Joel Goldman - No way out

Brett Staley fit that description. Mendez could have used him as a straw tenant at a storage facility. I sent Simon a text message adding that to his research list.

As much as anything else, Mendez’s operation required patience because Nuestra Familia was unlikely to pay him before they took delivery of the guns. In the meantime, he had bills to pay and people to feed like any other businessman.

That the Kansas City robbery was the most recent of the five was also significant. Having collected guns from the surrounding states, Mendez may have added the local job to round out his inventory without the risk of going on the road where a burnt-out taillight or an overzealous, bigoted cop suspicious of a car full of Mexicans might get them pulled over.

There were a couple of things that bothered me. The first was why Mendez would have sold one of these guns to Frank Crenshaw. That was like a mob guy skimming the casino take, small change that could get a local gang leader ice-picked, family or no Familia. But arrogance and brutality breed a conviction of invulnerability, and Mendez may have considered it his right to cherry-pick a stash of weapons he could dole out as he pleased. He wouldn’t be the first family member to disappoint.

The second was whether the guns were still in Kansas City or had been shipped south. The way Braylon Jennings was handling this case made me suspect that the guns were still here even though more than a month had passed since the last robbery. That would be one more reason for him to take the chances he’d taken. If the guns had been shipped south, he would have been forced to follow them and worry about a renegade Brett Staley later. Otherwise, his superiors would ask him too many questions he didn’t want to answer.

But why, I wondered, would Mendez hold on to the guns this long, unless he planned more robberies to add inventory to a future shipment. Each day brought an added risk of getting caught. It made more sense to ship the guns out immediately after the Kansas City robbery and let the pending investigations die a natural death before starting over. If the guns were still here, it meant one thing: Something had gone wrong.

Crooks, like honest people, screw up, miscalculate, and outsmart themselves. And, when they are members of a multinational gang, the same thing happens to them as happens to the guy running the regional operation of a big corporation. The home office sends someone to straighten things out. That can make the local guy a lonely man in need of a friend, and I was the friendliest guy I knew.

“We’re here,” Kate said.

I’d been lost in my thoughts, unaware that she’d pulled up in front of Roni’s house.

“Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

“You were on another planet.”

“I was trying to piece this whole thing together.”

“Which thing? The Cesar Mendez thing or the Evan and Cara Martin thing?”

“Mendez and the guns.”

She pocketed the car key and turned toward me. “Tell me about it while it’s still fresh in your mind. Maybe I can help.”

Kate made me break it down, asking methodical probing questions, forcing me to admit that my scenario made sense because it accounted for most of what I knew and some of what I believed, but that didn’t mean I was right.

“A theory of everything is hard to prove,” she said when I’d finished. “You want an explanation that picks up every loose thread in a way that makes sense. Nothing in life is that simple or elegant.”

“So are you saying I’m completely wrong?”

“Not at all. I’m saying that your theory makes sense, but there are too many things you don’t know to be certain, and when you find them out, it may be that you’re more wrong than right. But, your theory is valuable because it provides a framework for figuring those things out. It tells you what questions to ask.”

“And who to ask.”

“Including Cesar Mendez?”

“Might as well start at the top.”

“There’s no way I can talk you out of doing that, is there?”

“Not unless you can tell me another way to find out what I need to know.”

She shook her head. “That’s one part of your theory I can’t argue with.”

Kate stayed in the car when I got out.

“You coming with me?”

“Go ahead. I’ll be there as soon as I make a call.”

It was the second private call she had to make today. She wouldn’t tell me what the first call was about and I didn’t think she’d tell me about this one either, but I leaned in the open car door and asked anyway.

“Is everything okay at home, I mean with Brian and Alan and your father?”

She smiled. “Never better. I’ll only be a minute.”

Kate prided herself on maintaining a cool exterior, but the flicker in her eyes and the slight tremor at the corners of her mouth betrayed her. I’d waived my right to pry, reserving only my right to be concerned, knowing that, whatever it was, she wouldn’t tell me until she was ready, if she would tell me at all. I’d learned the hard way that pressing would raise her wall, not lower it.

Making my way up the walk, I imagined the night Vivian Chase shot it out with her partner. I flashed forward to this week, seeing her granddaughter Martha sitting motionless in her wheelchair in the morning room, and her great-granddaughter Roni taking aim at Frank Crenshaw at LC’s Bar-B-Q, Terry Walker’s words echoing in my head, It’s as much about blood as it is about time and place, the front door opening behind me, bringing me back to the moment.

“I saw you coming,” Roni said.

She was standing in the doorway, wearing black jeans and a body-hugging black turtleneck. I was so glad to see her that I grabbed her by the shoulders before I realized what I was doing-squeezing her harder than I intended, making her wince-but that’s what I do when I find someone I was afraid I had lost.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“What do you mean, where have I been?” she asked, pulling my hands off of her, her tone sharp, her mouth screwed tight. “I’ve been living my life. I go to work, and I come home.”

“You had me scared.”

“Of what? I don’t know what your problem is. I told you, it’s over.”

“I stopped by your office this morning. You weren’t there.”

“So,” she said, arms crossed, one hip aimed at me, “you naturally assumed the world had ended.”

“You left the door unlocked. It looked like you’d left in a hurry.”

“I did. My mom fell when Grandma was giving her a bath this morning, and I had to come home and help get her up. Grandma can’t do it by herself. I guess I forgot to lock up.”

“Is she okay?”

“Yeah, the world is safe for another day. Okay?”

I ignored her sarcasm. “Where’s Brett?”

She backed up a step, her face coloring. “Why can’t you leave him alone?”

“His father was murdered last night.”

Her hand flew to her mouth, her other arm clenching her middle like she’d been gut-punched. “Oh, my God!”

“He was shot to death in his store sometime around midnight. A Mexican kid named Eberto Garza was also shot to death in the store early this morning, around dawn. Odds are whoever shot Nick stayed in the store and killed Eberto. So, like I told you before, this thing is a long way from over. Now where’s Brett?”

She staggered to a white wicker bench on the porch, falling onto it, bent over, covering her face with her hands, crying. I gave her a minute, then sat beside her.

“The police think he’s killed three people, and I think he may come after you next.”

She sat up, wiping away tears with the back of her hand, rocking back and forth. “He wouldn’t do that. He’d never do that. He’s not that kind of person.”