a crapshoot. As of two hours earlier, he had officially adopted radio silence. That’s what you did when someone hacked into your phone. In fact, more than hacked into it, took over the entire device. Bodysnatched it.
No more efficient spying device had ever been invented by mankind than a smartphone. It allowed you to speak with one friend or a dozen, and to see their faces. It could access any piece of information in any public database in the world within seconds. It took pictures and movies so clearly they appeared lifelike. It informed you of your location within ten feet anywhere on God’s green earth and then told you every kind of store and business that was around you. The problem, Tank had learned firsthand that afternoon, was that it could be used to spy on you, too.
Tank rapped on the door. “Surprise visit. It’s me, Tank. Open up.”
He listened for the floorboards to creak as Carlos came to the door. The place had been built in 1920, and he was sure it still had every last original plank and nail. He knocked again, and when no one answered, he took a step to his right and yelled through the open window. “Carlos, you in there?”
No sound at all came from the house. The silence made him nervous.
As a reporter, Tank had done plenty of things to piss people off. It was practically a requirement of the job. Either the cops, the DA, or the perp objected to something you wrote. Over the years he’d received his share of threats, bodily and otherwise. This was the first time, however, that someone had actively interfered with his investigation by destroying evidence.
“Carlos?”
Tank scooted closer to the window. It was then that he saw it and his stomach turned.
He retreated to his car. A search beneath the front seat turned up no liquid courage. Breathing hard, he leaned against the Jeep, looking at Carlos’s house, seeing the overturned chair, the unmoving feet, wondering what to do.
It was on him. There was no way around it.
Steadying himself, he began a slow walk back to the house. The front door was locked, so he walked past the horseshoe pit and around to the back. He stepped onto the porch, the planks groaning beneath his weight. The kitchen door was ajar. He saw something dark in the passage leading to the dining room, something dark and viscous and alive. Against his better instincts, he stepped inside. The smell of cordite stopped him in his tracks. He stared at the pooled blood and the flies busily gorging themselves.
A coward runs, but who stays? An idiot? Certainly not a hero. A hero didn’t get his friend in trouble in the first place.
A journalist stays.
Tank passed through the kitchen and entered the dining room. Carlos Cantu lay on the floor facedown, a bullet hole at his temple. Tank knelt to check for a pulse. His friend was dead.
For a minute Tank remained crouched, doing his best to piece together what had happened. A cup of coffee and a half-eaten candy bar sat on the table next to an open laptop. The mug was still lukewarm. Coffee and a Snickers bar were not his idea of a last meal. A phone lay on the floor a few feet away.
When the ache in his arthritic knees became too great, he stood, his joints cracking like a couple of brass doorknockers. From all appearances, Carlos had been working when someone sneaked up behind him and shot him in the head. The gunshot had toppled him from his chair. His eyes were open. He had died unawares, or at least without putting up a fight. But who could walk across this rickety floor without making a noise?
It was Tank’s fault. He knew this at once. It was Tank who’d called Cantu en route to the medical examiner’s office and, later, Tank who’d voiced his brash and all-too-public accusations that neither Joe Grant nor his informant had been killed by a handgun. There were texts. E-mails. And, of course, the pictures. All of it pointing to his coconspirator’s identity.
It was suddenly very important to know who had done this.
Tank picked up Carlos’s phone and checked the call log. He recognized the prefix of the last call Carlos had received, approximately an hour earlier. He thumbed the screen and the phone connected him to the number.
A harried man answered on the fourth ring. “Don Bennett. How you doin’, Mr. Cantu? I hope you’re not calling to weasel out of your interview Monday morning.”
“No,” said Tank. “I’ll be there. Just wanted to confirm the time.”
“Nine a.m. Everything okay?”
“Just fine, sir. I forgot to write down the time.”
Tank hung up. Hearing Bennett’s voice provided a measure of relief. In his rattled state, he was not beyond believing that the FBI had had a hand in killing Cantu. The good news was that you didn’t schedule an appointment with someone you were going to kill. The bad news was that if the FBI ha
dn’t slain Carlos, the party or parties responsible for killing Joe Grant and his informant had.
Tank rubbed his forehead. Was it more dangerous to stay or to leave? He pulled up Carlos’s texts. The last exchange had taken place at 6:15. It read: “Hey, Carlos, you at home? I’d like to come by. It’s about the pics.”
Cantu: “At home. Come whenever. In for the night.”
“See you in a few.”
Cantu: “Come around back. Front door broken.”
Tank stared at the texts, feeling something close to vertigo. What he saw didn’t make sense. According to Carlos’s phone, it was he, Tank Potter, who had sent the texts. The screen showed his name and his number. The problem was that Tank had thrown his phone into the river two hours earlier.
Radio silence.
His first reaction was anger, then incredulity, then fear. Hacking into a phone to destroy some pictures was one thing. Sending texts from his number—after he himself had destroyed his phone—was a whole different level of magnitude.
Yet despite his fear, he couldn’t help but rejoice just a little. “Oh yeah, Al,” he whispered to himself. “We got ourselves a story.”
He turned his attention to the laptop. He hit the Return key, and a listing on eBay appeared, showing an eighteen-karat gold wristwatch with a crocodile strap. The starting bid was $35,000. The seller was CC Austin Timepieces. “CC” for Carlos Cantu.
Tank spotted the watch in an evidence bag placed on the sideboard, with an identification tag attached to the strap. He removed the timepiece from the bag. The ID tag showed the initials of the owner and the date taken: “H.S. 7/30.”
Carlos had stolen the watch from the morgue the day before. The day after Joseph Grant and his informant were killed.
Tank thought of the body he’d seen lying on the tray. Ample belly, soft hands, manicured fingernails. It was a rich man’s body.
He picked up the watch. A Patek Philippe. Real gold, judging by its weight. A chronograph with day and date. It was a rich man’s watch.
Invasion of Privacy: A Novel Page 20
