Spiral (43 page)

"Listen, hon, we're not gonna let anything happen to you, but you gotta tell us what it is you're talking about."

Cissy leaned forward and mashed her cigarette out in Dystal's Texas-shaped ashtray, grinding the butt out on the amber-stained rattlesnake rattles. She dug in her purse, found her pack of Salems, and took out another one and lighted it.

"Me an' Donny, we met Ruby and Tucky a coupla years ago," she said, clearing her throat. "At a gun show. Donny, he likes pistols, six-guns. Western revolvers. He had an Hombre, a Dakota, a Texas Ranger, like that. Shot 'em out on his daddy's place out past Galena Park. Just at cans 'n' thangs. Tucky had a table at this show, an' we stopped to look at his stuff. We got to be friends, 'cause Ruby was there too and I kinda hit it off with her while the boys was talkin'. We both was Waylon Jennings fans."

Cissy crossed her legs and leaned forward a little as if she were trying to ease a cramp.

"Tucky's a real heavy-duty gun hog. A dealer at these gun 'n' knife shows an' stuff. His big thang is survival warfare. We went to this survivalist camp around Conroe with him an' Ruby two or three times, and Donny really got off on it. Those people was really military. Assault weapons, camo outfits, the whole bit. All the women knew how to shoot
as good as the men. I learned how, an' we painted our faces an' played war games an' had some good times. Anyway, we got to be real close friends with those people, an' after several months, Tucky, he let Donny in on his side business. His job was at the ship channel. Night watchman, but he moonlighted buyin' an' sellin' illegal guns. Machine guns. Full-automatic stuff. And then he got into explosives. RDX. C-4. Donny got into it with him."

When she stopped to pull on her cigarette, Dystal asked, "Where'd they get these firearms and explosives from?"

"I don't know. Somethin' to do with the ship channel, came in on ships or somethin'. It was Tucky's deal. Me and Ruby, we stayed out of it, at first."

Cissy's voice cracked a little at this point, and she ground out another cigarette in the ashtray. She drank from the Coke again, and when she put it back on the desk she knocked it over.

"Oh, goddam." She grabbed for it and stood. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she said, hovering over the spilled cola, her arms trembling. But Dystal was already reaching in a desk drawer for some paper napkins he kept there.

"That's all right, that's all right, hon," he said. "Don't mind it. Just sit down. No harm done."

But Cissy had already collapsed in her chair, and was crying, ducking her head and holding it in one hand and crying. Dystal uiopped up the spilled Coke, put the napkins in his trash can, placed a fresh napkin under the can, and pushed it back to her.

"Mrs. Farrell, I know you're upset, but just hang in there. There's no need for you to be jittery with us. Okay? Come on, now," he said, pushing the Coke toward her a little more. "Take a sip, and go ahead on." He gave her a paper napkin to blow her nose.

After a minute she continued.

"I don't know nothin' about who Tucky sold to. Donny was just learnin' the ropes, so he didn't really know a lot, I don't thank, and he didn't tell me much about what he knowed. He's the quiet type, anyway. But about a month ago Tucky and Ruby asked us over to their place one night an' we all sat down in the . . . kitchen . . . and Tucky was real excited. He said he had got a feeler from a Mexcun that could maybe turn into somethin' real big. He said the Mexcun was wantin' a bunch of RDX, like twenty-five kilos. He said it was gonna be a lot of money, but it was gonna take all of us to pull if off because he couldn't trust the Mexcuns at the payoff."

"Excuse me," Haydon interrupted her. "Do you remember if he mentioned the Mexican's name?"

"Mostly he just called him the Mexcun," Cissy said, lighting another Salem. "But I remember his name was something like a girl's. Uh . . ." She tilted her head back and looked at the ceiling. "Irene. Yeah, like Irene-o."

"Fine. Go ahead."

