An hour later, Sam parked in front of a house on the eastern edge of Little Havana. It was an old house, probably built before 1930, conveniently located next to a coin-wash Laundromat and Kwik Stop on Northwest 8th. Across the street was the Olancho Café and a dollar store. It was one of those weird neighborhoods where these classic old houses were now wedged between commercial properties, which for Sam was a good thing. It meant that you could park in front of a house and no one would assume you were casing it, even when that’s precisely what you were doing.
The house looked to be no more than a thousand square feet, but there were enough cars parked behind the chain-link fence separating the property from the sidewalk to suggest that those thousand square feet were being occupied by quite a few people. The Honda Civic was there, as was an old Ford truck, its hood a rusted red, a lowered Camaro, a primer-colored Karmann Ghia on blocks and, parked all the way in the back, the Ranchero. It had a camper shell on it, which looked absurd, but then Sam didn’t exactly consider the Ranchero a practical car as it was.
From the exterior, the house looked to be in good shape. It had a fresh coat of yellow paint, the front porch was trimmed in white, there was a rocking chair just beside the front door—which was open—and an Adirondack-style chair on the other side. Whoever lived here, Sam thought, actually
lived
here.
The chain-link fence was joined in the center by two swinging gates padlocked together. Sam never understood why people somehow thought padlocks would keep them safe or keep their possessions from being stolen. All anyone needed to do was climb over the fence, hot-wire the car and drive it right through the fence. Or, with two paper clips, they could pop the padlock open in under twenty seconds. Sure, if you shoot a lock it might not open, but if you actually just disengage the locking system, it’ll pop right open.
Running around inside the fencing was a big Labrador. Another good sign.
Sam got out of his car and walked up to the fence. He could hear the drone of a television coming from the inside. The television was turned to either the news or an action film, as all he could hear was explosions and screams and sirens. Hard to tell the difference these days. The Labrador was rolling around with a stuffed penguin on the mostly dirt front lawn, paying Sam absolutely no attention in the least. Sam had a brief vision of what it would be like with that weird-ass civet in there, too. The Lab would probably lick it to death.
“Hello?” Sam shouted. He did it a couple more times until an older gentleman wearing Bermuda shorts and no shirt came out onto the front porch.
“What do you want?” he asked.
Real pleasant.
“Chuck Finley,” Sam said. “From the Department of Motor Vehicles.”
“You got a warrant?”
“No, sir,” Sam said. “Not a criminal matter. Just here about the registration on your Ranchero there in the back.”
The man walked down the front steps, stopped next to the dog and just stared at the animal, like he was trying to will it into action. “Some guard dog,” the man said. “My stepdaughter, she tells me this dog will help keep us safe. Two years, it’s never barked once. I don’t even know if it has vocal cords. Just chases that stuffed penguin around the yard all day.”
The man knelt down and scratched the dog’s head. The man was older, but Sam couldn’t figure out just how old. He had ruddy brown skin and his eyes carried deep bags, but his shirtless torso was lean and muscular. No tats, no notable scars, not even really any hair to speak of. He could be fifty. He could be seventy.
“Man’s best friend,” Sam said. “He’d probably bark if a penguin walked up.” The man snorted out a laugh, but didn’t move any closer to the gate or make a move to let Sam in. “So, about the Ranchero. I just need to check to make sure you’ve not been driving it.”
“I look stupid to you?” the man said. He looked at Sam without any sense of aggression, maybe because he was still petting his dog. Studies said dogs made people more placid. Maybe they were right. “Since when does the DMV make house calls?”
“Part of the stimulus plan,” Sam said. The great thing about the stimulus plan the government had recently put into motion was that no one had any idea what was in it. You could tell people purple monkeys were part of the stimulus plan and if you said it with some conviction, they would consider it for at least a few minutes.
But not this guy.
“If you’re looking for my stepdaughter,” he said, “she’s gone.”
Not a good sign.
“Out shopping?”
“How many times do you think you can threaten someone before they get the hint?”
