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“Strait might be a pain in the ass, but he’s not like McGregor.”

Is anyone?

“Maybe Roberto Gomez, only not so devious.”

“McGregor wouldn’t mind the comparison. He thinks being a cop’s the flip side of being a crook.”

“Sometimes that’s the truth. He’s proof of it.” Desoto tilted back his head and seemed to be listening to the music. Voices were raised outside the office; a couple of detectives in an argument about a stakeout. “You came to me for advice,” Desoto said. “I gave it to you. Let the drug woman and her child run the risks she’s created.”

“That what you’d do?”

“That’s irrelevant.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ll do as you please, regardless of what I’d do.”

Someone yelled for the arguing detectives to shut up, and they did. There was no noise from outside now except the relentless, ratchety whine of a dot-matrix printer. Song of the Orient.

Carver said, “I wanted you to know what’s happening.”

“So I might cover your ass if at all possible, eh?”

“Yes. And I’d like you not to mention the child’s alive. Give him a chance.”

“And the woman?”

“Give her a chance, too.”

“I’ll say nothing unless I have to. But the Belinda Jackson homicide investigation’s still in progress, you know.”

“You’ll never be able to hang it on Gomez.”

“Not yet, no,” Desoto admitted. “But you’re right, the child deserves a chance in the world.”

“We all deserve that,” Carver said. “Gives us the opportunity to fuck up on our own.”

“Which is what you’re doing if you cross people like Gomez and his friend Hirsh. They’re the worst of the bad. A sadist, and one beyond sadism who’d cut on you as dispassionately as if you were filet mignon.”

Carver uncrossed his legs and stood up with difficulty; his good leg had fallen asleep. He leaned propped on his cane. “I was sure you’d agree with me on the kid.”

“I don’t agree on the woman,” Desoto said. “The high-rolling life she’s led, the millions in drug money, it’s like an unquenchable fire in the blood, even if she’s not addicted to heroin. She’d have to be unusual indeed in order to change.”

Carver said, “She’s unusual.”

Desoto half closed his eyes and said, “Are you really going to do this, amigo? Play the protector for a drug lord’s wife and child?”

“I don’t know.”

Desoto shook his head sadly. He reached behind him and turned the Sony’s volume back up. A mariachi band was strumming and shouting enthusiastically.

Carver left the office, limping with unmistakable Latin rhythm.

17

By the time Carver drove down the narrow road to his beach cottage, the Olds was running hot. He could smell the sweet scent given off by boiled coolant. The radiator was rusty and leaking, he was sure. He made a mental note to have it repaired before the old car left him stranded.

He parked alongside the cottage and switched off the engine. A few seconds passed, then steam billowed from beneath the hood, and the windshield fogged. Great. He hoped he hadn’t pushed the car too hard and harmed the engine.

He climbed out and limped around to the front of the Olds. Worked the double latch and raised the long hood.

Heat rushed up and hit him in the face, He stepped back and watched more steam rise and dissipate in the already hot air. The motor was ticking loudly and something was hissing like an angry snake. Oh-oh!

He edged close and peered beneath the hood. A thread of water was angling from a break in the top radiator hose and spattering steamily on the inside of the fender well. Carver was relieved. He’d been lucky; replacing the faulty rubber hose was easier and cheaper than having the radiator repaired. It was a job he could handle himself in fifteen minutes.

He left the hood raised so the motor would cool faster, then turned away from the mass of hot metal. He needed some air conditioning and a cold Budweiser, needed to sit down.

So preoccupied was he with the car that he didn’t notice anything unusual as he clomped up the stairs onto the plank porch.

Until a voice said, “Nice to see you again, Mr. Carver.”

Carver stopped, swiveled on his cane, and saw Hirsh standing on the end of the porch. He must have stepped around the corner of the cottage and scissored his long legs over the rail. He was wearing what looked like the same dark blue, vested suit. His hair was slightly mussed and he was sweating hard, but his sad blue eyes were calm, almost gentle. He was holding an Uzi submachine gun, not threateningly, but letting it dangle at his side casually, as if he’d been interrupted cleaning it.

Hirsh said, “Stay right there, please.” He glanced to the side.

Gomez, wearing tight-fitting jeans, blue Avia jogging shoes, a blue T-shirt, and half a dozen gold neck chains, swaggered into view. He was smiling at Carver. He raised his right hand and waggled his fingers at someone out of sight around the side of the cottage, a combination wave and summons.

Carver heard an engine grind and kick to life, and a late-model black Ford pickup truck jounced into view over the rough ground. Gomez gave another hand signal, and the truck braked to a halt and sat with the motor idling. The driver was a Latino with a drooping dark mustache. He draped a wrist languidly over the steering wheel and sat staring straight ahead through the windshield. Might have been at an intersection, waiting for the light to change. There was a large metal barrel standing upright in the back of the truck.

Gomez made the same motion to Carver he’d first made to the driver of the pickup. “C’mon, Carver, you gotta fucking see this.”

Hirsh didn’t change expression, but he raised the compact and deadly Uzi a few inches. His sausagelike forefinger was crooked around the trigger.

Carver limped down off the porch and heard Hirsh follow. Gomez was already swaggering toward the back of the pickup, waving for them to come along.

The three of them stood near the back of the truck. Hirsh lowered the tailgate, all the while holding the Uzi steady and looking sadly at Carver with the resignation that grew with hard-earned wisdom.

The barrel in the truck was laced with holes. Hundreds of them. Carver recognized them as bullet holes, some of them entrance holes, some exit. The barrel had been riddled with large-caliber gunfire from a lot of directions.

Gomez said, “Can you get yourself up in the bed of the truck with that bum leg?” He sounded concerned.

Carver didn’t answer. Using his great upper-body strength to raise himself onto the steel truck bed, he scampered noisily to his feet and planted the cane with care on the ridged metal. Hirsh held the Uzi off to the side and stepped up beside him, grunting softly with the effort.

“Open the barrel and look inside,” Gomez said. “Go ahead.” He spoke in an affable tone, but it was more than a suggestion.

Carver stared at the large, perforated barrel. It was black except where the bullets had separated paint from shiny silver steel. And clean. Maybe a hosed-out fifty-gallon oil drum. A fly crawled out of one of the round holes, buzzed in a circle, and entered another.

“Mr. Gomez gave you an instruction,” Hirsh said in gentle reminder.

Carver held on to the side of the truck bed as he shuffled up to the barrel. Its metal lid was sitting on it loosely, a little off center. Gomez moved around to the side of the truck, as if he wanted to watch Carver’s reaction to whatever was in the barrel.

“Got any guesses what’s inside?” Gomez asked, obviously enjoying himself all to hell.

Carver’s head was hammering. A stench rising from the barrel closed in around him. “I doubt those are air holes.”

Gomez gave his Huh! Huh! laugh. “Get it over with, my man.”

Carver lifted the lid and made himself peer inside.

Forced himself to look at the thing’s dead face.