“It looks like a dinosaur took a dump on his fancy-pants car, doesn’t it?” Sandy said.
I laughed. “Yeah. It does.”
Twenty minutes later, the old man returned to the Maserati. This time he was dressed in a shiny silver silk suit with a pressed white shirt. No tie.
He walked to the Maserati and gaped at the rock, then hurried back into the house.
He came back with four other men, all younger. Two were Hispanic, two were white, and all had the look of being ready to fight. They were dressed casually, and one was barefoot. One carried a pool cue; another had his shirt off showing knotted abdominal muscles under the skin. The men made a big show of looking around for whoever had done the dirty deed, walking around with their fists clenched. We were parked deep in the shade a hundred yards away, just one more car in the parking lot. One of the men pulled up his t-shirt to reveal an automatic pistol in his waistband, and then headed around to the back of the mansion along the grass. After about ten minutes, they’d all gone back inside.
Five minutes later another car showed up, this time in a gold Ferrari coupe.
“I don’t think that’s American, either,” Sandy said.
“Nope. It’s a Ferrari California. It’s got an American name, though.”
A tall man with refined, angular features, an oversized torso and bronzed skin stepped out of the Ferrari. He strode over to the Maserati, lifted the rock from the roof, and tossed it towards where Sandy had picked it up. He must have been strong. He made it look as if the rock was weightless.
“Dude is a specimen, isn’t he?” Sandy said.
“Maybe you can challenge him to a push-up contest after we get Bonnie back, if he’s still alive.”
Marco scanned the surroundings and got back in his car.
Sandy started the engine in the Camaro. “Let’s see where he goes, shall we?” she said.
The engine in the Ferrari wailed. Then Marco spun the back tires as dropped the car into gear. Plumes of grey tire smoke flared from the rear of the car as it rocketed past the entrance to the parking lot.
Sandy floored the accelerator pedal and launched the car from the parking lot onto Olmos Drive.
It didn’t take him long to notice us. We pulled up behind him at a stop light, and Sandy got so close to his rear bumper I was sure she’d hit him.
Marco looked in the rear view mirror. Sandy held up a raised middle finger. Marco waited until there was a gap in traffic and then ran the light. Sandy followed, using the paddle shifters on the steering wheel to keep the engine screaming as she accelerated and decelerated to keep from hitting other cars.
We ripped along behind Marco threading our way through afternoon commuter traffic. We hit speeds over 80 miles an hour on one section of a surface street.
“You’re going to get us both killed,” I said.
“Nah. It’s under control.”
Marco veered onto an on-ramp for the Interstate 10 and accelerated like a rocket. We blasted onto the on-ramp behind him. Even with the blistering pull of the Camaro’s engine, we had trouble keeping pace with him. Marco cut back and forth between the other cars like a scalpel, continuing to pull away from us. Sandy finally realized she was never going to be able to keep up with him, and she pulled onto the right shoulder, then pushed the pedal to the floor and held it there. We ripped past the other drivers on the highway and finally pulled even with Marco’s Ferrari. He cast a quick glance at us and then pulled onto the left shoulder before jetting ahead again.
Then the brake lights on Marco’s car flashed as he executed a panic stop before the sleek gold Ferrari fishtailed in a 180 degree turn, leaving it pointed back towards us. Then he deftly cut across the median, joined oncoming traffic for a few dozen yards, and took an exit into an industrial area.
Sandy looked for gaps in traffic to cross the highway and get to the off-ramp he’d taken, but we both knew that he was gone, and we weren’t going to catch him. He’d outmaneuvered us.
“I think the road-runner got away from the coyote that time,” Sandy said. She took the next exit and cruised into the parking lot of a fast food restaurant.
When we were stopped I noticed that her hands were shaking.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“It’s all good,” she said.
I watched her reach into the console and pull out two unmarked pill bottles. She dropped one pill from each bottle onto her palm before popping the pills into her mouth like candy. She crunched them with her molars and swallowed them dry.
“What’s up?” I said.
Sandy got out of the car and went into the restaurant. She came back with two cups of coffee.
“I didn’t know if you take yours with sugar,” she said. “I got extra packets if you need some.”
“What’s wrong with you? What’s with the pills?”
“Well, since we’re tight, I’ll tell you that the blue ones are mood stabilizers, and the white ones make me feel one hell of a lot better. Right now I feel pretty excellent, really.”
She pulled off her sunglasses for the first time and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. Then she looked at me and smiled.
“Are you worried about me? That’s kind of cute.”
Her pupils were so dilated by the pills that the irises of her eyes were barely visible.
“I don’t know what to say,” I said.
“Nothing to say. It’s under control,” Sandy replied.
“Really? Not so sure. We’ve made our presence known by denting the roof of his Italian toy and chasing him through traffic. How are we better off than before? What if he runs now?”
