Burning Moon by Richard Barre

Author:Richard Barre
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Down & Out Books

44

They reached the sheriff’s building at twenty to the hour, Wil’s eyes rusted traps ready to spring shut. As Frank Lin ushered him into his office, he glanced beyond Wil to where Vinh Tien sat, hands in his lap and looking straight ahead, as if trying to stare a beast back into its cage.

“You declined to take my advice, I see,” Lin said from across a metal desk, the shadows under his eyes matching Wil’s. Outside a smallish window Wil could see the hills rising toward the mountains still wreathed in burn haze, a closed highway 154 lost in brown, a seagull soaring toward the dump that lay a canyon over.

“No idea what came over me,” he said, stifling a yawn.

Lin said, “At least you’re predictable. And it’s your turn in the bunker.”

The door to Rudy Yanez’s office was open. Entering behind Lin, Wil saw a wood desk with facing chairs; photos of horse-and-rider events, Rudy front and center; Fiesta shots, Rudy’s Arabian mount and silver-trimmed pommel; Rudy receiving an award, a family portrait—a plumpish Latina and three adolescent boys in descending stages of baby fat. On the desk was a miniature-saddle pen set, lariat name plaque, a hammered copper ashtray and, as if just out of its box, a computer terminal.

No Lieutenant Rudolfo Yanez.

That is, until twelve minutes after.

As he entered, Wil made him for mid-fifties: still-black hair, lines that contributed rather than detracted, eyes that spoke of prizes not lost to distractions. In his nonfolder hand he held a mug, wide at the bottom and rimmed with gold. He toed the door shut, let Frank Lin bring him up to date on some details—the Argabrite woman’s statement, two of the three Yukons found stripped and printless in L.A.—while his eyes appraised Wil.

“So,” he said when Lin finished. “Are you what you’re cracked up to be?”

Wil returned the stare. “Which of us is, Lieutenant?”

“That would be me. I would be.” Thumbing through Wil’s statement from the folder. “And you happened to be out there why?”

Rubbing his eyes, Wil took a breath and went through it yet again—the invitation to come after seven because of guests Luc was expecting, Wil’s delay in getting there, all of it.

Yanez let a moment pass in thought. “You have any idea who the guests were?”

“None.”

“Try again,” Yanez said. “Harder this time.”

“Okay. None at all.”

The cop locked and unlocked his fingers. “You honest-to-God expect me to believe that his guests weren’t at least a part of the reason he asked you there? That you didn’t suspect as much?”

“You have my statement, Lieutenant. Believing it is up to you.”

“So it is,” Yanez said. “And speaking of the deceased wanting you to work for him, do you always change sides that readily?”

“Seldom, and usually not then,” Wil said.

“I see. You were just curious.”

“I was hoping to learn what happened to Jimmy Tien. I still am.”

Yanez clipped off a hangnail, blew it out of the clippers. “On your own dime, of course.”

“Your own dime is what it comes down to sometimes.

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