Dead Game (8 page)

Marquez rented a room
at Lisa’s that night. She had four rooms side by side up the road from the marina building. He parked his truck where he could see it from the window and brought his gear in. The confrontation with Ludovna had taken something out of him and left him tired. The main marina building was down the road a hundred yards, and he could see part of the roof and a corner of the deck. The lights were off in the bar, or he might have walked down and sat for a little while. He was hungry, but that could wait too.

The door squeaked as he unlocked it and went in. He put his gear bag down, showered, and lay on the narrow bed. The foam mattress wasn’t much, but it was enough tonight. He lay on his back looking out on the darkness, thinking about what had happened, and then about Katherine and Maria, wondering how the trip was going. Katherine wouldn’t mind the SOU coming to an
end. She might even buy a bottle of champagne to celebrate. His head turned with images of the confrontation with Ludovna, Nike Man racking the slide. Before falling asleep he decided he’d bring some gifts when he visited Ludovna next. The guy’s anger was mercurial, but he could probably get through to him. He did not remember falling asleep, but his cell phone woke him at 2:15.

“Hold for a second,” he said, found his pants, his coat, and walked out barefoot to his truck. It was Selke.

“Where are you, Marquez?”

“At Lisa’s Marina.”

“You’re not far from us. We’re around the back side of Dead Horse Island. You’ll see the lights and the vehicles.”

“What’s there?”

“The body of a woman. The body isn’t in good shape, but I want you to take a look at her.”

Selke’s voice seemed to come at him from a distance. He’d talked himself into believing she hadn’t been abducted. He packed his gear, swung the small pack onto his shoulder, and the neighbor’s fist hammered the shared wall as Marquez tried to get the door lock to work. A man’s muffled swearing carried into the night, and Marquez didn’t turn his headlights on until he got up to the main road.

He drove through thick fog, overshot the slough, had to backtrack, and now he drove out the dirt road on the levee above the slough. He saw the lights up ahead, counted eight vehicles and a coroner’s van. A deputy stepped out and blocked the road as he got close.

“Selke’s up there,” the deputy said. “You’ll see him.”

“When did they find the body?”

“I heard there was a tip or something a couple of days ago, and one of the detectives drove out here this afternoon and saw where the riverbank was torn up, so they got a diver out and he found the refrigerator after dark.”

A small crane had been brought in, and as Marquez parked and walked up, the crane operator was leaving. The road was lit with klieg lights, and the light reflected brightly off the fog. A sheet of thick clear plastic had been unfolded on the dirt road, and a white household refrigerator lay on its back, door open in the middle of the plastic, the effect almost comical. Selke stood with a group of men near it but not too close, as a county photographer worked his way around it.

If it was Anna, Marquez wasn’t ready yet and looked from the men back to the refrigerator, then stopped. The open door of the refrigerator made him think of a coffin. He made out the darker color of the body inside. He listened to the men talking and the hum of the klieg lights and a sound in his head like ocean waves breaking on a shoreline.

When he started forward he saw metal banding, the type used to bind pallets or a load of lumber, and guessed that the refrigerator had been banded shut when they craned it out. He didn’t want anyone to tell him or talk to him yet. He acknowledged Selke and lifted a hand to let Selke know to hang on another minute. He didn’t understand the camaraderie of detectives. He just wanted to look and if it was her, take it in alone. Selke walked over.

“Take your time,” Selke said. “No hurry. Her face is so badly damaged you won’t recognize anything, but there are other identifying marks you may be able to help with.” He added quietly. “I hear you’ve seen bodies before.”

“Who told you that?”

“I don’t remember.”

“No one I talk to seems to remember anything. How was she found?”

“A couple of fishermen who haunt this stretch for catfish snagged on the box and knew it hadn’t been there long. One of them is a diver, and since they didn’t like what it was doing to their trolling he went down for a look. He saw the bands and of course he knew about Burdovsky being missing, so because of the bands we came out. We figured with the banding it was more than the old tradition of throwing old appliances in the river.”

“Do you believe these two men?”

“I had the same reaction, but we’re talking about some fiftysomething guys that everyone around here knows. The one who went in the water was a Navy diver in Nam. He’s kept on diving so it was no big deal for him to go in. Neither one of them has any money.” Selke looked at him. “You ready?”

