Illegal

SEVENTY-EIGHT

I must be dead, Payne thought.

If I'm not dead, why don't I feel any pain? Why don't I feel anything?

"Are you conscious, Jimmy? Can you hear me?"

Sweet voice. Quiet voice. Sharon's voice.

Yep. I'm dead.

He mustered all his effort to open his eyes. As easy as lifting a ten-ton truck by cranking a hand jack. But there she was, reddish-brown hair, honey-colored eyes looking down at him, filled with compassion and caring, and…

"You stupid bastard," Sharon said.

And maybe a tad of anger.

"Himmy, I knew you weren't dead."

Tino looking down at him, black hair falling into his green eyes.

"Hey, kid."

Where the hell am I?

Payne tried sitting up, felt a tugging, found a tube stuck into the back of his hand. An IV bag dangled from a cart. Putting two and two together and being decent at math, he figured he was in a hospital. If that weren't enough proof, the place smelled like laundry bleach.

"I told you not to come here," Sharon reminded him, in case he'd forgotten. "I knew something like this would happen."

"Why is everything always my fault?" he said.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe because you're reckless and self-destructive."

"Himmy's a good man," Tino said. "I trust him with my life."

"Thanks, kid. As soon as I get feeling back in my right arm, we'll play some catch." Payne's lips felt dry and thick.

"How'd I get here? How'd you get here?"

"You came by ambulance," Sharon said. "I came after the local police chief called me."

"Javier Cardenas?"

"He found my card in your wallet. Asked if I knew who would do this to you."

"And you said…?"

" 'Lots of people.' "

Payne's laugh was a pitiful wheeze. "Cardenas knows who did it. Rutledge must have called him to scrape me off the ground. His way of saying, 'Don't bother filing charges.' "

"Simeon Rutledge did this?" Sounding suspicious.

"I'll kill the pendejo, " Tino said.

"Calm down, Ace," Payne cautioned. He gripped the bed railing, struggled again to sit up. The room whirled, and he sank back into the pillows.

Sharon adjusted the IV tube, which had twisted itself around Payne's forearm. He winced, thinking of the bullwhip.

"You're supposed to rest," she said.

"Screw that. There's something I gotta do." He looked toward Tino. "I think I know how to find your mother."

"You mean it?"

"I thought of it when I was getting the shit kicked out of me. Or maybe when I was unconscious. I don't know exactly. But I've got a plan."

The boy's eyes glistened with hope.

Sharon cocked her head, her skeptical look.

"Trust me, Sharon," Payne said. "Marisol's here. Somewhere close. But she's in trouble."

"Atticus, you sound like one of those palm readers. What's going on?"

"I need to get out of here. There's something I gotta do."

"You've got a concussion. You're on painkillers. The doctor wants to keep you overnight for observation."

"I don't want to be observed." Payne glanced toward the window. A pink glow of sunset. The last he remembered, it was breakfast time, and he was getting his ass whomped. As soon as the room stopped spinning, he intended to get out of bed.

"Sharon, I need you to take care of Tino tonight."

"What do you think you're going to do?"

"Gonna need your gun, too."

"Not unless you pry it from my cold, dead, out-of-ajob fingers."

"Listen to me for a second. Rutledge offered me two hundred grand to go away."

"A bribe?" Her accusing look, little vertical lines creasing the middle of her forehead. "Are you sure?"

"I didn't get it in writing, but yeah, I'm sure." He swung both legs out of the bed.

"Dammit, Jimmy!" Sharon blocked him from standing.

"What's your plan, Himmy?" Tino's face taking on the character of a man. Worry weighing on him, the mortgage of adulthood.

"Rutledge didn't offer me money for the hell of it. He knows where your mother is."

"How do we make him tell us?"

"We can't, kiddo. But I can get him to lead me to her."

"?Como?"

"Rutledge is the king of the county. His whole adult life, he's been in control of everything around him. I can knock him off balance. Make him lose that cowboy calm of his."

"What are you talking about?" Sharon asked.

"I'm gonna hit him right in his weak spot."

"Which is what?" she demanded.

"His pride. His sense of tradition passed down from grandfather to father to son."

"That's pretty damn vague, Atticus."

"You ever know a man who loves some old trees so much he thinks of them as his children?"

"No."

"I do," Jimmy said, getting to his feet. "And I know how to hurt him in a way nobody ever has."