Читать книгу Devils And Dust - J.D. Rhoades - Страница 16

THE BIG white wood-frame house was situated on a huge lot, in the countryside of northern Moore County. The long dirt driveway ended at a parking area full of pickup trucks and battered used cars. A huge oak tree shaded half the front yard, under which a group of Latino men in jeans and work shirts were gathered around a large grill constructed from an oil drum cut in half. They were drinking beer and laughing at some joke. There was a basketball goal off to one side where younger men were playing what looked like a hotly contested game. Young women, with babies in their arms and toddlers running and shouting nearby, sat at a picnic table. A radio set on a picnic table was playing a bouncy song with Spanish lyrics that was heavy on guitars and accordion. As Keller and Angela pulled their rented sedan to a stop behind a new-looking Ford pickup, the basketball game and the joking around the grill stopped. Everyone but the young children stopped what they were doing and watched them get out of the car. The only sound was the shrieking of the younger ones as they played on, oblivious. The smell of grilling meat reached Keller as he walked toward the house, Angela beside him with her cane. It was making his mouth water. He glanced over at the basketball players. They were watching him with stony faces. The tallest one, who looked to be the oldest, held the ball under his arm. Keller gave that one a nod. He didn’t respond.

A man with a single streak of gray in his dark hair detached himself from the group at the cooker and intercepted them halfway to the porch. “May I help you folks?” he said, with only a trace of accent and no trace of a smile.

“Yes, sir,” Angela said. “We’re here to see Mrs. Miron.” She held out her hand. “Angela Sanchez.”

The man took it and looked at Keller. “And you are?”

“Jack Keller.” Keller extended his own hand. The man released Angela’s hand and shook Keller’s. His grip was firm. “Frank Flores,” he said. “Does Mrs. Miron now you’re coming?”

“Yes, sir,” Keller said. “We called ahead.”

“It’s all right, Frank,” a woman called from the porch. “They can come in.” She said something in Spanish that Keller couldn’t catch. But the man seemed to relax.

“Okay,” he called back, then he smiled. “You want something to eat?” he said. “We got plenty. A beer, maybe?”

“Thanks,” Keller said. “Maybe later.”

“Get Maggie to fix them a plate, Frank,” the woman said. She’d come down off the porch to meet them. She was short and plump with a broad, strong face. She looked to be in her early fifties, but her hair was still mostly jet-black, with only a few strands of gray. She was clad in a bright red dress and matching heels. Keller noted the diamond ring she had on one hand, as well as the large gold earrings in her ears. Her eyes looked them both up and down appraisingly as well.

“Okay,” Frank said. He may have been the oldest one present, but it was clear that the woman was in charge.

She held out a hand to Angela. “So,” she said. “You haven’t heard from Oscar?”

“No,” Angela said as she took the hand. “Have you?”

“Come inside,” Miron said. She looked at Keller. “You’d be Jack Keller, then.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Keller said. “I’m a friend of Oscar’s.”

“So he said. Well, you might as well come in, too.” They followed her up the steps and into the house. There were more people inside, mostly women of varying ages and their children. There was a loud conversation going on in the kitchen. Two children were arguing over a toy in the hallway. Miron barked something at them in Spanish and they quieted down. “CONSUELA!” she yelled toward the kitchen. “Come do something with these two!” She turned back to them. “Sometimes I can’t hear myself think in this place,” she grumbled. “This way.” She led them into a bedroom, which had been converted into an office and closed the door. “There,” she said, taking a seat in an old leather chair behind a large antique desk. “That’s better.”

“Sorry to disturb your party,” Keller said. He took a seat in a large armchair in one corner as Angela sat down in the other. “What’s the occasion?”

She smiled at him indulgently. “This isn’t a special occasion, Mr. Keller. This is how it always is here on the weekends. Latinos don’t need a special occasion to spend time with family.”

There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” Miron called. A pretty, dark-haired teenaged girl came in, balancing a tray in one hand and carrying a couple of bottled beers by their necks in the other. The smell of roasted meat, peppers, and limes came in with her. She stopped when she saw Keller and her eyes lit up. “Well, hi,” she said.

“Just put the tray down on the desk, Magdalena,” Miron said. “And close the door behind you.”

“Yes ma’am,” the girl said, abashed. But she gave Keller a flirtatious look as she left.

Miron sighed. “Pardon my niece,” she said. “She’s at that age.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Angela said. “He gets that a lot.”

“Thanks,” Keller said.

“Please,” Miron said, “eat. No one goes away from my house hungry.”

Keller was chafing to get down to business, and he could tell Angela was about ready to jump out of her skin with impatience. But Miron was so emphatic, it felt rude to turn her offer down. Besides, his stomach had been growling since he got out of the car. “Smells great.”

