“Okay.”
“Is it true? You punched the tickets on some of Marco’s hitters? I’m impressed.”
“I assume Eric told you to find me. Why?”
“He asked me to try to keep you from turning El Paso into a free-fire zone until he has the chance to talk to you.”
“Marco’s people took a woman hostage that Eric asked me to protect. These people’s idea of fun is using wood chippers and blow torches on anyone who irritates them. If Marco won’t give her back to me, I’m going to war. Period. Whatever you or Eric says, I’m going to put Marco in the ground.”
“That’s bold talk for someone with a hundred year old shotgun held together with duct tape. How do you propose to take him down?”
“I just rolled out of bed. Wait until I get some momentum going.”
She laughed. “Well, count me in. This sounds way more fun than serving eviction notices. Or following husbands to see if they have girlfriends.”
“So,” I said. “I just got here. How did you find me?”
“You told Eric you were on your way here. He thought you’d be driving that huge Ford parked outside and sent me a picture of it. There are only a few dozen hotels to check. Here I am.”
“All right.”
“You’ve become a pretty suspicious person. I’m surprised you don’t trust me after what we’ve been through together.”
“Somehow the cartel knew that Eric put Bonnie on a plane to Oregon, and they managed to find us at the airport and in three different places on the coast. I’m still wondering if Eric had something to do with that.”
“No way. I guarantee it.”
“You’re that sure, huh? What’s the alternative?”
“You said they knew she was on the plane?”
“There was someone waiting at the Portland airport when I got there to pick her up.”
“Maybe they knew she was going to split, and they put a tracker on her that she brought it with her onto the plane. Did you go through all her stuff?”
“She had a coat and a suitcase. I didn’t see anything in the suitcase.”
“Did you go through everything she brought with her? Check the lining of her coat; really look closely to see if the suitcase had something in it? Did she leave her phone turned on?”
“I know that the phone was turned off. I never checked her coat. I still have the suitcase, though. They left it behind at the safe house when they kidnapped her.”
“That’s convenient. Let’s look at it.”
I went out to the Ford and retrieved Bonnie’s suitcase from the trunk. I brought it inside and put it on the bed. Sandy popped it open and started taking Bonnie’s things out of it. She went through each of the items closely, running her fingers along the clothing seams and looking for anything that could send an electronic signal. The purse. The jeans. The underwear. The brassiere. Finally, the suitcase was empty. She got hold of the fabric lining on the inside of the suitcase and pulled it free. Under the padding where the handle attached to the suitcase, there was a packet about the size of a cigarette lighter attached to the shell of the case with double-sided tape. She pulled the packet free and scrutinized it.
“Looks like a portable GPS tracker to me.” She pointed at the indicators on the side of the grey and white unit. “Battery’s dead. When it’s charged, it’s like a cell phone, really, but it just reports speed and location. Unless there’s no cell service available to get the signal, or it’s inside a metal box, this thing can probably report where you are with pretty high accuracy. The person who installed it could follow you on a map on his cell phone, if he wants. You can buy a setup like this on Amazon for a few hundred bucks to track your kids or dog or where witnesses go to hide before they testify against you, in this case. Makes it pretty convenient to know when someone’s vulnerable, if you want to hurt them when there’s no one around to watch.”
I thought about how Marco’s people had been able to find me and Bonnie in some places but not others. I doubted that there was cell service at Eric’s cabin because it was tucked into the side of a hill that fronted onto the Pacific Ocean. In Lincoln City and at the safe house on the beach it seemed more likely that cell service was available. “Is there any way to know how long the battery would last?”
She shook her head. “Depends on how often it’s reporting your location. A week? Two weeks maybe.”
“Shit.”
“You know, there is a positive side to this.”
“Really? What?”
“We could charge the battery and it would start sending again, if we wanted to create a diversion. Make them think you were somewhere else with the suitcase.”
“Wouldn’t they be suspicious that it started sending again?”
She shrugged. “I doubt it. They’d probably think that the suitcase had been in the trunk of a car, or was in a cell phone dead spot. Most of the bad guys I’ve dealt with aren’t geniuses. They take the easy way out every chance they get. They’d be glad to know where you and the suitcase are again. Makes their lives easier, right?”
“That’s true.”
“It’s still going to be hard to get her back. You realize that. Marco’s got a crew. You got me. Maybe Eric when he gets back.”
“The most dangerous creation of any society is the person who has nothing to lose.”
Sandy gave a short laugh. “Eric said you’d turned into a vigilante philosopher, and I agree with you about dropping the hammer on these guys, but I’d prefer to come out of this with my ass still attached to me. A frontal assault on an army is usually a bad idea.”
