Fallen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

WILL HAD NEVER BEEN QUICK TO ANGER, BUT ONCE HE got there, he held on to it like a miser with a pot of gold. He didn’t throw things or use his fists. He didn’t rage or even raise his voice. Actually, the opposite happened. He went quiet—completely silent. It was as if his vocal cords were paralyzed. He kept it all on the inside because, in his vast experience with angry people, Will knew that letting it out meant that someone could end up very badly hurt.

Not that this particular expression of anger didn’t have its drawbacks. His stubborn silence had gotten him suspended from school on more than one occasion. Years ago, Amanda had transferred him to the nether regions of the north Georgia mountains for his refusal to respond to her questions. Once, he’d stopped speaking to Angie for three whole days for fear of saying things to her that could never be taken back. They’d lived together, slept together, dined together, done everything together, and he hadn’t uttered one word to her for a full seventy-two hours. If there had been a category in the Special Olympics for functionally illiterate mutes, Will would’ve had no problem cinching the gold.

This was all to say that not speaking to Amanda during the five-hour drive down to Coastal State Prison was nothing in the scheme of things. The worrying part was that the intensity of Will’s anger would not dissipate. He had never hated another human being as much as he did when Amanda told him that, by the way, Sara had almost been murdered. And that hatred would not go away. He kept waiting to feel that click of it letting up, the pot going from a boil to a simmer, but it wouldn’t come. Even now as Amanda paced back and forth in front of him, going from one end of the empty visitors’ waiting room to the other like a duck in a shooting gallery, he felt the rage burning inside him.

The worst part was that he wanted to speak. He yearned to speak. He wanted to lay it all out for her and watch her face crumble as she realized that Will truly and irrevocably despised her for what she had done to him. He had never been a petty man, but he really, really wanted to hurt her.

Amanda stopped pacing. She put her hands on her hips. “I don’t know what you’ve been told, but sulking is not an attractive trait in a man.”

Will stared at the floor. Grooves had been worn into the linoleum by the women and children who had wiled away their weekends waiting to visit the men inside the cells.

She said, “As a rule, I only let someone call me that word once. I think you picked an appropriate time.”

So, he hadn’t been completely mute. When Amanda had told him about Sara, he’d called her the word that rhymes with her name. And not in Spanish.

“What do you want, Will, an apology?” She huffed a laugh. “All right, I’m sorry. I apologize for not letting you get distracted so that you could do your job. I apologize for making sure your head didn’t get blown off. I apologize—”

His mouth moved of its own accord. “Could you just shut up?”

“What was that?”

He didn’t repeat himself. He didn’t care whether or not she heard him, or if his job was in jeopardy, or if she was going to unleash a new kind of hell on him for standing up to her. Will could not remember the last time he had experienced the kind of agony he’d suffered this afternoon. They’d sat outside that damn warehouse for a full hour before the Doraville police released them. Will understood intellectually why the detectives wanted to talk to them. There were two dead bodies and bullet holes everywhere. There was a stockpile of illegal machine guns on a shelf in the back. There was a large safe in Julia Ling’s office with the door swinging open and hundred-dollar bills scattered on the floor. You didn’t just roll up on a scene like that and release the only two witnesses. There were forms to be filled out, questions to be answered. Will had to give a statement. He’d had to wait while Amanda gave hers. It seemed like she had taken her time. He’d sat in the car, watching her talk to the detectives, feeling like an earthquake was going off in his chest.

His cell phone had been in and out of his hand a dozen times. Should he call Sara? Should he leave her alone? Did she need him? Wouldn’t she call him if she did? He had to see her. If he saw her, he would know how to react, to do what she needed. He would wrap his arms around her. He would kiss her cheek, her neck, her mouth. He would make everything better.

Or, he would just stand there in the hallway like a jackass, molesting her hand.

Amanda snapped her fingers for his attention. Will didn’t look up, but she talked anyway. “Your emergency contact is Angela Polaski. Or I should say Angie Trent, I suppose, since she’s your wife.” She paused for effect. “She is still your wife?”

He shook his head. He had never wanted to punch a woman so badly in his life.

“What did you expect me to do, Will?”

He kept shaking his head.

“So, I tell you that your—I don’t know, what is Dr. Linton to you these days? Mistress? Girlfriend? Pal?—is in trouble, and then what? We drop everything so you can go make googly eyes at her?”

