HEY, BUDDY," KEN TRENT SAID, "WHERE YOU AT?"
Jose squinted at the clock on his phone and wormed his swollen tongue around inside his mouth, searching for moisture. He cleared his throat and said, "In my truck. Why?"
"Where in your truck?"
Jose went rigid at the tone of his ex-boss's voice. He sat up, kicking a trio of empty Budweiser bottles across the floor mat. He studied the tree-lined street in front of him where Casey lived, and scoured the nearly empty parking lot of the small, shrub-trimmed shopping center. On the pavement outside, the rest of the empty beer bottles stood in their cardboard container next to a shimmering puddle of piss.
The third-floor window to Casey's back bedroom stared down at him with a half-shut pink shade, a watchful eye that somehow accused him of cowardice for sitting there and drinking all night without going inside to talk to Casey.
He said, "On my way to a job."
"In town?"
"Yeah," Jose said. "Why? What's up?"
The police captain took a turn at silence before he said, "I think you need to come in and see me."
"I got a wife about to come out of an aerobics class with some college kid," Jose said. "Husband's an insurance agent, paying top dollar, so you gotta do better than a tip on the Mavs game."
"I can't tell you, exactly, Jose," he said. "It's important. It's got to do with that thing you're working on down in Wilmer."
"Tell you what," Jose said. "I can't get down there, but I'll meet you. There's a shopping center across the street from my job, the place just off the Colinas exit on 114. You can buy me a Starbucks."
"Half an hour, okay?" Ken asked.
"Cappuccino?" Jose asked. "If I get there first?"
"Just the closest thing to regular black coffee," Ken said.
Jose always kept a spare set of clothes behind the backseat. He removed the duffel bag and crossed the street, dialing Casey's cell number but getting no answer. Casey kept a key in the flower box outside the back door. Jose dug it out of the dirt and let himself in to use the shower and change clothes. Clean and smelling much better, he jotted out a note telling her that he'd used the shower and explaining that if it hadn't been urgent and involving the Senator Chase case, he never would have been so bold as to use her spare key to let himself in. He added a postscript that said he hoped she'd forgive him for that, even if she couldn't forgive him for his past.
He drove over to the shopping center ten minutes before the appointed time, but instead of entering the large parking lot, he passed by and pulled into the adjoining apartment complex perched on the hill above. Parking out of sight, he walked with a pair of field glasses to the edge of the wrought-iron fence by the apartment complex's pool. He scanned the Starbucks and saw Ken Trent outside in a gray blazer and black slacks, talking to an undercover cop who nodded, looked around, and then hurriedly returned to the unmarked car, where he slumped down in the seat next to his partner.
When Ken disappeared into the coffee store, Jose studied the other cars in the lot and came up with a second unmarked car, where two more cops sat slumped low, one of them talking into a cell phone.
Jose checked the loads in his guns as he crossed the lot toward the back. He hopped the fence and shuffled down the dirt hillside into the back of the shopping center where the AC units groaned from the rooftop and the smell of garbage floated past on warm zephyrs. He jogged the length of the center and came around the opposite side, slipping into the side door of the coffee shop and sneaking up on the police captain at his table against the wall.
"Sorry I'm late," Jose said.
Ken jumped and spun. "Jesus."
"Thanks for getting the coffee," Jose said, slipping into the chair across from him and taking a drink from the other cup. "Double espresso. You remembered. That's sweet."
"Who else drinks that shit?" Ken said, taking a careful sip from his own cup.
"Look at the line, that's who," Jose said, nodding toward the counter crowded with businesspeople, most of them talking rapidly into cell phones or bending over their BlackBerrys.
"What's up?" Jose asked. "That class finishes in about ten minutes and then I'm on."
Ken's face went sour. "We've been friends for a long time. I want to help."
Jose nodded slowly. "Okay."
They stared at each other for a minute. Jose took another sip.
"You want to tell me something?" Ken asked.
"You want to tell me something?" Jose asked. "You're the one acting strange."
Ken winced and looked at him hard. "They found your aunt and the other woman, dead. Execution style, Jose. No struggle. And right there with them? That little popgun you own. The one you keep in the crack of your ass."
Jose felt his mind casting free, dizzy from the night before and this news, but he gripped his legs under the table and dug in with his fingertips.
"What about the others?" he asked, thinking of Isodora and the baby.
"Others?" Ken said, studying him.
"A woman and her baby girl," Jose said. "What about them?"
Ken shook his head. "If you're trying to distract me, don't. I'm doing my best to make this easy."
Jose paused, but only for an instant, and said, "I'm a serial killer all of a sudden, right? A basement full of bodies somewhere?"
"You admitting to the two?"
"Of course I'm not," Jose said. "You're not serious. I'd leave my own gun there?"
Ken just stared.
"You giving me a chance to run?" Jose asked. "That your help?"
"You know it's not," Ken said. "I told you and told you, back in the day. You can't play on the edge. Sooner or later, you lose your balance. It just happens. I just thought it could be you and me and make it easy that way, not taking you down like some banger in the street."
"Cup of coffee and a friendly surrender, huh?" Jose said. "You're a pal."
Jose flicked the coffee without warning, blinding the cop, whipping out his automatic, and clipping Trent with a backhand across the temple. Jose grabbed him under the arm so he didn't fall to the floor, scanning the cafe over his shoulder. One woman looked, her mouth agog, but when her eyes met Jose's, she raised her newspaper. The rest kept their phone calls going.
Jose propped his old friend up against the wall. A small trickle of blood seeped down along his hairline, draining into his ear. Jose turned again, scanned the cafe, stashed his gun, and slipped out the back.