“Yeah. Wanted a full report. I had to tell him about your ass. He’s really unhappy about that—says you probably left some DNA behind, so if you ever get looked at, they’ll know you’re the tool queen. Then they’ll put some real pressure on you, and you’ll spill your guts.”
“Wouldn’t do that,” Kort said.
“’Course you would. Never heard of anyone who wouldn’t, if the choice was that or the needle,” Soto said.
“Including you?” Kort asked.
“Fuck you,” Soto said. And a moment later, “Yeah, including me. I met a guy in the joint down in Florida who was on death row for six years, and then they called it off and gave him life, instead. He said when he was on the row he’d sit there in his cell and imagine getting strapped into the chair—they still had the chair back then—knowing that it’s coming. Day after day, thinking about it, dawn to dark, getting closer and closer. Says in the end, he would have said anything they wanted, to get out of it.”
Kort thought about that for a moment, then pushed herself up off the bed and said, “Okay. Let’s get it over with. We didn’t get shit from Arnold. We gotta do something.”
16
THE TOWN HOUSE COMPLEXwas made up of forty-two separate houses in six brown-brick buildings, two ranks of three buildings each. The backs of the buildings faced each other across a rectangle of brown grass with three neglected swing sets and a large dirt square that might once have been a swimming pool.
Each building had a parking lot out front, and the lots were connected by driveways at the ends.
During the trap-baiting phase, Lucas, Bob, and Rae had sat with their working phones at the west end of the front lot, and hoped the killers, if they came, would have precise enough instructions that they would come to that corner.
Lucas was on the west end of the front lot and Rae was on theeast end, eighty or ninety yards away. Bob was watching the back lots, in case the cartel people came in that way. The windows in the town houses were small. Other than the small windows, they were essentially surrounded by the concrete walls of commercial buildings across the street and down the street in both directions. If it came to shooting, there shouldn’t be any collateral damage.
They’d been waiting for an hour when Soto cruised by in the black Tahoe. Lucas couldn’t make out the driver and the truck kept going, took a right at the corner, and disappeared. Four or five minutes later, another black Tahoe went by—but Tahoes were common in Texas, so it might have been a different one. The second time, he noted the tag, which was from North Carolina.
Between the two Tahoes, a half dozen other cars passed the front of the complex, and two turned in, and the drivers went into their homes. One of the cars that went by was a maroon Ford Fusion, driven by Kort, who was trying to stay as light on her butt as possible. A motel cushion helped, as did the pain pills, but she was still tender. Her.223 sat on the floor of the backseat, covered with a black blanket. She didn’t see Lucas in the Jeep because he was lying well back, and he didn’t recognize her in the Ford.
The maroon Ford went by a second time, and Rae called Lucas and Bob on their shared radios: “I’m interested in the maroon Ford,” she said. “The woman inside seems to be looking at the town houses, even though she’s not turning in. This is the second time she’s done it.”
“I can’t see her face that well,” Lucas said. “I’m getting some sun off the windshield where I’m at.”
Bob said, “Well, I saw her turn at the corner up there, turn rightand come down toward me, and then she turned right at my corner, and then turned right again at the end of the block, like she’s going in circles. Want me to drop in behind her if she comes around again?”
“I’ll do it,” Lucas said. “I looked her right in the face at Darling’s farm. I’ll recognize her if I see her again. That Ford’s been moving fairly slow, I’ll pass her and take a long look.”
—
THE FORDdidn’t come back, not that they saw, until it was too late. The Tahoe came back, though, and turned into the front parking lot.
Lucas called Bob and Rae and said, “Rae, you see the black Tahoe?”
“Yeah.”
“I think that’s the third time that it’s been around. It for sure has been around twice in the last fifteen minutes.”
“All right. You gonna move on him?” she asked.
“Doing it now,” Lucas said. “Bob, you want to come over to this side?”
“On my way. Thirty seconds.”
Lucas would recognize either Soto or Kort, and they would recognize him, so he didn’t try to get too close to the Tahoe. As the driver parked it, Lucas pulled into a space fifty or sixty feet away, behind another car and a pickup. The Tahoe’s driver didn’t get out right away.
Rae was looking at the driver from the other end of the block, through a pair of Canon image-stabilized binoculars. “He’s justsitting there. All I can tell you is that he’s a short guy. His head doesn’t get to the top of the headrest. He has dark hair. Thin.”
“That could be him,” Lucas said. And, “I can’t see him. Keep me up on what he’s doing.”
Bob called: “I’m setting up at the end of the parking lot. Right behind that rug company van. You see me, Rae?”
“Gotcha. If he gets out and walks to the town house he’s in front of, you’ll be shooting right at me,” she said. “Don’t do that.”
