Robert Browne - Down Among the Dead Men

“Nothing wrong with the pursuit of perfection,” she said. “I think I’m about to make my sister proud.”

Ortiz pulled up in front of the hotel on schedule, driving a souped-up blue and white Volkswagen Beetle, the words baja taxi painted on the side.

“No comments, pocho. I gotta make a living.”

Stifling a smile, Vargas climbed in. “The way Tito described you, I thought you were some badass gangster.”

“Who says I’m not? These are tough times, amigo. Man’s gotta feed his family. You’ll never see Yolanda lift a finger to help, so somebody’s gotta do it.”

He put the car in gear and pulled out, then turned to Vargas, a quizzical look on his face.

“Something different about you.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know. You’re smiling a lot more. If I had to guess, I’d say you just got laid.”

Vargas had no idea how he’d managed to figure that one out and didn’t really want to know.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It wasn’t Yolanda.”

Ortiz laughed. “You better hope not. She’s done with a guy, she cuts off his privates and hangs ’em on her trophy wall.”

“It’s nice to meet a man who has such love and affection for his family.”

Ortiz laughed again. “You’re a funny man, pocho. ”

“I do my best,” Vargas said.

Ten minutes later, they pulled up to the curb on a dimly lit side street. There was no sign of any whorehouses or bars in the vicinity, just a row of dilapidated buildings-nondescript businesses that were either closed or no longer operating.

“Where are we?” Vargas asked.

“Little Fina’s place is just down the street. I wanted to come a little early so I can make sure you understand the rules.”

“Rules?”

“I told you. Fina makes my cousin look like a prom queen. You gotta be careful how you act around her or she’ll have you gutted in about two seconds flat.”

“That’s comforting,” Vargas said.

“Just remember, I’m the one bringing you to her, so what you say and do reflects on me. Understand?”

Vargas nodded. “So what are these rules?”

Ortiz held up three fingers and started counting them off.

“Rule number one,” he said. “You don’t disrespect Little Fina. Rule number two: You don’t disrespect Little Fina. Rule number three-”

“I’m sensing a pattern here.”

“I mean no offense when I say this, pocho, but you strike me as a bit of a smart-ass. That’s something you want to avoid in front of Fina.”

“Duly noted,” Vargas said. “So when do I get to meet her?”

“You see that red door up the street?”

Ortiz pointed and Vargas looked toward the buildings and found the door he was referring to. The paint job was splotchy, but there was no missing it.

“Yeah, I see it.”

“When that door opens and a cholo in a white suit steps outside to smoke a cigarette, that’s our signal.”

“Why the cloak-and-dagger?”

“Because that’s the way Fina likes it. And don’t be asking dumb questions like that in front of her.”

“I’m starting to get the feeling,” Vargas said, “that your friend is into a lot more than the skin trade.”

“That’s not something you want to be talking about, either. Just stick to the business at hand.”

“You’re really afraid of this woman, aren’t you?”

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t.”

“So then why are you helping me?”

Ortiz shrugged. “You’re a paying customer. And I believe good customer service is the cornerstone of a successful business.”

Beth lay in bed for a long time after Vargas left. For a moment there she was worried that a fresh new headache might be coming on, but it was a false alarm.

Truth was, her entire body was throbbing. They’d made love three times before Vargas had gone downstairs to meet his contact, and each new orgasm had been stronger than the last.

Which was saying a lot.

Beth almost laughed at the thought. Less than a year ago, she would have said you were crazy if you’d told her she’d ever experience anything like this. And while she’d like to give the credit to Vargas, she had to wonder if the bullet fragments in her brain were somehow affecting her libido.

All of which made her think of Jen again, and Albuquerque, and the House of Death Vargas had told her about.

Climbing out of bed, she padded naked across the room and sat at the small desk where Vargas had left his netbook and cell phone. The cell phone was programmed to dial his contact Ortiz at the punch of a button.

Lifting the lid of the netbook, she pressed a key to take it out of sleep mode, then spent the next several minutes going through Vargas’s notes, which seemed to be more of a random jumble of thoughts than anything else. Certainly not the organized case files she was used to. Even her own journal had made more sense than this.

How he ever managed to assemble a cohesive narrative out of this stuff was beyond her. But she’d never been inside a writer’s mind, and if this was any indication of how they worked, she’d just as soon stay out.

Flipping to the file index, she found the crime scene photos he’d shown her at the clinic.

She hesitated before opening them.

Did she really need to see them again?

Yes, she decided. While she knew she had to be patient and wait for her brain to heal, she didn’t think it would hurt to give it another little nudge. One last try before she labeled herself a basket case and called it a day.

The first one she opened was the wide shot. The entire room, blood on the walls, the floor, the mattress. The bodies frozen in motion, leaking fluids.

Her body. Sprawled across the mattress, eyes wide, staring at the ceiling.

No wonder they’d thought she was dead.

The next shot was closer, a high angle, shooting in a diagonal line toward the mattress. Nothing new here.

But in the third one-this one shot from directly above-something had changed. It was a subtle change, but she saw it as plain as can be.

Her mouth had been closed before, but now it was slightly open. And her eyes didn’t seem quite so vacant.

She could imagine the Mexican crime scene photographer staring down at her, noticing the slight movement, maybe even hearing a soft moan, then shouting to his fellow investigators.

“She’s alive. This one’s alive.”

Then that bastard Rojas-a name she’d never forget-taking her all the way up to Albuquerque and shooting her point-blank, all because he was afraid her presence at his crime scene might ruin a good thing.

She hoped to God Detective Pasternak and the FBI would be able to get something on the guy. Because she’d love to be sitting in the courtroom when he went down.

But enough of this. She was only getting worked up again, and she’d so much rather bask in the afterglow of her time with Nick. Enjoy it while it lasted.

But then she noticed something else in the photograph. Her right hand, which hung at her side, was clutching something.

Unable to make out what it was, she clicked on the zoom tool and enlarged the image several times until the hand filled the screen.

The image was pixilated, but the original had been taken at a fairly high resolution and she had no trouble seeing what the object in her hand was.

A small wooden toy.

A baby rattle.

And suddenly she was reminded of the child in the dayroom who had brought her to tears, and the baby along the highway, secure in his mother’s arms. And in that instant, one of the dark, unformed memories they had stirred broke through in the form of letters-four of them, tumbling through her mind like baby blocks, like the pieces of one of her cognitive regeneration exercises: