Done for a Dime (37 page)

It wasn’t a girl he was after—at least, not one he’d pay for. He headed for the edge of the district, near the
colonias
where the poorest working families lived. At the end of a dusty thoroughfare, lined with bus stops for transport of the female workers to the
maquilas
on the Otay Mesa, he parked outside a cantina called
El Gallo
. The Rooster.

Monday morning, five o’clock, it was already open for breakfast. Some of the girls ventured in to grab a quick taco or
pan dulce
before their buses arrived to carry them to their shifts. Ferry liked the factory girls. Even the shy ones flirted.

He ordered
horchata
—a sweet rice drink spiced with cinnamon—to soothe the acid in his stomach from the Dexedrine. He drank it slow at the counter, every now and then sneaking a glance at the girls, relishing the sight of so many plump butts packed tight into faded jeans.

Finishing his
horchata,
he stepped outside and scanned the dark trashy street. In days past dozens and dozens of women would have been out here, too, waiting at the bus stops, ready for work. A number of factories had closed in the past year, the companies moving their assembly work to Malaysia, where the labor glut was even more desperate.

He collected his laptop from the trunk of the car, then headed into the Zona Norte. After walking several blocks, he turned into an alley of hard-packed dirt and stepped inside an unmarked cinder block storefront. A bald, gap-toothed
cholo,
wearing a loose white
guayabera
to disguise his fat, sat in a torn leather swivel chair behind the counter, leaning into a cone of lamplight to read his comic book.

There were shelves behind him, scattered with cloned cell phones. Ferry was already equipped in that department; for him, the item of interest was simply a door. He withdrew a twenty from his pocket. The
cholo
collected the bill in a large, soft hand and gestured with a tug of his head that Ferry could pass through to the back.

Beyond the door sat four men wearing
cremas de seda,
their backs to one another as they hunched over laptops linked to phone jacks along the walls. A single bulb in a ceiling socket dimly lit the room, which stank of sweat and cat piss. Ferry chose an open jack, plugged in his laptop, fired up the PGP encryption program, and logged on.

First, he checked E-mail. Marisela had written. It hadn’t been easy, Ovidio had been obliged to call in some very old favors and offer in return a few of his own, but yes, a boat would be waiting—Bahía de San Quintín, four hours farther south. He was to meet a man named Rafael at the Old Mill launch ramp. He’d wait till two. His fishing boat was named
La Chica de Buenas.
Lucky Girl.

Next, he checked his account with Pennington International Trust, Ltd., a dodge shelter located in the Cook Islands. He got his cash through ATM transactions drawn off the account, which was held in the name of an offshore asset protection trust. The trust had a flight provision, requiring the bank as trustee to move his assets to another offshore jurisdiction if any threat to the trust or its corpus should materialize, and no such threat could arise without ample notice through a local court action. He closed out accounts after every job, so any inquiry into past acts was doomed to come up empty. Another benefit of working narcotics for so many years—you learned a lot about hiding money.

No new deposits appeared. Bratcher hadn’t come through.

Ferry logged off, left the storefront, and walked back to his car. Heading south on the toll road, he passed the new liquid natural gas plants serving the American Southwest, built here to avoid EPA guidelines. Farther south, industry gave way to the beaches at Rosarito, the golf courses at Bajamar. This part of the peninsula resembled what Orange and San Diego counties had looked like twenty years ago, gated housing tracts cropping up everywhere to accommodate the latest wave of bourgeois flight.

Eight miles south of Bajamar, he pulled off the tollway onto a dirt road leading west to Playa Saldamando. The road descended steeply to the beach, which tall bluffs protected from wind. Kayakers camped on the sand, the predawn sea glassy and calm.

He rummaged through his duffel, pulled out one of the Rohde & Schwartz digital phones he had, the encrypted ones designed for European executives paranoid about American surveillance. He dialed Bratcher, routing the call through a reorigination service that would complicate even further any attempt to triangulate his location. Bratcher picked up on the third ring, a good sign.

“This who I think it is?” Drowsy, he slurred his words, his voice almost a growl.

“North Bay Services, sir. Sorry to catch you so early, but you told me to call this line if I had any urgent concerns. I’m looking at a rush invoice here, remains outstanding. I was hoping we could close this.”

