by Reid, Joseph
As they lifted the headphones away from their ears, I said, “Nice and slow, boys. Put the cans down, then lace your fingers together on top of your head.”
“And who exactly are you?” the ponytailed man asked.
“I’m a federal agent, Mr. Garcia. I believe you know this girl.”
I could feel Max take a half step out from behind me. When he saw her, Garcia’s chin dropped to his chest, and he shook his head.
“Surprised?” I asked.
He glanced back up, wearing a wry smile. “Anything bad ever happens, I can always count on Max to be in the middle of it. I knew she was gonna be the death of me. But I didn’t think she was gonna get some Fed to do the job.”
“I’m not here to hurt you, Mr. Garcia. Just to talk.”
“Oh great. Then put the gun away. Let’s go to my office and—”
“Nope. I’ve had enough surprises already. We’re going to stay right here and chat.”
Garcia’s eyebrows bounced. “She’s gotten you nearly killed, too, huh? Sucks, don’t it?”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Aw, dear old Max hasn’t told you? I’m shocked at her lack of concern.” Garcia’s expression didn’t budge.
“Told me what?”
“Go on, Max, explain it. Or are you too strung out again to put the words together?”
“Again?”
“Man, she really been keeping you in the dark, huh? Lemme guess, she’s throwing up and shitting all over the place. Can’t get out of bed.”
I nodded slightly.
Garcia turned to Max. “You back on the Oxy, girl? We worked so hard to get you off that shit. Why you gotta be so stupid and go back to it?”
Clearly, I needed to catch up on the drug history, but that could wait for a moment. “You said she almost got you killed. What are you talking about?”
Garcia rolled his shoulders and looked toward the ceiling. “Man, you wanna talk about a blessing and a curse. Taking her on was the best thing to ever happen to my little piece-of-crap label here. Finally, I got money rolling in, bands fighting to sign with me, ’stead of the other way around.” Garcia looked at me, his eyes narrowing. “But I’ll tell you, between keeping up with her, dealing with her daddy, I’m surprised I haven’t had a heart attack already. And on top of all that, I got people threatenin’ to kill me. Not her, me! You believe that?”
“What people? What are you talking about?”
Garcia slumped back in his chair. “Before we signed her, man, Otra was one hundred percent Tejano. We had no problems. Then her daddy brings me her tape, and I play it. Like listening to an angel. Look at her”—he nodded in Max’s direction—“she got pop star written all over her. So I sign her. I train her. Start putting out her songs. She goes platinum, but my listeners, the people who been with me since the beginning, they say I’m sellin’ out.”
“Selling out?”
“Sayin’ I’m a traitor. Sayin’ I think white kids’ money is greener, and why can’t I just play Tejano.” Garcia shook his head. “Tejano’s dyin’, man. Don’t nobody ’round here want to hear that, but it’s true. All those people, they know where to find me. This place, where I live. Pretty soon, I start getting notes slipped under the door. Someone throws a brick through my window at night. Slashes my tires. Someone killed my dog, man. My dog!” Garcia’s eyes were welling up now.
He shuddered, trying to keep it inside, but finally a hand came off his head. Stabbing a finger at Max, he started to stand. “And it’s all her fault. None of this shit would’ve—”
I took a half step forward, the Sig pointed directly at his chest. “Sit. Back. Down.”
Garcia plopped back into the seat, sniffling and snorting, blinking the tears out of his eyes.
“So Max is a pain in the ass, and your fans are all riled up. What’d you do about it?”
“Do?” Garcia chuffed. “What can I do? Contract says I got to release the next album. Then I’m free. That’s why I been wanting her in here, recording, ’stead of running all over the place. Sooner we get that shit laid down, sooner I can drop her ass and move on.”
“Wait, you’re planning to get rid of her?”
“Yeah, man.”
“What about the money? You’re willing to throw that all away?”
