St Kilda Consulting 01 - Always Time to Die

“Call him. Tell him to meet me at the Pico de Gallo in Las Trampas in half an hour.”

TAOS
FRIDAY MORNING
39
    “ WHY CAN ’ T I COME WITH YOU ?” CARLY ASKED . “ WHY SHOULD GUS HAVE TO RUN down and check on me every few minutes?”
    “Every half hour.”
    “Whatever. You know what I mean. And I’m not talking about the archive babysitting rules.”
    Dan looked at the woman standing in the middle of the crowded basement. Cold air filtered down the stairway through the gaps in the cellar door that was also part of the basement’s roof. His leg felt like something was gnawing on it.
    He ignored everything but Carly. “The man I’m going to see is an international narcotraficante . I don’t even want you in the same country with him, much less the same room. He’s good for five murders on both sides of the border that we know of, and that doesn’t include the poor illegals who died in the desert carrying forty-kilo backpacks of Mexican brown over the border in the middle of the desert. All those men wanted was a chance at a better life. What they got was death.”
    Her chin came up. “I read the newspapers and watch TV. I know what happens.”
    “But it doesn’t happen to you. I want to keep it that way. I’ll be back before lunch. If you aren’t here, you’d better be in the office with Gus or with my parents.”
    “Is that advice or an order?” she asked through clenched teeth.
    “Whatever works.”
    When she would have argued, he distracted her by sticking his tongue in her mouth and kissing her until she softened and returned the favor. And the flavor. Slowly, reluctantly, he lifted his head.
    “Be here for me, Carolina May.”
    “You’re not playing fair.”
    “I’m not playing at all.”
    “Like I said…” She closed her eyes for an instant. “Okay, okay. You win.”
    “No, we win.”
    She watched him walk up the stairs and out into the overcast, snow-threatening day. The scars she had seen and touched on his leg this morning were red, barely healed; she knew they must hurt. Yet he refused to let it slow him down.
    In or out of bed.
    Don’t go there, Carly told herself quickly. The man was way too distracting and she had a lot of work to do if she hoped to have a rough draft of Winifred’s history in the next few weeks. Even if Dan came through with a bridge program to transfer material from microfilm to scanner to her computer, she would still be working sixteen-hour days to meet Winifred’s new deadline.
    Mentally bracing herself, Carly went to the microfilm files. Somewhere in all those metal boxes was the answer to old questions and two very new ones.
    Who was trying to kill her?
    And why?

LAS TRAMPAS
FRIDAY MORNING
40
    SNOW LAY SPARSELY ALONG THE NARROW ROAD . THE HOUSING WAS A COMBINATION of cement block on the newer buildings and ragged, cracked adobe on the older ones. Both new and old buildings had tin roofs. House trailers of all ages and conditions hunched beside the uncertain protection of sagging wooden barns and outbuildings. Fences were made of willow posts and old boxspring mattress frames and discarded tires. Chickens and lop-eared mutts scratched out a living side by side in the cold mud.
    Occasional bursts of prosperity showed in houses covered by bright paint or brighter murals. Dan had parked near one of them. The long two-story building’s ancient adobe bricks were hidden beneath a painting that combined the artistic traditions of Mexico’s muralists with the flowing graffiti of barrio gangs. The result was darkly colorful and oddly menacing, a blunt statement that strangers weren’t welcome.
    Dan had ignored it. The combination beer bar and taqueria was open, but as soon as he’d said he was Dan Duran and had come to talk to Armando Sandoval, everyone except the barkeep/cook had packed up and gone somewhere else. Dan wasn’t surprised. He took his beer to a newly vacated table and waited. The room smelled of Mexican cigarettes, beer, fresh tortillas, and roasted peppers. The tables were like the men who had sat around them—dark, sturdy, and scuffed by use.
    Methodically Dan began emptying his pockets onto the table. As he’d left everything but keys and some money locked in the truck, it didn’t take long. He toed off his boots, set them on the table, and took a sip of beer. It tasted like South America, thick and rich, earthy.
    Somewhere in the back of the building a door slammed. A minute later two men younger than Dan strode into the