Heartshot

Chapter 9

Meeting Fernandez had set me on edge. I was as wide-eyed as one of those lemurs you see in picture books about the jungle. Any notion that this night might be one with six or eight hours of sleep was just that…a notion. The road down the hill was empty. The night neckers had gone elsewhere. About five miles north of town, I jogged west on State 78. A housing development of new ranch styles sprawled up the side of the mesa. Most of them had “For Sale” signs in front, and a few looked pretty ragged. The mine and mill closing had caught many developers overbuilding. Maybe drug trafficking was the new industry, I thought as I followed the road up the mesa until it topped out by the airport. With headlights off, I drove along a hundred yards of fencing and passed the airport parking area and an apron access gate for pedestrians. The main gate that led to the hangars was wide open. That was normally the case during the daytime when the airport manager, Jim Bergin, was on the premises. But at midnight or after, it was a little unusual unless some charter flight had just come in.

I drove through the gate and saw that the big padlock was hooked loosely through the chain link above the gate latch. Farther on, one arc light blazed, casting hard shadows around the hangars. Light streamed out from one, and I drove over. Bathed in the harsh fluorescent wash from overhead was a pretty tan-and-white Cessna. Its cowl was off, and from an open door on the passenger side a leg and foot projected. As I stopped the car, Jim Bergin pulled himself up far enough so he could see my car, and then he untangled his long frame from the innards of the airplane. I got out and walked over. My left hand groped automatically at the cigarette pack in my shirt pocket.

“Don’t smoke in here,” Jim said immediately. In mock threat, he waved what looked like wire nippers.

I laughed. “You know me pretty well, Jim. How you doin’?” I patted the pocket flap back in place, fighting that strange reflex that smokers have when they’re meeting someone and about to talk. I saw the pan of oil under the plane’s nose and the neat cans of Aeroshell lined up on the floor.

“I’m tired and cranky and tryin’ to keep the customers happy. How about yourself?” Bergin said.

I glanced at my watch. It was twelve forty-six. “Damn picky customers to make a man work this late.”

Bergin offered one of his easy smiles. “Nah. There’s a big bird coming in to pick up about five tons of milling parts from Consolidated. Maybe you saw the truck over on the north side of the parking lot?” I shook my head and Bergin added, “Their plane blew a tire in Pueblo, and that, plus thunderboomers, puts them about five hours late.” He glanced at his watch. “So I figure about three o’clock.”

“And you get stuck waiting for them, huh?” I ran a hand over the smooth alloy of the Cessna’s prop.

Bergin shrugged and wiped his hands on a clean rag. “They want a fast turnaround and fuel. I’ll help get them squared away and sell ’em a few hundred gallons of fuel besides. Hell, might as well make a dime. I don’t have anything else to do.” He grinned. “Corporate schedules assume people are not mortal, you know. What are you sniffin’ around after?”

“Just out, Jim. Swung by here and saw a light. Whose plane is this, anyway?”

“Doc Sprague’s.”

“No shit?” I thumped the end of the spinner. “I didn’t think he was still flying.”

“Oh, yeah. He quit for a little while. About the time his daughter died. Just as well. A man’s got to keep his mind on business up in the air. He just wasn’t in any shape. But he picked it up again about eight months ago. In fact, he just bought this bird in June.”

“Bunch of moola.”

“You’d better believe it.”

I walked around and looked inside at the fancy fabric and all the dials, knobs, and levers. “Wow.” There was a messy hole in the middle of the dash, though, where Bergin had obviously been working. “Something break?”

“Putting in a new radio. He’s got to have the best, you know. I figured I might as well change the oil while I was working and waiting for the charter. It’s due.”

I muttered some pleasantry in agreement and looked back along the fuselage.

“You seen anything of the government yet?” Bergin looked quizzical, and I added, “The DEA is going to be running a plane out of here.”

“That’s good news,” Bergin said, and flapped his eyebrows. “There’s nothing like government credit cards to boost gas sales. I hope they use a helicopter, and not some gas-sippin’ bird. They’re going to push the border again, huh?”

“Yup.”

“I wish ’em all the luck. But unless they can cover the whole thing twenty-four hours a day, it isn’t going to do much good. What are they flying, do you know?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know anything about it. Just that they’re coming.”

