The owner had finished with the receipt and looked up and said, “You hear about that? Some guy got all chopped to pieces by some fruitcakes...”
—
OUTSIDE,Darling said to Poole, “I think that was Arnold. One of the cops on the TV looked like that Davenport guy who came to my place. I’m pretty sure it was him.”
“If it’s the cartel guys, and that’s Arnold’s place, and if Arnold gave them my phone number, and if they have a way to trace it...”
“Gotta move,” Darling said.
They got back to the house fifteen minutes later and they were gone in thirty, with no solid plan. They headed north on I-35E, toDenton, and rendezvoused at the Golden Triangle Mall, at a free-standing Starbucks.
They got muffins and coffee. The place was crowded inside, but the outside tables were empty and they took one, in the sunshine. Box had brought her Mac Air from the car. “They got Wi-Fi here. Let me get online and see what I can find out about those killings down in Dallas,” she said. A minute or so after she got online, she said, “Shit. Fox 4 is identifying the tortured man as Derrick Donald Arnold, says he works at the T-Bar—A Gentlemen’s Club—and has an arrest record for assault and a variety of drug charges...”
“Now we know for sure,” Darling said. “But we got a complication with that marshal being here.”
“Not a complication anymore,” Poole said. “Maybe they’ll all find our house, but they won’t find us.”
Box sniffed. “I really liked that place. I was thinking we might get a cat.”
The two men looked at her, and then Poole chuckled. “I guess we could. We could still do that. We need a place to settle in.”
—
FORTY MILESto the south, Soto knocked on Kort’s motel room door. They’d been up until five o’clock in the morning and had slept past noon. Kort let him in, and Soto asked, first thing, “How’s your ass?”
“Some better,” she said. She walked back and lay belly down on the bed, cranking her head up on a pillow so she could see him. “Still hurts, but I’m not getting any more of the juice out of the holes. I think the penicillin is working.”
“Can you drive?”
“If I have to,” she said. “Still got a dozen pain pills.”
Soto nodded: “I’m gonna get the other car. You can wait here until I get back with it.”
“What’s going on?”
“The College-Sounding Guy has another place for us to check. A row of rental town houses,” Soto said. “Forty of them. Davenport was there for almost two hours, up at the west end of the place, but we don’t know exactly which one.”
“We got a name?”
“We got a bunch of names. The College-Sounding Guy got them from the gas company. Two of the renters have drug busts, another guy’s been up on assault. They might be guys we want to look at. But the main thing is, there’s a live-in manager, and I’ll bet Davenport talked to him. We get to that guy and we’ll have some idea of what was going on.”
“Think he’ll talk?” Kort asked.
“I wasn’t planning to ask him nice,” Soto said.
“Sounds... funky.”
“It is. But it’s all I can think to do,” Soto said. “You don’t have to come in with me—I want the extra car there, in case of trouble.”
“You’re expecting trouble?”
“No, but... it’s the same deal every time, dumbass. Two cars, if there’s any way to do it. Already saved us once on this trip.”
“What if Davenport found Poole and arrested him? If he was there for two hours... that’s a long time.”
Soto was shaking his head: “He went from the town houses straight back to his hotel. There wasn’t any arrest. And hewastherefor a long time, which makes it more interesting. And then, the Boss is getting antsy.”
Kort: “He called you?”
