“So what happened to you?” It was becoming a tedious question. Sergeant Gregorio Esparza was only the latest to ask, and he didn't particularly care. To him it was just conversation.
With me in the shotgun seat of an unmarked car in the parking lot of the Southern Division station, we waited for Ambrosio Rodriguez and Manuel Menchaca, the two other members of the team, killing time by getting to know each other. The storm continued and we passed the time talking and listening to the radio. During the news, the weatherman said he was going to the zoo to investigate a report that the keepers were loading pairs of animals on a big boat that they'd built in the parking lot.
“I met a couple of your Welcome Wagon ladies yesterday. They wanted to give me some lasting memories of your fair city. They wanted donations, of course.”
“They get anything?”
“They got hurt,” I said, and gave him the short version.
“City should give you a medal,” he said. He was about say something else when a new black pickup truck skidded into the parking lot and did a three-sixty, disappearing in rooster tails of rainwater.
“That's Ambrosio,” said Esparza. “Manny's with him.”
The truck halted, then backed into the space next to ours. Two men jumped out.
“Here,” Esparza said, handing me his stainless-steel automatic in a black-nylon pancake holster. “Give him this.” I rolled down my window. A Hispanic man with a fierce bandito mustache and wearing a waterproof windbreaker with
the hood up approached the car. When he leaned in, I handed him the pistol.
“What's this? You greet me with a gun in your hand?”
“I've been told that's the safest way,” I replied, watching the mustache levitate as he smiled.
“Ambrosio Rodriguez,” said Esparza, making the introduction, “this is John Caine, the private eye I told you about.”
“Oh, yeah? The guy from Hawaii? Pleased to meet you.” We shook hands through the window. He had a strong grip, but not punishing. He was letting me know I was all right, a member of the club. “Let me put this away,” he said, referring to the automatic. “You got anything on you? Any weapons?”
“Just a Buck knife,” I said.
“That's not a weapon.”
“You'd be surprised.”
“Whatever. What happened to you?”
“Ran into a door.”
Esparza laughed and Ambrosio disappeared. The rain cointinued falling, sheeting the windshield. Visibility was dismal and dropped even more when heavy gusts of wind increased the velocity of the rain.
“Let's go, amigo!” Both rear doors opened and the two men jumped in. “Man, it's raining out there!” Ambrosio slammed his door. “This is Manny Menchaca. He's a little wet. He's been climbing trees.”
The other policeman was trying to dry his long black hair by slicking it back with his hands like squeezing a sponge. Water poured down his back. His jacket was soaked through, the leather saturated as if he'd been out in the elements for hours.
“Nice to meet you,” said Manny. “We had a couple of errands to run this morning. Sorry we're late.”
“We got her!” Ambrosio said, smiling. “Snapped her picture!”
“Three rolls,” added Manny. “It was raining so hard she never knew we were there.” There Was pride in his voice. “We were in a tree across the street. Nobody even looked.”
“Got tape, too?” Esparza was grinning.
“Yep. Audio's shitty. The rain is background. Just about all white noise. But she's on there. Got her doing the dirty deed. Red-handed. If it ain't all it should be, maybe the lab can clean it up.”
Esparza backed out of the space and squinted ahead. The windshield wipers weren't keeping up with the deluge. He was a very cautious driver. He slowly pulled into traffic and I wondered if we might reach our destination before nightfall.
“We've been working on a sensitive investigation,” Esparza explained. “A local politician with her hand out. Last night Manny heard rumors of a payoff. A where and a when. Came from a good source inside her office. Not only is she dishonest, she's a bitch, too. It'll make some people very happy to see her go down. Guess it was worth standing around for a couple of hours in the rain.”
“Says the man who spent the morning in the office,” said Manny, grinning.
“Fuckin' A, man,” Ambrosio said.
“Rank still has some privileges.” Esparza grinned, watching the road ahead and keeping a death grip on the wheel.
“Where we going?”
