The Exiled (19 page)

H
ow will they set up?” Raney asked.

“Meno's the real-estate king. He owns this shit hole. So he'll waltz in the front, smiling, pointing at windows and drainpipes, playing it like his goons are contractors or buyers. He'll think he has the drop on us. Everybody knows I'm a night owl.”

“That makes things easier.”

“Just don't jump out too early. Meno's always the last one through the door. And I don't want any poetry. Step out and start blasting. End of story.”

“Got it.”

“Man, I wish to God I had some more blow on me,” Dunham said.

He was peering through a gimlet hole in the plank covering the front window.

“I can't believe this,” he said. “I can't fucking believe it. I woke up this morning thinking the day would happen one way. I had some coffee. Took a shit. Headed over to the club. And now…”

“What?”

“I don't know. This feels rushed. You plan something like this. You scout the area. You rehearse. But fuck it. It's not like I can ask Meno for a rain check.”

“You've wanted this for a long time,” Raney said. “I guess you have to take it how it comes.”

“I guess. You still all right? You're almost too fucking quiet.”

“Yeah, I'm okay,” Raney said.

He was cold, his palms sweating. They'd been standing in the dark for an hour, Dunham describing whatever he glimpsed on the street: a group of boys gathering around a drunk on the opposite stoop, two kids from the corner racing dirt bikes, a cop car rolling past, a stray dog pissing on someone's tire. Raney sat with his back against the wall, half listening. Part of him wanted to shepherd Dunham away. It was a phenomenon Stone had talked about:
Spend enough time with anyone, and you run the risk of liking him
. Dunham enjoyed being alive. That part of him was contagious. But Ferguson was right: Dunham would cause immeasurable pain for as long as he walked the earth. Raney thought of the skel Dunham shot point-blank, the woman he made watch. He saw Dunham high from it afterward, howling in his car at a Turnpike truck stop.

He traced it back one more time, sifting through the paranoia, the exhaustion, trying to disprove what he believed to be fact just to make sure he couldn't. Why did Dunham have to die? Meno? Whatever his motives, Ferguson's reasoning had been sound. Stone's death left Raney in the crosshairs. If he brought Dunham and Meno in now, he'd have no protection. He'd gone too far. At best, he'd compromised the case and, with it, his career; at worst, he'd be the one prosecuted. Leave Dunham and Meno on the street, and it was only a matter of time before they came at him.

That much made sense. What Raney couldn't get past was the suspicion that Stone had been executed because he, Raney, took too long. Ferguson lost patience, tipped Meno. If he couldn't manipulate his would-be son-in-law into killing Meno, then he'd neutralize Stone. The private schools, the Bentley in the garage: a police captain didn't break six figures. Ferguson had been in Meno's pocket from the start. Meno would use a corrupt figurehead to shave years off his sentence. In Ferguson's mind, either Meno or Stone had to die. Why not have one kill the other?

Or maybe Raney was thinking too hard. Maybe Stone's killer had nothing to do with Meno.

“Here we go,” Dunham said. “I was starting to doubt he'd show.”

“How many?”

“Four. Plus the driver. Christ, Meno likes 'em big. All right, places everyone.”

Raney crouched behind the wall separating the living room and hallway. Dunham shut himself in the foyer closet. There were voices coming up the walk, saying the kinds of things Dunham had predicted. They sounded like stage actors running lines.

“How much does a place like this go for once you fix it up?”

“You can't just renovate the house, you have to renovate the neighborhood.”

“Okay, so how much, then?”

“Maybe a half mil.”

“After you put how much into it?”

“Twenty thousand, give or take.”

“Jesus, not bad.”

“Let me show you around.”

Raney heard a key in the lock, then Meno's voice from inside:

“He'll come through the back. You two stand watch.”

The door shut, the hallway light came on. A three count, and Dunham was out and firing. Raney held his crouch. Plaster exploded above his head. One of Meno's giants stumbled into the living room, dropped at Raney's feet. Dunham's Glock spat rounds. A .38 answered. Someone fell hard. Then a struggle: a body slammed against a wall, Dunham screaming. Raney took up the dead man's revolver, stepped into the hallway. The floor was slick with blood.

