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“Yeah, Jimmy?” he said. “What’s the hold up? I sent everything down to you guys nearly 48 hours ago.” He listened to the usual excuses for a few seconds and then interjected, “Look, you need to see my position here. These two were definitely not shot at the airport, OK? We established that.”
With no bullets found at the scene, and the blood patterns inconsistent with an on-the-spot murder, Corbett had to conclude that the bodies had been moved. It was always a key moment, and having gone this far, he was mad at being kept from going further.
“OK, OK, I get it. Just put a rush on it, OK? Anything from those clothes — fibers, particulates, paint,anything— will help. Let me know as soon as you have it.” He replaced the receiver on his comfortingly old-fashioned phone and called up his contrastingly high-tech database of recent finds in their ongoing, seemingly endless battle against organized drug crime.
Corbett took stock. There was this peripheralnobodyof a courier — Ridge’s lady friend’s brother — getting squeezed by his Chicago bosses. He had some pretty good leads at the port here in Corpus, although no one was giving him anything concrete. Then there were the two dead, low-level punks at the airport near San Antonio, and the fact that they’d been moved. Six years as a detective, and he’d begun to listen to his gut. And his gut said, very definitively, that these events were connected. He lifted the phone.
“Hey, Ridge? Yeah, I figured you’d be up early. Just checking in.” The detective sipped more coffee and listened for a moment. “You sure? Same guy, same car?” This was worrying, and Corbett’s mind raced both to slot new data into his mental case file, and to ensure his friend wasn’t wading too deep into muddy waters. “OK, listen to me, Ridge. I won’t bullshit you about these people. I need you to accept, right now, that if they were tailing Hank, they know your car and they know where you live. Raven too, probably.” Ridge was holding himself responsible, but Corbett cut him off. “You did great. These are serious people here, buddy. Look, you can guess what I’d recommend from here... Oh, you will? Well, great. Just be careful. I’ll call you once I’m done here and we’ll set up that meeting with ... what’s his name? Yeah, Hank.” He made some quick notes and signed off. “OK, stay frosty.”
Corbett locked the office and headed out to the city’s sprawling port for one more try. Someone was bound to make a slip, and he’d catch it when they did. And if not, he reminded himself, there were alwaysotherways.
“Hey,Maggie, it’s Ridge Dawson, from the game at the weekend.” With his bedroom door closed, Ridge knew he could deliver this necessary lie in private. “Well, I wanted to thank you for having me over, and, well, I’ve had a little bit of luck and I wondered what you guys were doing this weekend? Apart from the game, obviously!” Ridge stretched as they talked, planning to hit the gym shortly. “Good, well, here’s the thing...”
Once an ecstatic Maggie had rung off, Ridge called another number. “Hey, Barbara, is Derek there?” It was a voice he’d feared as a recruit, but one whose word he trusted absolutely. “Master Sergeant? ...Oh, don’t give me that, you love all that shit... Well, I’ll be there for the reunion in February, man, and we’ll catch up, but I got a favor to ask... Well, you too, buddy, you know that... OK, it’s just that I need to borrow your shotgun.”
San Antonio, TX
Wednesday morning
The two menwere the new, bright day’s first customers and chose a table near the back of the coffee shop. It was, Vincent observed almost every morning, a dying breed: the traditional cafe, a low-key place with a small selection of perfectly brewed, uplifting cups of old-fashioned joe. It was graced by wood, not plastic. It spoke of individuality, not conformism. It embodied traditions, continuity, the stuff of times gone by. It even offered, one dared hope,charisma.
“I wanted to put a fuckin’hiton that rat for selling out like that,” Vincent recalled with unconcealed venom as he sat. “I should have. Ireallyshould.”
Two cups of steaming coffee quickly arrived and Eddie began the process of sweetening his to his precise specifications. “Seems a little extreme, Vincent,” he offered in the Cockney accent for which he was famed. “I mean,” he began, gesturing down the street at the monstrosity in question, “it was a business proposition which made a lot of sense.”
Vincent tossed his spoon down on the saucer with a loud clatter. “You miss the pointentirely, Eddie. This wasn’t just business. This was the loss ofculture. And in a place like this, we are hardly blessed with a surfeit of culture, now are we, Eddie?”
This, the Brit knew, was hard to argue against. San Antonio was many things to many people, and dearly loved by some, but compared to a typical town in his native land, it had a history of almost vanishing brevity. “Yeah, but it’s not exactly a centuries-old tradition we’re talking about, is it?”
Vincent drank slowly and then set down his cup. “You’ve been here long enough, Eddie, to know that anything older than a single generation isold. Jonah’s Coffee Shop was, by this, and any other definition, anoldand much respected tradition on this street. And now... well, forfuck’ssake, look at it!”
Half a block away, the depressingly familiar hoardings of a massive, international coffee chain had replaced the sensitive art deco of Jonah’s frontage, obliterating a local landmark and somehow enraging Vincent almost to the point of violence, despite his having known the cafe — and the city — for less than a year. “I take your point, Vincent,” Eddie knew it best to concede. “It’s sad.”
Vincent pushed his empty cup to the middle of the table and leaned forward on both elbows, his accustomed negotiating posture. “Shall we, as we Americans say, cut to the chase?”
“Only too glad to, mate,” Eddie agreed. “And I have onehellof a chase for you, if I say so myself.”
Eddie slid across an envelope containing perhaps twenty pages of notes and three photographs. Giving Vincent time to study them, he considered yet again the pros and cons of doing business with the man. His reputation was blood-curdling; even the local cops had been steering clear of any interference in his operation since that nasty business with the captain’s wife and daughter. Everyone had been relieved when the hostage crisis had ended peacefully, but a worrying precedent had been set, and few had the stomach to dig deeper into an organization which, as far as the local cops could tell, was impenetrable, left little paper trail, and was headed by a ruthless maniac.
“I feel like I’ve been given a fuckin’ CIA dossier here,” Vincent admitted. “This is quality work, Eddie. Your own?” The Brit simply drank his coffee and smiled. “OK, ‘need to know’ and all that.” Eddie nodded. “Well, it looks like you’ve done your homework. Four men?” Another nod. “Just before midnight?”
“I’d be in position by 11:30, if it were me, Vincent. Just to be on the safe side.”
The American slid the documents back into their envelope. “Cautious, well-prepared, and smart. I think we’ll find we can do a lot of business together.”
Eddie rose and gave Vincent a smart salute. “They weren’t lying about you. An excellent judge of character. I’ll call you later, confirm some details?”
The two men shook hands, and Eddie took his leave. Vincent pulled out his phone and began making calls. It would be, he knew now, a busy and very profitable day.
Outside Pendale, TX
Wednesday lunchtime
There wasan eighty-poundthudas the curl bar hit the mat, to the shock of nearby gym members. Not that Ridge gave much of a shit. All of them knew him to some extent, and all knew to stay out of his way this morning. Although normally friendly to the guys in the weight room, an object of affection to the girls on the ellipticals, and something of a hero to the whirling, punch bag-pounding martial arts types, today they had all received the cold shoulder. He even showered aggressively.
“You want your towel laundered, Ridge?” asked the blonde receptionist. She was very fond of this beloved regular but wary of his suddenly volatile temperament.
“Sure, Sandy.” He paused. “Thanks.”Remember your manners, buddy. I don’t care how pissed you are.
