“You didn’t say anything about crime,” Jonas said in reply, his voice holding none of the humor that Rye’s had.

  He’s whip smart. Rye had seen that from the off, that Jonas listened harder and watched more closely than most people did, and drew educated conclusions from the information he took in. “Drink your coffee before it gets cold,” he said, notching his chin at Jonas.

  “I drink quickly. It won’t buy you much time,” Jonas said, taking a big gulp to prove it.

  Despite everything, Rye rasped out a laugh. “Just wait a second,” he instructed, indicating the couple pausing fairly near them as their dog wanted to sniff the trees. On another occasion, Rye would have petted the dog, some kind of mastiff—he loved all dogs, the bigger the better—but not today. As soon as the couple had moved off, he dragged his chair nearer to Jonas’.

  “I don’t need time to think up stories or excuses,” he began, making a decision. “I’m gonna tell you what’s goin’ on. Which means I trust you enough to tell you what’s going on, okay?” Rye tended to go with his gut. And it was telling him now that he had to level with Jonas, or risk him walking away. That shouldn’t matter, seeing as they barely knew each other, and had known each other bare just once, but it did. Rye knew in the marrow of his bones it did.

  “And I think you’d know if I was lyin’,” he added. “Like I’d, I don’t know, touch my earlobe or shuffle my big toe or something.”

  “I know when you’re stallin’,” Jonas replied, mimicking the way Rye got extra southern when he was uncomfortable. “Which doesn’t mean you’re lying, of course. It’s more than probable that you’re nervous, instead. Hmm. Let me take a guess. What you’re going to say is connected to why you’re here in San Antonio, isn’t it?”

  He’s good. “Yep. I mean, yes.” Rye sat straighter in his chair. “I am here on a temporary assignment, guarding the Waco Hall of Fame items and, well…being a living Texas Ranger, part of the exhibition.” He finished in a shrug. He hadn’t quite understood that part of things, until today.

  “And answering questions from visitors.” Jonas had the decency to bite back a smile at the memory.

  “Including college professors asking about my crotch.” Rye wagged a finger

  “Belts!” Jonas protested. “Fine, it’s the same general area, but my question was about why Texas Rangers wear two belts. And what you replied, is that the real reason?”

  “One for his pants and one for his gun, yeah.” Rye grinned. “Least, that’s what we’re taught at Ranger school. But I’d put up with more, to be able to come here. I need to be in San Antonio and not in Waco right now. I got something I have to do.”

  He drained half of one of the glasses of water that the server had brought along with their coffees. “I’m gonna ask you to keep everything I’m about to say to yourself, okay?” He waited for Jonas to nod, then continued. “I worked with a partner for about five years, name of Charles Daniels. Chip.”

  “Worked… What happened to him?” Jonas asked.

  “He was killed, right in front of me, when we were on surveillance duty a few nights ago.” Rye swallowed and finished his water.

  “God. That’s terrible. I’m so sorry, Rye.” Jonas tilted his head to one side, observing him. “But there’s more. And it’s not good, right?”

  “No. It’s bad. Least, I think.” He found he wanted to pour it all out to Jonas. Maybe Jonas, with his clever, quicker brain, could explain it all away. Or at least give Rye a fresh perspective on it. “Because I think he was dirty.”

  With his voice a harsh, cracked whisper, his gaze on the table, he listed all the reasons why he suspected Chip was taking kickbacks from the Camargo cartel in exchange for either facilitating or just looking the other way when they transported drugs from South America. He might even have been involved in the cartel’s network of stash houses near the border, then distribution centers the deeper into Texas they got.

  “His wife—widow—mentioned they’d paid off the mortgage to their property. So I looked it up and yeah, they did. She said they were gonna buy a bigger one…but I found out that Chip already bought another house, earlier this year.”

  “And you think he used drug money to purchase it?” Jonas asked sharply.

  Rye shrugged. “It’s a nice place. Owned and rented out to tenants through a company. My thinking is it was his pension pot. He also put down a deposit on a boat. I guess that was his little present to himself. So I thought I’d come here, the place I think the shipment was coming in to Waco from. You probably know that the South Texas border area’s the main drug smuggling corridor between the United States and Mexico, and San Antonio’s a transshipment center? It’s also a place Lina mentioned Chip was spending time in.”

