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After Lucia died, he’d thrown himself into the career track He made lieutenant, just like she said he should

The higher he rose in the department, the more he realized that professional ethics were like Kevlar vests Cops wore them only because they were required to They were supposed to be good for you, but what beat cop hadn’t slipped off the daet rid of the scratchy hot confineet what had happened to Lucia

He’d do whatever he had to The truth could never come out

He drove across the dam and parked downhill on the utility road

Late afternoon, the sky was dark and cloudy Cold seeped into the car the h the trees, he saw the deck of the house, the s glowing large and yellow like the eyes of an enorot out of his car and opened the trunk

IN AN ALLEY BEHIND SAN FERNANDO Cathedral, Titus Roe opened his ice cream cooler

He ers hit cold metal--the Colt 45 he had promised himself never to use

He unfolded the paper Lieutenant Hernandez had given hiain Two addresses One in town, one in Austin The car’s make and color, with a license plate A bad printout of a driver’s license photo and the woman’s name

He folded the paper and put it back in his pocket

He looked up at the rose

Retire o froy to God and to the woman he didn’t even know

Maia Lee

ETCH HERNANDEZ UNLATCHED THE LONG BLACK case and asse for a moment but fuzzy leaves Then he readjusted the lens and saw Jai his atole and watching the clouds

How could the old ht

But the old round

Santos had sold out an officer He would be dangerous in court Whatever happened noas his own damn fault

Etchelse inside him except her memory

He lined the X-hairs on the old er

Chapter 8

"ARE YOU SURE THIS TIME?" I ASKED

"Yeah," Ralph said fro isperson Ralph’s eyesight o at the Poco Mas Bar he’d mistakenly identified a burly Latino with a peroxide red buzz cut as one of the thugs who’d juht before

We’d unleashed Madeleine White and watched the alleged thug get reduced to haer meat over the hood of the limo The whole time, he swore up and down he didn’t know anybody named Zapata Finally Ralph realized we’d screwed up

We left the poor dude sixty bucks for a new shirt, called an ambulance and scrammed

Now, after three more conversations with my street friends and several twenty-dollar bribes, ere parked across Roosevelt Avenue fro another burly redheaded Latino order a burrito at Taco Shack 3 The dilapidated look of the place made ined they were turning into fossil fuel in the sedimentary layers below

I squirmed in my new black suit

A hot shoith scented soap and designer sharease, using a ht in the crotch The shirt collar was stiff with starch Sitting in the back of the limo with Madeleine White, I felt like I was on my way to the mafia prom

"Tooout the scene "I don’t want more blood on the car"

"Sensitive type, aren’t you?" I asked

She glared at ain

Screw it

Now that I realized who she was, I couldn’t take her seriously

I reht Frankie’s little sister

When I’d known her before, she’d been a ten-year-old kid with a dirty blond ponytail, a shrill voice and painter’s pants decorated with Magic Markers She always had bruises on her arhts with her class football practice and throw tennis balls at me The coach never had the nerve to run her off because of her dad’s reputation Frankie called her the Brat

Now, shethirty, but she looked closer to twenty Proof positive she had Guy White’s genes

She didn’t stick out her tongue anyed

"Listen," she told me, "I don’t care if we draw attention I’ froood co down Johnny Shoes

Unfortunately, Madeleine’s plan was the best one we had She’d said looking for Zapata’sfor thearound and avoiding detection, Zapata was slightly e Third World dictator

"What was that martial arts style you used on me earlier, anyway?" I asked her

"Shen Chuan"

Ralph and I exchanged looks

"Hell," I said

As far as I knew, Shen Chuan was the only native Texas martial arts systeainst It was taught in the East Texas piney woods by one extreood, extremely unconventional sensei