Spiral (47 page)

Bias returned to La Colombe d'Or. No one knew he was staying there, not even Rubio. Nor did he know Rubio's base, an arrangement that was a long-standing method of security they routinely initiated in the final forty-eight hours before a hit. It freed both of them from the tension created by the nagging fear that one might be caught without the other's knowledge, and be tortured into betraying his location.

He was in the car by seven o'clock, and drove to the Steak 'N Egg diner near Post Oak Boulevard where he and Rubio had talked the evening before. He bought the morning papers and ate breakfast as he read the articles on Ferretis and the Waite killings. The police, who were still withholding information about the details of the investigation, confirmed that they were utilizing the resources of the FBI and the DEA. An energetic reporter had finally determined that the limousine, though it had been leased in Sosa Real's name, was in the employ of Benigo Gamboa Parra, whose home appeared to be under heavy guard. Though the headlines were big, the articles about the killings were indeed sketchy, just as Ferretis had said, including, now, his own.

Bias left the newspaper behind when he left the diner, makin a mental note not to go there again. If he had not been preoccupies he would not have returned there for breakfast. Luckily, a shii change had provided different waitresses. His second appearanc there in less than eight hours wouldn't have attracted the attention c any one waitress.

During the next three hours, Bias cruised the streets in a rougl rectangle that lay within an area from Post Oak Boulevard to Shep herd on the west and east, and between the Southwest Freeway am San Felipe on the south and north. He stopped for coffee twice, pullei into a service station and filled his half-full tank with gasoline, parkei in parking lots and watched shoppers until the heat forced him tt begin driving again so he could run the air conditioner. He had ha< two "nothing happening" signals from Rubio.

Then, while he was examining his swollen wrist at the traffic light, Rubio signaled him to go to a telephone booth on Kirby. Whei he got there, he called a booth on Buffalo Speedway, and Rubi< answered.

"Somethin's happenin'," Rubio said in a flat voice. "Abou twenty minutes ago, a little after eleven, I saw three or four polici cars pulling onto Inverness. I made a pass by Gamboa's, and it look like they were picking up Negrete's boys. They got the stakeout dowi the street, too. I don't know how many they took away, but I saw foui at least."

"They left policemen around the house?"

"No."

"There are
no
guards at the house?"

"I didn't see nobody."

Bias felt a sudden tingle of warning. "Gamboa's still there?"

"I didn't see him leave."

"What do you think?"

"I don't know. Maybe they tied them to the Waite thing. I don'l know."

"It's too soon," Bias said. He was looking through the dirt) booth glass, out into the sunlight. "But maybe they suspect them, maybe it's a shakedown. You didn't see them take Negrete?"

"No." After a pause Rubio said, "I don't like this."Bias thought of Rubio's dark face, the glimpse of a white tooth in the cleft of his lower lip. Then he thought of Negrete's face. His lovely, oily eyes, the broad forehead and narrow face that so much resembled the head of an ant. Like the proverbial master who had grown to resemble his dog, Negrete brought to mind the insect for which he had been nicknamed. Or maybe it was his appearance and his reputation that first had suggested the insect. He was, after all, dark and small . . . and had the sting of death.
El Hormiga Negro.
The Black Ant. Bias remembered seeing Ireno's face through the binoculars, remembered the nail and the ant. In certain parts of Mexico this signature of Negrete's was infamous. Bias had seen his work before, and he had seen the fear it inspired. And now, for an instant, he saw Rubio's forehead ... the nail. . . and the ant, dancing on the end of the string like a tiny marionette. "Do you think it's too risky to continue the surveillance?"

"I don't know. That doesn't bother me. It could be easier this way, maybe. What I don't like is, where is Negrete?"

"Maybe the police have people in the houses in the neighborhood. Maybe they're trying to draw us out." Bias thought a moment. "Rubio, don't make any more passes by the house."

"What do you mean? What do you want me to do?"

"Let me think."

The telephone booth was like a glass oven. The goddam thing wasn't even in the shade. He stood there holding the telephone, knowing that every minute Rubio was away from Inverness increased Gamboa's chances of slipping through. But he had to assess the removal of Negrete's men. If something happened to Rubio, he would have to call it off. It would be insane to try to monitor Gamboa's movements himself. He drew the line at that. Every assignment boiled down to two ultimate priorities: take out the target; and preserve his own life. He would sacrifice everything and everyone to achieve the former, except the latter. At one time, at some point in the gray, far past that was not so long ago in years, but a vast distance in the mind, he must have thought like Teodoro Anica. He must
have held convictions, believed philosophies, adhered to truths. Now such motivations were cold flames. He could imagine nothing in the ideologies of men for which he would give his life; sacrifice had become for him an alien concept.

"With all this going on, the old man might move," Rubio said.

"It's risky."

"You want to call it off?"

"Not yet."

"Okay, then I got to get back over there." Rubio's matter-of-fact statement resolved Bias's hesitation. The Indian was right. It was his turn with blind risk . . .

"Signal more frequently," Bias said. "Every half hour."

"Bueno
," Rubio said, and hung up. ... and he had no right to expect what he hoped he would get.

Chapter 48

HAYDON
told Dystal about Renata Islas hitting on Bias Medrano's name and what he had done about it, and asked what had happened at the lieutenant's end of the operation. He was standing at his desk, and while he listened to Dystal's Texas-accented basso, he watched Nina and Celia taking away the plates and glasses from the refectory table.

