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  “Perhaps you are mistaken, my dear,” Camacho said.

  She thrust the wad of cloth toward him. “Smell it,” she said. “Tell me this is not the scent of someone else.”

  Camacho sniffed the gown. His face fell into a dark frown as he turned back to Bean, who stood cringing at the cabin door.

  “Who cleaned the boat before we arrived?”

  The mine manager licked his lips. His eyes flitted back and forth as if looking for a way to escape. “A Native girl,” he stammered. “The same one who tidies the boat each time before you get here.” His nose twitched, rabbit-like. “She lives in Klawock, a village nearby.”

  “And does this Native girl make a habit of going through Beti’s clothing?”

  “Of course not, Mr. Camacho,” Bean said. “I mean to say, she does not know who the clothing on the boat belongs to, but she has been instructed not to do anything but air out the vessel, squeegee the windows, and make things presentable for your arrival.”

  “Bring this woman to me,” Camacho said, his eyes growing darker.

  Beti sniffed a pair of black panties, then held them up to Camacho. “She has worn these as well,” the woman gasped. “Can you imagine? You must teach her a lesson, Ernesto!”

  Camacho swatted the panties away, striking Beti’s hand hard enough that she cried out.

  He drew the Heckler & Koch 9mm. He was seldom without the pistol. “Shut up!” he said. “I do not care about your precious underwear. It is enough that this woman touched anything on the boat that did not belong to her. For that I will personally—”

  “Patrón.” Garza raised his hand to interrupt—something that would have earned any other man a bullet. “Perhaps we should wait until you are ready to leave the area before you do anything to this woman that might . . . draw undo attention.”

  Camacho stared for a long moment, then pointed the H & K directly at Bean’s twitching temple, finger on the trigger. One of the sicarios chuckled and Camacho spun, pointing the pistol at him and cocking it. “You think this is funny?” he shrieked, spittle flying from his lips.

  “No, Patrón,” the sicario said, eyes downcast.

  No one on the boat breathed but Camacho, whose nostrils flared in near apoplectic fury. At length he shook his head, his scowl settling on Bean as he tucked the pistol back into his waistband.

  “Patrón,” Garza said again, quieter this time. “Please allow me to take care of the matter of this intrusive woman.”

  Camacho looked away. It was what he did when he knew he had overreacted, which he managed to do several times a day. He dropped the crumpled gown on the cabin floor and stalked out the door. The sicarios followed, bumping into one another in the narrow confines of the passageway. Garza sighed and followed them out, leaving Beti with her nose buried in the remainder of the underwear she’d left aboard Pilar, sniffing for the scent of unworthy women.

  Topside, Camacho stood at the forward rail. He faced away from the island, toward the sea, but his eyes were pinched, focused on nothing. He was thinking—which in Garza’s experience was a dangerous thing indeed. The other men in Los Leónes stayed well away when Camacho fell into what they secretly called his “thinking fits.” Garza stood at the rail beside him, looking out to sea and doing some thinking of his own.

  Camacho turned to him suddenly. “I know she is a whore,” he said, his voice soft and steady, as if explaining something to a small child. “But she is my whore. When someone disrespects her, they disrespect me. Do you understand? Such behavior must not go unanswered.”

  “I do not suggest that it should, Patrón,” Garza said. “Only that you wait for the proper time. The danger of your being seen is much too great if we act in haste.”

  Camacho cleared his throat and spat over the side. “I know you believe this trip to be idiocy, Manolo. You have made that perfectly clear.”

  Garza shook his head, still gazing out to sea. “I only fear for your safety.”

  “Manolo, look at me.” Camacho snapped his fingers. “Do you forget who I am?”

  “Of course not,” Garza said, turning his head, but keeping his elbows on the rail. “But we are in a different world. Some nosy journalist stuffed in a barrel of acid in Reynosa is one death among hundreds, easy to conceal. Here, the police, the people in general, they do not know to fear you.”

  “I am beginning to think you do not fear me, my friend.” Camacho’s face was impassive. He took a cigar from the breast pocket of his wool shirt and a cutter from his slacks. “I am well aware that gutting an enemy here would cause a momentary stir. And, I am intelligent enough to know we do not have sufficient acid, nor barrels of the perfect size for a body.” He clicked the cigar cutter in the air for effect.

