Fifty Grand (23 page)

“Wait a fucking minute. I’m meeting your d—”

Esteban lowered the rifle and pointed it at my chest. “I suggest you take it easy. They’ll be along presently. I’ll be covering you from the trees.”

He backed away into the forest.

Thoughts racing. What would he do if I got out and ran for it? Shoot me? No. But why not? For all his fine talk about Greater Mexico, what was I to him? Another wetback expendable, a
chiquita
at that.

As he disappeared under the branches of a big pine I shouted after him:
“No wonder everyone’s fucking off to L.A. if this is how you treat your workers!”

He didn’t reply and in another two seconds I couldn’t see him anymore.

I sat there.

Ten minutes. Twenty minutes. Thirty.

The men came.

Not men at all—kids. Blond-haired Canadians in big coats. Bags under their eyes made them look as if they’d hit their early twenties but the driver’s licenses probably told a different story.

Their blue Dodge Ram stopped next to the Range Rover.

I got out. They got out. They’d driven all night and had the smell of exhaustion and fear people got in the MININT building on Plaza de la Revolución.

I gave them the money and they gave me a large clear bag filled with white powder and an even bigger bag of marijuana.

“What’s the white stuff?” I asked.

“Ice Nine from Japan, via Hawaii,” one of them said.

They were excited. They were surprised to be dealing with a woman and they wanted to talk about the drive down, the money, everything. But I had an uncomfortable feeling pricking at the back of my neck. I was concerned for them. In his angry, humiliated mood, I wouldn’t put it past Esteban to assassinate both of them and keep the cash and the drugs. Kill all three of us, take that phony bandage off his hand, drive back, laughing all the way.

“. . . and Dale’s shitting it, like totally shitting it, man, and I’m saying it’s not the Mounties, it’s a fucking fire marshal—” one of them was saying until I cut him off.

“Beat it.”

“What?”

“If you know what’s good for you. My boss is in the trees with a rifle. I don’t trust him. Get out of here. Scram.”

They scrammed.

Five minutes later Esteban returned. He slid back the bolt on his rifle and took the round out of the chamber. Live ammo. He’d been ready to shoot.

“You did well, María.”

“Thanks.”

Silence on the drive back. At the outskirts of Fairview, Esteban took the
wheel and drove without any seeming discomfort. He dropped me at the bottom of the hill on Malibu Mountain.

“What now?” I asked him.

“What do you think? Your regular route.”

“No bonus, no day off for my help, no tip?”

“I’ve got a tip for you—shut up and do your job.”

“I don’t have a uniform.”

“Forget that. Just go—and you better step on it, you’re an hour late. Oh, and tie the garbage bags properly at the top of the trash can, we’ve had complaints,” he said, passing me a key ring with the alarm codes and house numbers taped to individual keys.

“Tie the garbage bags,” I muttered.

“What did you say?”

“I said you really are a bastard, Esteban. Worse than that sheriff. You’re screwing your own people,” I said.

He made a fist. “You watch your mouth, María. You want to be back in Mexico? That’s an easy one. That’s one phone call. You’ve been given a great opportunity here, don’t blow it.”

I nodded, lowered my eyes.

“Look at me,” he said.

Our eyes met. He yawned and his voice assumed a more conciliatory tone. “Look, you did well this morning. There’s something about you. You got an air of responsibility. I like it. Tell you what, when I go to Denver with Rodrigo to unload the ice, you can borrow the car. Drive to work, drive to Safeway, do a couple of errands for me.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

I stood there.

“What are you waiting for? Quit your gaping and get up there, we don’t want any more complaints.”

“Ok.”

He wound the window and started to drive off but the Range Rover suddenly squealed to a halt.

“No. María, wait a minute. Wait there,” Esteban said.

I stood in the ditch while Esteban fiddled with something in the front seat. A stretch limo drove past, heading up the hill toward the Cruise estate. I tried to look inside but the glass was frosted black like Jefe’s car.

“Come here, María,” Esteban said.

“I’m here.”

He handed me three small Ziploc bags filled with the Ice 9 from Japan.

“What the fuck is this?” I asked.

Esteban rubbed his hand over his beard. “This is nothing. This couldn’t be more straightforward. Number 22, number 24, number 30 on the Old Boulder Road. That’s Rick Hanson, Yuri Amatov, and Paul Youkilis. Got it?”

“What’s in the bag?”

“It’s meth from Asia. Look, don’t worry, you’ll get cut in. Couple of days when I’m liquid. That’s why I have to go to Denver.”

He stared at me for a second and I took the baggies and put them in my coat pocket.

“Where do you want me to put it?” I asked.

“Listen to me. This is important. After you’ve cleaned each residence and as you’re leaving, place each bag in the downstairs medicine cabinet.”

“What’s that?”

“The little cupboard thing behind the mirror. They all have one. Don’t refer to the ice and don’t talk about it if you’re asked, just leave the baggie and go.”

“Hanson doesn’t have a downstairs bathroom.”

Esteban spat. “Use your fucking head then! The upstairs cabinet. If they have any problems they’ll contact me,” he said. “Now, no more of your bullshit and get to fucking work.”

He drove off in a squeal of rear tires and burned tread. I watched the car go, wondering how fast he drove up and down this road and if he’d even know the difference between a deer and a man in the dark.

The air was frigid as I walked up the hill to the first of the houses.