Marquez’s legs felt weighted, and from the way Selke held himself he knew Selke believed it might be Anna. As he followed Selke, he felt like he was floating away from his body and looking down into the refrigerator cavity from a height where he saw her folded, head tucked to her knees, lying on her side. The black hose of a small pump curled over the refrigerator, and he realized they’d drained the water and saved it. Her hands were shrunken, gray and curled like bird’s claws, her face destroyed, nose and eyes gone, a knife taken to her cheeks and lips. Someone had started to scalp her, then stopped. Part of her scalp and hair lay to one side, the hair wet and twisted like something cleaned from a drain. There was no face to identify, but Selke pointed at a small tattoo on the back of her neck.

“That would have been up under the hairline,” Selke said.

“I don’t remember seeing a tattoo there on Anna.”

“What about a little tattoo on her right breast?”

Marquez looked at the breast tattoo, a butterfly, shook his head. “Never saw this part of Anna.” He felt a need to touch her, and Selke stopped him. He couldn’t shake the sense of being outside himself, his shock at the brutality, but he didn’t know if the body was Anna Burdovsky’s. He backed away, walked down the road away from the group with Selke, listening to him recount again how they found her, as if in the retelling a truth would reveal itself.

“If you had to guess,” Selke asked.

“I’d guess it’s not her. Shoulders don’t seem right. The body is heavier.”

“I can tell you’ve seen this kind of thing before.”

Marquez nodded. “Cartel wars,” he said. “Yeah, I saw some bad stuff when I was DEA.”

More than enough for a lifetime. Enough to where he’d lost his tolerance for it, and he knew Selke was probing for more than that reason. Selke had wanted him to see the body just to watch his reaction. He had wanted to point out the breast tattoo and gauge Marquez’s face. The guy was pure detective.

“Can you see someone doing this to her over sturgeon poaching?”

He wasn’t sure he needed to answer. The young woman was badly mutilated, and that was more than hiding her identity. It was rage, and Selke knew that better than he did.

“No, I can’t. It looks to me like they quit when their anger got spent.”

Selke just nodded, left it at that. They walked toward Marquez’s truck.

“I’ve got something for you as long as you’ll scan the photos and email them to me. We found these in Burdovsky’s Sacramento apartment.”

Marquez got in his truck and got out the evidence bag. He unfolded it and got out the passport and photos, told Selke about his meeting with the FBI and the possibility they could help him with Burdovsky. He gave Selke Stan Ehrmann’s name but not the phone number Ehrmann had given him. Selke could start with the duty officer, and Marquez didn’t doubt Ehrmann would talk to him.

“Ehrmann is very interested in Russian immigrants. He’ll call you back.”

An hour later Marquez helped get the corpse out of the refrigerator. They slid her into a body bag, and the refrigerator got loaded onto a truck, and the police vehicles left one at a time, Selke last and slowing alongside Marquez’s truck, asking him why he was still here.

Marquez stayed until dawn. He slept a few hours in his truck. When the sun rose he looked at the ruts on the slough embankment the refrigerator had made sliding down the steep slope. It wouldn’t take Selke long to find out what kind of banding tool was used, who made it, and where the bands came from. Then he’d find out who sold it, and they’d trace the refrigerator back. They’d be able to say how she died and how long she’d been dead. But the kind of mind that butchered a face that way, you couldn’t find the answer for that anywhere.

He knew it wasn’t Anna but felt a need to prepare for the possibility it was. He thought of August’s coming in and sitting for a videotaped interview, no lawyer, combative and unconcerned.
August had no problem admitting she’d stayed at his apartment, even suggested she was lovesick and that Selke “dredge the river.” Whatever the sarcastic comment had been about Anna drowning herself. Marquez turned these things in his head as he watched morning light come to the slough. The water was very calm and dark green. He watched a mallard fly the length of the slough. It was clear and cold, and he stood on the bank and watched another duck go past before walking to his truck. It was unlikely, he thought, that in the history of the world there had ever been a species crueler than his own.

“It’s cold,”
Katherine said.