Without a specific number or identification code to target, it was highly unlikely law enforcement would have a way to focus in on his cell, and the encryption would make it difficult to snag and decode the signal for all but the most sophisticated eavesdroppers. Not much chance of that, this soon after the fires. The order-and-invoice jargon was more to put Bratcher to the test.

“I’m not showing full delivery on that order.” Bratcher had picked up the cue, albeit with a little menace in his voice. The fact he played along, didn’t just jump in discussing the fire, it was a good sign. “And I didn’t order the rush.”

“Code’s been entered here, it’s off our inventory. I think there might be some confusion concerning the back-end service portion of the contract. That what you mean?”

First half buys performance, Ferry thought. Second buys loyalty. Remember?

“Just because it’s off your shelf doesn’t mean we’re satisfied with the product.”

Ferry had caught news reports on the car radio during the trip south. You couldn’t trust the media, of course, but from what he’d heard the fires had done enough damage to qualify as a job well done.

“Could you clarify what you mean?”

“Supposed to be weatherproof, for one thing.”

The rain, Ferry thought. He’d heard about that, too. “What portion of the shipment we talking about?”

“Third at least. Maybe half. I made it clear, nothing but full delivery and complete satisfaction.”

“I think we should turn our attention to the service part of the contract. No support services will be forthcoming until payment is made in full. I think if you review the contract—”

“Contract specified full performance. I’m sick of saying that. Besides—”

“I’m gonna have to be firm here. I expect to see the balance paid by noon. And I think your definition and mine concerning full performance? Let’s just say we’ll have to agree to disagree.”

“No. No, you listen.” The menace switched to anger. “You pushed this, not me. Truth is, your guy, one of your employees, he fucked up. That problem you mentioned—he wasn’t just hanging around, he was involved. You needed to act fast to cover your own ass. You think I don’t know this? You’ve been paid all you’re gonna get paid. You’re damn lucky to have that.”

Somehow, Bratcher had already tapped into the full story on Manny’s involvement in the Carlisle killing. They wouldn’t be broadcasting that through the media yet. That meant juice, no more doubt about it. Feds most likely.

Get off the phone, he told himself.

“I’m gonna give you a chance to reconsider. It won’t get cheaper, in the long run, doing it this way.”

Bratcher laughed and broke the connection. Ferry stared at the cell phone for a moment, puzzled, then enraged. He considered slamming it against the dash but thought better of it. Instead, leaving it on, so they could continue tracking the ping if Bratcher tipped them off to the call, he dropped it outside the car into the sand. Maybe one of the kayakers will pick it up, he thought, take it out into the Pacific with him. That’d make for an interesting hunt.

He cranked the ignition, put the Caprice in gear, and headed back out toward the toll road.

Toby and Nadya spent the night on the floor with Miss Carvela in the basement of Mission Baptist. They’d slept there, shoeless but in their clothes, lying on thin foam mats, polyester blankets for warmth, like dozens of others from Baymont and St. Martin’s Hill.

Dan had left them in the hands of the Red Cross, then walked off to his sister’s office to let her know everyone had survived. There was no point in trying to phone; if one worked it had twenty people queued up to use it.

He offered to come back with another car to take them to Tina’s home, where they could wash, sleep in a bed or at least on a couch, have something decent to eat. Miss Carvela declined, and Toby refused to leave her alone. She needed to be here, she said, where her neighbors and friends, their children and grandchildren, would be. She needed to know who was safe, who needed her prayers. And Francis, he might show up at the shelter, there was that chance.

During the night, dozing off from exhaustion, she’d finally loosened her hold on the tin box and picture she’d insisted on saving from the fire. Toby, who’d slept not at all, reached over at one point and ventured a peek. As he’d thought, the box held letters—penned by someone named Reginald, his words filled with a clumsy boyish tenderness. Toby read no more than a few lines, felt ashamed, then refolded the old brittle paper and returned it to its box.

The picture was a sepia-tinted black-and-white photograph of a young Carvela Grimes. Slender and small, but with that same proud sadness in her eyes even then, she stood at an auditorium lectern beside a double-chinned matron, both women wearing orchids and sashes and floor-length gowns. Beneath the photograph, a yellowed scrap of newsprint read:
“Mrs. Augusta Jones presents Carvela Grimes with the Worthy Miss Sash for Fidelus Chapter No. 9, Order of Eastern Star-Prince Hall Rite of Adoption, Firma Lodge Hall.”