  “And a specific place was the Lucky Cards Club, I bet. No pun intended.” Jonas was silent for a minute or two. “You’re investigating this alone, aren’t you? It’s not part of your secondment here.”

  Rye nodded. “And if you’re wondering why I didn’t hand it to my chief—?”

  “I’m glad you didn’t, with having no real evidence. You’d be accusing someone without proof, and someone who can’t defend himself.” Jonas snatched his water from the table, and his hand shook a little.

  Rye hadn’t been expecting that. He’d been prepared to explain that he didn’t know who else was involved, but Jonas’ anger, because that was how his reaction seemed to Rye, confused him.

  “And I know how that feels. What it’s like,” Jonas continued.

  Jonas spoke in such a whisper that Rye had to lean forward to hear him. When he understood, anger and sorrow bloomed like wildflowers in him, and he reached across the table for Jonas’ hand. “It’s shitty that you went through something like that,” he said. “Wish I’d known you then. I’d have—”

  “What, snooped around in places you didn’t belong and stuck out like a sore lawman? I read your message.” Jonas pulled his hand back.

  Right. The text must have been from someone who was at the card club, setting up a meet. He should get gone. He didn’t know the city very well and he had to find the place. “I gotta do this.”

  “Alone? It’s dangerous!” Jonas looked as horrified at that as he had at Rye accusing his partner. “That place—”

  “I gotta go. I’ll call you real soon after,” Rye promised, getting to his feet. “Everything I said about how I feel about us, about this…” He waved a hand between them. “I meant it.” He wanted to drop a kiss on Jonas’ head but didn’t feel he had the right. So he just winked as he slotted his hat on, then turned and left.

  Hot flashes of anger detonated in Jonas and were quickly put out by cold drenches of fear. Rye had promised there was a this and an us, then marched off to one of the city’s most notorious bars, where he’d be spotted as being law enforcement and…dealt with accordingly?

  “Not if I can help it,” Jonas muttered between clenched teeth.

  And luckily for Rye, the bar he was making for this time was another haunt of Jonas’.

  Or, rather, of Joe’s…

  Chapter Nine

  Jonas didn’t waste any time, just called a rideshare and drove out to the south side of the city where the place Rye had been summoned to was located. Even to an out-of-towner like Rye, unfamiliar with San Antonio, it wouldn’t take consulting guidebooks or internet forums to see he was heading out to a bad neighborhood.

  Would Rye think it was a cantina or café, by its name? If he did, one look through Nieves Tacos’ grimy windows would show him it wasn’t a taco bar. It was a bar of sorts, but the main feature was the pool tables, or tacos. Jonas had been here a handful of times. It was a good place to pick up the blue-collar types he favored for a night of anonymous sex. He hadn’t given a guy his real name, or mentioned what his job was, since he’d turned his back on his ‘own sort’—people who’d disowned him when he was falsely accused, and it was made clear to him he should leave the college.

  Jonas didn’t particularly like pool—he preferred gambling—but he did like the young guys who hung out here. ‘Joe’ had been with a couple, and they’d been good, dirty encounters. So much so his dick twitched when he saw the flickering neon sign.

  Pablo sat in his usual spot just inside the door. On his first visit, Jonas had been wary of the large, muscled dark brown Doberman pinscher, but the highly trained hound barely moved unless told to. He turned his head for his dark eyes to take everything in but didn’t even flinch at the loud trash talk before a shot, or the clack of pool balls hitting each other, or the swearing or cheering after a shot.

  “But when Pablo gets involved, you should get scared,” someone had told Jonas. And true, when Pablo had leaped to his feet once, when some idiot had slammed the butt of his pool stick onto the floor in frustration, everyone present had frozen. But the dog hadn’t done anything beyond stare hard in the man’s direction, and the guy had raised a hand and muttered an apology.

