Cool Heat (6 page)

Marco said, “Okay, be straight—what’s going on?”

She said, “I’ve made plenty of enemies, but none as obsessed with me as Ogden Thorp.”

“I don’t know that name.”

“He’s the front man for some major casino and resort investors. He’s from one of the big families who’ve been in the Sierra’s since the beginning of the gold rush. He owns an estate at Incline, another at Fallen Lake, and is buying up every piece of stressed property and whatever else he can get. He’s planning on building one of the biggest resorts on the planet. Your uncle is among the many who stand to profit from the land grab. There’s a lot going on below the surface, and some of it isn’t very pretty. When it comes to land, the territorial imperative kicks in big time.”

Marco said,” How’d you get in the middle of all of this?”

“I was dealing with two key witnesses—a girl and her boyfriend—in an investigation of one of Thorp’s associates, and it spread to hookers and drugs. The key witnesses ended up dead.”

“How’d they die?”

“They drowned in a supposed drunken post-party swim out at Fallen Leaf Lake. It’s a long, sordid story. When I persisted in the investigation of the drowning of my witnesses, I got myself fired. I had no idea when I went into the questioning of various potential witnesses what we were getting into.”

“And that’s a problem when you’re not backed by powers equal to the task. But you got lucky—whoever tried to take you out wasn’t up to the job. You’re alive. You should try and stay that way.”

She looked at him but didn’t respond to his suggestion. “It’s like these guys have gotten control of much of the Tahoe Basin political power grid by intimidation, blackmail, and murder. There’s nothing they won’t do to get what they want. And what they want is to turn the North Shore into Las Vegas Boulevard. It would have been unthinkable a short time ago. But now, with state governments broke, city coffers near empty, they have a good chance of pulling it off—getting long-standing land-use rules changed.”

“It sounds like you were way over your head and pay grade.”

“When two people who were doing what you wanted them to do—forced them to do, in a sense—end up dead, you can’t walk away.”

“I understand the emotion of that,” Marco said. “I’ve been there. But why are you still a threat? You don’t work for law enforcement. You work in a fish hatchery part-time.”

Sydney stared toward Incline Village. “Thorp blames me for dragging his name into the gutter. He’s not a man who forgives and forgets, even when he wins. And they still think I’m running a clandestine investigation looking for something, or someone, who can help me get them.”

“Are you?”

“If you can call it that. I don’t have much to work with. A South Lake police reporter and I are friends, and he knows what I’m doing. He helps out. If I want somebody checked out, he’ll run down whatever’s in the public record. He’s been warning me for a long time to back off, but I’m a little hard-headed.”

“I knew a girl like you who lived in a border town on the Mexican side. Drug dealers overran the place. The police were either killed or went over to their side. Nobody would take on the job of police chief. She did. She was young and idealistic and, inevitably, ended up dead. The moral to that story, and maybe yours, is don’t get in a war where you have no allies, no support base, and no chance of winning. Idealist motives, or revenge motives—or any kind of motives—aren’t enough.”

Sydney pulled as close as she could to the rocky shoreline near an old, now unused boat dock. Marco was laying down the law, and she realized he wasn’t going to get involved in her problem. His white-knight moment was coming to an end. He was right, of course, but running was just so hard for her to think about, or do.

“No rocks to worry about here,” Sydney said. “You’re about a quarter-mile from where he’ll drive in. There aren’t any other access roads up this far, and they closed the one that used to come here. You won’t have to worry about somebody coming in behind you. Careful”—she pointed at the dock—”that dock hasn’t been used or repaired in years.”

Marco checked Bluetooth communications with her in case something went bad, then checked the Beretta for the fourth or fifth time. Finally, he climbed out and headed into the woods.

Good luck,
she thought, staring after him, the woods quickly swallowing him up.
This is where it ends,
she thought. If Cillo had people coming in to grab Marco, or if his uncle convinced him he was committing suicide, it could get nasty very fast. Now she couldn’t do anything but sit and wait and hope it worked out in her favor.

What did she expect Marco to do? He had to protect himself. And he was right about her. So was her police-reporter friend. So was everybody who knew the situation.