"Well, after a couple of weeks when it was all firmed up, an' the delivery date an' place was set with this Mexcun, Tucky made us plan out this operation like it was some kind of military thang. We all wore these little mikes so we could all hear each other and talk to each other. He was to square the deal down on the channel. Me and Ruby was posted on top of some oil storage tanks with these little Weather-bys with night scopes, an' we were gonna cover the boys. But it went off without a hitch."

"Who did Mr. Waite deal with on the channel?" Lapierre asked. "Was it with the same man?"

"Oh, no sir. It was two other guys, but we knowed that might be. The Mexcun and Tucky had arranged some passwords, and these two guys knowed the words."

"Do you know their names?"

"Just their first names, which I heard on the earpiece. One was Rubio. Ruby, she laughed at that 'cause it was sorta like hers, another girl's name, too, like the first one. An' the other was somethin' like Blahs. I don't know for sure. I don't know Mexcun."

"And they bought twenty-five kilos of this RDX?" Dystal asked.

Cissy nodded.

"Well, do you know anything else about these boys?"

Cissy shook her head.

"Did you get a good look at these men?" Haydon asked.

"Not really. That night scope don't give great detail, an' they were movin' around an' talkin' with their backs to us an' stuff. Naw, I couldn't tell much about 'em."

"Are these the boys you wanted protection from?" Dystal asked.

"Yeah," she said hoarsely.

"Why would they want to kill you?"

"Shut me up, I guess."

"You think that's why the others got killed?"

"I guess."

"Where were you when this happened?"

"I'd gone down to get some beer. When I came back I saw these two cars at Tucky's and I got leery and drove aroun' until they was gone and then ... I went.. . and found 'em."

Her voice squeezed off and she started crying again.

"And so you went to the motel to hide?" Dystal asked.

Cissy nodded, and continued crying. Haydon could see her shoulder blades through the western shirt, and it reminded him of the pale back of Ruby Waite as she slumped over the kitchen table.

"Can you describe the cars for us?" he asked.

She sniffed, cleared her throat, and coughed. "I don't know. They was light-colored. I don't know. I can't tell anymore about cars. I get 'em all confused. And they was down the road a bit." She shook her head, "I don't know."

"Mrs. Farrell," Lapierre said. "Do you have any idea what the men planned to do with the explosives they purchased from Mr. Waite?"

"No, not at all."

"You never heard Mr. Waite or anyone else use any other Latin names in regard to this or any other transaction?"

She shook her head.

"Were these men from Houston?"

"I don't know."

"Do you know how Mr. Waite got in touch with them?"

"No, sir. Only that it was all arranged through that Irene-o and then the other two Mexcuns showed up an' took delivery."

"When did this exchange take place?" Haydon asked.

"Uh . . ." Cissy studied the end of her cigarette, which was shaking in her bony fingers. "Uh, this is Friday? That woulda been, uh, Wednesday night."

All three men looked at the girl in silence, and then Dystal said, "Okay, hon. We appreciate your help. Right now we gotta get some things lined out here. I'll get the lady out there to take you to a nicer room than that tank, and then we'll talk some more a little later. You want some breakfast?"

Cissy nodded. "I better get somethin' in my stomach," she said.

Chapter 44

B
Y
eight-thirty, Dystal and Captain Mercer had already had thei
briefing meeting with the HPD brass and public-relations people. Thi mayor had already checked in, as well as several councilmen. Every body wanted to get "this thing" cleared up as soon as possible. Dowr stairs the headquarters lobby was crowded with reporters and telf vision cameras, and more than just a few people were hanging aroun waiting to see the news people go into action. The discovery of the bodies at Waite's house in Port Houston the evening before and the shooting in the garage early in the morning hours had all been reported on the morning television news. The news teams were getting as little sleep as the police, and since the police department itself had few clues as to what was going on, the reporters were doing more th their share of speculation. And the excitement seemed justified. Within the space of three days a full-scale Latin underworld slaughter had taken place, and six U.S. citizens had been killed in its wake. One them a policeman. In light of that, the public, and the law-and-or politicians, did not feel they were getting satisfactory information. Most assumed the entire Miami drug business had moved to Houston.