  Jonas paid the entrance fee and walked in. The dry chalk in the air from where players ground the end of their pool sticks into huge squares of it had made his eyes water the first time he was here, but not now. He took a discreet look around the bar section, the easiest part of the place to make out as it was better lit than the column of tables that stretched to the far wall. There were more tables, maybe VIP ones, in recesses to both sides, near the back.

  The place was Hispanic, in clientele and ownership, he guessed from the name, pointing to the bottled beer to show the woman behind the small wooden counter what he wanted. Who ran this place? Pablo, it seemed, but it was probably the guy who split his time between the door and the bar, overseeing what was going on. He was prowling around now, his gaze hard.

  Jonas wasn’t naïve. He knew Mexican drug trafficking cartels were a massive problem in the States, dominating illicit drug markets, responsible for most if not all the cocaine entering the country, and that entire law enforcement teams were set up to fight the violence and corruption illegal drugs brought. Rye hadn’t been exaggerating or paranoid when he’d sketched the nature of the problem earlier, but the way he was going about it—

  A hand on Jonas’ arm had him jumping and nearly dropping his beer.

  “Woah, Joe, amigo!” Luca, the last guy Jonas had hooked up with in here, took a step back, his hands raised. He frowned. “Glasses? And you been for a job interview? Or a court date?” Luca, laughing at his own wit, pointed at Jonas’ more formal clothes.

  He wore contact lenses and dressed down when trolling for sex but hadn’t had the chance to go home and change. “Oh…” He shrugged, taking off his glasses, even though it meant he couldn’t see that well. “You know…” Vagueness was a great help at times.

  “Come on.” Luca led Jonas to one of the nearest tables, where, for form’s sake, they became part of the small group watching and betting on the action. The joint was a pickup place, but lip service had to be paid for a minute or two. Jonas contemplated putting money on the heavier-set player. He looked like a winner, like he’d cheat without being detected, to do so. Jonas also tried to search for any sign of Rye.

  “So…” With a jerk of his head, Luca steered Jonas into a quiet corner. “What you looking for, guapo? Me, I hope…” He moistened his lips, memories of their couple of nights together shining in his eyes.

  The thought of getting with Luca couldn’t have been further from Jonas’ mind. “I’m not here for anyone,” he replied. Why am I even here? He had no idea what he was doing, beyond trying to help Rye. “More for something.”

  “Go on?” Luca gulped from his beer bottle.

  “If I was to say…coke, and not the carbonated drink?” Jonas murmured.

  Luca shrugged, looking only mildly surprised. “Sure. I can get you some.”

  “Right now? In here?” Jonas pressed.

  Luca nodded.

  “Good stuff? From over the border?”

  “Si,” Luca replied, trying to appear casual, but the sudden stilling of his body gave away his tension.

  “Camargo cartel stuff?” Jonas asked, feeling like a scientist making a breakthrough when Luca’s shaking his thick dark hair from his eyes, his tell, told Jonas what he needed to know. “This is their place, right?”

  “Hombre…” Luca widened his eyes and brought a forefinger to his lips in the classic shh gesture.

  “This place.” Jonas lowered his voice even more, although it was probably unnecessary given the increased volume of noise from somewhere down the end of the pool room. “Is it a deposit?” No, that wasn’t the right term! He tried to think above the thump thump of his heart in his ears. “A depot. An intermediate locale. A transshipment center.”

  Luca twitched his head, as if to flick his hair into place.

  Shit. That last term had been the correct one. Things seemed so unreal, so quickly, that a part of Jonas dissociated from the here and now, feeling instead like he was taking part in some game show where he had to guess the right word. He dragged in a breath. Okay, so the bar’s a place in which cocaine and— There’re more drugs than just cocaine. “Am I in the right place for amphetamines too?” he asked, going for broke.

  “Joe. Cállate la boca.” Luca took a tiny glance around, checking if anyone had heard him telling Jonas to shut his mouth. He leaned his top half closer, his lower half pointing away, distancing himself. “You being here for like, I don’t know, slum sex, that’s one thing. But this…esto es una mierda seria. Mierda mortal, sabes?” He hissed the final word.

  Jonas agreed. It was serious. Deadly even.

  “Get out,” Luca advised, jerking his head toward the door.