“He won’t run. He’s dug in here. And it only took five minutes for him to get home once they found the rock on the car, right? We know he’s in town and staying pretty close to his house. I’ll bet he’s got your girl close, too.”
“I guess that’s something.”
“You said you have the phone you took off of one of his killers, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Call Marco and tell him you want to trade him the phone for the girl.”
“The phone is back at the hotel in the Ford. Can I just ask what we’ll do if he tells us that he’s going to kill Bonnie and us too unless we do what he says?”
“You can do what you want,” Sandy said. “I don’t take orders from people like Marco, and my response to being threatened usually involves someone else getting their ass kicked in.”
“Okay. So we’re not negotiating. We get Bonnie back or we do what? Shoot him in his driveway? Kidnap him? We’re not going to surprise him twice. He’ll surround himself with people now.”
“We’re not choirboys,” Sandy said. “If he doesn’t take us seriously about getting the girl back, my next step is to burn his mansion to the ground. If that doesn’t work, I’ll start burning his businesses down, too. He might kill the girl, but if we both become hostages to him, he’ll kill her anyway.”
“Let me get this straight. Eric asked you to keep an eye on me so I wouldn’t start an all-out war with Marco. And yet you want to do just that. Why? What did Marco do to you?”
“It’s possible that I have anger issues. What happened with Sergeant Bullard just brought it to a head. Like I said, independent contracting is a better fit for me than the police department. Now when I see a cockroach, I step on it instead of writing up five different reports about my interaction with the cockroach who now wants to sue the police department because I told him to stop beating his wife. Or abusing kids. Or killing people. Bullard threatened to sue the department for three million dollars because I strip searched him and dragged him around on the sand by his ankles. This guy is a cold-blooded murderer and the banker and enabler of a drug cartel, okay? He filed a civil suit against me, too. It was actually a good thing for me when the cartel killed him. Just that one time, organized crime and I both agreed on something. Bullard was better off dead.”
“Understood.”
“Marco was Bullard
’s boss, and is a world class cockroach. Am I right?”
“No question. One of the worst.”
“Then let’s step on that son of a bitch, shall we?”
Chapter 40
That evening I called Marco’s phone number from a burner phone purchased at a convenience store.
“I’m ready to trade you Julian’s phone for Bonnie.”
“I don’t care about Julian’s phone.”
“Sure you do. There are messages on it from you telling Julian to kill me and Bonnie. I’ll turn it over to the federal marshals if you don’t give Bonnie back to me. We’ll see how long it takes a prosecutor to take an interest in you.”
“You can’t prove those messages came from me,” Marco said. “And I’m tired of dealing with you and your friends. However, I’m willing to consider a trade. I have a warehouse near the airport. The sign out front says Helica Associates. Be there at 8 tonight. Bring the phone and the rest of the cash you took from Bullard. Your girlfriend told me you still have some of it. You can trade the money for the girl and we’ll call it even. I’ll get back what’s mine, and you’ll get back what’s yours.”
“How do I know she’s still alive?”
“Oh, believe me. She is.”
“She better be.”
“Come alone. You don’t, you’re dead and the girl is, too.”
Chapter 41
Marco’s warehouse wasn’t listed anywhere on the printout that Eric had given Sandy. We looked it up online to get the address, and rolled to the gate at 8 on the dot. There was a big sliding fence topped with barbed wire that had been pushed open across the entrance. I was driving the Ford. Sandy was in the passenger seat. Between us we had the two shotguns and a small bag containing the rest of the cash I’d taken from Bullard’s safe in Alamogordo.
The building was an anonymous-looking warehouse in an industrial park off of South Kansas Street. I could see the lights of Ciudad Juarez across the border.
Sandy broke the silence.
“You shouldn’t go in by yourself, whatever Marco said. You know this is a trap.”
“This is my only chance to get her back. If I’m gone more than ten minutes, just leave. I’m probably not coming back. I don’t want to take you down with me again.”
Sandy laughed. “If you’re not back in ten I’m going to drive this tank through the side of the building and go through this place like a buzz saw.” Sandy was wearing black jeans, a black sweater and black leather gloves. She looked like a ninja except for the wraparound sunglasses and her oversized chest.
I shrugged on the shoulder holster Sandy had gotten for me. I checked the clip on the .38 automatic and put it back in the holster. I pulled on a windbreaker and zipped it up.
Sandy shook a half-dozen pills out of a pill bottle and started crunching them with her molars like peanuts
“It’s been good working with you again,” I said. “See you.”
“You will,” Sandy said. “In ten minutes. I guarantee it.”
Chapter 42
There was a large, padlocked door on the side of the building which could be raised to let trucks as big as a semi through. Off to the right, under a florescent bulb, an ordinary door with the words ‘Helica Associates’ painted on it stood propped open.
