“What did he ask you?”
Christine bit her lip, brow furrowed. “He said, ‘I need two twelve-packs of Coors.’ I was busy making a margarita for another customer, and I said something like, ‘Not in this lifetime.’”
“And tell me why you said that. Right off the bat, no hesitation.”
“Because I knew that Matt Baca wasn’t twenty-one.”
“You knew that for a fact?”
Christine frowned again. “Well, no…I guess I don’t know it for a fact. But he sure didn’t look twenty-one. I’ve seen him around, you know. I know that he hangs out with kids who are a long, long way from twenty-one.”
“So you just refused him.”
“I didn’t have to. Victor happened to come out of the kitchen and saw him. Right away, he told him to beat it.”
“He didn’t ask to look at any ID?”
“No. He knows who Matt is.” She grimaced. “Who he was.”
“Okay. Now think back. When Matt asked for the beer, and you said, ‘Not in this lifetime,’ what did he do? Exactly?”
“What do you mean, do? He was just standing there.”
“You said earlier that he put one hand in his pocket, as if he were going to pull out an ID and show you.”
Christine looked up at the ceiling. “Yes. He was reaching into his back pocket when Victor came out of the kitchen.”
“Like for money? Or an ID?”
“Maybe. It could have been.”
“Which pocket?”
“Oh, wow.” She closed her eyes in thought, brought both hands up, and rested her fingertips on her temples. “Right. Right pocket. Right back pocket. I remember that because he was grubbing a fistful of peanuts out of the bowl on the bar in front of him. That was the hand closest to me. And I was on his left.”
“You’re sure?”
“No. But I think so. What difference does it make?”
I sighed. The wallet had been in Matt Baca’s left back pocket. If the fake ID had been tucked in his right pocket, I wouldn’t have seen it when I took the kid into custody at the house and searched his wallet. It looked like Tom Pasquale’s scenario was right on target.
“It probably doesn’t make any difference,” I said, and got to my feet. “Christine, thanks for your help. We appreciate it. Sorry to cause such a ruckus in your life.”
“What happens to Dale now?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “There’ll be an arraignment with Judge Hobart. The young man’s bought himself a whole string of problems. We’ll see what develops.”
We left the dining room just in time to see the gurney loaded with Dale Torrance’s quiet form wheeled through the foyer, maneuvered by the two white-uniformed paramedics. Holding the front door for them was a pale-faced Herb Torrance.
I took a step toward him, but before I had a chance to open my mouth to speak, Victor Sanchez’s gravelly, irritated voice stopped me.
“Why don’t you bring a few more Gestapo with you next time,” he said. “Maybe you could bring the National Guard in on it, too.”
“Victor…” I started to say, my patience running thin.
“Here,” he interrupted, and handed me a fat brown envelope. He swatted my arm with it, to make sure he’d made contact.
“What’s this?”
“Kid dropped it in the kitchen,” Victor said with a slight inflection that might have passed for humor. “He had it in his back pocket.”
The brown envelope was rumpled and folded. I opened it just enough to see the considerable amount of money inside.
“I figured it didn’t belong to him. Otherwise, you guys wouldn’t have been chasing him. Right?”
“Thanks, Victor,” I said, but I was already talking to his back.
Chapter Twenty-three
“Thanks for not chasing the boy off into some tree stump somewheres,” Herb Torrance said. He had good reason to look and sound miserable. He watched the ambulance pull out of the parking lot and shook his head wearily. He turned back to Larson and me. “Thank God his momma wasn’t home. Jesus.” He heaved a great sigh. “I don’t guess you all know for sure what happens next.”
“No,” I said. “First things first, Herb. Let the doctors check him out. He took a hell of a rap, so they’ll probably hold him overnight. There’ll be a deputy at the hospital to make sure he doesn’t do something foolish if he wakes up in the middle of the night.”
I tried a sympathetic smile, but I was weary myself. As soon as the Torrance kid had spun that pickup truck out of the yard, my nerves had replayed hell with my system. On the drive south on County Road 14, my imagination had conjured all kinds of awful scenarios, each one ending with Dale Torrance splattered over the New Mexico landscape.
“You don’t need to worry about him getting out of that room. He ain’t goin’ nowheres,” Herb said emphatically. “The wife wasn’t home when all this happened, thank God. But I’m going to pick her up now, and we’ll be at the hospital in just a few minutes. And we’ll be there, as long as it takes.”
“That’s good, Herb. I’ll talk to Judge Hobart as soon as we get back to Posadas this evening, and see if he can arrange a preliminary hearing for the morning…assuming Dale’s released by then. You understand that he’s in our custody right now?”
“Yep,” Herb Torrance said. “I understand that, all right. The boy’s gotten himself in a hell of a mess.” He thrust out his hand. “Thanks again.” He grinned and ducked his head in embarrassment. “I don’t guess I handled this all too good.”
“It happens.”
“Shouldn’t have, by God. And by the way, what’s the deal with Waddell’s steers, now? They’re impounded over in Lawton?”
I nodded. Cliff Larson cleared his throat. “And the Oklahoma authorities sure as hell don’t want a feed bill, so they’re eager to have someone truck ’em out of there.”
“I’ll take care of that,” Herb said. “Give me tonight, to make sure the boy’s going to be all right. Then I’ll go over first thing in the morning, or whenever Judge Hobart is done with us.”
“That’ll work,” Larson said. “They’re at Emerson Livestock, right on the south side of town. I’ll fix you up with paperwork so you can get ’em back.”
Herb nodded and again shook first my hand, and then Larson’s. Cliff and I watched him trudge back to his pickup. “Ain’t that a sorry mess,” Cliff muttered. He looked at me and grinned, the stub of the cigarette jerking as his lips moved. “See why I need you to fill in for me?”
I glowered at Larson and mouthed an obscenity at him. That split his grin even wider.
By 6:30, the last patrol car pulled out of the parking lot of Victor Sanchez’s Broken Spur Saloon, leaving him in relative peace and quiet. I had no doubt that by closing time, the story passed from drunk to drunk would include at least eighteen officers converging on the saloon from all sides, with Victor alone able to subdue Dale Torrance, saving the fair damsel behind the bar from who knows what fate. What the hell. It was all good for his business, even though he would be the last one to admit it.
I dropped Cliff off at the Public Safety Building where he’d stashed his truck. With things quieting down, we had an extra vehicle or two, so I took the unmarked car home with me.
I didn’t know what direction Bob Torrez’s investigation of Sosimo Baca’s death was taking, but at the moment I was too tired to ask. It was his ball game, anyway. If he needed something from me, he’d say so.
When I walked into my house on Guadalupe Terrace, I could hear familiar theme music. In the sunken living room off the kitchen, my grandson was hunkered down in front of the television watching Gary Cooper stand uncomfortably in front of the church congregation. “Now you all know what I think of this man,” the on-screen mayor was saying self-righteously.
My son was settled deep in the leather folds of my favorite chair, a book open on his lap. “We couldn’t find where you store the rest of your tapes,” Buddy said with a wide grin. He knew perfectly well the answer to that mystery. He’d given me a VCR and the tape of High Noon for Christmas several years before, I suppose figuring that would kick off my collection.