Bad Country: A Novel (31 page)

Paul Bercich, Special Investigations Unit, State Police.

Rodeo shook the man’s hand. His grip was strong and his hand was dry.

Mr. Bercich, said Rodeo.

Come on inside then, said Paul Bercich. We’ve been waiting for you. Got some questions.

The cop held the door open and let Rodeo pass inside. Luis was in his usual place behind the counter. A thick slice of adipocerous meatloaf and a cup of coffee were already in Rodeo’s spot on the counter, with more coffee brewing on the ring behind the bar.

Sa’p a’i masma, Luis.

How ya’ doin’, Rodeo?

Rodeo crinkled his brow at this strange greeting.

You know how it is, Luis … Rodeo said. Could be better, could be worse.

Silk made meatloaf if you want to risk it, Luis said. The captain here declined but I know you got a cast-iron stomach and you know how Second Wife Silky gets riled up when you won’t eat her food since you’re such her favorite.

Rodeo took his usual seat and the policeman remained standing. Rodeo cut and sluiced a slice of meatloaf into his mouth. It tasted like copper.

Where’s your dog at? Luis asked. What do you think about that meatloaf Silk herself made for you?

Dog’s in the hospital, said Rodeo. And if I eat a whole slice of Silk’s meatloaf I might be there too.

I married for sex, Rodeo.

Luis laughed very loud and casually slid right on his rolling barstool.

I’m sure marrying for sex made sense to you twenty years ago, Luis, Rodeo said. But I don’t know how much sense that makes for you nowadays.

You disrespect me like that again and I’m never bringing you any more provisions from Casa Encarnacion, Luis said. In fact, brother, this is the last fucking favor I ever do you.

Rodeo turned and looked directly at the policeman who was still standing, leaning slightly toward his left side to clear up his gun hand, backed against the clothing carousel.

Luis’s wife is the worst cook in Southern Arizona, Mister Bercich, Rodeo said. That’s why Luis married her. To keep his slim figure. You wanted to talk to me?

When the man’s face twitched Rodeo simply hit the floor.

The roar of Luis’s sawed-off shotgun was deafening. Both plate glass windows of the trading post shattered under a barrage of automatic weapon fire from outside. Rodeo hugged the wood floor. He looked over to his left and saw the “Special Investigator Paul Bercich” dead a few feet from him, staring with the one eye he had remaining in a pool of his own blood, his hand still on his holstered sidearm.

Luis!

Just stay down, brother!

Luis had moved along the counter and laid his shotgun on the glass teeth of the broken window, angled it north. He fired off three rounds as the black Crown Victoria sedan squealed away from the scene.

Rodeo’s ears were ringing, so he could only hear a murmur from his friend as Luis talked into what must have been his cell phone. Luis backed away from the window and Rodeo could vaguely hear him jacking more shells into his shotgun.

State’s on the way! Luis shouted. I’m going to check the back door!

A handgun clattered down beside Rodeo’s head. He picked it up and recognized it as one of his own he’d put in hock. He checked the load and scrambled to the front door, peeked through the thick screen. There seemed to be no one around but he slammed back the screen door and fired off three quick rounds. He winced when he realized he had bounced the final round off the shank of his own truck. Luis crab-walked to Rodeo and sat down Indian-style beside him near the front door.

And they say America didn’t learn nothing in the Vietnam War, Luis said.

It’s old competent assholes like you that make me glad about the Vietnam War, said Rodeo. I had my head up my ass, Luis.

Like I said, brother, this is the last favor I ever do for you. Luis wiped his face with the sleeve of his denim shirt. I’m serious this time.

Neither man said another word until several minutes later they heard a man’s voice booming through a loudspeaker. “THIS IS THE STATE POLICE. COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!”

Sounds like here’s your Mormon boyfriend from State Traffic come to see you again, Luis said. You should give him a dance this time.

Rodeo and Luis walked out of Twin Arrows Trading Post side by side with their hands high to the sky where Officer Theodore Anderton was waiting for them.

I think I will give him a dance this time, Rodeo said.

*   *   *

An EMT applied a bandage to Rodeo’s head where a glass shard had penetrated just above his eye. The smell of blood was heavy in the air. The young med-tech was gray in the face. Theodore Anderton looked at the carnage. Rodeo shifted on his barstool as antiseptic stung his face.