Bergin nodded. “Probably bringing in one of their mix-masters. Complete waste.” He shook his head sadly. “You know, if they’d go down into Mexico and bribe the right people, they’d probably be provided with a flight plan for each drug runner. But what the hell.” He waved the wire cutter in disgust, then grinned again. “At two dollars and nine cents a gallon for av-gas, I hope they work the border for about six months. Then I can retire.”

I was about to say something when I heard a car blasting down the state road past the airport. It caught my attention because the sound was that of a big engine being pushed until it howled. About the time I half-turned to look outside toward the road, we saw the flash of red lights. It was a county car, and flying low.

“Your boys are hotdogging it,” Bergin observed dryly.

“Young blood, eager beavers,” I replied. The door of 310 was closed, and I hadn’t bothered to put the radio on PA. “I better go give a listen.”

“Take care.” Bergin went back inside the airplane and I walked out to the car. He called after me, voice muffled, “There’s coffee if you want it.” I waved a hand and then pulled open the door. The night air instantly was filled with radio traffic.

“Three-oh-eight, what’s your ETA?” The voice was shaky, and I recognized it as one of the village part-timers.

“Posadas, three-oh-eight is six minutes out.” It had been Torrez who flashed by.

I was already in gear when Gayle Sedillos came on the air, finding Deputy Bishop as well. “Three-oh-seven, ten-forty-nine Posadas Village Park code three. Three-ten, PCS.”

I keyed the mike as I swerved around the hangar and out the gate. “Three-ten.”

“Three-ten, ten-forty-nine Posadas Village Park code three. Ten-seventy-one.”

“Ten-four. ETA seven minutes.” Every muscle in my body was steel-tight. The innocent numbers Gayle enunciated so clearly on the air meant that somebody had just put bullets into somebody else…and maybe was ready to continue doing so.

I concentrated on driving, nervous because I knew Bob Torrez would arrive at the park first. The part-timer wouldn’t provide much backup. His chief, Dan Martinez, wouldn’t either, since he was off on a week’s vacation. I reached the intersection of State 78 and County 43 and swept down the yield ramp at close to eighty miles an hour. There were three miles of straight paved road to the outskirts of Posadas, and after the first one, 310 felt light on its toes. I didn’t bother to look at the speedometer.

The village park was a triangular affair of two acres, grass and swing sets and a statue or two. It even sported a welded-up, World War I vintage tank-supposedly left over from Pershing’s fruitless dashes across the border after the outlaw Pancho Villa. If Pershing had used that tank in hot pursuit, it’s amazing Villa hadn’t laughed himself to death. The tank faced Pershing Street, and that’s where I saw Torrez’s car, parked diagonally in the street, lights flashing. Beyond was the village car, headlights askew. Pulling in from the other direction was a state police cruiser, no toplight bar but the grille lights pulsating. I skidded 310 to a stop altogether too close to 308. A crowd of people were gathered over on the grass about thirty yards behind the tank. I saw Torrez push someone hard, and the deputy gesticulated toward the village car.

Only after I had gotten out and was trotting across the grass did I recognize the man Torrez had pushed as the village cop. He ran past me, eyes wide. “Ambulance,” he yelped, and sprinted on.

I reached the first knot of people, folks from nearby houses and the rapidly gathering cars. “Move it, move it,” I snapped, and shoved through. The victim was lying on his face, but I recognized him immediately. My gut wound itself into a painful ball. The Beretta was in the grass, under the victim’s left shin. Benny Fernandez didn’t need an ambulance.

I stood up. “Now I want you people back. Way back,” I shouted. The state trooper didn’t hesitate to cooperate. He was five times bigger than me, and probably twice as mean. Crowd control was his thing, and he pitched in. I let him work, because Bob Torrez had me by the sleeve.

“Sheriff, over here,” he said. I turned quickly and almost fell, suddenly and violently dizzy. I stopped in my tracks and took a deep breath, waiting for my eyes to clear. The night air hadn’t felt so close and stuffy before.

“Who’d Fernandez tangle with?” I managed, but Torrez just pulled me along. I recognized one of the paramedics from the fire department, crouched and working furiously. He was off duty, and didn’t have much to work with. Just as intent, and obviously in charge, was Dr. Harlan Sprague, Jr. I recognized first his unruly white hair. His face, unevenly illuminated by the bright sodium vapor lights of the park, was soft and puffy, like that of a man just jerked out of bed. I couldn’t see much of the victim at first, but then I saw the ankle holster, and tasted the bile that welled up in my throat as I bent over.

