by Steve Brewer
Could be a woman's name. Could very well be the woman who stole the guns from the truck stop. But why would her accomplice write her name like this, over and over?
Maybe they had a falling-out of some sort. Then Howard Bell would have reason to call her multiple times while he sat here at his desk, scribbling her name, getting increasingly vexed when he couldn't reach her.
Estes went to a row of filing cabinets that lined one wall, pressing against them as another car passed outside and headlight glow filled the office for a moment. Then he used his flashlight to check tabs, thumbing his way through the alphabet. No file labeled "Jackie Nolan," but there was a "Payroll" file and, sure enough, it contained payment and tax records for a Jacqueline Marie Nolan. Estes took a recent document that included her Northeast Heights address.
Worth checking out after dinner.
Estes folded the paper and put it in his pocket. If he couldn't turn up anything on the guns tonight, he'd come back here in the morning. Ask Howard Bell some questions about Jackie Nolan and that Peterbilt out back.
The big Colt nudged his back where it was tucked into his waistband, as if reminding him of its availability. He'd replaced the bullet that he'd put in Tex Russell's head. The gun was cocked and locked.
He'd get answers, one way or the other.
Chapter 27
It was fully dark by the time Jackie Nolan returned to her mother's neighborhood off Wyoming Boulevard in the Northeast Heights. She slowed the El Camino to a crawl as she reached the house, but there was no sign of Howard or the cartel's people or anyone else.
The porch light was off, but she could see the broken window right in front. She needed to secure that window and eat something and get more clothes for Marge and herself, but she feared that someone still waited inside, that they'd set a trap for her.
She steered the El Camino into the empty driveway and killed the headlights. She left the engine running as she got out and retrieved the shotgun from behind the seat. Then she got back in the car and sat there a full five minutes, ready to zoom away at any sign of movement in the house.
Nothing.
Finally, she got out and walked up to the front door, keys in one hand, the sawed-off shotgun in the other, held close to her hip as she stepped up onto the shadowy porch.
Not a sound from inside.
She peeked through the broken pane in the front window, but there were no lights on in the living room, and she couldn't see anything but the vague shapes of shadowy furniture.
Jackie unlocked the front door and pushed it open, shotgun at the ready. She realized she was silhouetted in the door and quickly stepped aside, still on the porch, listening. When nothing came, she slipped inside, the shotgun held in both hands at waist height, perfect for cutting a man in half.
A blob of shadow squatted just inside the front door, where no furniture should be. Jackie gasped, but caught herself before she pulled the trigger. The blob was man-sized, but too short, and it didn't move or make a sound. As her eyes adjusted, she could see it was a fat man sitting in a chair.
She took a second to listen, but heard no movement anywhere in the house. With the shotgun still pointed at the sitting man, she flicked on the nearest light switch, which turned on lights recessed in the high foyer ceiling. They shined directly down into the broad, blood-spattered face of Howard Bell.
Howard sat in the rolling chair from the desk in Jackie's bedroom, his hands tied behind him with a length of brown extension cord. The swivel chair was cranked as tall as it would go, and Howard's black loafers didn't quite touch the ground. His toupee was missing and his bald head was tipped all the way over backward. A blood-soaked dishtowel was stuffed in his mouth. His eyes were wide open.
His throat had been slit from ear to ear, a narrow red gouge that still seeped. His arms and shoulders were covered with smaller cuts, each a blossom of red on his white shirt. The front of his shirt was soaked with dark blood all the way to his lap.
Jackie swallowed against the bile that rose in her throat. She couldn't afford to stand around puking. There was too much to do.
First, she went to the front window and closed the curtains. She made sure the door was locked, then she went from room to room and into the garage, turning on lights, checking under beds and in closets with the shotgun. Only when she was absolutely certain that she was alone in the house did she go back for a closer look at the late Howard Bell.
By then, she was over the initial shock, and she'd begun to wonder why the Mexicans had killed him in such a brutal fashion. Howard was no hero; anything they would've asked him, he would've blabbed immediately. But they'd clearly tortured him, trying to get him to reveal the one thing he did not know – the location of that shipment of Army guns.
She wondered for a second why they'd tied him to the office chair from her bedroom rather than to a chair from the dining room, which was closer. Then she got a mental image she knew she'd never be able to erase: Howard in the swivel chair, spinning around, faster and faster, while one of them touched him with a razor or very sharp knife. That would explain the little cuts all over him. Not just torture. They'd made a game of it.
Once they were sure they'd gotten everything he knew, they'd finished the job rather than leave behind a witness. She pictured El Gűero stepping up behind Howard, reaching around his fat neck, then dancing away as the blood spurted all over Marge's favorite throw rug.
Jackie was hit by another wave of nausea, but she fought it off. Touching the chair rather than Howard, she rolled him off the six-foot-long braided rug, one end of which was sopping with blood. Jackie peeled the rug up from the floor and wrapped it clumsily around Howard so she wouldn't have to look at him. He looked like a teepee on wheels. She held the rug in place while she rolled the body through the kitchen and into the garage. She parked Howard just inside the roll-up door, then hurried back through the house to where she'd left the sawed-off shotgun in the living room.