Will stood up. He wasn’t going to do this. He would hitchhike back to Atlanta if he had to.

She sighed like the world was against her. “The warden will be here any minute. I need you to pull up your big-girl pants so I can prep you for your conversation with Roger Ling.”

Will looked at her for the first time since they’d left the hospital. “Me?”

“He asked for you specifically.”

This was some kind of trick, but he couldn’t see where it was going. “How does he even know my name?”

“I imagine his sister filled him in.”

As far as Will knew, Julia Ling was still on the run. “She called him at the prison?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Roger Ling is in solitary confinement for hiding a razor blade in his rectum. He doesn’t get phone calls. He doesn’t get visitors.”

Isolation had never deterred the prison message system. There were so many illegal cell phones inside the walls that last year during a statewide prisoner strike, The New York Times had been flooded with calls from inmates making their demands.

Still, Will said, “Roger Ling asked for me specifically?”

“Yes, Will. The request came through his lawyer. He asked for you specifically.” She allowed, “Of course, they called me first. No one knows who the hell you are. Except for Roger, apparently.”

Will sat back down in the chair. He felt his jaw ratcheting tight. The silence wanted to come back. He could feel it like a shadow looming behind him.

She asked, “Who do you think the cop is who confronted Dr. Linton in the hospital?”

He shook his head. He didn’t want to think about Sara anymore. He felt sick every time he thought about what she’d been through today. Alone.

Amanda repeated herself. “Who do you think the cop is?” Again, she snapped her fingers to get his attention.

He looked up. He wanted to break her hand.

“This isn’t about me. This is about Faith and getting back her mother. Now, who do you think the cop is?”

He cleared the glass out of his throat. “How do you know all of these people?”

“What people?”

“Hector Ortiz. Roger Ling. Julia Ling. Perry the bodyguard who drives a Mercedes. Why are you on a first-name basis with all these people?”

She was silent, obviously debating about whether or not to answer. Finally, she relented. “You know I came up in the job with Evelyn. We were cadets together. We were partners before they got tired of us busting all their cases.” She shook her head at the memory. “These are the bad guys who were on the other side. Drugs. Rape. Murder. Assault. Hostage negotiation. RICO cases. Money laundering. They’ve been around as long as we have.” She added ruefully, “Which is a very, very long time.”

“You’ve worked cases against them?”

There were fifty chairs in the room, but she sat down right beside him. “Ignatio Ortiz and Roger Ling didn’t just vault to the top. There are bodies they climbed over. Lots and lots of dead bodies. And the sad part is that they were human beings once. They were nice, normal people who went to church every Sunday and clocked into their jobs during the week.” Amanda shook her head again, and Will could tell that her words invoked memories she’d rather forget.

Still, she told him, “You know the word underbelly refers to the part of society that’s never seen, but it also means the vulnerable part. The weak part. That’s what monsters like Roger Ling and Ignatio Ortiz prey on. Addiction. Greed. Poverty. Desperation. Once these guys figured out how to exploit these people, they never looked back. They cut their teeth doing carhops for dealers when they were twelve. They murdered before they were old enough to legally buy a drink in a bar. They’ve slit throats and beaten old women to death and done whatever it takes to get to the top and hold on to that power. So, when you ask me why I’m on a first-name basis with them, it’s because I know them. I know who they are. I have stared into the darkness of their souls. But I guarantee you it doesn’t go the other way. They don’t have a damn idea who I am, and I’ve spent my career keeping it that way.”

Will was finished treading carefully. “They know Evelyn.”

“Yes,” Amanda allowed. “I think they do.”

He sat back in his chair. It was a stunning admission. He didn’t know how to respond. Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately—she didn’t give him the chance.

She clasped her hands together. Sharing time was over. “Let’s talk about this cop who confronted Sara in the hospital.”

Will was still trying to wrap his brain around what had just happened. For just a moment, he’d forgotten all about Sara.

“Chuck Finn,” she prompted.

Will leaned his head against the wall. The concrete block felt cold against his scalp. “He used to be a cop. You don’t lose that no matter how much heroin you shoot up. He’s tall. He’s probably lost a lot of weight from his habit. Sara wouldn’t have recognized him from his mugshot. I’m assuming he’s a smoker. Most junkies are.”

“So, at the hospital: you think Chuck Finn discerned from Sara that Marcellus Estevez might live, so he sent Franklin Heeney in to kill him.”