“Ensenada, Manny.” Esparza glanced at me, then turned his attention back to the road. “We've got a stolen truck report. Guy said it was stolen out of his driveway. Not unusual for this border town.” He eased the big Chevrolet onto the freeway, toward Mexico. Traffic was heavy but he found a spot and slipped in. “Ambrosio here, he finds out the same truck was involved in a rollover in Mexico and totaled the day it was supposed to be stolen from San Diego. American insurance isn't any good down there. This guy can't collect. So Ambrosio thinks, well, maybe the guy doesn't want to be out twenty thousand dollars or so, so he reports it stolen. He's got a nasty, suspicious mind, does Ambrosio.”
“Yeah. Spent too much time dealing with the public.”
“Ambrosio checks. Yep,
federales
have a report. And they have a name and a photograph of the guy who was driving, on account of he was arrested. That's standard if you get into
an accident, you know, whether you have insurance or not. You get into a fender bender, you go to jail in Mexico. If someone's injured, even if it's you, it's a felony without insurance. Only your friendly insurance agent can get you out.
“Maybe this guy doesn't have Mexican insurance, so he sees some way to get out of it, get his investment back. Maybe he's greedy. Maybe just stupid. No matter. We're going to spend fifteen minutes with the
policia federales del caminos
and then come back and put the cuffs on this guy for insurance fraud. That's a felony up here.”
“And that's what you do?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes' other things.”
“Yeah,” said Manny, “like hanging around in a tree during the mother of all thunderstorms.”
“We're mostly liaison between Mexico and San Diego. Sometimes we work with the feds, too, butâ”
“But we try not to,” Ambrosio added.
“âbut we spend most of our time assisting the Mexican police, either up here or down there, and having them assist us when we've got something going down there.”
“Like this insurance fraud.”
“Like that.” Esparza began slowing as we approached the border. In the median, a sign proclaimed GUNS ARE ILLEGAL IN MEXICO.
“We were in Anaheim yesterday, taking a couple of the federal judicial police up there to find one of their bad guys.”
“Found him, too.” Ambrosio's bandito mustache rose a couple of notches as he smiled again.
“Yeah. That was satisfying.”
“What was he wanted for?”
“Murder. Killed his girlfriend and her parents. Then went north.”
“Oh.” It gave me a different perspective, hearing this. You hear about people committing crimes north of the border and heading south. It was like looking into a mirror. I'd never thought about it working the other way. Also, the specter of Mexican law enforcement crossing north to our side wasn't something I'd considered before.
“Kid thought that once he was up here, he could disappear.”
“Dumb shit thought all Mexicans look alike to the gringos.” Ambrosio laughed.
“He didn't count on Ambrosio.”
“Nobody looks alike. He stood out like a sore eye,” said Ambrosio in an exaggerated accent, happy at the memory.
We crossed the border. It wasn't much of a ceremony. Two men in a toll booth waved us through. Behind them, out in the elements without cover, stood Mexican military units, soldiers armed with automatic rifles that they tried to keep dry by hiding them under olive-drab ponchos, barrels pointed toward the ground.
“The army guards the border?”
“They have a new president,” said Esparza. “He's trying to make it look like they care about what happens on the border. Maybe he does. Things like that happen, sometimes.”
He took the four-lane highway that ran parallel to the border. Just a few feet to the north a steel fence stood, marking, I supposed, the exact geographical location of the beginning of United States soil. The fence had many holes under it, dug into the soft tan mud. Beyond the fence, pale green pickup trucks sat at intervals of a hundred yards, American border patrol, waiting for the night.
On this side of the fence hundreds of campesinos from the fields, and the poor from the cities, men and women and children, gathered, in clusters, waiting to try for it, hoping for a better life. They, too, were waiting for the night. They huddled in the rain, with no shelter and nowhere else to go.
“Tell us again about this dead man the wife saw walking around.” Ambrosio leaned over the seat and poked Esparza on the shoulder. “This that yachtsman who blew himself up a few months back?”
“That's the one.”
“His wife thinks he faked his death and skipped with seven million dollars,” I said. “She was convinced he was dead until she saw him at Calafia.”
“Better than a divorce in California,” said Ambrosio. “Seven million. Gotta admire a guy for that.”
“You should know,” said Manny.
“Cost me half my pension. Fucking bitch.”
