Chapter Twenty-Four

Two hours later. A fine rain falls on the run-down square at the top end of town.

Whicher sits with Eric Kessler beneath the awning of a street-side bar. Sipping more beer, smoking a pack of Delicados, the last of the Marlboro Reds gone.

Cars and trucks pass along the street, tires loud against the wet road.

People are moving on the sidewalk, the town filling up with the late hour.

Eric lifts the glass to his mouth.

Whicher studies his friend, bleary eyed now—drinking all day, deep into the night. Wind rucks up the side of the awning, water dripping from its frayed edge.

“Damn, I like Mexico,” Eric says. “Get on a toot. Cheap chow, cheap booze. They finally kick my ass out of the army, maybe I'll come live here.” He grins at himself. Pulls a cigarette from the pack. Lights it, breathes the heavy smoke. “Damn it, maybe I will.”

“How come you're living in Eagle Pass still?”

“It's where I grew up.”

“Since your folks left...”

“The family left, so what?”

“Corpus Christi, you don't think you might like it?”

“The Texas Riviera.”

“You don't think Karen might?”

Eric stares at the burning end of the Delicado.

Neither man speaks for a minute. More cars roll by out of the rain.

A trans-border bus out of San Antonio stops to let people off in the square.

“Reckon Karen will be wondering where you're at?”

Eric snorts a laugh. He looks at Whicher. “You really can't help me out any with her? With Karen, an' all.”

He shakes his head. “I'd think it's none of my business.”

“Thought you were an investigator?”

“You need a PI.” Whicher sips the beer, thinks of heading back for the port of entry, the bridge. Everything would still be waiting in the morning—showing up beat, hungover wouldn't likely help.

“Why you need to talk with this girl, Lucila?” Eric says.

“She might give us a name. One of the victims.”

“Y'all don't know their names?”

“Four went in the ground, we don't know who they were.”

Eric looks at him.

“Law says we have to know,” Whicher says.

“No shit.”

“Nobody reported them missing, we got no ID. If I could find something...”

Eric runs a hand over his face. He stares at the cloth on the little table. “I saw a backhoe push bodies in a pit one time. Out in Iraq. Open grave. Ever see a thing like that?”

The marshal nods.

They sit in silence—mood descending. Rain swirling in the wind.

“I ain't saying I wished it was us. Our guys.”

“I know that.” Whicher cuts his friend a look.

“But a man's still a man.”

A group of teenagers hustle down the sidewalk, pausing a moment to stare in the bar. They move on.

A taxi cab rolls in view.

It drives slow up the side of the square. Pulls in, rear door opening.

A woman steps from the back. She's wearing a light coat, short dress.

Whicher pushes back his chair, steps out in the street.

The woman pays the driver, turns toward the bar.

Whicher stands looking, Resistol tilted against the rain.

She hurries up the sidewalk, one hand at the short hair framing her face. She reaches the bar, nods. “Inside,” she says. “Let's go inside.”

Eric's upright, suddenly alert.

“You want to cover the door?” Whicher says.

“I got your back.”

The marshal grabs his beer, grabs the pack of un-tipped Delicados. He follows Lucila to the rear of the bar. She draws out a chair from a table right in back. Whicher sits where he can see the door.

A waitress appears. Lucila and the girl exchange kisses. She sits, takes the cigarette the marshal's offering.

“Didn't think you'd come,” he says.

She lights the cigarette from a candle in a bottle.

“I waited. I think you know the girl I was talking about.”

Her eyes are hooded.

“I have something I ought to tell you,” he says. “I think maybe something happened to her.”

Lucila's face is hard in the candlelight.

“I'm trying to find out.”

The waitress brings coffee and a glass of brandy. Lucila takes it. The marshal waits for the waitress to step away.

“I'm a cop,” he says, beneath his breath.

She stares at him, alarm in her face.

“Over the border,” he says. “The US side.”

She doesn't answer. She sits rigid in her chair.

“You don't have to talk to me,” he says, voice quiet. “You're not in any trouble. But you said she left around a week ago? Did she leave to cross the border?”

The woman lifts the cup of coffee. Takes a sip, eyes quick with thought.

“Did she leave for the US?”

Lucila nods.

“Alright,” Whicher says. He lifts his hand an inch above the table. “It's okay,” he tells her.

No response.

“Did you hear from her since she left?”

She sets the cup down. “No.” Thoughts are passing quickly, one after another behind her eyes.

“You haven't spoken with her?”

“Teléfono. She was going to call.”

Whicher leans in. “She was going to call, but didn't?”

Lucila nods.

“The girl I'm looking for,” Whicher says. “I think she came from the south of the country. Far south, maybe from Central America.”

