“He’d been doing handyman work around here for a long time,” Hack said at last.
“Seems to me that he was in the Army before that,” Lawton said. “Least, that’s what I always heard.”
“Makes you wonder if we heard wrong,” Rhodes said. “I thought I remembered it that way, too. But maybe he wasn’t in the Army. Maybe he was just gone somewhere else. Maybe he was a member of a different organization.”
“What’s that mean, anyway, that ‘Los Muertos’?” Hack asked.
“You ought to know that one,” Lawton told him. “You must be gettin’ old. Means ‘the dead ones,’ or maybe just ‘the dead.’ “
“Or maybe ‘dead men,’ “ Rhodes said.
“Why the Spanish name?” Hack asked.
“Nobody knows,” Rhodes said. “There aren’t many Chicano members of the gang, as far as I know. Besides, they started a long time ago. It could be that someone just liked the sound of it.”
“Any way you slice it, they’re bad business,” Lawton said.
“You know it,” Hack said. “I surely do wish you hadn’t been askin’ me to check up on whether the DPS boys had seen any motorsickles in the county lately, Sheriff. Even just thinkin’ that Los Muertos might be tied into somethin’ that you’re workin’ on makes me a little nervous.”
“You reckon all them stories they tell on that bunch are true?” Lawton asked.
“I don’t know,” Hack said, “but if even half of ‘em are, then I don’t want a thing to do with those boys.”
“To tell the truth, I don’t either,” Rhodes said. He leaned forward in the chair. There was a high-pitched squeak.
“We got to get us some WD-40,” Hack said.
Just then there was an alarming crashing and clattering from the air conditioner. It sounded as if someone had thrown a pair of pliers into the fan motor. The sound increased in intensity and pitch, then gradually began to trail off until it sounded more like someone tapping on a piece of steel with a ball-peen hammer. Then there was no noise at all. The air conditioner had stopped completely.
“I told you so,” Hack said.
Chapter 6
Most of what Rhodes knew about Los Muertos, he’d read in the newspapers or heard from other members of the law-enforcement fraternity. None of it was good. For the more than twenty-five years of the gang’s existence, the members of its various chapters had been more or less at war with the members of any other gangs in the state, as well as among themselves. There had been numerous crimes linked to the gang, and some of them had even been proved and tried in court. Rhodes could recall at least two convictions for armed robbery and one for murder. There were probably plenty of minor convictions for assault that he’d never heard of.
Lately, however, the members of various chapters had settled their differences, formed a rough confederation, and begun making money the new-fashioned way-running dope. Their bikes were fast and easily maneuverable over most terrain. Most of them could travel wherever and whenever they wanted, not being too tied to regular jobs, homes, and families. They were a close-knit group and trusted no one, as most of their secrets stayed within the gang.
No one knew exactly where the dope-mostly marijuana-came from. One theory was that it was grown in Mexico and then smuggled across the border, but Rhodes and many others tended to discount that theory on the grounds that it would involve trusting third, or maybe even fourth, parties, unless Los Muertos crossed the border themselves. Someone would have had to grow the weed, and someone would have had to bring it across. Rhodes didn’t know where they got the dope, but he didn’t think it came from Mexico.
Blacklin County didn’t have a dope problem. Or at least it didn’t have a dope problem that Rhodes knew about. It was true that every now and then one of the deputies would come in with a high school kid who had a little marijuana in a baggie. Usually it was hardly enough to measure. Rhodes doubted that he’d seen anywhere near a pound of marijuana in his whole tenure as sheriff, taking it all together. Maybe he was letting his imagination get the better of him. All because of a little tattoo.
He left Hack and Lawton looking disconsolately at the air conditioner and went out into the late afternoon heat. Soon the inside of the office would be like the inside of a baked potato. He hoped they could get the air conditioner repaired soon. He’d left Hack instructions to call Romig’s Appliance first thing in the morning.
He idly laid his hand on top of the white county car, then jerked it back. The roof had been baking in the afternoon sun and was as hot as an exhaust pipe after the Indy 500.
Then he remembered that he hadn’t eaten lunch. He went back inside and called Ivy Daniel, who agreed to go out for a bite with him. He left again, but this time Hack and Lawton were smirking wisely at one another, forgetting the air conditioner for the moment.
Rhodes wished that he could clarify his thoughts about Ivy. He guessed that in the way of small towns everywhere, it was pretty general knowledge that they were “keeping company” and that they were being closely watched for signs of impending matrimony.
He wasn’t sure that he was ready to let the town rumor him into marriage, however, and he really had no idea how Ivy felt about the subject. It wasn’t something that they had talked about.
When Rhodes’s wife had died, he’d felt an emptiness that he thought would never go away. It had, very slowly, and one of the reasons was Ivy Daniel. He’d begun to feel very strongly for her, and in fact he told himself that that was part of the problem. He never wanted to lose someone and feel that emptiness again. If he got too attached to Ivy, he would be vulnerable.
Ivy, on the other hand, was independently minded. Rhodes told himself that she was quite happy to be going out with him occasionally to eat or visiting at his house when there was time. He told himself that she wouldn’t be happy as his wife-he kept terrible hours, he was on call all day, every day, he never knew when he’d be at home. He also knew what rationalization was.
He picked Ivy up at her house. She was dressed in jeans and a white blouse, and Rhodes realized again how slim and youthful she looked. He tried to suck in his stomach so that his belt buckle would show.
“Where are we going to eat?” Ivy asked as she got in the car.
“Lester’s,” Rhodes said.
“Great,” Ivy said. “I haven’t been to Lester’s in a week or two, and that’s too long.”
Lester’s was just on the outskirts of Clearview. It was not fancy enough to be called a restaurant, or even a café. Lester’s was a barbecue joint, and it looked the part.
When Rhodes and Ivy drove up there were three cars and a pickup parked in front of what looked like an old house in poor repair. It had once been painted green, but that had been years ago. It had a slight list to the left, as if someone very large had given it a shove. In front was a piece of plywood on which someone had printed in black paint, with a very wide brush and an unsteady hand: LESTERS BBQ. As Hack had once told Rhodes, “Lester don’t believe in puttin’ up a front.”
Ivy and Rhodes walked across the dry grass of the yard to the front door. They stepped up on a wooden step and went inside. The inside of Lester’s was dim and permeated by the smell of barbecue. They found an empty table and sat in two rickety chairs.
There was no cloth on the table, which was covered by a worn but spotless piece of linoleum. The menu was hand-printed on a piece of plain white paper. There wasn’t much choice. You could have barbecue with beans or without beans. White bread. Water, tea, or a soft drink.
Lester waited on the tables himself, and he came in shortly after Rhodes and Ivy were seated. He was an old, wrinkled black man, with skin so smooth it looked like polished wood. He’d been making and selling barbecue since Rhodes was a boy.
“How you, Mist’ Rhodes?” Lester asked in his deep, husky voice. “An’ you, Miss Ivy?”