No way out

Chapter Seventy

Headlights appeared at the top of the hill, a car rolling our way, one of Mendez’s men trotting toward it, looking back at him.

“It’s Luis-he’s here.”

The car followed an arc, stopping when it was perpendicular to the driver’s side of Quinn’s SUV, engine off, high-beams washing over us. Luis stepped out, clinging to the frame of the open door.

“Kill the lights,” Mendez said.

Luis ignored him, stumbling toward us, cradling his left arm with his right, his head down.

Mendez lowered his gun, turning toward him, shouting. “What’s the matter? Are you deaf? I said kill the fucking lights!”

Luis didn’t answer, falling to his knees, then flattening out on the ground. Mendez and the two men who’d been holding me up rushed to his side, the driver of the Lexus hesitating, holding back, his gun aimed at me. The rear door on the driver’s side of Luis’s car opened. It was Quinn. The driver of the Lexus followed my eyes and saw him, ignoring me, yelling, and taking aim.

I hit the driver in the throat with my elbow, folding him in half, hitting him again, this time on the back of his neck, dropping him to the pavement, a kick to the head putting him out. I grabbed his gun as Quinn drew down on Mendez and the others.

“On the ground, on your face and spread out,” I said.

Quinn retrieved his canvas bag from the SUV, sifting through the contents for plastic handcuffs, binding each of them and emptying their pockets. He scooped up their guns, cell phones, and car keys, throwing them over the chain-link fence protecting the abandoned steel mill while I gathered our guns.

“What about the other two?” I asked Quinn, “the guy who was in the car with you and the one at the top of the hill.”

“They’re resting uncomfortably.”

I handed him the orange with the knife still embedded in it.

“Mendez didn’t want this after all.”

Lying on the pavement, Mendez shouted at us. “You’re dead men, both of you!”

Quinn walked over to him, pulled his hair, raising his head, and crammed the orange in his mouth. “Not today, amigo.”

“So all that win-win, expand-the-pie bullshit,” I asked Quinn as we left Mendez behind, “is that just bullshit?”

“The basic principles apply across the board, but the board is a big place. Works great with two neighbors fighting over whose dog barks louder, but not so well with gun-running drug dealers used to getting their way the hard way. Mendez didn’t give it a chance, so we had to use a zero-sum strategy he understands. I hope you got what you came for.”

“All that and more. Mendez didn’t steal the guns. That was Frank Crenshaw, Nick Staley, and Jimmy Martin. Brett Staley had to have been part of it. They were supposed to sell the guns to Mendez, but something went wrong, the deal didn’t go through.”

“Maybe they got greedy and wanted more money,” Quinn said.

“That, or maybe they found another customer and decided to let the market set the price. Nuestra Familia isn’t the only cartel buying guns north of the border.”

“So Mendez or his competition upped the ante, killing Crenshaw and Nick Staley and going after Jimmy Martin.”

“Probably to convince them to sell at the right price. And, right about now, I’d say that the best offer Brett Staley is going to get is his life for those guns.”

“That will be the last deal he makes,” Quinn said. “No way do they leave him alive after taking out the others. And that means Jimmy Martin is doing time on borrowed time. But why kill Eberto Garza?”

“Eberto Garza was an accident, a victim of friendly fire if it was Mendez or mistaken identity if it was someone else.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. All I do know is that Brett Staley is the key now. He’s on the run, and I’m not the only one chasing him.”

Quinn nodded. “Where do you want me to drop you?”

“Had enough?”

“I told Kate Scranton I’d get you to a meeting with Mendez and bring you back in one piece. It wasn’t pretty, but I did my thing.”

“I envy you.”

“Why?”

“You know when to quit.”

“In my business, that’s the name of the game.”

“You ever look back, wonder if you should have stuck around or ask yourself if there was something else you could have done?”

Quinn shook his head. “That’s the difference between you and me. You’re a crusader, and I’m a mercenary. You have to feel that way, or you don’t have a reason to get out of bed in the morning. But that’s a luxury I can’t afford.”

“Understood. You can drop me at Roni Chase’s house.”

“What are you going to do if she stiff-arms you again?”

“Offer her an orange.”

Quinn’s cell phone rang when we pulled up to Roni’s house. He answered and handed me the phone.

“Are you okay?” Kate asked.

“Never better.”

“I tried calling you on the phone Simon gave you, but you didn’t answer.”

I checked the phone. “Dead battery.”

“Lucy has been trying to reach you too.”

“Tell her I’m fine, and tell her I’m getting close.”

“You should call Joy. She’s worried.”

“You talked to her?”

Kate hesitated. “She called Lucy when she couldn’t reach you. Lucy told her about Quinn. She called to thank me for making sure you didn’t go after Mendez alone.”

“Call her back, tell her I’m okay, that Quinn’s taking good care of me, and that I’ll be home late.”

“It would be better if you called her.”

“I don’t want to lie to her,” I said and hung up.

I shook Quinn’s hand, thanked him, and got out of the SUV, watching from the curb as he drove away. He jolted to a stop halfway down the block, brake lights flashing, backing up to where he’d left me, his window down.

“One man’s trash,” he said, handing me the wastebasket I’d taken from Roni’s office.

“I hope is another man’s treasure.”

I turned on my cell phone. Joy had left me a text message asking if I was okay. I answered, telling her that I loved her. The superintendent at the Farm had also sent me a text message with the names of people who had visited Jimmy Martin, one name raising more questions than it answered.

The front porch light was on. I did a quick sort through the contents of the wastebasket, most of which was mail addressed to Roni and her clients. A collection agency was threatening to file suit against her grandmother, who guaranteed payment of her mother’s medical bills. The county sent her a notice of a tax lien that had been filed against the house. There were complaints and demands for a host of other creditors for amounts long since past due.

The mail was no different for her clients, most of them up against the same wall. There was one piece of mail different from all the others. It was a monthly statement showing an account that had been paid on time and in full by a client who couldn’t, reminding me again not to confuse the improbable with the impossible.

I rang the doorbell and waited, grabbing the heavy brass knocker on the front door and pounding it against the hard oak when no one answered. Lillian Chase opened it long moments later.

“Where’s Roni?”

“Out. She didn’t say where.”

“I need to borrow your car.”