‘Los amigos,’ Eduardo said, staring at Sarah in surprise.
‘What?’
‘What Russ, mmm, names.’ He pointed at the tools.
‘What is he saying?’ Sarah asked Jason softly.
Jason said, ‘I think he’s telling us Russell called these tools “los amigos”.’
‘Si! Yes, yes!’ Eduardo was excited, bouncing on his little hard seat. ‘How’d you get them? Russ never loses los amigos.’ Alarmed, he demanded of the two detectives, ‘Where is Russ? Why he’s not here?’
Nonplussed, both detectives stared back at him for a few seconds, until he demanded, louder, ‘Donde esta …’ He shook his head. ‘Where is Russ?’
Sarah had a sudden dismal insight. Eduardo had been on the floor, she realized, almost but not quite immobilized, fighting as hard as he could to keep Jason from putting cuffs on his hands and feet. He had probably not seen his partner get shot. He was high and very sick when he got hauled out of St. Mary’s. The patrolmen who took him to the prison hospital would not have bothered to explain much. Most of the events in St. Mary’s had probably flown right over his head.
‘Eduardo,’ she said, aghast, ‘hasn’t anybody told you that Russell Sexton is dead?’
‘What?’ He began to yank on the stout line that fastened his right hand to the metal upright under the tiny table in front of him. ‘Where is he?’ he yelled. ‘I need to see!’
He began tugging on the line that tied his right hand. It didn’t yield to him, of course – the equipment in the box was there to hold him in place, and it did. The tightly woven nylon line held his right hand, with about four inches of slack, to the table, and the steel chain fastened his feet within twelve inches of where it was clipped to the floor.
And as the truth of that confinement came home to him, Eduardo Flores went spectacularly nuts.
He yanked and yanked on the heavy line, quickly chafing the skin off his wrist. As the bare spots began to burn, he assumed a half-standing position and pulled harder till he drew blood. He flailed his feet around and around the small space the chain allowed them, in the soft canvas shoes that were furnished in the hospital. Soon he had reduced the shoes to shreds and proceeded to tatter his feet.
Sarah said, ‘Wait.’ And then, ‘Stop, now.’ When she saw he was beyond listening, she got out of her seat and headed for the door. Jason was right behind her and Delaney met them there. He had already called for help. The two uniforms that were always on call were coming fast along the hall and the medical team was pounding up the stairs.
‘I feel rotten about it,’ Sarah said later, in Delaney’s office. ‘If I’d known—’
‘But you didn’t,’ Delaney said. ‘And I didn’t. Even today, after I got his records – they’re so sparse. Nothing to indicate … I didn’t realize how disadvantaged … my God. He’s a United States citizen but he’s not just illiterate, he can hardly talk. Mute in two languages, how’s that for neglect?’ He picked up three or four of the notes that littered his desk and bashed them onto a spindle as if punishing memos might right the scales of justice.
‘I asked the lab to put a rush on the prints and DNA studies for the two of them. The guy you shot has several priors, probably more that were just listed under Russ’s name – it’s obvious that Russ was the leader. We’re not finding anything on his name, but that doesn’t mean anything – he’s probably got several names.’
‘Sure. He had it printed on a scrap of paper that he stuck in his shoe – he probably copied it off an ad for office supplies.’
‘Or a diet plan. Anyway, they’ve got Eduardo tranquilized now, and I’ve found a psychiatrist at County who speaks Spanish. He’s going to try to find time to talk to him tomorrow. Maybe with scraps of two languages we can find a way to get him out of that padded shirt. Having his hands tied behind him like that is going to drive him crazy all over again every time he wakes up.’
‘Don’t dare turn him loose, though – he’ll eat a doctor’s assistant,’ Jason said. ‘Jeez, to think I put the cuffs on that guy all by myself. Good thing he was high and tased, or I’d be hamburger.’
‘Maybe you should get an award,’ Sarah said. ‘You’re tougher than you thought.’
‘Tougher than you thought, is that on the awards list?’ Jason said. ‘Where’s the application form for that?’
