Accustomed to the Dark (23 page)

For a few moments, when I returned to the car, I considered driving down to the French Quarter to lose myself in the taste of Sazeracs and the sound of jazz, in the excited mindless press of tourist flesh.

But it would've seemed too much like a celebration, and I had nothing at all to celebrate. So I drove out Tulane until it became Airline Highway. It was a seedy area, rundown hotels, young women in short skirts and halters prowling the sidewalks. Cheerleaders, maybe.

I bought myself a take-away poor boy shrimp sandwich and another bottle of Jack Daniel's, found myself another hotel room, and I crawled into bed. I called the police, talked to a Lieutenant Hanson. He confirmed everything that Mr. Carter had told me.

I dialed New Mexico information, got the number for Mrs. Rudolph in Las Vegas, dialed that. She had already heard the news.

“I'm sorry,” I told her.

“It's just such an awful
waste
,” she said. “This never should have
happened
.”

“I know.”

“It said in the newspaper that your friend, Mrs. Mondragón, that she's still in a coma. Will she be all right, do you know?”

“I hope so.”

“So do I, Mr. Croft. And I thank you for calling me.”

“You're welcome.”

We said our good-byes.

So it was over.

Or was it?

The police were happy. They were satisfied with their identification of Martinez and Lucero.

But I was uneasy. It seemed a bit too pat. The identification really rested upon two things—the word of the witness, Harper, and that single pinkie finger.

Would Lucero cut off his own finger?

Maybe, if it would get the police off his back.

Or maybe I was being paranoid. Maybe I just didn't want them to be dead. Not, at any rate, as the result of an accident.

And Harper, after all,
had
seen the two of them in the car, before it smashed into the tanker truck.…

I could worry about it later. I was too tired to think about it now.

I ate half the sandwich, drank half my drink, and I collapsed. It was about five in the afternoon.

The chirping of the telephone woke me at eight in the morning. Automatically, yesterday, I had brought the phone into the bed with me.

I found it amid the covers, flipped it open. “Yeah?”

“This Joshua Croft?”

“Yeah.”

“This is Dick Jepson, in Miami.”

“Who?”

“Dick Jepson. In Miami? Ed Norman asked me to look around for Luiz Lucero. Teddy Chartoff talked to you.”

“Right, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm a little rocky this morning.”

“Forget it. Listen. I've got a definite spotting on Lucero.”

I sat up. “What?”

“Lucero was seen last night, here in Miami.”

“You know that he's supposed to be dead.”

“Yeah. I read the newspapers. But I've got a definite spotting on him last night. From a reliable source.”

“You're certain?”

“Would I be calling you if I wasn't?”

“
Jesus
.”

“He's left town, him and the other one—”

“Martinez.”

“—but I'll know more in a day or two. I'll call you. Where'll you be?”

“I'll be there,” I said.

24

O
NCE AGAIN,
I couldn't get an immediate seat on any of the airlines.

I think I would've driven anyway. By then I had become accustomed to my own Dark. Sitting in the car, sharing the bitter solitude with only my memories, that was one kind of aloneness, and it was one I had come to accept. Standing in a line at an airport, or sitting cramped into the narrow tube of an airplane, surrounded by people giddy with excitement at the prospect of old friends or new adventures, that was another kind. And it was one I wanted to avoid. One I didn't think I could handle.

So I drove. I left New Orleans at nine o'clock, and took I-10 over the waters of Lake Ponchartrain, broad and flat and gray. By eleven I was passing signs for Biloxi. By one I was crossing Mobile Bay. Forty-five minutes later I was in Florida.

I explained it all to Rita.

“
Obviously,” I said, “they faked it. The accident
.”

She nodded. “If Dick Jepson's ‘reliable source' is in fact reliable
.”

“
Jepson's convinced
.”

“
You don't know Jepson
.”

“
Ed Norman says he's good
.”

“
If they faked it,” she said, “the witness, Mr. Harper, had to be part of it
.”

“
Of course he was. He got paid for his testimony. And for parking the tanker there. The other guy, the guy at the gas station, he was probably on the level. They stopped there for gas so he could corroborate Harper's story
.”

“
What about the money the police found? What about the finger?
”

“
Sacrifices. They had three or four times the twenty thousand
.”

“
And the finger, Joshua? You're saying that Lucero cut off his own finger?
”

“
Or had it done for him. Under anesthesia, maybe. If the FBI and every cop in the country was on your back, wouldn't you give up a finger to get out from under?
”

“
What about Sylvia Miller?
”

“
Another sacrifice. To sweeten the story. They didn't need her anymore. They already had the money
.”

“
How did they fake her injuries?
”

“
I don't know, Rita
.”

“
And whose were the other bodies in the car?
”

“
Junkies, mules. Lucero's in the drug business. It probably wasn't hard for him to locate a couple of disposable people. Martinez called me, Rita. The day before he supposedly died in that accident. I think he wanted to get in a shot at me, and he knew that he wouldn't have another chance. He knew that he'd be ‘dead' the next day
.”

“
But it's all so terribly thin
.”

“
It's all I've got
.”

“
Joshua, I think you should come back. Before something happens to me
.”

“
Nothing's going to happen to you
.”

I was about an hour past Pensacola. Green pine forest rose up on either side of the Interstate, the tree trunks tall and slender, the flat earth brown with needles beneath them. The telephone rang.

“Yes?”

“Joshua, it's Leroy.” His voice was urgent. “Look, you've gotta get back here, man.”

“Wait.”

I braked, pulled the Cherokee over to the shoulder. An angry horn blared as a car whizzed by me. “What is it?” I said. “Rita?”

“She's bad, man. It looks like she's got some kind of infection. Her temperature's way up there, man. They're afraid it might be meningitis.”