She thought about the girl Marco had mentioned, the one in that town taken over by gangsters. Tahoe was on the verge of being taken over by a different form of gangster, and she knew she was a persistent, dangerous irritant that had to be removed simply because she was someone who knew the entire narrative of what was going on. And, to make matters worse, she had spit in their faces.

I’m a dead woman walking
, she thought,
and Marco Cruz knows that
. It was too bad, though—she needed help. A lot of help to do what she’d always wanted to do, which was to find a way to break into Thorp’s lawyer’s palatial estate and see if, as rumored, he had an impenetrable office containing a vault with all the dirt gathered on everyone who might stand in his way. People didn’t call lawyer Richard Rouse “Tricky Dick” for nothing.

12

Marco took his time moving through the pines, careful to avoid the dry limbs as he made his way toward the meeting place several hundred yards from where he’d come ashore. He wanted to see the parking areas near the museum first.

He found his uncle standing by a small outbuilding near the museum. Marco watched and waited for a time, reflecting how much his ability to move quietly and swiftly in the woods at night came from those many hikes and camping trips with his uncle. Some of his best times.

“You alone?” Marco asked quietly as he slipped up behind his uncle.

His uncle turned, an unlit cigarette suspended in his left hand. “I was beginning to worry. Yeah, I’m alone.”

As Cillo snapped his lighter, his bloated face illuminated momentarily. He took a deep drag, the smoke drifting out as he spoke. “I’m going to level with you. Deal with this real fast, or it’s going to be real bad.”

“What’s that mean?” Marco asked.

“It means, you don’t do the smart thing, you don’t just lose the deal here in Tahoe. It means you’re a dead man, and maybe you’ll be killing me, as well, if I fail to bring you to your senses.”

“Maybe when I understand—”

“What you need to understand is you owe it to yourself and me…all I did for you and your family—”

“I know what you did for us, and I appreciate all of it,” Marco said. “But that was then, and this is now. Let’s deal with now.”

“You have her somewhere, I know you do.”

“Just get to what this is about. No games. I’m way beyond that, where I’m coming from.”

“I understand you got involved accidentally,” Cillo said. “Nobody faults you for that. But what you do from this point onward is no accident. You walked into something blind, but now your eyes are wide open—you need to get smart and walk back out fast.”

“Are we talking about this Thorp character?”

“You don’t mess with guys like Thorp,” Cillo said, taking another drag. “No future and no purpose to it. Come on, Marco, you’re a smart guy. You’ve been around the hard blocks, so wake up and smell the roses before you end up fertilizing them.”

Marco turned and looked around, making sure they stayed alone, then said, “She told me about some girl and her boyfriend who got taken out to put an end to an investigation. Drowned, supposedly.”

“Jesus.” Cillo shook his head, snorting smoke. “You really buying into this? You can’t stand staying out of the line of fire, or what? Don’t play the stupid hero shit up here, my friend. You don’t want any part of any of it, and you don’t know squat about the truth of it. Whether they drowned on their drugged-out own or were helped, doesn’t change anything. They were used by Jesup. She might as well have drowned them herself. What you have to do to clear this up is tell me where the hell she is, and then come on back and we’ll get this party on track. It’s not too late.”

Marco said, “I can’t hand her over if she’s already gone, now can I?”

“Well, that’s bullshit,” Cillo shot back. “Girl’s wounded. She ain’t driving around by herself, and she’s got no friends here. Wake up. You put me in a real bind I don’t much appreciate. I invite you up here and you run me over because of some crazy woman you know nothing about. That doesn’t play.”

“Didn’t mean to, but—”

“The girl tied up on the railroad tracks doesn’t cut it.”

His uncle lit another cigarette off the butt of the one he finished, before dropping that and crushing it in the dirt under the pine needles. “Where’d you leave her? You want out of this, then the only way is tell me where the hell she is. Listen, damnit, I got people on my neck.”

Marco stared at the dark rise of the mountain across the lake. “These people you say are such big deals, how is it they sent some rank amateur to do her in a hatchery, on government property, no less?”

His uncle said, “That’s the thing. Nobody knows who did this, but it happened at a bad time. She probably was gonna get hit, but not now and not there.”

“Nobody has any idea who it was?”

