Evan focused as much on Vasquez’s delivery as on his words. Cover stories tended to sound rehearsed — too smooth, with no hesitations. Vasquez seemed genuine, full of pauses and broken sentences. And he didn’t appear to be stalling either, drawing out the story to give his handlers time to plot an approach.
“How many men were there?” Evan asked.
“Three.”
“And el jefe—the boss. Where was he standing? To your right or to your left?”
“To my left.”
“And Isa? She was to your left also?”
“Yes. He was near her.”
“What did the man look like next to the boss?”
“He was large. With the big muscles. Like a boxer.”
“And the fourth man? What did he look like?”
“There was no fourth man. Only three men.”
“The third man?”
“He was big, too. Tall. But skinny.”
“Skinny like the boss?”
“El jefe was not skinny. He had muscles like rope knots.”
“And he was standing to your right—”
“My left. He was over here. Here. With my Isa.” Memo lifted his shirt collar and used it to wipe his forehead. “You try to trick me. You do not believe. You do not believe.”
“I didn’t say that,” Evan said.
Memo stared at him from the couch but made no move to rise. It occurred to Evan that he did not feel he was free to move, and right now that was fine by Evan.
“What happened next?” Evan asked.
“When they leave that night, I am closing up and I see that la policía, they are coming door-to-door through el distrito. They are close. I take the packages and I throw them in the trash can outside the back door and I run. I run with my Isa. I hide and wait for la policía to go away. And then I go back. But when I go back”—his breath caught at the memory—“the packages, they are no there. They are no there.”
Somewhere up the street, the singsong music of the ice-cream truck played, and Evan heard a chorus of children’s voices, clamoring in two languages for their orders.
Vasquez was breathing hard, trying to hold back tears. “The next night these men come again. I explain to el jefe what happen. He say this is my fault. That I owe him this money. Five thousand dollars.” Vasquez lowered his head and shook it slowly. Drops of sweat clung to the tips of his hair but did not fall. “This is more money than I have ever seen. They say if I do not bring it to them soon, they will come. They will come for my Isa.”
“Why do they want her?”
At last Memo looked up, and his dark eyes burned. “They will sell her organs.”
He sobbed a few times, hoarsely. Standing by the window, Evan felt the familiar fury rise in him. The ice-cream truck was on the move again, coasting slowly down the hill toward the house.
Memo said, “They say this, too, is their business. They say that her heart is no good because she is a special girl. And her eyes — she have the cataracts.” His lips parted in something like a snarl. “But for the black market, they will take her liver. Her kidneys. Her lungs.” Memo’s voice continued to rise. “Her bone. Skin. Veins. Tendons.” Tears ran down his cheeks. “They will take their profit from her body.”
“Where is Isa now?”
He choked out the words. “She is at her school. They have the learning program for her.”
Through the gap in the plywood, Evan shot a final look down the long road. Then he walked over to Guillermo. He looked into his face. Believed him.
Memo said, “I am running out of time. I cannot get this money, and when they see that, they will take my special girl.”
Evan crouched and set his hands on Memo’s knees. “I will help you,” he said.
Outside, the ice-cream truck’s music rose louder, and then came a whoosh of tires as the truck passed. Its headlights swept the living-room wall, bringing up a glint in the cracked plasterboard.
Evan’s eyes snapped over, locking on the spot. He rose and looked down at Vasquez. “Do not move. Not a finger. Comprende?”
Vasquez nodded, the furrows returning to his forehead.
Walking over to the wall, Evan dug his finger into the crack, plaster crumbling around it. His finger struck something smooth and hard. He hooked it, yanked it out.
A pinhole lens, identical to the one he used outside his condo.
After laying all this exceptional groundwork, they’d sunk a camera blatantly into the middle of a wall? Why?
Slatcher, he knew, was staring at him right now.
In a rage, Evan tore the lens free, the wire ripping through the drywall, powdering the air. Memo watched from the couch, mouth gaping in fear.
Evan shook the surveillance wire tangled around his clenched hand in Vasquez’s face. “What is this?”
“I never see that before in my life. I swear, I—”
The RoamZone phone vibrated in Evan’s pocket. His other hand shot down to the phone, pressed it to his cheek. Before he could speak, he heard the shouting.
“Evan? Evan, it’s me!”
Katrin. Her voice wrenched high with panic.
“People are here — the ones from the motel. They pulled up in front in that Scion we saw. I just watched them run inside. Oh, my God! Where are you, Evan? Where are you?”
He felt a heat at the back of his neck, the warm breath of dread. “Look through the peephole. Can you get to the stairs?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know!”
“Check. Now.”
Memo rose partway on the couch, hands raised placatingly, fingers spread. “Listen to me, amigo. I swear on my Isa’s eyes, I never—”
Evan’s blow knocked him straight onto his belly on the floor. Pinching the phone with his shoulder, Evan put a knee between Vasquez’s shoulder blades, wrenched back his arms, and flex-tied his wrists. Then he secured his ankles.
A sharp intake of breath came through the phone. “They’re in the hall already, Evan. What am I supposed to do?”
“Dead-bolt the door,” Evan said. “Get to the bathroom. There’s a—”
A thunderous boom came through the receiver, the sound of a battering ram meeting a lock assembly. Katrin’s scream was so loud that Evan jerked the phone a few inches from his head.
“Stay on the phone, Katrin. No matter what happens, stay on the—”
He heard the sound of a slap, then Katrin’s phone skittering across the floor. An instant later there was a rustling and the line cut out.
Leaving Memo bound on the floor, Evan sprinted for the door. He understood now why Slatcher didn’t care if the pinhole lens was obvious. The aim of the subterfuge wasn’t to lure Evan here to kill him.
The aim was to draw him away from Katrin.
37
Sooner or Later
Evan hurtled recklessly across Downtown, running reds, slicing between cars, veering two tires up onto a sidewalk to squeak past a Volvo. He called up the GPS screen linked to the microchips in Katrin’s system, but no signal showed. A half block from his loft, he screeched into a bus zone and leapt from the Taurus, sprinting for the building with his hand riding the still-holstered Wilson Combat 1911.
He drew the pistol as he crashed through the glass front doors, scattering a middle-aged couple and their two kids as he bolted for the stairs. Running up, he halted at the fifth-floor landing, cracking the door and peering through. The door to his loft was a few inches ajar, the wood crumpled slightly around the dead bolt.
Easing into the hall, pistol raised, he crept along the carpet. He spread his hand on the splintered wood and swung the door silently inward. Leading with the gun barrel, he inched inside, taking in the open space with a sweeping glance.