Final Payment

by Steven F Havill

  “And that door has been certainly and most definitely closed,” Leona said. “Thank heavens for that. This Mr. Tapia may not even know about Hector’s arrest yet.”

  “But he just as easily could know, if he’s in the area. If he went up to Albuquerque as Hector suggests, then no, maybe not. It depends on how much of a spread the media gives it all when we finally open the door to reporters.”

  “Well,” Leona said philosophically, “we can always hope that he never returns. And I can think of a very good reason why this man might not confide in the youngster, beyond the necessary basics. We’re dealing with a mere child, after all. I mean really…he is, is he not?” Estelle didn’t remind Leona that many of the world’s most accomplished thugs had never turned eighteen years old, and Hector had passed that milestone.

  “He flies a mean airplane, that’s for sure,” Leona continued. “But Hector is a child. And you know, look where he ended up. Hmm? Clever as a little rat, but look where he ends up. In the clink. So there you are. I can empathize. The less the boy knows, the safer for this Tapia fellow, nasty as he is.” Leona’s eyes widened. “And he’s not in the clink. Not yet, anyway.” She reached over and patted Estelle’s shoulder maternally. “I think he’s back in Mexico…for what it’s worth. I think he accomplished his nasties, and now he’s back home.”

  “His nasties,” Estelle said, amused at Leona’s quaint turn of speech. “They’re certainly that. Unless we’re very lucky, I think we can expect another trail of bodies showing up…somewhere, sometime. We’re missing something. It’s that simple. That’s what I think.”

  They rode in silence as they approached the airport from the west. “Why would he fly into Posadas, and then depend on a motorcycle?” Estelle asked. “That doesn’t make sense, except that it happened to be there. Hector knew about it, maybe even told his uncle beforehand that it was there. The little weasel might even have borrowed it for a joyride himself from time to time. But Tapia? Steal a car, yes. Rent a car, sure. Borrow a car. Why not? But a motorcycle? A dirt bike? What sense does that make? What’s more obvious than a bright red dirt bike, ridden by a fat middle-aged man?”

  “Oh,” Leona corrected. “Burly. I don’t see fat. And it’s only obvious if the motorcycle happens to cross the path of someone who’s looking for it, or someone who cares. But you’ll piece it all together,” Leona said. “I’m confident of that.” She let out a sharp gasp and reached out a hand to the dashboard for support as Estelle braked hard. The undersheriff swung the Expedition off onto the shoulder, then cranked it around in a hard U-turn. As soon as the truck was squared away and accelerating hard, she reached for the mike.

  “Estúpida, Estúpida,” she said, and keyed the radio. “Three-oh-eight, three-ten.”

  For a moment the radio was silent, and then Sheriff Torrez’s quiet voice responded. “Three-oh-eight.”

  “Ten-twenty?”

  “At the airstrip, headin’ north.”

  “Ten-four. I’m headed that way. Look, Chet Hansen is number 109. He just came off the mesa with Pasquale right behind him. They’ll be on the prairie by now, headed south on fourteen.”

  “Okay.”

  “I think we need a close escort for Hansen.”

  “Ten-four. I’ll be twenty-one.” Torrez didn’t elaborate, but in a moment Estelle’s phone buzzed. With the county truck charging westbound at well over eighty miles an hour, she took her time finding and opening the gadget.

  “Guzman.”

  “So what’s going on?” Torrez asked. Estelle could hear his vehicle in the background.

  “The three victims were involved somehow with Pemberton, Duquesne, and Cordova, Bobby. At least one of them worked for that firm. They were headed for Socorro—that’s what Hector tells us. Coincidence or not, the lieutenant governor is from Socorro. On top of that, Leona just reminded me that Chet Hansen’s brother was killed in a car wreck last year in southern Mexico, along with his family. Hansen took his construction company back after that.”

  “Huh.” The sheriff’s grunt was noncommittal. “So what?”

