Authors: Charles Knief
Sand Dollars (17 page)
The clouds came back the next morning, threatening rain, then fulfilled the threat and drenched San Diego again. After a perfect weekend, the start of the workweek heralded more days of downpour. According to my friend on the radio, it was the same storm that had soaked Seattle, then San Francisco, then Los Angeles. Now it was here.
I was back in the parking lot across from the pizza parlor. The rain provided good cover. I could watch, warm and dry in the Range Rover as people fled from their cars into the strip-mall shops. The only ones who went out were those with a mission. No one else would have wanted to brave the elements.
While waiting for something to happen, I did isometric exercises with the steering wheel and the dashboard. I don't know if they helped, but my arms and shoulders felt pumped. I'd also purloined a tennis ball from Claire's sports bag, left on the settee in
Olympia
's lounge, and I squeezed it to pass the time. One hundred with the right hand, one hundred with the left, then switch again.
Olympia
's lounge, and I squeezed it to pass the time. One hundred with the right hand, one hundred with the left, then switch again.
Squeezing tennis balls and pushing and pulling the steering wheel and listening to talk radio were about the only things I had to pass the time. I didn't want to eat more pizza. A caller to a local station wanted the National Guard to shoot illegal aliens as they crossed the border. Another guy wanted to plant land mines on our side. The host exhibited about the same amount of humanity, talking of tanks and troops to defend our borders as if the country were being invaded. I thought of the men and women and children I had seen huddled in the rain on the other side of the steel fence, waiting
for the dark and a chance to cross to the promised land. In a way, it was an invasion of sorts. I also recalled the indiscriminate, impersonal, and deadly damage that land mines do. I was aware there was a problem here, but the locals seemed rather harsh, and I wondered how the new migrants affected them. I had no answers. I wondered if there were any answers.
for the dark and a chance to cross to the promised land. In a way, it was an invasion of sorts. I also recalled the indiscriminate, impersonal, and deadly damage that land mines do. I was aware there was a problem here, but the locals seemed rather harsh, and I wondered how the new migrants affected them. I had no answers. I wondered if there were any answers.
I was on my sixty-third set of tennis-ball squeezes when a familiar figure parked a white Chevrolet Blazer two parking spaces away from the Range Rover. I recognized him immediately, although his presence came as a shock, instantly coalescing all my thoughts and suspicions into a single theory. Coincidence was an interesting idea, but I rejected it. The circle, if it was a circle, had nearly closed.
The young gangster who had broken bread with Stevenson so many days before, the one I'd seen from across the street, the one whose dead eyes I'd never forget, got out of the Blazer and casually strolled across the parking lot as if it would be a sin against nature to acknowledge the rain. His stride was languid. The elements were there only for other people. They had no effect on him.
He reminded me of that old dog down in Baja, lolling along the roadside, ignoring the rain.
I remained poised behind the wheel, watching him enter the post-office store. He was there for only a few minutes before he came out again, shielding a stack of manila and white envelopes beneath his plaid overshirt.
When he climbed back into his Blazer and drove out of the parking lot, I followed.
There was a freeway on-ramp two blocks from the mail drop and he gunned the Blazer. The Range Rover had no trouble keeping up. I kept my lights off, the better to blend with the gray background. Traffic was light, but there were plenty of trucks and high-sided vehicles rolling, and I didn't think he could pick me out of the background even if he looked. We went south on the interstate through San Diego's downtown, then toward Mexico, which I assumed was his destination, until he turned off the freeway while passing
through Chula Vista, a little border bedroom community that was almost, but not quite, rural.
through Chula Vista, a little border bedroom community that was almost, but not quite, rural.
I dropped back about a quarter mile because there was sparse traffic on the quiet country road, the Blazer barely visible in the rain, except for its taillights. When he braked and turned, it was easy to see, and I noted the road he had taken.
He had made it so easy I almost followed after him, but something in the layout of the surroundings made me drive by the intersection. It didn't look like a place where two cars could travel unnoticed, so I got cautious. As I passed, in my peripheral vision I saw the Blazer, parked, facing the road.
It pulled out and sped off, back the way we'd come. I watched him disappear in my rearview mirror as the highway dipped below the horizon.
Decision time. Was he aware that I had been following him? Or was this a standard precaution?
