Shell Game

by Jeff Buick

  He reached the far end and pulled his keys from his pocket, thumbing the key fob—the parking light blinking twice in the dark. The Lexus was warm from sitting all day, and he cranked up the air-conditioning. He pulled out of the alley onto Avenida Chapultepec, heading west toward Lomas de Chapultepec, the wealthy enclave of estate homes where he lived. His antique store was busy and his markups almost criminal, giving him a quality of living that surpassed most doctors and lawyers. And he was his own boss—had been for twenty years.

  He steered off the busy boulevard and onto one of the quiet side streets leading to his house, his mind briefly touching on the visit from the two Americans who had visited his shop. They had been very focused on what they wanted, and it wasn’t a Negretti and Zambra telescope. Edward Brand. He knew the man. And Brand himself had told him not to be surprised if someone came looking for him. Brand himself had described tonight’s event as inevitable. That someone in fact would show, asking for him. But a fat bonus on top of the already marked-up price on the telescope had sealed his lips. One thing he had learned many years ago was that two kinds of people kept secrets—smart ones and dead ones.

  He saw himself as smart.

  A long sloping drive appeared on the right side of the road, and he touched a button on the upper visor. The wrought-iron gates parted, then opened fully, and he drove into the walled estate. The gates closed automatically behind him. He rounded two curves, and the house came into view. It was colonial style with four pillars juxtaposed against the broad but flat facade. He pulled the Lexus up to the edge of the circular driveway fronting the house and stepped out.

  The air was warm and the night sky clear. What a night. What a life. Everything felt right, even the slight breeze that stole gently through the surrounding trees. But even though he was in tune with what surrounded him, there was one thing that Fernando Domínguez was not aware of as he opened the door to his house. The late-model Mercedes that had followed him along Avenida Chapultepec and through the winding streets. The Mercedes that was parked outside the gates leading to the house. Inside the car, three people stared at the walled estate.

  “We know where he works and where he lives,” Taylor said, sitting in the Mercedes. “What now?”

  Alan continued to stare at the closed gates. “I’d like to ask him a few more questions. Like where Edward Brand is. That guy knows more than what he’s saying.”

  “I think so too,” Taylor agreed, “but what can we do? We can’t beat the information out of him.”

  “He owns an antique shop,” Alan said. “Do you think there’s a law in place that makes dealers in antiquities register every sale. If there is, then he would have a record of Brand’s purchase. And maybe a sales receipt with an address or phone number.”

  Taylor nodded. “I wonder why he lied. Do you think he’s really that scared of Brand?”

  “Absolutely,” Alan said. “The proof’s in what we saw a couple of hours ago. He’s willing to lie to cover up the fact that he knows him. Who would do that unless they were worried about the guy coming back looking for who snitched on him?”

  Taylor was quiet for a few moments. After about thirty seconds, Ricardo said, “Are we finished here?”

  “Sure,” Alan said. “Could you take us back to La Condesa? Maybe we’ll have a couple of drinks and dance a bit.” La Condesa was the trendiest of the colonias bordering Zona Rosa, filled with dance clubs and discos.

  “Now you’re talking,” Ricardo said. “What kind of club do you want?”

  “Not too loud, but with good dancing music,” Alan said, slipping his arm around Taylor and drawing her close. He whispered in her ear. “Enough following around after suspicious people for one night. Let’s have a little fun.”

  She couldn’t help but smile. “Okay. Fun it is.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The electronic key sliding through the reader on the hotel door partially wakened her. The muffled sound of the door opening caused her to sit bolt upright in bed. Taylor glanced next to her for Alan—he was gone. The bed was empty. Her heart was racing as she glanced at the clock on the night table. Just after four in the morning. They had returned from the nightclub after midnight, made love, then drifted off to sleep. She pulled the covers up to her chin to hide her naked body as a figure entered the bedroom. It was a man’s figure, Alan’s size, but he was moving unsteadily. Then, just inside the door, the man collapsed.

  “Taylor.”

  It was Alan’s voice, but faint and filled with pain. She shot out of bed, wrapping a sheet around her as she moved quickly to where he lay on the plush carpet. He was groaning slightly and cradling his right arm. She flicked on the light and gasped. Her husband was curled on the floor, his entire right side covered with blood.

  “Oh, my God,” she exclaimed. “Alan, what happened?” She bent down, her eyes scanning his body, trying to determine the extent of his injuries. His right hand was bloodied, as was his forearm. His shirt was soaked with blood, but not torn. She couldn’t tell whether the blood had run down from his hand and arm or if he had been shot or stabbed. His face was unmarked, but his eyes were filled with pain.

  “I’m okay,” he said. “Just shaken up a bit.”

  She stroked his hair back off his forehead. “You’re not shot?”

  “No. Nothing like that. It probably looks worse than it is.” He uncurled slightly and then lay stretched out on his back. “I’ll be all right. I was unsure on my feet when I got here. I think I just need to clean up.”

  “I’ll get a towel,” she said. “Don’t move.” Taylor scurried to the bathroom and grabbed one of the bath towels, wet it under the shower, then snatched another dry towel and hurried back to the bedroom. Alan had propped himself up against the foot of the bed. She took the wet towel and began dabbing at the bloodied areas. He grimaced in pain when she touched his hand.

  “Where were you? What happened?”

  “I went back to the antique shop,” he said in a raspy voice.

  “You did what?”

  “The antique shop. I went back after you fell asleep to have a look at Domínguez’s computer files.”

  “Just a minute,” she said, disappearing back into the bathroom and reappearing with a glass of water. He drank it slowly. “That better?”

  “Much. Thanks.”

  “Why would you do that?” Taylor asked, wiping at the blood on his hand and arm. He was scraped and had a few cuts, but nothing that would require stitches.

  Alan’s voice was stronger now. “I was lying in bed, just thinking. I couldn’t sleep. The one thing that kept running through my mind was that Fernando Domínguez was our only connection to Edward Brand. And that he probably knew more than he let on when we were in his store. Instead of just lying around all night, I thought I’d have a look inside his files. See if Brand’s name and address were in there somewhere.”

  “Are you crazy? Look at what happened to you. You could have been killed.”

  He shifted a bit, trying to get comfortable. “It’s not that bad.”

  “Here,” she said, lifting him under the left arm and directing him to the bed. “Lie down.” She unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it off. The right side of his chest and stomach were covered with splotches of blood. When she had him resting on the bed, his head propped up on a pillow, she took a towel and gently dabbed at the blood. As she worked, she asked, “Tell me what happened.”

  “I caught a cab outside the hotel and the driver dropped me off about two blocks from Domínguez’s place. I asked him to wait for me, which turned out to be a good thing. I had to go in through the front door, but getting in was simple. The door locks were single tumblers. Takes less than ten seconds to pick those. Disabling the security system was easy—it’s a variation of the ones I installed in San Francisco.”

  “Easy for some people, maybe. What happened once you were inside?”

  “Aside from a couple of night-lights, the store was dark, and I had to remember my way through without
knocking anything over. That was probably the toughest part. There was hardly any light coming in off the street. When I found the back room, I closed the door behind me and switched on a light. There were three computers on the desks. I powered them up and looked through their client base.”

  “And . . .”

  “I found a listing for Edward Brand.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. Brand has a house in Cabo San Lucas. Some-where in the Cabo del Sol development. That’s where he lives some of the time.”

  “Did you get an address?”

  “No, he has invoices and shipments sent through the area developer. Note on the file said it was in case he wasn’t at his villa. But Cabo del Sol is a single development. I would suspect it’s not that big. It shouldn’t be too hard to find him. We just narrowed the entire world down to one subdivision.”

  “Crazy,” Taylor said, “but well done. That’s obviously not the end of the story. Otherwise you wouldn’t be all scraped up.”

  Alan glanced down at the right side of his body. “I was just coming out of the shop when this guy came around the corner and yelled at me in Spanish. I’ve got no idea if he was a mugger or a plainclothes cop or someone who knew I shouldn’t be in the shop. I cut through a narrow gap between the antique shop and the next building, but the ground was uneven and I lost my balance and fell into the stucco wall. It had a rough finish. That’s what scraped me up so badly.”

  “Was he still following you?”

  “Yeah, but he was having trouble with his footing as well. It was dark and getting any sort of good grip on the rocks was almost impossible.”

  “How did you get away?” Taylor asked.

  “Ran. Ran like hell. There was a wall at the end of the alley and I was in front of him. I hopped over. Straight down the road to where the cab was waiting and back here. Paid the driver really well on top of the initial hundred.” He rolled over a touch so he could see her face. “I did okay?”

  “Yeah, you did okay. Just don’t do it again.”

  “Promise,” he said, raising himself up on his elbows. “I think we’re done here.”

  “Mexico City?”

  He nodded.

  “Cabo San Lucas?”

  “That’s where Edward Brand is.”

  “And when we find him?” Taylor asked.

  “We get our money back.”

  “And if he doesn’t want to give it?”

