Jase flashed his badge and got waved through with a nod and a glare of sun from the cop’s mirrored aviator sunglasses. Nobody seemed to care that Hunter was in the passenger seat, probably because he looked rough enough to be an undercover agent. Jase pulled over to the decaying curb behind a newly minted Houston blue-and-white. Under other circumstances, the high-gloss finish would have been irresistible to neighborhood taggers.
Jase didn’t move to get out.
“Now what?” Hunter asked. He needed something to keep his mind off his nightmare or his second taboo line of thought—Lina’s scent, her warmth, her lush lips made for the sweetest kind of sin.
She must think I’ve disappeared again.
“We don’t get to move in until after the door is cracked,” Jase said.
The house on Willerton had been left to abscess for a long time. It was rotten to its foundation. But that wasn’t what kept neighbors at a distance.
“The bad guys live here,” Hunter said. “No graffiti.”
Every other house on the block had been tagged, broken into, and then patched up. But this old house would be standing long after the neighborhood was abandoned and stripped. Nobody would be messing with the sun-faded stucco, because real predators lived here. The only things new about the house were the security doors and bars on the windows. They were black steel, powder coated, and looked like they could turn a bullet shot from the street.
“Nice bars,” Jase said.
“Stupid,” Hunter said. “Limits your field of fire from the inside.”
“Dude, sometimes I worry about you.”
Nearby a tactical van was parked close enough to do some good, but not close enough to get in the way. Two snipers lay on the van’s roof, covering the front of the house and yard. Hunter knew there would be another van just like it on the opposite side of the house, with ICE troops ready to come over the back fence if anyone tried to rabbit.
An electronically amplified voice boomed from the van in front of the house, advising the occupants of the house that they were officially required to quit the premises with hands on head.
The house stayed quiet.
“That’s the third warning,” someone shouted. “Take it down.”
A group of men cut the chain on the fence’s gate and moved in fast, marching up the cracked walkway in black fatigues and vests that clearly spelled out
ICE
in what seemed to be mile-high yellow silkscreen. All of them carried handguns at a precise forty-five-degree angle from the ground.
The agents swept up the short stoop. They didn’t bother knocking. One of them stepped to the side and yelled, “Clear!”
“Det cord?” Hunter asked. Explosive cord made short work of locks.
“No, on houses like this—”
Gunshots rang out. The door shuddered and swayed, held on only by the dead bolt.
“—they shoot out the hinges and kick in the rest,” Jase finished.
Someone wrapped his climbing cord around the doorknob and took a good five steps back, bracing to pull. A big agent went to work around the dead bolt with a pry bar. The door clattered to the ground and skidded out into the front yard.
“THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING. COME OUT BEFORE WE COME IN.”
No response.
An agent armed two flash-bangs and tossed them inside the open doorway. He counted down with his fingers, starting at three, two, one.
For an instant the gloom of the darkened interior went thermite bright. Sounds like a fireworks display gone psycho rolled through the neighborhood. Glass shattered behind one of the barred windows. Agents streamed into the house two by two, sweeping the rooms.
Hunter was relieved no more shooting came. Despite his training, he really didn’t want to have to go med-tech on anyone right now.
Soon six men were sitting cross-legged in the prickly yellow weeds that made up the front yard. Their hands were cuffed behind their backs. Eight cops stood around them, weapons low but attentive.
“Bet those bad boys have jailhouse tats and iron-pile abs,” Jase said.
“Sucker bet.” Hunter rolled the window down, flinched, and swore under his breath. “Something’s been dead for a while.”
“And not buried,” Jase agreed. “Stay here until I make sure it’s cool for a visitor.”
Hunter settled back. It would take time to Mirandize the gangbangers in the weeds and secure the house. He checked the glove compartment and found the little pair of binoculars Jase always kept there, just in case.
Quietly Hunter focused on the seated men. Only one of them tripped his radar. The man was darker than the others, calmer, and had tats like multicolored serpent scales winding up his brawny arms. No reptilian head in sight.
