Play Dirty

CHAPTER 34

HE SPED OUT OF THE THEATER PARKING LOT, WOVE THROUGH the commercial complex, and took the first ramp he could onto Central Expressway, heading north, driving as fast as he dared but not so fast as to invite being stopped. He drove with one eye on the rearview mirror, afraid that, at any moment, he would see a pursuing squad car.

“Why wouldn’t Rodarte want to find Manuelo Ruiz?” Laura asked.

“Think about it. He hasn’t exactly launched a full-out manhunt for him, has he?”

“He thought that you had killed him, that all they would discover was a body. He was more interested in finding you.”

“So he could indict me for murder. Best-case scenario for Rodarte would be for Manuelo to be across the border, well on his way back to the jungle, never to be seen or heard from again. Shit!” he hissed, thumping the steering wheel with his fist. “Do you think he got that address? Do you think he understood it?”

“I-”

“Because if he finds Manuelo before I do, the man will never make it into a court of law, probably not even into an interrogation room.”

“You think Rodarte would help him escape?”

“If Manuelo’s lucky, that’s what he’ll do. What scares me is that Rodarte will make sure no one hears Manuelo’s account of what happened. Ever.”

“You mean…he would kill him?”

Griff shrugged.

“Griff, he’s a police detective.”

“Who’s dedicated himself to putting me on death row. To that end, Manuelo’s easily dispensable.”

“So what do we do? Call one of Rodarte’s superiors, tell them your side?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know who his friends are. He recruited two of them to beat me up. I wouldn’t know who to trust.”

“Then what?”

“We find Manuelo before Rodarte does.”

“How are we going to do that?”

Swerving in front of a truck to take an exit, Griff muttered, “Wish the hell I knew.”

The pancake house was open all night. At any hour it was well lighted and crowded, and so was the parking lot. A car left there didn’t attract attention. Griff parked, and they got out.

“Welcome to the glamorous world of a fugitive.” He took Laura’s hand and led her around to the back of the building, where the odorous Dumpsters were open and overflowing.

“Where are we going?”

“It’s a half-mile walk. Are you okay with that?”

“A half mile is a warm-up.”

He smiled down at her, but his expression was grim. “I didn’t say it was an easy half mile.”

Leaving behind the commercial area, they entered a residential neighborhood. Over the past several days, through trial and error, he’d learned the safest route, if not the easiest. It took them through yards with dense shrubbery and large trees but no exterior lighting, fences, or barking dogs.

They came upon the house from the rear. Griff was relieved to see that no lights were on inside. Each time he came back to his refuge, he was afraid the owners had returned during his absence.

The backyard was enclosed by a stockade fence, but when they reached the gate, he opened the latch without difficulty. “It’s never locked.” He ushered Laura through the gate, then closed it silently.

“Who lives here?” she asked, speaking in a whisper. The houses on either side were obviously occupied. Lights shone through windows. Somewhere close a sprinkler was swishing. They could hear a television show’s soundtrack.

“I used to.” He led the way to a back door, opened it, and pulled her in behind him. The alarm system began to bleep, but he punched in a sequence of numbers and it went silent. “They never changed the code. All these years, it’s been the same.”

“This was your house?”

“My high school coach and his wife. They took me in when I was fifteen.”

“The Millers.” At his look of surprise, she added, “I read about you.”

He didn’t risk turning on any lights, but there was enough light from the neighbors’ houses straining through the kitchen window curtain that he could make out her features as he searched her face. “You read about me?”

“When Foster recommended you to father the baby. I researched your background.”

“Oh.” He waited a beat, then said, “I guess I passed. In spite of the fact that my dad was a wife beater and my mother a whore.”

“That wasn’t your fault.”

“People say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

“Generally speaking, people are unfair.”

“Not in this case. I turned out rotten, too.”

She shook her head and was about to say something when the refrigerator cycled on, creating a buzz that sounded as loud as a chain saw in the silent house. She jumped. He touched her arm. “It’s just the fridge. It’s okay. Come on.” He took her hand and pulled her behind him as he made his way from the kitchen into the living area, where the drapes were drawn and it was much darker.

