“I never doubted that you did. See you, lover.”
“Good-bye, Benjy.” She hung up absently, her thoughts elsewhere.
Wendy Ramirez rolled over in bed and frowned at the darkness. Strange hammering sounds had awakened her, and they weren’t caused by the waters of the bay slapping at the seawall back of the house. They came from somewhere out front.
She sat there, supporting herself on one elbow, and listened. It might be a neighborhood dog at the garbage cans again, except tomorrow wasn’t garbage collection day and everybody’s containers would be locked away in garages. Some kids fooling around, probably, but… she nudged her husband.
“Arri?”
“Hmmm? What?”
“Arri,” she whispered, “I hear somebody out in front of the house.”
“You always hear somebody out front,” he mumbled.
“No, not this time. I really hear something this time.” She shook him so he wouldn’t go back to sleep. “Please, Arri. See what it is.”
He groaned as he turned onto his back, blinking at her in the near blackness. “Alright. What is it with women and noises in the night?”
“It goes back to the cave days,” she told him. “Be glad it’s not a saber-toothed tiger.”
He smiled up at her, his teeth white in the dimness. “Probably a couple of milk-toothed kittens.” He glanced over at the clock. “Three A.M.” He added a half-intelligible curse in Spanish and slipped out of the bed. Legs went into underwear and jeans, feet into a pair of sandals. Wendy was sitting up, fully awake now, watching him.
Exiting the bedroom he staggered into the living room, scratching at his scalp. A glance out the front window showed nothing … no, wait a minute. He squinted toward the driveway. There was movement there. Port Lavaca was too small to be afflicted with such big city ills as car thieves, but Arriaga did not hold to the Pollyanna view of small town life that some rural inhabitants clung to. There was a first time for everything.
He felt under the couch for the steel pipe he kept there and quietly opened the front door. The moon was just enough of a lamp to allow him to see across the battered lawn and through the trees lining the long driveway. Someone was definitely fooling with the van. That van had cost Arriaga half a season’s work because of the wheelchair lift and other special equipment installed for Amanda’s comfort.
“Hey!” he called out. The movement ceased along with the faint knocking sounds. “Hey you! Man, if you know what’s good for you you better get moving. Comprende?” No sign of activitiy or retreat.
The waterfront wasn’t all quaint characters, camaraderie and fish stories. Arriaga had learned how to handle himself at a young age. Now he started slowly toward the driveway.
“Look, man, I don’t know who you are or what you think you’re doing, but you’ve got five seconds to split before I call the cops to—”
Something hit him from behind. He staggered but didn’t go down. As he turned he saw the tire iron coming toward him again and swung blindly with the pipe even as he was falling backward. The end of the pipe made contact with something yielding and a cry of pain filled the night. Wet stuff splattered his face, warm and salty. Blood, not mine, he thought as he collapsed to the driveway and rolled over. He fought to clear his eyes. Something hit him again, not as hard as the first time, but hard enough. Dream voices reached him.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Then darkness.
The sheriff’s sympathy wasn’t forced, wasn’t fake-professional. He’d known Arriaga and Wendy Ramirez for a long time. “You sure you never got a look at them?”
“No.” Arriaga sat on the couch in the living room. The pipe he’d used the previous night lay on the coffee table in front of him. Wendy sat close to him, attentive and concerned. A cold compress rested on the back of her husband’s neck. The sheriff leaned back in his chair.
“Doesn’t make any sense to me, Arri. What would a bunch of kids want with—”
“Wasn’t kids,” Arriaga said curtly.
“How do you know, if you didn’t get a look at them? Nothing personal, Arri. I’m not questioning you, but you have to look at this from my point of view.”
“Look, Benbrook, that was no kid that hit me. Kids would’ve run like blazes the moment I stepped out the front door. These people didn’t run.”
“Kids could freeze if they were frightened enough,” the sheriff argued.
“I’m telling you, Benbrook, these weren’t kids. There were two, maybe three of them.”
“Well, whoever they were, they didn’t get away with anything. Frankly, I don’t think theft was what they had in mind. That’s why I tend to think it was a bunch of kids, Arri. I don’t see why a couple of grown men would take the time or trouble to vandalize your van.”
“No kids from around here would do anything like that,” Arriaga muttered. “You know that, Benbrook.”
“Sure I do. I’m just trying to make sense out of this, like you, Arri, and you’re not helping me much.”
“I’m sorry. Que lástima.” He winced, put one hand to the ice pack. Wendy squeezed his arm reassuringly.
“What about you, Wendy?” said the sheriff. “Did you see anything?”
“Nothing,” she confessed. “I didn’t even leave the bedroom until some time had gone by and Arri hadn’t returned. That’s when I went outside and found”—she hesitated—“found him lying there next to the van. For a minute I thought he was dead.”
“Felt like it.” Arriaga indicated the section of pipe. “I got one of them. In the mouth, I think. I hope he’s feeling it this morning.”
“If it wasn’t straight vandalism,” the sheriff said thoughtfully, “then they were after the battery or something. If so, they were amateurs because they sure made a mess under your hood. Professional car thieves wouldn’t be that sloppy or uncertain. Wires cut all over the place. The distributor’s busted. Maybe they were trying to pry it out.”
“Maybe,” said Arriaga, not much caring.
“Wendy, Arri, we’ll get right on this. I’ll shoot the information up and down the coast.” He stood. “But without any descriptions of the assailants….” He shrugged. “Probably out-of-towners looking to pick up something to hock on their way through. You were unlucky enough to have the vehicle they picked on.”
“Yeah,” said Arriaga.
“It could’ve been a lot worse, Arri. When you heard them monkeying around in your driveway you should’ve stayed in the house and called us.”