One of the twin apes had Dunham by the throat, held him pinned to the front door so that his feet dangled. Dunham kicked, clawed. A second corpse lay sprawled facedown across the foyer. Meno stood watching. Raney shot Dunham's assailant in the calf. The man lost his hold, buckled. Dunham drove a stiletto into his skull. Raney leveled the revolver at Meno.

“Drop it,” he said.

“Are you serious?”

“Don't make me say it twice.”

Meno let a silver-plated Luger slide from his grip.

“What the fuck is this, Deadly?” Dunham said. “How long were you planning to leave me out here?”

Dunham took up the Luger, turned to Meno and grinned, his teeth shining against the blood spatter.

“I'm gonna do you with your own fucking gun.”

Meno to Raney: “This isn't what we agreed on.”

“Shut your mouth,” Raney said.

“You're forgetting there's a tape of our conversation. There are copies in safety deposit boxes all over the city. I've got your badge. If I should happen to die by violent means—”

“I'll say it was all part of the sting. It all went bad.”

“Stone might have believed you.”

“What the fuck is this, Deadly?” Dunham said.

“This is you being mentally deficient,” Meno said. “Your Mike Dixon is Detective Wes Raney. He's a fucking narco from the district attorney's office. You were so desperate to have a friend that you handed him every detail of our business.”

Dunham pressed the muzzle of the Luger to Meno's temple.

“Fuck you,” he said. “That divide-and-conquer bullshit won't work, you prick.”

“Tell him,” Meno said.

“You, too, Dunham,” Raney said. “Put the gun down.”

Dunham shook his head.

“Maybe it started like that,” he said. “But things changed. Show me they changed. Kill this cocksucker right now.”

“I can't do that.”

“This is your last fucking chance.”

“Put the gun down.”

“Fuck you.”

Dunham swung his arm. Raney dropped him with twin shots to the chest. Meno fumbled at the door. Raney buzzed his ear.

“Turn the fuck around.”

Meno raised his hands, did as he was told.

“We both know you can't bring me in now,” he said. “So let's be done with it.”

“Who killed Stone?”

Meno smirked.

“I'm not the type to make confession.”

“It was Ferguson who turned you on to Stone, wasn't it?”

“Ferguson?” Meno said. “You mean the former police captain? I never met the man. I make it a practice to avoid law enforcement. You've turned out to be a very sorry exception.”

“Bullshit. Ferguson told you Stone was making a case. You had Stone killed.”

“Does it matter if I say you're right or wrong? Once you've executed me, you can make up any story you like.”

“Answer me.”

“Go fuck yourself, Detective.”

“You had Ferguson kill Bruno, didn't you? That's how it started.”

“Do you want me to reach for that gun on the floor? Would that make it easier for you? My guess is you've never shot an unarmed man.”

“Ferguson wants you dead. Why?”

“Because I've done bad things.”

“That surveillance detail was local. Those were Stone's men, not feds. Ferguson told you.”

“The more you talk, the more convinced I am that you won't kill me. You orchestrated all this. You're a man of intellect. You need to think things through. A man of action would have pulled the trigger by now. But as a thinker you realize that killing me makes no sense. Either you'll end up in jail or what's left of my crew will hunt you down. Work with me, and what happened here becomes a mutually beneficial turn of events.”

“Work with you how?”

“You're everything Dunham wasn't, plus you can take care of yourself. You'll stay on the force. We'll find you a new assignment.”

“I'm guessing you have something in mind.”

“There are options.”

Raney glanced at the blood pooling around Meno's feet.

“And all this is forgiven?”

“I don't see what there is to forgive. You saved my life. And you rid me of a very costly albatross. I'll send a cleaner over. He's the best at what he does. We'll move on. We'll make a lot of money. Give it a few days, then come see me.”

He turned back around, set a hand on the doorknob. Raney fired above his head. Meno had one foot outside. There was a car waiting at the curb.