Delaney swiveled his desk chair to the right and lifted his left shoulder, putting Jason out of his sight. He told Sarah, ‘This still leaves us with a great big problem, you know. We still don’t know who sent those two after DeShawn. But we do know they didn’t get him, so we have to suppose there’ll be somebody else hired on the job tomorrow.’
‘Attacking DeShawn Williams is getting to be, like, the favorite hobby of the Fairweather Farms Opioid Club,’ Sarah said. ‘What do you say I wrap DeShawn in a sturdy box and mail him to Detroit?’
‘OK.’ Delaney twirled his chair to face his two detectives evenly. ‘You two – for some reason your brains are fried. What were you working on before you came here this morning? You can get back to that, or I’m putting you both on street patrol.’
‘I was in the middle of an interview with a bank teller. I better go find her before she cries herself sick,’ Jason said.
‘Go,’ Delaney said, and Jason strode out without another word.
‘Now you,’ Delaney said, ‘What’s next?’
‘I have to look at my list,’ Sarah said.
‘You still working on that same list?’
‘It’s kind of a magical list,’ Sarah said. ‘The faster I cross things off it, the longer it grows.’
It was cool and quiet in the Pima County hospital ward. Lunch trays had just gone out, patients were digesting their macs and cheese, starting to snooze. There was only the hushed bustle of nurses’ aides moving gently in Nike trainers, passing out meds, checking blood pressures. Even without privacy-curtains every bed seemed to maintain its own little dimly lit zone of suffering and recovery.
‘It’s just about my nap time,’ DeShawn Williams said, when Sarah appeared at his bedside. ‘Can’t this wait?’
‘Sure,’ Sarah said. ‘It can wait forever as far as I’m concerned. I’m sick and tired of trying to figure out who’s trying to kill you, so if you don’t want to tell me, I’ll go have a beer at O’Shea’s and read thrillers till whoever it is gets the job done. Then I can write up the report and cross you off my list.’
‘God, you’re a hard woman,’ DeShawn said. ‘What kinda folks raised you, made you so snarky?’
‘The kind of folks that like to hear the truth, DeShawn,’ Sarah said. ‘The kind that just can’t stand to be played.’ She had brought along two photos, the handsome one of Eduardo as he had looked this morning before he went off the rails in the interview room, and the grim one of Russell two Tuesdays ago, with his dreadlocks soaking up blood on the floor, after she’d shot him in the ICU. She laid the pictures across DeShawn’s knees, asking, ‘You recognize these two dudes?’
He glanced at them briefly and said, ‘Nope.’ He was propped up in bed, looking young and vulnerable in a skimpy hospital gown that opened in the back and left him feeling exposed even when he was covered up. Convalescence was returning him, Sarah thought, to the teenage attitudes he had just grown out of. They were keeping him clean-shaven in here, there was no trace now of the sexy beard and mustache that had set him apart as chick bait when she first glimpsed him in St. Mary’s.
She squinted up at the ceiling fixture and said, ‘Got enough light in here? Can you see them clearly?’ She picked up the two photos and held them upright in front of him.
‘I see them fine but I don’t know them.’
His face showed absolute sincerity. He’s trying his guileless look on me again. If there’s one thing I know he isn’t, it’s guileless.
But staring at him, resisting the impulse to bash him in the head with her day pack, against her will she had an insight: It’s possible he really doesn’t know them. Eduardo said they just
took on this one job. Freelance, he called it – so proud of knowing the word.
Maybe I should hit him with a big chunk of the truth.
‘DeShawn,’ she said, leaning toward him over the bedcovers, holding the photos up close to his face, ‘Take a good look now. This is the team that came to grab you out of St. Mary’s Hospital. Remember how much it hurt when they tore you out of your hook-ups? If we hadn’t been there that day, these two men would have you now.’
DeShawn’s face jerked and a small squeak of distress came out of him. Looking straight into her eyes, he leaned toward her and hissed, ‘I don’t fucking know them. Will you please, for fuck’s sake’ – she was leaning over him, holding the pictures, and he grabbed her upper arms – ‘help me!’