“What about you?”
“I’ve lived here fifty years,” he said. “No one ever comes here and threatens me. She has her own life. I live here too long to be bothered by idiots.”
“You the original owner of the house?” Sam said. Just keeping it light. Pretending that bit about the threat slid right past him.
“It was built in 1929. I moved in a few days later,” the man said, a hint of a laugh in his voice. Keeping it light, too, but still not budging from his spot next to the dog.
“When did Maria move in?”
“You do think I’m stupid, don’t you?”
Not good again. The thing was, Sam got the sense the man was enjoying the game.
“What did you say your name was?” Sam asked.
“Shouldn’t you know that?”
Sam walked back to his car and pulled out the envelope of documents. They were all in the name of Maria Cortes.
“I’m looking for a young woman named Maria,” Sam said. “Or a big woman named Maria. You’re not either of them, right?”
“DMV doesn’t know if I’m a man or a woman? I’ve been driving a car since before you were born.”
The problem wasn’t with the DMV. It was with all of the government. “Yes, yes,” Sam said, “I see it here.” He didn’t, but that didn’t mean he was going to admit that. See if maybe the man would just give up his damn name, make it easy on everyone.
“What did you say
your
name was?”
“Chuck Finley,” Sam said.
“Like the ballplayer?”
“No, not like anyone. Just me. Chuck Finley.”
“There was another Chuck Finley,” he said. “Owned baseball teams.”
“That was Charles O. Finley,” Sam said. “That’s not me, either.”
“Could be you,” he said. “That guy was known not to play on the level too much. He once tried to trade his manager. Who does that?”
“Not me,” Sam said, trying to figure the guy out. It seemed clear he was smart, knew a few things about life and didn’t believe a single thing Sam was saying. Sam sort of admired him for that. These old Cuban guys. They’d seen so much crap in their lives, it almost didn’t make sense to try to con them for information.
“One other thing you got going for you?” he said. “You’re not like the other dudes been showing up. You got a car. Not a nice car, but not some screaming motorcycle.”
Uh-oh.
“You said you were Maria’s stepfather?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Her mother around?”
“No,” he said. “They left together. Fine by me.”
“You’re a tender guy,” Sam said. He decided being straight was the only way to get what he needed. He wasn’t sure it was a two-way street, however. “Bad guys come here looking for your stepdaughter and you just boot her out?”
“She got in with a bad crowd,” he said. “I warned her that Nick was no good, and so she came crawling back here, I told her, ‘See, I told you.’ But she’s a grown woman now. Her mother, too. What can I do?”
“Maria is in a lot of trouble,” Sam said. “I’m not here to hurt her. I’m here to protect her.”
“I bet.”
“Her boyfriend Nick is dead.”
“I told you he was a bad guy.”
“He was cut up in pieces inside an apartment rented in your wife’s name,” Sam said. “Then he was dumped in acid. Was he that bad? Is anyone that bad?”
The man stopped petting the dog, considered the sentence Sam said, patted the dog once and then stood up. Finally, Sam thought, a reaction.
“You’re not with those bikers?”
“No,” Sam said.
“And you’re not DMV, right?”
“Right.”
This answer actually seemed to ease him more than the negative answer on the biker issue. Everyone hates the DMV. No wonder Rod was how he was. “I’m José,” he said. “And I drive that Ranchero all the time. Just hate to get it registered, you know? Piece of crap. Let it sit.”
“Right,” Sam said.
“Now, then, who are you?” José asked.
There was the rub. Sam couldn’t quite tell him the truth and couldn’t quite lie, not if he wanted his help in getting Maria safe. “I’m just someone who wants to help her stay alive.” Sam scratched out his cell phone number on the back of the envelope and reached it over the fence toward José. He finally moved away from the dog and took the envelope. “I don’t care if she’s illegal. I don’t care about anything but keeping her safe.”
“She’ll call you tonight,” José said and then he and the dog went inside, closing the door quietly behind them.