My hands and feet made the decision before my conscious thought, and I surprised myself when I turned off the road into a tract of new houses, a single urban block of two-story stucco dwellings sandwiched between muddy dairy fields and a cemetery. I turned the Range Rover around in the middle of the block and parked at the curb, facing the highway, mimicking the gangster's earlier maneuver.
I'd stopped in front of a house with tricycles and Big Wheels scattered across the front yard. Curtains parted at the big front window and two small faces peered at me through the rain.
I was doing the only thing I could do. If I turned and followed him, he would be certain to see me. If he was doing what I thought he was doing, he would double back again and I could pick him up once more. It was the lesser of two evils. Did I want him to discover my interest? Or was it better to lose him this time and go back to staking out the postal store in a different car and pick him up later? Next time use two or three cars linked by radios or cellulars. Do it right.
Down the block, the Blazer crossed my field of vision, traveling in its original direction. He'd doubled back. I pulled away from the curb.
If he thought he was being followed, he didn't act like it. This time he went in a beeline to a two-story apartment building in the old section of Chula Vista. Iron bars covered every window on the structure, even those high off the ground, and bars and wire mesh blocked entry to the interior courtyard. Black, green, and red graffiti crawled across the stucco, a spray-painted conversation of lasting importance and bewildering reason.
The gangster double-parked and went inside, showing no fear of parking tickets, car thieves, or arguments from the owners of the cars he blocked. I waited halfway down the street, next to a fire hydrant.
This was his lair. I felt it. I was willing to bet the two young men who died in Claire's home had been dispatched from this place. What connection this kid had with TopProp, or Lorena Garcia, or Teniente de la Peña, or Joseph Stevenson wasn't clear just yet, but it would be. What had been theory before was now fact. They were all related, one way or the other. And Paul Peters and his seven million dollars could not be far away.
An idea that had been floating in the back of my mind suddenly came to the surface. I reached for the telephone and punched in the numbers.
“Esparza.”
“This is John Caine.”
“How are you holding up?”
“Fine, thanks. I wondered if you could look something up for me. An old suicide, a closed case.”
“How old and who?”
“Tyrone Crenshaw. He hanged himself in a downtown day-rate hotel several years ago.”
“I know the guy. He was that running back the Chargers drafted the year they could really have used a running back. He started off great, then fell into coke and meth and heroin and whatever else he could sniff or shoot up or smoke. Went through almost a million dollars before he exploded. That one?”
“That's the one,” I confirmed. “Could you let me see the file?”
“It's closed, so I don't think it would hurt. It's probably buried somewhere, but it'll be microfiched or scanned or something. When do you need it?”
“ASAP,” I said. Down the street, the young gangster had come out of the building with three of his companions. They were getting in the Blazer. It was raining harder now, but each young man was taking great pains to ignore it.
“Come by later today. I'll see what I can do.”
“Could you do one more thing for me?”
“Why not? You're not even a taxpayer in this state.”
“Could you look up the owner of a building if I gave you the address?”
“Sure. Got any pants need pressing? Windows need washing? My wife takes in laundry. My cousin does odd jobs.”
I gave him the address of the gang building. “This is related to your case,” I said. The Blazer started from the curb. I waited for a passing pickup truck and then followed.
“What case?” Esparza asked.
“That homicide, and those two assassins at the Peters estate last week.”
“That's not my case. What homicide?”
The Blazer blasted through a red light. Traffic was still insubstantial. I slowed, looked both ways, and went through, too.
“I have reason to believe that Paul Peters is still alive, or at least was alive after the coroner issued a death certificate. If that is true, then there's a presumption that he staged the explosion to clear his paperwork. If that was the case, then the bodyâif there really was a body, and the Mexican coroner says there wasââcould be a murder victim. That would make it a conspiracy to commit murder. And that's under your jurisdiction.”
“Uh-huh,” he said. “And who would this body have been?”
The Blazer got onto an on-ramp of another freeway, heading south.
“I don't know,” I said, “but if I were you, I'd at least take a look at missing-person reports around the time of the explosion.”
I followed the gangsters through raw agricultural land and onto the interstate. The freeway was on a raised berm, twenty feet or so above the fields; it was like traveling on a narrow island above a green sea. A yellow sign warned that the freeway would end in two and a half miles. There was a green sign ahead, but I couldn't read it yet. Traffic up ahead was slowing.
“How come you're so helpful all of a sudden?”
“That shooting the other night focused me,” I said. “Now I'm following somebody who may make everything clear.”
“Who're you following?”