Garcia grunted again. “Money don’t make up for the stress, man. Just dealing with her is a full-time job—now I gotta worry about who’s gonna jump me in the dark. I used to get by on a lot less than I got now, you know? I built this label up from nothin’; I can do it again. I get rid of her, get a fresh start? That’s all I need. Hell, I would’ve kicked her ass to the curb already if her daddy the counselor hadn’t tied my hands.”
“I thought her contract expires in a couple of weeks. On her birthday.”
Garcia’s wry smile returned. “Yeah, for her. Her daddy rigged it so he can pull her anytime after she’s seventeen. Me, I gotta deliver four albums before I’m done. I only done three, so that means I gotta do one more.”
“What do you know about the Second Guerrilla Army of the Poor?”
“Never heard of them. What do they play?”
“They don’t play. They’re a gang.”
“Whoa, man.” Garcia shook his head slowly side to side, keeping his eyes locked on mine. “I got nothing to do with no gangs. Everybody knows that.”
“C’mon, Charlie, you don’t have connections? Your brothers, one of their friends? Maybe you wanted some help eliminating your little problem over here?” I jerked my head backward at Max. “Figure you make one last big score off her name, push out some tribute albums and greatest hits?”
His voice calm and steady, Garcia said, “I swear on Jesus Christ, I got no idea what you’re talking about, some go-rilla gang. Everything I got here, I got fair and square. No gangs. No crooks. Only crook I ever dealt with is her daddy. ’Sides, I ain’t got no rights to her stuff. Her daddy got that all tied up. I can’t release shit if he don’t let me.”
I tried to think it through. Max and I had both guessed that Garcia had hired the Second Guerrillas, albeit for different reasons. But if he were telling the truth about all this . . . “You got the threatening notes? The contract? Proof of everything you just told me?”
Garcia nodded. “In my office.”
Before I could order him to stand, a metallic plunking started.
Softly at first. Then louder.
My first thought was hail, hitting the metal roof. Summer-afternoon thunderstorm.
But the racket wasn’t coming from above us. More like in front.
The side of the building.
That’s when I realized: machine-gun fire.
I’d just put it together when the back wall of the recording booth exploded in a hot, white fireball.
CHAPTER 17
The blast knocked me backward, on top of Max. My first worry was flying glass, but I didn’t feel or see any—the soundproofing laminate must have kept the window from shattering.
Rolling onto my side, then up to one knee, I searched for something, anything, to aim at. Ghostly white afterimages of the explosion floated in my way. Although I squeezed my eyes shut and rapidly blinked to clear them, everything remained hazy and obscured.
I couldn’t focus on the gun sights, let alone anything downrange.
My hearing was fuzzy, too, ears ringing from the blast. I still heard gunfire, though. Short, staccato bursts ripping through the air. Louder than before. And then I could almost feel the bullets as they struck around the room.
The Second Guerrillas were storming in, I realized, through whatever hole they’d just ripped in the building’s outer wall.
Glancing around for Max, I couldn’t see her, either. About the only thing I could make out was the dark outline of the door frame to the hallway. I stood and sprinted to it for cover.
In the hallway, my eyes began to overcome the afterimages of the explosion. As details started reappearing, I turned and leaned back into the room
.
Garcia and his sound tech both looked dead. While the window had mostly held together, a couple of large, jagged shards had been blown inward, impaling Bruce in the back, Garcia in the chest. Garcia’s white shirt was already almost completely red with blood.
Max lay on the floor near them, apparently unconscious.
I started for her, but a string of bullets shredded the carpet directly in front of my foot. Recovering behind the door frame, I took a breath, then tried to spin outward to return fire.
This time, shots cracked against the wooden frame, showering me with splinters and driving me back again.
Stepping out perpendicularly from the wall, I got a sharp-angled view into the room. Two men with tattooed faces were now bending over Max, reaching for her. I fired at one, hitting his knee and crumpling him. But his partner lifted his automatic, and it was all I could do to dive away before his shots ripped the spot where I’d stood.
