Nothing Short of Dying (22 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

“Y
ou Barr?” one of the men said, waving his gun.

“Who's asking?” I said, preparing to dive. Water usually makes a decent shield against a bullet.

“Shoot him,” the man said.

I took in a deep breath and was just about to shove my hands up and my body down when the same man said, “Just kidding, homie. Put the guns away.” The others laughed and put their guns back in their pants, and the man talking extended a hand. I took it and he pulled me up and out of the water. “My brother called.”

I stood there shivering, dripping brown water into the sand, as the man who must be Alejandro continued talking.

“Shame about Chopo,” he said. “Damned good gun, that one.”

I nodded. I wanted to say I was sorry he died, but guys like these didn't get all sentimental.

“We won't need him now.
Or
you,” Alejandro said. “I just dropped by to thank you for stirring things up. We got Alvis on the run now. We still don't know where he is, but he's pulling back his troops. We're taking back the business in the valley.”

“Good to hear,” I said.

“We already moved on the Cellar. As of yesterday, Alvis's little brother is selling for
us
. He was willing to betray his big brother without blinking. Ask me how much I trust him?”

I smiled. “Not too much, I'll bet.”

“It won't be long before Spike is history. I just need to figure out some of the angles he's been playing with the customers.”

The mention of Spike had my wheels turning. “Mind if I get dressed?” I said, still shivering.

“We'll leave you to it,” Alejandro said, waving his hand in a
be my guest
gesture. He motioned to his men and they all turned and began walking away. They'd moved off about thirty yards when Alejandro turned and called out. “Hey, Barr . . .”

I was buckling my belt. “What?”

“Next time you arrange a meet-up with a guy like me, keep your pants on.”

I nodded. “Good advice.”

I SHOULD HAVE FOUND A
place to bed down and get some sleep. But I was too restless. I didn't know where Alvis was, but I knew where to start looking.

So as soon as I dried off, I drove straight from the river, ripping up 32 Road, and roared to a secluded spot a block from the Cellar. I parked, checked my pistol, shoved it in my coat, and started walking. Cars rumbled down F Road, their drivers oblivious to what had happened in the mountains and what was about to happen here. I envied them.

Once again there weren't any people outside the bar. I kicked the door open and strode inside.

The place still smelled the same: piss, stale beer, and despair. But there were now the faint traces of fear. And blood. The narrow room was empty, except for the three men at the bar: two gray-bearded bikers in dusty leather and denim, and Spike wearing a Hawaiian shirt, khakis, and a walking cast. All three turned and stared at the sound of the door slamming against the wall.

Spike said, “Oh, shit,” and reached under the bar.

“Don't,” I said, whipping my pistol out and pointing it at the idiotic face under the expensive haircut. He put his hands up and grimaced.

“You two,” I said, pointing the pistol at the bikers. “Out.” They creaked and cracked off the stools, then shuffled outside. I waited until I heard the sounds of their Harleys drive off, then said, “Where's your brother?”

Sweat dampened Spike's immaculate hair. His left eye twitched, and his hands shook. “Look, man. I ain't got nothing to do with him no more. Even when he was running things, I never knew where he was holed up.”

“I think you're a lying sack of
shit
,” I said, moving closer to the bar. “I think you knew what your brother's plans were for my sister the first time you saw my face. I think that Allie is dead because you sent your posse after her and drove her in my direction.”

His eyes grew wider. “Allie, dead? How—” Sweat started to drip onto the collar of his bright shirt. His lip twitched in unison with his left eye.

I pressed the barrel of my pistol directly into his chest. “I want you to tell me
now
what you know about my sister.”

“Please, please, you gotta believe me. All I know is, I mentioned to my brother that your sister worked at this government place, and he was all ears. A couple minutes later, he
was chatting her up, talking about all those chemicals she worked around. They walked out that night together and that was it. End of story.”

I pressed the gun barrel harder into his chest. “I don't think so. There's more to it, isn't there?”

In that moment Spike looked like he was desperately trying to figure whether to open his mouth or keep it shut. Panic finally made him open it. “All right, yeah . . . I might have overheard my brother talking on the phone a little bit after you first showed up. A day or two later. Something about a break-in that's supposed to go down tomorrow night. He mentioned ‘the Barr girl.'”

Tomorrow
.
The first time Jen had called me for help, she'd said that whoever had her—Alvis, as it turned out—would kill her after whatever was supposed to happen happened. “Tomorrow” meant there was very little time left. There had to be some way to figure out where Lance stayed when he wasn't at the compound.