“Ah, no,” was all I managed to say. Art Hewitt lay on his back, arms outflung. By his right hand was the stubby Magnum.

“Where the hell is that ambulance?” the paramedic muttered. “There ain’t a thing we can do until he gets here.” In the distance, we could hear another siren building.

“How is he?” I said, dropping to my knees beside Sprague.

“His pulse is good. Breathing is ragged. There’s no way of knowing where the bullet went. But I think he’ll be all right.” He was holding a pad made from Hewitt’s own T-shirt against the young officer’s right flank. “He’s conscious.”

Hewitt’s features were rigid, and his eyes were staring wildly up into the night, shifting first one way and then another as if he were searching the heavens for an answer. “Art?” He looked over at me, obviously having trouble focusing his eyes. “Art, what the hell happened?”

He wet his lips and swallowed hard. “Damned if I know,” he whispered. “I was talking with some kids and…and…”

“And what?” The ambulance screamed up to the curb. “And what, Art?”

“He was talkin’ with some guy over by the corner.”

“Who was talking? Fernandez?”

Art Hewitt nodded slightly and swallowed hard. “And then he just came over and jumped me.”

“Jumped you? You mean he threatened you with the gun?”

“No. He just…he just charged me, pushed me real hard. I tripped and fell backward.”

Footsteps pounded toward us, and I looked up. The ambulance crew was sprinting across the grass. I put a hand on Hewitt’s shoulder. “They’ll get you fixed up, Art. Just lie easy.”

“I’ll be okay, Gramps.”

Sprague, an internist by training, and far from being a trauma specialist, stood aside and let the well-equipped EMTs take over.

I moved to give them room to work and gasped aloud, so vicious was the combination of pain and pressure that suddenly and relentlessly clamped me in a vice. “Holy shit,” I breathed, and stood bent over with my hands on my knees.

“Are you all right?” It was Sprague.

“I think so,” I said, slowly straightening up. Air came a little easier and the pain subsided. “Too much running around.”

Dr. Sprague’s eyes narrowed as he looked closely at me. “Chest pain? Pressure?”

Everything was coming back to normal, and I knew that if I answered the doc truthfully, there’d be complications that I couldn’t afford just then. “No. Just a little dizzy. I’m all right.”

Sprague had me by the wrist, and it was only after a few seconds that I realized he had been expertly but unobtrusively taking my pulse. I pulled away. “I’m all right.” They were loading Art Hewitt into the ambulance. “I need to get to the hospital.”

“Probably for more reasons than you think,” Sprague said dryly. “Who’s your doctor?”

I looked at him impatiently. “None,” I said truthfully. I had been ill so rarely that I had never seen the need for a regular physician.

“Find one,” he said cryptically. “If you make it through this night, find one. I mean it.”

I nodded and said, “Sure. And I’m going to need to talk to you. You saw this?” I nodded at the flattened spot in the grass. Even as we talked, a second unit arrived and Fernandez’s corpse, covered with the usual white sheet, was loaded.

“No. I heard the shots. That’s all. As you know, I live just over there.” He indicated a row of town houses that had been built on the east side of the park. “I didn’t even have time to put together something for my bag. I haven’t been in active practice for some time.”

“All right. We’ll want a statement.”

“Certainly.”

I saw that Bob Torrez and the village part-timer were working the other eyewitnesses. I left Sprague and joined them. In the next few minutes, Estelle Reyes arrived, as did Howard Bishop. “I want statements from every living soul within a block of this park,” I snapped at Reyes. I could see, even in the vague light of the park’s sodium vapors, that her face was pale.

“How is he?” she asked, and I shrugged helplessly.

“I’m going on down to the hospital. I’ll call Holman and tell him to get his ass out of bed.”

“He’s already on his way down,” Estelle Reyes said, almost in a whisper.

“Fine,” I said. “Take this place apart. I mean it. I’ll be back to help just as soon as I can.”

I strode across the grass toward my car. But what I’d told Estelle Reyes wasn’t true. It wasn’t fine. I had the goddamned feeling that absolutely nothing was under control.