He needed to follow up, talk to someone in the department, see what he could find out.
He was following a link to a drug bust when Paulo Diaz returned the call Jase had made to him earlier. Paulo owed him for getting his sister out of a jam. Jase wasn’t shy about using whatever leverage he had to get the info he needed.
“I got a guy for you to talk to,” Paulo said. “He knows what is happening in town, who is doing what, where to get whatever it is you need. His name is Hector Moran. Hector owes me money. I told him you would pay for information. You pay him and he pays me. Works for both of us.”
“Sounds good.”
“He’s a little guy, skinny, with a tattoo of a skull on his cheek. He’ll meet you at a cantina called El Lagarto at midnight. It’s in the southwest on Acacia Street.”
El Lagarto. The Lizard. Southwest Houston. Not good. “I’ll find it. Thanks, Paulo.”
“You saved my sister. I do not forget.”
Jase scrubbed a hand over the roughness along his jaw. He hadn’t shaved that morning. Where he was headed, the hard look it gave him worked in his favor.
He shoved back his chair from the kitchen table. “That was Rosa Diaz’s brother, Paulo. He’s got a meet set for midnight with a guy who knows his way around. Southwest side. That’s a rough neighborhood. I don’t suppose there’s any way in hell I can keep you from going with me.”
Kate just smiled. “No way in hell,” she said.
Jase swore under his breath and left her sitting at the table.
El Lagarto sat in a run-down neighborhood that reminded Kate of Prospect Hill. Which reminded her of Old East Dallas. After a while, they all looked the same.
They were sad places and they were dangerous. She had known that, accepted it. Didn’t matter. She still wasn’t quitting.
Jase parked the borrowed Rover in a dark spot between a couple of beaters where it was less likely to be spotted. Kate had dressed down for the visit, in black jeans, black boots and a black T-shirt, no makeup, her hair in a single braid.
Jason—no, Kate mentally corrected—HawkMaddox looked like a real badass. Also dressed in black, his jaw rough with a dark growth of beard, he wore a black leather vest over a black T-shirt, the eagle tat on his powerful biceps daring anyone to give him any flak.
He set a hand possessively at her waist as they walked up to the bar. They surveyed the interior, both of them looking for a skinny guy with a skull tattoo on his cheek.
“He’s in the back left corner,” Kate said, spotting the guy sitting in the darkest part of the cantina.
Jase urged her in that direction. Both of them pulled out chairs and sat down.
“You’re Hector?” Jase asked, though there really wasn’t much doubt.
“Sí, and you are Hawk. A bounty hunter.”
“That’s right.”
His black eyes went to Kate in search of an introduction, but it never came.
A waitress appeared wearing too much makeup and a low-cut blouse. Jase ordered a couple of beers, and a shot of tequila for Hector, since his glass was empty. He paid for the drinks when they arrived.
“I need to know what’s happening on the street,” Jase said, his beer bottle untouched, just props so they wouldn’t stand out. “I’m looking for men running whores, someone involved in prostitution on a large scale. You heard about anything like that going on?”
Hector shot back his tequila. With a hiss, he set the empty glass back down on the table, the sound disappearing in the noise and chatter around them. “You are dealing with fire, Senor Hawk. No one speaks of it. No one who wishes to live. Be very sure you wish to know the answer.”
Kate ignored the chill that ran down her spine. Jase fanned three hundred-dollar bills out on the battered wooden table. Finding a killer was getting expensive, she thought, not that it changed anything.
Hector reached for the money, but Jase set his hand on the cash. “Tell me what you know.”
Hector glanced nervously around the bar. “These people...they have no conscience. They will kill you like a fly on the wall.”
“Some of the women have a tattoo behind their left ears,” Jase continued. “A red lipstick kiss.”
Hector’s eyes darted left and right, searching for any threat. He nodded.