Then it came to me. I remembered something Allie had said to me about Lance the first time she and I had met:
No one knows exactly what Lance does or where he goes, except maybe whatever woman he's screwing.

Why didn't that comment stand out to me the night she'd said it? How many more people might be alive—Allie ­included—if I'd just been concentrating?

I lifted the gun and stuck it just below Spike's twitchy left eye. “I need a name,” I said. “The name of whatever female your brother was keeping company with before this week.”

Spike didn't get it. “Why do you want—”

I pushed the pistol harder into the soft flesh below Spike's eye socket and saw the outlines of a bruise start to form. “Just . . . give . . . me . . . the . . .
name
,”
I said.

“Beth Corrigan,” Spike blurted out. “She cuts hair over at Mesa Mall on US 6. She only came in here a few times, but she was his latest.”

The look in Spike's eyes was one I'd seen before. It was the look of a man who fully expects to be killed in the next few seconds. That's why I reckoned that he was telling me the truth. So I drew back my pistol a couple inches. “That'll work. Give me your cell phone.”

He reached slowly into his pants, pulled the black plastic square out of his pocket, and tossed it on the bar. I pulled it out of a liquor puddle and shoved it in my coat.

“Now forget that I came in. If you even
think
about calling your brother—if you even
think
about calling anyone close to him, I swear, I'll come back, cut your nuts off, and shove them all the way down your throat, you got that?”

Spike nodded furiously.

I walked out the door and into the night air. The streetlights buzzed.
Where to now?
The Mesa Mall wouldn't be open at this hour. I began driving aimlessly through the little city where I was raised. I noticed how much it had changed since I'd left. Progress. Homes torn down to put up shopping centers, more people moving into what used to be farms on the outskirts, all of them driving cars that clogged the streets and subdivisions. I didn't want to be there anymore.

I decided to head north into the desert. About thirty minutes out, I stopped on a secluded barren ridge, reclined my seat, pulled my hat over my eyes, and tried to see something other than blood and fire.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

A
t nine the next morning I walked into the salon.

The place reeked of industrial chemicals and nail polish. Expensive bottles of skin and hair potions lined shelves near the four chairs designated for walk-ins. Two ladies were working on other ladies sitting in swivel chairs. Around one customer, piles of hair littered the floor. The other customer had her feet up as a stylist buffed her toenails.

“Beth in?” I asked no one in particular. My voice boomed in the small room.

“Sure am, hon,” the stylist who was cutting hair said. “Someone send you in for a cut?”

“We need to talk.”

She stopped cutting, put her hands on her hips, and squinched her eyebrows together. She was tall—unusually tall—and had the body of a college girl: hard muscles and soft curves. Her face, though, seemed harder. It was the face of a woman who was on her third lap around the track and trying too hard to make it look like the first.

“What you need is a haircut,” she said.

I took off my hat and ran a hand through the ragged mess. She was right. But today could very well be Jen's last, so I
didn't have time. I glanced at the price board behind the chairs and found the rate for a man's haircut. “I'll pay for twenty of them, if you'll talk to me.”

Before, her face had looked like a battered puppy's—open but ill-treated. Now it looked like a coyote's: hungry and greedy. “Give me five minutes to finish up here. Then meet me at the coffee shop next door.”

I nodded, put my hat back on, tipped it to the ladies, and walked next door.

Six minutes later Beth Corrigan came in and sat down across from me at the small table.

“My sister's missing. A man you know has her,” I said. “You know where he'd be if he was in town?”

“You a cop?”

“Not even close. My sister's in trouble.”

She thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. “Haircut money first.”

I slid two of the five hundreds I'd taken from Zeke across the table.

“This man you're looking for, his initials L.A.?”

I nodded.

She looked around, suddenly wary. “I don't think I can talk to you about him. He's bad news.”

“But you're seeing him, aren't you?”

“
Was
seeing him . . . past tense. That ended last week, when he did this to me.” She held up her left hand, which was missing a pinkie. A bandage covered the stump. “I guess I should count myself lucky that he didn't do it to the other hand. I cut hair with my right.”

“What did you do to deserve that?”

“I laughed.”

“What?”

“I laughed at the way he was cutting his steak. He doesn't like people laughing at him.”

I shook my head. Every story about this guy seemed worse than the next. “So you know where he stays when he's here?”

“I told you. I'm
not
talking to you. It's too dangerous.”

“I'll buy some more haircuts then.” I laid two hundred more dollars on the table.

She stared at the bills for a moment, considering. The waitress came over and I ordered two medium coffees, black. After the waitress had returned with the steaming cups, and after she wandered to another table, Beth said, “You gonna kill him?”

