"How long ago?"

"Ten minutes?" she said, plaintive, apologetic.

I hung up and looked at Ralph, then at Miranda.

"What?" Miranda said.

"Milo just left the office with a gun," I said.

My words took a while to impact, and even when they did the effect was dull. Miranda's brown eyes slid down to my chin, then my chest, then to her own hands. She pushed the Doritos away. "You know where he's going?"

"Yes."

"He's trying something dangerous. For me."

"Yes."

Ralph ate, looking back and forth between us. His expression had all the depth of someone watching a barroom TV program. When he finished his tamale he wiped his hands and then spread them, a hereIam gesture.

"Maybe so," I agreed.

Ralph slowly broke into a grin, like I'd given him an answer he'd been expecting for days.

I looked at Miranda. "You could stay here. Ralph is right—he and I could take care of it for you."

Miranda flushed. Anger seemed to be burning the marijuana slowness out of her eyes.

"I'm coming. Just tell me where we're going."

Ralph straightened up in his chair so he could take out Mr. Subtle, his .357 Magnum.

He clunked it on the table and said, "Dessert."

54

The night sky was bright with thunderclouds and the air smelled like metal. The raindrops were infrequent, warm and large as birds' eggs.

Ralph pulled the maroon Cadillac in behind the VW on the north side of Nacogdoches, about half a block down from the entrance of the storage facility.

He met us by the chainlink fence of the sulfur processing plant. The wind was whipping around, pushing Miranda's hair into her mouth. Her white Berkeley Tshirt was freckled with rain.

"Bad," I told Ralph.

Across the street the gates of the floodlit facility were open crookedly. Sheck's huge black pickup truck was just outside. The security booth was empty; Milo's green Jeep Cherokee was parked at a fortyfivedegree angle across the entrance, its fender crunched against the booth's doorway and its driver's side door open. If the guard had been in the booth, he would've had to crawl over Milo's hood to get out. From this angle I couldn't see the yard between the two buildings.

Monday night. Traffic along Nacogdoches was light. What cars there were turned into the industrial parkway before getting to our block. Two blocks down, five or six teenagers were waiting at the VIA bus stop.

Ralph looked at the yard. "No cover worth shit. Chavez, man—stupid ass isn't worth saving."

"You can back out," I said. "No obligation."

Ralph grinned. "?Mande? "

I nodded my thanks, then looked at Miranda. She was hugging her elbows. Her brows were knit together. On the ride north she had managed to shake off most of the effects of the laced pan dulce, but she still had a withdrawn, slightly puffedup demeanour, like a very cold parakeet on a perch. She shifted her weight onto one leg and lifted the other boot behind her knee. "What can I do?"

I think it was meant to sound brave, gung ho. It came out plaintive.

I got out my wallet and gave Miranda one of Detective Gene Schaeffer's cards, which I'd had the unhappy fortune to collect on many occasions.

"You can stay here if you want," I told her. "Be our anchor. Ralph has a cell phone. You hear any trouble, any shots, call that number and ask for homicide, Gene Schaeffer.

Insist on talking to him. Tell him where we are and what's happening and tell him to get on the phone with Samuel Barrera and get down here. We're giving them probable cause to enter. Do you have all that?"

Miranda nodded uncertainly.

Ralph looked at me, produced his fallback gun, a Dan Wesson .38, and held it toward me. "I know what you're gonna say, vato. But I got to offer."

"No thanks."

"I'll take it," Miranda said.

She did, gingerly. She held the gun correctly, pointed it down, unlatched the barrel and rolled it, checking the cylinders. She closed it and looked at me defiantly. "I'm not being an anchor." Then to Ralph, "Take your own damn cell phone."

Ralph laughed. "This lady's all right, man. Vamos."

He got out Mr. Subtle. We crossed Nacogdoches and walked toward the gates, staying close to the fence.

By the time we got there rain was coming down heavy enough to make a highpitched pinging against the corrugated metal roofs of the storage buildings. In the yard were the same two freight boxes that were there that afternoon, but this time they were attached to semirigs with the motors running. One loadingbay door was open. No one was on the dock, but looking underneath the first truck we could see long shadows from two pairs of legs on the other side—men talking between the trucks. One of them wore jeans and boots. The other had slacks, dress shoes.

I turned to Miranda. "Last chance."

But it was already happening too fast. Ralph knew when to take advantage, and he knew there wouldn't be a better chance to close some distance. He went right, walking quickly toward the cab of the truck. I moved left to the side of the building and began jogging toward the first loading dock. Miranda followed me.

The gunshots came when we were almost to the dock. I was running forward before I fully registered what I had heard. Two shots, both incredibly loud, from inside the warehouse, followed quickly by two shots from the right, behind the first truck. Those had been almost as loud—the report of a .357. Ralph had taken advantage of timing again.

We met Ralph under the loading dock, where metal slats had been laid across from the cement to the truck bed. The dock was only about five feet high. We had to crouch to avoid being seen from inside. Ralph had his gun out and was shaking his head, whispering Spanish curses and looking mildly displeased. Behind him were some lowpitched groans, almost muffled in the rain and the truck engines.

" Cabrons tried to get smart. One of them might live, I think."

I looked under the truck. On the opposite side, thirty yards away, the man in the slacks and the Tshirt who had been with Jean Kraus in the BMW earlier in the day was curled up on the asphalt, a pistol about ten feet away from him—kicked there by Ralph, probably. The man was making the groans as he tried to stop the bleeding in his thigh.

He was kicking himself along the pavement with his good leg, like he was trying to get somewhere, but he was only succeeding in making small circles. His fingers clutched his leg where the blood was seeping through, soaking his pants and smearing the pavement. He had gone at least one complete circle in his own pool because the blood was on his face and in his hair too. In the outdoor lights the sticky places glistened purple.

Redhaired Elgin Garwood was ten feet closer to us. He was very dead. A .357 round had eaten a fistsized chunk out of his chest, just to the left of his sternum. He was staring at the sky and rain was running off his forehead. His 9mm was still in his right hand.

My ears roared. I tried to think but the engines and the rain and the afterecho of gunfire made it impossible. Inside the warehouse, an argument was going on. More groaning. Was it possible they hadn't recognized the gunfire outside as a separate problem? Maybe the echo inside the building . . .

A carload of high school kids drove by on Nacogdoches, oblivious, grins on their faces, heavy metal music blaring.

I held my breath, then popped my head up for a brief look into the warehouse.

A twosecond snapshot—Tilden Sheckly and Jean Kraus arguing. Sheckly with a gun stuck in the waist of his pants. Kraus' Beretta in his hand. The apparent subject of the argument, a mountain of wounded human being on the floor in front of them. Milo Chavez, the soles of his very expensive shoes pointed toward me, one hand clutching at his shoulder, maybe his heart. A single line of blood ran away from his body, stopping after two feet to seep into and around a legalsized document that Milo had apparently dropped, then continuing.