Duke City Hit (3 page)

Once the sun goes down, the temperature in the high desert drops quickly. Vic shivered as he approached Marc Troy's hacienda, using the light of the waning moon to navigate between the shadowy blobs of juniper trees.

Quiet out here, except for a faraway yipping. A coyote? Somebody's dog? Vic tightened his grip on the silenced .22. He was a dog lover, always hated to put one down on a job. The yipping didn't come any closer, so he continued through the low trees.

The chain-link fence was only five feet tall, and he managed to climb over it without snagging his pants. The yard was a mosaic of sculpted gravel and chunks of sandstone and a few scattered yuccas. Not much cover, so he walked straight toward the house, which was decorated with fake luminarias along its flat parapet. A luminaria is traditionally a brown paper lunch bag, weighted with sand and lit with a votive candle, displayed on Christmas Eve. The electric lights in these plastic imitations didn't cast much of a glow.

Motion sensors triggered security lights as he crossed the yard, however. He trotted into the shadows next to the house.

From inside came the one sound he didn't want to hear: a dog barking. Not a yipper, either. This dog sang bass.

Shit.

Vic hurried toward the front of the house. An open gate there led into the central courtyard, where doors would lead into different wings of the house. One of them would be easy enough to—

He froze. The barking suddenly was much louder, as if the dog had come outside.

Four-foot-tall walls, their adobe blocks naked to the elements, framed the courtyard entrance. The phrase “ugly as a mud fence” danced through Vic's mind. Each wall had a square hole cut into it, a viewport braced open by weathered chunks of wood. He duckwalked to the nearest one and peeked through, wincing at what he found.

Marc Troy stood under a porch light that illuminated the landscaped courtyard. He was dressed in silky white pajamas and black slippers. His most noticeable accessory strained at the end of a leather leash: a sleek brown boxer, ninety pounds of muscle and mean, barking and slobbering.

“Who's out there?” Troy shouted over the dog. “I've got a gun!”

Vic saw no gun, but the dog was looking right at him. He ducked away from the window, crouching beside the low wall. He readied the .22, holding it about the height of the boxer's head. As soon as those snapping jaws came through the gate, he'd put a bullet in the dog's brain. Then he'd stand, reach over the low wall and put a few into Troy.

His finger tightened on the trigger as the dog lunged into view. The boxer whirled toward him, drool flinging from its bared teeth.

A gunshot cracked in the night and red mist puffed from the dog's head. The beast collapsed.

Stunned, Vic looked at his pistol. He hadn't pulled the trigger and the suppressor was in place. The gunshot had come from out in the dark. Sounded like a rifle.

Feeling vulnerable, Vic shot out the nearest security light. Then he stepped into the gateway and found Marc Troy bent over the dead dog, his mouth hanging open in disbelief.

Vic fired, two bullets puffing out the end of the suppressor. They slapped into Troy's tanned face. He went over backward, dead before he hit the ground.

Vic shifted his aim and shot out another floodlight. Keeping low, he covered twenty feet of open ground before he reached a man-sized yucca. He crouched behind it, peeking around the swordlike leaves.

The rifle didn't fire again. Was the shooter waiting for Vic to move? Why had he taken out the dog rather than either of the men? Who the hell was out there?

Vic waited three full minutes before he scurried to the next yucca.

Nothing.

Two minutes this time. He ran to a dark corner of the yard.

Still nothing. Either the sniper had fled, or he was letting Vic go. What the hell could that mean? Somebody gives him a hand, shooting the dog, then lets him pop the target and take off? Vic suddenly has a
helper
?

He thought of Harry Marino, drowned in that swimming pool, just before Vic arrived. He'd tried to convince himself it was a coincidence, but tonight proved that was bullshit. Somebody was following Vic's movements, showing up at his kills.

The night chill gave him a shiver.

Penny Randall had been asleep less than an hour when her doorbell rang.

“This better be good,” she muttered as she got out of bed and threaded her arms through the sleeves of a fluffy blue bathrobe.

She stalked to the front door, veering into the kitchen long enough to pluck a ten-inch knife from the wooden block on the counter. She turned on the porch light and peered through the peephole.

Vic Walters stood on her porch, looking around, his breath puffing like smoke in the cold air. Penny threw open the door.

“What's the matter? What's happened?”

“Everything's fine,” he said. “But I need to talk to you.”

“Sure. Come in.”

“No, I need you to come out here. Can you put on some shoes?”

“What time is it?”

“It's after midnight. Just come outside. Please. It's important.”

She cocked an eyebrow, but Vic looked dead serious.

“Let me get my coat.”

“Turn out the porch light first.”

“Okay.”

The porch went dark. As she turned from the door, Vic said, “Penny?”

“Yeah?”

“You won't need that butcher knife.”

Her cheeks warmed. She returned the knife to the kitchen, then went to the bedroom for her slippers. A raincoat from the hall closet nearly covered the fluffy robe. On the way to the front door, she rounded up her keys and her phone and put them in her pockets.