The meal—carne asada with rice on the side—was juicy and flavorful, the peppers and spices exploding in the mouth with a hint of lime to moderate the heat. They washed it down with ice-cold Sol beer while Miron chatted about her family. When they were done, their plates were both clean. The woman nodded as if they’d passed some sort of test. “Now,” she said, “Let’s talk about Oscar.” She looked at Angela. “First,” she said, “I don’t know where he is. Not exactly.”

Angela seemed to deflate a little in her chair. “What can you tell me?”

Miron looked back and forth between Angela and Keller for what seemed like an eternity. “Ma’am,” Keller said finally, “I know that you’re worried. You don’t know us. But we’re not the cops. We’re not Immigration. We don’t care what you do.”

“I wouldn’t have to do it if your country was even a little more realistic about its immigration policy,” the woman said.

“I don’t care about politics, either,” Keller said. “I just need to find my friend. If he’s in trouble, I need to help him. He did it for me.”

“I help people, too,” Miron said. “I help them find better lives.”

And it looks like you get paid pretty well for it. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

She took a deep breath. “Okay. My nephew occasionally sends people to me. People who, for one reason or another, need help getting into the country. Or who have family members they need to get in, but who can’t get in legally.”

“Like Oscar,” Angela said.

Miron nodded. “I put him in touch with some other people. In Mexico. They made the arrangements.”

“What arrangements?” Angela asked.

“I don’t know exactly,” Miron admitted. “He had people that were going to get him to where people left Mexico to cross the border. And he was going to meet them on the other side. In the U.S.”

“Where were these places?”

“Again, I don’t know exactly. I don’t handle the arrangement. I just make the introductions. But…”

“But what?”

“Something went wrong. One of the trucks was lost.”

“Lost,” Angela said. She looked stricken.

Miron nodded. “It turned up in the desert. Empty. And there’s been another since then.”

“Which was the one that Oscar’s boys were on?” Keller asked.

Miron looked away. “The second one.”

“So you knew,” Angela said. “You knew there’d been trouble. And you took Oscar’s money, and you arranged for his sons to be put on a truck, and…” She rose to her feet. Her face was red with growing rage.

Miron didn’t stand, nor did she meet Angela’s eyes. “I thought maybe it was an accident. It had only happened once.”

“So what happened when the second truck went missing?” Keller asked.

“The one with Oscar’s sons on it,” Angela added bitterly.

“He said he was going down there,” Miron said. “To the entry point. And he was going to find out what had happened. He was going to find the boys.”

“So where is this place?” Keller asked. “This entry point.”

Miron shook her head. “That, I can’t tell you.” She held up a hand as Angela began to speak. “Because I don’t know. All I have is a phone number. And an e-mail address.”

Keller tried not to grit his teeth in frustration. “So who are these people? Sounds like they’re the ones we need to talk to.”

Miron shook her head again. “I can call them. See if they’ll agree to meet with you. But I can’t make any promises.”

“Can you call them now?” Angela said. “Please.” She said the last word as if she hated it.

Only then, did Miron look up and meet her eyes. “Yes,” she said softly. “I’ll try. But you’ll need to wait outside.”

“Okay.” Keller stood up. “Come on, Angela.”

She stood up as well. Angela took a card out of the pocket of her blouse and laid it on the edge of the desk. Miron made no move to pick it up. “This is where I can be reached,” she said. Keller followed her out the door.

Outside in the hallway, Angela leaned her head against the wall. “She knew,” she whispered. “They knew. They knew something was wrong. That it might not be safe. And they put people on the truck anyway. Children.”

“I know,” Keller said. He put a hand on her shoulder. “But we have to work with them. At least for now.”

Angela reached up and put her hand over his for a moment. Then she straightened up. “I need to use the restroom,” she said. “I’ll be back.”

“I’m going to step outside and get some air,” Keller said. “Come get me.” She nodded.

Keller passed the kitchen and went out on the porch. He took a seat on the top step. The men had moved over to the picnic table and were wolfing down the food. The basketball game was still going on.

He agreed with Angela. Putting those people, including children, in danger was unconscionable. But they needed the information only Miron could give them. Without it, they were at a dead end.

“Hey,” he heard someone said. He turned to see the teenager, Magdalena, taking a seat on the step next to him. She was smiling broadly.

“Hey,” Keller said, as noncommittally as he could. This I absolutely do not need.

If the girl noticed his chilly tone, she gave no sign of it. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Jack,” he said.

“Nice to meet you, Jack. I’m Maggie.” She stuck out a hand.

Keller took it. “Short for Magdalena, right?”

She wrinkled her nose. “I hate that name. It’s so…old sounding.”

“It’s not so bad,” Keller said. She was still holding on to his hand. He pulled away.

