Part 10 (1/2)

”So you see,” Peralta said, ”This is personal and it might get a h.e.l.l of a lot more personal.”

Cartwright set the rifle in his lap.

”Do you know how far my a.s.s is already in a sling even by talking to you?” he said. ”Even by you being here?”

”I don't care.” Peralta swiveled his head.

”So give me something to work with?” Cartwright folded his hands over the a.s.sault rifle. ”Who was killed with the AK?”

”Anglo, thirty-five or so,” Peralta said and went on to describe our first client including the expensive prosthetic leg and the multiple names and identifications.

”n.o.body I know,” Cartwright said.

I said, ”He had yellow eyes. Very well dressed. And he had a silver Desert Eagle on his pa.s.senger seat when he was killed.”

Cartwright shook his head slowly, but I caught the involuntary tic of his left eye.

”Didn't do him much good,” he said. ”You're probably lucky he got killed when you weren't in the line of fire. One less dirtbag in the world and the kid here survived. What's not to like? Now I need to take a nap.”

Suddenly, a fury rose in me. Tim Lewis' face hovered in my mind. And the baby I had held in my arms.

Cartwright asked me what I was doing.

”How do you set this thing off?” I was fiddling with the Claymore.

”You can't.” He smiled at me like I was an idiot. ”It's disarmed.”

That did it. I threw the Claymore straight at his face. When he reached to catch it, I was up, crossed the eight feet separating us, and picked up the AK-47 from his lap.

”What the...” He let the dummy Claymore fall. It clattered on the wood floor. Next he reached for the pistol on his belt.

I chambered a round in the AK-47, although I didn't aim it at him. Yet.

Peralta said, ”I wouldn't move, Ed. Mapstone here had a run-in with Los Zetas where they tried to put a hand grenade in his mouth, so he's PTSD'd to the moon.”

Through his teeth, Cartwright said, ”Why is he alive then?”

Peralta spoke softly. ”That's why I wouldn't move.”

He spoke quietly, ”How do you even know how to work that thing, kid?”

”A million child soldiers in Africa can work it. Want to take a chance that I can't?”

He studied me through angry but uncertain eyes, his hand still on the b.u.t.t of his sidearm.

If Cartwright had even started to pull the weapon, I would have pumped several shots into him before anything like judgment could have caught up with the rage I felt. A savage stranger's voice started speaking. It was coming from my mouth.

”You listen to me, old man.” I spat out the last two words. ”I've got two young people murdered and a missing baby. Now I've got an armed whacko survivalist sitting in front of me who thinks he can get off a shot before I send him to h.e.l.l. Who knows how many weeks before they find your body? What I don't have is time to waste finding that baby, and that means you don't have time.”

”All right, son. Please calm down.”

I swung the barrel to his chest.

”Now you have ten seconds less time.”

He saw my finger was on the trigger and a sheen of sweat appeared across his forehead.

”A dozen Claymores went missing from Fort Huachuca last month,” Cartwright said.

Peralta shook his head. ”That's an intelligence installation. What are anti-personnel mines doing there?”

”The military has this stuff everywhere. Makes it hard as h.e.l.l to track. Who knows how much walks away from bases and n.o.body ever knows?”

I wanted to know who took it.

”Word is, soldiers.”

”Active-duty soldiers?”

He nodded. I didn't lower the weapon.

He swallowed. ”White supremacists are in the military. That's not new. You remember a guy named McVeigh in Oklahoma City. Now there's more of them. We've spent more than a decade at war, and we're sending home killing machines.” He sighed. ”Anyway, the word is, that's who took the Claymores. I don't know if it was to sell or to use.”

”What about prost.i.tutes? Are they involved in running high-end wh.o.r.es?

”That's all I've heard, son,” he said. ”Do what you please.”

He closed his eyes and in the terrible silence that followed he put his hand in his lap. I lowered the a.s.sault rifle.

Peralta said, ”Give me that and wait for me at the truck.”

My blood was still up but I did as he asked.

Before I walked out, I heard Cartwright's voice.

”You have an unusual name, kid. I read a book by somebody with that name once, about the Great Depression.”

”He wrote it,” Peralta said.

”It wasn't bad,” he said. ”But you should have written more about the effect on the tribes.”

He was right. I closed the door behind me.

Half an hour later, we hit solid pavement and Peralta spoke for the first time since he had returned to the pickup truck.

”There was a day when he would have killed you.”