You need to keep ice packs on those bruises for a while, he said. And you’ll need some stitches if you don’t want a bad scar.

I know all about ice packs and bruises and bad scars, said Rodeo.

Painkillers?

Rodeo nodded toward the beer cooler, which still promised F
REE
B
EER
T
OMORROW
. I can self-medicate, he said. The med-tech nodded, packed his bag and left. Rodeo resettled on his usual barstool.

So what tipped you? Theodore Anderton asked.

Rodeo nodded toward Luis, who was again on his rolling stool behind the counter.

Ask Rambo over there.

Instinct, Luis said.

No such thing as instinct, said Officer Anderton. So let’s call it intuition.

Two in-country tours in ’Nam then. That teaches intuition.

Officer Anderton looked at Luis’s forearm on the countertop, at the tattoo there.

USMC? the trooper asked. “Kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out.” That sort of thing, Mr. Encarnacion?

That’ll work for me, Luis said.

But you didn’t know that the dead man was not from Special Investigations since we have all sorts. You could have killed an innocent man, Mr. Encarnacion.

Or an innocent man could have killed me, Luis said. And either way it wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened in this bad country.

The state cop looked at Rodeo.

The whole situation was sketchy, Rodeo said. I shoulda seen it too. The car was parked too far from the building and parked assbackwards and there was a man in the back seat. The fella who came out to me on the porch was over armed. His boots were wrong. His sports coat was wrong. His badge was flashed too quick. His English was good but his accent was wrong for around here. He smelled wrong. His name didn’t fit his face. He wasn’t Local and he wasn’t Government Issue. The man was twitchy.

And now that man is dead, said Anderton.

Fuck him, said Luis. And the horse he rode in on.

So who is he? Anderton asked. His ID is fake and the car he came in is gone.

APB? asked Rodeo.

We have an “all points” on, said Anderton.

Rodeo shrugged. He looked Norteno, but he sounded like he was from someplace else. Maybe Texas? Rodeo looked at Luis.

There was a couple of them in here yesterday, Luis said. Not this one, but same look, driving the same type car maybe.

They buy anything? asked the cop.

About twenty dollars’ worth of tourist junk.

That what tipped you to them? asked the cop. That why you had an armed response ready?

I always have an armed response ready, said Luis. But yeah. Only reason for guys dressed up like that to stop at a place like this is to buy gas, cigarettes, snuff or beer. They wouldn’t be buying no tourist souvenirs.

Could they be Federation Cartel hitmen? Anderton posed the question to the room.

They could be, said Rodeo. But the one who talked and fronted acted like he could have been Police at one point in time, so maybe he’s one of the former Federales who turned bad and works now for Gulf Cartel.

How’d he get your phone number? Anderton asked Rodeo. You said he called you to arrange this meet.

Rodeo’s in the Yellow Pages all over AMexica, Luis said. Wouldn’t take no genius to figure out his phone number.

They probably got my cell number from my ex-girlfriend, Rodeo said. Or my lawyer. I’m pretty sure it was one of them that set me up.

Anderton shook his head. You should think about getting a new dating service and a new lawyer, Mr. Garnet. Theodore Anderton glanced at Luis.

Don’t look at me, said Luis. The storekeep pointed one of his blunted fingers at Rodeo. These criminals and lawyers are his friends, not mine. I just sell cheap beer and Indian blankets for a living.

Why not just ambush you as they did Sheriff Molina? asked the state cop.

I don’t know, said Rodeo. I think they knew where my house was so that would not have been any trouble for them to drop me at my place. So I can only guess they wanted to get both me and Luis at the same time and someplace public so we’d be sure to be found. So Twin Arrows would be the place for that.

Why murder either of you?

The person who is paying for these hits knows that I understand the plan of action and also knows that if I had told anybody what I know it would be Luis. So why not kill me and Luis both here in a scene that looks like a drug cartel shootout and then kill several birds with this one stone and offer at least a couple of good motives besides the real one for our deaths.

There was a good bit of cocaine in the dead man, Paul Bercich’s coat pocket. Maybe he meant to plant that?

Maybe, said Rodeo.

Is there a drug angle around here? In Los Jarros County? asked Ted Anderton.

