Spiral (52 page)

He wiped his forehead in the crook of his arm. "Oh, yes. If you decide to tell me what I want to know, simply nod, and this is what I will do ... if I believe you. I will relieve your pain so that you will be in no danger while we go and see if what you say is true. If it is true, I will call an ambulance to come get you. If it is not true,
will come get you. Very simple, huh?"span>

Siseno moved around to the side of the bed beside Negrete and picked up the rubber hose. As he bent over Rubio, the Indian suddenly spat without warning, and a huge gob of mucus looped across Siseno's face.

"Puta" Siseno screamed, and struck instantly with all his might. His fist was doubled expertly, and a protruding middle knuckle caught Rubio on the outside corner of his left eye, punching it out of its socket so that it sat high and white on the bridge of his nose, but still attached.span>

Furious, Siseno jumped on the bed, straddled Rubio, and wrenched open his jaws as he rammed the end of the tube into the Indian's throat with such force that it tore his esophagus. He was already bleeding from his mouth when Negrete, standing with the readied syringe, gave the signal to Luis, and the water began to flow.

CHAPTER 53

At
the top of the news this hour Houston police and the FBI are looking for two suspects believed, to be involved in the shooting here last Tuesday afternoon in which six people were killed in an assassination-type attack on a limousine at the intersection of West Loop and Richmond Avenue.

The two pictures of Bias Medrano and then the sketch of Rubio Arizpe flashed on the screen, and stayed there while the woman newscaster continued with her story. She said it was not yet known if the two men were tied to the killing of three people in Port Houston on Thursday, or the murder of a University of Houston professor in the early-morning hours today. After recapping the unprecedented series of killings during the last four days, the newscaster said the police and the FBI were urging anyone who might have seen the two men whose pictures were still on the screen to please call the Crime Stoppers number immediately, which was then flashed on the screen below the pictures.

The story was over in less than five minutes, followed by a story about a tanker truck that had overturned on the Gulf Freeway.

Haydon punched the mute button on the remote control and looked at Nina and Celia, who were sitting on the library sofa across from him.

"That's it?" Celia asked, her voice rising.

Haydon nodded. "Their pictures were on the screen for about two minutes. That's a long time. Long enough."

"Well, what happens now?" she persisted. "I mean, is that it? Can't they do something else?"

"We wait. Anything else that can be done is being done," Haydon said. "The paperwork, searching files, running down addresses, questioning people, tracing guns. This will go on a long time."

"But what if the people who've seen them aren't watching tonight?"

"It's supposed to run again in the morning."

Celia pulled her legs up on the sofa and folded her dress over them. She was still wearing Nina's skirt and blouse. Her eyebrows contorted in a frown. She seemed always on the verge of tears now.

"If anyone's going to call in, it should be within the next half hour or so," Haydon said. "That is, people who might have seen them, but who have no other knowledge of them. Like a gas-station attendant, or a store clerk. Those who might have knowledge of them beyond that may wait days or weeks to respond while they weigh the consequences. Or they might not call in at all."

Haydon was drinking French dark-roast coffee. It was strong, and he had already had too much, but he wasn't planning on trying to sleep anytime soon. He was still wearing the suit he had worn to Mooney's memorial service at ten o'clock that morning, exactly twelve hours earlier. He looked at the girl moving her mouth on the screen, and then the camera shifted to a different angle and picked up her co-announcer, a man, who was taking the next story. Back and forth, back and forth. They would do this for half an hour, bringing a third person for the weather and a fourth person for sports. This was the way they had done it when they announced Mooney's death, the same way they would do it to announce chili cook-offs and wars, high school football scores and earthquakes, clear to partly cloudy weather and terrorist bombings. Back and forth, back and forth, with something light and frothy at the end of the half hour.

"Why don't we turn it off, Stuart?" Nina said. "Either that, or turn the volume on so we can hear it."

