El Gavilan (8 page)

“Really appreciate it,” Tell said. He slipped them out of the envelope and gave them a quick look. “Hell, Able, these aren’t even that good.”

“Nah, but that makes it easier for us, right? We deserve to catch a break, standing against this wicked tide like we are.”

“On that note, I hear the ACLU is after your tail in a big way,” Tell said. “You actually get any compensation back from the federal government yet for all the bills you sent them for your jail costs?”

Able smiled. “
Nah
. Hell no. Lawyers tell me I’m on solid ground with that gambit, but they also say my successor’s successor will likely be the one to cash
that
fuckin’ check. It’s really about principle, though. And it’s gotten me
muy
regional press. I expect my neighbors to the south and east will soon follow suit. Here’s my dream. I’d like to get all eighty-eight county sheriffs on board, and I don’t think it’s much a reach I’ll see that happen before long. Well, except maybe in goddamn Cleveland. That fucking shithole is full of Democrats who look at these hordes of undocumented Mexicans and scent votes. Traitorous assholes.”

Tell let that conversational strand peter out. He said, “I wanted to give you a heads-up, Able, because I know there’s some money coming Horton County’s way for the interim service, but I’m wanting to take my force around the clock before the New Year.”

“Good,” Able said. “Good. I do mean that, Tell—better for all of us. A town the size of New Austin should be served by a full-time police force. I don’t mind losing the fill-in stipend.”

That was a load off—the hurdle Tell had guessed might be the hardest to clear.

The waitress came to take Tell’s order. Able recommended the meatloaf and mashed potatoes with a side of buttered green beans. Sounded like 1960s-style food at twenty-first century prices. But Tell bit his lip and went along. As she moved to leave, Able Hawk said to the waitress, “Hey, where’s Thalia? She’s not come down ill has she?”

“She ain’t called in,” Betty said, “and Lou’s fit to be tied. May fire her when she shows up. But it ain’t like Thale. I’m worried. Tried to call her on my own during my cigarette break, but …”

Able nodded. “’Spect it’s just car trouble or something. That jalopy of hers … ?”

Tell asked, “Thalia? She another waitress?”

“Yeah, real sweet girl … single mother, don’t you know,” Able said. “One of my—
our
—increasingly rare legals. Her husband died in a propane tank explosion time back. The fireball blew out half the windows in Horton County. She and her daughter live with her mother and younger cousin now. Suspect the cousin’s another illegal, but I’ve givin’ her a pass because of Thalia and all the trouble she’s had of late. I try to help her out, quiet-like, where I can.”

“You mentioned overlap,” Tell said. “You and my predecessor working on anything together that we need to reevaluate or discuss?”

“No, not at all like we should have been,” Able said. “The polite way to describe the former New Austin police chief would be ‘maverick.’ But a realist like you or me would term the cocksucker who preceded you a turf-conscience prick a hell of a lot more interested in self-advancement and job security than law enforcement. He was a weak-chinned coward.”

“But you scored some big arrests in my town recently, Sheriff,” Tell said. “The prostitution bust a few weeks back. A cockfighting ring. And I get the sense from reading my boys’ duty reports that you’re maybe working on something involving meth my way too.”

“Jesus, you’re sharp, Tell. Regarding the hookers and the birds, you’ll notice I waited until New Austin was between chiefs to move on those messes, so as not to step on toes. And the meth traffic in Horton County, you’re right, it’s centered in New Austin. Out in your rural south end, but radiating out all over Horton County and beyond. I expect news maybe before week’s end on that front. My folks did the heavy lifting and took the risks, but I’m happy to have your crew, and you, come along and share credit. For the sake of the media, we’ll make it look like a long-term, joint operation if you’re okay with that.”

“Sounds great to me … sounds like a
gift
,” Tell said. “And why would you do that?”

Able waved a hand. “It ain’t an act of charity on my part, or indication I’m fucking Santa Claus, Tell. I’d do it to inspire some of the other police chiefs around Horton County to cooperate more with the sheriff’s department. Stakes are too high for this balkanization and ‘little kingdoms’ crap that’s currently too much the damned norm.”

“Then let’s do that,” Tell said.

The old lawman smiled broadly. “Great. We will. And you’re a real important symbol to me going along, Tell. I mean with your Border Patrol background and all.”