“Where are you?”

“In Vermont looking at Middlebury College.”

The way she said it made it sound like that wasn’t necessarily fun. Maybe it was the cold.

“How are the roads?”

“Oh, they’re fine. It was snowing this morning but it’s stopped. White sky, cold wind, it all makes me remember why I moved to California. I was hoping she’d like Middlebury, but it’s the wrong time of year.”

“What has she liked most so far?”

“Shopping in Boston.”

“What about you, Kath? How are you?”

“I’ve been better. Maria is in looking at the library, then we’re going to get lunch in town.”

“And then north to Colby?”

He’d memorized their circuit, or thought he had.

“South.” There was too long a pause before Katherine said, “We’re headed to Vassar.”

“I don’t remember Vassar on the list.”

“It wasn’t, but now that she’s told me what she told you a month ago we’re abbreviating the trip.” This was the quiet moment where he knew he was supposed to explain, but his heart wasn’t in it. “You don’t have to explain,” Katherine said. “I know she asked you not to say anything, so I understand.”

“But your feelings are hurt.”

“Wouldn’t yours be?”

He looked at the dark almost black line of Mount Diablo and the high concrete curve of the Antioch Bridge, the three-bladed white windmills with the dark blue sky beyond them. His feelings probably would be hurt, but it was still Maria’s to explain, not his. He’d respected her wish not to say anything, and Maria had procrastinated. You kept your word to Maria, he thought. Let her take her own heat; she’s old enough.

“Oh, she’s told me some things,” Katherine said. “Like she’s not going to college next year and we’re wasting our time on this trip. She wants to live with her two friends in the city, keep working at Presto, and go clubbing every night. How much trigonometry do you think she’ll remember after a year of clubbing, excuse me, after taking a year off to recover from the rigors of high school? I raised a kid who is so selfish she thinks she’s doing me a favor to come back here. I would have given anything to have what I can give her. Why did she wait to tell me?”

“I don’t think she knows her own mind yet, Kath.”

“Well, she’s not going to spend next year screwing around in San Francisco. What’s life going to do to her if she can’t handle high school and needs a break to recover? I need you to help me bring her around, and I don’t understand why you’re defending this idea of hers.”

“I’m not defending anything, but Maria is seventeen going on eighteen, and the days when we can tell her what to do are almost over.”

“So is she going to start paying her way?”

“You can’t make her want to go to college.”

“No, I really can’t, and now I’m wondering if she even sent all her applications. I didn’t read her essays. Did you?”

“If she said she sent them in, she did.”

“Here she comes. I’ll call you later.”

She hung up, and he drove, thinking about how he might help close the rift between Kath and Maria. He had interrupted several of the fights and tried to mediate and had heard about the worst ones when he wasn’t there. Maria was as stubborn as her mother, and each time she got punished she came back harder, and yet she continued working for Katherine at Presto on Union, rather than try to find a different job.

When he hung up with Katherine he returned a call from Ruax, and she was cheerful this morning.

“I’ve got a fish for you,” she said. “You’re becoming quite the dealer.”

“Any roe?”

“I can’t promise roe.”

“It’s got to be fresh or I won’t take it.”

She chuckled, and they picked a spot to transfer the sturgeon to his truck later that morning. He called Richie Crey.

“Do you want it? It’s just out of the water.”

“Okay, guy, let’s give it a go. Let me tell you where to take it. Guys that work for me will be at the house when you get there. It’s not far from my shop. You take it there. They’ll know what to do.”

Marquez picked up the fish from Ruax and drove over the bridge to Rio Vista. He planned to cut through these two front men and sell directly to Crey. In their remaining three weeks they were going after Crey, Ludovna, and August, and they’d need to deal face-to-face with Crey to generate enough evidence to build a case the DA would accept. Now he circled the block once. He parked and knocked twice before a man opened the door.

“I’m looking for Lou Perry.”

“That’s me. Are you the guy with the fish eggs?”

Marquez nodded and saw a second man on the sofa watching TV. Stale air flowed from inside, bad breath, dust, the sweet smell of dope.

“What’s your name, Mr. Fish Eggs?”

“John. What’s yours, sport?”

“Lou.”

