Nothing Short of Dying (21 page)

CHAPTER FORTY

I
needed to be around people, otherwise I might find myself thinking of Allie and fall into a dark place that I'd never escape from. I considered finding a bar but feared that one drink could easily lead to ten. Chugging boilermakers was a lazy way to dull the pain. So I drove to the nearest indoor shopping mall.

Inside I wandered past useless shops until I found a nice quiet bench. It was next to a too-green plastic tree where I could make some phone calls and still be able to watch the shoppers as they passed. I decided to make the hardest call first. Teenage couples walked past hand in hand, some stopping to kiss and grope each other under the neon-green exit sign.

The inspiration for the call was that fanciful idea I'd tried out on Alvis the first time we spoke—that the Feds had my sisters under constant surveillance, believing I, Clyde Barr, was the key to finding Lance Alvis. Maybe it wasn't such a far-fetched idea after all.

With the phone I'd taken from one of the dead gunmen, I called information and was connected with the local DEA office. I asked the bored secretary if I could leave a message for the officer in charge. “Tell him,” I said, “that the man you
tried to follow in Rifle wants to talk.” I told her he could call me back at this number. I hung up the phone, realizing that I'd spent more time on this little nuisance machine in the last week than I had in over fifteen years.

While I waited I watched the flow of shoppers as they walked numbly in and out of stores. It struck me how different they were from the villagers I'd seen crowding markets in the third world. There was no vitality in this place, just slack-jawed men and women trading for things they didn't need. People walked by with plastic sacks (themselves a waste) full of useless trinkets and gewgaws that required electricity to function. No one talked to each other; most simply stared at their phones as they shuffled across the dirty tile.

The phone in my pocket buzzed.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“This is Special Agent Peters. With the DEA. Are you the one who left the message?”

“I am. I want to make a trade. Information for a favor.”

“Who is this?”

“Doesn't matter. Can we trade?”

“If you have information, call our hotline.” He paused but didn't hang up. I could hear him chewing loudly. It sounded like he should take smaller bites.

“You know I have more than that. That's why you followed me. You were looking for Alvis, right? Before your boys got in a little pickle up on the mountain?”

“About that—you need to come in and we'll have a little talk.”

“Won't happen. But I can give you some of Alvis's crew right now.”

“You can, huh?” More chewing and mouth smacking. “How's that?”

I recited my sisters' addresses. “Put your guys outside those houses, and they'll come to you. If you keep the people in those houses safe, I'll give you more. Call me after you do that.” I hung up.

The phone buzzed again immediately. I pushed decline. He tried to call back three more times. I declined them all.

I put the phone in the bottom of my bag and walked to a wireless store, where I bought one of their prepaid models from a pretty little blonde with metal in her eyebrow who smiled at first, then rolled her eyes when she saw my oversize clothes.

So I walked to a clothing store and bought a brand-new pair of blue jeans that had already been washed and distressed—“distressed” meaning that someone other than me had put holes in the knees, and someone else's keys had worn out the thighs. I guess it was worth the high price if the look could save me a couple of years of actually wearing the jeans. It took a while to find a pair that fit me, since most of the jeans in the store were made for people whose legs had atrophied.

The only shirts they sold were too-tight designer crap, so I gave an exorbitant amount of cash to an acned teen and walked out with just the worn-out jeans. Then I walked past the central café to a shop called the Ranch Store. The place had nothing to do with ranching; instead the clothes there resembled what I'd seen people wearing years ago in the movie
Urban
Cowboy
. I bought a gray long-sleeve snap-button shirt, then went and changed in the mall's overly used bathroom.

Back at my bench I called Juan with my new prepaid phone. Maria answered and said Juan would call me back. He did, from an unavailable number.

“Barr, you on a disposable?”

“I am.”

“Good. How you holding up?”

“Fine,” I said, lying. “I just need to know if the enemies of our friend are still in the picture.”

“I can give you that. That whole social circle in Rifle, they're gone.”

I smiled. “Well, that's one item checked off the list. One last favor, brother? Then I won't bother you again.”

“You're pushing it, Barr. I told you I didn't want to get sucked back into the life.”

“I hear you. Really, I do. Just one more, Juan . . . please.”

Juan sighed. “Okay, shoot.”

“You know that little beach by Corn Lake, where they put rafts in? If Alejandro is still around, have him meet me there tonight. Say, six thirty?”