While agents hauled out the rock cocaine and precursors from the kitchen, others pulled enough weapons from the house to start—and finish—a war. The guns came out in green nylon rucksacks that looked like they had been dragged up and down the Dirty Coast a few hundred times. And then there were the knives. From what Hunter could see, Gerbers and Ontarios were the local favorites. One Bowie-style knife as long as his forearm had
DULCE BESO
engraved on the blade.
“‘Sweet Kiss,’” Hunter muttered to himself. “Those are some whacked-out dudes.”
All of the agents who came out of the house looked a little paler than when they had gone in—even Jase, who had emerged to chat up the agent who was questioning the gangbangers in the weeds.
Finally Jase came back to the van. “With me,” he said to Hunter. “Be seen but not heard.”
“Got it. The dude with the snake tats looks like a cousin to LeRoy’s visitors.”
“The agent questioning him thinks he has a Yucatec accent,” Jase said. “Can’t be sure. The agent’s mother was born in Guatemala, near the border, but they still visit family.”
Hunter followed Jase across the weeds that were being trampled by all the traffic. Once they were inside, the house was dark with more than a lack of light. Beneath the smell of flash-bangs was something grim. Not simply dirty, but foul.
The living room was jammed with leather furniture that had once been expensive. Then had come years of being used for everything from ashtrays to whetstones. The coffee table was supported by cinder blocks stamped with a colorful flower pattern. The table itself was made of mismatched boards that probably had been stolen from a construction site. Spanish-language
telenovela
magazines were scattered about, as well handled as the centerfolds tacked to the grimy walls. The tits-and-ass needed no translation.
Wonder if they hoped Juan Carlos would choose Tilde or Mariana for eternal bliss,
Hunter thought.
“Guess these gangbangers and my mom have something in common,” Jase said. “The magazines, not the skin pics.”
“Scary idea,” Hunter muttered.
The kitchen was dominated by a gigantic, soot-caked gas range. Butcher-block tables had been pushed together to make a large work surface. On it was a cardboard box filled with tiny Ziploc bags.
“Your mom’s kitchen smells better,” Hunter said.
“Drugs stink like the crap they are.”
The counter was covered by red plastic cylinders filled with white powder and chunks, or pale salmon-colored flakes.
“Could be the candles that stink,” Hunter said.
The stalks of wax were black, as thick around as a strong man’s arm. Near them was an eerie snake-man statue. Maya in style, it looked like smoke made solid as it escaped a snake’s mouth. Glyphs marched down the length of the piece.
“Not antique,” Hunter said before Jase could ask. “Mass-produced, on sale in any tourist trap in the Yucatan, Belize, or Guatemala.”
“Huh. The dudes out in the weeds aren’t Latin Kings or any of the other gangbangers around here. I didn’t recognize their tats. Neither did the agents I talked to. Which just makes the strange even stranger. The tip on this house came from the cellmate of the gangbanger that shanked the artifact driver.”
“Nice to know somebody still wants reduced time,” Hunter said.
“I just overheard an agent say the dude that ordered the hit on the driver of the load was at this address.”
“Señor Snake has my money.”
“Yeah. He’s the lion in this bunch of jackals.”
An agent stormed up the basement steps and shoved by Jase, hand over mouth, throat working, face pale and sweating. He made it out the back door before he threw up everything but his toenails.
“Oh, this will be fun,” Jase said, turning toward the basement.
Hunter followed.
On the way down the stairs, they passed a female agent headed up. She was pale but otherwise fine.
“How is Chuy?” she asked.
“He made it outside,” Jase said.
“If you can give the basement a pass, you’ll sleep better,” she said through pale lips.
“Wish we could,” Jase said, “but thanks.”
She nodded and went to check on her partner.
Halfway down the stairs, Hunter knew why someone was out in the back puking. The smell of death was thick enough to cut and serve at a demon brunch. Hunter started to breathe through his mouth. So did Jase. It didn’t help much, but it was all they had to fight the smell.
While Jase went to talk to the lone agent protecting the scene, Hunter made himself invisible in the shadows near the stairs.
