C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-THREE
There was still plenty of work to be done, so the organizers of the effort to turn Shady Hills into a town met at the community center on Sunday afternoon, the day after the election.
“The first thing we've got to do is call another election,” Jack Kasek said. “Shady Hills needs a mayor and a city council. We've got a candidate for mayor already.” He looked at Stark. “How about councilmen? How many do we need?”
“Four is enough,” Hallie said. “Since the mayor votes, too, that ensures there won't be any ties.”
“So we run John Howard for mayor and four of us for city council. Not me, though. Since I own the property, that might be perceived as a conflict of interest.”
Hallie smiled and said, “I was about to point that out, Jack. I'm glad you thought of it yourself.”
Kasek shrugged and said, “You don't actually live here, Hallie, or I'd suggest that you run.”
“No, thanks. I'm content just to be an advisor and provide legal counsel. You can nominate my dad, though.”
“What?” Alton said, looking around. “Me? Run for city council? I don't think so. I'm not a politician.”
“Do I look like one of those to you?” Stark drawled.
“Well, no, but . . .” Alton looked around the table. “How about Fred?”
“Wait a minute,” Fred Gomez said. “How would it look to have the mayor and one of the city councilmen living next door to each other?”
“There's no law against it,” Hallie said.
“But it might be better to have folks from different parts of the park represented,” Stark suggested. “Nick, how about you?”
“So I can be the black guy?” Nick shook his head. “I've got news for you, John Howard. They're still gonna call us racists whether I run or not.”
“I know that. I want you to run because I think you'd be good at the job.”
Nick laughed and said, “How can I say no to that? Sure, I'll run.”
They threw out the names of several other residents, discussed them briefly, and soon had a slate of candidates, provided, of course, that the ones who weren't there actually agreed to run. Stark knew all of them and had a hunch that they would.
“How much time do we have to allow before the election?” Jack asked.
“I'll look into it,” Hallie said. “I think a couple of weeks would be enough, though. We need to have a city government in place as soon as possible. There's business that needs to be conducted.”
“Like hiring a chief of police,” Fred said.
“I've got some thoughts about that,” Stark said. “I guess I'd better be elected first before I start making suggestions, though. Who knows? I might not win.”
“I don't think there's any chance of that,” Jack scoffed. “You'll all be running unopposed.”
Hallie shook her head and said, “Maybe, but we can't be sure of that. We'll have to have a period of open filing, and it needs to be announced right away. Any legal resident of the city can file to run for any of the offices.”
“Yeah, but who would?” Jack asked.
“You might be surprised,” Stark said. “There are always people who are ambitious, or who don't like the way things are going. I'd be surprised if somebody else
didn't
run for mayor.”
“We'll see. Hallie, can you draft a press release about the filing period?”
“I'll have it ready to release first thing in the morning,” Hallie promised.
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Reuben Torres and Antonio Gomez had become good friends in a fairly short amount of time. That wasn't too surprising, considering that they were both staying at Shady Hills and were the only two young men in their twenties in the park. Reuben was several years older than Antonio and hadn't known him when they were both in school, but Antonio remembered Reuben, who'd been an all-district running back on the football team as well as president of the student council and salutatorian of his graduating class. They were close enough in age to have similar tastes in music, movies, and video games.
There was a certain amount of uneasiness at first because Reuben, as a former Border Patrol agent, had been in law enforcement and Antonio had been, at least for a little while, a foot soldier for the cartel. People could change, though, and Reuben knew that. Antonio had put his past behind him and tried to do right.
On Monday, two days after the election at Shady Hills, Reuben stopped at the Gomez house and asked Antonio if he wanted to go into Devil's Pass with him.
“I need to pick up a few things at the MegaMart,” Reuben said.
“I don't know,” Antonio said as he looked past his new friend at the SUV parked in front of the mobile home. “That ride of yours looks a little too fast for me.”
Reuben grinned.
“I borrowed it from my dad. I used to have a beautiful car, man . . . but I had to sell it. Legal bills, you know.”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“Don't sweat it,” Reuben said. “So, you comin' or not?”
