This Side of Night Page 4

  Eddy considered it, trying hard to keep his bouncing eyes on Danny, or a spot on the ground behind him. It was hard to say.

  “Money?”

  Danny moved slow, keeping his hands more or less visible and away from his body, and pulled a small roll of dirty bills from his jeans. He and Amé had roughed them up in the street in front of her apartment yesterday. It was the sort of money a full-on tweaker might beg, borrow, or steal.

  Eddy focused on that. His whole world narrowed down to it. He moved when it moved.

  “Mikey’s a piece of shit to talk about me that way. It ain’t fair, man. Today was the day I was really gonna try to go straight, get clean. Goddamn, I’m tryin’.”

  Danny nodded. He winked at Eddy, smiled big. “Brother, aren’t we all?”

  This was the moment. Danny had learned both as a soldier and a cop, there was always a moment.

  Yes, no.

  Go, no-go.

  Run, fight.

  Shoot, don’t shoot.

  Life was made up of these moments.

  Eddy thought about it, and then laughed. It came out of nowhere, a quick bark, echoing across the canyon. It startled some scaled quail nesting out by an old tire in Eddy’s yard, and they ran around in a noisy circle before settling down again. Eddy showed his bad teeth behind a not-quite-there smile and tapped his fork against the edge of his skillet in time to music only he could hear, not whatever was playing behind him. “Well, there’s always tomorrow, right?”

  That moment.

  Danny laughed, agreeing with him. “Yeah, tomorrow.”

  It was good . . . they were all good.

  “And tomorrow’s a motherfucker,” Eddy said, still laughing, still in the moment, when he swung the skillet at Danny’s head.

  * * *

  —

  IT DIDN’T GET HIM CLEANLY, but it got him good enough, and he couldn’t blame his bad eye. He didn’t see it coming, didn’t expect it. In that moment when they’d been laughing, he’d gotten too comfortable, let his guard down. He goddamn knew better . . . he’d always known better. Knowing better had kept him alive for two years in Afghanistan, and mostly safe while working all those months undercover with those skinhead gangs. Never take your eye off the ball: the shadowed corner of an artillery-blasted hotel in Wanat or a gun shoved down in some teenage skinhead’s jeans. Or even an old fucking skillet. But that meant you had to be looking for it to begin with.

  That goddamn moment.

  Because a moment was all it took to get you killed.

  He ducked fast, still felt the skillet sharp across his neck and shoulder, greasy eggs in his eyes. Eddy had swung it wide like an ax, snake-quick, and if Danny hadn’t pulled back it might have opened his head from jaw to scalp. He stumbled down the stunted porch but stayed upright, catching a last glimpse of Eddy as he tossed the skillet overhand at him and disappeared back through the trailer’s open door in a full run. The throw was wide, not close, and the skillet bounced into the ocotillo, chasing the money that Danny had flung away and that was now blowing across the ground.

  Danny wasn’t sure exactly how much of this Amé and the other deputy, Dale Holt, were hearing. The desert and the canyons could play hell with the KEL recorders, which is why he hadn’t been too concerned about wearing one to begin with, but neither the sheriff nor Amé would’ve allowed him to do the deal without one, so he hadn’t argued about it. However, Amé and Dale were a hundred yards or more back in her truck, past a knotted stand of mesquites and the sightlines of the trailer, so Danny had known—hell, they’d all known—that if things went south (like they were going now), it would take them too long to get to him. Too long to do much of anything at all. And Eddy was on the move, now. Danny listened for the rev of Amé’s big Ford, for her sirens, but there was nothing. Not yet.

  That moment . . . again.

  Go, no-go.

  Run, fight.

  Goddamn.

  Goddamn if he was going to let Eddy Rabbit nearly beat him senseless with a skillet and then bolt like his namesake.

  Danny yelled “Go go go” into his shirt where the KEL mic was hidden and started back toward the trailer. It wasn’t his official “Fuck, I’m in trouble” signal—the silly phrase he was supposed to say if things got bad with Eddy—but it was clear enough.