Lucila’s eyes are still. “She came from Sabinas.”

“Sabinas?”

“Is not far.”

“You're sure?”

“Is what she told to me. Not far. You drive, less than two hours.”

Whicher feels his gut sink. “Tell me her name?”

“Carmela Ramirez.”

He takes out the pad, notes it down. “When she set out, did she leave with a group?”

“No lo se.”

“You don't know?”

“I don't think,” Lucila says.

“She was traveling alone?”

“There was another girl. Sara. Sara Pacheco.”

“From here?”

“From la zona.”

The marshal writes the name on the pad, puts it away. “Did you hear from Sara since they left?”

Lucila's eyes drop. “Nada, nada.”

“Do you know where Carmela was going—after she crossed? Do you know what she was going to do, who she might have been meeting over the border?”

Lucila's eyes drill into him from across the table.

“Was she meeting someone?”

“Si,” she says, barely a whisper.

The marshal turns the pen in his hand. “Can you tell me?”

“She never told me a name.”

“She must have told you something?”

Lucila searches the room, arms clutching her sides. “Tira,” she says. “She was meeting a cop.”

The air outside is cool, wet. Eric Kessler sits at the street-side table, nursing the last of his beer. Rain is blowing on the wind, drifting beneath the bar's awning. He doesn't seem to notice, his face is set, eyes focused on something, staring straight out across the square.

Whicher puts a hand on his shoulder.

Eric nods, not looking up.

“What's going on?”

“I'm thinking somebody's watching.”

The marshal follows Eric's gaze out into the rainy air—around the square there's a steady stream of cars and trucks, foot traffic. Nothing that sticks out.

“Same car's been by three times.” Eric tilts his head toward the corner of the square. “Twice it's come in that side, one time, over on the left. It stops a minute each time.”

Whicher glances at Eric—sees the man he was a year back in the Gulf—sharp-eyed, picking out hostiles. “You ready to leave?” He traps a twenty on the table.

They step out from the awning into a fine mist of rain.

“See anybody?” the marshal says.

“Hard to say.”

Eric takes a step toward the river.

Whicher puts a hand on his arm, stopping him. He looks toward the opposite side of the square.

“Bridge is that way, man.”

“Let's head the other way,” Whicher says.

Eric grins under the street light.

They turn around, walk to the far side of the square, groups of young men drinking, workers headed home, plenty enough people to mix with.

A pitted road leads away from the river. “Head a couple blocks, we'll switch direction,” Whicher says. “Nothing happens, we can head back.”

They move fast down the street off the square.

Half a block in, Eric stares at a car parked along the road. “That's it,” he says.

“The car?”

By a closed-up store is a narrow street. Whicher cuts into it, Eric following.

Twenty yards along the sidewalk is a service alley, the marshal points—they back up into it.

“What happened with the girl?” Eric says.

They wait thirty seconds. Nothing comes by.

“I got a name—couple of possible IDs for two of the victims.”

At the street end of the alley, a car cruises past—a Grand Marquis, dark blue, silver rims.

The marshal looks at his friend.

Eric nods. “That's the one.”

Fifteen minutes later. More traffic fills up the narrow roads. At the back of the street market, close to the bridge, Whicher watches from the dark.

The market's empty, the stall-holders all gone.

Eric Kessler's moving up the left-hand edge of the Gran Plazo, scouting the flank.

Whicher looks in the direction he's headed—tarps on the stalls block his line of sight.

Eric's stopped. He's signaling.

Whicher moves in shadow, along the dark rows.

He reaches Eric at the concrete edge of a line of closed-up tourist booths.

“The car's out there,” Eric says. He jerks a thumb in the direction of the bridge.

The marshal takes off his hat. “Let me get a look.” He inches around the side of the wet concrete.

A stream of cars are rolling out of the port of entry from the US side. He can see the dark blue sedan. Two men up front, one in the rear. He feels his stomach turn. “They keep it parked there, they got the bridge.”

“We could wait 'em out,” Eric says, “see if they leave?”

“I don't like...”

“How about we head someplace. Get out of the way, grab a motel? Couple hours, they might give it up.”

“Who the hell are they?”

“You got no idea?”

The marshal stares out into the rain. “Del Rio. We could cross there...”

“Del Rio's sixty miles, man.”

“I can't have any piece of this...”

“You're a cop.”

“Not here.”

In the rear of the Grand Marquis, the man on the back seat turns sideways—profile to the window. He's Hispanic, hair in ringlets. The street light catches something at his ear—something gold. Whicher feels an image snap into his mind, then fade.

Cars from the bridge stream toward him, he cuts behind the booth, trying to hold the picture in his memory—a blur of light and movement in the rain.