Antonio hesitated. He said, “I haven't been out of the park since . . . since that business with the murders happened.” He swallowed. “And the heads.”
Reuben nodded knowingly.
“Yeah, pretty grim stuff. My dad told me about it. I'm sorry, man. You got put in a bad position.”
“You don't think I should have done something different?”
“Like not getting mixed up with those sleazebags in the first place? Yeah, that would have been the smart thing to do. Once that ship had sailed, though. . . . Hey, you turned out not to be like them after all. That's gotta count for something.”
“Maybe.”
“So, you coming to town with me or what?”
Antonio reached a decision and nodded.
“Sure. Let's go.”
The radio in Henry Torres's SUV was tuned to a news and talk station. Reuben left it there as he and Antonio pulled out of the park and started toward Devil's Pass.
As a newscast came on, Antonio reached for the controls, saying, “I'll see if I can find some good music.”
“Hold on a minute,” Reuben said. “They're talking about Shady Hills.”
The newscaster was saying, “A spokesman for the Justice Department said today that despite some concerns, it appears there were no significant voting irregularities in Saturday's election to determine whether or not Shady Hills would become an incorporated city. When asked why the federal government was monitoring such a minor local election, the spokesman replied that this administration is always concerned with seeing that the rights of the people are protected.”
Antonio said, “Yeah, but they're the ones our rights need to be protected from!”
Reuben nodded solemnly in agreement. It was a shame, he thought, but most of the time Antonio's statement was absolutely correct.
“Meanwhile, County Judge Steven Oliveros confirmed the results of the election and stated this morning that Shady Hills is now a legal municipality of the state of Texas. He also announced that another election will be held three weeks from this past Saturday to fill the positions of mayor and four city councilmen for what seems to be the most newsworthy little town in the state. Filing is now open for legal residents of Shady Hills above the age of eighteen who want to run, and it will remain open for ten days.”
“That's a waste of time, man,” Antonio said. “Nobody's gonna run against Mr. Stark.”
“I hope you're right. He seems like a good man.”
“The best,” Antonio said. “He saved my life, no doubt about it.”
They reached Devil's Pass a few minutes later and parked at the big MegaMart on the outskirts of town. The store was busy, as it always was, but not as busy on a Monday morning as it was during the weekend. Reuben was able to park fairly close to the entrance.
The two young men came back out about forty-five minutes later. Reuben was carrying several plastic bags containing the clothes he had bought. He had lost weight while he was in prison, and a lot of the things he'd had before no longer fit. His dad had given him the money to buy the new clothes, which bothered him. He was too old to be taking charity from his parents. It was bad enough they were giving him a place to live. But he would pay them back when he got a job, and in order to get a job, he needed to be able to dress decently when he went on interviews.
As if it would make a lot of difference, considering that he was an ex-con, he thought in those moments when he gave in to bitterness.
As they walked back to the SUV, Antonio was saying, “You know, if we could both get jobs, maybe we could rent an apartment together, you know, be roommates.” He added with a grin, “We're a little too young to be retired.”
“That's not a bad ideaâ” Reuben began.
Before he could go on, a pickup pulled through the rows of parked vehicles ahead of them and accelerated with a screech of rubber, going the wrong way in a one-way lane. That wasn't unusualâsome people didn't seem to have any concept of why arrows were painted on the pavementâbut this pickup was shooting along so recklessly that several people had to scurry to get out of the way, including a young mother who had to drag her kids to safety.
“Look at that idiot!” Antonio said.
Alarm bells went off inside Reuben's head. He reached for his friend, intending to grab Antonio and throw both of them between the parked cars beside them, but he was too late.
The snout of an automatic weapon poked out the open passenger-side window in the pickup and began to chatter as flame spurted from its muzzle.
C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-FOUR
The high-powered rounds stitched across Antonio's chest, their impact making his entire body shudder. Reuben dropped his bags and tackled Antonio around the waist to drive him to the ground, out of the line of fire. They fell to the pavement side by side, between two cars.
The pickup roared past and kept going. More shots blasted. People began to scream.