“Don’t you?”

Amanda wasn’t quick with her response. He could tell what she’d said about Evelyn Mitchell still weighed heavily on her. “I don’t know what I think anymore, Will. And that’s the God’s honest truth.”

She sounded tired. Her shoulders were slumped. There was a sort of detachment about her. He went back over their conversation, wondering what had finally made her admit that Evelyn Mitchell wasn’t squeaky clean. He had never in his life seen Amanda give up on anything. Part of him felt sorry for her, and another part of him realized that he might not ever have this chance again.

He struck while her defenses were down. “Why didn’t they shoot you outside the warehouse?”

“I’m a deputy director with the GBI. That’s a lot of heat.”

“They’ve already kidnapped a decorated police officer. They shot at you inside the warehouse. They killed Castillo. Why didn’t they kill you?”

“I don’t know, Will.” She rubbed her eyes with her fingers. “I think we must be caught in the middle of some kind of war.”

Will stared at the Meth Project poster on the wall. A toothless woman with scabby skin stared back. He wondered if that was what the junkie had looked like, the woman who had told Sara that there was a guy laid out by the Dumpster. How long had it taken before Marcellus Estevez was dead and Franklin Heeney was struggling with Sara on the floor, threatening to cut open her face with a scalpel?

Minutes. Maybe ten at the most.

Will couldn’t help it. He put his elbows on his knees and dropped his head in his hands. “You should’ve told me.” He could hear a distant voice in his head screaming at him to shut up. But he couldn’t. “You had no right to keep that from me.”

Amanda gave a heavy sigh. “Maybe I should have. Or maybe I was right to hold it back. If it’s the first one, I’m sorry. If it’s the second, then you can be mad at me later. I need you to talk this through with me. I need to figure out what is going on. If not for my sake, then for Faith’s.”

Her voice sounded as desperate as he felt. The day had utterly defeated her. Will couldn’t help it. As much as he hated her right now, he couldn’t be cruel.

And somewhere in all of this, the click happened. He hadn’t noticed it, but sometime during the last ten minutes, his anger had started to seep out, so that now when he thought about it, when he considered what Amanda had done about Sara, Will felt a festering anger rather than a burning hate.

He took a deep breath and slowly let it go as he sat back up. “Okay. We have to assume that all the dead guys worked in Julia Ling’s shop—some of them on the books, some of them off, all of them doing both sides of her business.”

“You think Ling-Ling sent Ricardo Ortiz to Sweden to pick up some heroin?”

“No, I think Ricardo got ahead of himself. I think he got all the young guys worked up, thinking they could take over Ling-Ling’s business. He took it on himself to go to Sweden.” Will looked at his watch. It was almost seven o’clock. “He was tortured, probably by Benny Choo.”

“Then why didn’t they just cut the drugs out of him and be done with it?”

“Because he told them that he knew where they could get more money.”

“Evelyn.”

“It’s what I said earlier.” He turned toward her. “Chuck Finn mentioned in one of his Healing Winds group sessions with Hironobu Kwon that his old boss was sitting on a pile of money. Cut to yesterday morning. Ricardo has a belly full of heroin and Benny Choo beating his ass. His friend Hironobu Kwon says he knows where they can get some cash to buy themselves out of the situation.” Will shrugged. “They go to Evelyn’s. Benny Choo tags along to keep them from doing a runner. Only, they can’t find the money, and Evelyn won’t give it up to them.”

“Perhaps they weren’t expecting to find Hector Ortiz there. Ricardo would recognize his father’s cousin.”

Will wanted to ask what Hector Ortiz was doing at Evelyn’s in the first place, but he didn’t want to make Amanda lie to him right now. “Ricardo Ortiz would know that killing Hector would bring some heat. He’s already turned his back on his own father by smuggling in the heroin. Ling-Ling is out for his blood because she’s found out that Ricardo turned on her, too. Ricardo’s gang can’t find the money in Evelyn’s house. She’s not talking. Ricardo has to see at this point that his life isn’t worth much. He’s packed full of balloons he can’t pass. He’s been beaten nearly to death. Benny Choo’s got a gun to his head.” Will ran through Faith’s statement about her confrontation with Choo and Ortiz. “Ricardo’s last word was ‘Almeja.’ That’s what Julia Ling called Evelyn, right? How would Ricardo know that?”