“You're wrong,” Raney said.

Meno paused.

“About what?”

“A man of intellect would realize he had to pull the trigger. He'd have no option.”

“I've just given you an option.”

“You gave me a story. We both know what your next move would be.”

Meno pivoted, leveled his derringer. Raney fired twice more. Meno fell backwards onto the street. His driver sped off.

H
e made some alterations, but he couldn't disguise, or wouldn't allow himself to disguise, the part he'd played in orchestrating the deaths of five men. Clara let go of his hand. Raney couldn't tell if she was judging him or if she'd hoped for something different, some vulnerability—a chance to be tender, to comfort herself by comforting him.

“You want me to leave?” he asked.

She looked everywhere but at him.

“Is that what you want?” she said.

“No,” he said. “But I don't want to keep talking if you've made up your mind.”

“It's like you're asking me for a verdict.”

“Isn't that what it amounts to?”

“For you, maybe. Not for me.”

“What, then?”

“I don't know,” she said. “It's all too much. I have Daniel to think about.”

The evidence would come down against him. The events of the last week had outpaced her imagination, left her with new scars to bear. Raney had come to her from a world she didn't understand and wanted no part of. She would do what she'd promised that night at the campsite: move on, find a job, raise Daniel. Raney couldn't help but think he'd like to join them.

Alone in his room, he turned on the lights and stood looking out the window, watching a gaggle of teenagers sprawled atop the hoods of their parents' cars, drinking from paper bags. He thought about arresting them, making them his company for the night, but that would only lead to more consequences with no purpose. Raney was in for the evening, cornered by the fact that he had nowhere else to go. He let the curtain fall shut, a single phrase repeating in his head:
I have Daniel to think about.
Clara would join the people who punished him by their absence.

But punish was too strong—too self-indulgent—a word. Clara
did
have her son to think about. Whatever feelings he had for her would pass, and he'd be left with a suspicion that the hikes, the photos, the nights by the creek were nothing but puffed-up distractions, pieces in an elaborate game of pretend.

He pulled the suitcase from under his bed, rooted through his belongings, brought out the dimebag and clutched it in his fist. He sat for a moment on the edge of the bed, waiting for his breath to settle, unable to shake the feeling that others were watching—Sophia, Ella, Clara—the people he thought about, for better or worse, every day. As if to outrun any impulse that might pull him back, he sprinted into the bathroom and flushed the last of his supply.

He stripped, filled the tub with lukewarm water, then sank beneath the surface, eyes open. He held himself there until the pressure became too great, waited a beat longer before shooting back up.

He lay soaking for a long while, trying to let his mind go blank, but the stillness only chafed—he'd felt more at ease on the cusp of drowning.

Bay found Raney pacing the handicap ramp outside the sheriff's office, taking long swallows from a paper cup imprinted with the diner's logo.

“Back on the cheap stuff?” Bay said.

“Only place open this early.”

“The gals must've made it extra strong. You look ready to launch.”

“This isn't my first.”

Bay leaned his bulk against the side of the building, pulled out a pouch of tobacco and a leaf of rolling paper.

“You up for a hunting trip?” Raney asked.

“Thought you just took pictures.”

“I'm talking about a manhunt.”

“That's the marshals' gig. Our part's done, Raney.”

“That how it feels to you?”

Bay finished rolling his cigarette, fumbled with a lighter until the paper caught flame. He stood smoking, watching Raney climb and descend the ramp.

“You sure it's Grant you can't let go of?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Clara dumped you, didn't she?”

Raney broke stride, stared.

“I'm not sure.”

“I bet she is.”

“Fuck you, Bay.”

“You've known the woman a week. Chasing down an ex-SEAL sniper seems extreme.”

“So stay home.”

Bay sniggered.

“Going after Grant is pure stupid, and you know it. You need someone along who's a little less stupid than you are. Someone who'll grab you by the ear and make you wait for the cavalry.”

Raney crushed the cup in his hand, watched a magpie pick a gum wrapper off the sidewalk.

“That mean you're coming?” he said.