And those were her most perfected memories, he guessed. The love of a young sailor long dead and the recognition that once, years ago, in the aftermath of that sacrifice, she’d been deemed worthy.

Nadya slept fitfully, her fists tucked under her chin. Toby pulled the blanket up above her shoulder, tucked it tighter around her legs. He’d spent the past two months caring for his father. He’d lacked any idea how important the role had become to him, but he felt it now, grateful to have these two women, one old, one young, Black, white, to look after. He anticipated with dread the day they’d no longer need him that way. There’d be his own business to sit with then.

He felt changed. Like he’d turned a corner, but his shadow had continued on in the same old direction. He had no idea what that meant, what he’d do about it. It frightened him, that not knowing. In particular, he cringed at the thought of actually being there when Nadya woke up, opened her eyes. Feared being the first thing she saw. Feared being seen for who he really was.

The detective conducting the shooting review—a Kentucky transplant named Jimmy Johndroe, not a bad guy—wore jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. Like Murchison, he’d already been up on the hill aiding evacuation and only sat here because Stluka was dead.

Johndroe worked IA for the Rio Mirada force. They wouldn’t bring in an outsider, not for something as clean as this. He’d started by offering his condolences, then thanking Murchison for sitting down so soon, while the memory was fresh. Murchison ran down what had happened and Johndroe taped it.

The issue of charging uphill without vests came up. Murchison blamed lack of foresight, lack of time. A crisis dictates action, detectives don’t wear vests, there you had it. Secretly, Murchison thought, I hate this, every single bit of it. Hate myself.

After a few follow-up questions, Johndroe recited their names, badge numbers, and the time and date, then turned the machine off. As though it was just the next item on his checklist, he said, “There’s counseling available, Murch. If you want, I can—”

“Maybe in a couple days,” Murchison lied. Counselors were thought of as spies for the brass. And he didn’t need reminding of his limitations as a talker. “We’re undermanned on the hill. Still a lot to get done.”

Johndroe nodded. “No lie to that.” He shivered a little. “Be honest with you? Nothing perks up my pucker factor like fire.”

“Yeah.”

Inwardly, Murchison thought: Fire’s the easy part. He no longer had to guess at what the Lazarenko girl had gone through. Like her, he’d been bloody when the EMTs reached him. And like her, he’d been unable to make it matter. Stluka died right there as Murchison blew worthless air into his lungs. It had taken forty minutes for help to arrive. They’d had to fight through the crowd and smoke and chaos, find their way through all that to the house. The whole time, the gaunt, feebleminded old woman just stood there, like he and Stluka were invisible, toeing the edge of the porch as she tried to catch rain on her tongue.

“Reminds me of that booby-trapped tank truck full of jet fuel they found headed for Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan,” Johndroe said, shaking his head. “Gives you the willies seeing that kinda thing so close to home.”

Not close, Murchison thought. Home.

“Been catching the radio broadcasts? Worst fire since the Oakland Hills firestorm, they say, and a lot of the same problems. But Stluka’s the only man we lost. I mean, not like that’s some small—”

“It’s okay, Johndroe.” Murchison worked up a smile. “Don’t. Really.”

Johndroe squirmed a few more apologies into his chair, then went on. “Fire companies lost four so far, got maybe five more in critical. Bunch of minor stuff, them and us both.”

“How many people from the hill?”

“Still counting. Sixteen dead we know about. About two, three dozen in ER for burns, a lot of them critical. One seven-year-old boy, he’s touch and go. Father carried him in a blanket all the way down into the command center, screamed out, ‘Somebody, please, help my son!’ Chief looked at him like he’d pulled a knife. But they got the kid to ER quick enough to save his life, for now any rate. Won’t know the whole story, on him or the hill, for days.”

The rain had slowed but not stopped the fires. Given the mismatch in hydrant couplings, the nearby fire companies had been forced to stand down, providing manpower for support while their trucks stood helplessly idle, their pumper engines all but useless beyond five minutes. Helicopters had been called in, filling their monsoon buckets in the river, then flying over the smoldering houses. HAZMAT crews had made it to the top of the hill and were laying foam into the sewers to sit on the gas fumes. Meanwhile, clear through dawn, officers trudged door to door—some from in town, the whole force on mandatory overtime, others called in by the Office of Emergency Services from as far away as Santa Rosa and Oakland—trying to root out the hideaways, the stay-behinds, the ill and crippled not yet accounted for.