Tell rubbed the back of his neck. He said softly, “Suppose that’s so.”

Able sipped his coffee, then said, “Anything else I can do for you, Chief?”

Tell shrugged his shoulders. “Possibly something I haven’t thought of yet. Frankly, I’m still finding my feet, Able. And my bench isn’t that deep. I’ve got some solid people, but …”

“But no stars,” Able said. “You’ve got no strong right hand, right? No consigliere?”

“Not so far as I’ve detected yet,” Tell said.

“Wish to Christ I could boast that my bench was deeper than yours in that sense,” Able said. “But it so ain’t. Sadly, I can’t yet clone myself.” Able sat back and smiled. “So, us lacking strong lieutenants, you and me, I guess we’ll just have to content ourselves with the knowledge we have one another’s backs, am I right, Tell?”

“Looks as though it’s apt to be that way, Able.” Tell paused. “You really listening to Spanish language tapes?”

“Really am,” Able said. “For all the good it’s doing me. I’m beginning by learning how to curse in Spanish.” He raised his hand. “No, don’t smile like that—I’m serious. If I can curse a blue streak in their own language, it cuts through a lot. I’ve concluded it’s the most useful Spanish for a gringo cop.”

* * *

Tell’s ass was getting sore. He’d been sitting in the goddamn booth too long.

Able Hawk had no sooner hauled up his bulk and left after a firm handshake than a haggard and hung-over Shawn O’Hara shambled in and parked his skinny butt in Able’s seat.

The reporter had plunked a tape recorder down on the tabletop between them. Then he’d broken out a long and slender notebook, and set off on a disjointed and rambling series of questions that veered between sophomoric, intrusive, and, in the case of the murder of Tell’s wife and child, insulting—even provocative. Or Tell thought so.

Tell bit his lip and gave straight answers to matters involving his vision for the force, his priorities and his policing techniques. He indulged a few questions about his individual views on border security and immigration issues. He issued several “no comments” regarding his personal life, and, when Shawn stubbornly pushed a little too far, Tell said, “You ask me one more question about my wife and child and I’m going to shove that pen up your ass, sonny.”

That had flustered Shawn—made him flinch. But then the reporter had dug his hole deeper trying to change tack and justify his intrusiveness. “You know, Chief, I just figured that you being relations to Chris Lyon and all, you’d know and understand that we reporters—”

But Tell had swiftly stepped back into Shawn for invoking his “notorious” cousin’s name. “Chris was the journalist, not me. But since you raise the subject of Chris, maybe the only man who has less regard for sloppy and intrusive reporters than me, is my cousin. I suspect he’d have some definite opinions about you, if this is always the way you go about your job.”

After that exchange, Shawn had fallen back to mundane questions about staffing levels, budgets and reorganizational issues. Tell fielded those questions tersely, but professionally.

Tell checked his watch. The interview had already dragged on twenty minutes longer than he had intended to allot. He said, “I’ve got to end this, Shawn. It’s early days yet and I’m still scrambling to make up for the gap between me and the last chief.”

“Sure,” Shawn said coolly. “Thanks for your time. And sorry I hit so many no-go areas.”

Tell looked at him a time. He shook his head and stuck out his hand. “It’s early days for us too, Shawn,” Tell said. “Let’s neither of us take today as some hint of conversations to come.”

NINE

Miguel and Candelario were playing catch at the back of the New Austin Kid’s Association ball diamonds. Several organized games played by white kids were underway, so the boys had settled on the unmowed field behind the diamonds.

It had rained for at least an hour total nearly every day for a week, and that had set to bloom something that Candelario, only six months out of Mexico, had no resistance against.

The boy fresh from Sinaloa sneezed, just as Miguel let fling. Candelario brought his glove up to his screwed-up face, doubling over with the ferocity of his sneeze.

The ball flew high over Candelario’s head.

The boy wiped his nose with the back of his arm, sniffled, pivoted, then set heel down the hill to a copse of evergreens to fetch the baseball—a lost ball they had found behind a dugout three days earlier. The boys had had a fistfight over who got to keep it in their home. Their gloves were cast-offs the boys had found in the dugouts and repaired with duct tape and shoelaces.

As he ran down the hill, Candelario kept his eye on the baseball, watching it part the high grass as it rolled swiftly on. The ball bumped up against something pink at the base of a thicket of trees—something Candelario at first mistook for a rock of some kind.