“I suppose if your theory holds that this all came from Chuck Finn, then that’s where he got it.”

“Why would Evelyn’s name be the last word on Ricardo’s lips?”

“It’s her street name. I’d be surprised if Ricardo knew her real one.” She explained, “It’s not just the bangers who give themselves nicknames. You work narcotics long enough, they come up with something street to call you by. Sometimes, that spills over into the squad. ‘Hip’ and ‘Hop’ were obviously shortened from their last names. Boyd Spivey was Sledge, as in hammer. Chuck Finn was called Fish, I suppose because they couldn’t remember the name for a lemming.” She smiled; another private joke. “Roger Ling took credit for coming up with ‘Almeja,’ which seemed curious at the time until we realized he doesn’t speak a bit of his parents’ language. Mandarin, in case you’re curious.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t work narcotics.”

“But they know you.”

“Wag,” she told him. “Short for Wagner.”

Will didn’t believe her. “Why did Roger Ling ask to speak with me?”

She gave a startled laugh. “You can’t really think that you’re the only man in this prison right now who despises me.”

There was a loud buzz and a clanging of gates opening and closing. Two guards came into the waiting room, followed by a younger man with Harry Potter spectacles and a floppy haircut to match. He was definitely not one of Amanda’s old gals. There were velvet patches on the elbows of his corduroy jacket. His tie was made of a knit cotton. His shirt had a stain over the pocket. He smelled of pancakes.

“Jimmy Kagan,” he said, shaking their hands. “I’m not sure what strings you pulled, Deputy Director, but this is the first time in my six years as warden here that I’ve been called back to work this late at night.”

Amanda had easily transitioned back to her old self. It was like seeing an actor slip into character. “I appreciate your cooperation, Warden Kagan. We all have to do our part.”

“I didn’t have much of a choice,” Kagan admitted, indicating the guards should open the door into the main prison. He led them down a long hallway at a fast clip. “I’m not going to disrupt my entire system no matter who you get on the phone. Agent Trent, you’ll have to go back into the cells. Ling has been in solitary for the last week. You can talk to him through the slot in the door. I’m sure you know the type of person you’re dealing with, but I’ll tell you straight up I wouldn’t be in the same room with Roger Ling if you held a gun to my head. I’m actually terrified that’s going to happen to me one day.”

Amanda raised an eyebrow at Will. “You make it sound as if the primates are running the zoo.”

Kagan gave her a look that said he thought she was either deluded or insane. He told Will, “At any given time in the U.S. penal system, at least half the inmate population have been diagnosed with some kind of mental illness.”

Will nodded. He’d heard the statistic before. All the prisons in the country combined bought more Prozac than any other single institution.

Kagan said, “Some of them are worse than others. Ling is worse than the worst. He should be in a mental ward. Locked down. Throw away the key.”

Another gate opened and closed.

Kagan listed the rules. “Don’t get close to the door. Don’t think you’re safe just because you’re an arm’s length away. This man is very resourceful, and he has a lot of time on his hands. The razor blade we found up his ass was wrapped in a hand-tied pouch Ling made from strings he pulled out of his bedsheets. It took him two months. He braided a Yellow Rebel star into it as some kind of joke. Must’ve dyed it with urine.”

Kagan stopped at yet another door and waited for it to open. “I have no idea how he got the razor blade. He’s in his cell twenty-three hours a day. His yard time is isolated—he’s the only one in the cage. He doesn’t have contact visits, and the guards are all terrified of him.” The door opened and he continued walking. “If it was up to me, I’d leave him to rot in the hole. But it’s not up to me. He’ll be confined another week unless he pulls something awful. And believe me, he is capable of the awful.”

The warden stopped at a set of metal doors. The first one clanged open and they went inside. “The last time we locked him in the hole, the guard who sent him there was attacked the next day. We never found the responsible party, but the man lost one of his eyes. It was plucked out by hand.”

The door behind them shut and the one in front of them banged open.

Kagan said, “We’ll have the cameras on you, Mr. Trent, but I have to warn you that our response time clocks in at sixty-one seconds, just over a minute. We can’t get it any tighter than that. I have a full raid team suited up and on standby if anything happens.” He patted Will on the back. “Good luck.”

There was a guard waiting to take Will through. The man looked filled with the kind of dread you’d see on a death row inmate’s face. It was like staring into a mirror.