  And besides, that moment had passed anyway.

  * * *

  —

  DANNY PUSHED HARD through the swinging door, looking left and right and clearing the corners. What few windows there were had been haphazardly spray-painted black so it was like falling into dark, fetid water. The trailer smelled bad, too lived in, or maybe where something had gone to die. There was a futon here, an old cut-up recliner there, a mess of busted lightbulbs everywhere that crunched beneath his boots, and what looked to be a whole porcelain sink sitting in the middle of the main room, filled with crushed beer cans and spent cigarettes. Eddy and his buddies had been using it as a trash can.

  There was also the thick, animal odor of weed. A whole lot of weed, and the stink of it clung to the walls Danny brushed against as if the plants themselves were growing there behind the particleboard.

  He kept moving.

  Ahead, Danny could pick out patchy sunlight pale as mold on the floor and walls, blooming where the kitchen screen door was still hanging open from Eddy’s passage. He’d run straight through the trailer and out the other side.

  Danny paused for a heartbeat, crouched, before coming at the kitchen low and fast and at an angle to make sure Eddy hadn’t kicked at the screen door and then backpedaled into a corner to wait for him.

  He could still have that damn fork or whatever else he might have grabbed.

  But the kitchen was empty. Mostly empty. The original stove and fridge and dishwasher had all been yanked out, probably sold, leaving rotting holes like pulled teeth. Some of the linoleum had been peeled back, and torn-up strips of burlap were scattered all about. However, there was a leaking mini-fridge on the floor, a dented microwave and a rusted hot plate on the counter, and finally the source of the music Danny had heard earlier: an old Sony boom box.

  Also, a police-band scanner and a couple of Motorola handheld radios in a small crate in a corner.

  Now that he was here, Danny could finally make out that damn song. It was by Metallica, “The Day That Never Comes,” and that song threw him all the way back to Afghanistan, where he wasn’t chasing Eddy Rabbit anymore, but instead clearing some shitty mud house out in Nuristan Province; batting away flies crawling into his mouth and his eyes, and baking in his Interceptor body armor even in the deepest shadows, waiting for something to explode and someone to die. Always waiting. All the guys had listened to that Metallica song back then . . . back there. It was like their national fucking anthem.

  He was eighteen, nineteen years old again, and scared shitless.

  His bad eye flickered, threatened to go out.

  He realized he was shaking.

  He had to get outside. He had to get this place off his skin and out of his head.

  He was running full tilt through the kitchen door when the sirens started.

  * * *

  —

  EDDY WAS MAKING HIS WAY down to the water.

  Danny could see where he’d stumbled along a thin path that had already been cut through the giant cane—which squared with Charity’s story—and maybe thought he could hear him breathing hard, stumbling and cussing up ahead. Danny kept after him, gulping big mouthfuls of the morning air and letting the sunlight strike his face; feeling better after shedding the dark and stink of the trailer, after leaving that ominous music behind. He’d never experienced anything like that before, but knew plenty of others who had. Guys who’d never quite left Afghanistan, friends who still felt like they were forever trapped in one of those mud houses. Like parts of them had been entombed there, and for some th
at was a certain, terrible truth—all the arms and legs that had never come back to the United States with them. Danny knew how lucky he was, but also knew he hadn’t survived all that shit only to come back home to Texas to get hurt. Not here, not now, not like this. He could just stop, not chase Eddy down into that thick foliage; let him disappear and try to track him down later. It wasn’t like Eddy had anywhere to go or the means to get there.

  But he couldn’t, wouldn’t.

  Because there was a part of him—there’d always been a part of him—that simply wouldn’t take no for an answer. It was a compass in his head always pointed in one direction. And Eddy Lee had plenty to answer for. Not only braining him with a skillet and smacking Charity around, but also all those radios and the scanners in his kitchen. Since getting out of Lynaugh, Eddy Rabbit had moved way beyond selling dime bags out of Arby’s or Steak ’n Shake. He’d graduated to something else altogether.