Marquez smiled as though the name Lou was funny sounding. He wanted to make it clear early on that they weren’t going to be friends.

“Okay, where are the eggs?”

“They’re in my truck with the fish. They come as a package.”

The guy didn’t get it, took it as a straight line, said, “Back into the garage.”

A beat-up gold-colored Le Mans sat out in front of the house. It was rusted down along the base of the doors, and the ass end was humped from a rear-ender and sloppily sprayed with primer. It looked more like it had been tagged than painted. Someone had also done a hand job painting black stripes on the hood, and Marquez figured it could be either of the two men inside.

After the garage door went up, the second man drifted in, and Marquez got his name. Liam Torp. He offered his hand for Marquez to shake. Everybody was a businessman this morning. This was the business of trying to get a sturgeon deal done without missing too much of the show on TV that Torp had been watching.

“Is it worth the hassle, man?” Perry asked, face serious, doing his own risk/reward analysis.

“Is what worth the hassle?”

“Dealing sturgeon and fish eggs.”

“Sometimes it’s worth it.”

“Yeah? What kind of money can you make? Maybe I’ll get into it.”

“It’s messy. You deal with a lot of fish guts, and you’ve got to watch out for the Gamers all the time.”

“Richie says there aren’t that many of them.”

“Well, he ought to know. He’s your boss, right?”

Marquez had the cooler top taped down with duct tape. He peeled that off and showed them the eggs. Explained how to make caviar and answered more questions. It was like conducting a seminar. He looked at Perry, deciding that insulting him might be the easiest way to get rid of him.

“We’ll trade you some weed for your eggs,” Perry said.

“No, you won’t.”

“You don’t have to smoke it, man. You sell the weed, you’ll make more than you’d make the other way. Want to take a look at it? You’re welcome to a hit.” He turned to Torp. “Where’s that stub you had earlier?”

“Look, I just want to get paid and take off.”

“At least take a look.”

“What’s up with you guys? Does Crey know you’re offering this trade?”

Perry had a red birthmark along the back of his neck. His wiry friend, Torp, needed a change of clothes and had a way about him that bothered Marquez. In fact, they both annoyed him. Now, after standing around watching and saying nothing, Torp suddenly felt like he had to lower the garage door. Shauf and Roberts had been videotaping, and the lowering ended that.

“What are you doing, I’ve got to get my truck out. Open the door again.”

“Chill, man,” Perry said. “We just want to show you the weed. Wait here a minute.” He came back with a bag of weed. “Put your nose to it. If you don’t like what you smell we’ll shut up.”

“Then I don’t like it.”

“Smell it.”

“I’m not interested.”

“You’ll make more money selling the weed.”

“You’re the dope dealers; I sell fish.” Marquez figured that either they were comfortable enough with Crey to screw around with his deal or Crey said check him out, push him a little, see what happens. “How about you call Crey and tell him we’re done and I’m ready to get paid?”

Perry got a hold of Crey on his cell, cradling the cell with his chin, a couple of days’ growth of whiskers holding the phone in
place. He described the eggs, tasted them when Crey told him to. When he hung up he said, “He’ll pay you when he sees you.”

“You’re kidding me, after all this you guys don’t have the money?”

“Hey, you could have had the dope.”

They gave him the address of a bar on Main Street where Crey would meet him, and Marquez talked with Shauf before going into the bar.

“I’ve got to cut this pair out of the picture.”

“They just got into an old Le Mans out on the street.”

“Run the car, let’s find out what we can about them.”

Marquez was inside the bar on Main Street, waiting for Crey to show up. The bar was empty, no daylight drinkers yet, the bartender glancing up at the light flooding in from outside but not really paying Marquez any attention, maybe registering a big man occupying a stool at the far end. Then Perry and Torp came in the door. Perry waved at him and started toward him. They took stools next to him on either side. Perry drummed on the bar to get the bartender’s attention.

“We got to thinking since you’re the man with all the money this morning, maybe you should buy a round,” Perry said.

“I guess that means there aren’t any more cartoons on TV.”

Perry leaned over the bar, looking past Marquez at his friend. “Hey, Fishman made a joke,” he said. Then more seriously to Marquez, “Liam doesn’t like people laughing at him.”

