“No, that Bert fella can be a real pain in the ass.”

The frown returned. “If you went to see Ernie, that means you are going to do something pretty stupid.”

I shrugged.

“Do I want to know?” he asked.

“No.”

He shifted again in the bed, and all of the tubes running out of his body shivered. “If you’re doing what I think you’re doing, at least let me know when. That way I’ll know what to tell the cops when you disappear.”

I didn’t want to talk about Costilla, even with Carter. Too much was going on in my head, and I didn’t want to share it until I had organized it.

“Saw Emily last night,” I said, switching to a subject I knew he’d be interested in.

“Saw Emily last night or saw Emily last night and this morning?” he asked, a tired smile forcing its way onto his mouth.

“The first one.”

He tugged at the tubes entering his nose, adjusting them. “Glad to know my hospitalization hasn’t hindered your love life.”

“It’s not a love life.”

“Sex life?”

“Nothing happened, and I don’t know what it is.”

“Does she?”

“Does she what?” I asked.

“Does she have an idea of what it is?” Carter said. “Or what she wants it to be?”

I shook my head. “We haven’t talked about it.”

“Are you going to?”

I shrugged because I didn’t know the answer. Half of me felt like Emily and I were gravitating toward one another out of grief. That would be understandable. But the other half of me wondered if maybe there was more to it. Maybe in a twisted sense, I was getting a second chance. And I wasn’t sure if I wanted it.

“You’ll figure it out,” Carter said.

“Probably,” I said.

The door to the room opened and a nurse hurried in with a green tray. The food was covered. She set it across his lap and disappeared out the door.

“It’s covered because that way I can’t tell her it sucks when she drops it off,” he said.

I laughed. “I’ll see if I can’t get you some decent dinner in here tonight.”

He lifted the various covers, unveiling some sort of chicken and jello combination. “Yeah, be a pal.” He poked at the food with the fork. “I was thinking about what you told me. About Kate and Randall.”

“Oh yeah?”

“His alleged affairs. You think whoever he was messing with was into the drugs, too?”

I hadn’t connected those two avenues. “I don’t know.”

“Might be interesting to find out where that heroin Kate had in the car with her came from,” he said.

Randall had said it was his, but hadn’t told me where it had come from. In my anger, I had neglected to ask some important questions.

“Yeah, it might,” I said.

Carter forked some of the dark red jello. “I’m just thinking that if he was sleeping with somebody else who shared their habit, Kate might’ve known her, too.”

“And if there was some friction there, we may have somebody else who had a reason to kill Kate,” I said.

He sucked the jello off the fork and aimed the empty utensil at me. “Bingo.”

I stood up. “Watching you eat that is making me sick.”

“I’m already sick so how do you think I feel?”

“Not good,” I said, walking to the door. “I’ll try and get back tonight.”

“Noah?”

I turned. “Yeah?”

“I’m serious,” Carter said, his eyes confirming that statement. “If you’re going to see Costilla, I want to know when.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Call me mommy, daddy, or granny,” he said. “I don’t care. But let me know.”

Somewhere in the back of my head, it occurred to me that he might try to drag himself out of the hospital to accompany me, tubes and all. I couldn’t let him do that.

“I will,” I lied and left.

34

I thought about calling Emily, Liz, and Randall, all for different reasons, but couldn’t get motivated about any of those options. I avoided doing all three, ordered Chinese, and listened to the Padres get pounded by the Dodgers on the radio out on the patio.

Sleep came in spurts, in between thinking about Kate and the guilt of avoiding Emily and lying to Carter. I got out of bed at six, found a few good waves near the jetty, and rode those for about an hour, then came back and showered and dialed Ernie at eight on the nose.

“Couldn’t wait, huh?” he said when he answered the phone.

“Yeah. Just too excited.”

“Jesus,” he said. “You’re ridiculous.”

“I know.”

“Well, that’s something at least.” I heard papers moving on his desk. “You got a pen?”

I fished one off the coffee table. “Yeah.”

“You know the Cultural Plaza in TJ?”

“Sure.”

“Be there at noon,” he said. “Then call this number.” He read me an unfamiliar number. “Let it ring twice, then hang up. Someone will come and get you.”

“Then what?” I asked.

“I got no idea, Noah,” he said, his voice indicating that he didn’t want to know either. “I’d tell you to take some help, but I doubt you’d get to him if you did.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

“I could probably go,” Ernie offered. “They might let me go with you.”

“No,” I said quickly, before I could change my mind. “I don’t want you to do that.”

We both knew what I was implying. If something was going to happen, I wanted it to happen to me, not Ernie.

“I owe you,” I told him.

“Damn straight,” he replied. “Make sure you get back to pay up.” He hung up.

I stared at the number Ernie had given me, unsure of where it was going to lead me. I was indebted to him because he’d gone out on a limb to get me the information I needed. His board of directors would probably frown on the ease with which he was able to arrange a meeting with Alejandro Costilla.

I spent the next two hours picking up my place, trying to burn the nervous energy that was slowly building in my body. The house was spic-and-span when I left a little after ten.

I drove to the outlets where Carter and I had met Costilla for the first time. The dirt lots that sit across from the stores serve as free parking for those walking across the border. After five minutes of deliberation, I slid my gun under the seat and locked up the rented SUV.

Walking the hundred or so yards across the border feels no different than walking a hundred or so yards in any other place. Small children offer to sell you gum, old women sit stonelike on the sidewalk presiding over handmade jewelry, and Americans walk south in droves. You simply walk through a fence and under an overpass and you’re in another country.

The taxi drivers swarm as soon as you cross, though. A thin, younger man waved at me, raised his eyebrows. I nodded. He spun and opened the door of a beat-up, dusty white Ford Escort. He shut it behind me and hustled to the driver’s seat.

“Where you go, sir?” he said, smiling in the rearview mirror. “Revolución?”

I shook my head at his mention of the area of nightclubs that most Americans sought out. “No. The Cultural Center in the Plaza.”

He gave a quick nod. “Sí.”

He followed the other taxis as they pulled away from the sidewalk in a cloud of dust. The entry roads at the border crossing are dirty and bumpy, but after about a five-minute ride, you are on streets and highways that are indistinguishable from those on the American side, save for much less traffic.