A fluorescent lantern held by the agent revealed the basement in slightly swaying arcs that matched the man’s careful breaths. There were racks of unlit candles and stands for larger torches. The floor was concrete, worn smooth in places, cracked in others, gleaming dully. There were patches of what looked like oil, so dark that they sucked up and swallowed any light. The splotches were mute testimony to something so revolting that the only thing left to do was bolt for fresh air and throw up.
Hunter’s hackles rose. He’d seen death sites before, but not like this. This basement told him why people believed in evil.
The radio feeding information into the agent’s ear crackled and the lantern jerked. Then it steadied at a different angle, revealing something in the far corner of the room. A pale stone table glistened in the light. The legs were carved to look like a large cat’s paws, ending in sharp claws that dug into the concrete floor itself. Given the context, Hunter assumed that the paws were meant to represent a jaguar, the sacred animal of Maya royalty. Blood had dripped down, wrapping around the legs like snakes. It had happened so often that the legs looked black. But for all the evidence of past bloodletting, only a small amount had ended up on the basement floor near the altar.
Jase mentioned another bloody crime scene, but the table was missing,
Hunter though grimly, remembering the killing house his friend had described.
Don’t really want to know how many people died on that stone altar, here or there.
The smeared darkness on the floor made sense, now. Bleeding bodies had been dragged off the table, across the cement, and ignored until it was time to dispose of them.
Jase swore, his ugly words fitting the basement like the smell. Then his voice dropped again as he and the agent holding the lantern continued their conversation in the low tones of people who don’t want the devil to overhear.
As the lantern swayed, Hunter memorized every bit of the room that he could see. The stone face mounted on the wall over the altar was as carefully made as the jaguar table itself. Savage and grim, the face was that of a god who would never be appeased, no matter the quantity or quality of blood sacrifices that came to its hungry table. The face proudly displayed the features of Maya nobility, topped off by a crown of lightning or claws or knives that scored deep into forehead and temples. The gently swaying light made the wounds appear to bleed.
Whatever that artifact’s age, the stone face was genuine in a way that had nothing to do with provenance and everything to do with the darkest side of human nature.
Ignoring the slow crawl of his flesh, Hunter stared at the face.
I’ve seen something like this before. Was it in Tulum? Cancun? A roadside shrine?
The god’s features were broad and strong. Like the table, the craftsmanship was surprisingly fine. The eyes were empty yet stared through him, through the basement, through the world to a different reality Hunter really didn’t want to share.
The lantern swung as the agent turned toward the stairs. A pool of darkness became a tarp someone had pulled aside to reveal what was beneath. A single look told Hunter more than he wanted to know.
No head. No hands. No feet. A black gash where the heart should be. Blue glyphs, the paint blurred by sweat before death. A wad of clothes the body didn’t need anymore.
The gold DeWatt logo gleamed as light passed over it.
After a few more minutes of low conversation, Jase left the agent and walked quickly through the gloom to where Hunter waited.
“Need to see anything more?” Jase asked very softly.
“No.”
“The chicken will hit the fan real soon. Let’s get out of range.”
With the attitude of men on a mission, they climbed the stairs and strode to the van.
The eyes of the prisoner they had dubbed Snake followed them across the weedy yard.
“Hope somebody shanks that reptilian son of a bitch,” Jase said as they got into the minivan.
“I’d like to talk to him first.”
“In your dreams.” Jase cranked the engine hard. “He’s already lawyered up.”
“Anybody we know?” Hunter asked.
“The biggest narco defense lawyer in Texas.”
“Adios, information.”
“That’s the way the game is played. Mopes die, lawyers get paid, nobody cries.”
Jase drove away from the rotting house, handling the controls with an edgy speed that didn’t suit the minivan.
“The stone face and the table,” Hunter said. “Could they have been taken from that other killing house you told me about while I looked at your photos yesterday morning?”
“Good catch. I’ll tip the sheriff. Always good to play nice with local law. You see anything else?”
“A DeWatt logo on the clothes in the corner.”
“Damn, I knew there was a reason I brought you,” Jase said, smiling.
“Did your schmoozing pay off?”