  “It’s the only thing we have,” Estelle said. “And this has been bothering me—why would Tapia want a dirt bike if he was headed to Albuquerque, like Hector claims he was? He wouldn’t. He’d want the bike if he’s going into the rough, if he’s going out in the boonies. And that prompts coincidence-or-not number three. Why did he come to Posadas this particular week? He made that very clear, Hector says. This was the correct date. So what’s going on this week? A cyclo-cross bike race. Our ex-lieutenant governor is in a well-publicized race right through the heart of our finest boonies. That’s opportunity, Bobby.”

  “Yeah, well,” Torrez said, and he still sounded dubious. “There’s a hundred and thirty riders in the race, though. Might be a hundred and twenty-nine other targets. Might not be Hansen—if it’s anyone.”

  “All I’m going on is the Mexican and PDC connection, Bobby. If you can look down the list of names and come up with someone else more likely, have at it.” She glanced at Leona, who was scanning the list as she spoke. The county manager looked at her and shook her head.

  “I don’t recognize anyone else,” Leona said.

  “We’re on the list right now,” Estelle continued. “Look, suppose that for whatever reason, this assassin is after Chet Hansen…or someone else participating in this race. Think about it. The race is a well-publicized convenience for him…close to the border, lots of hubbub.”

  “And lots of opportunity,” Torrez interjected. “If a rider is the target, he’s got a nice big number pinned on him, front and back.”

  “Absolutely.” She pulled into the passing lane to shoot past traffic. “But it’s too rough up on the mesa, and there are too many witnesses. Not hard to hide, or ambush, but way too hard to make a getaway. He’s too smart to let himself be trapped.”

  “Huh. Everybody’s off the mountain?”

  “Yes. Off and accounted for. At the same time, we don’t have much coverage all the way down County Fourteen. That’s thirty-one miles of opportunity, with plenty of escape routes. And in the country, a dirt bike is just the ticket. The terrain is open, and it’s just minutes from the border.”

  The phone was silent. “Bobby, there’s evidence Tapia stayed in the house next door to the Uriostes. That’s saying he had some business here, not up north in Albuquerque. He might have told Hector that just as insurance—in case the boy was caught and decided to talk.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Yes, it does. He didn’t even need the boy to feed him information beforehand. Anyone with a computer can find race information online, starting in February, when they posted the route map and started registering riders. The story Hector tells us coincides with all of that. And anybody can get a race program online, with the riders’ names and numbers. Like you said, a number front and back—that makes for a handy target.”

  “Shit,” Torrez muttered. “He could just as well be after any name on that list. They’re strangers, most of ’em.”

  “That’s right. They are. I’m going by only one thing…. Make that two. Number one, Hansen has had dealings with PDC in the past. Number two, his brother died in Mexico in odd circumstances. His body wasn’t even brought back to the States for burial. Why didn’t Hansen insist on that? It just doesn’t jibe. I might be wrong. But it makes sense to me.”

  “We got nothing to lose,” Torrez said. “If it’s a hunch, follow it up. If you’re wrong, all we’ve done is waste a little gasoline.”

  “Look, I’m coming in from the north,” Estelle said. “I’m probably closer to him than you are.”

  “I’m on my way.” Torrez switched off, and Estelle dropped the phone on the seat beside her. She braked hard as they reached the check station. Six riders were guzzling fluids, and Estelle had time to see the expressions of surprise as the Expedition turned off the highway onto the dirt, red lights flashing, fishtailing as she applied power.

  Leona murmured someth
ing and grabbed the panic handle.

  “Keep a sharp eye,” Estelle said. “We’re going to be overtaking riders, and this road doesn’t give us a whole lot of room.”

  “I’m watching when I don’t have my eyes closed,” Leona chirped.

  For a mile, the county road ran arrow-straight, the prairie so dry that traffic had pounded the red soil into fluffy dust that billowed up behind the truck like a jet’s vapor trail. Just beyond a windmill and a large stock corral, the route jogged left around the base of a low mesa, cutting through the jumble of rocks that over the eons had calved off the mesa rim.

  Estelle slowed. She didn’t want to roar up behind Pasquale and punt the deputy and his bike off into the piñons. At the same time, she saw that opportunity for ambush abounded, with harsh shadows making it hard to identify individual shapes under the trees or behind boulders. There would be a fair amount of traffic, but an ambush would take only seconds.

