Illegal

EIGHTY-SEVEN

Rutledge didn't want to kill Javie, though he knew he could.

Just look at him. Stiff as a scarecrow. A death grip on his gun.

Rutledge would prefer to talk Javie down. Hell, he liked the boy. Always had. "Jesus, Javie. Haven't I treated you like my own son?"

That brought a rueful smile. "In school, the kids thought so. Told me I was your son."

"Bullshit. Not that I didn't wish it was true."

"I remember coming into Mami 's bedroom in the morning and finding you there."

"Only after your daddy died." Watching the barrel of the Glock.

Are your hands shaking, Javie?

"At the very end, in the hospital, she told me you'd been taking her to the barn long before that. Even before I was born. 'Me monto como un caballo.' Her exact words. 'He mounted me like a horse.' "

"The woman was on morphine, for Christ's sake."

"She didn't want to fuck you, but you let her know Papi wouldn't have a job otherwise."

"Not the way it happened." Rutledge thinking Javie would get off the first shot.

But you'll miss. Most gunshots do.

Keeping his eyes on Rutledge, Cardenas said, "Hey, Payne. Did mi tio ever tell you about his first fuck?"

"Yeah. Some girl in the barn with hands stained from picking grapes."

"He tell you her name?"

"Maria something. He couldn't remember her last name."

"Sure he could. My mother, Sim! You fucked my mother when she was just a kid."

Goddamn Maria, Rutledge thought.

Quiet all those years, then she opens up like she's confessing to Jesus.

"She couldn't turn down the boss's son, could she?" Cardenas taunted him. "Then you turned her over to your father. You're poison, Sim. A degenerate. You and your father and your grandfather. A family of sick, twisted bastards."

"Fuck you, Javie."

"Yeah. Fuck me for selling out. Fuck me for being a coward." Cardenas exhaled a long, sad breath and his eyes went dark, embers turning to ash. He looked toward the sluice pipe.

"My mother told me something else in the hospital," the chief said. "She told me what happened the night of the flood."

"She wasn't here. She can't know."

" Mami harangued Zaga about it for years. It took a lot of tequila to loosen his tongue."

"Jesus on the cross! Your father drowned in the flood. I saw it happen." Rutledge thinking he would have no choice.

I'm gonna have to kill you, Javie.

"Why not just admit it, Sim? After all this time, say it once before you die. Say it, goddammit!"

Rutledge kept his right hand poised above the big revolver. He hacked up a viscous wad of bloody snot and spat into the mud. The memories came flowing back, like hot lava down a steep slope.

"Not tonight, Javie," he whispered. "Not fucking tonight."