A series of deafening explosions ripped the night, and the earth rocked beneath Sal’s feet. He fell to the floor and curled into a fetal position, waiting for some hideous winged demon to pull him into a fiery eternity.
He peeked through his fingers. Maria was silhouetted against the window, the sky behind her glowing an eerie orange.
Marlin was lying in bed, Inga dozing beside him, when the phone rang. Ten-thirty. Could be a poaching call, but Marlin decided to let the machine get it. If it was important, he’d pick it up. He heard Bobby Garza’s voice…
“John, it’s Bobby. Just wanted to see if you were watching KHIL right now. Good news, buddy. Jack Corey has finally surrendered. He just came out about ten minutes ago and I wanted you to know. I’ll fill you in tomorrow. It’s gonna be a big day. I’ve got some guys coming from the Army Corps of Engineers to inspect the dam. Toby Gardner already has the floodgates open, and he says the reservoir should be down twenty feet in forty-eight hours. Just wanted to keep you posted. Good work, my man. Hell of a job.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Marlin’s phone rang again at seven-thirty the next morning, rousing him from a deep slumber. It had been months since he’d slept so late. Beside him, Inga muttered something sleepily and pulled a pillow over her head.
He picked up the phone. “This is Marlin.”
It was Garza, breathless on the other end. “John, can you hear me? It’s Bobby.” The connection was weak and full of static, but there was no mistaking what Garza said next. “It looks like we found him, John. We found Emmett Slaton.”
Sal was on the couch, the television murmuring in the background, while he tried to recover from the hellish night he had had. He had almost pushed Maria too far, he knew that. Worse than that, he had gone about it all wrong, didn’t use his goddamn brain. The truth was, there was no need to confront Maria at all. All he had to do was wait until she wasn’t wearing the necklace, send her and Angela to the grocery store, then raid Maria’s room. It would be much easier that way, and he could avoid Maria’s wrath.
He thought about last night, and it made him shudder. After the explosions, when the cops had finally left and the firefighters cleared out, he had freaked out a little in front of Vinnie and Angela. He had had a moment of stupidity and tried to make them see that it was all Maria’s work, that she had used her powers to rain fire down upon him. But they had looked at him as if he was going fucking crazy and asked if he wanted to see a doctor. In the end, he had decided it was best to keep his knowledge about Maria’s powers to himself. He accepted the sleeping pill that Angela had offered in the middle of the night, and eventually fell into a fitful, horrifying slumber.
He had had a nightmare, one in which Maria had caused him to slice open his own bowels with a rusty knife. He was forced to watch in terror as a pack of goats with razor-sharp teeth began to feed on his entrails. He was starting to sweat now, just thinking about it.
He heard a noise behind as Vinnie came into the room. “You get any sleep, Pop?”
Sal grunted.
Vinnie came around and sat next to him. Sal picked up the newspaper and pretended to read. He didn’t feel like talking to anybody. Vinnie grabbed the remote and turned the sound up a little, surfing through the channels.
Sal could hear a news reporter babbling, but he wasn’t paying much attention.
Until Vinnie said, “Oh, shit!”
Sal lowered the paper to see what the fuss was about.
As Marlin drove to Pedernales Reservoir, he replayed in his mind the amazing tale Garza had recounted for him. The team from the Army Corps of Engineers had arrived just after sunrise. They had closed the floodgates temporarily, to allow a team of divers to inspect the underwater portion of the dam. The divers entered the water at the boat ramp, and as they swam toward the dam, one of the team members spotted something large and yellow at the bottom of the lake. Something he wouldn’t have seen if the water level hadn’t already dropped so rapidly. He swam lower, and realized it was a submerged car.
It turned out to be a Porsche owned by a local kid named T.J. Gibbs. Marlin remembered citing Gibbs and Vinnie Mameli for four-wheeling on park property. Marlin had had some other troubles with Gibbs in the past: hunting without a license, shooting a turkey out of season. Mostly minor stuff. Garza had said there were no clues as to how the car had gotten there. They had tried calling Gibbs and got no answer.
The diver went down a second time to get a closer look. According to Garza, “The guy came up white as a sheet, John-saying there was a body in the car.”
“Slaton?” Marlin asked, wondering what the rancher’s body would be doing in a car owned by a punk like T.J. Gibbs.
“We’re just now pulling the car out of the water,” Garza said. “The body’s in pretty bad shape, but from the description the diver’s giving, yeah, it sounds like Slaton.”
On the screen, Sal could see a tow truck pulling a car out of a lake. The lake looked like Pedernales Reservoir. And the car looked like T.J. Gibbs’s Porsche. “What the hell?” Sal said. “Ain’t that your friend’s car?”
Vinnie nodded, his eyes glued to the television.
The camera switched to a clip of the sheriff.
“We were conducting a routine inspection of the dam when one of the team members spotted the submerged automobile. It has apparently been underwater for several days. I’m sorry to confirm at this time that we did discover a body inside the car.”
Sal turned to Vinnie, thinking, Poor kid, having to find out about his dead pal this way. His son looked close to tears. “What the hell happened, Vinnie?” he asked gently. Vinnie didn’t answer.
“I am able to confirm at this time that the deceased was not the owner of the car, and we are presently making efforts to locate him.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Sal said, smiling, looking at Vinnie. But Vinnie looked far from relieved.
A reporter off-camera asked if the sheriff could reveal the identity of the deceased.
“I’m afraid I can’t make any comments at this time.”
The same reporter asked if the deceased was in fact, the missing rancher, Emmett Slaton.
“Emmett Slaton?” Sal said. “What the hell’s he got to do with dis?”
The sheriff paused. Way too long of a pause to suit Sal. A pause big enough to drive a fucking Cadillac through. Then he said:
“No comment.”
As Sal turned to Vinnie again, he felt himself hyperventilating. His head was spinning and his mouth was bone dry. He tried to laugh it off. “Tell me, Vinnie…tell me I got nothin’ to worry about.”
But Vinnie wouldn’t meet his eyes. He just kept looking at the screen, his face a mask of shock.
Sal twisted toward him, ignoring the pain in his broken leg. He spoke softly now, trying to control his rage. “Tell me you didn’t sink him in the goddamn water in dat goddamn Porsche.”
And Vinnie-his only son, a future capo with balls the size of cantaloupes, the boy who reminded Sal so much of himself when he was a kid-said the worst three words Sal had ever heard: “I’m sorry, Pop.”
Sal lunged at Vinnie, who squirmed away from his grasp. “You stupid son of a bitch!”
Vinnie leaped off the couch. “I screwed up, Pop! I’m sorry!”
Sal vaulted off after him, his lame leg buckling under him. “You lousy no-good bastard!”
Vinnie ran from the room, and Sal bucked and jerked on the floor, trying to climb to his feet. “You fuckin’ lamebrain cock-sucker!”
Marlin found Garza near the boat ramps, in a swarm of deputies and staff members from the Corps of Engineers. T.J. Gibbs’s ruined, muddy Porsche sat on the shores of the lake, surrounded by yellow crime scene tape that had been strung between county vehicles. A tow truck sat with its engine idling, the driver reeling in a dripping steel cable. The news-station vans were already back in full force, and Deputy Ernie Turpin was doing his best to keep the media back from the scene.