Wolf in the Shadows Page 26

  Renshaw considered, then nodded as if he’d made a decision. “All right, you and Ripinsky will get your cash and your car. Where shall we meet you, and when?”

  “Across from the old dairy on Monument Road. Do you know it?”

  He nodded.

  “Be there at midnight, but don’t give up on us until first light.”

  “And if you don’t show?”

  Heart-stopper of a question. I forced the obvious answer aside. “Be there the next night.”

  Renshaw gave me a look that said he was aware of the correct answer, but he also chose to ignore it.

  “And don’t forget to bring our money,” I added, just to needle him.

  “I’ll bring it, even though I’m aware that you’re not doing this for the money.”

  “No?”

  “No. No more than you went after Ripinsky for money, or to satisfy a grudge. You may think I’m a coldhearted son of a bitch, and in most ways I am, but I harbor dim memories of what it’s like to love someone so much you’d risk your life for them.”

  “I don’t—”

  “You may think you don’t. Probably you“ve been hurt in the same ways Ripinsky has. You’ve backed off, refused to give your feelings that name. But you do love him.”

  Stunned at his invasion of my emotional privacy, I pushed back from the table.

  Renshaw reached over and grasped my arm. “However,” he went on, “in the extreme unlikelihood that I’m wrong, I’ll tell you this: I’d give a great deal to see what you’d do for somebody when you get around to the real thing.”

  Twenty-Six

  After I dropped the Tercel off at the downtown Avis office, I had a quick sandwich and walked over to Eighth Street, where I caught the southbound trolley. The bright red light-rail car was packed with returning Mexicans, up on a day pass to shop, play tourist, or visit relatives. A few stared at me—a lone American in clothing of Mexican manufacture—with frank curiosity; when I stared back, they looked away. Forty-some minutes later the trolley let us off in San Ysidro. Along with the crowd, I walked across the freeway overpass, down the ramps, through the turnstile. Then I caught a cab to the address Luis Abrego had given me in Colonia Libertad.

  By now, I thought as the cab sped along the side streets, Hy would be back at the hotel, having arranged for yet another car—a specially equipped one this time. I wouldn’t need to rely on his linguistic abilities to transact my business with the coyote; most of the citizens of this border city spoke good English, just as most San Diegans had picked up enough Spanish to get by. During the past twenty-four hours, I’d realized my Spanish was better than I’d suspected. The coyote and I would manage just fine.

  The address turned out to be an auto-body shop sandwiched among row upon row of colorful shacks with lush gardens that made them seem all the more wretched by comparison. At a nearby food stand an elderly woman was frying tortillas on a stove made of an oil drum. Ragged children played stickball in the street, chickens strutted and scratched, and a mangy dog tethered to a fencepost barked incessantly. The cab driver didn’t want to wait for me, but agreed when I gave him five dollars and promised another five later.

  The auto-body shop was open, even though it was Sunday. I stepped inside the dark cavernous garage and saw that one wall was covered with the world’s largest collection of banged-up hubcaps. No one was working, but toward the back two men in coveralls sat on a bench, smoking. The scent of marijuana drifted my way.

  I went back there and asked, “Alfonso Mojas?”

  The taller of the two—a lean, dark man with missing front teeth and acne scars on his hollow cheeks—looked up and said, “Who wants him?” His English was Americanized, only lightly accented.

  “Luis Abrego sent me.”

  The man turned to his companion and spoke softly in Spanish. The other rose, cupping the joint in his hand, and left by a side door.

  “I’m Mojas,” the man said. “Call me Al. What d’you need?”

  “I want to hire you.”

  “To do what?”

  “Take some people north.”

  “So why don’t they come here theirselves?”

  “I’m one of them.”

  Now he frowned. “Lady, maybe nobody told you, but lookin’ like you do, you can just walk across.”

  “I’ve got a problem that prevents that. How much do you charge to make the trip?”

  His eyes moved over me, obviously calculating the size of my bank account. “How many?”

  “Myself and two others. Maybe three.”