Will turned to Amanda. He had broken his silence in the waiting room so that she could coach him on what to say to Roger Ling, but he just now realized she hadn’t offered any advice. “You want to help me here?”

She said, “Quid pro quo, Clarice. Don’t come back without some useful information.”

Will remembered again that he hated her.

The guard motioned him through. The door closed behind them. The man said, “Keep close to the walls. If you see something coming at you, cover your eyes and close your mouth. It’s probably shit.”

Will tried to walk as if his testicles hadn’t receded into his body. The lights were out in the cells, but the hall was well lit. The guard kept to the wall, away from the prisoners opposite. Will followed suit. He could feel a new set of eyes tracking him as he passed each cell. There was a skittering noise behind him as kites, tiny pieces of paper with strings attached to them, slid across the concrete floor in his wake. In his mind, Will listed out all the possible contraband in the cells. Shivs made from toothbrushes and combs. Blades fashioned from pieces of metal lifted out of the kitchen. Feces and urine mixed in a cup to create gas bombs. Threads from a sheet braided into a whip with razor blades tied at the ends.

Another set of double gates. The first one opened. They walked through. The first one closed. Seconds ticked by. The second set groaned open.

They came to a solid door with a piece of glass at eye level. The guard took out a heavy ring of keys and found the right one. He stuck it into a lock on the wall. There was a ka-thunk as a bolt opened. He turned around and looked at the camera overhead. They both waited until there was a responding click from the guard watching them in a remote viewing room. The door slid open.

Solitary confinement. The hole.

The hallway was about thirty feet deep and ten feet wide. Eight metal doors were on one side. A concrete block wall was on the other. The cells faced inside the prison, not out. There would be no windows. No fresh air. No sunlight. No hope.

As Kagan had pointed out, these men had nothing but time.

Unlike the rest of the prison, all of the overhead lights were on in solitary. The glow of fluorescent bulbs gave Will an instant headache. The hallway was warm and muggy. There was something like pressure in the air, a weighted, heavy feeling. He had the sensation of being in the middle of a field waiting for a tornado to hit.

“He’s in the last one,” the guard said. He kept to the wall again, his shoulder rubbing against the concrete block. Will could see the paint had been rubbed off from years of guards sliding their shoulders across. The doors opposite were bolted up tight. Each had a viewing window at the top, narrow, eye level, like at a speakeasy. There was a slit at the bottom for passing meals and tightening handcuffs. All of the doors and panels were secured with heavy bolts and rivets.

The guard stopped at the last door. He put his hand to Will’s chest and made sure his back was flat against the wall. “I don’t need to tell you to stay there, right, big guy?”

Will shook his head.

The man seemed to gather his courage before walking to the cell door. He wrapped his hand around the slide bolt that kept the viewing panel covered. “Mr. Ling, if I pull back this slat, are you going to give me any trouble?”

There was the muffled sound of laughter behind the door. Roger Ling had the same heavy southern accent as his sister. “I think you’re safe for now, Enrique.”

The guard was sweating. He gripped the bolt and pulled back, stepping out of the way so quickly that his shoes squeaked across the floor.

Will felt a bead of sweat roll down his neck. Roger Ling was obviously standing with his back pressed against the door. Will could see the side of his neck, the bottom of his ear, a hint of the orange prison garb that covered his shoulder. The lights were on inside, brighter than they were in the hallway. Will saw the rear of the cell, the edge of a mattress on the floor. The space was smaller than a normal cell, less than eight feet deep, probably four feet wide. There would be a toilet but nothing else. No chair. No table. Nothing to make you feel like a human being. The usual smells of a prison—sweat, urine, feces—were more pungent here. Will realized there was no screaming. Normally, a prison was as noisy as an elementary school, especially at night. The kites had done their job. The whole place had ground to a stop because Roger Ling had a visitor.

Will waited. He could hear his heart pumping, the sound of breath going in and out of his lungs.

Ling asked, “How’s Arnoldo doing?”

Julia Ling’s Chihuahua. Will cleared his throat. “He’s fine.”

“Is she letting him get fat? I told her not to let him get fat.”

“He seems …” Will struggled for an answer. “She’s not letting him starve.”

“Naldo’s a cool little dude,” Ling said. “I always say a Chihuahua is only as high strung as his owner. You agree with that?”