  He stopped when the woman came out from behind the bar. She threw them a look from her hard black eyes but didn’t stop by them. She marched past and beckoned the man Jonas had thought was the manager or overseer to her. The jerkiness, the urgency of her actions caught Jonas’ attention, and he rammed on his glasses to look where she was pointing. He just knew it was Rye—

  —bursting backward out of one of the far alcoves, fighting two men at the same time. Shit. Shit! He’d been there all this time, probably asking questions and—no, been lured there, to see what he knew.

  “Sal!” urged Luca, telling Jonas, not for the first time, to get out.

  And leave Rye? Rye who was taking hits as well as delivering them, in a place full of enemies, with weapons? Metal flashed in the guys’ hands, small and curved, not like blades as much as talons. Jonas didn’t understand what they were and didn’t want a closer look. And that big dog could be sent in any minute! When he hesitated, Luca grabbed him and heaved him bodily from the bar, shoving him out onto the street then went back in.

  “You were never here!” he called over his shoulder as he vanished, yanking the door closed behind him.

  “But I am!” Jonas yelled back stupidly. He took a deep breath and yelled “Policias!” but not as if calling the police for help. He made his voice a warning and banged a fist on the grimy window. “Policias estan llegando!”

  A passerby scoffed. “Cops don’t come here,” he said in English.

  Oh no? There was one inside. “Policias!” Jonas shouted again, desperate now, then stumbled back onto the sidewalk when the door opened again—and Rye was pushed out. He turned, as if to force his way in again, but the door was slammed shut.

  “Rye?”

  Rye whirled around at Jonas’ gasp, and Jonas almost vomited. Rye’s face was bleeding, although Jonas couldn’t see where the blood was coming from in the mess.

  “Not here,” Rye said, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand and checking out both sides of the street before pulling Jonas away.

  Jonas could barely contain himself as they hurried around a corner. “How could you be so stupid? I told you what would happen if you went there! That you’d stand out, attract attention—it was obvious!” he half-yelled.

  “So you think I’m stupid. Well, ain’t that the type you like, working-class guys who go to places like that?” Rye shouted back. “Or maybe I should have gone in disguise, taken another name, so no one in these kinda dives where I go to trawl for a quick fuck knows who I really fuckin’ am?”

  “How dare you.” Jonas almost shook with his anger. “You don’t know—you don’t understand—”

  “I guess I don’t. But I’d like to.”

  “Here? Now?” Jonas wondered if Rye was ridiculing him. No. Rye wasn’t the sort. Could it be he’d heard Jonas addressed as Joe here too, or seen that he was if not a regular there, that he’d been there before? He had a right to be curious. He was clearly angry Jonas had been there tonight, was a part of this mess.

  Rye was waiting, so Jonas shrugged. “Yes, I went after you. To protect you.”

  “Which you didn’t need to do.” Rye scowled. “But it wasn’t your first time there. In places like that.”

  Jonas shook his head then nodded. Seeing a fight like that, from a ringside view, would have thrown most people. It being Rye in the thick of it, outnumbered, outgunned… Reaction was setting in and making Jonas weak and trembly. He fought it and tried to focus on what Rye had asked. That was a big thing too.

  “It’s not some ghetto or barrio fixation. Neither is it curiosity or for kicks.,” he started. “It’s that, well, every relationship I had got severed when I was accused of something I didn’t do, and it was easier for people and the institution to jettison me than stand by me and fight it. Every relationship, including that with the guy I’d been with for over two years, and whom I believed loved me. So that world…now…I can’t.” He exhaled. This was hard. “I suppose I find blue-collar guys more honest…”

  “Yeah, if you don’t understand it properly, I’m not gonna. But now it’s your turn to try to understand that I ain’t stupid,” Rye replied.

  Jonas raised an eyebrow, trailing his gaze down Rye’s injuries.

  “Oh, so you think I can’t handle myself? I’m a goddamn Texas Ranger!” Rye protested. “That?” He jerked a thumb back at the bar. “That coulda been a lot fuckin’ worse. I could have dished out a lot fuckin’ worse.”