Robert Browne - Down Among the Dead Men

Or re living it.

Those two days with Jen did happen.

I know that. They will forever be a part of me.

But for some reason, I can’t seem to get beyond them. I live them over and over, each time as vivid as the last, and the only thing keeping me sane are these few lucid moments when I look around me and see a hospital room. When I can stare down at these words I’ve written and know that there is a part of me fighting this thing, struggling to push through the membrane, to move beyond the darkness into the light.

And while I can remember the pain at these moments, the spiked-heel, hot white pain in my head and the fire in my chest as I lay on wet pavement listening to a distant radio, I can’t for the life of me remember how I got there.

Or how I wound up here.

The last real, fully formed memory I have is of standing in that Mexican police station, nearly a year ago, feeling hurt and frustrated and angry.

But most of all worried.

About a girl I grew up with. A girl I took care of during the worst moments of our lives.

A girl I failed at the most crucial moment of all.

She wasn’t perfect, but neither am I. She was family. The only family I had. And despite our differences, I loved her. I still love her.

And each time I learn that she’s gone is as potent and as heartbreaking as the last.

The doctors tell me that their science is imperfect. That the study of the brain is still a work in progress and they can’t be sure that I’ll ever again be whole. Or that the nightmare I keep reliving will ever stop.

I am trapped, it seems, in my own private hell.

Alone.

Afraid.

And wanting to die.

Vargas breathed a sigh of relief when Mr. Blister put the flashlight away.

He’d had visions of joining Harmon and the Ainsworths on the ground, but Mr. Blister seemed to have either forgotten his suspicions or simply dismissed them, and went about cleaning up his mess.

Taking hold of Harmon’s arms, Mr. Blister dragged him out of view behind the cars, then reappeared on the steps, dropping him inside the house.

A moment later, he returned for Junior, then Ainsworth. After dragging them into the living room, he came back outside, climbed into Harmon’s cruiser, and started it, driving around toward the back of the house.

A good strategy, Vargas thought. Hide the bodies, get the cop’s car out of sight, and the chances of anyone finding them within the next couple days were pretty remote. This egg ranch had obviously long been out of business, and while Harmon’s disappearance would eventually trigger a search, Vargas figured it would be a while before they thought of Ainsworth. Plenty enough time for Mr. Blister and whoever he worked for to finish covering their tracks-which probably wouldn’t be all that difficult.

What Vargas had learned in his years as a reporter was that nearly 40 percent of all crimes go unsolved in this country. And in a border town, cop murder or not, the percentages grow even higher.

The moment Harmon’s cruiser rolled out of view, Vargas jumped to his feet, scrambled through the warehouse doorway and around the side of the building. A precautionary measure, just in case Mr. Blister got suspicious again and decided to use his flashlight.

Vargas waited there for several minutes before he heard shuffling sounds in the yard, then the slam of a trunk lid. A moment later, an engine roared to life.

Chancing a peek around the corner, he saw the Town Car back up, then lurch forward down the drive toward the dirt road.

His first instinct was to follow the story. Wait for Mr. Blister to reach the main drag, then sprint toward the construction site, jump into his Corolla, and tail the guy.

But who was he kidding? He’d never get there in time. And he’d probably collapse of exhaustion before he even reached his car.

Besides, there was another part of the puzzle he needed. The real story.

And it was inside that house.

When the Town Car was gone, he crossed to the steps and went in through the front door.

Mr. Blister had doused the lights, but Vargas could see the dark shapes of the bodies in the moonlight, laid out in a neat row, all three of the men well beyond help.

Looking down at Ainsworth and Junior, he thought about what they’d done to him, and despite this, he felt sorry for them. They’d gotten caught up in something over their heads and he’d been the unfortunate victim of it. Junior, most of all, hadn’t deserved to die this way. He’d been little more than a child in a man’s body.

Harmon, however, was another story altogether. In Vargas’s view, there was nothing worse than a corrupt cop-especially a border cop-and Harmon had obviously been a willing accessory to drug smugglers. Still, that didn’t mean the punishment he’d received was justified.

Crouching next to Junior, Vargas unbuttoned the kid’s shirt and found a thin rawhide string tied loosely around his neck.

I got her necklace, he’d said. I’m wearin’ it right now.

Hanging from the string was a small, cheap ring. The kind you’d find at one of the street-side jewelry stands down in Juarez or at various tourist spots around Mexico. This one was a crude black and silver carving of a hooded skull.

La Santisima.

Holy Death.

Vargas untied the string and moved to a lamp, flicking it on. He studied the ring more closely, but there was no sign of engraving. Nothing that might clue him in to the identity of the American woman.

Pocketing the ring, he turned off the light, then found the stairs and climbed to the second floor. At the top of the landing were three open doorways.

Moving from one to the next, he flicked on the overhead light in each.

Two bedrooms and a TV room.

Figuring the one with posters of Elvis on the wall must be Junior’s, he went inside.

I got her picture, too. I keep it in my drawer.

There was a three-drawer dresser in the corner, Jailhouse Rock Elvis pinned to the wall above it.

Vargas pulled open the top drawer. Socks and underwear.

He dug around a bit but found nothing else.

He closed it, then moved on to the second drawer. T-shirts and jeans. Digging around again, he found a small metal box near the back.

Bingo.

He pulled it out, lifted the lid.

There wasn’t much inside. Just a few childhood treasures: a small, sand-worn stone, a faded Elvis Aaron Presley baseball card, a wooden, dirt-encrusted baby rattle, several Mexican coins, a tarnished silver bracelet — and a photo of a young white woman.

Vargas removed the photo from the box, studied it more closely, and realized it had been torn from a passport. No name, just an official seal and the image: a strikingly beautiful woman in her mid-to-late twenties.

Was she the one? The one they’d found?

Angie?

If Vargas were a betting man, he’d put money on it. It was her, all right. But what had she been doing in that abandoned desert house? And how was she related to the people who had threatened him?

There was only one way to find out. He’d have to return to Juarez and talk to the Mexican homicide investigator, Rojas. The one who had sanitized the murder file.

Ainsworth may have been right, that they were simply avoiding an international headache, but that didn’t keep Vargas from wanting to know what had happened to this woman. If she was alive when they found her, had she survived?

And if she had, where was she now?

Confronting Rojas might be risky. For all Vargas knew, he could be part of all this.

But things were different now.

Too many people were dead.

A couple hours ago, Vargas had almost turned tail and run. But now, this was more than an itch. More than curiosity. More than an attempt to suppress his shame.