Haydon didn't hear her. His eyes remained fixed on the voiceless automatons as they swiveled from side to side with choreographed precision to catch the alternating camera angles. He, on the other hand, was motionless, sitting upright in his wing chair with his legs crossed at the knees. He didn't blink. He wasn't even in the room.

Celia looked quizzically at Nina, who kept her eyes on Haydon. When the telephone rang, the two women jumped. Haydon looked at his watch—it was ten twenty-one—laid down the remote-control device, and walked back to his desk.

"Hello," he said.

"Stu," Dystal said. "We got
action
off that news item." Haydon pulled over a notepad and picked up a pencil.

"Phones haven't stopped ringing," Dystal continued. "Some nut stuff, but some good solid ones too. All right: Two guys in different clothing stores in the Galleria said Medrano was in their places Tuesday night, getting what looked like whole new outfits. Paid in cash, paid extra for rush alterations.

"Calls from agents in five different car rental agencies. Arizpe got one car from each of two; Medrano got one car from each of two and a little S-10 Chevy pickup from a third one. Used credit cards, but the names weren't Arizpe and Medrano.

"Call from a waitress in a little sandwich shop over on Norfolk at Kirby, said both of them were in there Thursday evening about dark. Drinking coffee and looking at a map for about half an hour, forty-five minutes. She said she visited with Medrano some and he was a real nice fella, polite, well-mannered.

"Call from management at that ritzy La Colombe d'Or over on Montrose said a guy who fits Medrano's description but using a credit card with another name checked in there around eleven p.m. Tuesday night, and checked out at six thirty-five
this afternoon.

"Call from a waitress at a Steak 'N Egg Kitchen on San Felipe near Post Oak Boulevard said Medrano was in there at eight forty-five
tonight.
And the gal who works that shift with her said
she
had seen him in there Thursday night with Arizpe. They were going over some maps together. Then we got another call from
another
waitress who works the morning shift there—she was at home when she called— and she said she had seen Medrano in there by himself about seven-thirty this morning for breakfast.

"We're still getting calls, but this is a damn good start."

"You've put a general broadcast on all the cars?"

"Sure have."

"What are you going to do about the diner?"

"We're sending somebody over there in an unmarked car to have a sandwich and drill those two gals. We're gonna stake it out— it's in a good location, easy to do—and if he shows up we're gonna send a man in there dressed like a cabby to check it out. We'll see what happens from there."

Haydon had a map spread out on his desk and was circling the addresses. "He's staying in the neighborhood, isn't he?"

"Yeah, he is. Looks like I was wrong, doesn't it? I mean, goddam, he was still hanging around an hour and a half ago."

"Did he eat a meal at the diner?"

"No. Gal said she filled his thermos with coffee. Maybe he was leaving town then. Gonna drive all night."

"Or he was going to spend all night staked out somewhere."

"You think he's just waiting till he catches Gamboa out on the streets so he can bushwhack him?"

"I think that's probable. He and Arizpe were studying maps for some reason. But what about the RDX? How would he use that if he was planning another hit and run?"

"Goddam, who knows where that stuff is? Maybe he's gonna ram the damn limo Middle East-style."

"Why all the rented cars? And why was one a pickup?"

"I don't know," Dystal said. "We're trying to find out the timetable on that, see what was rented when. Maybe that'll suggest something."

"Your people on Inverness haven't seen anything?"

"Not a thing. Some kids were skateboarding up and down there under the streetlights a while ago . . ." Dystal spoke to someone, said "Wait" to them, and then said to Haydon, "I got something coming in here. Get right back to you."

Haydon put down the telephone and stared down at the map on his desk, his eyes going over and over the locations mentioned by Dystal as he tried to envision a pattern, tried to see beyond the known facts to their implications, and to the numerous possibilities.

"Stuart!" Nina's voice was impatient, and Haydon looked up to see both women standing, looking at him. "What was it?"