Juan hesitated. “Why would he want to meet? You two don't know each other from Adam.”

“I want to volunteer my services—as a fill-in for our friend. Even if that particular social circle is no longer with us, the big honcho still has to be dealt with, yes?”

Juan chuckled. “I thought you were going to handle that yourself, Barr. Remember how you called me to make sure Alejandro didn't interfere with you and that army of yours?”

Good point. For perhaps the hundredth time in my life, I kicked myself for displaying such inexcusable arrogance. This time my inflated ego had caused Allie to pay with her life.

“It looks like I'm now an army of one,” I said quietly, but then my voice gained strength. “But I'm seriously
dedicated
to taking this guy off the board. Alejandro should be interested in that.”

“Okay, Barr, I'll give him the message.”

I nodded to the phone and hung up. Then I pulled the
card from inside the phone, crushed it, and threw both it and the phone in the trash can by the bench. A young boy passed, staring at me in astonishment, as if he'd just witnessed someone burning a Bible.

Outside the mall, my eyes took a second to adjust to the blinding sunlight. Then I got in the Excursion, shoved the selector into drive, and drove to the nearest park.

In the asphalt lot I got out, checked the area, then locked the vehicle and walked to the center of the park and sat down in the plush grass under a large ash tree. I was on the opposite side of the children's playground, close enough to hear their happy screams and laughs, but far enough away to avoid being mistaken for a creep. I pulled out the phone and scrolled through the numbers on it until I found the one I was looking for, then punched the green icon.

Alvis answered after three rings. “Tate?” he said. “Is it done?”

I waited, simply breathing into the phone.

“Tate?” Alvis asked again.

“Afraid not,” I answered.

Silence. Then, “So I've made another bad investment. Where are my men, Barr?”

“All dead.”

“That's very unfortunate. Can I assume you still want your sister back?”

“You can.”

This time the silence lasted for a while. “Well,” Alvis said finally. “It seems that you have the better of me in this negotiation. I will have one of my men drop off your sister at a place of your choosing. Just tell me where.”

I rifled through the bag and found a pack of cheap cigarettes. I lit one and said, “You ever been to Africa, Lance?”

“No. And I don't plan to. What's that got to do with—”

“South America maybe?”

“No. What are you getting at?”

“I have, and a lot of other places people rarely get to—places where the rules are pretty loose.”

“Your point being?”

“That I've been around. You don't come back from those places if you haven't developed an ability to smell obvious bullshit. Keep Jen with you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. I'll come pick her up.”

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

I
walked back to the Excursion and drove downtown again, parking at the first pawnshop I found. As I was getting out the phone rang.

“This is Barr.”

“Special Agent Peters.”

“So?”

“No sign of Alvis's crew yet. My guys aren't babysitters, Barr. And I'm an impatient man.”

“Give it another day,” I said, buying for time. “Even if you have to put on two shifts. It's not a question of if but when . . .” Okay, so I was just writing myself an insurance policy—but I wanted Deb and Angie protected while I made my last play.

“What is your connection with all this?”

“Just a concerned citizen with information.”

“Yeah, and I'm Little Bo Peep. We pulled some surveillance tapes in Rifle. You were involved in a shooting at a rest stop. Now this.”

“I believe at the rest stop everyone involved was drug or gang affiliated. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Whatever. We picked up four of his guys.”

“Like I said.”

“You said there'd be more info.”

“You going to keep watching those houses for me?” I asked. What he said next was important. He could shine me on just like I'd done to him, but I sensed he was a straight shooter.

“That depends. Government protection costs a lot. How are you going to earn it?”

“Okay, fine.” I gave him directions to the compound in Leadville. I told him that Alvis might not be there—in fact, I was convinced he
wouldn't
be there; Lance was too smart for that, now that I'd discovered his location and was at liberty to drop a dime on him—but there'd be enough evidence at the place to convict him when he was finally run down. Peters didn't thank me, just hung up.

I got lucky in the pawnshop. The old man with the twitchy eye behind the jewelry display wore an NRA cap. His camouflage T-shirt was stretched to breaking around a midsection built by years of beer drinking, and one of his forearms sported a faded green Semper Fi tattoo. He glared at me as I walked in, pointing two fingers at his eyes to show he'd be on the lookout for any five-fingered discounts.