“Who does?”

When Crey arrived he stopped to say hello to the bartender as though he’d just returned to his office and wanted to know what had happened while he was out. Torp oozed off the seat next to Marquez, and Crey took it. He slid a hand onto Marquez’s thigh.

“I’m not feeling you up. Reach down, I’ve got something for you.”

“Better not be pills or dope.” Marquez reached down, felt the money, and said, “This is a lot of work for one fish.”

Roberts walked in, took a seat at the far end of the bar near the door, and ordered before they did. Crey’s team studied her, Perry, on Marquez’s left, immediately saying, “I’d do her.”

The bartender came over, took drink orders, Marquez asking for a Coke, saying he’d drunk too much last night. Marquez laid one of the hundred-dollar bills on the bar top.

On his left Perry said, “A Coke? That’s pussy-assed, man,” and ordered himself a draft beer and a vodka chaser. The hundreddollar bill got broken and change spread in front of Marquez like a poker hand, the bartender fanning out the twenties. Marquez talked fishing with Crey and watched Perry down the vodka, get up from his stool, move halfway down the bar, and summon the bartender. The bartender drew four more drafts and carried one over and put it in front of Roberts, who already had something to drink. The other three he brought to their end and asked Marquez if he wanted a refill on the Coke. Marquez shook his head, turned to Crey.

“This is disrespect. What’s this little greaseball doing ordering drinks for himself and his friend with my money?”

“Next time they’ll buy.”

Perry lifted his glass to Roberts. She lifted hers, acknowledging the gesture but not touching the beer.

“I’m out of here,” Marquez said, “and these guys need to apply for welfare. I can keep the sturgeon coming, but I can’t deal with these losers.”

Torp heard that, though Perry didn’t because he was down the bar, trying to hit on Roberts.

“Don’t go yet,” Crey said. “Let’s you and me talk a little more.”

Whatever Roberts said, Perry didn’t like. He came back a few minutes later and leaned on the bar near his stool, looking past Marquez and Crey at his friend Torp. He looked angry.

“I’m not good enough for the bitch,” he said to no one in particular, though Marquez answered him, saying, “Makes sense to me,” and then turning back to Crey. “It depends on the bite, but with the storms forecast it could be good fishing this next week.”

They negotiated some more, but it all felt lowlife. Roberts got up to leave before they did, and before she reached the door Perry was off his stool. He reached around and tapped his friend on the shoulder.

“We’re going too,” he said, “catch you later, bro,” to Crey.

“Those two are going to end up back inside,” Crey said as the pair went through the door.

“Whatever. But either way I don’t want them around when I deal with you. They stick out too much.”

Crey looked into his drink, thinking it over, then agreed, “They’ve got some rough edges. But how polished do they have to be to hump a fish around?”

“They’re the wrong type of guys. What were they in for?”

“Perry for robbery and Torp did time for rape, only it was a lot worse than what they were able to pin on him, and there were others they didn’t get him for. Problem is I owe Perry, and he’s trying to get back on his feet.”

“He tried to trade me dope for the sturgeon. Did you tell him to do that?”

Crey didn’t answer, and his eyes kind of glazed over. It told Marquez that Crey had known the offer to trade would get made. He could read the pores on Crey’s nose, see every mark on his face, but couldn’t read much in his eyes, and the feeling came out of nowhere, that he wouldn’t miss having to deal with guys like this.

They finished their drinks now and walked out into daylight.

“I did four years and I’m not going back inside,” Crey said. “You want to know about me, that’s all you need to know. If I’ve got to use some help like Lou and Liam, that’s what I’ve got to do then. The boys aren’t so bad. I know Torp has got some problems, but sometimes I need their lifting power. And they can deliver shit. All they have to do is drive a car, right? You don’t have to talk to them.” He saw he wasn’t getting anywhere with Marquez and added, “I can handle a sturgeon a day if you can do it.”

“Why not live straight? You’ve got your sport fishing business and the bait shop. Why risk it all?”

“Kind of funny of you to ask that.”

“Yeah, well, we’re talking straight, so I’m asking.”

“The answer is I’ve got some other obligations.”