“If they do, they aren’t talking to me about it—you know nothing about what’s going on. Some of the most powerful and richest people on the planet are coming to the big party next weekend, the Great Gatsby Gala Thorp’s putting on. These people are the ones gonna invest a hundred million into this resort. What nobody wants right now is a scandal. People getting killed. And that woman, getting shot up, isn’t good. She can do something to upset this whole thing. End up on fucking TV or something.”

“She didn’t call the police or the news, so it’s obvious she isn’t interested in this going public. Maybe if she agrees to stay away, she won’t be a threat.”

Cillo gave him a long, hard stare. “You don’t understand anything. And you aren’t listening to me.”

“You aren’t telling me much.”

Cillo stared at him, his face angry and tight. He looked off. Then came back, saying, “You won’t listen to me, then maybe you’ll listen to an old buddy of yours. Someone who can tell you what the hell you need to know.”

“Who might that be?”

“Gary Gatts. He’s got a place up the mountain south of here. A restaurant. The Mountain View, I think. Go talk to him. He knows everything going on. He’ll straighten you out. Go up there now and see the guy.”

Cillo stopped and pulled out his buzzing cell phone. “Yeah. Yeah.” He took some steps away from Marco and listened to whoever was on the other end. Then he put the phone back in his pocket and walked back to Marco. He had a tight look. Whatever the call was about, he didn’t like it much.

“Well, your time frame to make the right decision just got shorter. Word went to Vegas. You know how things work in that world. They want this shut down real fast.”

“Which means?”

“Which means they’ll send somebody to shut it down. Marco, this woman has no future. The guy who shot her has no future. And you, you don’t get smart, won’t have a future either. And that puts me in a spot. I’m not asking you anymore. I’m telling you. You got to get smart fast. Go see Gatts, goddamnit. Maybe he can get you thinking straight.”

“Why’s Gary Gatts so important?”

“Don’t worry about that. He’s in the know. He’s got his inside information chain all around the lake.”

“Give me at least tonight,” Marco said. “I’ll talk to Gary. Then, when I understand things better, I’ll work this out.”

“Good. Now you’re making sense. Damnit, I love having you back. I got big things in store for you, and you deserve something good after all you been involved in. Keep me updated. I can shield you for a short time. Do the right thing. It’ll pay off big in the end. Marco, you’ve been down the wrong road, and you know what’s that’s all about.”

Cillo crushed out the second cigarette with the toe of his shoe, then gave Marco a quick half-hug. “You and me will be sittin’ pretty. Let’s get this behind us.”

He walked away, heading back through the trees to the museum parking lot.

13

Marco waited until he saw the car lights and heard the engine. Then he headed back to the boat, jogging past the Baldwin Beach picnic area and Taylor Creek. He saw the headlights of two cars swing from the highway toward the parking area. He got on the phone as he jogged and told Sydney to crank up the engine.

When he reached the old dock, he climbed down in the boat and she headed fast out into the lake, no longer hugging the shoreline.

“I take it that didn’t go well,” she said.

“Not real well,” Marco said. We’re going to have to talk. My uncle says the powers that be are aware of the situation, and that means they’ll send somebody to clean it up. It could get ugly real fast. You need to get the hell out of here.”

“He know who had the shaky trigger finger?”

“No. But he mentioned a guy I used to go camping and hiking with. One of the group. Says he’s the guy who knows everything around here. Gary Gatts. You know him?”

She gave off a dark chuckle. “GG. He’s the supplier of choice for party drugs. Works for the Mexican distributors. He wants you to talk to Gary—that sounds like a setup to me.”

“He wouldn’t do that. He really wants me to get clear of this. Big plans.”

“You and Gatts buddies in the past?”

“Not exactly. We ran in the same hiking, camping group. I always knew Gatts would find his place in the world.”

“Now what?” she asked.

“We’ll talk about that back at the house. I’m getting into a really bad mood. I don’t like being shot at, pushed around, and given ultimatums. Never works well with me. But then, I don’t like going around deaf, dumb, and blind, either.”

He glanced at her and saw a thin smile. “Don’t think for a minute I’m a candidate looking to join your crusade to save the Tahoe Basin from evildoers. Not my thing. I’m way past that.”