The Setup Man (24 page)

The door opens a crack. When Rosario sees it’s us, she unlatches the chain and lets us in. The room is dark and low-ceilinged and smells of stale cigarette smoke. When my eyes adjust, I see that Rosario is not wearing her work clothes. She’s in jeans and a Padres T-shirt; without her makeup, she looks much less like her sister.

“Thanks for meeting us,”
Díaz says.

“We will pay you again,”
I add.

Rosario shakes her head.
“No money,”
she says.
“This is for Ana.”

Díaz and I sit on one of the two swaybacked double beds, Rosario on the other.

“Last time, you told us Ana wanted to go to university. Did she tell you anything else about her plans in the U.S.?”

“She saved a lot of money,”
Rosario says.
“Last time I saw her, she said she had enough for two years’ tuition. That’s why she quit working for Señora Maria.”

“Hold on,”
I say.
“Your sister wasn’t working for the Herreras? When did that happen?”

“She quit a month ago. I was at my apartment one night, and Ana showed up unexpectedly. I didn’t even know she was in town. She traveled a lot for Señora Maria, but she usually called ahead. She said that she had saved enough money to start taking classes at the university. I gave her my best congratulations, because I knew this was her dream. She said there would be much more to celebrate soon, not just for her but for all of us, because she had convinced Señor Frankie to shut down the business.”

“You are talking about Frankie Herrera, Señora Maria’s husband.”

“That’s right.”
Ana lowers her eyes for a moment.
“My sister and Señor Frankie, they were in love.”

“And he told your sister he was going to shut down the prostitution business?”

“That’s what she said. The reason it had not happened yet was because Señora Maria had not agreed. Ana said Señora Maria had a new business partner, someone other than Señor Frankie, and this person would be very upset if Señor Frankie tried to shut down the business.”

“I’m sure he would,”
I say. “So
Ana was worried for Frankie’s safety?”

“She said that even if Señor Frankie agreed to let the business stay open, he would still be in danger because of what he knew. She said Señora Maria’s new partner might worry that Señor Frankie would go to the police or something like that. In Mexico, the cartels will kill you for what you know, even if you would never dare to speak. I told Ana that this was America, not Mexico, but she would not listen. She was upset, inconsolable. She was going that night to San José to find Señor Frankie.”

“So Maria didn’t kill him after all,” Díaz says to me. “It was her partner.”

“Rosario,”
I say,
“do you know the name of Señora Maria’s partner?”

Rosario looks at me in horror.
“Why would I want to know his name?”

I decide to change course.
“You said there were six girls recruited from your village. Are you still in touch with the others?”

Her eyes go wide.
“When Señor Jerry called me this morning, I was having coffee with Luz—”

“Luz is one of the other girls?”
Díaz says.
“She came north with us, but she got sick and had to stop working for Señora Maria.”

I assume she’s talking about HIV or another career-ending
disease. I can’t imagine there are too many reasons a girl like Luz gets to void her contract.
“I’m so sorry,”
I say.

“I told Luz about you and Señor Jerry, that you believed Ana was killed and were going to find her killer. She gave me something to show you.”
Rosario digs around in her purse, and then holds out a small glass capsule, about the size of a roll of Life Savers. Inside are an array of densely packed, multicolored electronic components.

“A month after we came to the United States,”
Rosario explains,
“Luz began to have horrible cramps. Then she developed a headache and a high fever, so I took her to the hospital. The doctor said she had an infection in her womb. He ordered emergency surgery. He saved her life. Afterward he gave her this. He said it caused the infection.”

I turn the capsule over in my hand. My first thought is that it’s a bomb, but it seems too small to do anything more than superficial damage. It looks like the remote-controlled firecrackers the pimpito was planting on George Luck’s window. That doesn’t make sense, either.

I am trying to piece this together—the logic of putting a low-powered explosive inside a human being—when Díaz growls, “Those sick motherfuckers.” His choice of words startles me. It is the first time I’ve ever heard him swear.

“Jerry? You know what this thing is?”

He looks at me. “Of course I do. I’m a cattle rancher.”

Díaz and I are sitting at a table in one of San Diego’s excellent brew pubs. Despite the kid’s successes so far, it is clear he has a lot to learn, style-wise, about being a detective. For starters, he asks the waitress if she has Rolling Rock on tap.

“You might as well order a seltzer,” she says.

“Rolling Rock
beer
,” he says with a flirtatious smile.

“I know what you mean. We don’t have it.”

“Oh. What are you ordering, boss?”

“Pint of bitter.”

“So two Married Woman Bitters?” the waitress says.

Díaz nods. “I guess so. Is it dark?”

“If you want a dark beer, you should try the Fat Madam Stout. It’s on the hand pump tonight.”

I can tell Díaz wants to chat her up—just to show off his chops—but he can’t seem to bring himself to do it. “Fat Madam Stout,” he says. “Who comes up with these names?”

“The brewmaster studied creative writing in college.”

“Bring two pints,” I say.

The waitress nods. “Right-o.” She has a kind of sexy belligerence that I can’t place. It might come from the way her ass knocks back and forth as she walks. That or the neck tattoos.

As soon as she’s out of earshot, Díaz starts to explain: “Do you have any pets, Adcock? Any cats or dogs?”

“I had a dog when I was little.”

“Was he chipped?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“This is basically a bigger version of the microchips they implant in household pets.” He pulls the glass capsule out of his jacket pocket and holds it between us. “See that? That’s the antenna coil. And here’s the brain of the thing, the silicon chip.” He turns it over and points to a disk about a centimeter thick. “That’s the battery, which tells you this is an active RFID tag.”

“A what?”

“RFID stands for ‘radio-frequency identification,’ ” he explains. “When you chip your cat, she’s given a passive RFID tag. Passive means the tag doesn’t have a power source. Using a handheld reader, you can scan the animal and learn its owner’s name and address, phone number, that kind of thing. It’s all embedded in the chip and transmitted to the scanner. But the range of a passive RFID tag is very small. You have to hold the scanner right over the chip. Active RFID tags are different. They have a battery and actually put out a radio signal that can be picked up hundreds of feet away. Ranchers use them to track their herds. You can even have the device transmit the animal’s pulse and temperature.”

“Your family uses these?”

“We’re starting to, but the equipment is expensive. You need receivers in the barns, in the corrals, even on the range—basically, anywhere you want to count cattle.”

“What about the capsules? Are they expensive, too?”

“Compared to the cost of the receivers, the tags are cheap, but you need to pay a vet to implant them.” He pauses. “Of course, with cattle you just slip the tags under the skin. I’ve
never heard of putting them deeper inside the body. Definitely not inside organs …”

“I’ll bet they implanted the tags when they did the IUDs. That’s why they put the girls to sleep.”

“The girls never knew what they were getting.”

“Exactly. The problem is that these things are meant to live under the skin, not inside the womb. I would say Rosario’s friend is lucky she lived.”

“Do you think they’ve all been chipped?” Díaz says.

“We have to assume so.”

“We need to warn them, Adcock.”

“Good luck with that,” I say. “It’s not like there’s a personnel directory. And even if we did contact them, what would we do, line them up at the emergency room for X-rays? You can’t do that without answering a lot of questions.”

“There’s an X-ray machine in the clubhouse,” Díaz says. “We could bring the girls there … in the middle of night, maybe … but we’d need someone who knows how to use the machine.” He isn’t even convincing himself. “This is fucked,” he mutters.

“Rosario told us that business has continued as usual since Maria’s death. Someone pays the rent on her apartment, orders her groceries for delivery, sends reminders of her dates. This suggests Maria’s new partner is firmly in command.…”

I’m at a crossroads. On the one hand, this could be the out I was pitching for—a satisfactory conclusion to a difficult investigation. My clients, the Herreras, are both deceased, and their enterprise has been passed down the line. I might reasonably wash my hands of the case right now. Problem is, my fingerprints are all over this thing. If the Velásquez sisters are correct and people are getting killed just for what they know, then I have a big “X” painted on my back. And I can’t afford to die. I can’t even decide whether to retire from baseball.

“You need to be careful,” I tell Díaz. “Don’t go anywhere alone if you can help it.”

“What are you going to do?” he asks.

For some reason, a wave of confidence sweeps me up. “I’m going to close this thing.”

“Solve the case?”

“And you’re going to help.”

The waitress arrives with our pints. “What are you guys, like, detectives?” No longer the sardonic tattoo queen, she now appears genuinely interested in us. “Sorry, but I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation.”

“Actually,” Díaz says without missing a beat, “we’re major-league baseball players.” He smiles ear to ear. He’s waited years to say that, and now he’s ready to claim his reward.

“Oh,” the waitress says, no longer interested. She brushes a strand of dyed black hair off her forehead. “You want anything else or just the check?”

The last two weeks of the season continue the losing theme for the Padres, who finish in the cellar of the National League West, thirteen and a half games behind the Giants. After the last game of the World Series (which I do not watch), the club declines its option on the final year of my contract. Translation: the Padres agree to pay me the million five they owe but prefer that I not pitch for them.

Next day, I get a call from Todd Ratkiss. “Listen, Johnny,” he says, “I’ve got an offer I need to run past you. Just came in this morning.”

“An offer?”

“To play baseball. Which is your job. Am I speaking Chinese?”

“I’m just surprised. That was fast.”

“Well, you’re going home.”

“To the Dodgers?”

“The Dodgers? Since when is Los Angeles home?”

“Since I was born there.”

“Dude,” my agent growls, “the fucking Bay Dogs want to sign you. Home sweet San José.”

Oh right.
Home
.

“Silence? That’s the thanks I get for saving your fucking career?”

“Who says I wanted it saved?”

Todd exhales loudly into the phone. I can practically smell the Doritos. “Look man, do you want to play ball or not?”

It has come down to this. No putting off this decision. I can hang up, but I know that the phone will just ring again and it will be someone else, Ginny maybe, it doesn’t matter who, and the conversation will end up here. As my dad used to say, it’s time to shit or get off the pot.

“Same terms as last year?” I ask Ratkiss.

“The base salary is lower, but if you hit the performance targets, you get the same total comp. I could probably negotiate a no-trade if you want. They need a veteran lefty in the pen. Apparently, they’ve got a kid in triple-A they want to bring up, but he needs a mentor. This is what I’m told.”

Bottom line, Dad was right: it is easy money.

“Sure,” I tell my agent. “Tell them sure.”

Tonight, after dinner at my apartment, as Bethany and I are sinking into our Scotch, she tells me we need to talk.

“It’s about the Bay Dogs,” she says.

“My once and future lords,” I slur. “You know, when I heard they wanted to sign me, I was kind of disappointed. I had more or less decided to retire. I even called Ginny to get her opinion.”

“We bought the team.”

It takes a minute to register. “Who is
we
? Your fund?”

“Yep, we took a controlling interest in the ownership group. I know this must be a surprise, and I apologize for not telling you right away. I have been meaning to, but things have been crazy at work.…”

“You can’t just buy a major-league baseball franchise!” Suddenly I am sober and surprised at the strength of my conviction. “The league has to review the bids first, and then the commissioner weighs in. It can take months!”

Bethany nods. “The great thing about these ownership groups is that when shares are redistributed among existing members of the group, the commissioner’s office doesn’t need to get involved. It’s all in the family, so to speak.”

“But you’re not a member of the family.”

“That’s what I have been meaning to tell you. Years ago, the
fund bought a small piece of the Bay Dogs partnership, less than one percent. We did a real-estate deal with one of the other investors, and he convinced us to get in. Just a tiny share, as a favor.”

“When was this?”

“A long time ago. Before we met.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“We have hundreds of holdings, Johnny. I couldn’t possibly explain them all to you.”

“How many baseball teams?”

“You are only allowed to own one.”

We sit there a minute. Bethany eyes the tumbler of whiskey sweating on the coffee table, but does not pick it up. Then I say, because it just occurred to me, “The Eberhardts sold out?”