“So there's a problem,” I said. “There was a body. A coroner issued a death certificate.”
“And if he's alive,” Ambrosio grinned, the mustache bobbing, “then who was the body?”
I nodded. “They found human remains in the ruins of the boat which they identified through dental records the family attorney brought down.”
“No he didn't,” said Esparza.
“He didn't?”
“I told you the other day. He gave them to me. I remember when he brought them in. We took them down and turned them over to the coroner.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Ambrosio. “I remember that.”
“Do you recall the name of the dentist?”
“I don't have to. I made a copy.” Esparza smiled at me briefly before turning his attention back to the road. The rain was not letting up on either of the two Californias. It had been one continuous drenching without ceasing for three days. The radio reported mud slides in Malibu and Laguna Beach, north of San Diego. Mexico, though a different country, was closer than Malibu or Laguna Beach. There had been no news about conditions on this side of the border.
“So she sees this guy. He takes off. That's it?” Ambrosio was still turning it over.
“That's it.”
“So he's not dead.”
“Doesn't look that way,” I said.
“Looks like we might have a homicide, Sergeant.”
Esparza nodded. “Caine here is going to follow up. We're going to introduce him around. Try to keep him out of trouble.”
“That's good.”
“And he's going to let us know what he finds out.”
“That's good.”
“Aren't you, Caine?”
I nodded. Why not? “Did Stevenson call you after his client saw her husband down there?”
“No. He may have called Mexico directly. He had some kind of relationship with de la Peña,
el jéfe
from Ensenada Homicide. He didn't call me.”
Here was another inconsistency that bothered me about Stevenson. He either forgot the facts, or intentionally blurred them.
“And Caine here is going to do something else for us,” said Esparza.
I glanced at him and then stared out the window. The road along the coast was densely populated with incomplete concrete structures and rickety wood-framed houses that looked as if they could stand some more work to make them stable. There were no trees. Nothing moved except an old dog trotting along the side of the road, tongue lolling, oblivious of the rain.
“He's going to buy us lunch when we get to Calafia.”
“Lobster,” said Ambrosio. “I always like their lobster.”
The three cops did not order lobster, although they kept the threat hanging over me until the waiter came and everyone ordered fish tacos. I waited until they ordered their drinks, not knowing if a beer or two was acceptable this far from the flagpole. When they ordered coffee I made it unanimous, reflecting on the changes over the last twenty years.
Even ten years ago there would have been no question about a beer. One or two beers in Mexico would have been accepted, maybe even expected. Now it's an acknowledged fact that nobody drinks on the job except politicians, the same ones who make the rules for everybody else.
Calafia was exactly as Claire described it. A warren of little cobblestone streets going off in all directions. The restaurant gift shop was near the entry doors, the rest rooms across the hall. I looked outside, studying the layout. In the dark a man had many avenues of escape, any number of places to hide. Once Claire got over her shock, she went after him, but by then it was too late. He had vanished.
My acceptance of her story was stronger now that I had been here. Too many details fit too well to make it anything other than believable. I'm not naive; I try to be intellectually honest and thought I'd given her a fair hearing. I wondered if Stevenson and the others who acted as if they did not believe her had given her the same courtesy.
That's why I was here. That's why I took her case in the first place.
On impulse, I purchased a T-shirt with the Mexican flag on its chest. Claire was a small woman. I bought her an extra
large. She could sleep in it. If she didn't like it, she could give it to Juanita.
“Seen enough here?” Esparza and his team were good men and hadn't pushed me, but they had a schedule to keep.
“I'll come back on my own in a day or two,” I said. “There's nothing but more questions.”
Esparza nodded. “Isn't that always the case?”
Ambrosio and Manny came out of the room marked HOMBRES, each doing a little dance in time with the canned salsa music.
“Are you ready to see Teniente José Enrique de la Peña?” Esparza had his hands on his hips.
“SÃ, mi sargento,
” said Ambrosio. “And we are to stop at the Hotel El Mirador?”
“The fuel dock.”
“We'll hit that next. It's just down the road a few miles.”
“That's where the accident happened?” I asked. That was the one place I needed to spend some time. There would be witnesses.
