David Corbett - Do They Know I'm Running

Dunn gargled a knot of phlegm loose from his sinuses and spat. “Like I said, anything you could tell me?”

Lattimore shrugged. “Hard to know what to say. Happy was inward, suspicious, a plodder, not a showboat. He was in this for his family, that’s what he said anyway. Wanted everybody back together, home safe for good.” How could I, he thought, misread that so badly? “Never asked for much, listened when you told him things, followed orders.”

Dunn, glancing over his shoulder at the house, “Until today, I expect.”

“Exactly.”

“Maybe he was saving all his chits up for this.”

Lattimore shivered the pictures back inside the envelope. “That’s crossed my mind.”

The cleaning lady had already identified Ramon “Puchi” Parada and Manuel “Chato” López in photo six-packs, no such luck with Vasco Ramírez. So far it looked like he’d kept his hands clean of the actual rough stuff, not that it had kept him from fleeing. They’d found his car abandoned at the Greyhound lot in Rio Mirada, about two hundred yards from the garbage bin where he’d dumped his cell phone. God only knew where he was headed, San Diego most likely, after that a brisk walk across the border.

Earlier that afternoon, Lattimore had come down hard on both the truck yard and Vasco’s home, only to find the icy wife, who’d already lawyered up, and the strange and sickly daughter. The wife had screamed obscenities at any agent who so much as cracked a door. “Where’s your fucking warrant?”-over and over, top of her lungs, like somebody’d pulled a string, and Lattimore must have told her fifty times they had a warrant, an arrest warrant for her husband, in response to which he got called every variety of fucker and faggot in the Latin bitch lexicon: puto, pendejo, chingado, jodido, culero, maricón, mariquita, mariposón , with hijueputa and hijo de la verga and hijo de la chingada thrown in just for the sake of thoroughness. Through all of that the little girl sat stock-still on the couch, clutching a stuffed bear reeking of cigarettes, eyes as mournful as a basset hound’s. Compared to that, he supposed, you could nominate Lourdes the cleaning lady for mother of the year. Too bad that didn’t decide who got sent packing.

Using the envelope, he gestured to the door. “Shall we?”

The techs had already scraped and sampled everything they wanted, there was no need to put on the booties. Lourdes was sitting in the kitchen, a chunky woman cop standing guard. Dunn collected the sergeant who’d done the original photo displays and Lattimore gave him the pictures of Happy and Godo, told him to work them into six-packs for a follow-up.

They ambled into the kitchen and pulled up chairs across from Lourdes. Having cried herself out, her eyes were raw; her face, though, was a closed door. She sat there, hands clasped, waiting for the next bad thing to happen. Dunn smiled and did his magic-hand thing again as the sergeant arrived and placed the six-packs on the table.

He said, “We’d like you to go through some more pictures, Lourdes,” pronouncing it Lurdz . “We’re not saying the men you haven’t been able to identify yet are in here or not. We’d just like you to look them through-no pressure, no problem one way or the other, we appreciate all you’ve done so far-look them through and see if any of the faces ring a bell, okay?”

She swept an invisible strand of hair off her face. “My daughters-”

“We’ve sent someone from CPS to watch over your daughters. They’re fine.”

“I would like to talk to them.”

Dunn’s smile slid a little downhill. “Let’s go through the pictures first, Lourdes. These men are at large. You want us to catch them, right?”

She turned her attention to her task. On the third set she stopped, looked, blinked. “This one.” She pointed, bottom center. Happy. “He the one who talk to me. The leader, I think. We talk a lot. All night.”

Dunn took a pen from his inside pocket, thumbed the plunger. “Take a good look, Lourdes. No rush. Be certain.”

She shook her head. “It is him. I know. His eyes. The chin.” She docked her head a little. “Hair, yes, this is different. And he look older now, more thin…”

That’s it, Lattimore thought, let her talk herself out of her own ID. “Lourdes-”

She waved her hands, fending off doubt. “It is him. I sure.”

Dunn pulled that set aside, jotted down the group and position numbers. She went on, picking through the photo sets. Reaching the one with Godo, she looked it over, paused, looked it over again, then moved on. So much for that theory, Lattimore thought. She was already scouring the next group when her face bunched up, she went back, looked at the last set again.

“Him,” she said, pointing out Godo. “I not recognize him first time. He different now.” She circled her hand about her own face. “Picoteado . I see him out there, the farmhouse, with the others. He was the big one I tell you about. Quiet. He was quiet.”

From behind, a uniform cleared his throat. “Agent Lattimore?” A finger drumbeat on the doorframe. “AUSA Pitcavage just signed in at the barricade. Said you should meet him outside?”

LATTIMORE WAITED ON THE PORCH, WATCHING PITCAVAGE ADVANCE through the swirls of blue-and-red light. He had another attorney in tow, a corn-silk blonde in a smart gray suit, no overcoat, bucking the wind with a power stride, holding her hair out of her face with one hand, the other clutching her briefcase. Pitcavage came empty-handed, like a pasha. They climbed the driveway, the woman impressively sure-footed in her pumps. She had a Midwestern prettiness, everything in its place, dull as a prairie. Nice pair though, Lattimore thought, something even the suit couldn’t hide.

Pitcavage gestured him off the porch for a private conclave, shooting the blonde a knowing glance that told her to stay put. Like a collie, she obeyed. Ambling toward the garage, hands in his pockets, he waited for Lattimore. Overhead, a turkey vulture sailed toward the strait.

Pitcavage crossed his arms and made sure none of the local cops was within earshot. “Anything new on where Mr. Orantes might be?”

Lattimore shook his head and tried to straighten up, assume full height, if only to reassert that crucial inch over the lawyer. “You mean from what I’ve found out here?”

“I mean from what you’ve found out, period.”

“His cell phone tracks to somewhere out in the wetlands, little north of here.”

Pitcavage cocked an eyebrow. “We couldn’t be so lucky he’s lying right there beside it, could we.” It wasn’t a question.

“I suppose we could get the locals to dredge around, look for a weighted body.” He found himself ambivalent on the merits of finding Happy dead.

“Ask,” Pitcavage said, pulling a stick of gum from his pocket, peeling away the foil.

“Sure.”

“If he’s alive-and halfway smart-he’s in Mexico already, maybe El Salvador.” He balled up the foil wrapper, dropped it discreetly, chewing noisily. “He’s got connections down there, or am I wrong?”

“Of a sort, yeah.”

“You see him running somewhere else?”

“No. El Salvador, because it’s familiar. Mexico, because it’s Mexico.”

“He gets caught, tries to use his CI status to buy his way out? The lid comes off this thing and there won’t be any putting it back on.” Pitcavage crossed his arms, the unhappy prince. “We become the idiots who green-lighted a comical case with a bent snitch. That’s something I can live without. Which reminds me: You’ve shut the thing down. Or Orpilla has?”

“Of course.”

“But you’ve still got two of the relatives, the CI’s father, his cousin or something, wandering around Central America somewhere.”