The door opened and a large man with a rough face and thinning hair stepped awkwardly down the two steps with a plastic bag of garbage in his hands. He never even noticed Duarte.
Duarte said, "Mr. Linley."
That made the man's head snap.
"What the hell? Who're you?"
Duarte held up his identification. "Alex Duarte, ATF."
"ATF. I don't talk to no damn ATF assholes. Besides, I ain't done nothin' with guns."
"I just had a few questions about a container at the port."
"Then go talk to the damn port director, sport. I got nothin' to say to you."
"Sir, can we step inside and speak?"
"No. I done told you to fuck off. What're you? Some kinda of Mexican that don't understand English?"
Duarte fought to hide his smile. This redneck had no idea what was about to happen to him.
William Ike Floyd felt like he was swimming, then he heard some noise. He opened his eyes and thought he was looking up at the sun until he realized it was a streetlight. An old round glass one that was really low. He lay still and felt something bite into his back. He had no idea where he was or what had happened. He started to sit up, but the pain in his head forced him to lie back down. But that hurt, too. Tiny, sharp rocks dug into his bare skin.
He sat up quickly, letting the pain sweep through his body but feeling the need to clear his head. He looked at his lap and legs. He was naked. Naked and outside. But where?
He tried to stand, but lost his footing and tumbled back to the rough, dirty street. He looked up at the low streetlamps and narrow road, then realized he was in an alley. In the alley naked, sore and, most important, without the truck.
He finally got to his feet. He raised his hand to his head and felt the sticky blood along his hairline.
A gust of wind whipped down the deserted alley, and he shivered. He looked around for some discarded clothes or even some garbage to cover up, but saw nothing. For a nasty-ass alley, there was little usable trash.
He had no idea what time it was, what town he was in or even how seriously he was injured. All that paled next to the most important question that the beautiful and deceitful Craig left him with: Where was the truck and its cargo?
24
ALEX DUARTE STOOD IN THE SMALL LIVING ROOM OF CAL LINLEY'S house. He wasn't sure if the big longshoreman realized yet that this interview was likely to fall outside the Department of Justice guidelines.
Linley had a nervous timbre to his voice now. "Look, I told you I didn't want to talk. I told you not to come inside. What the fuck is going on?"
Duarte didn't speak. Instead he let his gaze drift to a wall with photos and shelves filled with memorabilia. He purposely ignored Linley and stepped to the shelves for a closer look.
He had his left hand lightly holding his right fist in case he had to snap it out quickly, but he thought he had Linley right where he wanted him-nervous and confused.
Then Duarte realized what all the memorabilia was. The photo of Hitler in front of the Reichstag, a sketch of Nathan Bedford Forrest, the founder of the Ku Klux Klan, a photo of a much younger Linley receiving some kind of certificate from a man in a uniform with a swastika on the arm.
Duarte looked over at the smug, smiling moron.
Duarte said, "So this the kind of stuff you're into?"
"Ain't no law against it."
"I'm Hispanic."
"I'm sorry for you. But I ain't saying shit, and you can get your ass outta my house before you regret it."
Duarte smiled. Just enough to show Linley that he wasn't intimidated, but in reality he wanted the big man to give him a reason to break a few bones.
Linley backed away a step, the sixth sense of a street fighter kicking in. "What the hell does the ATF want with me anyway?"
"I told you. Information about a container out at the port."
"What container? The fucking port has thousands of them."
"You know which one. You opened it night before last." He leveled his eyes at the man.
Linley remained quiet and still.
Duarte turned to face him. "I have questions about that container and what was in it."
"I told you I ain't sayin' shit."
"We'll see."
"What's that mean?"
Duarte gave him a slight smile. "You'll see."
The music was a little loud to consider the sports bar "intimate," but it was cozier than Alice Brainard had intended. She thought that by telling Scott Mahovich that she'd have dinner with him and then suggesting McKenna's, he'd realize it was purely platonic. She knew that she was using the fact that he was attracted to her to get her own way and that it was wrong, but she had done it anyway. She knew Alex needed the information on the blood she'd scraped from the severed finger.
"This is nice," the DNA scientist said.
Alice smiled and nodded.
"We should do it more often."
She wanted to say that this was a one-time event, but she remained quiet.
"You like this place?"
"I come from time to time. Sometimes with my boyfriend." She hit the word "boyfriend" a little hard.
Mahovich looked stricken. "Yeah, he's an ATF agent, right?"
She nodded.
"That's who needed the analysis of the scrapings, isn't it?"
She hesitated and said, "Yes. Please don't say anything."
He didn't reply; he just seemed satisfied with himself.
She finished her grouper sandwich, enduring his stare and that stupid grin. He'd go on about how DNA science was going to be the next big frontier and that the sheriff's office wouldn't be able to pay trained personnel like him enough to stay.
Mahovich made a show out of pulling out a hundred-dollar bill to pay for dinner. "Does your ATF man take you out much?"
"Not too much."
"He doesn't know how to treat a lady."
"No, not really, but he's learning." That was one of the first accurate statements she had made during the entire evening.
As they left and walked out to their cars, parked side by side, she slowly brought up the one topic she was interested in talking to this jerk about.
"So, Scott. How long before you have a profile from the sample I gave you?"
He gave her a serious look. "Ya know, Alice, you can't rush this kind of stuff. I can't ignore one of the real cases brought to us by sheriff's deputies just so some hotshot ATF man can play detective."
She held her thoughts. "It's not like that."
"There is a way we could move things along."
She looked up at him as she leaned against her Honda. "How?"
He placed a hand on her shoulder and leaned down and nibbled on her neck. Just a quick bite.
It shocked Alice, but not as much as what he was inferring would speed things up. Without thinking, she balled her fist and swung at his goofy face, and felt the satisfying snap of her knuckles striking him in the left eye. He lost his balance and bounced off his Buick on the way to the asphalt parking lot.
Alice looked down at him. "You know what will move the case along? You saving your energy for the office."
Alex Duarte tried to look at life from other people's perspectives. That was one of the reasons he'd got along in Bosnia. He could see how the Croats and the Serbs thought they each had the high moral ground in the conflict. He'd come to support the Croats based on his personal relationships as well as on some of the Serb activities, but he understood how each side clung to their ancient hatreds. Back home, he listened to political debates and felt he had some things in common with Democrats and some in common with Republicans. At any time, one side or the other could make a decent point. That was why he was an Independent.