Vic waited for her on the porch, facing the street.

“Somebody out there?”

“I don't think so,” he said, “but someone's been following me.”

“What?”

“Don't say anything more. Come on.”

He grasped her elbow and led her down the bungalow's wide front steps. They went to the curb and walked along the sidewalk for half a block, Vic still clutching her arm. He pulled her to a stop in front of a house decorated in Christmas lights shaped like red chile peppers.

“This'll do,” he said.

“Do for what? Why are we outside in the dark?”

A sedan whizzed past on Sixth Street. Vic waited until the noise subsided before he said, “We've been bugged.”

“What?”

“A bug. Probably in your office. I've been thinking about it all the way back from Santa Fe, and that's the only place where we—”

“You were in Santa Fe? On that job?”

“Somebody else was there, too. It has to be a bug. That's the only way he could know where I'd be.”

“What happened up there?”

“The target had a big dog. I was close enough to do both of them when somebody shot the dog with a rifle. Somebody out in the dark. One shot. Took out the dog, then nothing else.”

“What did you do?”

“I finished the job.”

“While this sniper was watching?”

“Didn't know if I'd ever get another chance. Think how many bodyguards Troy would've hired if I'd let him go. I put two in his head and got the hell out of there. But all the way home, I'm trying to figure out how somebody's following me.”

“That doesn't mean my office is bugged—”

“There's more. That guy in Phoenix? The one who drowned? He was dead when I got there.”

Penny took a second to absorb that. “So it was an accident?”

“I thought so at the time. Now I think somebody got there just before me.”

“Why didn't you tell me before?”

“I should've. I told myself we got a lucky break. Harry had a heart attack, he's a poor swimmer, whatever. But now I think somebody's been listening to us.”

“In my office.”

“Maybe our homes, too. But your office is the place where we talk about these jobs.”

“How could someone get in my office? We've got all kinds of security—”

“We can sort out that part later,” he said. “For now, we need to figure out who's listening.”

“How do we do that?”

“We set a trap.”

Vic could tell Penny was nervous when he arrived at her office the next morning. She was standing behind her desk, decked out in a red suit with her trademark short skirt. In her three-inch heels, she was nearly as tall as him. Her welcoming smile faltered as she glanced down at the cue sheet on her desk.

Vic winked at her. It seemed to help.

He gestured toward her chair, but she shook her head. She wanted to remain standing for this performance. Her hands were on top of her desk, fingertips resting on the sheet. She'd scribbled some notes in the margins, but Vic couldn't make them out from across the desk. He sat facing her and crossed his long legs.

“Good morning, Penny. How's business today?”

“Slow so far. What about you? Any news?”

“If somebody's following me, I can't catch him. I drove all over town. Nobody's behind me.”

“It doesn't make any sense. Why would someone follow you?”

Vic thought she was speaking too loudly and over-enunciating, the way Americans talk to foreigners. Maybe their listener wouldn't notice. Hell, maybe he
was
a foreigner.

Vic had racked his brain all night, trying to come up with anyone who'd want to pull these stunts, and
why
. What could the killer get out of beating Vic to the punch? He still didn't have a clue.

“Maybe we ought to lie low for a while,” he said.

Penny looked down at her cue sheet.

“That's too bad,” she said. “I've got an easy job for you, right here in town.”

“No way. There's too much heat.”

“Okay, but we're passing up a big payday.”

“We can't afford to make any noise.”

“This one couldn't be quieter. A man alone in a vacant house. I've even got the keys.”

“What?”

“I'm holding the paper on the house,” she said. “Guy named John Francis was facing child porn charges and used the house as collateral. I should never bail out perverts.”

Penny seemed to be settling into the dialogue. It helped that the stuff about John Francis and his house was true. If the listener checked, he'd find plenty of news coverage about the fruitless search for Francis. The next part was a little more creative. Vic smiled encouragingly as she launched into it.

“I got a tip he's back in town, and he's sleeping in that house.”

“Didn't you change the locks?”

“Of course. But he's got some other way into the house. People have seen lights inside, late at night.”

“The electricity's still on?”

“It's still furnished. The house is in limbo while we hunt him.”

“Why don't you send a couple of your boys over there to tag him?”

“I don't want him brought in,” Penny said. “A client wants him gone. He's willing to pay enough to make it worth losing the bond.”

“How much?”

“Three hundred grand.”

“Wow.”

“He doesn't want Francis to go to trial.”

“Why not?”

“The client's son was victimized by Francis. They're worried about his name coming out in court.”

“Ah.”

“Doesn't matter. You say it's too soon, that's good enough. I'll tell the client we'll pass.”

“Hold on,” Vic said. “You know how I feel about bastards who abuse kids. Always happy to take one out of circulation. You think this asshole will be there tonight?”

“I'm sure of it,” Penny said.

