“Shit,” Doakes said.
“There’s a time factor here,” Deborah said. “We need to find this guy before he-before more of these turn up. We can’t keep a lid on it forever.”
“I think the term ‘media feeding frenzy’ might be appropriate,” I offered, always helpful. Matthews glared at me.
“I know the overall shape of what Kyle-of what Chutsky was trying to do,” Deborah went on. “But I can’t go on with it because I don’t know any background details.” She stuck her chin out in the direction of Doakes. “Sergeant Doakes does.”
Doakes looked surprised, which was obviously an expression he hadn’t practiced enough. But before he could speak Deborah plowed ahead. “I think the three of us together can catch this guy before another fed gets on the ground and catches up to what’s happened so far.”
“Shit,” Doakes said again. “You want me to work with him?” He didn’t need to point to let everyone know he meant me, but he did anyway, pushing a muscular, knobby index finger at my face.
“Yeah, I do,” Deborah said. Captain Matthews was chewing on his lip and looking undecided, and Doakes said, “Shit,” again. I did hope that his conversational skills would improve if we were going to work together.
“You said you know something about this,” Matthews said to Doakes, and the sergeant reluctantly turned his glare away from me and onto the captain.
“Uh-huh,” said Doakes.
“From your, uh- From the army,” Matthews said. He didn’t seem terribly frightened by Doakes’s expression of petulant rage, but perhaps that was just the habit of command.
“Uh-huh,” Doakes said again.
Captain Matthews frowned, looking as much as he possibly could like a man of action making an important decision. The rest of us managed to control our goose bumps.
“Morgan,” Captain Matthews finally said. He looked at Debs, and then he paused. A van that said Action News on the side pulled up in front of the little house and people began to get out. “Goddamn it,” Matthews said. He glanced at the body and then at Doakes. “Can you do it, Sergeant?”
“They’re not going to like it in Washington,” Doakes said. “And I don’t much like it here.”
“I’m beginning to lose interest in what they like in Washington,” Matthews said. “We have our own problems. Can you handle this?”
Doakes looked at me. I tried to look serious and dedicated, but he just shook his head. “Yeah,” he said. “I can do this.”
Matthews clapped him on the shoulder. “Good man,” he said, and he hurried away to talk to the news crew.
Doakes was still looking at me. I looked back. “Think how much easier it’s going to be to keep track of me,” I said.
“When this is over,” he said. “Just you and me.”
“But not until it’s over,” I said, and he finally nodded, just once.
“Until then,” he said.
CHAPTER 18
DOAKES TOOK US TO A COFFEE SHOP ON CALLE OCHO, just across the street from a car dealership. He led us to a small table in the back corner and sat down facing the door. “We can talk here,” he said, and he made it sound so much like a spy movie that I wished I had brought sunglasses. Still, perhaps Chutsky’s would come in the mail. Hopefully without his nose attached.
Before we could actually talk, a man came from the back room and shook Doakes’s hand. “Alberto,” he said. “ Como estas?” And Doakes answered him in very good Spanish-better than mine, to be honest, although I do like to think that my accent is better. “Luis,” he said. “Mas o menos.” They chattered away for a minute, and then Luis brought us all tiny cups of horribly sweet Cuban coffee and a plate of pastelitos. He nodded once at Doakes and then disappeared into the back room.
Deborah watched the whole performance with growing impatience, and when Luis finally left us she opened up. “We need the names of everybody from El Salvador,” she blurted out.
Doakes just looked at her and sipped his coffee. “Be a big list,” he said.
Deborah frowned. “You know what I mean,” she said. “Goddamn it, Doakes, he’s got Kyle.”
Doakes showed his teeth. “Yeah, Kyle getting old. Never would have got him in his prime.”
“What exactly were you doing down there?” I asked him. I know it was a bit off message, but my curiosity about how he would answer got the best of me.
Still smiling, if that’s what it was, Doakes looked at me and said, “What do you think?” And just underneath the threshold of hearing there came a quiet rumble of savage glee, answered right away from deep inside my dark backseat, one predator calling across a moonlit night to another. And really and truly, what else could he have been doing? Just as Doakes knew me, I knew Doakes for what he was: a cold killer. Even without what Chutsky had said, it was very clear what Doakes would have been doing in a homicidal carnival like El Salvador. He would have been one of the ringmasters.
“Cut the staring contest,” Deborah said. “I need some names.”
Doakes picked up one of the pastelitos and leaned back. “Why don’t you-all bring me up to date,” he said. He took a bite, and Deborah tapped a finger on the table before deciding that made sense.
“All right,” she said. “We got a rough description of the guy who’s doing this, and his van. A white van.”
Doakes shook his head. “Don’t matter. We know who’s doing this.”
“We also got an ID on the first victim,” I said. “A man named Manuel Borges.”
“Well, well,” Doakes said. “Old Manny, huh? Really should’ve let me shoot him.”
“A friend of yours?” I asked, but Doakes ignored me.
“What else you got?” he said.
“Kyle had a list of names,” Deborah said. “Other men from the same unit. He said one of them would be the next victim. But he didn’t tell me the names.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” Doakes said.
“So we need you to tell us,” she said.
Doakes appeared to think this over. “If I was a hotshot like Kyle, I’d pick one of these guys and stake him out.” Deborah pursed her lips and nodded. “Problem is, I am not a hotshot like Kyle. Just a simple cop from the country.”
“Would you like a banjo?” I asked, but for some reason he didn’t laugh.
“I only know about one guy from the old team here in Miami,” he said, after a quick and savage glance at me. “Oscar Acosta. Saw him at Publix two years ago. We could run him down.” He pointed his chin at Deborah. “Two other names I can think of. You look ’em up, see if they’re here.” He spread his hands. “About all I got. I could maybe call some old buddies in Virginia, but no telling what that might stir up.” He snorted. “Anyway, take them two days to decide what I was really asking and what they ought to do about it.”
“So what do we do?” Deborah said. “We stake this guy out? The one you saw? Or do we talk to him?”
Doakes shook his head. “He remembered me. I can talk to him. You try to watch him, he’ll know it and probably disappear.” He looked at his watch. “Quarter of three. Oscar be home in a couple of hours. You-all wait for my call.” And then he gave me his 150-watt I’m-watching-you smile, and said, “Why don’t you go wait with your pretty fiancée?” And he got up and walked out, leaving us with the check.
Deborah stared at me. “Fiancée?” she said.
“It’s not really definite,” I said.
“You’re engaged!?”
“I was going to tell you,” I said.
“When? On your third anniversary?”
“When I know how it happened,” I said. “I still don’t really believe it.”