He started to answer, but the telephone rang again, and he picked it up immediately, hoping Dystal had a breakthrough.

"Mr. Haydon, listen carefully." It was not Dystal, or anyone else he recognized. "Lucas Negrete is about to beat you to Medrano."

Haydon was speechless. He could only listen.

"Negrete has Rubio Arizpe." The voice was calm, deliberate. "They are in room 326 of the Golden Way Motel at Main and the Southwest Freeway, Highway 59. There are two men with Negrete." There was a pause. "Have you got that? Would you like me to repeat anything?"

"No, I've got it," Haydon said, and the other end of the line went dead.

"Nina!" Haydon jerked open the desk drawer and took out his Beretta. Nina had been watching his face and was already on her way over to him as he checked the clip, took an extra clip out of the drawer, made sure it was full, and dropped it in a pocket of his suit coat hanging over the back of the chair.

"Listen," he said, looking at her. "That was an anonymous tip that Negrete is holding Arizpe in the Golden Way Motel. You know it, at Main and the freeway. Room 326." He fixed the Beretta in the small of his back, picked up the telephone, and dialed *66, which automatically called the number that had just called him. "I'm going into the living room to the other line and call Dystal, and have him get someone over there right away. I'm going to try to get a tracer on this call here, so don't hang up the phone until you get a call on the other line saying you can. Okay?"

"Yes, I understand." She also understood where he was going.

She followed him into the living room, bringing his suit coat off the chair. He called Dystal, but his number was busy, so he hung up and dialed 911. When the dispatcher finally got through, Haydon didn't give Dystal time to say anything but hurriedly told him what had happened, told him to get someone over to the motel, told him to get a tracer on the telephone and that he was on his way to the motel himself.

Dystal swore. "Wait a second! All hell's breaking loose. That was Gamboa on the line just then. He's chartered a flight out of the country. It leaves from the Intercontinental Airport in an hour. He's got a helicopter's gonna pick him up and take him out there, and he wants us to escort him to the heliport."

"Which one?"

"The one closest to him, at Post Oak Park over behind the Remington Hotel off San Felipe . . . right across the Loop from that goddam Steak 'N Egg place."

"Stall him."

"No way. I tried; he won't listen. He's scared to death, and what I told him just put gas on his fire. He thinks he's doing what he's got to do to save his life. Got his boy all armed, his driver all armed, and his goddam butler or whatever he calls him."

"Stall him," Haydon said again. "This motel thing could be our break. I'll call from there," Haydon said, and slammed down the telephone. He took his coat from Nina and slipped it on. "When I get out those gates, lock it up, turn on all the outside lights, and turn on the alarm system."

He was out the front door immediately, leaving Nina alone in the lighted doorway.

Chapter 54

H
AYDON
drove the distance to the Golden Way Motel ignoring everything but his reflexes, taking the tight-steering Jaguar to its handling limits shaving corners, accelerating flat out when he could and breaking into turns, running lights, making the best time traveling the wrong way on one-way streets where the other cars could see him coming and pull over to give him a clean shot.

His mind was working as fast at asking questions as it was at maneuvering the Vanden Plas.

Was the tip genuine?

There didn't seem to be any possibility that he was being set up. The investigation had gone so poorly from the point of view of the police that he certainly was no threat to Negrete's objective, or to Medrano's.

Who was it? And why? And how did he get his information?

Haydon peered into the streaming headlights of the oncoming traffic and realized he had made a mistake. He should have specified a quiet approach. Dystal had his hands full, and wasn't going to think of it. The backup units would come in with sirens blaring—no chance of catching Negrete off guard. If he and his men didn't try to shoot their way out, then they would turn it into a siege. Either way, it wouldn't work to the advantage of what they wanted to achieve: a quick resolution that might gain them information to forestall the assassination. Haydon's only chance of getting that now would be to get to Negrete before he realized that the distant sirens were headed for him.