“Yeah. Not much to see. I think the hull is still there, burned to the waterline.”
“I want to see that,” I said.
“Okay.”
We hesitated at the double front doors. It was still raining and none of us wanted to make the dash to the car.
“You go,
mi sargento,”
said Ambrosio. “You are our leader. We, your humble servants, shall follow. Besides, you got the keys.”
“RHIP,” added Manny.
Esparza nodded and ran to the sedan. When he got the car doors unlocked, we followed, which would have been helpful had he not locked the doors again just as we got to the car. He sat behind foggy glass, laughing at us until Ambrosio and Manny stalked back to the restaurant and stood under the overhang. I followed. They refused to go back to the car until Esparza got out, walked back to the restaurant, and apologized.
“Worked,” said Ambrosio to Manny, with a sly grin. “Made the boss get wet all over again.”
We drove by the Hotel El Mirador but the rain came down so hard it didn't make sense to get out of the car. A burned-out boat hull lay on its side on the concrete at the far side of the marina like a beached whale. Few things are sadder than a boat out of water.
I debated getting out of the car to inspect the wreck, but decided I couldn't ignore the rain enough to learn anything; I'd spend too much time and energy trying to keep dry. At least I knew where the hull was and could return when it stopped raining.
I looked around. Buildings surrounded the marina and the fuel dock. If a bomb had been aboard, someone could easily have set it off by a radio transmitter, watching from one of the many windows. That told me nothing. It would take a bomb expert to find traces of bomb material in the hull, presuming it was there, and assuming the evidence had not been accidentally or intentionally removed since the explosion.
“Let's go,” I said to Esparza. “I've seen all I can see now.”
Ambrosio made his stop at the Baja California headquarters of the Federal Highway Patrol, a single-story concrete-block structure on the waterfront in Ensenada. We waited while he went inside and got what he wanted, returning ten minutes later with photocopies of the booking statement and the accident report, both confirming that the same man who had reported the truck stolen in the United States had also wrecked it in Mexico.
Our last stop was on the south side of Ensenada, near the industrial district. Sergeant Esparza had made an appointment with Teniente de la Peña, who waited for us in his office.
De la Peña was a bully, a large man in his mid-forties with big shoulders and a self-satisfied belly that obscured his gun belt. In his dark khaki uniform he presented an imposing figure, which he knew and used to his advantage, giving the impression of power and brute force.
He looked like a man who would do exactly what he wanted, when he wanted, looked like a man who could make something happen. Or keep something from happening.
De la Peña spoke no English, or at least that was the impression he wished us to have. The interview was conducted in Spanish, Sergeant Esparza acting as my translator. I'd grown up on the Mexican border and was conversant, though rusty, but I didn't want de la Peña to have complete knowledge of my abilities, either.
The conversation didn't go well. Most of my questions were shunted aside. Many of his answers were
“No sé”:
“I don't know,” or “I don't remember”âa handy device to stonewall without getting caught in a lie that could trip you up later. When it became obvious even to me that the exercise was futile, I told Esparza I had no more questions. De la Peña stood and ushered us out of his office like a waiter with a poor-tipping guest. He shook the three policemen's hands, but ignored mine.
“He's hiding something,” Esparza observed, once we were back in the car, cutting across town toward the docks and the Tijuana highway. “You really annoyed him,” he added.
“Told you I was good at it.”
“Didn't know how good.”
“Did we accomplish anything?”
Esparza thought about it, squinting through the windshield. “It depends on how you view your objective. If you merely wanted information, you failed. If you accept the fact that his obvious refusal to discuss the incident is, in itself, information, then you did learn something. Which is it? And was it worth the trip? Only you can answer that.”
“What do you think?”
“He's lying. I learned something, too, this afternoon. This wasn't just a waste of time for the department.”
“What was that?”
“I can't trust that guy.”
“That's the kind you bet your life on sometimes,” I said.
Esparza nodded. “Promise me something, Caine.”
“Sure.”
“Check in with me before you head down here alone. Somebody should know when and where you're going, and when you expect to come back.”
“You think it's that serious?”