Will hadn’t given it much thought, but he said, “I guess that makes sense. Mine’s pretty laid back.”

“What’s her name again?”

There was a point to this after all. Ling was confirming that he was talking to the right man. “Betty.”

He had passed the test. “Good to meet you in person, Mr. Trent.” Ling shifted, and Will saw most of his neck. A tattoo of a dragon went up his vertebrae. The wings were spread across his shaved head. The eyes were bright yellow.

Ling said, “My sister’s pretty freaked out.”

“I can imagine.”

“Those little shits tried to kill her.” His voice was hard, exactly the kind of tone you’d expect from a man who’d mutilated and killed two women. “They wouldn’t be actin’ so tough if I wasn’t locked up in here. I’d be bringin’ them some pains in their brains. You feel me?”

Will looked at the guard. The man was tensed like a bulldog ready to fight. Or flee, which seemed the smarter option. Will thought about the raid team waiting, and wondered what Roger Ling could do in sixty-one seconds. A lot, probably.

Ling said, “You know why I asked to speak with you?”

Will was honest. “I have no idea.”

“ ’Cause I don’t trust nothin’ that bitch has to say.”

Obviously, he meant Amanda. “That’s probably smart.”

He laughed. Will listened to the sound echoing through the cell. There was no joy in the noise. It was chilling, almost maniacal. Will wondered if Ling’s victims had heard this laughter while they were being strangled to death with Arnoldo’s leash.

Ling said, “We gotta end this. Too much blood on the street is bad for business.”

“Tell me how to make that happen.”

“I got word from Ignatio. He understands Yellow isn’t behind this. He wants peace.”

Will wasn’t exactly a gang expert, but he doubted that the leader of Los Texicanos would turn the other cheek over his son being beaten and killed. He told Ling as much. “I would assume Mr. Ortiz wants vengeance.”

“Nah, man. No vengeance. Ricardo dug his own grave. Ignatio knows that. Make sure Faith knows that, too. She did what she had to do. Family is family, am I right?”

Will didn’t like this man knowing Faith’s name, and he sure as hell didn’t trust his assurances. Still, he said, “I’ll tell her.”

Ling echoed his sister’s words. “These young guys are crazy, man. Got no sense of the value of life. You bust your ass to make the world good for them. You give them brand new cars and send them to private schools, and the minute they’re on their own, pow, they turn around and pop you one.”

Will thought “pow” was a bit of an understatement, but he kept that thought to himself.

“Ricardo was at Westminster,” Ling said. “You know that?”

Will was familiar with the private school, which cost upwards of twenty-five thousand dollars a year. He also knew from Hironobu Kwon’s file that he’d attended Westminster on a math scholarship. So, another connection.

Ling said, “Ignatio thought he could buy his son a different life, but them spoiled rich kids got him hooked on Oxy.”

“Was Ricardo in rehab?”

“Shit, little dude lived in rehab.” He shifted again. Will could hear the material of his stiff orange shirt rub against the metal door. “You got kids?”

“No.”

“Not that you know of, right?” He laughed as if this was funny. “I got three. Two ex-wives always bitchin’ at me for money. I give it to ’em, though. They keep my boys in line, don’t let my daughter dress like no whore. Keep their noses clean.” His shoulder raised in a shrug. “What can you do, though? It’s in the blood sometimes. No matter how many times you show them the right way, they get to a certain age and they get ideas into their heads. They think maybe they don’t have to work their way up. They see what other people got and think they can just walk in and take it.”

Ling seemed to know a lot about Ignatio Ortiz’s parenting woes. Odd, especially considering the two were locked down in separate prisons that were almost an entire state away from each other. Boyd Spivey had been wrong. Yellow wasn’t making a play for Brown. Yellow was working for Brown.

Will said, “You have a business relationship with Mr. Ortiz.”

“That’s a fair statement.”

“Ignatio asked Julia to give his son a job on the legit side of the business.”

“It’s good for a young man to have a trade. And Ricardo took to it. He had an eye for the work. Most of ’em, they’re just putting together boxes, slapping on doors. Ricky was different. He was smart. Knew how to get the right people on the job. Could’ve run his own shop one day.”

Will started to understand. “Ricardo got a crew together—Hironobu Kwon and the others worked at your sister’s shop. Maybe they saw the money coming in from the less legitimate side of the business and thought that they deserved a bigger piece. Ortiz would never approve of some upstart gang taking a piece of the Los Texicanos pie, even if it was his own son.”

