Wolf in the Shadows - Marcia Muller [60]
“Strange setup,” I commented.
Luis shrugged. “Like I said, Salazar don’t want anybody to know how good he’s doing.” There was scorn in the words—anger, too.
“This patio reminds me of something out of Old Mexico.”
“Even slime get homesick, I guess.”
“Salazar’s a Mexican national?”
He nodded. “Was born in Oaxaca, but he’s been here even longer than I have. Spent most of his miserable life right in this area. Worst thing the INS ever did, giving him his permanent green card.”
I glanced at John; he seemed poised to leap off the chair. “The guy that let us in,” he said, “I think he was wearing a shoulder holster.”
Luis was about to reply when the French doors opened and a slender figure stepped out. “Salazar,” Luis said.
Marty Salazar moved toward us in a languid, fluid gait. As he came closer I saw that his slenderness was deceiving; under his light summer suit, muscles rippled. His face was a narrow oval, cheeks sunken, eyes hooded. An odd triangular scar on his forehead made me think of the plates on the head of a rattlesnake; Abrego’s earlier comparison had been right on the mark.
Although neither Luis nor John stood to greet him, Salazar motioned for us all to be seated. I sank into the chair next to John’s. Salazar turned to Luis and spoke in Spanish—something about interrupting his evening. Abrego replied in a sarcastic tone I hadn’t heard him use before. Whatever he said made Salazar’s lips pull into a thin line. He sat down at some distance from us, took a cigarette pack from his jacket pocket, and lit one with a silver lighter. Through the smoke he said to Luis, “Someday you’ll go too far, man.”
“Someday we’ll both go too far—all the way to the grave.”
Salazar looked away; he didn’t want to be reminded of that.
Abrego added, “These’re the people I told you about. You answer the lady’s questions, we’ll go away.”
Salazar’s eyes studied John and me from under their heavy lids. After a moment he said to me, “Go ahead and ask.”
“Luis tells me he saw you on Monument Road around eleven Sunday night.”
“If Luis says so, of course it must be true.” He shot a mocking glance at Abrego.
“A man was waiting there,” I went on. “Near the road that climbs the mesa. A Jeep stopped for him, then drove up top. You followed it.”
“So far I have not heard a question.”
“Here’s one: where did the Jeep go?”
“How would I know?”
Abrego started to say something, but I spoke first. “I’m not here to play games, Mr. Salazar. Where did the Jeep go?”
He dropped his cigarette to the tiles, ground it out with his foot. “The Jeep,” he said in measured tones, “went up the road to the mesa.”
“And when it got there?”
“You know the burned adobe? The Jeep went to it.”
“Who was in the Jeep?”
“Just the two men.”
“And then?”
“Then?”
“What did the two men do?”
Salazar’s gaze became remote. “I don’t know. I left then. It is dangerous up there—the bandits, la migra.”
That’s the first recognizable lie, I thought. The border patrol can’t be bothered with the mesa at night, and I’d give odds on you against any bandit in creation.
I said, “The truth, Mr. Salazar.”
His eyes flicked to his right, and I followed their direction. Jaime, the bodyguard, had come up and was standing quietly beyond the circle of palms.
John had noticed too, and it brought out the street fighter in him. He tensed, ready to spring off his chair into a fullblown and potentially fatal brawl. I touched his arm to calm him, heard Luis say, “Don’t even think about it, Marty.”
Salazar’s fingers clamped tightly on the arms of his chair. He looked hotly at Abrego, then seemed to remind himself of something, and waved Jaime off. I realized that whatever Luis had on him must be very damning indeed.
After a moment Salazar’s eyes regained their remoteness. He looked at a point beyond me and spoke slowly. “It is said that someone was shot up there that night. It is said that there was a body left