The boy reached for the ball and saw pink toes.

His gaze trailed up the leg and he saw hair in an unfamiliar place—curly short black hair that was matted with blood.

Candelario began screaming, running back up the hill, pointing behind himself, yelling in Spanish all the way back up to Miguel.

THEN

Thalia had known what had happened the moment she saw the rising, swelling fireball through the front windows of the diner.

The propane plant was too far away for the blast’s concussion to break the windows of the diner, but she was unsteadied—Thalia felt the ground tremble even at three miles’ distance.

Her husband had told Thalia about the dangers of a plant explosion—a catastrophe that could be triggered by something as small as a bit of static electricity from fabrics brushing together. He told her how devastating it could be for those at the scene of the explosion, as well as for those within a mile or so radius—the danger of the imploding windows and flying glass. He told her that those outside and close by might suffer perforated eardrums from the blast’s concussion.

Flaming debris might be tossed thousands of feet into the air and could fall thousands of feet from its source, depending on wind conditions. All that falling, fiery wreckage could trigger a second round of house and brush fires around the plant.

Thalia had regained her footing and stared at the rising ball of flame; saw bits of something cascading down from its plume. Not looking back to see if her co-workers were seeing what she was seeing, or if they heard what she said, Thalia had screamed, “I have to go!”

Then she’d run out to her old truck.

* * *

Thalia got as close as the southern corporation line, where a barricade had been set up. She was still four hundred yards from the plant and her husband, yet she could feel the intense heat of the raging fire.

She grabbed the arms of anyone who looked like a plant worker or emergency technician—anyone who might help her through the barricades and take her to her husband. But nobody would do that, and city cops and county sheriff’s deputies kept turning her away or asking her to leave.

She was sitting on the bumper of a Horton County sheriff’s SUV, head in hands and racked with sobs when she felt a hand on her shoulder. A man said, “Ma’am, do you have family at the plant?”

Thalia looked up and saw a big, older man in a gray uniform. The sun glinted on his badge and dark sunglasses. He said carefully, “They tell me anyone in the loading area at the time of the first explosion couldn’t have made it out. That they would have been vaporized—
instantly
, if that’s a comfort. I have a list, honey, a list of the men who were known to be in that loading area. Who are you looking for?”

Thalia told him her husband’s name.

The older, husky cop didn’t tell her anything back. He looked at the list and then opened his arms.

He held her tightly to him as she sobbed and beat on his back with her fists, soaking his uniform’s shirt through between the collar and epaulet with her tears.

That was how Thalia met Able Hawk.

TEN

The chief hadn’t been two minutes out of the booth when Able Hawk slid into Tell Lyon’s vacated seat across from Shawn.

“Had other business across the way,” Able said. “Supposed to be meeting Sheriff Walt Pierce, but the bastard stood me up and his own people can’t seem to find the cocksucker. Buy you another coffee, Shawn?”

The journalist shrugged. “Why not?” He stuck his notepad in his pocket. “But if you’re thinking I might preview my profile of Lyon for you …”

Able’s gray eyes narrowed. Not “Tell.” Not “Chief Lyon” or “Tell Lyon,” but simply, tersely, “Lyon.” That was telling, so to speak.

“I’ll wait to read that profile,” Able said, “just like all the other rubes. That said, I was sitting just across the dining room and I do have eyes, Shawn, nearsighted though they may be. I sensed a charged exchange, even from a distance.”

Shawn shook his head. “Sure you’re not farsighted, Sheriff Hawk?”

The old cop smiled back. He said, “I’ll confess that I thought for a second there I might have to step between you two tough guys. Am I wrong?”

“Came pretty close, I guess.” Shawn surprised himself by admitting it. Then the encounter tumbled from him. He ended with, “And I think the bastard’s cost me my girlfriend.”

Able smiled and sipped his coffee. “Venturing out where I have no business, I will volunteer my perception the young lady was all eyes for Lyon last night, and he for her.” Able sipped more coffee, made a face, then tore open a packet of sugar and stirred it in. “But looking at it from a different angle, I’ll only observe that Chief Lyon’s late wife was Hispanic. Marita was her name, and she was twenty-seven when she was killed. Only two years older than Patricia. So you can see where she must push Lyon’s buttons. Your Patricia, I mean.”