Four Live Rounds

Javier looked up when they were fifteen feet away, and Will watched Kalyn work up a big smile. She was originally from Texas, and she conjured up the accent she’d fought so hard to shed.

“Got yourself a flat tire there?”

Javier nodded, and Will tried to read him, but he wasn’t smiling or scowling, just receiving information. He wondered if he had a gun on him, would have staked the savings he didn’t have that the man had something lethal in the Escalade, probably under the seat or the dash. Javier let loose a lukewarm smile, not a shred of warmth to it. Will was praying Kalyn’s accent was so appalling, she’d offended whatever sensibilities he had, thereby distracting him.

“Did you run over something sharp?” Kalyn asked. “You got a spare?”

He sighed. “Yes. I have a spare.” He was still staring at her, his eyes processing her face. “Could you tell me something?” he asked.

“What’s that?”

“I’m certain I’ve seen you today. Could you tell me where?”

“I never seen you before in my life. I was just stopping to help a—”

“Ah, yes. The pro shop. You were speaking with Dan when I came in from my round.” At light speed, Javier’s eyes cut to Will, then back to Kalyn’s face. “This is the gentleman you were with?”

Will estimated that they were seven feet apart, wondered how fast Javier could move. Blink of an eye. Draw, Kalyn.

Javier said, “Your palms are sweating.”

Draw.

“Your hand is anxious to reach for the gun under your jacket. My concern, being that I don’t know you, is that you would try to do it quickly and accidentally shoot me before I’ve given you actual cause. So let’s circumvent that possible outcome. Take two steps back. Then slowly draw your weapon. Here are my hands. I’m unarmed. I will not move.”

She stepped back, reached into her jacket, drew the Glock, holding it low as she moved around behind him. “Get on your knees,” she said. He did. “Now put your hands behind your head and interlace your fingers.” Will was feeling confident in Kalyn’s ability to control the situation now, the Escalade keeping them shielded from the view of passing cars. From an inner pocket of her jacket, she took a pair of handcuffs and snapped them over Javier’s right wrist. “Lie flat on your stomach, with your hands behind your back.”

Javier made no argument, carefully prostrating himself on the pavement.

She locked the cuff around his other wrist.

“Get up on your feet slowly.” He rolled over onto his back, sat up, then stood up. “Approach your car, lean against it, and spread your legs.” She frisked him, found nothing but his wallet and a BlackBerry in the knickers pockets. “Now walk to my car.”

TWENTY

The passenger door opened. Javier Estrada ducked his head and climbed into the front seat.

“Buckle his seat belt,” Kalyn said. Will hesitated. “He’s cuffed; he isn’t carrying any weapons. It’s fine.” Will felt Javier’s eyes taking inventory of his face as he leaned over and pulled the seat belt across the man’s chest and locked it into place. Kalyn shut the door, opened the one behind it, and climbed into the back. “Javier,” she said, “just so we’re clear, you have a Glock pointed at your spine through the seat. Drive, Will. Don’t speed, don’t run stop signs, and for God’s sake don’t get us into a wreck.”

It was the weirdest silence Will had been a party to—no radio or talking, just three strangers in a car, driving through Scottsdale, Arizona. Javier stared straight ahead. Will watched him out of the corner of his eye at the stoplights, the man at ease, collected.

As they neared the interstate, Kalyn said, “Take Highway Sixty east.”

Javier spoke for the first time since getting into the car, “Ah, the Superstitions. Am I right?” No one answered. “I’ve done business out there. That was an excellent takedown, by the way. Creative. Outside of the box. And the accent. Beautiful. You realize my mistake. I very nearly averted this entire situation. I keep a forty-five Smith & Wesson under my seat, and I actually started to reach for it before getting out of the car. Out of habit, you see. But I didn’t. Had I”—he caught Kalyn’s eyes in the rearview mirror—“you would be dead.” He looked at Will. “And so would you.”

They sped east, the sun sinking fast into the horizon, molten in the mirrors, on the glass and chrome of passing cars, the mountains in the distance getting bigger, vivid and deeply textured in the fading light.

“I have a question for you,” Kalyn said. “Did that situation back there ring any bells?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, I almost brought along a bat, or a crowbar . . . something to bust out your driver’s side window. Maybe, if I’d done that, you would have realized what was happening.”

Javier shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t see your point.”

“No worries. You will.”

The sun was just a flaming sliver in the west as Will drove past the ranger station into Lost Dutchman State Park.

Kalyn told him to park at the first picnic area.

It was late. Only two other cars. Both empty. No hikers in sight. Beyond lay miles of darkening desert and, farther back, the Superstitions, the summits catching light, the bases cloaked in mist.

Will turned off the engine.

Total silence, save for the wind. The car rocked imperceptibly.

“So,” Kalyn said, “have you figured it out yet?”

Javier smiled. “Do not flatter yourself to think you are the only ones who would like to be in this position with me. I have plenty of enemies. But friends also. And it is my friends, my brothers, the threat of them, that make my enemies wise to keep a respectful distance. In short, I am not f**ked with. This is unheard of. You are not law enforcement,” Javier said, “though perhaps once you were. Will here is shitting himself. You’re trying, so far, to be impersonal, but I sense the rage in you. At me. I don’t know why. You will tell me?”

Kalyn reached into the front seat and dropped four photos in Javier’s lap.

“Line them up, Will, so he can see.”

Will arranged the photographs, two on each leg. Suzanne Tyrpak. Jill Dillon. Rachael Innis. Lucy Dahl. Javier looked down at them. Looked up. Shrugged. Kalyn pulled out her cell, flipped it open. Will saw her pressing buttons. She handed the cell to him, said, “Show him.” On the miniature screen was a digital picture of Misty and Raphael in the back of the Buick. Will hesitated. “Show him.” He held the cell to Javier’s face. Javier registered the image, then looked out the side window toward a distant forest of saguaros.