Rick Riordan: Southtown

“Shut up, Ortiz.” Her voice was harsher than I’d ever heard it. “Don’t curse in front of my son.”

“Stirman’s coming. He’s got plenty of friends in the county jail. You lock me up, you’re signing my death warrant.”

“I said shut up.”

I looked back and forth between them, wondering what I’d missed, or if my brain was still waterlogged.

Then the name clicked.

“Stirman,” I said. “The escaped con on the news.”

“I ain’t staying in jail,” Dimebox said. “You know what’s good for you, you’ll run, too.”

Erainya wouldn’t meet my eyes.

I remembered her reaction to the radio news, the intense, almost frantic look she’d given me.

“What?” I asked her. “You helped put this Stirman guy away?”

Dimebox laughed nervously. “That ain’t the fucking half of it, Navarre. Not the fucking-”

Lalu whacked his fist against Dimebox’s skull, and Dimebox slumped on the couch.

Lalu grunted apologetically. “Lady wanted no cussing.”

I said, “Erainya…?”

She got up and stormed into the cousins’ bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

I turned to Jem, who was paying a lot of attention to the pattern in the couch fabric. I asked him if he still had his mom’s cell phone.

I checked the readout, but the call history didn’t help my confusion. I could make a dozen guesses who Erainya might call in an emergency, if she were truly faced with an urgent dilemma.

All my guesses were wrong.

The person she’d been so anxious to talk to when she stepped into the storm wasn’t her doctor boyfriend. It wasn’t the police, or any of our regular helpers on the street.

She’d called I-Tech Security, the direct line to the company president.

Her archrival.

A man she’d sworn never to cross paths with again, until one of them was dancing on the other’s grave.

Special Agent Samuel Barrera spent breakfast trying to remember the name of the ax murderer.

The guy had tortured and killed six illegal immigrants on a ranch up around Castroville, left their body parts scattered in the woods like deer corn. What the hell was his name?

Sam had a feeling it would be important in the case he was working on. He’d talk to his trainee Pacabel when he got to the office. Pacabel would remember.

The morning was humid after last night’s downpour, just enough drizzle to keep everybody sour-faced, staring at the gray sky, thinking, Enough already.

Not even Alamo Street Market’s coffee and migas were enough to compensate.

Sam pulled on his jacket over his sidearm.

He left a ten on the table, got annoyed when the waiter called, “ Hasta manana, Sam.”

Like Sam knew the guy. Like they were old friends or something. What the hell was wrong with people these days?

Down South Alamo, yellow sawhorses blocked the side streets. Asphalt had come apart in huge chunks and washed away. The sidewalk was buried in a shroud of mud.

Sam picked his way through the debris.

The last few years, people had started calling this area Southtown. Art studios had opened up in the old barrio houses, funky little restaurants and curio shops in the crumbling mercantile buildings. The changes didn’t bother Sam. He liked seeing life come back to his old neighborhood. But it did make him miss the past.

His family home at the corner of Cedar was falling apart. He’d owned it since his parents died, back in the seventies. He hadn’t lived there for years, but he always parked in front of it. Force of habit. The FOR SALE was up. The real estate agent called him every day with glad tidings. They had their choice of offers. For this old dump. Sam never suspected he’d grown up in a Victorian fixer-up dream. To him, it had just been la casa. Back then, nobody lived here but the Mexicans, because this was where they could afford to live.

He opened the door of his mustard-yellow BMW.

The car was getting old. Like him. But Sam kept putting off a trade-in, irritated by the thought of unfamiliar controls, a different paint job. Too much to keep track of, when you got a new car.

He drove north to the field office on East Houston, still thinking about that rancher whose name he couldn’t remember. He’d kept the six illegal immigrants as slaves, killed them slowly, one at a time. It had something to do with Sam’s present case.

When he got to the FBI suite on the second floor, he walked into the reception area and found some rookie fresh out of Quantico blocking his way to the inner offices. “Sir, can I help you?”

Sam scowled. There was a time when he would’ve chewed out this asshole for standing in his way, but Sam didn’t feel up to it today. He felt a little off. Preoccupied. “I work here, son.”

Something disconnected in the kid’s eyes. It wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting. “You have identification?”

Sam patted his jacket, where the ID should be.

Hell. Was it in the car, maybe? On the coffee table?

Held up from work by a fucking detail.

A couple of agents came out from the interior offices and sized up Sam. One of them was an older guy-must’ve been nearing mandatory retirement. He had thinning silver hair, a big nose blazed with capillaries. Sam knew him, couldn’t quite place his name.

“Must’ve left it at home,” Sam told the rookie. He felt the situation slipping away from him. “Cut me some slack.”

The agents exchanged looks. By some silent agreement, the silver-haired one stepped forward. “Hey, Sam.”

“Yeah?” Sam said.

“Let’s take a walk.”

“I don’t want a walk.”

The old guy put a hand on his shoulder and steered him back toward the entrance.

“You know me?” the old guy asked.

“Sure,” Sam said.

“Pacabel,” the guy said.

Immediately, the name slipped around him like a comfortable shoe.

“Joe Pacabel,” Sam said, confident again. “Sure, Joe. Let me get to work, will you? Tell these jokers.”

Pacabel looked at the floor. Beige tiles, which seemed wrong to Sam. It should’ve been carpet. Green industrial carpet.

The other agents were trying not to stare at him.

“Look, Sam,” Pacabel said, the words dragging out of him. “You’re a little confused, is all. It happens.”

“Joe, my case…”

“You’ve got no case, Sam.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Pacabel’s eyes watered, and Sam realized it was from embarrassment. Embarrassment for him.

“Sam, you retired from the FBI,” Pacabel said gently. “You haven’t worked here in twenty years.”

Halfway across town, Gerry Far was pulling dead people out of a trailer.

He hated this part of his job, but he had to help out personally. Otherwise his employees would panic. He’d learned that from his mentor, Will Stirman.

The driver this time was a fruit trucker from Indianapolis. This was his first run. It was all Gerry could do to keep him from calling the police.

“Help me with this hombre, ” Gerry told the trucker. “Jesus, he’s heavy.”

The smell in the truck was enough to kill-overripe mangos and excrement and body odor. When they’d opened the trailer, the temperature inside had been about a hundred and ten degrees.

As he hauled the big corpse over to the incinerator, Gerry did the math. Fifty-three illegals. Three hundred dollars a head. Twenty-one had died, but of course they’d paid up front.

The thirty-two who lived would be sold off to Gerry’s clients-sweatshops, labor ranches, brothels-to “earn credit” for further transportation to Chicago or Houston or wherever they dreamed of going. In reality, none of them would ever be allowed to leave. They’d bring Gerry a sale price of two to five hundred dollars each, possibly more for young women. That was the beauty of the Stirman system-the illegals paid to get here, then Gerry got paid again for selling them into slavery. Welcome to America.