Still speaking in a whisper, she said, “So this is where you’ve been staying all this time?”

“Since my escape from Turner’s house.”

“They’ve been sheltering you?”

“Hardly. They don’t know I’m here. I came to see Ellie not too long ago. She mentioned a trip to Hawaii. I guess that’s where they are. Anyhow, I showed up here, prepared to throw myself on their mercy. I didn’t have to.”

“You may when they return.”

“I may,” he said ruefully. “I’m sure Coach will kick me out. But at least they can’t be accused of sheltering me. I’m sorry I can’t turn on any lights. The neighbors know they’re away and will be keeping an eye on the house. It’s that kind of neighborhood. Careful. I’ve got to close this door.” He shut the door between the living room and the hallway, plunging them into total darkness.

“Didn’t Rodarte think to look for you here?”

“I’m sure he did and probably still has a car doing periodic drive-bys. But when he discovered the Millers were out of state, he figured I wouldn’t be here. Besides, he knows Coach can’t stomach the sight of me now. He’d think if I showed my face around here, he’d be the first person Coach would call. I’ve been hoping that all this would be cleared up before they return from their vacation and they’d never know that I’d used their house.” He laughed softly. “Ellie probably would figure it out, though. I’ve tried to clean up after myself, but she’s an excellent housekeeper.”

“Is that their car we were in?”

“Their second car. Not used much. I sneaked it out of the garage in the middle of the night, drove it to the parking lot of that restaurant, and left it. I’ve been coming and going from there. As far as the neighbors know, the car is still in the garage.”

He felt his way along the wall till he reached the doorway to his bedroom. “In here.”

When they were inside and the door closed behind them, he released her hand and felt his way over to the desk. He found the lamp by feel and turned it on. They blinked against the sudden light. He motioned toward the window that overlooked the front yard. “Crude but effective.”

He’d stretched a dark blanket over the window frame and secured it all around with tape, so that not even a sliver of light would shine through. “From the outside all you see is drawn blinds.”

“Genius.”

“More like desperation.”

A laptop computer was on the desk. He switched it on. He’d found it in the spare bedroom. Coach had always cursed computers, saying they were “too damn hard to operate,” so Griff supposed it was Ellie who’d joined the age of electronics.

While it was booting, he watched Laura as she moved around the room, looking at photos, trophies, clippings, and other memorabilia of his life-starting at age fifteen.

“You began early.”

She was looking at a photo of him taken before he was old enough to shave. He was kneeling with one knee on the turf, wearing a football uniform with full pads, his helmet tucked under his arm, his expression as badass as he could make it. The photos and awards in this room chronicled his football career from those adolescent teams up to that fateful play-off game with the Redskins.

“You loved it, didn’t you?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you regret what you did?”

“You have no idea.” He glanced at the computer monitor. It wasn’t a speedy, streamlined new model. Programs were still loading. Laura sat down on the edge of the bed and folded her hands in her lap, like she was settling in to listen.

Griff looked at a framed photo of himself caught in the motion of throwing a pass. It had been taken during the game that had won his high school the state championship. Coach’s team. The school district had held a victory parade upon their return from Houston, where the game had been played in the Astrodome. Up to that point, it had been the highlight of Griff’s life.

“You know from the day you start that it can’t last forever,” he said. “Even if you go all the way to the pros, it’s short term. Thirty is old. Thirty-five is ancient. And that’s if you escape serious injury. You’re never more than one play away from the end of your career. Or even the end of your life. Each time the ball is snapped, it’s a tempt of fate.”

He turned his head and looked at her. “But I wouldn’t trade a day of it. Not a single day. I loved the buildup that was part of each game. By kickoff time, I’d have a knot in my gut harder than a fist, but it was a good kind of anxiety, you know?”

She nodded.

“I loved the snap, getting my hands around that ball. I loved the adrenaline rush I got every time I called a tricky play and it was perfectly executed. I received perks and favors all along the way, a college education, millions in salary. But the truth is, Laura, I’d have played for nothing.