The FBI special agent in charge of the Houston field office been there since seven-thirty, and had already established that Richard ard Elkin was not one of their agents or employees or contacts, did any of their computer indices checks come up with
any
hit on a Richard Elkin. Not even in Mexico. The Drug Enforcement ministration agents in Mexico City and Guadalajara were in process of running through their computer checks, not only on Elkins, but also on their Rubios and Biases. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms was doing the same.

The U.S. embassy in Mexico City was on overtime too. Mexico was the only place in the world where the FBI and its State Department counterpart, the Central Intelligence Agency, worked in uneasy tandem. The number of FBI agents, known as "legal attaches," attached to embassies around the world rarely exceeded one or two, and frequently were positions of mere formality. But in Mexico City, the FBI personnel numbered in the high twenties, and the agents were active. As for the CIA, Mexico City was one of its most important stations in the world. Not only did Mexico stand as a physical buffer between the United States and the sometimes unstable and communist-prone countries of Latin America, but it was also, for the same reason, crawling with KGB activity. With well over three hundred people attached to it, the Soviet embassy on Calzada de Tacu-baya in Mexico City was the largest diplomatic mission in the world. It also bristled with the most sophisticated electronic equipment available to the KGB. Mexico City was a circus of East-West espionage activity.

Representatives of both the FBI and the CIA in Mexico City would have extensive files on extremist groups operating there, but Haydon and Dystal were practical, and held little hope of learning anything from those sources soon enough to help them, if they learned anything substantive at all. In the meantime, they had to go with what they had.

Lapierre had been brought up to date on everything Haydon had discussed with Dystal the previous night, and the three men sat together in Dystal's office to reevaluate their position.

"There were three nine-millimeter casings in the passenger side of the Volvo," Lapierre said. Though always precise and pleasant in a subdued manner, Pete Lapierre was beginning to show the strain of being in command of a task force that was receiving a great deal of political heat. He reacted by being excessively methodical. Haydon felt distinctly uneasy for ducking the official responsibility.

"Two in the floor, one in the passenger seat, which would seem to indicate that the gun was fired inside the automobile. The passenger door was closed, but Ferretis's door was standing open." Lapierre referred to his notebook, though he probably had all the details in his head. "Ferretis seems to have been standing outside the car with the door open when he was shot. In the aisle in front of the car, there were skid marks from both directions in front of the Volvo, up to within fifteen feet of each other. It appears that they closed in on the car and skidded to a stop almost bumper to bumper. The skid marks of the car that came from the direction of the exit ramp are overlapped, indicating that that car seems to have been thrown into reverse after coming to a stop, and then peeled backward, turning an open space and going down the ramp forward followed by other car. The guard said they came out fast, one after the other."

Lapierre stopped and carefully sipped from his coffee mug, tl continued, "Four more nine-millimeter casings were found in aisle. Two in the aisle itself, one of them mashed by one of the c and two near the outside barrier. At the barrier, we also fo seventy-three forty-five casings. Directly under the barrier, on ground, we found an additional twenty-eight forty-five casings aro some crushed shrubbery."

"Goddam," Dystal said. "Those MAC-lOs again."

"I'm sure they were," Lapierre agreed. "Converted, a co' of men could pump out that many casings in a second."

"So you think they fired at somebody who jumped over the rier," Dystal said. He, too, was beginning to show a grim tensei Despite his ability to display elaborate courtesy to Cissy Fai Dystal was quietly doing a slow burn. Aside from the real anguis felt at Mooney's death, the burly lieutenant felt personally sii against by the storm of turmoil that the killings had unleashe Houston. He was furious at the sudden disorder, at the reckless in which Gamboa and his henchman Negrete had brought flaj death in their wake. Dystal put no man above the law, and wa sworn enemy of those who considered themselves to be so. "Right."