“Give me the address and the keys. I'll go over there tonight and take care of him. Can I just leave him there when I'm done?”

“Sure. I'll go there tomorrow and ‘find' the body.”

“Might hurt the property values. If you're gonna end up owning this house—”

“We'll clear enough to pay for a cleanup crew.”

“I'll try to keep it tidy.”

Penny grinned. “That's what I like about you, Vic. Always the professional.”

She jingled the keys as she handed them over, exactly as scripted. He hoped the bug picked up the sound. He was proud of that little touch of realism.

“What's the address?”

Penny looked down at her sheet and read it off, loud and clear: “Twenty-nine-thirty Candelaria. Off Rio Grande Boulevard by the nature center.”

“Beautiful area,” Vic said. “How come all these assholes have such nice houses?”

“If they were poor, nobody would pay our prices to make them go away.”

“We do deal with a certain class of clientele.”

“If you don't count the perverts.”

“One less pervert tonight,” Vic said, wrapping it up. “There's a football game on TV that I want to watch. It'll go until eleven or so. Soon as it's over, I'll head over to his house.”

“Sounds good, Vic. After this, we can take a cooling-off period.”

“I could use a break. Let's say tonight's the last job for a while.”

She nodded. Vic pointed at his ear, reminding her to speak aloud.

“Sure, you can take a long break. Months, if you want. I've got plenty here at the office to keep me busy.”

Vic fought off the temptation to say the address again. Their listener was bound to have some way to play it back. Instead, he got to his feet. They'd covered everything in their script. Time for him to go.

“I'll call you when it's done,” he said.

“I'll wait up.”

Albuquerque's North Valley is where you live if you're rich and want to maintain an illusion of rural life. Buy yourself a green acre, erect a simple eight-bedroom mansion, get a couple of horses, and, voilà, you're lord of the ranch.

Such thoughts grumbled in Vic's head as he drove south on Rio Grande Boulevard at dusk. The road was only two lanes through this area (with a speed limit of 25 mph, for shit's sake), and it wove among Tuscan villas and Mexican haciendas and open pastures. Some horses here, a few sheep there, even a llama or three.

“So bucolic,” he said aloud. “No wonder I got allergies.”

Vineyards and lawns were fed by a centuries-old system of irrigation ditches that brought water from the Rio Grande. The river was just out of sight to the west, lost among the winter-bare cottonwoods.

To the east, the snow-dusted Sandia Mountains blushed pink from the setting sun. One Spanish word every Albuquerquean knows is “sandia,” which means “watermelon.” Each day at sundown, the mountains show how they got their name.

Nice, but Vic was busy watching his mirrors. Not once did he spot a tail. If somebody showed up at the porn trafficker's house tonight, it would have to be the person who'd heard about the “hit” over a bug in Penny's office.

Vic had hours until he needed to set up, but he wanted to look over the house and grounds while there was still some daylight left.

South of Griegos, Rio Grande Boulevard widens to five lanes. The houses along the curbs are more modest, and whole neighborhoods branch off the side streets. Vic kept to the slow lane, watching his mirrors. Most vehicles had their headlights on now and it was harder to see the other motorists, but he still got no sense of being followed.

When traffic stopped for a red light at Candelaria, he turned on his blinker. A sign at the curb pointed toward the river. “Rio Grande Nature Center.” He'd been there once or twice. The museum had an arched entrance that looked like a metal culvert and windows overlooking a pond where ducks and geese paddled. Vic thought it was the kind of educational place he would've taken his kids, if he'd ever had any.

Behind him, somebody honked. The light was green. Vic goosed the Cadillac and swung it onto Candelaria, feeling embarrassed.

“Daydreaming,” he mumbled. “I must be slipping.”

The Cadillac crept along the residential street. Most of the houses were decorated for Christmas, but his destination was dark.

He drove past, to where the street dead-ended at the entrance to the nature center. The parking lot was gated for the night. Trees and underbrush grew right up to the road.

“Look at all the nature,” he said as he wheeled the car around. “It's fucking everywhere.”

The vacant house was brown stucco with white wood trim, what's called Territorial Style, with a flat roof and a covered front porch. The place looked well maintained, and Vic wondered whether Penny had a crew stopping by to tend the grounds.

He locked the Cadillac and strolled to the house, keys jingling in his hand. He went up the driveway and let himself in the back door.

A musty smell hung in the chill air. He went from room to room, resisting the urge to flip on the lights. Most of the furniture was covered with white cloths to protect it from dust, so the place seemed filled with squat ghosts. The walls were uniformly bare. Vic wondered if the porn king sold off his artwork before he vanished. Probably gave the money to Penny to get out of jail.

After he'd checked every room, Vic went back to the living room and located the thermostat. He heard a furnace roar to life somewhere in the house. The house would be comfortable by the time he returned late tonight.

He pulled the sheet off a wingback chair that stood next to a lamp table in a corner of the living room, far from any windows.

Nice place to sit and wait.