The Hunger of Crows, page 5
All of which requires some shifting in personnel. In other words, less Cosmo D’Angelo and more Phil Lundren.
“You are going to be—and this is straight from Gordon himself—head of special services, here in Phoenix.”
“Special services. Great. I assume you’re moving up too,” D’Angelo says.
“You’re looking at Gordon’s new campaign manager.”
“You’re moving to Virginia?” Now that is good news.
“DC, actually. The campaign headquarters is in the District, just a few miles from our offices in Arlington.”
Lundren’s smile looks as close to genuine as D’Angelo has ever seen it. Obviously, it’s for his own ascendency to the national stage, not D’Angelo’s own mostly lateral move. He’s been making “special services” decisions since they opened the Phoenix office.
“Good for you, Phil,” he says. “Congratulations.”
“Good for both of us. You’re going to be in the office now. Always. Period! No more jungles. No more deserts—except our own beautiful Mojave, of course. No more sticky stuff. Let the young guys handle that.” He gets thoughtful for a second. “Actually, we’re going to need to keep the rough stuff minimal during the campaign.” The smile returns. “You deserve a break, Cosmo. This is it. And a nice pay raise too.”
“Wonderful,” D’Angelo says. Still no mention of Kevin Dykstra.
“So,” Lundren says, “fill me in on that job. It’s my last piece of business here before I head to the East Coast.”
They talk about the details they couldn’t put in emails. An hour later, D’Angelo stands to leave Lundren’s office. He puts his hands in his pocket and feels the crystal.
Lundren still hasn’t said a word about Kevin Dykstra. D’Angelo debates whether to bring it up or keep mum and launch his own surreptitious search into the matter. He’s almost to the door when Lundren pretends to remember something.
“Hey, you heard about the young guy from data who we lost? Dykstra?”
“Trudy just filled me in. First I heard of it.” He pitches it so that Lundren will get the message.
“Yeah, I didn’t want you distracted while you were over there.”
“Sure,” he says. “Any ideas why he did it? I mean, there’s no note, right?”
“Nothing survived the fire.” Lundren looks away. The sure tell of a bad liar.
“Is that right?” D’Angelo says, neutrally. “I’ll see if Trudy wants to organize a memorial for him or something.”
“Yeah, sure. Thanks.”
D’Angelo reaches for the doorknob.
“Hey,” Lundren says, as if it just came to mind, “were you in on the vetting of the kid when he was hired?”
D’Angelo shakes his head, curious to see where this goes. “Why? Something sketchy come up in his background? Something they missed?”
“Nah,” Lundren says. “I just mean you and the kid knew each other for a while, right?”
The alarms again.
“Yes. I knew Kevin Dykstra and I liked him. He was a straight arrow. Funny hair and all.”
“Sure. Let me know if there’s a memorial. I’ll be in DC, but I’d like to contribute something.”
“Thanks, Phil. I’ll let you know.”
You lying motherfucker. We don’t kill our own people.
* * *
D’Angelo knows better than to make any inquiries into Kevin Dykstra’s so-called suicide here in the Sidewinder offices. If he’s going to get any enlightening information about this, it will have to be from outside sources. It’s not the first private inquiry he’s had to make. Sidewinder Security is populated with covert operatives, former spies, and ex-agency spooks and ghouls trained in elicitation and duplicity. Asking questions is like juggling live grenades. It’s one of the things he used to love about the job.
He spends the afternoon pushing Jennifer’s condition out of his mind and catching up on messages and business matters that have accumulated while he was away. When he sees a grinning Phil Lundren leave the building, glad-handing his way through the analysts and cryptologists—obviously on his way to DC to help with McKint’s campaign—he can only bite his lip. He’d like to take Kevin Dykstra’s crystal and shove it down Lundren’s throat.
What the hell was Kevin Dykstra up to that brought that down on him?
The whole thing makes D’Angelo alternately furious and tired. He almost mutters a cliché that seems apropos: “I’m getting too old for this.” But he stops himself. Because if can you say it, you might start believing it. And if you believe it—if only for a minute—you’re right.