  Garza shut his eyes, but said nothing. Camacho could dream up countless methods to make a grisly point of murder, but ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it was his segundo, Garza, who lit the match, flicked the razor—or fit the cigar cutter around a trembling finger.

  Camacho lit his cigar, pulling on it thoughtfully while he looked back out at the sea. “Again, I ask you, what is the point of laundering my money in Alaska if I cannot take advantage of the other treasures this place has to offer? Is it too much to wish for a few days of peaceful fishing with a beautiful whore by my side and a trusted companion to see to my safety?”

  “As you wish, Patrón,” Garza said, smiling to conceal the fact that he was gritting his teeth.

  “Good,” Camacho said. “If anyone sees me, that person will simply disappear. The sea is wide and deep, my friend, an easy enough place for someone to become . . . lost.” Camacho paused as he took a series of puffs from his cigar, keeping his eyes on the shifting waves. “A reality you would do well to remember before you question me repeatedly in front of the others.”

  Garza gave his boss a broad smile, not because he was frightened, or ready to fall in line, but because he was smart enough to hide the fact that he would not be threatened—even obliquely, by the likes of Ernesto Camacho.

  CHAPTER 7

  CUTTER THREW HIS FORD INTO PARK AND WATCHED THE TWENTYSOMETHING kid with the neck tattoo go through the front door of the Alaska Club off O’Malley Road. The deputy noticed things like neck tats and gangbangers with bouncing walks that barely kept their low-slung pants on. It was a habit that kept him alive. The kid carried a black gym bag, and had he been walking into a bank, Cutter would have paid even more attention. But tattoos and black bags were not exactly out of the norm in a gym.

  Still, instinct made Cutter crane his head to try and locate the kid’s vehicle so he could get a plate, but the lot was full so he chalked the feeling up to professional paranoia. He took out his cell phone for one last check of his e-mail before he went inside. Leaning toward Luddite, he hated being chained to any electronic device and made it clear to everyone, including his bosses, that he had to manually check for texts and e-mails. If someone wanted to talk to him right away, they’d have to break down and make a voice call. It had been all of twenty minutes since he’d last checked, and he already had seven new e-mails, three of which were flagged as urgent. The flags didn’t fool him. If there was anything Cutter had learned over the course of nearly two decades of military and civilian service, it was that one person’s “urgent” was another’s “I forgot to buy milk.”

  He looked at his watch, and then thumb-typed a reply to one, a budget request from some poor minion working late at USMS headquarters in Virginia—four hours ahead and worlds away from Alaska. The rest of the e-mails, he saved for later.

  The US Marshals Service maintained a well-appointed gym in the federal building, full of free weights, machines, treadmills, and kettle bells. There were even a couple of heavy bags and a decent mat room. And, it was all located less than ten steps from the door to Cutter’s office. They shared it with the US court system so there were, periodically, lawyers who came to work out as well, but even that didn’t slow down most deputies. The problem for Cutter was Lola Fontaine.

&
nbsp; The three hours of paid FIT time deputy US marshals got each week only scratched the surface for Fontaine’s needs. If she couldn’t come in early, she stayed late, adding at least another hour each day to what she did in her home gym.

  Cutter decided that in order to obey the chief and not throat punch Fontaine’s pinhead husband, it would be better if he steered clear of the USMS gym and got a membership at the Alaska Club. Besides, the Alaska Club had a pool, and like his grandpa, Grumpy, always said, if he didn’t get in the water at least three times a week, his gills would dry up.

  Cutter was so new to Anchorage he’d yet to meet many people besides fugitives and other cops. The mean mug generally kept anyone who recognized him at bay. The only real downside to working out off-site was that there was no secure place inside the gym for him to lock up his pistols, forcing him to leave them in the Ford’s center-console lockbox. This also left him unarmed—but that was all right. He had other skills.