  With the windows down despite the dust, she drove up and around the small mesa, then braked hard as they dipped across an arroyo, clawing and chewing rocks up the other side. A helpful sign, riddled with generations of bullet holes, announced: County Road Maintenance Ends, .5 Mi.

  “I have to ask,” Leona said, hanging on tightly as they charged up and out of the arroyo. “Why ever not just come into the country like a normal tourist, this assassin person? Why all the risk with this night flying business?”

  Estelle didn’t answer for a moment, instead concentrating on avoiding a series of frame-bending ruts that yawned eighteen inches deep in the prairie. Once more on sharp rocks as the road took on a steep rise dead-on, she replied, “For one thing, border checks are tighter than they used to be. If a weapon turns up, he’s dead meat. Anyway, we’re assuming that he has business north of the border. Otherwise he wouldn’t show up here. But it works for him. If he killed the PDC accountant and his family in Mexico, he runs the risk of having those authorities on his tail. This way, everything is in the United States. He finishes his business here, skips south, and he’s home free.”

  “Ah. I’m not smart enough for this.”

  “And maybe just because it suited his sense of fun,” Estelle added. “And it gives him a tie to Hector. Another bond. That might be of use later. Who knows, maybe he’s training the little weasel.”

  “Oh, my goodness.” Leona sighed. “We’re talking about a different species here.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” the undersheriff said. “But you may be dead-on right.”

  Driving as quietly as a jouncing two-ton vehicle could manage on a dirt road, they crested the top of the rise. She had slowed to thirty miles an hour, with emergency lights off. As she drove and listened, Estelle tried to recall the intimate details of the country—how the road twisted, how the sweep of vegetation flowed up on the high ridges where the cattle rarely strayed.

  For a hundred yards, they drove along a low ridge. They could see all the way south to the San Cristóbals, and to the north, Cat Mesa. The road then swept down in a graceful, fast curve to an abandoned windmill and the remains of a stock corral.

  Twisting left, the county road left the meadow and skirted a conglomeration of old fence lines that converged from several directions. Turning to hard gravel and emerging limestone outcroppings, the route climbed back into the scrubby trees. The next two turns were so tight that Estelle slowed to a walk, keeping the Expedition away from the jutting rocks on the passenger side, and the growing drop-off on hers. She glanced at her watch. The cyclists would be flying on this section of the race, rougher for a four-wheeled vehicle than for a bike.

  Out on top again, the road ran along the spine of the little wrinkle in the prairie and, craning her neck, Estelle could see back down to the windmill. For a hundred yards or so, they drove straight north, and then the road turned sharply to the left and downhill, switching back to slope down toward the next meadow. As she rounded the right corner, mindful of the drop-off once again on Leona’s side, she caught sight of a figure wearing the colorful garb of the race. Not leaning against his bike, not sitting on a rock or a stump, Tom Pasquale was collapsed awkwardly in the dirt at the very edge of an arroyo, the drop-off directly behind him. His legs were buckled under him, his back leaning against the fresh dirt cut where a road grader’s blade had trimmed the road two weeks before, cutting a ditch to the arroyo.

  The county truck slid to a stop and it was only when Estelle opened the door that she saw Pasquale’s right hand lift. He didn’t look up, but his signal for her to stop was clear enough. For just an instant, he held his hand palm toward her; then the fingers curled, his index pointing up the hill behind him.

  Estelle froze, eyes scanning the sparse and runty timber. After a few seconds, she leaned back into the truck. “Stay in the vehicle,” she said as she tripped the shotgun release.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  As she slid down out of the truck, Estelle saw that Tom Pasquale was slumped sideways, supported by his left shoulder ground into the dirt. He tried to stretch out his right leg, but his left was crumpled under him. There was no sign of his bike. She wanted to sprint across to him, but at the same time couldn’t shake the feeling that other eyes were watching.

  She scanned the scrub undergrowth around them, trying to separate forms from shadows. Farther on, the county road curved out of the scrubby trees, sweeping back out into the open prairie to parallel the arroyo whose cut grew until it could engulf a full-sized truck and still leave room for thunderstorm runoff. It was the sort of jumbled terrain that offered a good vantage point to watch passing traffic from a dozen places.