CHAPTER
7
BY NOON, CARLA has driven straight through Las Vegas, all the frivolous wasted weekends she’s spent there no longer having any nostalgic currency for some reason. She can barely remember one. Maybe once your future seems like it’s about to be erased, the past goes with it too somehow?
She drives until she needs gas and pulls into Cedar City, Utah, a pretty little town on the edge of Zion National Park. Sagebrush and stunted trees climb the desert hills into higher, snowcapped mountains to the east. Ski country. The tourist town looks so peaceful. A nice place to live, maybe. Someplace easy for a good-looking woman to get a waitress job—for cash under the table. Maybe she could find a campground and live in the camper for a while until the summer temps get too hot. Who would look for someone in Cedar City, Utah? Who’s ever even heard of it?
She entertains the ridiculous idea for another half minute before snapping out of it. She buys gas, pays cash, and drives on.
Exhausted now, she makes it another hour before dozing off at the wheel. Jolted awake by the howling horn of a swerving oncoming driver, she pulls into the next rest area on her side of the highway. She’s not sure where she is. It doesn’t matter. The emptiness of the landscape is comforting. High desert sprawls away in all directions. Sagebrush and scrub oaks and sparse, brown grasses. Except for the rest stop bathrooms in a low stone structure with a red tile roof, there are no buildings anywhere. She parks in the shade of a big paloverde tree, then staggers out of the truck and climbs into her camper. She crashes on top of the sleeping bag on the foam rubber mattress, her cheek pressed against the cool nylon fabric. With her eyes shut, the steady woosh of cars and semis passing on the highway synchronizes with her heartbeats. She’s asleep.
When she wakes up, it’s midafternoon and her truck is no longer in the shade. The camper is sweltering. She climbs out and goes into the women’s room. She splashes water on her face, looks in the mirror, and cringes. God, her birthday is in July, just three months away. Thirty-nine. She looks a hundred. She’s known for some time that she is just not going to age with the rather frightening grace her mother has. That woman has a mirror she talks to, like a certain queen from a fairy tale.
Carla presses her fingertips to the puffy skin under her eyes as if she can push it back into her face. It’s not the late night out, the lack of sleep, or the stuffy hangover sinuses from D’Angelo’s expensive Pinot Noir that she’s seeing. This is what fear does to you.
She takes out her makeup and does her face. It’s not simple vanity, although she’s well aware of her capacity for that. She does it so she can look in the mirror and recognize the Carla Merino she is going to spend all her time striving to keep alive. She’s not going to knock herself out for some wrecked-out hag. And really, who else does she have to look good for now?
Back in the truck, she drinks half a bottle of water and looks at the photo again.
Alert now, clearheaded, the fear reasonably under control, she considers her options.
She has two choices. She could give it back to D’Angelo, or she could give it to Lisa Yi to use against McKint.
She has a feeling that even if she sends it back to D’Angelo, or to Sidewinder Security, right now, McKint isn’t going to just forgive and forget.
And if she turns it over to Lisa and the media, she’ll make an enemy of him for life. His attack dog, D’Angelo, will hunt her down sooner or later. She’ll have to have a sure way of completely disappearing before she attempts that.
But there is a third way. What if she destroys it? Burns it and throws the ashes into the desert? They might not believe she did it. And if they are as vicious as their reputation for violence hints, she really doesn’t want to think about what they might do to her to find out if she’s lying.
The first two options terrify her; the third pisses her off.
At the county hospital, three-quarters of her clients were Mexican or Central American immigrants—legal or otherwise—who needed all the things social workers provide for people and who have little money, less power, and no legal protections at all. The last thing those people need is for Sidewinder Security to control their lives. McKint has to be stopped.
But for now, she needs to keep moving.