Reuben's eyes widened with horror as he looked at his friend. Blood welled from at least half a dozen bullet holes in Antonio's chest. Antonio's eyes were wide open, too, and filled with pain and shock and disbelief. He opened his mouth to try to say something. Nothing came out except a strangled sound and a spout of blood. Antonio lifted a shaking hand and clutched at the sleeve of Reuben's shirt.
“Hang on, man, hang on!” Reuben said desperately. “I'll get helpâ”
But there was no help to get. Antonio said, “
Madre
â” and then his head fell back. His eyes were still open, but there was no life in them.
Reuben heard tires screaming again, but this time the sound was fading. The killers were fleeing, putting as much distance as they could between themselves and the scene of their brutal crime.
Reuben squeezed his eyes shut to keep tears from coming out. He pushed himself to his feet and looked around. There was nothing he could do for Antonio now, but maybe somebody else needed help.
He broke into a stumbling run and followed the screaming he heard. Broken glass that had sprayed from shattered windshields crunched under his boots. A moment later he found a screaming woman crouched behind a car. He didn't see any blood on her clothes, but he asked, “Ma'am? Ma'am, are you all right?”
“Don't shoot me!” she cried as he reached for her.
“I'm not going to shoot you.” Reuben kept his voice as calm and level as he could, but it wasn't easy. “The shooters are gone. They left. Nobody's going to hurt you. Are you injured?”
She looked up at him and blinked wet eyes. A hard swallow, and then she shook her head.
“I . . . I don't think so. But there were all those shots, and bullets hitting the cars. . . .”
She was all right, Reuben decided, other than being scared out of her wits. He left her there and hurried along the aisle in the parking lot. From the looks of the vehicles, the gunner in the pickup had hosed them down in a pretty indiscriminate fashion.
In the distance, sirens wailed. Nobody came out of the store. The shoppers in there had heard the shooting and the screams, and they were staying put where they hoped they would be safe. Reuben couldn't blame them for that.
He found plenty of damage to cars, pickups, and SUVs, but no more bleeding people except for a couple who had been cut by flying glass. He was standing in the middle of the aisle where the devastation had taken place when police cars careened into the parking lot and screeched to a stop several yards away from him. Cops popped out of the cars and covered him with their pistols. Reuben made sure his empty hands were in plain sight.
“Get down!” one of the uniformed officers yelled at him. “Down on the ground!”
“There's too much broken glass, man,” Reuben told the cop. “And the guys who did this are long gone. They were in a gray F-150, maybe five years old. License plate starts with DF. That's all I got.”
He was a little surprised he'd been able to dredge that much out of his memory, considering how quickly everything had happened.
“You need to get an ambulance here, too,” he went on. “There's a man down.” He didn't add that it was too late for an ambulance to do Antonio any good.
“What the hell happened here?” one of the other cops asked. “Was this some sort of random shooting?”
Reuben didn't answer. They could try to figure it out for themselves.
But he had seen it all, and he knew this shooting wasn't random. The man with the gun had had a definite target, and the rest was just bloodthirsty exuberance and collateral damage.
That target had been Antonio Gomez.
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When Stark answered the knock on his door, he found Henry Torres standing on the front deck with a stricken look on his face.
“Henry, what's wrong?” Stark asked. “You look like you've heard some mighty bad news.”
“I have, John Howard,” Henry replied. “I just got a call from Reuben. He's in Devil's Pass. He and Antonio went into town a little while ago.”
“They get into some sort of trouble?” Stark didn't like to think that Dennis Feasco would order his cops to harass people from Shady Hills, but the way things had been going the past few weeks Stark wouldn't rule anything out anymore.
Henry shook his head and said, “No, they were in the parking lot of the MegaMart when they were . . . when they were attacked. Somebody opened fire on them . . . with an automatic weapon.” Henry swallowed hard. “Reuben's all right, but Antonio was killed.”
Even before those words came out of Henry's mouth, Stark had gone cold all the way down to the core of his soul. He had known someone was dead. The fact that Reuben had survived the attack was some small consolation, but it didn't make the grief Stark felt over Antonio's brutal murder any less.