Jackie knew she was violating all sorts of laws about tampering with crime scenes, but she couldn't have the police finding Howard here. The house was Jackie's mainstay. Her mother soon would need round-the-clock care, and Jackie's only option would be selling this house and using the proceeds on nursing homes and, eventually, hospice. She couldn't have the house tainted by a murder, not in today's shaky real estate market.
She went to the kitchen for spray cleaner and paper towels and rubber gloves. With the shotgun always within reach, she quickly cleaned the spatters of blood off the walls and baseboards and did the best she could with the floor. The floorboards directly under Howard were soaked with his blood, and she knew she'd have to replace them eventually. For the moment, she used a different throw rug to cover the stain.
Jackie bagged up the bloody paper towels and gloves and left the trash bag in the garage with Howard. Then she went back through the house, turning out the lights.
She carried the shotgun onto the front porch, braced for someone to jump out of the shadows. But the neighborhood remained as quiet as a cemetery.
Jackie locked up the house and hurried to the El Camino. She tucked the shotgun behind the seat, then got behind the wheel and turned the vehicle around, backing up so its tailgate faced the garage door. She got out of the car and let down the tailgate before keying in the code that would make the garage door rumble upward.
Jackie ducked under the garage door as soon as it rolled high enough. Lights came on automatically in the garage whenever the doors opened, but there was no one around to see her heft the rolling chair and its rug-draped cargo into the bed of the El Camino. She tossed the trash bag in next to Howard, and hit the button to close the garage door.
Wham-bam, over and done in under a minute.
She waited beside the car for a moment, listening. The dark neighborhood was deathly quiet, as usual.
She tucked the rug tighter around Howard's body, wedging the ends under him so it wouldn't blow away. Then she grunted against his weight, pushing him out of the w
ay so she could close the tailgate.
One last look around the neighborhood, then she got behind the wheel and got the hell out of there.
Chapter 28
Rita Gutierrez was dappled with the fat man's blood. Each time she'd cut him, while he was spinning in that chair, another fresh spurt had spattered her. A hot shower of blood.
Fun at the time, but it presented certain problems when it came to checking into a nice hotel. El Gűero opted instead for a motel near the freeway, one where every room had an outside door. They waited until there was no one in sight, then she scurried inside while El Gűero brought their bags from the trunk.
Before he'd finished shutting the door, she was kicking off her shoes and peeling off her damp clothes. She was a voluptuous woman, round and firm, and her skin seemed to spring free of the constraining garments.
El Gűero took off his jacket, but he moved more deliberately.
"The blood," he said. "You need a shower."
"I want you first."
"Not in the bed. The blood—"
"In the shower then."
She turned away before he could argue, shaking her naked ass at him as she went into the small bathroom.
Rita turned on the tap in the tub. While she waited for the water to get hot, she looked at herself in the mirror over the sink. She had blood in her hair and across her forehead. Spatters of it on her neck and down her cleavage. She smeared the blood around with both hands, painting her face and neck and breasts, smiling at herself the whole time.
When the room got steamy, she adjusted the water and got into the shower. She held out her hands to the hot water and watched as the blood washed away. Then she stepped under the flow, her eyes closed and her head tipped back, letting the water pour over her.
The first notice that El Gűero had crept into the shower was the tip of his hard cock nudging her lower back. She laughed and turned to him, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him under the shower. His body was lean and tawny and taut, nearly hairless, a pleasure to hold. When he kissed her deeply, a thrill ran through her belly.
The blood was washed away, only a few pink droplets speckling the tub, but the animal heat generated by the prolonged torture of Howard Bell still burned within them. El Gűero clutched her ass in both hands and lifted her up, pressing her back against the cold tile as the water sprayed over their heads. She shuddered as he shoved his cock up into her.
She wrapped her legs tightly around his hips, and El Gűero moved slowly, pushing her, squeezing her against the tile wall. She felt impaled there, a butterfly pinned to a cold white page.
Her eyes closed, Rita remembered the fat man spinning in the chair, spraying blood round and round like a lawn sprinkler, his eyes wide as he screamed into the folded towel. After a while, they hadn't even asked him questions anymore. Just spun him round and round, cutting and cutting, the blood spraying everywhere.
Rita came so hard it seemed to rock her very bones. She screamed with pleasure as El Gűero grunted against her. Once, twice, three times, each plunging penetration an earthquake within her, then he groaned, too.
He pressed her against the wall, grinding his pelvis into hers as he spasmed, and Rita came again. Softer this time, an aftershock, but still enough to make her moan and buck against him.
He held her there another minute, both of them gasping and shuddering, until the spraying water began to lose its heat. Then he set her down and stepped away, pushing his wet hair back out of his beautiful face. She cut off the water and stood perfectly still, watching him as he stepped out of the shower and reached for a towel.
Moments like these, in the afterglow of passion and blood-letting, were the only times Rita ever saw him smile.
Chapter 29
Jackie Nolan steered the El Camino onto a narrow gravel maintenance road that ran alongside the Embudo Canyon Arroyo. The arroyo is part of a network of concrete-lined channels that carry rainwater and snowmelt from the mountains through the city to the Rio Grande, which always needs the water.