  The sound of clattering weight machines and stifled grunts carried out the door on the humid air with the odor of rubber mats and chlorine. Cutter swiped his key fob on the small machine at the reception counter. His name, photo, and the date of his last payment popped up on the computer in front of a muscle-bound kid with a shaved head who sat there. The kid looked up to make sure Cutter was Cutter, and then went back to reading his fitness magazine.

  Never one to lift massively heavy weights, Cutter believed in building working muscles. He’d felt in the best shape of his life a high school summer when he and his brother hauled hay for a local cattle ranch. Eighty-pound bales of wire-tied coastal bur-muda grass were not particularly heavy for a fifteen-year-old as tall as Arliss Cutter, but bucking them overhead for ten hours a day made for a beach body he’d yet to see again. His fifteen-year-old’s hormones had a lot to do with it, but just as Grumpy must have planned, he’d been so tired that summer his beach time to show off his beach body was practically nil. Now, his forty-year joints were more than happy if he stuck to body weight routines, jumped a little rope, and swam a mile every other day. The run-in with Donut Woodfield had turned out all right, but it left his shoulders knotted and cable-tight. The conversation with the chief had only added a twisted gut to the mix. Thankfully, today was a swim day, which would do double duty, working the knots out of his muscles and his brain—insofar as the knots in his brain could be undone at all.

  In the locker room, he changed into a plain cotton T-shirt and pair of light blue board shorts, and then slipped into his shower shoes before giving the combination on his locker a good spin to make sure it was secure. He kept the cell phone with him, and would leave it in his shoes while he swam. It was a government phone, with two layers of security, so good riddance if anyone stole it. He took a quick rinse-off shower just inside the exit of the locker room, then made his way onto the echoing pool deck.

  It was late enough in the afternoon that school was out. Families had started to drift in and now lounged in small pockets around the pool deck, chatting away while they braved the stuffy humidity and waited a half hour for the adult lap swim to be over. Two high-school-age girls with chestnut hair falling over narrow shoulders sat with towels over their legs at the end of the bleachers. They looked enough alike to be sisters, and together, they tried to ignore the twenty-something youth with the neck tattoo that Cutter had seen when he came in. The kid was bigger than Cutter had originally thought, built like a swimmer—lean with a broad back and sinewy arms. Cutter was close enough now to identify the tat as a hangman’s noose. He wasn’t against tattoos on principle. He had one from the 75th Ranger Regiment on his upper arm. His mother hadn’t been happy about it, but Grumpy had a couple from his time in the navy, so it was only natural that Cutter would follow suit. It was a declaration of sorts that he wanted to be like his grandpa. Whatever declaration a tattoo of a hangman’s noose was meant to make, getting it on the neck was a virtual shout.

  Never one to say no to his gut twice in the same hour, Cutter moved in closer to investigate. Near enough to hear snippets of the conversation amid the echoes around the pool, he slid his shower shoes under the bottom bleacher. He stood for a moment and pretended to check his phone. Noose Neck glanced up and gave him a dismissive eye roll. He was, after all, just another old dude in board shorts and a nondescript T-shirt.

  The kid turned back and checked to see if the girls wanted to score some weed, which, he reminded them, was more or less legal in Alaska. It didn’t take long for him to make it clear that he had more potent items in his inventory if marijuana wasn’t their preference.

  Finally sick of Cutter’s presence, he turned and stomped his foot, showing off for the girls. He’d left his car keys and shoes on the bleachers next to him and he pushed them away as if to save more space so Cutter wouldn’t sit down beside him.

  Noose Neck did the little gangbanger dance, bobbing his head as he spoke. “I owe you money or something?” He shot a conspiratorial look at the girls. “Old folks these days, sheeiit!”

  The girls looked at their toes.

  Cutter wanted to beat the guy down with a ball bat, but he raised his hands instead. “Just here to swim, pal,” he said.

  “I ain’t your pal.” Noose Neck turned his attention back to the girls. Cutter backed away, snatching up the kid’s keys as he did. The nearest girl noticed and stifled a giggle. Cutter held a finger to his lips and gave her a wink. Noose Neck turned again, but by that time, Cutter was leaving with the keys folded in his fist and out of sight.