She had only a couple of seconds to decide. He had her in a firm hold, but her hands were free – she could put him in a chokehold right now that would cut off his breathing and render him helpless in seconds. They were in a ward full of people and he was chained securely to the bed. She looked calmly into his eyes and said, ‘Let go of me right now and we can talk.’
He let her go at once. His hands dropped onto the bedspread and then went up to cover his face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, through his fingers. ‘Shit, I’m sorry.’
‘Understood,’ Sarah said. ‘I’m going to sit down here now and give you time to—’
‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ a voice said at her elbow. ‘Are you doing something to upset my favorite patient?’ The large attendant she had noticed before in the ward, one she always called, in her mind, Big Nurse, was standing at her elbow. He was nothing like Ken Kesey’s character, he was a big soft man with plump cheeks and a sensuous mouth, but right now he looked firmly determined to intervene.
‘Oh, hey, bro,’ DeShawn said. He took his hands down from his face and turned his beautiful brown eyes, dripping with honest-to-God tears, up to the attendant in scrubs who loomed beside Sarah. ‘Listen, you’re a pal to come to my rescue, but this good police detective here,’ he smiled at Sarah as if they had never exchanged a cross word, ‘is just trying to help me figure out a problem that I foolishly got myself into, you dig?’
‘Oh. Well, then. If you’re sure you’re OK.’
‘Absolutely OK,’ DeShawn said. He grabbed a couple of tissues out of the box on his tray table and mopped his face. He hiccupped a couple of times, and drank some water while they watched. When he was rehydrated, he said politely, ‘Detective Burke, may I introduce you to my new friend Etienne?’
Big Nurse performed a gallant bow and declared himself delighted to meet her. ‘But is it possible this pretty lady is a police officer?’
Sarah managed a pleasant expression just short of a smile.
‘Etienne’s really something,’ DeShawn said. ‘He’s from Louisiana, way down on the Bayou as they say, right?’ They high-fived over that, and DeShawn went on, ‘He’s got a wonderful Creole last name too, but I’m not sophisticated enough to pronounce it.’ That caused a lot of delighted chuckling that made Big Nurse bounce all over like Jell-O.
When it was clear to Etienne that DeShawn was not being threatened, he exchanged a complicated fist bump with his patient and moved away, but continued to monitor their conversation from afar, Sarah noticed.
‘Jesus, DeShawn,’ Sarah said, ‘I wish we had a negotiator like you on our SWAT team – we’d never have to fire another shot.’ She pulled a printed form out of her day pack. ‘This is a document that says you waive the right to have an attorney present during this conversation. If you sign it and answer the questions I’m about to ask you, I promise to help you find a good public defender to help you get your case moving as soon as you’re well enough to get out of here.’
‘That’s all I get? How about immunity for everything I tell you about?’
‘That’s specified on this form. Just for the stuff you tell me about. Your attorney has to get you the rest of the favors – I’m just the poor hard-working detective who’s trying to get you out of here before every two-bit hoodlum in this valley has had a go at offing you. What did you do, DeShawn, to make somebody so freaking mad at you?’
‘Nothing! Honest, lady, all I do is drive the damn bus!’
‘You’re a hard one to help, DeShawn, I swear. Sign the damn paper, will you? There now.’ She dug out her recorder and looked around for an outlet.
‘Oh no, no, no,’ DeShawn said. ‘Please no recording, I’ll get killed for sure if you do that.’ He was all loosened up now; he could cry on demand.
‘All right, all right I hear you,’ she said. ‘Do you have to keep bubbling like that?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s just such a relief to have somebody to talk to.’
‘I bet. Let’s get back to the questions, can we? You all dried out now?’
‘Yeah.’ He blew his nose elaborately, taking two tissues to finish the job. ‘Go ahead.’
‘This isn’t hard, just answer yes or no. When you drive the Fairweather Farms van, do you deliver the clients to their medical appointments, therapy sessions, and so on?’
‘Yes. Shopping too, and sometimes theater and ball games.’
‘And while you do that, you deliver drug orders at some of the stops, is that right?’
‘Um. Well … yes.’