Bay nodded.

“Where do we start?”

“I called Molly. She remembered the logo on the side of the van Grant rented.”

They drove without stopping, pulled up to a tin shack at the center of a sprawling parking lot dotted with white trucks. A placard chained to the roof read
ADOBE RENTALS
. A man stood at the door with his back to them, beating on a padlock with a hammer. Bay flashed the siren. The man tossed the hammer, raised his hands.

“It's the small pleasures,” Bay said.

The man was in his midthirties—stick arms and legs, bloated gut, long gaps between rotting teeth. The name tag sewn into his breast pocket read
LEWIS
.

“Funny,” Raney said. “This might be the only non-adobe building for a mile in any direction.”

“What is it we're interrupting?” Bay asked.

“Locked my keys inside.”

Bay patted him down, found a sharpened screwdriver and a crack pipe.

“Any chance you're on parole?” Bay asked.

“What's this about?”

“Relax,” Raney said. “All we want is information.”

“What kind of information?”

“You've seen the news, right? You know what happened yesterday.”

Lewis nodded, pressed his back against the wall as though trying to slip through one of its corrugated grooves.

“I ain't mixed up in that,” he said.

“What
are
you mixed up in?” Raney asked. “Let's begin there.”

“I got a habit,” the man said. “You seen it right off. But I don't make the shit, and I don't sell it. Just tell me what you want. If I can help, I'll help. Why wouldn't I?”

“Fair enough,” Raney said.

He held out Grant's photo.

“Did you rent a truck to him?”

“We rent a lot of trucks.”

“Look closely.”

Lewis held the picture by its edges, leaned in, then bolted back, eyes lost in his skull.

“Stan sent you to fuck with me,” he said. “This ain't the guy you're looking for. No way. Can't be.”

He dropped the photo, let it lie on the asphalt. Raney picked it up.

“Why don't we go inside?” he said. “Since you took the trouble to break the lock.”

Bay opened the door, caught a hot blast of stale smoke and sweat.

“Jesus. Someone ought to buy you a goddamn window.”

“We leave the door open, mostly.”

Bay took Lewis by the shoulders, spun him around, steered him inside. There were papers strewn across every surface, empty bottles of hard liquor serving as paperweights. Every drawer busted, every filing cabinet spilling over. Cigarette ash lay like sawdust across the floor. Bay walked Lewis behind his desk, tilted his chair so that a binder and a stack of invoices slid off, then shoved him down.

“How do you find anything in here?” Bay asked.

“He doesn't,” Raney said. “Who's Stan?”

“Stan?” Lewis said.

Raney clapped his hands hard beside Lewis's ear.

“No stalling. We're not going to rough you up, and we're not going to offer you a drink to calm your nerves. Answer my questions or we'll drop you in a holding cell and forget to tell anyone you're there.”

Lewis wiped his face with an oil-soaked rag, stared down at his feet.

“Stan's my brother.”

“And he owns this place?”

“Yeah.”

“And you're—what? The mechanic?”

“More like the janitor,” Lewis said. “I clean the trucks, change the oil, sweep the lot. I do the grunt work, stay clear of the customers.”

“Except when Stan's away?”

“Yeah, except when Stan's away.”

Raney held up Oscar's picture a second time.

“Stan was away the day this man came in?”

“Yeah. Stan's semiretired. Works half the week. Usually has a girl who covers, but she's out pregnant. I swore up and down I could handle it. I swore to him. I said it would help get me turned around.”

Raney scanned the room.

“This isn't the normal state of things, is it?”

“No, it ain't.”

“You were looking for something? Something to do with Oscar Grant?”

“Who?”

“The man in the picture.”

“He had a different name. Had IDs to back it up.”

“But you're sure it was him?” Bay asked.

“Yeah, I'm sure.”

“Why don't you start from the beginning?” Raney said. “Tell us everything.”

“It's him poisoned the dope?”

“Might be,” Bay said.

Lewis clawed the arms of his chair.

“Sweet fucking Jesus,” he said. “The man paid me in meth. I'm gonna die, ain't I?”