I lingered far longer than most patrons, because I felt comfortable in there—much more than I'd felt at the mall. The shop was full of well-used, passed-down artifacts. Nothing new, nothing wrapped in thick plastic packaging. In here were the kinds of things you'd see in the third-world: rows of VHS and cassette tapes, black-and-white tube television sets, saddles, and kids' toys.

I grabbed a well-used Carhartt coat from a rack and went up to the counter. The man still eyeballed me. I asked him about ammunition for my rifle and pistol. He told me he
didn't carry any ammo. I mentioned that I'd just returned from fighting overseas, which wasn't a complete lie. He went in back and brought out a box each of .375 and 9mm shells and set them on the glass case. I paid in cash, no questions, and as I grabbed the boxes I noticed that the case was full of pawned wedding rings. Men's gold and women's diamonds. It said a lot about the state of marriage in this country.

I drove down to the river, parked under an old cottonwood in the hard-packed dirt parking lot of a rafting put-in. I watched a fit man in sandals and a floppy hat unload a raft frame with the help of a cute blond woman in cutoff jeans and a bikini top. They used hand pumps to inflate the raft, taking turns whenever one of them got tired. I reloaded both weapons and wished I was going with them.

It was a waiting game now—except I didn't want to wait. I wanted to move, go forward, hurt someone. Like a grassland fire, I'd swept across the dry stubble, the flames growing larger and hotter at the mercy of the wind, only to stall at the edge of the water. I was afraid I'd burn out if I stopped moving.

I had a couple of hours to kill until six thirty, so after the raft disappeared, I climbed out of the vehicle, locked it, and walked upstream. I found a spot underneath the highway bridge where the river eddied, stripped down to my boxers, and jumped in.

The cold, brown water sucked the air out of my lungs. Once I had it back, I swam out into the middle of the strong current, let the river take me a few yards down, then fought back. Using powerful kicks, good form, and strong quick strokes, I was able to keep from going downstream. I kept swimming, hard against the current, relishing—despite my still-beat-up state—the feel of muscles burning and lungs heaving. It felt good to be fighting, but I knew I couldn't keep
it up for long, so I breaststroked over to the eddy and let the slower water carry me in circles.

I rolled to my back, stared at the thick clematis vines covering the bank and bridge, and tried not to think about my mom . . . or Allie . . . or Jen.

It didn't work. It
couldn't
work, because somewhere in the mud below me lay the rusted gun that Jen had used to blow out Paxton's brains. As my body drifted slowly upstream, my mind drifted back to the last years I'd lived here.

THE COPS HAD PUSHED HARD.
There wasn't any evidence: no gun, no witnesses, nothing to tie us to the body. But we had motive. Damned good motive. So the cops came around daily, sometimes taking one of us into the station. They reopened our child welfare case and forced us to move in with Deb, hoping she could get us to talk. But we didn't tell her what happened, and neither of us broke. The cops had nothing.

Jen and I, though—we were never the same. We both tried to pretend it never happened, and that worked for a while, about as long as the cops kept looking. When they stopped, we were forced to start thinking about what we'd done.

Kids shouldn't have to deal with that kind of blood and guilt, and it broke us. Jen dropped out of school her senior year. Started hanging out with folks who dressed like they were extras in a Dracula movie. Began using every drug that went through the valley.

Me, I would have dropped out, too, but in my junior year I met Maria, and she kept me sane. Or as sane as an adolescent boy can be when he's hopped up on hormones. Jen ran away to live with the black-lipsticked people. I spent most of my time at Juan's.

As graduation approached, though, Maria wasn't enough to keep the demons from coming to me in the night. I needed to
move
, see new mountains, deserts, the jungle, and the sea. So I said my good-byes, by this same river, and took off for the coast.

I CONTINUED PADDLING AROUND THE
river aimlessly, enjoying the feeling of the deeper currents tickling my feet, and kept trying to work through all those tough questions I'd never found good answers to. I must have been pretty rapt in my aquatic navel-gazing, because I didn't hear tires crunch on river rock. Didn't hear four doors slam on an SUV or see the four men dressed in oversize white tees and Dickies work pants who were standing on the bank by my clothes. I noticed them only when I rolled to my stomach and started paddling toward the bank.

By then they had their pistols aimed at my head.