  Fortunately, Eddy made the decision easy on him when he suddenly reappeared out of that green curtain of cane, reversing his course and now running full speed right back toward the trailer . . . toward Danny. He still had the fork in his hand, but it was long forgotten, because whatever he’d seen out in that cane, down by the water, was suddenly scarier than having the Big Bend County’s deputy sheriff he’d just assaulted catch him.

  They met in the shadows of a salt cedar as Danny hit him full force, using his forward momentum to lift Eddy clean off the ground. Eddy made a noise, not quite a cry or a grunt, and he barely weighed anything. It was like picking up a bundle of sticks wrapped in dirty clothes, a small child, and Danny almost felt bad about how hard he hit him. Almost.

  He brought Eddy down in one motion but kept him upright, popping the man’s wrist at a sharp angle and his elbow back the other way, sending the fork high and flying. This time Eddy tried to cry out as he swallowed air after having the wind knocked out of him. He scrabbled against Danny, smacking at him, until Danny snapped off an open palm strike to Eddy’s jaw that shut his mouth for good.

  Eddy’s eyes rolled up white and he collapsed into the grass, breathing shallowly. He’d wake up in ten minutes, or maybe an hour.

  Danny was just shrugging the Colt Defender from the holster tucked in the small of his back when Dale and Amé appeared on foot from around the side of the trailer, their duty weapons drawn. Dale’s eyes were big and as white as Eddy’s had been moments before, pulled like magnets to the unconscious man at Danny’s feet. Amé was scanning the cane, and Danny, too, checking him up and down, making sure he was okay. She still had on her sunglasses and it was impossible to read what she thought about the scene in front of her, but that was tough most of the time anyway.

  She’d ditched her truck somewhere up front and the sirens were still going.

  Dale was moving slow, too slow, and eyeing Eddy. “What the hell . . . ?”

  Danny snapped his fingers twice at the other deputy to get his attention, to focus him, while he motioned at Amé to stay alert on the unseen river behind him. “He’s all right, just get him cuffed up. He was bolting for the river but something spooked him, sent him right back into my arms.”

  Dale nodded, still unsure, but reaching for his cuffs. “Well, I’d ask him, but you righteously knocked his ass out . . .”

  Amé stepped over Eddy and got up close to Danny, not taking her eyes off the cane or lowering her gun. “Any idea?”

  Danny shrugged. “No, maybe nothing? Eddy seeing things?”

  Now that she was out of Dale’s earshot, Amé leaned in: “You okay?”

  Danny made a face, embarrassed. “Yeah, he caught me by surprise. Hit me with a goddamn skillet.”

  “I figured,” she said, trying to hide half a smile, there and gone again. “There’s still egg in your hair.” She reached up and brushed it away, her touch quick and light. If she let it linger, Danny couldn’t tell. His hair had grown out in the last year—not too long, but regular, civilian length. It had been shaved down to nothing when they first met, and he didn’t want her to ever see him like that again. He didn’t ever want to be that person again.

  “Now what?”

  Danny nodded toward the path through the cane. “I’m going down there, and you’re going to stay wide of me, off to my right.” He looked around, pointed. “Work your way to that palo verde, see if I flush anything back toward you. Someone could have snuck out of the trailer while I was talking with Eddy.”

  “You mean while he was distracting you?”

  “Yeah,” Danny said through gritted teeth. “That.”

  She eyed his Colt, the small one he’d carried for this deal. It was easy to hide but it wasn’t meant for something serious, and neither of them knew exactly how serious this was. “You want me to go back to the truck, get the rifle?”

  “No, I’m good. Let’s just get in there and get this over with.”

  “Bien, vamos a hacerlo.”

  He nodded, uncertain. He’d tried here and there to learn Spanish, not like Sheriff Cherry, who’d been studying seriously for months, and still only understood half the things she said.

  But she tapped him once on the shoulder before moving off, sharing that half smile again. Their secret. It was a smile he’d grown used to since those days when she came to sit with him in the hospital after Jesse Earl; a smile he’d miss if he didn’t see it at least once a day.

