Collision

33

The threat of rain hadn’t kept the soccer fields empty; dozens of families and kids, in varying shades of uniforms and ranging from ages four to ten, wandered between the rectangles of green. Mothers, fathers, and siblings stood on the sidelines, chatting among themselves or calling out sweetened encouragement to the players. Coaches clapped and frowned; high school kids serving as referees blew whistles and acted supremely bored.

Dads cheered their daughters. Pilgrim knew Tamara played soccer but he’d never worked up the nerve to watch a game from a distance; the risk was too great. Why did he choose this place, filled with fathers and daughters? Salt in the wound, rubbed there himself.

Pilgrim moved through the crowd. He was dressed in a phone repairman’s shirt and baseball cap, a treasure from his cache, and he stayed on the edge of the crowd.

He spotted two people watching him in the first five minutes: a soccer mom who didn’t seem to know the other moms on her side of the field, standing a bit apart, arms crossed, her eyes not fixed on the glorious play of a child but instead scanning the crowd a bit too often. There was another, a compactly built young man in a referee’s shirt, but the shirt was untucked and hanging loose over long pants. Might be a gun there. He was no bigger than the teenaged refs, but his face was that of an older man. He kept glancing around at the other games.

Neither approached him. They wanted him to talk to Vochek. Probably they would try to take him after they talked, when he left.

But she had broken her promise, or a superior had overruled her. Stupid.

A group of six-year-old boys had finished their match and their obligatory juice box and snack, and they and their parents walked as a herd. He stayed close among them, a cell phone at his ear, pretending to be deep in conversation.

He walked into the parking lot with them and glanced back. The watchers were still in place and he didn’t make anyone else following him. He ducked into his car and didn’t bother backing up. He barreled forward, over the curb and into the grass, and shot out onto the road. He had preprogrammed Vochek’s cell number into his phone. He pressed the button.

“I said come alone,” he said.

A sigh. “I wanted to,” she said. “Got vetoed.”

At least she was smart enough not to deny the obvious. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I can’t deal if you break agreements.”

“I can offer you a deal. How about if you come and talk to me and my boss.”

“I must decline your kind invitation. I’m sorry, you’ve bruised my trust.”

She was quiet for a moment and her voice softened. “Randall. I know you have a daughter. Tamara. I could make it so you can see Tamara again.”

A chill slipped into his chest like a knife. “You stay the hell away from my kid. And my ex-wife.”

“I don’t mean them harm, I’m trying to give you what you want.”

“You don’t know what I want, Vochek.”

“Then you tell me what you want.”

“To talk with someone with the actual power to negotiate with me. Good-bye.”

“Wait, please, I need to know what’s going down in New Orleans.”

“I need to know, too. Good-bye, Vochek.” He hung up and did an immediate U-turn, pulled into a Jack in the Box parking lot, and waited.

Five minutes later, he saw her, in a Ford sedan, pull past. Two other cars, both Fords, stayed close to her.

He pulled out after them. Tailing in Plano was both easy and challenging; the roads tended to be straight shots, but traffic was heavy-it was a suburb of a quarter million people-and drivers wove in and out of lanes for every inch of advantage. The trick was to stay close, not too close, and not lose them in the quickly changing lights. Without showing yourself.

The three cars headed back toward a shopping mall, then turned into a neighborhood across the street. Pilgrim was surprised to see a runway bisecting the neighborhood, a series of hangars with an array of private planes sheltering under the tin roofs. He U-turned hard, saw the cars stop in front of one of the houses.

Found you, he thought. What an interesting place for a safe house, with an airport built right in.

At the shopping center he located a place to perch where he could still see the house. She and her colleagues would go inside, she would call her boss, report failure, perhaps plead for another chance.

Interesting they didn’t go back to an office. Vochek, Ben had said, was based in Houston. He wondered if her colleagues were local. If they were, and they left soon…

His phone buzzed. He didn’t recognize the number calling. He clicked it on. “Yes.”

“It’s Ben.”

“Yes.”

“I need help.”

“Explain.”

“I’m six blocks from the apartment. Slight accident. Hurt my foot. Hector came over, and he got wild, you know how he is.”

“Are you okay? Does he have you?”

“I’m fine and no he doesn’t.”

He knew Ben wouldn’t betray him, even if Hector was holding a gun to his head right now. He knew it with a clarity that cut through a momentary doubt. “I’m at the Plano Palisades shopping center, across from the Plano Air Ranch Park. Do you have money in your wallet?”

“Yes.”

“Get a cab.”

“In Dallas? They don’t exactly wander the streets looking for fares.”

“Ben. Give me your address, I’ll call a cab for you, I’ll cover the fare. I’m north of the Nordstrom’s, edge of the lot.”

“Okay.” Ben sounded like he might faint.

“You all right?”

“I am beyond sorry.” Dread colored Ben’s voice. “You were entirely right.”

“About what?”

“I have to go, my time’s-”

And the phone went dead.

Well. If he was wrong about Ben, and Hector had just found his location, let Hector come. He’d just wait, shoot Hector and Jackie in the knees, drag them to Vochek’s safe house like a cat bringing torn, dead birds as trophies.

An hour later, the cab pulled up. Pilgrim got out of the Volvo and unfolded bills for the cabbie. Ben got in the passenger side, eased his shoe off. Not looking at Pilgrim.

“Tell me what happened.” Pilgrim leaned down, inspecting the foot.

“I have bad news,” Ben said. Pilgrim leaned back. “Teach is dead.”

Pilgrim said, “Tell me.” His expression stayed like stone as Ben explained.

“She died trying to help me.”

Pilgrim’s mouth contorted. He got out of the car, stood by the door, leaned his head against his arm on the car’s roof. Ben got out on the opposite side of the car, faced him over the car’s roof.

“Pilgrim… man, I’m sorry.”

The traffic hummed by and kept them in companionable silence for a few moments. Pilgrim lifted his head. “He killed her because he doesn’t need her anymore. He has complete control of the Cellar. He’s won.”

“No. We’re still alive, we can fight him. We have to. He killed Emily. He had photos of her. Photos taken of her right before and after she was killed.”

Pilgrim’s face paled; he shook his head. He seemed to wait a few moments for his voice to return. “Ah, God, Ben.”

“I was an idiot-I defended him-I made him a goddamned fortune.. and he killed my wife.”

“Where are the pictures?”

“I don’t know. They were on the floor… I doubt Hector headed back to the apartment to collect them.”

Pilgrim ran a hand along his mouth. “So the photos are still there. With Teach’s body.”

“What the hell does that matter?”

“It may mislead the police.” Pilgrim took a deep breath. “We got to keep moving forward. Let me see your foot.”

“I’m okay.”

“Give me a job to freaking do, all right?”

He used the first aid kit in the car to doctor Ben’s foot-the bullet had slowed considerably in moving through the fake leather and the dense mesh, leaving a wicked track, parting a chunk of flesh from the foot’s top. The bullet was stuck in the bloody sock, between foot and shoe. Pilgrim thumbed the bullet onto the floorboards.

“Here’s another one.” Ben handed him the damaged sketchbook. “I put it in my pocket, I didn’t want you to lose it.”

Pilgrim plucked the bullet from the pages, put the book in his pocket without a word, without inspecting the damage to the pictures. “I don’t have anything for the pain, Ben.”

“I don’t need anything. Now what?”

“We talk with Vochek.” He nodded toward the house. “Only one car there now; her sidekicks are gone. Let’s go.”