During the summer monsoon season, flash floods in the arroyos can wash away the unwary, the water roaring down from the mountains even when no rain is falling overhead. Local news shows regularly feature tense video of rescue workers with ropes and helmets, fighting the raging brown water, as they try to save some idiot who ignored the posted warnings.
Most of the year, though, the concrete-lined drainage canals sit dry and empty, serving as hangouts for skateboarders and graffiti taggers and the homeless. In a pinch, an arroyo would do as a place to dump a body.
Jackie stopped the car, then carefully backed it up at an angle so the tailgate hung over the brink of the concrete canyon. She cut the headlights and sat in the dark awhile, listening, making sure no one was around, then she got out and lowered the tailgate and climbed into the bed of the El Camino. She sat with her back pressed against the cab and the back windshield. She put both feet against the rug-wrapped bundle.
"Sorry, Howard," she whispered.
She pushed with her legs, sliding his body off into the darkness. Rug, chair and all.
She winced at the thud and clatter as the chair tumbled to the bottom of the concrete ditch, but no porch lights came on nearby, no one came outside to check on the noise. People who live next to an arroyo, she figured, must be accustomed to odd noises in the night.
Jackie tossed the trash bag full of bloody paper towels into the arroyo, too, then got behind the wheel and slowly drove away from there, leaving her headlights off for the first hundred feet or so. Then she turned on the lights and sped up, soon bouncing onto a residential street and zooming away.
A clock seemed to be ticking loudly inside her head, every minute that passed another minute that her mother was left in a strange home with people she didn't know well. Jackie needed to pick up Marge as soon as possible, but then what? She couldn't take her home, not with Howard's killers on the loose.
She stopped at a convenience store and bought two toothbrushes and toothpaste and a couple of bottles of water. Just enough to get them through a night at a motel. That would give Jackie some time to sort out her situation. Beyond a night or two, she'd have a problem. Her credit card was nearly maxed out already.
She fed five dollars into the meter of a drive-through car wash behind the convenience store and eased the El Camino into the maw of the machine. Normally, she'd never expose her father's prized car to harsh detergents and beating brushes, but tonight was a special case. The rug seemed to have kept most of Howard's blood off the truck, but a thorough washing was better than taking a chance.
While water drummed against the El Camino, Jackie turned on the interior light and checked her wallet. She still had enough cash to pay Rose Moore for looking after her mother tonight, but not much more.
She had been counting on her cut from the two truck thefts, but she'd never see it now, not with Howard dead. She wondered briefly what would happen to his business, whether anyone in his family would want to keep it up and running. Should she warn them that Howard had made enemies at the end? Enemies who weren't likely appeased by his death, who wouldn't stop until they got those Army rifles?
Jackie thought again about simply handing over the trailer full of guns. She could go to the office and find the special phone Howard used to call Santiago. Just leave a message telling them where to find the trailer. Then bug out, staying away from Albuquerque until she was sure the threat was over.
She felt overwhelmed for a moment, all her bottled-up emotions roiling within her: The shock over Howard's brutal death. The terror over the narrow getaway at her mother's house. The fear whittling away at her resolve.
A gritty lump rose in her throat, but she swallowed it. She would not cry. No time for that. Still too much to do tonight.
She turned south onto Wyoming Boulevard, zipping along past parking lots and strip malls and fast-food joints. She'd be at Rose Moore's house in ten minutes. Pick up Marge and take her to some cheap motel. Her mother wouldn't
be happy in more unfamiliar surroundings, but there was no choice in the matter tonight.
Tomorrow, in the light of day, Jackie could go back to the house and get Marge's medications and some fresh clothes and toiletries and whatever else they'd need until they could go home again.
But tonight she just wanted a safe place to sleep.
Chapter 30
Clyde Rawls downed another expensive whiskey from the hotel room minibar, the burn in his throat making him cough a little. He'd already gone through several tiny bottles, as well as a couple of beers, while he and Daryl sat around their room, waiting to hear from that Army colonel.
The double-bed room was on the ninth floor of a high-rise hotel that stood like a tombstone next to the Big I interchange. The room was nicer than what they were used to at the Anglo Brotherhood encampment, but it had a view of exit ramps and freeway traffic and the all-night lights of a truck stop. Clyde was in his sock feet, and he could feel the carpeted floor vibrating from the rumble of passing traffic and idling big rigs.
Life in the city. Never a truly quiet moment.
"I need another drink," he said as he turned away from the window. "This waiting is driving me crazy."
"Sure we can't go out?" Daryl was drunk in front of the silent TV, watching race cars go round and round a track. He was splayed in the hotel armchair like a starfish, his limbs limp, his white tank top stretched tight over his slabs of muscle. "I hate to miss out on the nightlife while I'm here in Albuquerque."
Clyde snorted. The boy could be such a dumbass sometimes.
"Did you bring a turtleneck with you?"
"Did I what?"
"You think you can just walk into a nightclub with those swastikas tattooed on your neck? Fuckin' bouncers will turn you away faster than an ugly sister."
Daryl sat up straighter. His eyes were bleary, but his face flushed in outrage.