“Because even on the worst days, I loved the game. I loved it even on the Monday mornings when I could barely get out of bed for the aches and pains.” He smiled. “Most mornings it still takes me half an hour before I can stand up straight.”

He looked at the computer. It was still grinding. “I remember one Sunday afternoon in Texas Stadium, lying on the turf after I’d been sacked by a thousand pounds of Broncos in front of a capacity home crowd. I looked up through that stupid hole in the ceiling of the stadium, and even then, knocked flat on my butt and having lost seven yards on the play, I was so goddamn happy to be there I laughed out loud. Everybody thought I’d had my bells rung, got a concussion, or just plain cracked under pressure. No one could guess I was laughing out of pure joy over the game. The game.” He shook his head and snuffled a sad laugh. “Yeah, I loved it. God, I loved it.”

Several moments elapsed. He heard Laura draw in a long breath and let it out slowly. “And they loved you.”

When he looked back at her, she was staring at a photo of him with the Millers. “You mean Coach? Ellie?” He shrugged uneasily. “Emphasis on the past tense.”

She indicated the walls, the full shelves, and said softly, “It’s all still here, Griff.”

He held her gaze for a moment, then turned back to the computer. “Finally.” He moved the cursor to the icon that would link him to the Internet. He felt Laura move up behind him and look over his shoulder.

“What’s your plan?”

“Haven’t got one. Go on some kind of search engine, I guess. See if I can find this address. Start with city of Dallas, move to Dallas County, expand to the whole damn state if necessary.”

“Is that your top speed?”

He typed by hunting and pecking. He looked up at her over his shoulder. “Are you faster?”

They switched places. She sat in the desk chair. He braced his arms on the back of it so he could see the monitor. She was a much more proficient typist. “Manuelo didn’t write down whether it was Lavaca Street or Road or Lane,” she remarked. “We’ll have to try them all.”

“How many Lavaca Streets, Roads, et cetera do you think there are in Texas?”

“Hundreds?”

“That’s my guess, too. And Rodarte’s got better computers and more people.”

“Can I make a suggestion?”

“Be my guest.”

“Tax records. Every property is taxed.”

“You think a person who provides fake documents to illegal immigrants pays property taxes?”

“The taxes would be assessed. Whether or not they’re paid is another matter.”

“Okay. Are there tax records online?”

“We’ll try. Tax assessor records for Dallas County?”

“Knock yourself out.”

She began searching for such a website. “Tell me about Bill Bandy.”

The request surprised him, and for a moment he didn’t say anything. Then, “What do you want to know?”

“How you met. How you got involved with him.”

He gave her a condensed version. “When I got in over my head, he introduced me to a syndicate. They canceled my debt, in exchange for a few interceptions, fumbles. Nothing that couldn’t happen to any quarterback on any given Sunday.”

“Bandy betrayed you.”

“The feds offered him probation in exchange for setting me up, and I’ll bet they didn’t have to twist his arm too hard.”

“There’s a Lavaca Street in Dallas, but the addresses have three digits, not four,” she reported.

“Try Lavaca Road.”

“The newspapers said that Bandy delivered the two million to your Turtle Creek condo.”

“True. He was wearing a wire. Second I took the box of cash from him, agents came busting through my front door, read me my rights.”

“You were put in jail?”

“Yes,” he said tightly, remembering the humiliation of that experience. “Wyatt Turner got me released on the condition that I give up my passport. Soon as I got out, I went looking for Bandy.”

Laura stopped typing, turned and looked up at him.

“Right. It was a stupid thing to do. But I was furious. I guess I wanted to frighten him into thinking he was as good as dead for setting me up.” He cursed himself under his breath. “What a goddamn fool I was. When I got to Bandy’s place, the door was open. I went in. I almost walked out without seeing him. He’d been stuffed between the back of the sofa and the wall. His neck had been wrenched so hard his head was practically facing backward.”

“Who killed him?”

“I’m sure the Vista boys were behind it. They wanted him silenced, so he couldn’t give them up like he had me.”

“They could’ve killed you, too.”

“I think they thought it would be more fun to keep me alive, let me be charged with Bandy’s murder. I’m sure it was them who tipped off the cops.”