I nodded.

“Good,” she said. “You look like you might stand a chance. You don't, though, and we're both dead, okay? I give you his address, you have to promise me that that man won't wake up tomorrow. Can you do that?”

I nodded again.

She gave me the address. As we sipped our coffee, she also gave me more intimate Alvis details than I cared to know.

I thanked her and stood. “You did the right thing,” I said reassuringly, then turned to go. I was headed to the door when I saw the cop.

Through the front windows I saw the Mesa County Sheriff's car parked crosswise in front of my stolen SUV. A stout bald deputy stood next to the driver's side door, talking into the mike on his shoulder.

I groaned.
You should have known better, Barr.
A guy can't drive around in a vehicle associated with a wanted drug lord and not attract the attention of the law. If I wasn't in a hurry, I might have been able to sort things out at the police station with a call to the Feds. But now that I had Alvis's possible location, I couldn't think of anything else but getting there.

This presented a major problem, though. I couldn't get my gear without being noticed. I couldn't get the SUV out because of the cop car. And I couldn't just elbow the officer and take his car. This wasn't Africa, where the police and military are just a part of a regime that changes monthly, where the cops of last month were the militia of this.

I went back to Beth's table, where she sat sipping. She was obviously still mulling our conversation.

“Back so soon?” she asked.

“I'm going to need to borrow your wheels.”

“On account of our being such good friends and all?”

She had a point. She didn't know me from Cain. I hadn't bothered to tell her my name. All I'd said was that I was planning to kill her ex-boyfriend. I wasn't exactly the first choice of someone to hand your vehicle to. “Look, I know we just met. I know you have no reason to trust me. But believe me,
I'm just a guy who's trying to save his sister. And I'll get your ride back to you.”

“What's with
your
vehicle? Or don't you have one?”

I nodded my chin in the direction of the sheriff, who was now walking slowly around the SUV, writing something down in a notebook. “That Excursion belongs to the man who likes to cut off fingers,” I said.

“You stole it?”

I nodded.

She grinned approvingly. “How am I gonna get home, then?”

I took out my last hundred and handed it to her, flashed my most charming look, then opened my palms at an angle as if to say, “We have a deal?” She crossed her arms and took another couple seconds to deliberate. “What's your name anyway?”

“Clyde Barr.”

“Clyde, if I give you my key, will you promise me I won't regret it?”

“I promise.”

“Okay, I'm probably crazy for doing this, but . . . there's a red Honda Interceptor parked in the back of the salon. You do know how to ride, right?”

A motorcycle?
I hadn't ridden one in years. “Been riding all my life. I'll have it back to you tonight or tomorrow morning.”

“You better.”

As soon as I stepped out the back door, the rain started. Misty rain at first, swirling in like fog, then quickly turning to a cold, steady drizzle.
Great motorcycling weather.

I spotted the red bike next to the brick wall and swung on. After some fumbling for a kick-starter, I realized it didn't have one and I managed to find the electric starter button.

I pushed my hat down, zipped up my new coat, and walked the bike away from the building, then whiskey-­throttled and popped the clutch. I ripped through the lot, swerving and weaving, almost hitting a tree and a trash can. Then I let off the throttle, got it under control, and lurched down the pavement like a toddler on a tricycle.

I tried to remember how to ride. Counter-steering and leaning and foot gears. It had been so long since I'd been on a bike, and the little dirt bikes and scooters of the third world were light-years behind this one in terms of technology. This one had a computer display that told me things I didn't understand. Buttons on the handlebars did God knows what. I finally figured it out well enough to keep up with traffic and headed west.

On the highway, I felt the small raindrops burrow into my skin and tried to recall the route to the address I'd been given.
If my mental map was still correct, it would be simple: I-70B to Fruita, then south on 19 to the river. On a bike that could go as fast as this one, I'd make it in a matter of minutes, if I cared to push it.

Which I did. Normally I didn't care for speed, but Alvis was on the move. He'd either be at his place or on the way to where Jen worked to begin the job of stealing whatever chemical it was they were stealing. I needed to be there yesterday.

So I laid my body flat, my stomach resting on the gas tank, and flew through the gears. I took the bike up to fifth in residential areas—sixth on the wider main highways. Over one hundred miles per hour. I prayed that I'd stay on the bike, that the cops wouldn't get involved, that Alvis was at his house, and that Jen was still unharmed.

My luck held, and I made it into Fruita. I pulled over at a golf course and hoped my luck would continue.

I was going to need it.