Southtown

“So . . . you never met Wil Stirman?”



She shook her head, her expression apologetic. “McCurdy would not trust someone else to pick his women. He knew what he wanted—the kind who made him angry. He would pretend to be a border agent and search the Green Highway himself. He separated me from two friends, promised to let them go if I cooperated. I thought I knew what he wanted. I was wrong. He brought me here. He went slowly with me. My blindness excited him, I think. But it also made him careless. He did not remember the lock, the third night.”



She related the story without faltering, without showing any emotion other than grim satisfaction. I imagined her alone in the dark, tired and beaten and bloody, escaping and stumbling down to the river, fol owing it as she’d fol owed the power lines, trusting her sense of direction to lead her out of McCurdy’s property. Somehow, she had found help. She had made the sheriff believe her.



“After al that,” I said, “you chose to come back. You made a home . . . here.”



“You cannot move away from the dead, se?or. When I spoke against Stirman, I spoke for al of the women like me. I live here now for al of them.”



I could translate the words, but her meaning seemed alien to me. I could not imagine doing what she had done.



“Stirman wil come after you,” I said. “He wil not be kind.”



She turned her face to receive a wet breeze from the window. I realized she knew more about pain and fear than I could ever imagine. I could say nothing that would scare her.



“This is my home,” she said. “Velo tú.”



I looked at the garlic ristras, the sunlight on the cornflower wal s, the pot of steaming water on the stovetop. I did see.



Gloria Paz had exorcised fear from this place—from this small part of McCurdy’s ranch. I wondered if that was why the new owner had al owed her to live here. Gloria had succeeded where he had failed.



“Tel Mr. Barrow to come visit,” Gloria Paz said. “It has been too many years. He can bring me more shotgun ammunition. Tel him not to despair.”



Only then did I realize who she reminded me of—her small frame, her stubborn expression, the tense set of her shoulders, as if she were ready to lead a charge. She reminded me of Erainya.



I managed to say, “I’l tel him.”



Sam Barrera came back inside. He muttered an apology. He slipped the cel phone into his pocket, looked around the room as if he’d misplaced something.



“Are we done?” he asked me.



It seemed a strange thing to say, since he hadn’t participated in any of the conversation. Perhaps he could see from my expression that I’d learned what I needed to know. Or perhaps he saw the goat’s milk and Folgers on the stovetop and decided not to risk it.



“Yeah,” I told him. “I guess we’re done.”



On the drive back through Castrovil e, we passed our friend the deputy. He was leaning against the hood of his unit, supervising a group of men placing sandbags across the entrance of Haby’s Bavarian Bakery.



He tipped his hat to us. I imagined he was congratulating himself on being right—the city folk were beating a hasty retreat after a hopeless visit with the crazy woman.



The hil s retreated behind us. I waited for Barrera to speak.



When he didn’t, I said, “You framed Wil Stirman. Gloria Paz lied for you.”



Just when I thought he wasn’t going to acknowledge my statement, he said, “So now you know.”



“At the risk of sounding rude—were you fucking insane?”



“Did you miss the chains?” Sam asked. “The bloodstains on the wal ?”



“That was McCurdy. Wil Stirman had nothing to do with those women.”



“Not those women, maybe. But a thousand others. He sent them to sweatshops, brothels, slave ranches.



Fred and I knew. We had both crossed paths with Stirman before. He was a monster. This was our chance.”



“You used the public outrage about the McCurdy case. Your clients wanted a scapegoat and you knew Stirman was an easy sel .”



“We started the investigation thinking it was him. Fred and I both. When we found out . . . Gloria admitted there was no supplier. McCurdy handpicked the women he wanted. Fred and I were too far along at that point. We’d gotten in Stirman’s face. We’d already convinced a couple of his men to turn on him and provide evidence. How did we know they were lying? That they just wanted an excuse to divide up the boss’s business? After we realized the truth, we decided . . . what the hel ? Gloria was wil ing to cooperate.



We would bring Stirman down.”



“You. Sam Barrera. Mr. By-the-Book.”



“Circumstances were different, eight years ago.” His voice was tinged with bitterness.



“Erainya knew about the frame-up?” I asked.



“Fred wouldn’t have told her.”



“Then why is she reluctant to cal the police?”



He hesitated. “We have too much to lose.”



“Your reputation. She did nothing wrong.”



He gave me a wary look.



There was more to it. He wasn’t worried about looking bad, having his frame-up exposed eight years later. Who would believe the truth anyway, or care? No prosecutor would be anxious to file charges against Barrera and an old Mexican lady for taking a demon like Wil Stirman off the streets.



We were back in the city now. Barrera turned south on I-10—not the way to my place.



He exited on Commerce and headed through downtown.



I didn’t want to talk to him, but final y I said, “Where the hel are you going?”



He drove to South Alamo and turned right, into Southtown.