“I’d like to come out of this alive, too, but I can’t leave Bonnie where she is.”
“Let’s take an inventory of what you’ve got. You’ve got a GPS tracker with a dead battery. An old hot rod and a shotgun held together with duct tape. Anything else?”
“I’ve got half the cash I took from Bullard’s safe, a cell phone with Marco’s phone number on it, and a message trail between him and one of his hitters when Marco told him to kill us both.”
Sandy let out a long breath. “Okay.” She ran her fingers through her short hair, thinking about it. “Maybe we have something to bargain with. Of course, if you turned the cell phone over to the district attorney he’s going to want to know what happened to the guy Marco told to kill you. Did you tell Marco you snuffed his guy?”
“Not directly. Bonnie was there when it happened, though.”
“Okay. The messages implicate Marco in conspiracy to commit murder. That might be worth quite a bit to him.”
“Try to trade Bonnie for the phone?”
“It’s worth a shot. Of course, Marco’s still going to kill you the first chance he gets.”
Chapter 38
“We have the beginning of a plan,” Sandy said. “However, your shotgun is as dangerous to you as it is to whatever it’s pointed at. We should fix that problem before we do anything else. Don’t you think?”
“I agree.”
“I’ll be back in an hour,” Sandy said. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“I won’t.”
While she was gone I took a long shower, and then sat on the edge of the tub in the steam of the bathroom for a few minutes, feeling the aches and pains in my muscles dissipate. After a while I went out into the bedroom and lay on the bed in my towel. Exhaustion from what happened on the Oregon coast and from the long drive took me back to the edge of sleep.
I heard a pounding at the door and went to see who was there. Sandy was back with a big rucksack over one shoulder. She gave me a smile through the peephole. “It’s me, you idiot,” she said with a heavy British accent.
I let her in and she looked me over. “Wow. You’re pretty ripped. You could be on the cover of a tawdry women’s novel. Not that I read that kind of thing … very often.”
“Six months of physical therapy will do that to you.”
“Six years of weightlifting is my recipe. Want to have a push-up contest?”
&nb
sp; “Is it okay if I put some pants on first?”
“If you’re worried the towel will fall off and I’ll faint, I understand.”
I went into the still-damp bathroom and dressed.
When I came out, she’d laid out a pair of short pump shotguns on the bed with straps for extra shells pre-loaded into elastic loops, a pair of automatic pistols in shoulder holsters, and what looked like a small rubber brick.
I picked up the brick. “What’s this?” I asked.
“It’s an external battery that we can use to recharge the GPS tracker from your girlfriend’s suitcase. Don’t plug it in until we’re ready for Marco’s people to come running.”
“Okay. One question.”
“Shoot.”
“Why are you helping me with all of this? This isn’t your fight.”
“Well, ultimately Marco is the person who cost me my career using Bullard as his proxy. He destroys the lives of innocent people. From the picture you showed me of her driver’s license, your lady friend seems like a sweet person who doesn’t deserve what’s happening to her. And you’re a square-up guy who has the balls to stand up to these people. That’s enough reason for me to make it my fight, too.”
“Thanks.”
“And you look extremely hot when you just wear a towel. Now can we have the push up contest?”
“I can do about a hundred.”
“Won’t be much of a challenge then. I can do more.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“Are you involved with the woman we’re going to try to rescue?”
I nodded.
“Is it serious?”
“I thought it was.”
“All right then. Let’s rock this thing. Platonically, I mean.”
Chapter 39
It was noon when we left the hotel. Sandy was driving a new white Camaro SS with a pair of orange stripes running down the center of the hood. “We’ll take my car and do some recon,” she said.
“Seriously?” I asked. “Your car isn’t built for stealth.”
“These things are as common as tumbleweeds around here. Your car, while kind of a cool antique, sticks out like a sore thumb. I want to be ignored, not noticed.”
“Fair enough.”
We put the guns in the back seat, Sandy started the car, and we pulled out of the hotel and onto Mesa Street.
“Where are we going?” I asked. “Do you know where Marco lives?”
“Eric gave me a list of the properties and businesses Eric owns, including an address by the country club and a hangar at the airport. First we’re going to a drive-through to get food that’ll stick to our ribs. We got some work to do.”
After loading up on hamburgers, onion rings, and giant cups of soda, we headed north. Sandy looked at the printout of Marco’s properties and then asked me to put the printout in the glove box.