“How did they know you were going to be at Bandy’s place?”

“I guess they figured I’d go after Bandy, at the very least to tell him how disappointed I was in him,” he said with sarcasm. “I was still kneeling beside the body when two squad cars showed up, responding to an anonymous 911 call from a pay phone, they said.”

“Vista was watching you.”

“Obviously. And if you could see this guy called Bennett, you’d think he could sit through a tornado without blinking. Anyway, here I was, facing federal charges of racketeering and illegal gambling, and there was my bookie, the one who’d ratted me out, dead on the floor.

“Enter Detective Stanley Rodarte, who’d been dispatched to investigate the crime scene. He came in and introduced himself, told me what a great ballplayer I’d been, and what a shame it was that I’d turned crooked. Then he looked at the body, looked back at me, and started laughing. It seemed that open and shut.”

“No address like this on Tarrant County’s tax records, either,” Laura said.

“Denton? What’s on the western side of Tarrant?”

She consulted a map on the screen, where the counties were delineated. “Parker.”

“Try that, too. Damn,” he said, looking at the map and realizing the scope of this effort. “This could take all night.” He consulted his watch, wondering if Rodarte had already isolated the address and was speeding toward it.

“It wasn’t the open-and-shut case Rodarte thought it would be,” Laura said.

“Bandy’s back room had been torn all to hell. Ransacked. My prints were on the sofa, the wall behind it-hell, I was kneeling beside his body when the police arrived. But they couldn’t place me in that back room, hard as Rodarte tried. The grand jury found it impossible to believe that I would avoid leaving prints or other evidence while ransacking the place, then take off gloves before killing Bandy. And if I had, where were the gloves?”

“Why was his back room ransacked?”

“Rodarte is of the opinion that Bandy had money squirreled away in there somewhere and that I helped myself to it.”

Again she turned and looked up at him. “But you didn’t have any cash stuffed in your pockets at the time, did you?”

“No. But it wouldn’t necessarily have been cash I was looking for. It could have been a bank account number. A combination to a safe. Something I could commit to memory. Later, when I was out of prison, I’d have a treasure waiting for me.” He looked at her hard. “Just so you know, I never went into Bandy’s back room. I didn’t know what was or wasn’t in there. As far as I know, he didn’t have any funds stashed away for a rainy day.”

Quietly she said, “I didn’t ask.” She turned back around and, after scanning the information on the monitor, said, “There’s no Lavaca anything in Parker County.”

Griff opened the duffel bag and removed Manuelo’s map. “Pull up that map of the state again.” She did. When it appeared on the monitor, he tapped a spot. “That red crayon star is here.” He pointed to the southern tip of the state. “Somewhere between Mission and Hidalgo.”

“We assume that’s where he entered the country. Lord, how far is that from here?”

“Four hundred miles at least. Probably closer to five.”

“Lots of counties.”

“Yeah, but I’d bet his contact wouldn’t be too far from this area. Say Manuelo came north through San Antonio and Austin.”

“Basically following I- 35.”

“Basically. Let’s concentrate on the counties immediately to the south of Dallas-Fort Worth.”

“Hood, Johnson, Ellis.”

“Check those and work your way down.”

They found it in Hill County. “Griff! There’s a Lavaca Road in Hill County. On the outskirts of town it turns into FM 2010. We thought it was a house number!”

He leaned over her, and she pointed it out on the screen.

“What town is that?” he asked.

“Itasca.”

“Repeat that,” Rodarte said.

“Itasca.”

“Where the hell is that?” He was driving with one hand, holding his cell phone to his ear with the other.

He’d had a desk cop back at the police station searching for the address Griff Burkett had rattled off to him before hanging up. Thanks to a satellite and technology he didn’t understand, Laura Speakman’s cell phone had been tracked to a movie theater. Before he could even get excited about it, they’d found the damn thing lying on the parking lot pavement.