  “All women?”

  “No, two men. Maybe another woman.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight.”

  “What time?”

  “I’m not sure. Late.”

  He hesitated, took a joint from his coveralls pocket, and lit it. Sucked smoke down, then let it out in a long hissing breath. “Federales after you?”

  “No.”

  “Carrying anything?”

  “Drugs? No.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “Some people down here may not want us to cross, but they’ll look for us at the border controls and the airports.”

  “Okay,” he said, “okay. I don’t want to know any more about that. You got transportation when we get there?”

  “Someone will be waiting for us on Monument Road.”

  “Abrego?”

  “No.”

  He shrugged. “Just so’s I don’t have to get somebody for you on that end.”

  “It’s taken care of. How much?”

  “Okay, here’s how I work it: I’m in charge, you do what I say. No guns, no drugs. You got that?”

  “How much?”

  A final once-over. “Thousand American.”

  “Five hundred.”

  “Seven-fifty.”

  “Six hundred.”

  “You got it.”

  “And two of us will be armed.”

  “I said no guns.”

  I just looked at him.

  “Okay, okay. All the money up front.”

  “Half now, half if we get there.”

  “I always get my clients through.”

  “Nobody always gets his clients through.”

  A moment’s hesitation. “Fuck it. Gimme my three hundred.”

  I counted out the cash, hoping that Hy and I wouldn’t run into any unforeseen expenses. Mojas set the joint down on a corner of the bench, counted the money again, and stuffed it into his pocket.

  I asked, “Do we come here?”

  He shook his head. “My place. Calle Solano. On the corner of Calle Guerrero. Pink house, palm tree and a statue of the Virgin out front.”

  “Good. Expect us anytime from midnight on.”

  He nodded and picked up the joint.

  “Something else, Al,” I said. “No dope smoking on this trip.”

  He frowned, clearly offended. “I finish this J, I stop smoking and drinking till I get you through. That’s how it works.”

  “Good. One other thing.”

  “Jesus! What?”

  “You know Luis Abrego. Do you also know a man called Marty Salazar?”

  Slow reaction at first; then he stiffened. “What about him?”

  “Luis Abrego’s a friend of mine. If you don’t play this straight with my companions and me, or if anything happens to us, Abrego’ll be very angry. He’s got something on Salazar; he can make him do things to people.”

  “Shit, you think I’m gonna—”

  “I just wanted to make it clear what might happen if anything goes wrong.”

  Mojas ground the joint out on the bench, slipped it back into his pocket. “Nothing’ll happen,” he said. “I always get my clients through.”

  “Good. I’ll see you later, then.” I turned and walked away, trying to look calm and confident.

  * * *

  Before I went back to the hotel, I had the cab driver take me past the intersection of Calles Solano and Guerrero. The pi
nk corner house with the palm tree and the statue of the Virgin Mary in front actually existed and that, I supposed, was as much assurance of good faith on Al Mojas’s part as I was going to get.

  Back at the Fiesta Americana I went straight to the room and found Hy sitting on the bed, staring at the TV with such rapt attention that he didn’t notice me come in.

  A news broadcast dealing with the shooting at Fontes’s villa? I moved to where I could see the screen. Instead of a plasticperfect anchorperson, I came face-to face with a leather-attired woman menacingly waving a whip at a bare-assed man who cowered on the floor at her feet. Hy saw me and started guiltily.

  “What the hell is this?”

  Hastily he got up and turned the set off. “Something called Watch My Whip. I thought it was a western.”

  “Sure you did.”

  “Honest to God.” Hy is a western buff and will watch any film that comes along, including the ancient grade B ones.

  I faced him, hands on hips. “A western, on the adult pay channel?”

  “Shit, McCone, I don’t understand how these fancy cable sets work. I tuned in by mistake.”

  “You don’t understand how they work? You have a satellite dish at home. You get a hundred and twenty channels.”

  He shrugged sullenly.

