No way out

Chapter Sixty-nine

“Where’d they take Quinn?”

“That’s Quinn’s problem, not yours. Luis will take care of him. He’s a very safe driver.”

Mendez leaned against the front of the Lexus, his hands clasped below his belt, a casual pose, like a sleepy-eyed snake, letting me know that he held my life in his hands and didn’t much care whether I lived or died. Guys like him that held back always blew hotter when they finally cut loose. It wasn’t much different than what happened to me when I tried to contain the shakes except when I blew, I didn’t ice-pick, rape, or strangle anyone. I just fell apart.

“It’s your problem if you want any information from me.”

“Amigo, you’re the one who asked for this meeting.”

“And you said yes because you need me.”

He spat. “I don’t need you, and if I did, I’d take what I need and believe me, you wouldn’t turn me down.”

We’d skipped hello and gone straight to the pissing match. Two things were likely to happen if I didn’t change the conversation. The first was that I’d run out of piss. I was unarmed, alone, and holding a hand that was more bluff than high hole cards. The second was that I would come undone, shake, spasm, and crumble, getting nothing more for my trouble than a kick in the head. The first-round tremors, the little ones, were flickering through me like internal static electricity not yet rippling along the surface. I put my hands in my pockets, pressing down to anchor myself, my right hand bumping into the orange.

“You hungry?” I asked Mendez.

“What? Are you crazy, man? Asking me am I hungry.”

I pulled the orange out of my pocket, tossing it to him. “Just asking. You see, that orange is the solution to the problem you and I’ve got.”

He grabbed the orange with one hand, slamming it onto the hood of Quinn’s SUV, drew a knife, stabbed the orange, and dragged it across the hood, the blade gouging the paint, leaving the orange to wobble and ooze.

“You are the one with the problem, dragging my butt out here to play games.”

The flat thud of the orange being crushed against the hood together with the steel-on-steel screech of the knife scraping against the paint dropped the flag for the gremlins waiting to race through my body. I yelped like I was the one who’d been stabbed, my knees giving way, my upper body banging against the front grill of the SUV as I slid down against it, squatting on the ground, grasping the bumper to keep from falling over.

Mendez stepped back. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

I laughed, gasping. “That was Quinn’s orange, and he’s going to be really pissed off that you killed it.”

Two of his men grabbed me under my arms, hoisting me to my feet, letting go before my legs were ready to stand on their own, grabbing me again when I started to melt. Mendez stepped into me, clamping his hand around my throat, lifting my chin, starring down at me.

“I got no time to play games with you.”

I wrapped my hands around his wrist. “It’s not a game. I shake. I can’t help it.”

He tipped his head at the two men holding me up, all three letting me go at once, backing away as I squatted, folding over, my forehead touching the ground, my hands out in front of me like I should have been facing east.

“We’re out of here,” Mendez said.

I pushed myself up, grabbed the SUV’s bumper, then the grill, then the hood, leaning against the car, trying to catch my breath. Mendez was watching me from behind the Lexus’s open door.

“Hang on. I know about the guns.”

“What guns?” Mendez asked.

“The stolen guns you’re supposed to be smuggling to Nuestra Familia in Mexico.”

He came back slowly, reluctant to get too close, as if he might catch whatever I had-the one time ignorance of my disorder had worked to my advantage. He drew a gun, his outstretched arm bringing the barrel a foot from my face.

“I give you one chance to tell me what you got to tell me, or I make sure you don’t shake no more.”

I took deep breaths, trying to smooth out the tremors, holding one hand up, buying time, stuttering.

“Nuestra Familia sent you here. They need guns. You send them what they need.”

Mendez came closer, screwing the barrel of his gun under my chin. “You made a big mistake getting into my business.”

“You made a bigger mistake trusting Brett Staley. Now you can’t find him, but I can.”

He cocked his head to one side, easing back on the gun.

“Tell me where he is and you get to go home.”

I took another deep breath, my vocal cords relaxing, my legs holding steady, letting me stand straight. “First, we talk.”

“About what?”

“The guns.”

He waved his gun at me. “This is the only gun you need to know about.”

“Believe me, it’s got my full attention, but if anything happens to Quinn or me, you’re going to have the cops, the FBI, and the ATF climbing up your ass and coming out of your ears. Work with me and you may get some breathing room, make things right with the folks back home.”

His eyes opened wide, his brow popping up. “You’re full of shit.”

“I don’t think so. Five gun dealers have been robbed in the last three months. You were supposed to ship those guns to Mexico, but something went wrong and the guns are still in Kansas City, which can’t make Nuestra too happy. Whatever went wrong, Brett Staley is part of it. That’s why you’ve been trying to run him down, and that’s what got Eberto Garza killed. In the meantime, ATF is all over you.”

“What do you want?”

“Brett Staley.”

“Why?”

“I’m trying to protect a friend of mine, a woman. I can’t do that as long as Staley is on the street.”

“How do I know you aren’t working with ATF?”

“One of their agents, Braylon Jennings, tried leaning on me, but I don’t belong to anyone. He knows more about you than I do, and once Brett is taken care of, I never heard of you.”

“You saying you’d forget about the guns as long as your friend is okay?”

“I’m saying the woman is my problem, the guns are your problem, and Brett Staley is the solution to both our problems.”

He thought for a moment. “You got questions, ask me. Then you tell me where to find Brett Staley.”

“You do know him?”

He nodded.

“From his father’s grocery?”

Another nod.

“You sell him dope?”

He shrugged. “I know he gets high.”

“Did he ask you to hook up his cousin, Frank Crenshaw, with a gun?”

Mendez shook his head.

“Did Crenshaw come to you for the gun?”

He shook his head again.

I didn’t see any of the tics or twitches that Kate relied on as signs of deception. He was looking at me straight on, not ducking. His answers were all gestures except for one spoken reply that didn’t answer the question directly, making it hard to assess his honesty and even harder for me to testify against him.

“Did you sell or give the gun to Crenshaw?”

Mendez smiled, his lips closed. “No.”

“Then where did Crenshaw get the gun?”

“He stole it. Now where do I find Brett Staley?”

At first, I thought it was another non-answer, and then I realized he was telling me the truth, the whole truth. I ignored his question.

“Of course. You didn’t want to send your people to gun shows, especially in places where they’d stand out. That would’ve made it too easy for ATF to put you in the mix. Better to contract it out with guys who’d blend in, look like every other redneck with a confederate flag. But I’m guessing they didn’t deliver. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? You don’t have the guns. What happened? Did they want more money or get a better offer?”

“Brett Staley, where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

Mendez raised his gun an inch from my eye, preparing to squeeze the trigger. “Wrong answer.”