“What are they doing? The doctors?”

“
Shit
, man, I don't know.”

“You have her doctor's phone number? The surgeon. What's-his-name—Berger?”

“Yeah, wait a minute. Okay, here.” He read it to me.

“I'll call you right back.”

“Joshua, you really should
get
here, man.”

“I'll call you right back, Leroy.”

I dialed the doctor's number, reached his secretary. I told her who I was. She asked me to hold. I listened to Muzak for five minutes.

He finally picked up the phone. “Good afternoon, Mr. Croft. What can I do for you?”

“You can tell me what's happening to Mrs. Mondragón.”

“Mrs. Mondragón is running a temperature, and her white blood cell count is higher than we'd like it to be. There's the possibility of an infection. We've taken cultures. We expect to hear from the laboratory within forty-eight hours.”

“That's two days.”

“I'm aware of that.”

“What could be causing the infection?”

“Until we get the lab results, we don't know that there
is
an infection. If there is, it could be any of a number of things.”

“Meningitis?”

“Cerebral meningitis is one possibility, yes. But, as I say, we won't know for another two days.”

“And if she has meningitis?”

“Then we have a different scenario here. But, as I told you earlier, Mr. Croft, I have every expectation that Mrs. Mondragón will recover. She's going through a crisis at the moment, yes. There is cause for concern, yes. But it's a rare brain injury that doesn't pass through some sort of crisis.”

“She hasn't regained consciousness?”

“No. Not as yet.”

“And she won't, either, if she dies.”

“We're doing everything we can, Mr. Croft. Mrs. Mondragón is a strong, healthy woman. She's fighting this. Despite the setback, I have every reason for confidence.”

“Yeah. All right, doctor. Thank you.”

I didn't know whether his confidence was real, whether it was a product of his own egotism, or whether it was a sham, designed to placate and dismiss petty annoyances like me.

I did know that even if I were in Santa Fe, there was nothing I could do to help Rita.

I dialed Leroy's number.

He picked it up on the first ring. “Yeah?”

“Leroy, I just talked to the doctor. He thinks she's going to pull through.”

“Man, that guy is an
asshole
. He's just sayin' that to stop you from bugging him. Joshua, you really gotta get here. She'd want you here, man. Where're you now? Can you catch a plane?”

“Leroy, I've got a line on Martinez and—”

“What're you
talking
about, man? Martinez and Lucero, they're
dead
. You didn't hear? They were
roasted
, man, in New Orleans. They're
pork chops
.”

“I heard. It was a fake, Leroy. They're still alive. They were spotted in Miami.”

There was a pause. “But …”

“I'm in Florida now,” I said. “I'm going after them.”

“But they were
identified
, man. It was in all the papers. It was on the TV.”

“They set it up. They were seen in Miami yesterday.”

“Where're you getting that from? Who saw them?”

“They were seen. I'm going after them. Leroy, I'll call you later. You call me if anything happens.”

Another pause. Then, surly, he said, “Anything happens, man, it'll be Rita dying.”

“I'll call you, Leroy.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Right.” He hung up.

I closed the phone and set it on the passenger seat. I took a deep breath, let it slowly out.

The cops had stopped looking for Martinez and Lucero. If I didn't find them, no one would.

And there was nothing I could do in Santa Fe.

I checked the rearview mirror, pulled out onto the highway.

I was doing the right thing, I told myself. I told it to myself several times.

About fifteen minutes later, Hector called. “What's this crap about Martinez and Lucero?”

“You talked to Leroy.”

“He called me. Josh, they're dead. They were positively ID'ed, all three of them. The money's been recovered.”

“
Some
of the money. They had at least seventy or eighty thousand dollars, that we know of. Hector, I saw a video of those bodies. They could've been anyone.”

“There were fingerprints—”

“There was
one
fingerprint. Off a finger that just happened not to get burned.”

“You
want
them to be alive. You want to keep tracking them, you want revenge. So you're refusing to accept the facts. Give it up, Josh. Get back here. Rita's in a bad way.”

“There's nothing I can do for her, Hector, except what I'm doing.”

“You're not doing that for her, goddamit. You're doing it for yourself.”

“Doesn't matter. I'm doing it.”

He was silent for a moment. Then he said softly, “You do it, then. You do what you want. I'm going to the hospital.”

And, like Leroy, he hung up.

A car raced by me, and then another.

I was doing the right thing, I told myself. But I flicked the switch that turned off the power to the telephone.

At five-thirty I was coming up on Tallahassee. I took the first exit available, eased the Cherokee into the first gas station I found. Stiff and sore, moving like a robot, I filled the tank.

I climbed back into the car and turned the phone back on, flipped it open. Jepson, in Miami, had given me both his office and his home number. Too late for him to be at the office. I dialed his home.

He was there. “I've been trying to get ahold of you all day,” he told me. “I left a message with Ted Chartoff in Dallas.”

“The phone was off. You have anything?”

“I do. I got this from a guy works for the Ortega family. They're the people Lucero used to work for, here in—”

“Yeah, I know. What've you got?”

He paused. People were pausing a lot lately when they talked to me. “The information was expensive,” he said.

“You can send me a bill.”

Another pause. “I'll do that,” he said, and his voice had grown cooler. “All right, according to my guy, Lucero and Martinez are hiding out in the Glades. Off the Tamiami Trail, near a place called Harmony Station. You know where that is?”

“No idea.”

“Where are you now?”

“Tallahassee.”

“You want the cops in on this? They still think that Lucero and Martinez are dead.”

“You think we can persuade them otherwise?”

“I don't know. Maybe. But I can't give up my source.”

I was still angry at Hector. “Doesn't matter,” I said. “I want those two myself. You're sure this guy's reliable? Your source?”

“Stake my life on him.”