“How long ago?” Raney asked.

“Maybe two weeks.”

“You'd be dead already. Now tell us.”

Raney waited for Lewis to catch his breath, watched the red fade from his cheeks.

“Go on, now,” he said.

“The guy showed up late. Just before closing. Said he wanted to borrow a truck from then until morning. He'd have it back in ten hours. I said we only charged in twenty-four-hour cycles. That's when he said we had friends in common. Said he knew what I was about. He laid the Baggies on the desk here. ‘Ten hours,' he said. ‘No paperwork.'”

“Let me guess,” Bay said. “You never saw the truck again.”

“I know what happened to it, though.”

“What's that?”

“A cop called Sunday morning. Wanted to know if we were missing any inventory. Said they found what could be one of ours burned to a skeleton up in the foothills. I told him our trucks were all accounted for, but I knew damn well what happened and who'd done it. I figured it had something to do with the meth. He'd been transporting it or using the trailer as a lab. But the cop said the truck was packed with normal shit. Furniture, clothes, electronics. All of it up in flames.”

“So what were you searching for today?”

“I wasn't searching for nothing. Stan don't know yet. I was tryin' to make it look like we was robbed. Like they'd come for the cash and taken off in one of the trucks. I was gonna call it in from a pay phone.”

“Why today?” Raney asked.

“I figured the cops would be too busy to care. Maybe they'd send some rookie to take a report, and that'd be it.”

“We did you a favor, then, by showing up,” Raney said. “If I were you, I'd put this place back in order and then come clean with your brother.”

“No, I don't think you would,” Lewis said. “Not if you was me. And not if he was your brother.”

They sat in a café across the freeway from Adobe Rentals, drinking from outsized mugs, Bay clicking the mouse on his laptop, entering information, clicking again.

“Here it is,” he said. “Just like the meth head described it. Arson on a county road. A hundred miles from Albuquerque.”

“Keep looking and you'll find a dealer turned up dead a little over two weeks ago.”

“But why? Why not just burn his house down? And why burn the truck, too? Why not unload it and make a nice big barn fire?”

“Some kind of ritual? A break with the past? The real question is, how did he get back to Albuquerque? Or to wherever he was going? Someone had to give him a lift.”

“You think he's got a friend in all this?”

“Or in some of it. Maybe a friend who goes way back.”

“A SEAL?”

“Or a warden. Grant's boss was the go-to character witness when Jonathan OD'd.”

“I guess I know where we're headed next.”

Grant's former workplace sat in the flattest part of the state—no trees, no hills, just sun bleaching the scrub, casting fake ponds on the asphalt.

“This place is butt-ugly,” Bay said. “The cons oughta be glad someone bricked up the windows.”

They parked in the visitors' lot, checked their guns into small lockers, were escorted down a long corridor by a tired-looking CO. Warden Peterson sat at his desk, hunched over a memo. Behind him, a window overlooked the yard, gave a clear view of the sniper tower where Grant holed up forty hours a week for eighteen years. The office walls were covered with animal heads and hides: antelope, bear, cougar, wolverine. Jack Wilkins would have approved.

The warden pushed aside his memo, stood to greet them. His left leg was set in a thigh-high plaster cast. A pair of crutches lay on the floor beside his desk.

“Don't get up on our account,” Bay said.

“I should know better than to ride a mountain bike at my age. Detective Raney and Sheriff Bay, right? Please have a seat. What can I do for you?”

He was larger and a little younger than Bay, with broad shoulders and hands that must have required custom-made gloves. Wire-rimmed bifocals hung from a lanyard around his neck. He had a habit of putting them on and taking them off again. His double-breasted suit made it hard to tell if his bulk was natural or something he worked for. Raney pictured him quashing fights in the cafeteria, lecturing inmates through the bars of their cell. He had the kind of presence that commanded attention.

“I think you know why we're here, Warden,” Raney said.

“You've come to ask about Oscar. I'm surprised nobody came sooner.”

“We read the articles,” Raney said. “It sounds like you were more than his employer.”