From there the trail had gone cold because Mrs. Speakman’s car had been left at the mansion, they didn’t know what Burkett was driving now, and the moviegoers they’d questioned didn’t know diddly. Rodarte had left Carter there to try to pick up the trail. Actually, Rodarte was glad he could assign his partner another task. From here on, he preferred working alone.

Rodarte became furious thinking about Griff Burkett and his adulterous lover-had she plotted her husband’s murder with him?-laughing up their sleeves at him. The idiots he’d posted to guard her were going to be looking for jobs tomorrow. Then he was going to hurt them. And their wives. And their kids. They would come to regret the day they were born.

And that didn’t begin to cover what he had planned for Griff Burkett and the poor, innocent, grieving widow. He wished he’d fucked her when he had a chance. Who would she have told? The cops? he thought, scoffing. No way. Not when he could turn it around and tell them about her illicit affair with her husband’s killer. Yeah, he should have responded to the impulse he’d had there in her hotel room, bent her over and fucked her. His problem was he was just too nice a guy.

The desk cop was rattling off directions. “From where you’re at, go south on 35 E till you get to I-20 and head west. Then out of Fort Worth, take 35 dubya south. Watch for the exit.”

“So where’s this Lavaca Road or whatever?”

“Runs out the east side of town and turns into farm-to-market 2010. We reckon that’s where the numbers came from. It’s not exactly a street address, but it makes sense.”

“I guess,” Rodarte said, unconvinced. “But stand by in case I need to call you again.”

“I already called the local po-lice down there. Chief’s name is Marion.”

“First?”

“Last. Plus I alerted the Hill County SO. Marion’s sending a squad car to scout out the area, see if his boys can pick up anything. When you get there, you’ll have plenty of backup.”

“Is there still an APB out for Manuelo Ruiz down there?”

“I asked Marion to jog everybody’s memory.”

“And one for Griff Burkett?”

“Considered armed and dangerous. Just like you said, Detective.”

“He’s got a cop’s service weapon.”

“Told Marion that, too. Pissed him off.” After a pause, he added, “And to think we used to cheer the son of a bitch.”

“Yeah, to think.”

The best that could happen would be for Burkett to be spotted and plugged by an underpaid, overanxious Hicksville cop, a Cowboys fan who bore a grudge based on principle.

Someone else killing Burkett would remove any suspicion from him. But there was a distinct downside: it would deprive him of taking down that bastard himself, and that was something he very much looked forward to.

“What’s the number of the police station down there?” Rodarte asked the desk cop. Once he had it, he clicked off and called that number. He identified himself and was soon patched in to Chief Marion. “Rodarte, Dallas PD.”

“Yes, sir,” he said crisply.

“Just calling to follow up. What’s happening down there?”

“There’s nothing on FM 2010 except an old farmhouse. Vacant. Looks like it was abandoned a long time ago. My men said a strong wind would knock it down.”

“No shit?”

“The place was deserted. We’ll keep looking, but among my officers and the sheriff’s deputies, they don’t know of anything else out that way. Not for miles.”

“Okay. Keep me posted.”

“Sure thing, Detective.”

Rodarte closed his phone and tossed it onto the passenger seat, cursing his culpability. Had Burkett sent him on a wild-goose chase? Given him some busywork to keep him occupied while he and his ladylove got away?

He pulled his car to the shoulder of the freeway, rolled down the window, and lit a cigarette. He kept the motor idling while he considered his options.

“Itasca,” Laura repeated. “Ever heard of it?”

“No, but I’ll find it.” He gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Great work. Thanks.” He moved toward the door. “Switch out the light till I’m gone. And remember not to turn any lights on unless the door to this room is closed.”

“You’re going now?”

“Right now. I just hope Rodarte doesn’t have too much of a lead.”

“But we don’t know if that’s it, Griff. And even if it is, Manuelo may be long gone.”

“I’ve gotta try. He’s my last hope.”

“I’m coming, too,” she said decisively.

“Un-huh. No way. I don’t know what I-”

“I’m coming with you.” She stood up, but when she did, a strange look came over her face and she pushed her hands between her thighs.

“What’s the matter?”

She just stood there, looking at him with alarm. Then her face crumpled, and she groaned, “Oh, no.”