I scrambled back to my feet and made one last attempt to get into the room, but bullets kept pouring through the doorway.
I had to try something different.
Turning, I sprinted back the way we’d entered, twisting through the switchback and nearly falling out the glass doors at the entrance. I made for the right-hand corner of the building, taking cover for a moment before peeking out over my Sig.
The Second Guerrillas had pulled two SUVs up to the side of the building, one behind the other in a wide V pattern. Several men were pressed against the charred outline of the hole they’d blown through the wall, facing inward. At least three more were visible inside the trucks, whose doors gaped open.
I drew a bead on the rear tire of the closer SUV and fired. It blew with a pop. As that corner sank awkwardly toward the ground, I turned the Sig on the soldiers, firing as many rounds as I could.
I trimmed the nearest man against the wall, and another who tried climbing out of the closer SUV toward me. Two others poured out of the vehicle, driving me back around the corner with more gunfire.
Wedging the Sig between my knees for a moment, I unclipped the sling to free my arm, then reloaded. Between the bursts, I could hear the Guerrillas talking in Mayan. When I stole another peek around the corner, those outside were waving to the men still within.
Several soldiers double-timed it out the jagged hole; a particularly large one had Max draped over his shoulder. I started firing at the ones pinning me down, but they had good cover behind the SUV, and soon another hail of bullets clanked against the corner of the wall.
I waited a beat, then sprinted out, away from the building, to try to improve my angle, but the men had already piled into the lead SUV as it started to roll.
I took three steps after it, firing as I went.
“Max!” I screamed.
The SUV turned in a broad circle away from me, around the rear of the Otra building. I reversed course back toward the entrance, dropping to one knee in front of it, aiming just ahead of the Hyundai and waiting for their vehicle to emerge.
Although I still couldn’t see the SUV, its engine roared, and I could hear its tires spitting gravel. To avoid hitting Max, I could only target the driver’s head and the two tires facing me.
I took a cleansing breath and lined up the sights.
The Guerillas’ truck appeared as a blur of black steel screaming away across gravel.
I squeezed off three quick shots, but before I could even register if they hit, muzzle flashes crackled in the rear windows, and automatic fire began kicking up the stones in front of me. Dropping to my belly, I rolled twice to my left before aiming down the sights again. But by then the SUV had turned, bouncing its way across the grass toward the street in front of the clapboard houses.
I fired two shots to no effect.
Scrambling to my feet, I chased the SUV as fast as I could sprint, emptying the whole magazine.
But it was no use.
Once the SUV hit the pavement, its tires squealed, it zigzagged out to the main street, and sped away.
As the last bit of the SUV disappeared from sight, I stopped in my tracks and doubled over. My shoulder and thigh both throbbed with pain. Although I wanted to yell, I didn’t have the air. Hands on knees, I fought desperately to catch my breath. My heart was pounding so hard, I could feel the pulse throbbing in my neck and temples.
Gradually, my chest stopped heaving, but now my throat started to swell shut. My eyes watered. I let out a noise that was nothing intelligible, just a bunch of sounds that had gathered in my belly and forced their way out.
Sirens began wailing vaguely in the distance, but they barely registered.
Oh, Max. Now I’ve failed you, too . . .
A part of me screamed to get moving as I trudged across the gravel, but the rest couldn’t bring itself to hurry.
The loose stones shifted beneath my feet, causing me to stumble across the lot. Other than my heart, still thundering, my insides all felt loose and mangled. As I reinserted my earpiece, the audio player started chattering through the first chapter of an audiobook I’d bought three weeks ago: a new Tesla biography I’d been dying to read. But now the words bounced off my brain like the hailstones I’d originally mistaken the gunfire for.
After wiping my face on my sleeve, I poked around the stranded SUV, then checked the pockets of one of the casualties. Both as empty as I’d expected.