I came upon the green sign and I smiled. Traffic had come to a near stop, just creeping along. I could see the barriers and the soldiers at the checkpoint ahead.
“Doesn't matter now, but remember when you said the next time I go into Mexico I'd better check in with you?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I'll be there in about ninety seconds,” I said, watching while two cars ahead, the white Chevy Blazer drove across the border into Tijuana.
Avenida Revolución bisects Tijuana the way a coroner's scalpel bisects a corpse. From the U.S. border to the foothills, Revolution Avenue runs through every neighborhood in the city. I followed the Blazer as it wandered through all of them.
Commercial and residential areas flowed together without pause, mixing interchangeably, becoming a homogenized conglomerate. Residential structures varied from squat, brightly hued concrete blocks to barely habitable hovels made of discarded lumber, glass, and cardboard. The shack communities spread from the road into the surrounding hills like a plague, with an order and organization that was truly unique. Winding lanes, too narrow for anything other than foot traffic, wandered away from the vehicle thoroughfare like lost children.
The concentration of shacks didn't thin as they reached the highest elevations; they stopped abruptly as the neighborhood changed from dirt poor to filthy rich. Hovels leaned against a walled estate near the top of the hill, its masonry integrated as a part of their structure. Every lot beyond that was spacious and fortified, the street resembling a crowded collection of tiny feudal castles.
I was on foreign soil now, so my natural caution increased a few notches. Not all the way to paranoia, but just below, closer to anxious fearfulness. That felt comfortable. It suited the circumstances.
Thankful for the rain, I dropped back even farther behind the Blazer. The rain made the afternoon darker. I kept my lights off, trying to be inconspicuous on the well-traveled streets of an alien nation. Even with my caution and precautions,
I got caught off guard when the Blazer stopped in the middle of the street without signaling, angling off to one side. The maneuver forced me to stop behind it. The gangster had stopped at an intersection, near the entry gate of a corner house, positioned so that it was impossible to drive around him.
I got caught off guard when the Blazer stopped in the middle of the street without signaling, angling off to one side. The maneuver forced me to stop behind it. The gangster had stopped at an intersection, near the entry gate of a corner house, positioned so that it was impossible to drive around him.
I shifted into reverse and glanced in the rearview mirror. No one blocked my way. I kept my foot on the brake. The occupants of the Blazer seemed oblivious of my presence.
A wrought-iron gate opened slowly near the front of the Chevy. When it was open, the Blazer drove inside the courtyard of the house. After a five-second delay, the gate closed again. I shifted back into first gear and drove on, not wanting to draw attention to the Range Rover, and found a parking spot around the corner.
I couldn't see the entry from the front seat, so I got out and walked to the opposite side of the street and stood against the wall. It wasn't a satisfactory position. Walls topped with shards of broken glass fronted every estate. No cover existed on either street. No portals existed to give me shelter from the elements. A lone pedestrian standing in the rain and watching a house was too conspicuous. No conceivable story could cover that circumstance other than the obvious. I returned to the Range Rover to think it over.
Another four-wheel-drive vehicle of similar coloring drove slowly past. The driver didn't even glance in my direction. That inspired me to reposition the car so I could see the entry. The Range Rover was natural camouflage in this kind of neighborhood, where a sixty-thousand-dollar truck was standard household equipment. I could be a friend of a neighbor, waiting for the occupant to return. I could be a family member from up
norte.
Any logical reason could explain my presence. As long as I didn't overstay my welcome.
norte.
Any logical reason could explain my presence. As long as I didn't overstay my welcome.
Content that I was safe and dry, I found the tennis ball and a good Mexican music station and watched the entrance to the estate.
It didn't take long. The electric gate opened and the Chevy Blazer backed part of the way into the street. The young man
whom I had seen first with Joseph Stevenson and then at the postal store in San Diego was at the wheel, and he seemed to be arguing with someone out of sight, in the courtyard behind the wall. Through the open window he gesticulated wildly, his face contorted and ugly.
whom I had seen first with Joseph Stevenson and then at the postal store in San Diego was at the wheel, and he seemed to be arguing with someone out of sight, in the courtyard behind the wall. Through the open window he gesticulated wildly, his face contorted and ugly.
I rolled my window down and strained to hear. The young man's voice carried across the street, despite the pounding of the rain. Though I couldn't make out any of his words, there was passion in his argument. He was not happy. Answering him, still out of sight, was the voice of a woman, a relatively young woman.