I found the key and the alarm. The instructions were idiotproof. Bell or buzzer first and then key if they’re not home or asleep. Thirty seconds to disable the alarm and arm it again as you’re leaving.

I pressed the bell. “Who is it?” Mr. Hanson asked through an intercom.

“Maid service.”

“You fuckers,” Mr. Hanson said.

A buzzing sound and the door opened but I didn’t go in. Not yet. I was emotional. Angry. Tired.

I took a moment to have a dialogue with myself. It’s ok, Detective, it’s all part of the process, don’t worry about it. This day is important. You found
the place. The place you’ve dreamed about. So forget the anger, forget the drugs, forget the Canadian boys, forget the money, remember the lake.

Remember the lake
.

Hanson was drunk. He was sixty, trim, handsome, tall, an avid skier. Angela said that he played doctors or lawyers in commercials or occasionally the father of a female lead in television dramas, but not sitcoms as his personality wasn’t large enough for that. He probably thought that being inebriated at nine in the morning was charming, but it wasn’t. I emptied his trash cans, swept his hardwood floor, cleaned his toilet, ran the dishwasher, and wiped the surfaces. He was still in bed and flipping through the channels when I appeared with the vacuum cleaner.

There was a french press filled with cold yellow urine next to the bed when I came in. He pointed at it. I emptied it in the en suite bathroom.

“Giuh hanbac for a hajaa,” he said repeatedly.

It was only when I was leaving that I realized he was saying, “I’ll give you a hundred bucks for a hand job.”

Meth and booze are a killer combination as consistent as cocaine and heroin, so defying Esteban, I put the Ice 9 behind two shampoo bottles on the top shelf of the bathroom cabinet—hopefully he’d need to be reasonably sober to find it.

I closed the front door and walked up the hill to the next residence, an easy one, that of an actor called Bobby Munson who was in L.A. and apparently not coming to Fairview at all this winter. There I did some light dusting and flushed the toilets.

The next house, a weekend retreat for a rich Denver family, was also empty. They had a Dyson vacuum cleaner and it was almost a joy to run that thing around. I dusted, emptied trash, made beds, ate fruit from their fridge. Oranges, grapes, and a kiwi that I lovingly cut, peeled, and diced into quarters. They seemed just the type to have a hidden camera that spied on the help, but fruit was my American obsession and what difference did petty larceny make when I was planning a kidnapping and worse.

Yuri Amatov was a production designer—whatever that is—a skinny, bald man about forty. When I rang the doorbell, he took my arm and led me inside.

“Where is it?” he asked.

“Excuse me,
señor
?”

“Where the fuck is it?” he screamed.

I reached into my messenger bag and brought out the cellophane-wrapped meth. He snatched it from me. “Now fuck off,” he said.

“The cleaning,
señor
?”

“What part of ‘fuck off’ don’t you understand?”

Another walk. The gradient increased as you went farther up the hill; seemingly the climate zone changed too. The wind was blowing from the north, the temperature had fallen considerably, and the sky was filled with ominous gray clouds.

“Looks like snow,” I said to myself with no excitement whatsoever.

These thoughts left my mind at Youkilis’s house.

Gravel drive. Carved wooden door. Bell. Paul Youkilis came to the door in a sweatshirt, sweatpants, flip-flops.

“You’re late,” he said, looming over me.

“I’m sorry, we—”

Youkilis raised a hand. “I don’t want the details, just get this shit cleaned up. It’s driving me crazy.”

“Sí, señor,”
I said.

He smiled and added, “Christ, I sound like such a fucking feudalist. Get this shit cleaned up,
please
. I can’t work in these conditions.”

“Sí, señor.”

The conditions were Chinese food cartons, newspapers, a couple of beer cans, and what looked like dog excrement in the kitchen.

Youkilis’s house was smaller than Jack’s. A few downstairs rooms painted in bright primary colors and adorned with Mediterranean pottery. The windows looked out on forest and there was no mountain view. I couldn’t tell if this was all he could afford or whether he had just taken it to be next to Jack. Presumably he got 10 percent of Jack’s salary, but how much did Jack make? How much did a second-string actor get in Hollywood? I should probably find out.

Youkilis went upstairs. I’d been cleaning for about fifteen minutes when I became aware that Jack was upstairs with him.

As I was changing the vacuum bag both men came down.

Evidently they had been in the middle of a heated discussion, but now neither was saying anything. Jack was wearing jeans and a blue shirt
unbuttoned to the navel. His hair was product-free and he looked tired, frazzled.

Something was going on.

“Plato thought everything had a true self, an ideal form, from which all things deviated,” Youkilis said.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Jack snapped.

“Everything has to be perfect. For a movie to happen, all the stars have to align, there are so many things that can fuck up: the money, the director, the cast. Every single little thing has to be perfect.”

Jack’s face was red. “So what are you saying? I’m trying to read between the goddamn lines here. Have I lost the movie again? Are you fucking kidding me?”

Paul smiled. “Relax, buddy, you haven’t lost anything. Focus still wants to do it. This is just a hiccup. A rag in the gears, not a sabot.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, man! Can you speak English for once!” Jack yelled.

“Look, relax, I’ll talk to CAA and get the story. As I understand it, the movie’s been delayed but not postponed and not canceled. I’ll get the information. Now just fucking relax. The script is finished. We have a completed script. Can you imagine how many people are really screwed because of the writers’ strike?”