“So that lady you’re with,” she said, “is she your wife?”

“No,” Keller said. “Just a friend.”

“Maggie,” a male voice said. Keller looked up. The tall young man from the basketball game was standing at the foot of the steps. He didn’t look happy.

Maggie sighed theatrically. “What is it, Cesar?”

He said something to her in Spanish, low and fast. Keller didn’t catch all of it, but he thought he heard the word puta, and that gave him the gist. He saw her jaw clench. She replied to him, also in Spanish, practically spitting the words back at him. The other young men had begun to gather, and Keller heard one of them snicker. Goddamn it.

Cesar bent over and tried to grab the girl’s wrist. She yanked it away. “You keep your hands off me!” she said. Cesar reached again.

“Hey,” Keller said quietly, “knock it off.”

Cesar straightened up, eyes narrowed in rage. “Stand up, asshole.”

Keller stayed put, looking up at him. “Really?” he said. “You’re really going to do this?”

“I said get up,” the young man yelled. “You fucking pussy!”

Keller sighed and stood up. “I’m not going to fight you, kid.” He noticed that the group of older men had left the picnic table and were hurrying toward them. He hoped they would get there in time to short-circuit the confrontation the kid seemed determined to have.

Cesar nodded. “Yeah,” he sneered. “That’s what I figured.” He started to turn, as if to walk away, then came back, fast, throwing a hard right at Keller’s jaw. He was quick, and fired up, but the feint was so obvious, the kid might as well have sent Keller a postcard. Keller threw a cross block that directed the punch past him, the kid’s momentum spinning him around and leaving him off-balance and sideways to Keller, his ribs exposed. Keller fought down the reflex to step forward and break those ribs with a short jab to the torso. Instead, he grabbed the young man by the shoulders from behind, turned him the rest of the way around, and shoved him hard. As Cesar stumbled, trying to get his footing back, Keller raised his leg and gave him a shove in the ass with his boot. Cesar went sprawling on his face in the dirt. The girl screamed. Cesar rolled to a sitting position, glaring at Keller with hate in his eyes. He started to get up.

“Kid,” Keller said, “if you stand up, it better be to shake hands. Because if I have to put you on the ground again, you’re not getting up. At least not on your own.”

“Son of a bitch,” the young man said. He struggled to his feet and crouched as if ready to charge.

“CESAR!” a voice barked from behind him. Keller didn’t take his eyes off the kid. He sidled to his right to put the speaker in his field of vision. It was Rosita Miron. She spoke to the kid rapidly in Spanish, her voice a scourge of anger and outrage. He tried to answer her, but she overrode him, the words and the tone lacerating the young man until he stood, head down and sullen. One of the older men, the one who’d spoken to him earlier, came up and put a hand on his shoulder. Cesar shrugged off the hand and stalked away.

Keller looked around. The group of men, young and old, stood in a rough semicircle, staring at Keller, their faces hard and unfriendly.

“Sorry,” Keller said. “A little misunderstanding.” He turned to Miron. He didn’t see any friendliness there, either.

“I think you should leave,” she said.

“I agree,” Keller said. “But what about the information we need?” He saw Angela come out on the porch behind Miron. “The information she needs,” he pointed at Angela “to help find her husband?”

Miron shook her head. “I can’t help you,” she said. “My contacts don’t want to talk to you.”

“That’s not acceptable,” Keller said.

“Not…” Miron’s dark face grew even darker with anger. “How dare you come to my house, and tell me what’s acceptable? You people…you think you own everything.” She pointed at the cars in the lot. “Get out,” she said in a hard, angry voice. “Now.”

“Jack,” Angela said, “let’s just go.”

He turned to her. “We can’t…”

“Jack,” she said quietly. “Please.” She came down off the porch. “Come on.” She led the way, moving with slow dignity behind her cane. The circle of men parted to let her through.

He could feel the blood pounding in his temples, feel the rush of adrenaline ramping up, but he followed her to the parking lot. “Look,” he said, “stay here. I’ll go back and try to talk to her again.”

“No,” Angela said. “We need to go. Now.”

“But if we do that,” Keller said, “we’re stuck. We’re at a dead end.”

“Not exactly,” Angela said.

“What does that mean, ‘not exactly’?”

“It means that while she was running outside to see about the commotion, I stole her cell phone,” Angela said. “We can look at the last number called. And it may have the numbers and the addresses of the people she does business with.”

“Okay,” said Keller. “I see your point. Let’s go.” They got in the car. When they were almost at the end of the driveway, Keller said, “She’s really not going to be happy when she finds out you’ve got her phone.”

Angela looked back. “I think she just did.”

Keller looked in the rearview mirror. The big Ford truck was barreling down the driveway after them.