She almost puts the photo back in her purse but thinks better of it. She opens the glove box and thinks better of that too. She looks around inside the cab of the truck. There’s a barely detectable slit in the headliner fabric directly overhead. She spreads it open with her thumb and one finger and slips the photo up inside. The fabric closes back over it. It’s nearly invisible again.
Putting the truck in gear, she pulls out of the rest area and follows the frontage road to the next highway entrance ramp heading north. A sign says SALT LAKE 235 MILES. Boise is another three hundred or so. She’ll think about the whole matter again when she hits Canada. It’s probably not far enough, but it’s a start.
CHAPTER
8
D’ANGELO MAKES IT through the afternoon without smashing anything, anyone.
He’s in the Imperial Wok, waiting for the takeout he’s ordered. Jennifer’s favorite—the Shanghai Dinner Special. One shrimp foo yong, one fried rice, one house lo mein, two egg rolls.
He’s a fair hand in the kitchen himself, but he has purposely never learned to cook Thai, Japanese, or Chinese. If he did, he’d never leave the house.
He’s been coming to the Imperial Wok for as long as he’s lived in Phoenix. When Jennifer was a girl, it was a regular destination for them on his shared-custody weekends. The owner, Mrs. Chen, has become somewhat of a confidant—God knows, he doesn’t have many others—and she’s told him that she gets offers from land developers almost daily. He happens to know she owns the whole strip mall the restaurant is located in. “So much money!” she says. “But then what am I going to do? Not work?”
It’s a good question. Across Seventh Street he can see yet another new restaurant under construction. The street is lined with them. When did Phoenix become a foodie mecca?
It seems like it’s happened overnight. You can still get a traditional veal chop or a recognizable plate of linguini and clams at Christo’s, of course, but now the whole town is overrun with joints for people intent on paying too much money for too-clever food. Trattorias serve grilled pizzas with pine nuts, kale, and chorizo. Overpriced finger food emporiums seem to believe they invented the idea of putting meat between two slices of bread. And Mexican food? People used to be happy with the ubiquitous Filibertos. Now the hipster crowd demands carne asada with pomegranate, hibiscus flower, and tamarind-spiced wine reductions. Apparently there’s a competition to concoct the entrée with the most ingredients.
Hoping to be happily surprised, D’Angelo has tried enough of those places—well, not the idiotic fusion joints—and most times he’s been left neither happy nor surprised. All he wants at the moment is to eat some takeout with his daughter at the hospital, go home, and drink a very tall glass of vodka. Several, actually.
Mrs. Chen comes out with his order. Behind her, he can see into the kitchen. All the cooks are tiny, older Mexican women with strong Mayan features. Mrs. Chen shouts orders in a Chinese-English amalgam to the women. They don’t appear to speak either language, yet somehow the food turns out great. That’s one of the things D’Angelo likes about the unassuming place. Crammed in a strip mall between a NAPA Auto Parts and Nita’s Nails, there’s a counter up front and an uncomfortable wooden bench if you want to wait inside for your food instead of in your car. There are even a few small booths for those determined to have the full sit-down Imperial Wok dining experience. The banquettes are covered with hot-orange vinyl, the tabletops in matching Formica. He once asked Mrs. Chen if the blazing orange color has some significance in Chinese culture. She told him studies show that you can turn over tables faster with hot colors. So much for cultural significance.
“D’Angelo!” She puts the bag on the counter, grinning. “You look terrible.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Chen.”
She lowers her voice, goes serious. “How’s your daughter?”
“It’s hard to know,” he says. He hands her the money for the food. “Thank you for asking.”
“So young still,” shaking her head. She rings up the sale, gives him his change. “I made the foo yong a little spicy the way she likes it.”
D’Angelo thanks her again and turns to leave.
He’s almost out the door when a tall, heavy goon with a lizard tattoo crawling up his neck pushes in. Shaved head, badass scowl. He tries to shove D’Angelo out of the way. D’Angelo instinctively sets his feet, blocking him. They stand, face-to-face. The guy glares at him. Mean eyes. Mean mouth. Mean everything.