“Starting a business is harder than it looks, especially with a franchise. You gotta pay the fees.”

“You heard about Ricardo’s trip to Sweden.”

“Hell, everybody heard.” He chuckled as if it was funny. “Problem with being that age is you don’t know when to keep your mouth shut. Young, dumb, and full of come.”

“Your people talked to Ricardo about his trip.” Will didn’t say that they were probably torturing the young man during the discussion. “Ricardo mentioned that there might be a way to buy himself out of his problem.” Will imagined Ricardo would’ve been willing to trade his own mother by the time they were finished torturing him. “He told you that he could get his hands on some money. A lot of money. Almost a million dollars. Cash.”

“That sounds like a deal no businessman can say no to.”

Everything was lining up. Ricardo had taken his crew to Evelyn’s, where they met with a hell of a lot more resistance than they’d anticipated. They had killed Hector. Even if Amanda was right and Hector Ortiz was just a car salesman, there was no getting around that he was Ignatio Ortiz’s cousin. “Ricardo took them to Evelyn’s house to get the money. Only, they didn’t count on her fighting back. They took too many casualties. They had to regroup. And then Faith rolled up.”

Ling asked, “You heard this story before?”

Will kept talking. “They took Evelyn somewhere else to question her.”

“Sounds like a plan, man.”

“Only, she hasn’t given up the money. If she had, I wouldn’t be here.”

He laughed. “I don’t know about that, brother. You seem to be missing something in your story.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it.” Will was still at a loss.

“The only way you can kill a snake is to cut off its head.”

“Okay.” He still wasn’t following.

“Far as I can tell, that ol’ snake’s still out there twitchin’.”

“You mean Evelyn?”

“Shit, you think that old bitch could get a bunch of kids to follow her? Whore couldn’t even keep her own house in order.” He tsked his tongue the same way his sister had. “Nah, this is man’s work, bro. How do you think they got one over on my sister? Bitches don’t got the balls for this kind of work.”

Will wasn’t going to argue the point. Gangs were the ultimate boys’ club—more patriarchal than the Catholic Church. Julia Ling had only been in charge at her brother’s pleasure. Generals don’t go into battle. They send their pawns to the front lines. Hironobu Kwon was shot within minutes of breaching the house. Ricardo Ortiz had been left behind. Benny Choo had held a gun to his head. The man had been beaten. He was abandoned. He was expendable.

Someone else had tipped them off about Evelyn. Someone else was leading the gang.

Will said, “Chuck Finn.”

Ling laughed as if the name surprised him. “Chuckleberry Finn. I thought that brother would be dead by now. Fish sleeping with the fishes.”

“Is he behind this?”

Roger didn’t answer. “And old Sledge taken down, too. From what I hear, they did the brother a favor. Go out like a man instead of waiting to be put down like a dog. Can’t say some good ain’t come outta this.”

“Who’s behind—”

“Yo, this is over.” Roger Ling banged on the cell door. “Enrique, close it up.”

The guard started to slide back the panel. Will reached out to stop him. Like a snake striking, Ling’s hand snared out, clamping around Will’s wrist. He pulled so hard that Will’s shoulder slammed into the door. The side of his face was pressed against the cold metal surface. He felt hot breath on his ear. “You know why you’re here, bro?”

Will pulled back as hard as he could. He pushed with his leg, tried to brace his foot against the bottom of the door.

Ling’s grip was tight, but his voice implied effortlessness. “Tell Mandy that Evelyn’s gone.” His voice got lower. “Tap-tap. Two in the head. Ding-dong, Almeja is dead.”

Ling released him. Will fell backward, his shoulders banging into the concrete wall. His heart was going like a metronome. He looked back at the cell door. There was a squeal of metal sliding across metal. The viewing panel closed, but not before Will saw Roger Ling’s eyes. They were flat black, soulless. But there was something else there. A flash of triumph mixed in with bloodlust.

“When?” Will yelled. “When did it happen?”

Ling’s voice was muffled behind the door. “Tell Mandy to wear something pretty to the funeral. I always did like her in black.”

Will brushed himself off. As he walked up the corridor, he wondered which was worse: feeling Roger Ling’s hot breath on his neck or having to tell Amanda and Faith that Evelyn Mitchell was dead.