The Blazer jerked into the street. The woman followed from behind the wall, trailing along the driver's side. She looked to be pleading with the gangster, her hands opened in supplication.
She wore designer jeans and a loose cable-knit sweater, her long hair piled on top of her head like a disheveled turban. She filled the sweater and the jeans admirably. And she matched Tim and Jim's description of Lorena Garcia.
Whatever she said to the young man, it calmed him. He shook his head. She spoke to him again. He shook his head again, but it wasn't the same. The violence had fled from him.
He reached for her and she patted his hand. He shook his head and a smile crossed his face for the first time. The woman took his hand and tenderly kissed it, caressing her face with the fingers and palm. When his fingers brushed her lips, she kissed them, gently and individually. The young man's face softened, and the hand, which had been a fist, relaxed.
He said something I couldn't hear, and then rolled up his window. The woman's clothing had become wet and clung to her figure, the sweater molded against her breasts. Her hair had come undone and now lay limply down her back and across her shoulders.
The Blazer backed until it was clear of the sidewalk, straightened so it was pointing in the direction it had come, then took off, the tires spinning on the rain-soaked street.
The woman stood in the driveway watching the white car with the big chrome wheels until it disappeared down the hill toward the slums.
Wanting to get a good look at her face, I pulled from the curb and drove slowly past.
She turned just as I passed her driveway and walked toward the gate. It was disappointing that I couldn't see her face up close, but the rest of the view was wonderful.
I drove down the hill, no longer interested in the itinerary of the gangster. I had found something much more fascinating.
Some women are not quite beautiful and yet extraordinarily attractive to men. I don't know if it's pheromones, but I have noted that certain women who are not necessarily beautiful, but who have
it
, whatever
it
is, will almost always draw the attentions of men. Perhaps it is availability worn like an invisible poster. We can be drawn almost uncontrollably, as if hypnotized. And some women, no matter how good-looking, no matter how seductively dressed, cannot capture male attention no matter what they do. It might be chemistry, but I don't profess to know the specifics. All I know is that this one had it. Even in the rain. Even thirty feet away. Even after a public and passionate argument with a gangster. Even soaking wet.
it
, whatever
it
is, will almost always draw the attentions of men. Perhaps it is availability worn like an invisible poster. We can be drawn almost uncontrollably, as if hypnotized. And some women, no matter how good-looking, no matter how seductively dressed, cannot capture male attention no matter what they do. It might be chemistry, but I don't profess to know the specifics. All I know is that this one had it. Even in the rain. Even thirty feet away. Even after a public and passionate argument with a gangster. Even soaking wet.
Especially soaking wet.
If Paul Peters were to desert the lovely and intelligent Mrs. Peters, this one had the equipment, the chemistry, and the talent to force the issue:
The seduction reportedly occurred at Palm Desert, a winter resort where people from Southern California go to relax. A man alone, in a beautiful and romantic setting, might succumb to the seduction of a woman like Lorena Garcia if she were to focus her exclusive attentions on him. I could see how Paul Peters might fall victim to her charms.
But it would have only been a weekend thing, unworthy of throwing away a good marriage. Something else was at work here and I didn't know what it was.
It was still raining, but the day had turned out to be a fine
one. I had a chain from Stevenson to a gang-banger to a cutout mail drop, and from there to the gang-banger again and hence to the girl. It wasn't exactly a full circle, but in my mind's eye I pictured Paul Peters as a planet, with all those people circling him like so many moons. There was a connection. There had to be. I would have to think on it.
one. I had a chain from Stevenson to a gang-banger to a cutout mail drop, and from there to the gang-banger again and hence to the girl. It wasn't exactly a full circle, but in my mind's eye I pictured Paul Peters as a planet, with all those people circling him like so many moons. There was a connection. There had to be. I would have to think on it.
At the bottom of the hill I pointed the Range Rover back toward the border, but not before I stopped and bought a hundred dollars' worth of Cohiba Esplendidos, eight inches of pure Cuban cigars.
That was five.
It had been a long time since I'd smoked a good cigar. The Cubans still made the finest, regardless of how they screwed up everything else on their little island. I lit one and smoked it as I drove. It helped me think. I was still smoking and thinking as I passed through the international border. I took the Esplendido out of my mouth to tell the customs officer that I had nothing to declare.
Well, that was true, as far as it went. I hadn't thought long enough to make any declaration worth mentioning.
But I knew I was on the right path.
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