  “Besides,” I added, “even if you turned it on by mistake, you kept watching. At a cost to my credit card of”—I consulted the guide on the TV—“roughly seven dollars and fifty cents.”

  “I’ll pay you back.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Good God! A few whips and some bare buns don’t add up to a full-blown perversion. I was curious, that’s all. It’s not like I rushed out and bought a whip, then limbered it up to use on your buns.”

  He looked so morally outraged that I started to laugh. Here we were in the middle of the most dangerous undertaking of our lives—well, mine, anyway—and we were arguing about him spending my seven dollars and fifty cents to watch a dirty movie. Hy stared at me as if he feared I’d cracked under the strain, then started to laugh too. Soon we were giggling and snorting and hugging each other, our laughter burning off some of the excess tension that fueled it.

  “Jesus,” he gasped, “don’t ever bring me to a place like this again, I’ve already drunk three beers from the mini-bar and charged a steak to room service. To say nothing of renting a car that stops just short of being a limo.”

  The mention of the car sobered me. “We’re all set?”

  He sobered too. “Yeah.”

  “It’s got a cellular phone?”

  “Uh-huh, and they assured me that its range is wide enough. How about your end of it?”

  “It’s a go.”

  “What’d Renshaw say?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Right now we’d better get on with it.”

  Twenty-Seven

  A heavy cloud cover overhung the Baja coast that night, blacking out the moon and stars. We cruised through the commercial district of El Sueño at around ten, the gray Cadillac Seville that Hy had rented riding so smoothly that we seemed to be scarcely moving at all. This car, I thought, was protective coloration in more ways than one. Not only did it look as if it belonged in this exclusive enclave, but it faded into the murky night.

  I hung up the cellular phone and said, “The rental agency didn’t steer you wrong; we’re well within range.”

  He didn’t reply to that, merely muttered, “Where’s the goddamn turnoff for Vía Pacífica?”

  I peered through the passenger-side windshield. “It’s coming up pretty quick now … yes, here.”

  He negotiated the turn with the clumsiness of one not used to power steering. “Frankly,” he said, “I’d rather be driving my Morgan.”

  I agreed, in spite of the low-slung old sports car’s potential for ruining my spine. “I’d rather be driving my MG. Or taking off in the Citabria.”

  “Or doing anything except what we’re about to.”

  “Right.”

  “Not much more to get through now, McCone.”

  “No, only the hard part.” The dangerous part.

  We passed the beach access; soon Fontes’s villa appeared on our right. The auto gate was shut, but otherwise it looked much the same as it had the night before, lights blazing in all the barred windows. The Volvo still stood in front of the garage.

  “Navarro’s there,” I said.

  “Unless she’s gone someplace in his plane or another car.”

  “Well, there’s only one way to find out.”

  Hy kept driving until all the houses were behind us, then U-turned where the dirt track veered off into the riverbed. He retraced our route, slowing again as we passed the villa. “I don’t see any guards,” he said. “Wish we could’ve checked at the airstrip to see if Fontes’s Cessna’s being used.”

  “As you said last night, strangers attract too much attention at these little airfields.”

  We continued in silence to the beach access. Tonight no vehicles except the cannibalized sedan were parked there. Hy stopped next to the beach path and shut off the ignition.

  “Car’s going to be pretty obvious, sitting here all by itself,” he said. “Security patrol’ll probably check it out.”

  “Maybe not. It’s expensive enough that they’ll probably just assume it belongs to one of the residents. Given where it’s parked, they might not check it out for fear of interrupting a tryst.” I reached into the backseat for Hy’s extra sweater—a dark blue one, fortunately—and pulled it over my head. Before we left the hotel in Tijuana, I’d changed back into jeans and athletic shoes.

  Hy didn’t respond to my somewhat shaky logic, just reached under the seat for his revolver. He got out, tucked it into his waistband. I slipped out my side, hefting the bag that contained my father’s .45 and the camera. Then we walked down the sandy path to the beach.