Mesa turned into Highway 20. There were exit signs for Resler Drive and Interstate 10 North. The road was three lanes wide in both directions and perfectly flat. Sandy stopped when the stop lights were red, and stomped on the gas pedal when the lights turned green. The road was marked for 45 M.P.H., but Sandy was driving at 70 between the intersections.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“There’s a city park across the street from Marco’s country club home. I don’t know if he actually lives there, but Eric didn’t even know if Marco was in El Paso. He has several warehouses and a number of businesses that look legit from the street, so it isn’t like we can just ring one doorbell and then beat it out of Marco about where the girl is. He might be keeping her across the border in Mexico, too. That could complicate things big-time.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Don’t go all punk on me. We’re just getting this party started. We’ve got goodness and righteousness on our side. Think positive thoughts. Okay?”
“Sure.”
“That’s more like it.” By then Highway 20 had turned into Country Club road. We took a left on Vista Grande and drove through a neighborhood of tidy, modest houses.
“I don’t know what I expected,” I said. “I thought Marco would live in a mansion, or a castle with a moat or something dramatic. This looks pretty tame.”
Sandy laughed out loud, a deep, rich guffaw.
“Hold on, now,” she said. “We aren’t there yet.”
We took a right onto Lombardy Avenue, and the housing went upscale. One acre yards with big trees providing shade. Houses set back from the street with circular drives in front. Lots of natural rock on the facades of the homes.
“What do you suppose these houses go for?” I asked.
“Maybe half a mil,” Sandy said.
Then we turned onto Olmos drive, and the housing went upscale again. Olmos dead-ended at a city park across from the Country Club. The houses in the neighborhood were set back away from the street behind a hundred yards of manicured trees and lawn. Tall wrought iron fences with electronic gates provided additional security.
“Still disappointed in the crime lord’s estate?” Sandy asked.
“Jesus,” I said.
Sandy pulled into the parking lot for the city park. There was a home the size of a hotel facing onto a park where working-class people from adjacent neighborhoods pushed children in strollers along paved paths, and children played soccer while parents looked on. Sandy slowed the car to a stop and then pointed at the enormous house across the street. With acres of pink granite and curved arches for the doorways and windows, the home looked like an import from the Italian Riviera.
“That’s his,” she said. “That’s Marco’s.”
An old Hispanic man in a white sleeveless t-shirt and a straw cowboy hat was hand-washing a new four-door Maserati in the driveway of Marco’s 20,000 square foot mansion. Sandy backed the Camaro into a parking place in the shade of a huge sycamore tree so our windshield was facing Marco’s residence. “This Marco seems like an asshole. After all we’ve been through together as a country, he doesn’t build an American house, and he doesn’t buy American cars. I’m not kidding. That puts frost on my ass.”
“The Maserati has a Chevy engine in it,” I said. “Doesn’t that count for anything?”
Sandy growled. I finished my burger, onion rings, and drink. The lethargy induced by the overload of sugar, fat, and salt was so intense it was like a narcotic. I tipped my head back against the headrest and closed my eyes.
I don’t know how long I was asleep. When I woke, Sandy was gone. I panicked briefly when I saw the empty driver’s seat, then looked through the window and realized she was walking over towards Marco’s mansion.
I got out of the car to try to stop her, but by then she’d reached the driveway of the mansion. The old man who’d been washing the car was gone. The Maserati gleamed in the driveway, a perfect blend of black, bright chrome, and tinted glass. From where I stood, the car looked like a panther about to strike. As she reached the Maserati, Sandy looked back over towards me and gave me a huge smile.
“No,” I said. I shook my head side to side.
She slowly nodded her head up and down to indicate “Yes.” Then she picked up a rock about the size of a Thanksgiving turkey from one of the decorative plantings near the driveway and carried it over to the Maserati. She held it out at arm’s length over the roof of the car and dropped it. She gave me a satisfied smile and then held both arms over her head in the universal sign of victory. Then she walked back over to the Camaro with an exaggerated swagger in her stride. She was throwing her hips from side to side like an amateur lingerie model.
As she passed me on the way to the car she said “That felt so damned good.”
I was fuming when I got back into the Camaro.
“Why the hell did you do that? Now he knows that we’re here.”
“I hope so. That was the whole idea.”
“I thought today was about surveillance. Figuring out where he is.”
“I don’t think there’s time for spending several days on
stakeout. He needs to know that we’re here, and we’re unpredictable, and we’re going to fuck with his toys. That should get him off balance enough that we have a chance.”
“You actually just did that because you wanted to, really. If it had been a Corvette in his driveway you would have left it alone.”
“American iron is sacred, it’s true. I might have just left a note on his windshield wiper threatening to chainsaw his balls.”
It was quiet in the car for a minute.