‘Are these drugs you deliver available in the drugstore?’
‘No. Are you kidding? Of course not.’ He couldn’t seem to stick to just yes or no.
‘These are illegal drugs that are not licensed and taxed for sale, is that correct?’
‘I don’t know much about licenses and taxes.’
‘But you do know the drugs you deliver are illegal?
‘Well … I’m no authority on what’s legal or … yes, all right!’ He was getting very nasal again. He cleared his throat, said excuse me, pulled out more tissue and went back to work on his nose.
Sarah waited patiently, grinding her teeth. When he stopped blowing his nose and laid his head tiredly back on the pillow, she asked him, ‘Do you know who the buyers are?’
‘No.’
‘What, you just drop the order where you’re told to drop it?’
‘Yes.’
‘And collect the money at the same place?’
‘No, no, that’s what I keep telling you – I don’t touch the money.’ He sat up and got quite agitated about the money, regaining enough strength to make sure she understood. ‘They get paid some other way. That money you found in the jacket? That wasn’t mine. I don’t know who put it there. You understand? That wasn’t part of the … what I agreed to.’
‘OK. I believe you. But let’s get down to that now,’ she said. ‘Who’s they?’
‘What?’
‘You said, “They get paid some other way.” In that sentence, who is “they’?’
‘Oh. Well, I don’t know any of their names. I mean, it’s a gang, part of a cartel, I guess. Sort of a small-timey part. They call themselves “Los Verdes”?’
‘The Greens?’
‘Yeah, they all had matching caps, I guess, to start with. Just a little street gang in south Tucson, but they got started selling weed and a little crack. They’re way past that now, they mostly move opioids and white powder cocaine. I hooked up with them soon after I got to town.’
‘How’d you do that?’
‘We-ell, I got my start with a street gang like them in California, and you know, once you been in the trade you can spot the signs pretty easy. Me and a couple of my buds ran some routes out of a nice area of hotels and boutique stores in a touristy part of LA.’
‘Is that how you got the letter of recommendation from the Fairmont Hotel?’
‘Yeah, I stole some stationery from the writing desk in the lobby. I’ll plead guilty to that – you want to charge me? I didn’t take none of the pens, though. That was somebody else.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind. If you were all set up with your routes in LA, why did you leave?’
‘I got crosswise with one of our sup
pliers. It was over nothing, really, just a … I should have known better. But Chelsea was so hot, I couldn’t resist, so …’ He sighed. For a moment, DeShawn’s face recaptured the smug expression he had shown in the ICU in St. Mary’s. Even without the killer beard and sideburns, despite the shiner and the runny nose, he’d got back most of his Lothario look.
Sarah said, ‘You got in a fight over a girl? Really?’ She watched him, wondering if he was serious. ‘That seems sort of … high school.’
‘Yeah, well.’ He shrugged. ‘Shit happens. Jaime and I were both dating the same girl, but I knew it and he didn’t. And he was a Blood, he came up in that south LA culture, so when he found out I was poaching on his turf he said he would cut off my balls and I knew he wasn’t joking.’
‘So you wrote the letter and vanished.’
‘Ooh, vanished, you do know such nice words. But the Bloods are known to be without pity when their honor is challenged, so I vanished first and wrote the letter on the road.’
‘How lucky, then, that you arrived in Tucson just in time to fill a vacancy at Fairweather Farms.’
‘Well, you know what they say, luck happens to the prepared mind. I believe that, so I try to stay tuned up. I drove the airport shuttle for a Holiday Inn in Fresno when I was first on my own – I had to get a commercial license to get the job and I’ve always kept it current. Driving the company vehicle is one of the best ways to get established in a new company or town.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Most people don’t. It looks like a job for deadheads, but really it’s the quickest way to learn the ropes in a new place. Who’s in charge of what and if anybody’s holding a grudge? And you make yourself handy to people with money to spend, people who want things, so as time goes by you’ll have some studs asking you, who’s got the action? And before long, that can be you.’
‘So is that how it worked here in Tucson? You got the job driving the van and the drug deals came along after that?’
Sarah's List Page 17