“I think that Teniente José Enrique de la Peña wants to put you out of business. I think that the good
teniente
thinks you could unravel his whole operation if you're unchecked.”
“I think that you should follow up as soon as possible,” said Ambrosio from the backseat, his voice uncharacteristically quiet. “I was watching him. He was so uncomfortable talking about this he's going to take some immediate steps to close some doors.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I was that yachtsman? And I was hiding out down here and de la Pena knows where I am? I'd start looking for another hiding place. De la Pena looked like he might shut everything down.”
“Yeah?”
“He look like a guy who'd hesitate to kill a dead man?” We rode in silence for the next seventy miles, the landscape obscured by the monotony of the rain. All I saw were black hills and poverty, and an occasional glimpse of a gray dark ocean.
Someone's beeper went off. All three cops glanced down at their belts. Esparza stared so long I nearly grabbed the steering wheel as the car drifted toward the oncoming lane.
“It's the boss,” he said.
“We're close enough to the border. Try it.”
“You do it. I'm kind of busy.”
Ambrosio leaned over the seat, grabbed the handset from the dash. When he got through, he started the conversation in a loud voice, then got suddenly quiet. He looked at me. “He's here,” he said. I kept silent. Something had happened and I'd find out soon enough. “Hey, Sergeant. How long before we hit the border?”
Esparza scanned the road ahead. “Twenty minutes, give or take. We might save some time through Otay Mesa.”
“Go through Otay, Sergeant.”
Esparza nodded.
“Twenty minutes to the line,” said Ambrosio into the handset. “Another thirty minutes after that. We can push it,
maybe make it faster, but figure an hour with everything. Okay. See you there.” He hung up the phone and looked at me. “Sergeant, that was the lieutenant. Our plans have changed. We're going to Point Loma once we cross the border. No stops. Not even for our weapons. We're to report to Homicide once we get there.”
“What happened?”
“Caine's been guarding this yachtsman's widow. Hired a couple of ex-cops to cover it while he's gone. They had a shooting today. Lots of noise. Coroner's there. The mayor complained. She lives across the street, you know.”
“Who's hurt?”
“Don't know. There's at least one guy down.”
“Dead?”
“They don't send the coroner for minor wounds.”
“How's the widow?” I couldn't stop the question. It just spilled out of my mouth.
Ambrosio shook his head. “The lieutenant didn't say. We'll find out soon enough. All he said was, it was some guy. That make you feel any better?”
It didn't and he knew it, but he tried to make it sound better. “You hire Ed like I suggested?” Esparza asked.
“Yes. He brought in a guy named Farrell to help out. Farrell was supposed to come on about four, so most likely he was there.”
“Hatley Farrell?”
“That's the name. You know him?”
Esparza smiled. “Toughest cop San Diego ever had. Put nine men down in thirty years. A real Dirty Harry.”
The Hatley Farrell I'd met was a little guy, but I didn't forget his eyes.
“If anyone is dead, it's the bad guy. Farrell must be close to eighty by now, but last I heard, he could still hit the ten ring with that cannon of his. You know, Farrell's the only guy I ever met carries a forty-one Magnum. Got special permission from the chief. Damned cannon. Four-inch barrel. Magna-ported. Customized. He's the last of the real
pistoleros.”
“Hey,” said Ambrosio.
“Okay. One of the last,” said Esparza, “but you're not an ace and Farrell is. The point is”âEsparza looked at meâ“that he may be slowing down some, but Farrell is a dead shot. He's also no virgin. If there's shooting to be done, Farrell will do it. Your people are all right. That's a promise.”
“Hey,” said Ambrosio. “You think de la Peña set this up? How long ago we talk to him? Two hours? All he had to do was pick up the phone and place the order. It goes down while we're slipping and sliding up the Baja coast. By the time we're home, it's over.”
“Except for Farrell.”
“Yeah. And all that.”
And John Caine was somewhere else when they tried to kill her. Some bodyguard. Mr. Ineffective.
Feeling helpless, I slumped in the passenger seat and sat as still as possible, trying to force my heart rate back to normal and trying to stop the adrenaline flooding my arteries.