". . . didn't let them know they were coming, so it was pretty confusing. Lapierre said some of the boys didn't want to give up their firearms and it was a little tense there for a bit. But Gamboa's boy, Efren, came outside and got them all calmed down. And that's where we had some good luck. Three of those boys were carrying Mac-10s— converted to full automatic. So they made three arrests right on the spot. Thing is, they only got four of them. Negrete wasn't anywhere around. If the son of a bitch was telling the truth in the first place, there's two more gone with him."

As he watched the two women, it occurred to Haydon that something unexpected had happened. Nina and Celia had somehow exchanged a sisterly understanding of one another, and seemed very much at ease together.

"They went through the whole compound?" Haydon asked, but his mind went back to Nina and Celia. In a way, he wasn't surprised at their affinity. Not because of what he knew about Celia, but because of what he knew about Nina. The facade of nearly theatrical self-confidence Celia had displayed when Haydon had first met her at Valverde's, the anger she had shown at her mother's, the fear she tried unsuccessfully to hide behind a willful stubbornness in the car when she was telling him about the
tecos,
all had evolved now into an unabashed vulnerability. Not only had she lost a brother, but she had finally realized that a project to which she had dedicated herself with some passion for the past six months had turned out to be only a trick of mirrors. She didn't know
what
she had been doing. Bein the victim of such a grand deception was demoralizing, and it ws typical of Nina to sense how shattering this sudden vulnerability ha been for the girl. It was typical of her too to show in her uncalculatin and straightforward manner that she sympathized. That kind of sir cerity was seldom wasted on people who truly yearned for it.

"Yeah, they did," Dystal said, "and they found another converted Mac-10 out in that little shack of Negrete's. I don't know what the DA's gonna let us do about that, but I want to charge Gamboa with constructive possession on all four of those Macs, and that'll give us sufficient reason for deportation." Dystal's voice lowered a little and Haydon had to strain to hear him. "That may be kinda thin soup but I think the wind's changing a little bit down here. We got son city officials and a senator in here stirring up the water, and, uh, think the general feeling is that if there isn't any target, then the won't be any shooters. It's gotten to that point. You know, just get the hell rid of this thing, quickest way possible."

Haydon had been afraid of that. The killings had made the ne work television news again that morning, and the city politicians were eager to avoid being tagged in the national media as a Little Mexico, a haven for plotters of Latin political intrigues. They would be able to explain their way out of that kind of association if they could say that Benigo Gamboa Parra was the object of grievances by an unknown group of radicals in Mexico, and that he simply happened be living temporarily in Houston when they decided to pursue him. It was just one of those things. If he had lived in Happy Valley, Tex; then the violence would have followed him there, too. It had nothing at all to do with Houston's geography or demographics. Just bad luck.

Benigo Gamboa had cut his teeth on political intrigue in Mexico, and now he was about to experience the full force of political maneuvering on this side of the border as well.

"So they're going to run him off?"

"That's right. And the sooner the better. They don't want him bombed to jelly in this city."

"And what is Gamboa's reaction so far?"

"The man's pissed we took away his militia. Pete told him we'd leave him plenty of uniformed officers to take their place, but he said hell no he didn't want them. He said he was going to make some calls straighten this business out."

"So you didn't leave anyone?"

"Nobody showing. We've got stakeouts in the upper floors of residences on both sides of the street in both directions, and there's men in unmarked cars in driveways. He's covered, but he doesn't know it. I imagine he's doing some heavy sweating."

"What did he say about Negrete?" Behind Haydon, Nina finished removing the last place mats from the refectory table. He turned around and watched her as she walked out of the library and closed the door after her.

"Nobody knew where he was. He just happened to be out. In fact, Gamboa asked Pete where he was."

"I'd like to know who Gamboa was going to call."

"Well, if it's anybody with real clout, we'll learn soon enough."

"Has the crime lab made any headway?"

"A little," Dystal said. "Some of the pubic hair and the head hair on the bed at La Concha Courts was Ireno Lopez's, so we got a positive ID there. There was also both kinds of hair from somebody else, too. At the Waite house, well, they've got prints all over the place. They've got a few that don't belong to either the Waites or the Ferrells, but no IDs on them yet. We're taking prints from the boys we brought in, and ballistics is checking to see if their Mac-10s fired any of those shells we found at the garage. So far all the blood's typing out like the Waites', or Donny Ferrell's."

There was a moment when neither of them spoke, and then Haydon said, "This has been a tough one. I can't remember when we've had this many people working so intensively with such little progress."

"We've never had a foreign assassin come strolling in here either, Stu," Dystal said. "When they come outta nowhere with no domestic background, no domestic ties, and going after people who aren't American citizens, there's not a hell of a lot we
can
do."

"If those pictures don't work," Haydon said, "it's going to be too late to do anything else. Either Gamboa will have fled, or they will have gotten him. I can't see this going on another twenty-four hours, either way."

"No, me neither. I think you're right."

"There are two questions I'm afraid we'll never get answers for," Haydon said. "Who were Celia Moreno's anonymous handlers and why were they gathering intelligence on the
tecos?
And who helped Gamboa and other corrupt politicians and businessmen get their hundreds of millions of plundered funds out of Mexico?

"Dystal snorted. "You been in this business long enough to know you don't often get answers to those kinds of questions."

Haydon knew what Dystal was getting at. Both men had come to realize there was more here than the HPD had the power, or the capacity, to deal with. As homicide detectives, they were too far down the pecking order to be able to expect the real story behind the events. No one was going to let them in on the larger picture. They were simply street sweepers; no one was asking them to find out who was leaving the dirt. In fact, no one wanted them to.