Under different circumstances, this would’ve been fine with me. Invariably, Southtown was where I ended up whenever I had free time. I loved the dilapidated houses, the palm trees and crumbling sidewalks, old cantinas next to new art studios, tattoo shops, folk magic botánicas, pan dulce bakeries.



Back when I was stil speaking with my best friend Ralph, we would kick around down here, occasional y kicking heads when business cal ed for it. Two Northsiders, we would joke that this was the neighborhood we should have been born in. Southtown was where San Antonians came to remember why we lived in San Antonio.



Barrera parked on Cedar, in front of a big blue Victorian with a FOR SALE sign out front.



“What?” I asked.



He looked at me like the answer was obvious. “Home.”



I didn’t know what the hel he was talking about. Sam lived in an upper-middle-class two-bedroom in Hol ywood Park. His street was sleepy and safe and white-bread and about as far from Southtown as you could get.



“Look, Sam, as much as I love shopping for houses with you—”



“Real estate agent cal ed. She’s got an offer of a quarter mil ion. A quarter goddamn mil ion.”



I hesitated. “This is your family place?”



He kept his eyes on the house. “I was walking home as a kid—right on the corner there. Couple of cholos drove by and shot at me. The bul et ripped a hole in my jacket, embedded in our front porch. You can stil see the groove in the floorboards.”



“Wow,” I said. He was starting to scare me.



“Mom was too afraid to cal SAPD,” he continued. “They wouldn’t have done shit anyway. Next day at school, those cholos asked me how I liked the drive-by. They laughed, like it was a big joke. I beat the shit out of them. Otherwise, they would’ve tried it again. That’s the day I decided to become a cop. Not the local assholes. Somebody bigger. FBI.”



“Sam?”



No response.



I touched his shoulder. “Sam.”



He started, as if I’d appeared from nowhere.



“Just remembering,” he said.



His face had gone pale. He looked sick with worry.



“Let’s cal the police,” I said. “You’re not in any shape to be running down Wil Stirman.”



“I’m fine. I’m just tired.”



He started the car, pul ed away from the curb. In a few minutes, we were back on 281, heading toward the North Side.



“What did you take from Stirman?” I asked Sam. “What is it he wants back?”



Sam kept driving, checking his rearview mirror as if looking for a tail. “I got a ful slate of meetings today.



Missed a lot, carting you around. Unlike Erainya, I’ve got accounts to handle.”



“You’re not sure,” I said. “Are you?”



He shifted the strap of his shoulder holster. Sweat stains had appeared in the armpits of his shirt. “I know where to find Stirman. I don’t need anyone’s help bringing him down. Not from you. Not from that goddamn Manos woman.”



It was something he might’ve said at any time during the years I’d known him, as his company rose to power at the expense of that goddamn Manos woman.



Same old Barrera. Irritating, arrogant, dependable.



But as he drove me home, I felt an uneasy pul in the pit of my stomach.



Barrera’s hands stayed steady on the wheel, his left turn signal stil blinking from the entrance ramp on Commerce, blinking al the way across town with a reassuring, meaningless rhythm.



Chapter 11



“That your old place?” Pablo asked.



Wil didn’t answer. He closed the car door, brushed the rain off his shoulders.



They had parked outside the abandoned plumbing supply shop on Avenue B—a big white building with a razor wire fence and stacks of corroding pipe in the yard.



Wil had walked the perimeter first. He’d noticed how much thicker the honeysuckle was on the fence, how the roof was fal ing apart. The windows on the second story, where he once lived, were now painted over.



There was stil a bul et hole visible in one pane of turquoise glass.



Final y, he’d built up the courage to go inside.



Upstairs, ratty sleeping bags, old needles, piles of clothes indicated junkies had been using the place to shoot up. Nobody there at the moment, which was fortunate for them.



Wil found what he was looking for under a loose floorboard, right where he’d left it, as if it were too small , too insignificant to have been disturbed. He took what he needed to take, then left his sketch of Soledad in exchange. It seemed the right thing, to leave her image here in this building—the place she’d been happy.



Or perhaps that wasn’t his only reason.



Crouching in the silence of the ruined apartment, Wil thought about his encounter with Tres Navarre and Jem Manos. Revenge would be much harder, much more complicated than he’d imagined.



Perhaps he was leaving Soledad’s picture here because he was no longer sure he could do what she would’ve wanted.



It was a long time before he trusted himself to get up, walk outside again, and join Pablo in the car.



“We shouldn’t be here, man,” Pablo said.



Wil knew he was right.



Dimebox Ortiz had found this place for him, years ago. He had said, Nobody will ever think to look for you here, man. It’s one of those places that you just drive by. It’s invisible.



They had searched al morning for Dimebox Ortiz. Wil wanted to make him eat those words.



“Any news?” Wil asked.



Pablo shook his head. He’d been manning the phone. They had hired a guy to tail Erainya Manos, just to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid.