The Quality of the Informant (26 page)

He fired.

Sandy flew forward and down, her hands failing to break her fall.
LaMonica
stepped forward. Aiming at her head, he fired twice. Gasping sounds. Her body twitched about. For a moment he thought he might have heard a sob, but he discounted it as a simple stress reaction. He stepped back. Having looked around again, he pushed the revolver into his back pocket. It was warm.

LaMonica
bent at the waist and grasped Sandy's body by the wrists. He dragged it for a long way across the grass to the edge of a small embankment. Without hesitation, he swung the body over the side. Like a mannequin, it rolled along the dirt and grass to the bottom. He stepped back and surveyed the entire area again. He was alone. Before getting back in the car, he hid the revolver in the trunk.

On the way back to Mexico he was careful not to exceed the speed limit.

****

Chapter 23

THE RESTAURANT, a twelve-
seater
, was directly across the street from the police station. The place was devoid of decoration except for a set of primitive murals painted on the rough-textured walls: serape-clad boys riding burros toward a setting sun
;
brown, dark-eyed women toting children. There was no air conditioning.

The three cops sat around a Formica table as they waited to be served. Rodriguez had commanded the Treasury agents to order the biggest lobster dish. They had followed orders.

Carr took a sip of
Carta
Blanca and set the bottle down. "Purple ink," he said with a puzzled look.

"I guess we won't find out what
LaMonica
counterfeited until something printed with purple ink hits the street," Kelly said. He stared at one of the wall paintings.

"We may not be that lucky," Carr said. "For all we know he counterfeited bank certificates of deposit, or some other such security. A scam like that wouldn't be uncovered for years."

Everyone nodded.

A chunky, dark-haired woman wearing a peasant dress strutted out of the kitchen balancing a platter. She set it down on the table. The platter contained a pile of enormous, steaming lobsters. A young girl, who could have been her daughter, followed her with heavy plates brimming with peppers, refried beans, and rice. She made room on the table and set them down.

Kelly smiled graciously. He tucked a paper napkin into his collar. Nothing was said as the three men went about the business of eating. There was only the crunching of shells, sucking noises and the passing of plates.

Suddenly Rodriguez jumped up, knocking his chair backward.
"
Tinta
morada
!"
he cried. Without so much as wiping his hands, he barged out the front door and headed for the police station. Carr and Kelly stopped eating only long enough to shrug.

A few minutes later Rodriguez marched back in the front door holding a single sheet of
printed paper
with two fingers. He handed the paper to Carr and made a silly bow. He sat down and resumed eating.

Kelly leaned over his partner's shoulder as he read: "Warning Bulletin - Travelers
Chex
Incorporated, Houston, Texas..."

In the middle of the page was a color reproduction of a traveler's check. The basic color of the printing on the check was purple.

"That counterfeit check appeared for the
first time
right here in Ensenada a few days ago," Rodriguez said. He scooped up some beans with the corner of a tortilla and shoveled them into his mouth. "I'll bet that even you gringo
federales
would be able to guess where."

"Teddy's?" Carr said.

Rodriguez chewed for a while and swallowed. "Right. That
pendejo
Teddy Mora deposited the checks in his account at the bank down the street. When they bounced, he told them he had cashed the checks for customers at his bar." Rodriguez laughed sarcastically. "As if he would cash
anything
for the
pendejos
that hang
out in that place."

"I'll be damned," Kelly said. He spoke with his mouth full.

"The Travelers
Chex
security man that came into the Field Office the other day..." Carr said with a furrowed brow. "This is what he must have been beating around the bush about. But why the questions about Freddie Roth?"

Kelly pulled a paper napkin out of a dispenser. He wiped a mustache of drawn butter off his upper lip. "Some stoolie probably sold him an old Freddie Roth story." He shook his head. "Mr.
Greenjeans
Freddie Roth no less. Snitches finger him even in death. They should have embalmed him with green ink, God rest his soul."

After the meal Carr tried to pay. The chunky lady acted insulted and said something in Spanish. Rodriguez pinched her fondly on the cheek. "She said she honors the badge," he said.

The three returned to the police station. Carr dialed the telephone number listed on the Travelers
Chex
circular and asked for Omar Lockhart. "I'm sorry, sir, but Mr. Lockhart is on business in San Diego," the secretary said. She recited a phone number and an address for a motel on Ortega Road where he could be reached. She asked him to hold the line. Carr placed his hand over the mouthpiece. "Lockhart's staying in a motel just up the street from the one where
Luegner's
fiasco went down," he said. Kelly wore a puzzled expression.

A man with an authoritative voice came on the line. He introduced himself as the chairman of the board. Carr told him about his visit from Lockhart. He explained about the search for
LaMonica
and the discovery of the printing press.

"What does this fugitive look like?" the chairman asked.

"Gray-haired guy with a missing little finger on his left hand," Carr said.

A brief silence.
The chairman moaned. Briefly, he explained what Lockhart was doing in San Diego. "Would this counterfeiter you're looking for involve himself in such a scheme?" he said.

Carr looked at the ceiling. "I'd say that was a definite possibility."

"I'll have Mr. Lockhart get in touch with you," the chairman said, a note of urgency in his voice. He hung up.

Carr chortled. "It sounds like
LaMonica
just sold a load of phony traveler's checks to the Travelers
Chex
company
itself. He sold '
em
a bill of goods that the package was left over from one of Freddie Roth's old printing runs ... and they paid him
fifty thousand dollars."

"Maybe the company preferred to take the loss all at once," Kelly said. "Less paperwork!" The cops broke into hearty laughter. Rodriguez slapped his knee.

As soon as he caught his breath, Kelly said, "Where will
LaMonica
go now that he's made the big money?"

"Maybe he'll come right back here," Carr said. "He knows the heat is on for him across the line."

"On the other hand, with that much money he could pretty much pick and choose his hideout," Kelly said.

"Good point," Carr said.

Lockhart paid for his room with a traveler's check (all company executives were required to do so on company business - "Avoidance of Possible Adverse Publicity" the memo had been entitled). While checking out, he chatted amiably with the clerk, a mature woman wearing a flowered dress that fluffed over meaty thighs.

The switchboard buzzed. The woman picked up the receiver. "You just caught him," she said. "He's standing right here in front of me." She handed Lockhart the receiver.

It was the chairman.

"I'm glad I caught you before you left," he said angrily. "I just took a call from a U.S. Treasury agent named Carr-"

"Yes sir, I've met him," Lockhart interrupted.

"That's nice," continued the chairman. "He told me some interesting things about a man named
LaMonica
, a counterfeiter. Seems that this
LaMonica
may have recently printed up some of our traveler's checks. Carr has evidence that he uncovered down in Ensenada."

"I'll follow up on that immediately, sir," Lockhart said. "Since I'm so close to Mexico, I'll just drive down and gather the pertinent details in person."

"Before you rush off," the chairman said, "you might like to know that this counterfeiter is a gray-haired man with a missing finger on his left hand."

Lockhart felt a rush of heat spread across the back of his neck. The phone felt slippery, he could barely hold it in his hand. He wanted to gag. Nothing was said for a while.

"Are you still there?" the chairman said.

"Yes sir."

"Please don't tell me that you've already bought the checks, Omar. Please don't tell me that," the chairman said. Lockhart pictured him with palm against brow.

"Yes sir. Just a few minutes ago... Jesus, sir." Lockhart made a fist. It pressed against his chin.

"You allowed a counterfeiter, a criminal person, to sell us his own product," the chairman said. "You handed over fifty thousand dollars of this year's net profit to someone you hadn't properly checked out. I'm sure I'll have no problem at all explaining that to the other members of the board. Perhaps I can appeal to their goddamn
sense of humor!"

"
I'm sorry...sir
."

"Fix it, Omar," the chairman said.

"Sir?"

"You're going to go out and repair the damage you've done to us. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

"Sir...uh... I'm not exactly sure what I can do at this point," Lockhart said.

"You can go find this
LaMonica
person and get our money back! That's what you can do! You can go grab this cocksucker by the throat and squeeze until he gives us our money back. Do whatever you have to do.
Nobody is going to do this to us and get away with it."

"I'll do my best, but I'm not sure I can-"

"Find the dirty
sonofabitch
and bring back our fifty thousand dollars, Omar. If you don't, your desk won't be here when you return. You made the mess. Now you can clean it up!" The phone clicked loudly. Omar Lockhart handed the receiver to the woman. He rubbed his temples. His head ached as if acid had been injected behind his eyes.

"Are you all right?" said the woman. She stared at him as if he were bleeding. "Mr. Lockhart? Would you like to sit down?"

Lockhart took out a handkerchief. He wiped his eyes and forehead and took a deep breath. "Mr. Brown's room," he said. "Roger Brown. He checked out a short while ago. That...uh...was him on the telephone. He asked if I could get a copy of his room's telephone bill. He needed some of the numbers."

The woman opened a drawer and pulled out a stack of receipts. She thumbed through a few and pulled one out of the pile. "He only called one number from his room," she said. The woman wrote the telephone number on a piece of paper and handed it to him.

Lockhart mumbled his thanks. He shuffled out the door.

Having found a pay phone next to the swimming pool, Lockhart dropped in a dime. The operator told him that it was an Ensenada area code. He gave her the number. It rang.

"Teddy's Bar," a man said.

Lockhart slammed the phone down. He headed for his car.

The dirt lot in front of Teddy's Bar was filled with motorcycles: the kind with riser handlebars and chrome decorations of one kind or another. Lockhart parked next to a Harley with a tuck-and-roll leather seat.