“Was anybody else hurt?” he asked in a flat, hard voice.
“Not seriously. They shot up a bunch of cars and even the MegaMart sign, but that's all. According to Reuben, they were after Antonio.”
Stark nodded.
“The cartel,” he said. “Has to be.”
“That's what I thought, too.” Henry's face twisted in anger and sorrow. “The first time the boy sets foot out of here in weeks, and he's killed an hour later. Who else could it be but that damned cartel?”
Stark took a deep breath and wearily rubbed a hand over his face.
“Do Fred and Aurelia know?”
“Not unless the cops already called them, and Reuben didn't think they had. They've been questioning him, but they took a break and he called me because he thought it might be better if somebody who knew the Gomezes broke the news to them.”
Stark nodded and said, “That's a good idea. Come with me, Henry?”
“Sure. Although I'd give anything in the world not to have to.”
“So would I, amigo,” Stark said. “So would I.”
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The next few minutes were every bit as bad as Stark had expected them to be. Aurelia broke down, wailing and sobbing in her grief. Fred turned so ashen that for a second Stark wondered if he was having a heart attack. Fred had a lot of strength, despite his mild-mannered appearance, and he was able to pull himself together and ask Stark and Henry what happened. Henry filled in what few details he knew.
Fred cursed in Spanish and said, “Those drug smugglers. Those . . . those animals he ran with! If we'd just been able to keep him away from them . . . !”
“Don't blame yourself,” Stark told him firmly. “I know you think of him as a boy because he's your grandson, but Antonio was a grown man. He made his own decisions. And when it finally came down to choosing between good and evil, he at least tried to choose good. That's no comfort now, but maybe someday it will be.”
Stark and Henry were still standing on the front porch of the Gomez mobile home when a Devil's Pass police car pulled up at the curb. Chief Feasco himself got out and paused in surprise when he saw Stark.
“You've already heard the bad news, haven't you?” Feasco asked as he came across the yard toward the porch.
“Reuben Torres called me,” Henry said. “I'm his father.”
Feasco nodded.
“All right,” he said. “I suppose there's no harm done, although things like this are really the job of the police.”
“The real harm was done in that parking lot,” Stark said. “You have any leads on the shooters, Chief?”
“Torres gave us a description of their vehicle, including a partial plate. We haven't turned up anything yet, though. Chances are the pickup was stolen and so were the license plates, but at different places.”
Stark thought that was pretty likely, too. There was a good chance somebody would find the pickup out in the desert during the next few days, burned to a hulk so that no evidence would be left inside it.
“You know who's responsible for this, Chief,” Fred said as he pushed forward between Stark and Henry. Aurelia was still wailing in the living room. “It was the cartel! You have to go after them! They have to pay for this! And if you don't make them pay, I will!”
Stark took hold of Fred's arm and felt how his friend was shaking with rage. He said quietly, “Aurelia needs you right now, Fred. You'd better go inside and do what you can for her.”
Fred looked like he wanted to argue, but Stark's firm, compassionate words must have gotten through to him. He nodded and turned to go back into the mobile home.
Stark went down the steps and faced Feasco.
“You know he's right, Chief,” Stark said in a voice that wouldn't carry into the house. “The cartel's to blame for this.”
“There won't be any proof of that. If we ever do find the shooters, chances are they'll be dead, killed so they can't talk.”
Stark nodded and said, “Yeah, probably. But you've got to try.”
Feasco bristled.
“I never said we wouldn't try,” he snapped. “We already have an APB out with the pickup's description, and I've spread it all over this part of Texas. And that's a pretty big part. In the meantime . . . you people out here already have a reputation as vigilantes. You'd better not try to add to it.”
“By going after the cartel ourselves?”
“Mr. Gomez was pretty upset.”
“Of course he's upset,” Stark said. “But he's not a fool. He's not going after the cartel by himself.”
“That's not what I said. What about you, Mr. Stark? Just how big a fool are you?”
Right now, that was a question Stark couldn't answer.