D’Angelo feels the stifled anger about Kevin Dykstra he’s had simmering on a back burner all day boiling into something more immediate, more violent, and far more therapeutic. Anger, channeled in a useful way, is just what he needs. But he doesn’t want to tear up Mrs. Chen’s restaurant satisfying his own suddenly murderous mood.
“My fault,” he says, and steps aside.
The creep gives him a victorious sneer and pushes on into the restaurant.
D’Angelo walks to his car. Two parking spaces away is a jacked-up Jeep with a Confederate flag sticker and a rifle rack in the rear window. A rolling cliché. Not hard to guess whose ride that is. He’s about to get in his car when his phone rings. He sets the food bag on the hood.
It’s Rebecca. Her voice is quaking. “Are you on your way? Don’t stop for food. Jen’s not going to be able to eat. She’s having a bad time again, Cosmo.”
She called him Cosmo. Not good.
“I’m on my way.”
Heart revving, he grabs the bag of food and opens the driver’s side door, but something in the restaurant window catches his eye. The tattooed creep is at the counter, waving his hands in Mrs. Chen’s face. He must be saying something unpleasant. D’Angelo can make out Mrs. Chen’s disapproving look from across the parking lot. He has the feeling that when Mrs. Chen disapproves of something, you can see it from outer space. He hesitates, half in the car. The hospital is at least twenty minutes away.
Mrs. Chen crosses her arms over her chest and says something back to the big goon. Two of the tiny kitchen ladies come out carrying huge knives, clearly very loyal to her. D’Angelo sighs. This will only take a minute. He starts back across the parking lot toward the restaurant. He can smell violence coming. It’s like fresh coffee calling.
The creep leans over the counter and, with one thick finger, pokes Mrs. Chen in the middle of her chest above her folded arms. She rocks back on her heels, almost stumbling. The guy spins away from the counter and stalks out the glass door, shoving it open so hard it slams against a tall concrete ashtray and cracks. Reveling in that small victory, he takes two more steps before he sees D’Angelo coming his way. Too late.
D’Angelo punches him in exactly the same spot he poked Mrs. Chen. A full-shouldered right, driven into his breastbone with all of D’Angelo’s 238 pounds and as much anger and frustration as he dares reveal in public. Anger at Lundren and McKint. Frustration at his inability to stop the disease that is killing Jennifer.
The creep buckles, gasping. D’Angelo draws back to finish him off with another to the jaw. Then he sees Mrs. Chen and the cooks gathered in the doorway, watching. No need to make this any messier.
He crouches over the guy, yanks his wallet out, and pulls out all the bills. “You just bought a door, fuckhead.”
He takes the money to Mrs. Chen.
He returns and grabs the creep by his shirt and hauls him upright. He shoves him across the parking lot to the Jeep. The guy is starting to get his breath back. D’Angelo plants another fist in his belly, crumpling him again. The guy hangs on his side-view mirror.
“Look,” D’Angelo says, “if you get out of here before my friend Mrs. Chen calls the police, neither one of us will have to talk to any cops. Do I need to tell you you’re never eating Chinese food again? It doesn’t agree with your stomach.”
The guy nods that he understands.
“Good.” D’Angelo gets in his car and drives. With Rebecca’s phone call echoing in his head, he can’t even enjoy the post-violence buzz he’s come to be so fond of. The smell of Mrs. Chen’s food almost sickens him. And then there’s the Phoenix afternoon traffic. It takes him over half an hour to get to St. Joseph’s.
Things are worse than Rebecca let on when she phoned him. She meets him coming into the lobby.
“What’re you doing down here?” he asks.
“She’s in ICU. It’s bad, D’. Real bad.”
There are good days, and there are bad days. And then there are days like this.
* * *
It’s almost midnight when D’Angelo gets home from the hospital. Jennifer is still in ICU. He and Rebecca waited for hours but never got in to see her again. Her condition is listed as stable. That’s both better and worse than the possible alternatives.
