Cardenas thought he knew.
Some men can kill. Some can't. Simple as that.
Cardenas had seen it in Payne's eyes. Not a softness exactly. But a weakness by another name.
Humanity.
Payne cared for his fellow man. Especially for those in worse shape than himself. How else to explain taking to the road in pursuit of the Mexican boy's mother? Payne could have been killed in Hellhole Canyon. Still, he drove on to Rutledge, a place even more dangerous.
Hey, Uncle Sim. You whiffed. You spent more time with Payne than I did, but you completely misjudged him.
Simeon was getting old. Losing his edge, getting careless. That's what Whitehurst had meant with his little parable about rats who can't vomit. No wonder Simeon got himself indicted. The investigation posed major problems for Cardenas, too. The records and bank accounts of Rutledge Ranch and Farms, Inc., were fair game for a U.S. Attorney. Cardenas knew his name would crop up in places where no police chief's ought to be.
If Simeon takes a fall, he'll take me with him.
For years, Cardenas had known about the stash houses, the human trafficking, the thousands of undocumented workers who'd come through Kings County, thanks to Rutledge livery. Cardenas also knew about the Hot Springs Gentleman's Club, a place that had been off-limits to him as a young man.
"You stay away from that pussy ranch, Javie. It ain't for you."
There were other evils Simeon never talked about and Cardenas chose to ignore. He knew that Simeon could be kind and generous one day and ornery and violent the next. When the old man talked about burying bodies along levees and orchards, it was neither a boast nor a threat. It was reality.
So, get the hell out of town, Jimmy Payne, or Simeon will add your carcass to the compost heap.
Murder seemed so much easier to get away with than the vices that left paper trails. Another thought came to Cardenas as he eased his cruiser out of its hiding spot and onto the dirt road. The government might offer a deal to a police chief with an excellent memory for times, places, and amounts of money. Maybe he could get immunity for flipping.
No, I couldn't do that. I could no more testify against Tio Sim than I could turn the shotgun on him.
Cardenas clicked his iPod back on, found the Desperado soundtrack again, and slowly drove away, listening to Tito amp; Tarantula wailing "Strange Face of Love."
SEVENTY-FOUR
Just after eight A.M. on a day that simmered with a dry, baking heat, Simeon Rutledge swung his right arm over his head, and with a smooth motion snapped the bullwhip. The cr-ack sounded eerily like a gunshot.
Another forward toss, the circus throw of a lion tamer.
Cr-ack.
Standing in his corral with the sun rising over his cornfields, Rutledge kept his arm moving. Three different throws, without stopping. The backward, the overhead, the circus throw.
Cr-ack. Cr-ack. Cr-ack.
The popper at the end of the whip snapping so fast it created a miniature sonic boom.
The solid feel of the whip in his hand calmed him. He breathed in the scent of the soil and the crops, even the sweetness of the manure. This was his land, and he belonged to it, as much as it belonged to him.
The initials "EJR" were engraved into the worn leather handle of the whip, which had been custom-made for Ezekiel Rutledge in the 1920s. In a Tulare bar, Ezekiel had taken out a man's eye, and good thing, as the man was drawing a Colt. 45 at the time. Ezekiel wasn't above snapping the whip at a worker who was "lazing off." Seldom hit one, though. He saved the lashes for the union organizers. "Those goddamn Jews and commies from the city."
Rutledge pictured the whip in Ezekiel's hand, imagined his grandfather listening to the same cr-ack, the sound stretching across decades. At moments like this, handling the whip, or riding his stallion along an old trail, or pruning his grandfather's peach trees, Rutledge felt a bone-deep kinship with family, with the land, and with the past itself.
Within minutes, Rutledge's mind cleared. There were decisions to be made. The government would unseal those damn indictments any day now. It would be all over the news. The banks would go batshit. Lines of credit would be pulled, loans called. In a business with an erratic cash flow, that could mean financial death.
Then there was the lesser, but not insignificant problem of that damn Mexican woman. Rutledge had learned from his father that a ship can sink from the tiniest breach in the hull. Like the old nursery rhyme said, "For want of a nail, the shoe was lost." An accountant gets busted for drugs and strikes a deal to testify against his tax-evading employer. A legislator finds God and spills his guts about bribes. Or a woman yells "rape" and brings down an empire.
Jesus, all they had on Al Capone was rinky-dink tax evasion, and he went to Alcatraz.
The Mexican woman would be no problem if not for the piss ant lawyer from the City of Fucking Angels. Javier had called and told him Payne chickened out last night. Now what was the shyster going to do?
His grandfather wouldn't have worried about it. Not with all the potential grave sites in fields and levees.
Deep, dark places a body would never be found, not even by a pack of coyotes. But then, his grandfather didn't have to deal with Grand Juries, and prosecutors out to make their bones.
God, what a time that must have been!
SEVENTY-FIVE
A Spanish-speaking gardener was trimming a rosebush when Payne asked where he could find el jefe.
In the corral, the man answered.
Batting away a swarm of gnats, Payne headed down an inclined path. A moment later, he heard a horse whinny and a voice barked, "You better be here to say adios!"
Simeon Rutledge, in dusty boots and faded jeans, sat astride a caramel-colored palomino with an ivory mane. The gate was open and Payne walked into the enclosure.
"I couldn't do it." Payne looked up at Rutledge on the palomino. "Garcia, I mean."
"I don't give a shit if you killed Garcia or butt-fucked him. I gave you what you wanted. Now get your ass back to L.A."
Payne noticed a couple stable hands watching them. Two Hispanic men, each with a foot on the bottom rail of the corral fence.
"I made a promise to a boy, and I'm not gonna let him down. Not this time."
Rutledge's laugh was as sharp as barbed wire. "Got a news flash for you, Payne. Every day, kids in Africa starve to death. Women in Tecate are raped and murdered. A little boy riding with his father gets broadsided by a drunk. Grow the fuck up!"
"Not growing up. Not giving up. Just give me Marisol Perez, and I'll go away. Whatever's happened, we'll let it go. No authorities. No investigations."
"You got no idea what's at stake here. Or what I'll do to protect it." Rutledge leaned forward, both hands on the saddle horn. A look crossed his face like quick, scudding clouds covering the sun before a storm. "Don't you get it, Payne? You're the one endangering the woman's life. You fuck with me, her blood's on your hands. Not mine."
Rutledge reached into a holster fitted alongside his saddle.
Payne heard the cr-ack before he felt the pain.
The tip of the bullwhip had struck his shoulder like a rattle snake.
"I could take out your eye before you could blink," Rutledge taunted him.
A second cr-ack, and the leather flicked at Payne's neck, drawing blood. The sting of a hundred bees.
The two Hispanic men leaning against the rail didn't move. They could have been watching their boss shoe a horse.
Payne raised an arm and blocked the third throw. But the popper wrapped itself around his forearm like a snake. Rutledge tugged at the reins and turned the horse, yanking Payne off his feet. A nudge in the ribs, and the horse cantered around the perimeter of the corral, dragging Payne through the red dirt. His face scraped the ground, a blowtorch to the skin. He tried to get his feet under him but could not. A knee twisted and buckled. Pain shot through his metal-plated leg, a dagger deep to the bone. He pulled with his trapped arm, tried to rip the whip out of Rutledge's hand, could not get the leverage.