9
Before you attack a fixed enemy position, you always want to do a proper amount of reconnaissance. This is true if you intend to attack with firepower or if you intend to attack with psychological warfare. Either option requires a precise understanding of the lay of the land.
The first order of business is to obtain as much information about the physical area as possible. This is usually done by having several different people watching the same area from different vantage points, who then obtain salient intelligence and report back. In an ideal situation, all of that intel would be gathered and then you’d grid out the area from all angles and plan your attack.
You’d then break into seven teams: the assault team, which does the assaulting; the security team, which handles securing the area from reinforcements; the support team, which assists the assault team indirectly; the breach team, which cuts through obstacles; the demolition team, which blows stuff up; and the search team, which is sent to ferret out any remaining hostiles.
To do this effectively, a team of about fifty men would be best. A dozen claymore mines would help, some tank support wouldn’t offend anyone and an extraction team with a gassed-up Black Hawk would make it a nice, polite party
If you have less than fifty men, no claymores, no tanks and only a DVD of
Black Hawk Down
, you’re going to need to make adjustments. When you’re a spy, you’re often asked to do the work of fifty men simply by being better at everything.
Being better doesn’t really matter when a dozen violent bikers are beating you to death with lead pipes because you’ve cornered yourself due to poor planning, which is why Fiona and I were down the street from the Ghouls’ clubhouse just west of the airport watching who was coming and who was going, and attempting to figure out what the odds were that we could bust in and start making outlandish demands. I was keeping watch with binoculars and a camera with a telephoto lens. Fiona was keeping watch by reading
InStyle
magazine and periodically taking cell phone calls
“Why are the police able to pester Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan every ten minutes but can’t arrest these men at their own clubhouse?” Fiona asked.
“Because they aren’t doing anything wrong,” I said. It was true: Their clubhouse was technically a bar and they were technically patrons, which is perfectly legal. And since you could refuse service to anyone as a shop owner, they didn’t have a problem with not serving a person who might wander in off the street. Though the monster sitting in front of the door absently twirling a baseball bat probably dissuaded most casual onlookers. In the last hour, we’d watched about a dozen men who looked essentially just like Baseball Bat roll up on their bikes and enter the bar. Usually these guys had a few women with them—you could tell who they were since they wore jackets that said PROPERTY OF THE GHOULS on the back, because the Ghouls aren’t exactly known for their grand subtlety—but not today. It had been been a bad week for the company and it looked like they were doing some official business. Trying to place a legal bug into what is ostensibly a public place is a significant legal issue, which made the Ghouls’ use of a de facto clubhouse right out in the open a pretty savvy bit of criminality.
“This article says Britney is an excellent mother,” Fi said.
“I don’t think anyone thinks these guys are excellent mothers,” I said. “It’s going to be a challenge getting to the front door without hurting someone.”
That got Fi’s attention, so I handed her the binoculars. “That’s a cute bat he has,” she said. “Looks like he also has a cute gun under his gut.”
“I saw that, too.”
“If you’re that fat,” Fi said, “isn’t it hard to ride a motorcycle?”
“Maybe he just stands around looking tough,” I said. That was part of the Ghouls’ game: Scare the crap out of you just by looking frightening. Baseball Bat fit that description. He was over six feet tall, had long, shaggy hair that reached past his shoulders, a handlebar mustache, a classy tattoo on his throat of a gun barrel pointed into his chin, which was sort of imposing until you considered that it probably just meant he was suicidal or incredibly stupid. Probably both. He also ran at least three bills. Maybe three-fifty.
“How long would it take for you to take him down?” I asked.
“I could do it right now,” she said. “I’d just walk by with a bag of donuts and some crystal meth and he’d follow me like a dog.”
“I mean if push came to shove and Sam and I were fighting the other ten guys.”
Fiona focused the binoculars. “I could have him down in ten seconds. One punch to the throat. Maybe a kick to the knee first. He must be in terrible knee pain holding up all that weight.” She handed me the binoculars and went back to reading her magazine.