  A smile that had kept him in the Big Bend, and would, for as long as she was here.

  “Ten cuidado, Deputy Ford. Keep an eye out for skillets . . .”

  * * *

  —

  DANNY MOVED INTO THE CANE.

  The world turned different shades of green and gray around him, where the thumb-thick stalks blocked out the sun.

  It was like peering through rough fingers held over your eyes.

  It was tight, claustrophobic . . . submerged, but not like being inside Eddy’s trailer. That had felt more like a coffin, the grave itself. Here, it was almost a world all its own, cut off from everything else. It had its own sights and sounds, somehow both muted and made loud and large at the same time. There was the buzz of insects and the heavy smell and whisper of the water itself. The quick-winged movement of mockingbirds and flycatchers going about their business, casting tightfisted shadows over everything and ignoring the man beneath them. It was hotter here near the mouth of the river, its breath causing him to sweat. It would have been ancient, primeval, if it weren’t for the crushed tins of Spam, some discarded burlap, and a torn sneaker Danny could pick out half buried in the sand.

  It was a blue Nike wrapped in electric tape. Men had been here, and recently.

  Men moving back and forth from the river, across the Rio Grande.

  What little wind there was then turned, shifting toward him, and he caught a new smell. Not the thick sourness of the river, but something else. Something worse. That dead and dying stink from Eddy’s trailer, only tenfold. It stung his eyes and he knew immediately what it was. He’d smelled it before in Nuristan, after Wanat, after Rumnar. After a hundred other battles in places whose names he’d tried to forget. You never forgot the smell of a fresh corpse.

  That’s when he saw it through a fresh gap in the cane, right by the river.

  It was faceup, staring into the sun. Muddy water was moving gently in and out of ugly, brutal cuts. Pooling in the open, breathless mouth, like the river itself was cleaning those wounds. Baptizing the man, or what was left of him.

  That was the first of the bodies.

  TWO

  Although DEA Assistant Special Agent in Charge Joe Garrison couldn’t see Ciudad Juárez from his window anymore, he knew it was there. In his old office down the hall he’d been able to look right through the thick smoked glass out over that Mexican city every day, and at night could count that unbelievable sprawl of lights that went on for miles and miles. It had been beautiful then, when night fell. A mirage. C
lose enough to touch though it was a whole world away. Although he couldn’t blame one city or an entire country for all his problems, he wondered if staring at it the way he had for all these years was no different from being holed up in a muddy trench on the Western Front in World War I.

  Juárez was now his personal Verdun or Gallipoli or Passchendaele.

  Garrison had become something of a reluctant student of history over his long DEA career, coming to understand the brutal futility of trench warfare. The British had called the whole thing “lions led by donkeys”: generals sending off their young soldiers to die in the Western Front.

  Was that all he was now, a donkey? An ass? He’d never wanted to promote from being a group supervisor, from leading agents in the trenches, but he wasn’t given much of a choice. He’d been a marked man since that disaster down in Murfee a few years ago, an operation gone wrong that had killed Special Agent Darin Braccio and seriously wounded Darin’s young partner, Morgan Emerson. Two of his best agents, and his friends. Although he’d never explicitly sanctioned their investigation in Murfee—Darin hadn’t exactly been forthcoming about the true nature of it—he’d been their supervisor, so they were his responsibility and always would be, and he’d suffered through the agency’s version of an internal affairs inquiry ever since. It had gone on and on and on, a long shadow darkening everything beneath it, just like the attack on Darin and Morgan. He’d never considered retiring—DEA’s unspoken wish all along—figuring instead he’d be terminated. Failure to effectively supervise. But the agency had done worse: they’d promoted him instead.

  Because of his friends back in D.C., and his long tenure on the border and intimate knowledge of the Mexican cartels operating on both sides of it, Garrison was deemed too valuable to lose. But when all was said and done, he was also too damaged to completely trust.

  He’d fucked up, and people had died.

  They’d let him keep his badge and gun, but they were never going to let him lead agents in the field again. They’d bridled him.