  Cutter left the pool and padded quickly across the carpeted weight room. Most of the people in the gym were so engrossed in their workouts that they didn’t notice he was soaking wet from his preswim shower. At the reception counter he positioned himself so he could get a good look at the computer monitor, then swiped the fob on Noose Neck’s keys.

  A photo popped up immediately, identifying the owner as Clinton Newberry. His address was, in fact, not five blocks from Donut Woodfield’s apartment.

  The kid at the desk looked up from his muscle mag at the sound of the scanner blip. Surprisingly, he was on the ball enough to see that Cutter’s face didn’t match the image on the screen.

  He nodded toward a plastic basket on the counter. “Lost stuff goes in the bin.”

  Cutter pitched the keys in the air and caught them again. “Oh, I know this guy,” he said. “He’s in the pool. I’ll make sure he gets them.”

  The kid shrugged and buried his face in the magazine. “Whatever,” he said.

  Cutter stopped near a vacant rowing machine and punched the nonemergency number for Anchorage PD into his cell phone. A female dispatcher with a pleasantly Southern drawl answered on the second ring. Cutter identified himself and gave her a quick rundown of his location and the situation. He asked her to run Newberry for warrants by name only, without the usual identifiers like date of birth or Social Security number. He figured the odds of previous contact with law enforcement was high for someone with a hangman’s noose inked around his neck.

  The dispatcher came back almost immediately, going so far as to call him “hon.” Definitely from the South.

  “The warrant gods have smiled on you, Marshal,” she said. “Clinton Newberry is wanted on multiple Failures to Appear for the misconduct involving a controlled substance and misconduct involving a weapon. I have two units heading to you now.”

  “Thank you,” Cutter said, as much to the “warrant gods” as the dispatcher. “Tell your officers they can meet me at the pool.”

  Cutter pitched Noose Neck Newberry’s keys into the air again, playing catch with himself all the way back to the pool deck. The idiot was still working his sales pitch on the chestnut-haired sisters when he got there. The nearest girl shook her head when she saw Cutter was back, scooting farther away from Newberry.

  “What,” Noose Neck said, “Daddy’s little girl too good to talk to me?”

  By now Cutter was less than two steps away. “Could be she just doesn’t want any of what you’r
e sellin’,” he said.

  Newberry spun on his heels, glaring daggers. “What?”

  Cutter shrugged. “Or, maybe it’s just your unpleasant odor,” he said.

  Newberry’s eyes shifted from Cutter to the girls, then back to Cutter again, lingering this time to size him up. Cutter had about four inches on the kid, but Newberry looked to match Cutter pound for pound, all of it youthful muscle.

  “This don’t concern you, Gramps,” he said. “I’m having a word with my ladies.”

  “Your ladies are leaving,” Cutter said, nodding toward the two girls as they hustled to the far end of the bleachers.

  A rare smile crept across Cutter’s face when he saw the silhouette of a uniformed APD officer appear at the back door to the pool, coming in from the parking lot. He glanced over his shoulder to see another walking in through the main entrance.

  Noose Neck loosed a furious growl and rushed forward, driving his shoulder into Cutter’s gut. Cutter took the hit, but sidestepped, snaking his arms around the kid’s neck, backpedaling across the pool deck. The lifeguard’s shrill whistle echoed into the rafters as they both fell into the deep end of the pool—where Cutter was right at home.

  Newberry’s problem was that he’d never learned to quit cursing before going under. Cutter kept his thoughts to himself and took a deep breath an instant before they hit the water. He’d swum in the army, and was used to instructors administering what was affectionately known as “moderate harassment,” which basically meant an underwater wrestling match with a couple of bigger dudes who were trying to drown you.

  Cutter drove to the bottom of the pool with a series of powerful kicks, drawing Newberry into a tight bear hug. What little air the man had in his lungs bubbled out pursed lips in a pitiful string. Pinned twelve feet below the surface, Newberry thrashed, attempting to scream, but managed only a burbling groan. Cutter waited for him to relax, then spun him around immediately and towed him back to the surface. Even then, the hapless kid made a halfhearted attempt to fight again, but Cutter, cheek to cheek as they swam to the edge, whispered in his ear, “You seriously wanna have another go?”