No more here than elsewhere, said Rodeo. Luis doesn’t deal drugs out of Twin Arrows. Nor do I deal drugs. You can look, which I am certain you will, Officer Anderton. But you won’t find anything on that. So my suggestion would be to let that go and look elsewhere. That’s just my advice.

Sheriff Molina? He’s got a million-dollar home and a high-cost lifestyle as I understand it.

Ray made his real money selling old trucks to new Mexican-Americans, Rodeo said. And I think his wife, Sirena’s mother, had some money. She was an Asquith and they were an old Arizona family.

Why was he a small county sheriff then?

We all have ideas about ourselves, Mr. Anderton. I think Ray’s idea about himself was that he was not a used car salesman but a Western lawman. Rodeo shook his head. And he was a pretty good one I’d say. For all his faults, Ray Molina ran a clean county as far’s that’s possible. But y’all wouldn’t know Ray was clean. And the News and the Papers and Internet are already speculating that the sheriff’s murder was a possible drug hit and a TV report like that is all that’s needed to create a drug angle that could link me and my business as a Private Investigator and Bounty Hunter to Luis the local store owner to the local sheriff Ray and then to some drug cartel that could be running dope right through the middle of Los Jarros County, Arizona.

And your deaths as well as Sheriff Molina’s could be tied to the other recent murders in Los Jarros County, said Anderton.

And we could all be tied up to the other murder victims recently in Los Jarros. Rodeo nodded. Ray was an Apache, Luis is Tohono O’odham and I’m Pascua Yaqui, so that’s another two dead Indian men in Los Jarros County, two more pieces in the serial killer puzzle and that’s another angle to confuse the picture about me and Luis getting killed.

The cop furrowed his smooth brow.

What are you doing here anyway, Officer Anderton? Rodeo asked. Were you on traffic patrol?

State Police have created a special team to work the Native-American murders in Los Jarros County and I pulled some strings to get on this Special Investigations crew.

This dead man who called himself “Bercich” identified himself as from “Major Crimes” on the phone and told me he was with the “Special Investigations Unit” when he introduced himself here, said Rodeo. So my guess is that whoever sent this “Paul Bercich” and his cohorts down here to kill me and Luis wanted to get the work finished here in Los Jarros, get all the murders they needed done before State took over Law Enforcement in this matter from the Sheriff’s Department. It was well known that Sheriff Molina’s department was seriously shorthanded at the moment and not really capable of handling Major Crimes. Rodeo wiped some blood out of his eye.

But how would outsiders know that? Anderton asked. This attempt today on yourself and Mr. Encarnacion was a professional hit, but it seems informed by at least some official or insider knowledge.

Maybe “Bercich” is really a cop somewhere, said Luis. It’s happened before. A rogue cop with contacts.

I am sure this “Bercich” is not with any law enforcement agency in Arizona, said Anderton. But we’ll know that soon enough for certain. Assuming that he is not, it would seem clear that he might have a conduit somewhere in State Law Enforcement. Would you have any idea who that information conduit might be?

Maybe it’s you, said Luis. The storekeep stared at the policeman. Since this is finally your break, idn’t it? Getting in on a Major Crime has got you out of Traffic, hadn’t it?

If you want to look at it like that, Mr. Encarnacion, Anderton said. Is that the way you care to look at it? For the record?

For the record, I just want to go home, Luis said. Second Wife is sitting over there in my trailer with some policewoman and the Snowballs they don’t understand dykes and they don’t like Police and Silk she don’t like Rodeo to begin with and since he’s to blame for all of this in her eye I probably won’t get laid for two months now.

Maybe you and your wife should go someplace to spend the rest of the night, Anderton said. SIU has established a base of operations in Jarros and are at the Lazy 8 there. We could get you two a room at the motel for a while? You as well, Mr. Garnet. It might not be safe here at the moment.

Who’s dead here? Luis asked. And who’s alive?

Officer Anderton smiled slightly. I see your point, Mr. Encarnacion. But we’ll leave a patrol car here all night and State Police will continue to be a presence in this area until the serial killings of Native-Americans in this area are solved.

Then tell them cops to stay out of my yard unless they want more “armed response,” Luis said. And unless you got a warrant you don’t go no place but around here at the store. The storekeep turned off the coffee burner and moved slowly around the counter. He lifted a hand toward Rodeo, and neither man said anything more to one another. Luis left the building through what was left of the front door.