Free Down Among the Dead Men (A Thriller) by Robert Gregory Browne Page A

his head. Which was a mistake. His brain felt like the business end of a battering ram floating in a thick, soupy liquid.
    He waited for it to stop sloshing around inside his skull.
    “So that’s why you’re here? To more or less tell me to fuck off?”
    “No,” Harmon said. “You live this close to another country, there tends to be a lot of spillover when it comes to crime. These are nasty times, and we’d like to keep the less desirable elements of Juárez from contaminating our water, so to speak.”
    “That’s understandable.”
    “Problem is, I don’t put Jim and Junior in that category. So the question I have to ask is, why? Why would they want to hurt you?”
    “I’ve been wondering the same thing. But you must’ve read my statement.”
    “That I did.”
    “So then you know I think they’re involved in those murders down in Dead Man’s Dunes.”
    “Of course they’re involved,” Harmon said. “They found the bodies. That’s no secret. Isn’t that why you contacted them in the first place? To give you the dollar tour?”
    “Yes, but—”
    “So here’s my problem. I happen to know that Jim Ainsworth is a simple egg rancher who may be a bit too arrogant for his own good, but he doesn’t have a violent bone in his body.”
    Vargas gestured to the stitches in his scalp. “I beg to differ.”
    “I gave Jim a call, asked him about it, and you know what I heard in the background?”
    “What?”
    “A dirt bike. That annoying little insect buzz? Turns out he and Junior have been riding all afternoon. Says they showed you the house, then dropped you off at the Café Tecuba.”
    “He’s lying.”
    “I had a feeling you’d say that.”
    Vargas gestured to his head again. “Are you suggesting I did this to myself?”
    “I’m not suggesting anything. Just trying to be fair and impartial.”
    It was Vargas’s experience that people who said such things were usually anything but.
    “I got on the computer,” Harmon continued, “ran your name through the law enforcement databases, and didn’t get any significant hits.”
    “Because I’m a law-abiding citizen.”
    “That you are. But imagine my surprise when I Googled you.”
    Vargas’s gut tightened.
    Uh-oh. Here it comes.
    “That’s right, sunshine. Turns out you’re the one knows a lot about lying.”

23
     
    “ THAT WAS BLOWN out of proportion,” Vargas said.
    “Not according to the LA Tribune. Seems your former editor doesn’t think too highly of you. I called him , too, and he told me I shouldn’t believe a word you say.”
    “That was one isolated incident. I was under a lot of stress.”
    “Is that what you call it?” Harmon paused. “Look, son, I don’t give a flying fart about what kind of drugs you use any more than I care about you phonying up a couple of newspaper stories. You’re probably not the first, and you sure as hell won’t be the last. But I think you understand why you might have a bit of a credibility problem.”
    “I’m past all that. I went to rehab. And I wouldn’t even let them give me painkillers for my head.”
    It had been two years since the incident in question, a foolish wrong turn by Vargas that he’d been paying for ever since. Due to a confluence of circumstances, he’d managed to get himself hooked on Rush Limbaugh’s drug of choice—OxyContin—and paid the price. Vargas’s story output had dwindled to almost nothing, and in his zeal to remain employed he’d done a series of articles about the Mexican Mafia called “El Asesino: Confessions of a Hit Man.” The series was hard-hitting and dramatic, but with one small problem: It was based on interviews Vargas had conducted with a man who existed wholly within his imagination.
    He’d faked it all.
    And was nominated for a Pulitzer in the process.
    Not something he was proud of.
    After the publicity started getting out of hand, he’d offered a drug-addled confession to his now ex-girlfriend—a fellow reporter—who was so