I went inside. There was a simple receptionist’s desk, a few chairs covered in black vinyl, some old magazines on a coffee table.
Lavar was sitting in an office chair behind the receptionist’s desk, smoking a cigarette and flipping through a copy of People magazine. The pink band of scar tissue around his head shined like plastic wrap in the harsh office light.
“Did you know that your lips move when you read?” I asked.
Lavar tossed the magazine on the desk and stood. He was shirtless under the coveralls.
“I been waiting for you, man,” he said.
“Like the obedient servant that you are.”
Lavar nodded to himself. “Boss man says to bring you inside.” He stepped around me and went to the front door. He kicked the brick out of the way that held the door open and closed the door, flipping the deadbolt in the doorframe.
“This is a high crime area,” Lavar said. “Don’t want any undesirables coming through when I’m not here.”
He looked over at the Ford. Either Sandy was ducking down in her seat or she’d gotten out of the car. She wasn’t visible from where we stood.
“You come by yourself like you’re supposed to?”
“Sure.”
“You bring the money?”
“Yeah. I brought it.”
“Sounds like you have business with Mister Marco, then,” he said, and walked past me towards the door behind the receptionist’s desk. His shoulder bumped against mine as he went past. “You got some business with me, too,” he said. “After you’re done with Mister Marco.”
“Can we light your hat again?” I asked. “That was really fun last time.”
“No, man. You already had your fun. This time I get to have mine.” Then he pushed open the door to the warehouse.
Chapter 43
I followed Lavar into the warehouse. There were a few semi trailers parked inside, facing nose-out towards the doors. A forklift was up against the tailgate of one of the semis, and against the far wall a big container like the ones you see on ocean-going ships rested on the floor. Lavar led me over to the big container.
Marco stood against the doors of the giant metal box. I recognized him from earlier in the day when he’d come by his house to inspect the damage that Sandy had inflicted on his Maserati. As I came closer to Marco, Lavar dropped back a step and then I felt the stab of a pistol barrel in my kidney.
“Hold up,” Lavar said.
I complied.
“Drop the bag.”
I let the handles slip from my fingers and heard the dry thud of the bag on the concrete.
“Is that the rest of the money from Bullard?” Marco asked.
“All that’s left, yes.”
“Is the cell phone in the bag, too?”
“As I promised.”
Lavar pushed harder on my kidney with the gun barrel. “Take off your coat real slow,” Lavar said. “And take the gun off, too.”
“Or what?” I asked.
“Or else I paint the floor with you.”
I unzipped the windbreaker and took it off, then slowly shrugged off the shoulder holster containing the pistol. I lowered it by the strap to the concrete. Once it was there, Lavar used the toe of his boot to kick it over against the wall.
“You got anything else on you?”
“No.”
“I gotta check.”
Lavar held his gun at the base of my spine while he frisked me back and front. He smelled of menthol and cigarettes, and something else like lemon drops.
Once he was done, he gave me a push in Marco’s direction.
“He’s clean,” Lavar said.
“Come over here, Delorean,” Marco said. “You want your girl back, she’s this way.”
Marco unlatched the doors to the container and flipped on a light. The floor of the container had been cut away to reveal concrete stairs that began at the level of the floor of the warehouse. As I approached the open door of the container, I could see that there were about thirty steps, enough to go several stories beneath the warehouse, and that the tunnel headed south towards Mexico.
“She’s in Mexico?” I asked.
Marco was wearing a white silk shirt over black slacks and tan ostrich hide boots. “Follow me,” Marco said. “I’ll take you where the action is.”
He gestured with his right hand into the container.
“Play time’s over, Marco,” I said. “I kept my part of the deal.”
Marco stifled a yawn. “When I make a deal, I keep it,” Marco said. “It’s the only way to get respect, and stay alive in my business. Walk with me. I’ll take you to your girlfriend.”
I exhaled a big breath and then walked down the steps. There were
low-wattage bulbs hanging from an overhead wire and our footsteps echoed in the confined space. When I reached the bottom of the steps and turned right, I felt that sense of dizziness, like my world was coming apart again. The tunnel was probably a quarter mile long.
I stopped and stared. “You dug a tunnel to Ciudad Juarez?” I asked.
I felt the barrel of Lavar’s pistol in my spine and I began to move again. Marco and I walked together, side by side. Lavar followed too far back for me to surprise him if I wanted to take his gun. In my gut I knew that I was reaching the end of my life, that I was never going to see daylight or Bonnie again. Lavar was going to put a bullet in my back.
“Of course,” Marco said. He kept walking. “The tunnel has an opening on the other side of the border. I can move as much product as I want with no interference from the Border Patrol, or Customs agents, or anyone else. Actually, you’re the first person who’s created problems for me in some time.”