  Slipping her phone in her pocket and unsnapping her automatic, the undersheriff crossed the road and approached Pasquale. His eyes were now closed. At one point, she froze in her tracks as she heard the clanking of bicycle chains. Above them, three riders appeared, cycling along the ridge. She knelt beside Pasquale and saw that blood soaked his left hip, staining his spandex shorts to the knee. His left hand was pressed tightly into the pocket of his hip, just below the beltline.

  “Damn, that hurts,” he murmured. “The son of a bitch shot me.” He opened his eyes and tried to lean to the right, looking down at himself. The motion drained his face to pasty gray.

  “Let me see,” Estelle said, and he let her lift his hand, grimacing as she did so.

  “This is embarrassing,” he whispered.

  “Oh, sí,” Estelle said. “I’m deeply embarrassed. You just sit still.” The hole in the bright blue polyester of his shorts was tiny—it would have been unnoticeable had it not been marked by oozing blood. “Ooze is good,” she said. “No gushers. This is it?”

  “That’s it,” Pasquale said dubiously. The “it” was enough. There was no way to tell what damage the bullet had caused inside, but there were no spurting arteries. Shattered bone, most likely. It didn’t take a howitzer to mangle a hip joint.

  Sitting back on her haunches, she kept one hand on top of his, feeling the shaking in his body. With her free hand, she hit the auto-dial on her phone, and was relieved when Gayle Torrez answered promptly.

  “Gayle, we need an ambulance on Fourteen, six miles south of Seventy-eight, just a half-mile beyond Torrance’s abandoned windmill. And send backup.”

  “Hang on,” the sheriff’s wife said, and Estelle waited while the efficient dispatcher made sure the rescue unit was rolling before she asked more questions. “Okay. There’s an emergency unit at the checkpoint on the state highway. They’re on the way. What have you got?”

  “I think Tapia shot Thomas,” Estelle said. “It looks like the bullet is lodged in his left hip. That’s all I know at the moment. I don’t know where the shooter is.”

  Pasquale clamped his other hand over hers. “Hey, I know Tapia shot Thomas,” he said. “And check behind us. Down in the arroyo. I think Hansen’s dead.”

  Estelle stood up and in two steps could see down into the deep arroyo cut. Two bikes and one body lay on the rough arroyo bottom, bare rock w
here rains had washed away the loose sand and gravel.

  “Can you hang on a minute?”

  “Yes.”

  Estelle turned and beckoned to Leona. “Bring the kit that’s in the back,” she called. Making no move to plunge down into the arroyo, she scanned the terrain all the way to where the arroyo skirted the buttress of the hill to the east, and then to where the cut in the prairie circled around where they now stood, following the road.

  “I saw Tapia swing at him first,” Pasquale said. “I was just coming down the hill, around that corner back there, when I saw him swing. Hansen went off the bike, and Tapia was headed toward him when I tackled ’im. Maybe he didn’t see me comin’, maybe he just didn’t care. I hit him pretty hard, and he went down. We went at it pretty hard. Damn, he was strong. I thought I had him, and I heard his ankle pop. That’s when he got me off-balance, and I went off into the arroyo. That was that.”

  Pasquale heaved backward as a bolt of pain shot through him, then slowly relaxed. “Christ.” He panted for a moment, and his grip on Estelle’s hand was like a vise. “Didn’t hurt at first. Fallin’ in the arroyo knocked the wind out of me. And then he had the gun on me. He shot Hansen, then me. He tossed the bikes in the arroyo. To someone ridin’ by, it’d be all cleaned up.”

  “Which way did he go then?”

  “Up this road, behind us. I heard him start the bike. He went the same way you guys came down.”

  “We didn’t pass him,” Estelle said.

  “Dozen routes he could have taken,” Pasquale said. “There’s that fork down by the other windmill; there’s trails all over. He could see you coming and just pull off into the trees until you went by. One thing—he isn’t going to ride hard. I think he’s got a busted ankle.” He grimaced and then tried a smile of satisfaction. “I hit him pretty hard. Knocked him right over the motorcycle. That had to hurt.”