  Our footsteps were muffled, barely audible. We moved silently toward the rotting pongas. The riverbed was quiet tonight, faint firelight flickering; the fishermen got up early, their day usually done by noon. Even the villas on the hill showed few signs of life.

  When we came to Fontes’s property, Hy went into a crouch and moved swiftly across the last open stretch of sand. I followed suit, stretching out flat on my stomach behind the pongas and reaching into the bag for the camera. After removing the lens cap, I shoved it into the empty space between the boats, where the piece of wood I’d used as a shim the night before still lay.

  Lights shone in the villa and on the terrace, but no one was outside. I focused on the glass doors and saw that the drapes had been drawn across them. The lens’s magnification was so great that I could make out their rough weave; I refocused for a bigger picture and saw shadows moving behind them.

  “Anything?” Hy whispered.

  “Not yet. The drapes’re closed.” I adjusted the focus some more. “Give me a minute. People are moving around in there. I’m pretty good at reading body language, and I may be able to identify who they are by the way they walk.”

  Hy fell silent, crouching behind me, his posture alert as he kept watch along the beach. I observed the shadow play on the hill.

  I watched for about five minutes, comparing heights and nuances of movement. One figure entered carrying something, set it down, then left. A maid, perhaps, or the bartender. Another appeared to be pacing back and forth the length of the room. A third got up from a chair, crossed to the right where the maid or bartender had stopped, and after a while went back again.

  “I don’t think Fontes is there,” I whispered to Hy. “These people are short to medium height.”

  “How many?”

  “Three, but I think one’s a servant. I’m pretty sure Salazar’s there; somebody crossed the room in that languid gait he has.”

  “The other?”

  “Pacing. Short, stocky. I’d say it’s Navarro. Hard to tell, though.”

  “Not Mourning?”

  “Uh-uh. They’re probably keeping h
im under guard.”

  “So where d’you suppose Fontes is?”

  I didn’t reply. A heavyset figure had appeared and was standing next to the chair occupied by the person I thought was Salazar. The shadow stood there for about half a minute, then left again, walking in a heavy, rolling gait. Jaime? Shortly afterward a light flashed on in an uncurtained window in the two-story wing to the far right. I moved the lens and adjusted the focus; Jaime came into view, removing a shoulder holster.

  “Salazar’s bodyguard is there,” I whispered, “and he’s going off duty.”

  “So that leaves us with …”

  “Salazar and Navarro. The servant. Whoever else Fontes employs. Maybe Fontes himself.” I continued watching. The short, stocky figure quit pacing and sat down near the other person. For a long time there was no movement.

  “Hy,” I said, sitting up and resting my eyes, “how much do you suppose the people in the riverbed know about what goes on at those villas?”

  “Probably quite a bit. I got the impression that they watch them the same way people used to watch prime-time soaps like ‘Dallas’ and ‘Falconcrest.’ Nobody I knew would admit to liking those shows, and they flat-out hated the characters, but they were hooked anyway.”

  “If we could ask somebody down there what kind of a staff Fontes employs, it would help. Tomás seems to watch that particular villa pretty closely; he might even know if Fontes is home tonight.”

  “I suppose I could walk down there. Don’t like to leave you alone here, though.”

  More echoes of months ago, when he hadn’t wanted me to go off into the darkness of Stone Valley without him. “I’ll be okay. Just go.”

  He nodded and squeezed my shoulder, then got up and moved silently down the beach.

  I fended off uneasiness and concern for him by applying my eye to the viewfinder.

  Still no movement. Time passed slowly; it could have been five minutes or half an hour. I began to wonder why Hy was taking so long, then realized he probably hadn’t even reached the riverbed. Finally I spotted some motion, focused on it. The figure that I thought was Salazar stood, appeared to speak to the other person, then left the room.

  I scanned the windows of the villa, but couldn’t tell where he’d gone. The other figure remained in the chair for a while, then resumed pacing. Up and down, up and down. Past the glass doors in short, fast steps. Then the shadow came closer to the drapes, and its outlines blurred. The drapes parted, and I stared at Ann Navarro.