Villatoro did as he was told. He emerged from the canopy, felt cold raindrops on the top of his head. Nothing had ever felt better. He kept walking. From the dark, a hand gripped his forearm and pulled him into the warm flank of a damp horse.
“Go ahead and shoot,” Rawlins said to Newkirk, “but don’t even think about raising the weapon again.”
The explosion was sharp but muffled, and Villatoro felt his knees tremble at the sound of it. But there were no more shots.
“Go back to the house now,” Rawlins said to Newkirk.
Finally, Villatoro turned to see a glimpse of Newkirk’s back as he walked away into the foliage. The big pig shadowed him along the rail, grunting for food, agitated.
“Climb up,” the rancher said in a whisper, offering his hand.
“I never rode a horse,” Villatoro said.
“You won’t be riding. You’ll be hanging on to me.”
Sunday, 10:55 P.M.
IT STOPPED raining,” Newkirk said to Gonzalez.
“No shit,” Gonzalez replied.
They were on the deck of Swann’s house, sitting on metal lawn furniture under the eave. Newkirk was still shaking, but he watched the red end of Gonzo’s cigar, watched it brighten as the ex-sergeant sucked on it, the glow bright enough to light up his eyes.
Lieutenant Singer and Swann were inside, Swann talking. Newkirk could hear the pigs grunting and squealing, hungry. Those damn pigs were going to give him away. If Gonzo walked down there and couldn’t find the body…
“That guy from Arcadia must taste good,” Gonzo said, and Newkirk felt a wave of relief since Gonzalez had mistaken the sound. “Did he give you any trouble?”
“No.”
“I’ll never understand that, especially from an ex-cop. Me, I’d fight until my last breath. I’d be like that knight in Monty Python, you know? Cut off my arm, and I’d keep coming; cut off my leg, I wouldn’t give a fuck. I wouldn’t let somebody just take me out and shoot me in the head.”
Newkirk grunted.
“One shot to the brain, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I just heard one shot. But it was raining.”
Newkirk was drunk but not drunk enough. Violent shivers coursed through him, making his pectorals twitch. He tried not to think about Villatoro and what had happened. He wanted to be able to do what he used to do on the force in a bad situation. Like the time he was first on the scene to a gangland slaying, four bodies tied up with electrical cords, multiple shotgun wounds to their heads. He’d been able to think of himself in the third person then. It wasn’t him who walked through the warehouse, through the blood, it was someone else who knew to call for backup in a calm voice. Just like it wasn’t him that evening who gained Villatoro’s confidence, or told him everything for the sole purpose of getting the man to Swann’s place. It was someone else playing him, acting out a role, reading the script he’d been handed. Not him. He wasn’t evil. He had a wife and kids, and he coached soccer. He had even come to like that small-town detective a little. And to turn Villatoro over to the guy in the dark without a fight, then to keep silent about it? Well, that wasn’t him, either. What he couldn’t decide was whether his action was based in virtue or cowardice or something else. Maybe depression. But enough of that kind of thinking.
“What’s Singer planning in there?” Newkirk asked, taking a long pull from the bottle he’d brought with him.
“He’s figuring things out,” Gonzalez said, irritated. “He’s the planner. You know that. You asked me the same question five minutes ago. You’re starting to make me nervous, Newkirk. Just shut up if you don’t have anything to say.”
Newkirk was glad Gonzalez couldn’t see him in the dark, couldn’t see the mixture of hate and self-revulsion he was sure was on his face.
“You better cool it with the boozing, too,” his old boss said, his voice dropping with concern. “We might have to go into action tonight again. You need to be sharp.”
“I thought I’d just let you do the killing,” Newkirk said, surprised that he verbalized it. Sure, he was thinking that, but he didn’t mean to actually say it.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Gonzalez said, instantly hostile.
“Nothing.”
Gonzalez turned in his chair, put his huge forearms on the table between them. “You think I like it? Is that what you think?”
Newkirk wanted to take back his words, but he couldn’t. “No, I don’t think that. Forget I said anything.”
“But you said it, asshole,” Gonzalez said, his voice rising. “So you meant it. That’s what you think, that I like shooting guys in the head. You think I like that, don’t you?”
Newkirk shook his head hard, tried to get his wits back. There was too much alcohol in him. “No, really, I…”
Gonzalez was across the table and his hand shot out. Before Newkirk could pull back, a thumb jammed into his mouth between his teeth and cheek, and he felt Gonzalez clamp down with his fingers and twist as if he were trying to tear his face off. Newkirk groaned and gagged, turned his head in the direction of the twist, his head driven down into the tabletop.
Gonzalez was now standing over him, bending down, his mouth inches from Newkirk’s ear. The thumb was still in his mouth; the pressure and pain were excruciating.
“Don’t you dare get sanctimonious on me, Newkirk,” Gonzalez hissed. “Don’t you fucking dare. You’re in this as deep as I am, as deep as all of us. None of us like what’s happened. I had nothing against that guy…except the fact that he wanted to put me into prison. He wanted to take my new life away from me. I like my life, Newkirk. I’ll do anything to keep it. And if that means shooting a sanctimonious prick like you in the head, I’ll do that, too.”
Newkirk blinked away tears and tried not to make a sound. The thumb in his mouth tasted of metal and tobacco. He wanted to be still, let the moment pass, give Gonzalez a moment to cool down.
“I’m sorry,” Newkirk said after a beat. Or tried to say. But it sounded like a croaked moan with the thumb in his mouth.
Gonzalez relieved the pressure, and Newkirk sat back up.
“I said I’m sorry,” Newkirk said. “I mean it. It was the bourbon talking.”
“Yeah,” Gonzalez said, drying his wet hand on his pants, his anger receding. “But the bourbon used your mouth.”
They heard a chair being pushed back from the table inside. “Somebody’s coming,” Newkirk said.
“It better be Singer,” Gonzalez said, standing.
Singer stepped out onto the porch. “Did you solve our problem?” he asked Newkirk, all business.
“Solved,” Gonzalez said. “The pigs are happy.”
Singer’s face went dead as he listened. “You cut him up?”
Newkirk choked as he spoke. “Nah.”
“I told you to cut him up.”
“When I shot him, he fell back into the pen,” Newkirk lied. “The pigs were all over him. I didn’t want to go in there with him.”
Singer looked away, obviously angry. “What did you do with his car?”
Gonzalez said, “It’s in the garage for now, right next to the UPS truck. We can take it to the chop shop in Spokane later.”
“Was he any trouble?” Singer asked Newkirk.
“Nah, he drove right up here.”
“Anyone see you?”
“No,” Newkirk said. No need to complicate things further.
Singer narrowed his eyes at Newkirk. “What happened to your face?”
Newkirk reached up and rubbed his jaw. He could either tell Singer what had happened or pull his weapon and shoot Gonzalez right now in a preemptive strike. Or he could do neither, which is what he chose.
Gonzalez stepped back and threw an arm around Newkirk, crushing him into his hard barrel chest. “Emotions were running a little high, Lieutenant. We had a little scrap, but everything’s cool now, isn’t it, Newkirk?”
Newkirk nodded, lowered his eyes away from Singer’s fixed stare, and said, “Yup. We’re cool.”