I glanced back across the grass, through the hole that had been blown into the side of Otra. The metal wasn’t only charred; it was contorted—bent and twisted over itself like a used piece of chewing gum. They must’ve used thermite, or something similar, to melt steel like that. That would also explain the bright-white explosion.
“Quite a fucking mess you made,” I said out loud. I thought briefly of calling Lavorgna—he’d need an update on all of this, on how royally I’d screwed everything up on my very first case out of the gate.
As would Max’s father.
The sirens were growing louder now. The only way to make things worse would be to get tangled up with the police. By the time I’d answered their questions, God knew where the Second Guerrillas would have Max.
Or whatever was left of her.
I wiped my eyes again and moved mechanically to the old Hyundai. Started it, shifted, rolled down the driveway. I began making turns, merging from one lane to another without even thinking about direction.
No matter how I tried to focus on the road or whatever might come next, the main part of my brain kept flashing back to the image of Max, unconscious on the floor. The Second Guerrillas carrying her away. And me, unable to save her.
Had they been watching the studio? Had I walked us right into a trap?
What could I possibly do next to get her back?
I needed a plan.
Even more, I needed a place to clear my head. Someplace safe to think. Somewhere without cops, a place to process everything and determine my next move.
Although I’d lived near Dallas for years and had traveled to Texas dozens of times since, at that moment I felt a flash of panic at being landlocked. Since fleeing for California, the ocean had become my refuge. Whenever I needed to remove myself, or gather myself, I’d pull on my wet suit and make for the shoreline. I’d sit in the water, breathe with it, let its rhythm put me back in line. During the few days between Sarah’s funeral and returning to work, I’d spent almost every daylight hour out on the board.
My quick glances out the car window showed no water in sight. Just broad, grassy fields as far as the eye could see, broken only by the harsh angles of man-made structures—houses, garages, stores.
After driving aimlessly for several minutes, I realized I was lost, no idea where in Austin I might be.
I started checking signs. Looking for landmarks.
Nothing helpful. Just generic countryside.
I was about to pull out the burner and hit the GPS when I saw it.
Looming, off to my right. Gleaming in the sun.
Besides the ocean, the only other place
familiar enough it might help me recover. And I had to smile at the ridiculousness of my finding my way there by accident.
Being absolutely honest, I’m not big on fate. Predestination is way too hocus-pocus for a math-and-science guy like me. But at that moment, the fact I’d found it seemed like more than mere coincidence.
It just seemed . . . right.
I flipped on the sedan’s blinker and took the ramp.
CHAPTER 18
You enter Austin-Bergstrom at the bottom, through baggage claim.
Although the terminal’s three stories tall, the windows are up top, meaning precious little natural light spills all the way down. Dim, and built from large blocks of gray stone, baggage claim would have the look of a dungeon if it weren’t for the carousels, some of the weirdest I’ve seen. Shiny chrome, triangular in shape, fed by extralong ramps extending from the wall behind them, they look more like the landing struts of some alien spaceship than a place to retrieve your suitcase.
Since dark and foreboding was the last thing I needed, I maneuvered through the crowds as quickly as I could toward the escalators. Taking the stairs two at a time, I cleared security at the top with a flash of my badge.
Austin bills itself as the “Live Music Capital,” and the airport features a stage built right into the terminal, where bands and singers play almost every day. Wandering over, I found a four-man band in cowboy boots and hats playing southern rock. Some wannabe Lynyrd Skynyrd–type song, but a small crowd had gathered, tapping their feet, bouncing their shoulders.
I dropped into an empty chair.
The song ran long, with one of the guitarists moving to the mike and singing. His voice was nasal and flat, but the crowd didn’t seem to care. One couple in particular, college kids from the looks of it, weren’t even listening: she was sprawled across his lap, their arms wrapped around each other, their mouths locked.
Normally, I’d have looked away, given them their privacy. But their blissful ignorance caught my attention.
