When I start the engine, a blast of cool air-conditioning envelops me. I’d almost forgotten what it’s like. It feels too good. I’m exhausted. My limbs are heavy, my joints on fire, and I could close my eyes right now and sleep for ages.
Here’s what I should do: I should leave Ford at the nearest hospital, then get out of here. Get back across the border, get a hotel room somewhere, go home first thing in the morning and forget any of this ever happened. I’ve dug myself into a deep hole, but apart from that message I left for Bea, there’s nothing that can’t be undone if I leave right now. That would mean giving up on Ford, giving up on bringing César to justice. It would mean forgetting about Inferno, too. That’s what I should do. I’m out of my depth and have been for a while. It’s a miracle I’m still alive.
Ford stirs next to me. His eyes open. He starts to look around.
“I recognize this,” he whispers. “We’re not far away.”
I put the car in gear and pull onto the street. “Tell me where to turn.”
I’m not going back, not now. Whether it’s from the top down or the bottom up, whether it’s my genes or my destiny, I’m determined to take this path as far as it goes. The line was crossed long ago, and now that I’m on the other side of it, there’s nowhere to go but forward, no matter what awaits me there.
The place Ford takes me is a second-floor apartment behind a shop. I walk down the alley to a narrow set of metal stairs bolted into the brick, ascending to a landing that wraps around the building’s corner, hiding the apartment from the street, and onto a veranda shaded by a vine-wrapped pergola, the deck full of colored metal outdoor furniture. Across the veranda, the apartment’s front door is made of louvered glass-a jalousie window, I think it’s called. The apartment windows are louvered, too, the glass panels frosted for privacy.
Through the glass I can make out a table lamp inside, the shadowy outline of a chair back. The faint drum of music filters through the slitted windows. I pause to listen. It’s a crackly recording of some melancholy chanteuse, maybe Billie Holiday, I don’t know. That sort of thing, anyway. Maudlin stuff.
Ford volunteered to stay in the car, not wanting to climb the stairs, and put up only verbal resistance when I reached into my briefcase and produced a pair of handcuffs. He’s beat, as far as I can tell.
I rap a few times on the glass. I hear weight shifting in a chair, then footsteps approaching. A man’s silhouette against the fronted louvers. The handle turns and the door swings open.
Standing on the threshold, his shaved head silhouetted by the lamp inside, Reg Keller blinks twice and then smiles coldly. He holds a big-bore Smith amp; Wesson revolver at hip level, the hammer cocked back. When he glances down at my Browning, aimed at his gut, the smile broadens a hair.
“It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious,” he says. “A Mexican standoff.”
“Hello, Reg. I had a feeling it might be you.”
“Congratulations, then. You’re the last person I expected to come gunning for me. You’re supposed to be one of the good guys, March, not some cold-blooded assassin.”
“People change,” I say. “Mind if I come in?”
He steps back carefully, keeping the revolver between us. I enter the apartment, taking a moment to glance around. It’s a nicely appointed pad, with luxe furniture, a flat-screen television, and a gleaming wood-cased stereo. But there’s something sterile about the place, like a pre-furnished executive rental whose occupant changes every other week. Beside the chair near the stereo, there’s a cocktail pitcher beaded with condensation. As I circle around, the melting ice shifts inside. The highball next to it is packed with ice and topped with fresh mint. Reg goes to some trouble when it comes to his drinking.
The only thing in the living room that seems out of place is the standing birdcage in the corner behind him. My arrival must have agitated the sleek white bird inside. Its yellow Mohawk of feathers stands upright, and it flaps its wings helplessly.
“My companion in captivity,” Reg says.
“You’re the contact inside the cartel? That doesn’t seem possible.”
“I made the wrong kind of friends and this is what happened to me.”
“You went to work for Nesbitt.”
“It’s a long story, March, and if you’re going to pull that trigger, I’m in no mood to tell it. Why don’t we get this over with. It’s been a long time coming. I just don’t care anymore.”
“I didn’t come here to kill you. I didn’t know it would be you.”
“I’m supposed to believe that?”
“Believe what you want. Just put the gun down.”
“I don’t think I can do that.”
“I’m a cop,” I say, “not an executioner. Some of us still know the difference. Now put the gun down so we can talk. The next knock at your door won’t be so accommodating.”
He thinks this over, then points the revolver at the floor. When I don’t react, he lowers the hammer and waits to see what I’ll do.
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll play.”
He walks to the built-in unit housing the TV and sets the revolver down, raising his hands in mock surrender.
“So tell me what you’re doing here,” I say.
This brings a bitter smile to his lips. He spreads his arms to encompass the room, the street, the city. “March, can’t you see? I’m in hell.”
He was always a lithe, muscular man. Even when he left the streets and donned a coat and tie, he retained that tough beat-cop vibe. Now he seems gaunt, the creases on his face have deepened, and his reptilian eyes are deeper sunk than before.
“Are you working for Englewood,” I ask, “or Nesbitt?”
“You know about Englewood, huh? It kind of surprised me that you never cottoned on back in the day. I’d known him a long time, so when I got the idea of putting my company together, he was a natural source to turn to. But then Macneil disappeared and I quickly discovered I’d made a bargain with Satan himself. These guys, when they get their hooks in you, they don’t let go. Englewood turned the thumbscrews and, little by little, I found myself turning with them. I couldn’t even recognize the man in the mirror. When things got too hot for me in H-Town, he whisked me away. But after that, he owned me.”
“And the only way to get free was to betray him to Nesbitt?”
“Very good,” he says. “That was the idea, anyway. I needed money more than anything, so I called Nesbitt and made a deal. If he’d find Macneil and shake him down, I could give him the blueprint to Englewood’s operations.”
“You could deliver on that promise?”
He shrugs. “Maybe I exaggerated the extent of my knowledge. He failed with Macneil. The kid he sent to do the job is some kind of psycho. He got nothing, and left a body behind that people naturally assumed was my handiwork. To make it up to me, Nesbitt offered this job, and I was stupid enough to take it. Between the two of them, they sucked me in.”
As he talks, he makes a cautious move toward the chair, easing himself down and pouring a cocktail. I circle away, keeping him at gunpoint.
“Mojitos,” he says. “I don’t suppose you want one? No, you’ve sworn off the sauce on account of your little girl. Good for you. In my case, it’s the least of my worries. Englewood. Nesbitt. Two years off the grid. All the brutality. They’ve hollowed me out, March.”
“How did you penetrate the cartel?”
“That was simple. The new Jefe was a protégé of Nesbitt’s from the old days. César Soto-Andrade, that’s his name. If you can believe it, this guy used to be high up in the Mexican military establishment, and now he’s a drug lord. Go figure. That’s how it works down here. So what happened was, he reached out to Nesbitt. He knew what the American intelligence capability looked like and what he wanted was a countermeasure. Somebody who knew the way the DEA and the FBI operate and could help him outwit them.”
“And that was you?”