Michael Connelly - Blood Work

“Please.”

“Please, what?”

“Please, I don’t want to have trouble.”

“It’s too late. How did he know I was here?”

“I call him. He pay me. He come here yesterday and say you might come. He give me phone number. He pay me.”

“And how did you know it was me?”

“He give me picture.”

“All right, give it to me. The number and the picture.”

Without hesitation the man reached to a drawer in front of him. McCaleb quickly reached over and grabbed his wrist and roughly jerked it away from the drawer. He opened the drawer himself and his eyes held on a photograph sitting on top of a clutter of paperwork. It was a photo of McCaleb walking along the rock jetty near the marina with Graciela and Raymond. McCaleb could feel his face turning red as the anger pushed hot blood into the tightened muscles of his jaw. He held the photo up and studied the back. There was a phone number written on the back.

“Please,” the motel man said. “You take the money. One hundred American dollars. I don’t want trouble for you.”

He was reaching into his shirt pocket.

“No,” McCaleb said. “You keep it. You earned it.”

He yanked the door open then, hitting the overhead bell so hard that the twine it hung from snapped and the bell bounced into the corner of the office.

He went through the gravel parking lot and over to the phone at the Pemex station. He dialed the number on the back of the photograph and listened to a series of clicks on the line as the call went through at least two call-forwarding circuits. McCaleb cursed to himself. He would not be able to trace the number to an address, even if he could get someone in local authority to do it for him.

Finally the call reached the last circuit and started ringing. McCaleb held his breath and waited but the call was not picked up by human or machine. After twelve rings he crashed the receiver down onto its hook but it bounced off and dropped, swinging erratically back and forth beneath the phone. McCaleb stood frozen by anger and the impotence of his position, the light sound of the still-ringing phone buzzing from below.

After a long moment he realized he was staring through the glass pane of the phone booth at the motel parking lot. His Cherokee was there and one other car. A dusty white Caprice with a California plate on the back.

Quickly, he left the booth, crossed the parking lot to the trail and headed down to the beach. The trail cut between rock outcroppings and obscured any view below. McCaleb didn’t see the beach until he got to the bottom and made the final turn to the left.

The beach was empty. He walked straight out to the water’s edge looking both ways but the sand in both directions was deserted. Even the horses had been taken in for the day. His eyes were eventually drawn to the pocket of deep shadows beneath the rock overhang. He headed that way.

Beneath the overhang the sound of the surf was amplified to a magnitude that sounded like the cheering in a stadium. Moving from the bright light of the open beach into the deep shadows temporarily blinded McCaleb. He stopped, closed his eyes tightly and reopened them. As his focus returned, he saw the outlines of the jagged rock surrounding him. Then from the deepest pocket of the enclave stepped Crimmins. He held the Sig-Sauer in his right hand, the muzzle of the weapon pointing at McCaleb.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said. “But you know I will if I have to.”

He spoke loudly so that his voice would carry above the din and echo of waves.

“Where is he, Crimmins? Where is Raymond?”

“Don’t you mean, ‘Where are they?’ ”

McCaleb had assumed as much but the confirmed knowledge of the terror Graciela and Raymond were feeling at that moment-if they were still alive-cut into him. He took a step toward Crimmins but then stopped when Crimmins raised the aim of the weapon to his chest.

“Easy now. Let’s be calm. They are safe and sound, Agent McCaleb. Not to worry about that. Their safety, in fact, is in your hands. Not mine.”

McCaleb made a quick study of Crimmins. He had jet black hair and a mustache now. He was growing a beard or needed a shave. He wore pointed-toe boots, black jeans and a denim cowboy shirt with double pockets and a design seam across the chest. His current look put him somewhere between the Good Samaritan and James Noone.

“What do you want?” McCaleb demanded.

Crimmins ignored the question. He spoke in a calm voice. He was confident he had the upper hand.

“I knew if anyone would come, it would be you. I had to take precautions.”

“I said, what do you want? You want me, is that it?”

Crimmins stared wistfully out past McCaleb and shook his head. McCaleb studied the weapon. He could see the safety was off. But the hammer was not cocked back. It was impossible to tell whether Crimmins had chambered a round.

“My last sunset here,” Crimmins said. “I have to leave this place now.”

He looked back at McCaleb, smiling as though inviting McCaleb to acknowledge the loss.

“You performed much better than I had anticipated.”

“It wasn’t me. It was you, Crimmins. You fucked up. You left your fingerprints for them. You told me about this place.”

Crimmins frowned and nodded, acknowledging the mistakes. A long beat of silence went by.

“I know why you came here,” he finally said.

McCaleb did not reply.

“You want to take from me the gift that I gave you.”

McCaleb felt the bile of hate rising and burning in his throat. He remained silent.

“A vengeful man,” Crimmins said. “I thought I told you how fleeting the fulfillment of vengeance is.”

“Is that what you learned, killing all of those people? I bet when you closed your eyes at night, the old man was still there, no matter how many you killed. He wouldn’t go away, would he? What did he do to you, Crimmins, to fuck you up so bad?”

Crimmins tightened his grip on the gun and McCaleb could see his jaw take on a more pronounced line.

“This is not about that,” he responded angrily. “It’s about you. I want you to live. I want to live. None of it will have been worth it unless you live. Don’t you see that? Don’t you feel the bond between us? We are tied together now. We are brothers.”

“You’re crazy, Crimmins.”

“Whatever I am, it is not of my doing.”

“I don’t have time for your excuses. What do you want?”

“I want you to thank me for your life. I want to be left alone. I want time. I need time to move my things and find a new place. You will have to give it to me now.”

“How do I know you even have them? You have a fishing pole. It’s nothing.”

“Because you know me. You know I have them.”

He waited and McCaleb said nothing.

“I was there when you called and groveled to her machine, when you pleaded for her to pick up like a pathetic schoolboy.”

McCaleb felt his anger become shaded with embarrassment.

“Where are they?” he yelled.

“They are close.”

“Bullshit. How’d you get them across the border?”

Crimmins smiled and gestured with the gun.

“The same way you took this across. No questions asked going south. I gave your Graciela a choice. She and the boy could ride up in the front and be on their best behavior or they could ride in the trunk. She acted accordingly.”

“You better not have hurt them.”

McCaleb realized how desperate he sounded and wished he hadn’t said it.

“Whether that happens depends on you.”

“How?”

“I leave now. And you do not follow. You do not attempt to track me. You get in your car and go back up to your boat. You stay by the phone and I will call you from time to time to make sure you are there and not following me. When I know I am safe from you, I will let the woman and the boy go.”