  Alan was quiet, but his eyes told a story. The story of a man who had been wronged. A man who was fed up with being taken advantage of. An angry man. A dangerous man. When he finally answered her question, his voice was intense. More intense than she had ever heard.

  “I’ll kill him,” was all he said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Cabo San Lucas evolved since the Guaycura tribes first settled the cape and subsisted on fruit and whatever small game they could bring down with their blowguns. The Spaniards, under Conquistador Hernán Cortés and fresh from their European victory over the Moors, trampled across the Aztec empire and by 1565 were firmly in control of the archipelago. But the Spanish failed to realize the potential of the region, their maps even showing California and Baja California as Islands. They neglected the area, and when Mexico finally achieved independence from Spain in 1821 after eleven years of intense fighting, the Baja was part of the deal.

  The temperate climate and world-class deep-sea fishing transformed the cape from sleepy Mexican villages to tourist hotspot. Restaurants and night clubs flung open their doors. Even rock singer Sammy Hagar, the front-man for Van Halen, discovered Cabo San Lucas and opened Cabo Wabo, a restaurant that catered to the young rock crowd. The notoriety that followed designated Cabo San Lucas as a party town for college students on spring break. Or any other time of the year.

  Students don’t care when, so long as the tequila is flowing and the sun is baking the beaches.

  And somewhere in the winding, insanely crowded streets of Cabo San Lucas was one man. Edward Brand.

  Taylor and Alan flew into Los Cabos International Airport, just outside San José del Cabo, the sleepy sister of the more boisterous Cabo San Lucas. They caught a cab into Cabo and went directly to Playa Grande, a massive resort set into the rocks west of the marina. The lobby was circular, a hundred feet or more in diameter, with marble floors and twenty-foot pillars framing the long, half-round reception desk. The reservations Taylor had made from Mexico City were in the computer, and after they had checked out their room, Alan arranged for a rental car. They asked the concierge if he knew where the development of Cabo del Sol was located. He nodded and pulled out a well-worn map.

  “Cabo del Sol is a new residential and golf community just east of Cabo,” he said, his English almost unaccented. “Take the main road toward San José del Cabo. About three miles out you’ll see a sign that says returno, and a rock cairn with Cabo del Sol on it. Take the off ramp, and at the top of the hill, turn right. Just follow the road past the security checkpoint, and you’re in. They’re building a lot of houses right now, so expect some construction.”

  “How do we get through the security?” Taylor asked.

  “You’re gringos,” the concierge said with a wry smile. “Just look white.”

  “Thanks,” Alan said, the irony of Caucasians breezing through checkpoints while Mexicans were stopped and questioned not lost on him.

  Alan took the wheel of the rental, getting twisted around twice in the maze of one-way streets before finding the main boulevard and skirting the marina. Avenida Lazaro Cardenas led to the eastern edge of Cabo, then out of the city and into the arid scrublands that once claimed the entire southern edge of the cape. Mega-hotels, most of them timeshares, were built along the coast, rising amidst the cactus and arroyos, colorful but foreign against the rugged beauty of the coastline. After a ten-minute drive they reached the turnoff for Cabo del Sol, and Alan steered the car up the hill and took the right turn. The paved road curved alongside one of the golfing fairways as it dipped toward the ocean. At the end of the sweeping curve, a security station came into view. It was tucked under a massive set of brick arches. Alan glanced at Taylor.

  “Here goes,” he said, pulling up to the roadblock.

  A uniformed guard glanced into the vehicle as they rolled to a stop, then smiled, wished them a good afternoon and raised the arm. They drove through into the upscale community of Cabo del Sol. The roads were smooth and winding and bordered by long sandy beds filled with organ pipe cactus and desert succulents. A few palm trees lined the streets, mostly planted around the perimeters of the stucco and stone estate houses set into the rocky hills. A number of new homes were under construction, the cinder-block skeletons in stark contrast to the impeccable finishing on the existing villas. They drove through the maze of streets for about fifteen minutes before coming to a realization. Finding Edward Brand was not going to be easy.

  “This place is huge,” Taylor said as they pulled up to the golf clubhouse. “He could be anywhere. And if he’s in one of these houses and doesn’t come out, we’ll never find him.”

  Alan switched off the car and shook his head. “If he’s even here. Damn it. This isn’t going to be easy.”

  “You said the computer at the antique shop gave the developer’s address, in case he wasn’t at his villa. We could check there.”

  “Good idea,” he said, starting the car and backing it out of the stall. “There was a place on the left side of the road on the way in.”

  “I saw it. The house with all the flags, like they put out at show-homes in new neighborhoods.”

  “Yeah, let’s try it.”

  It took less than ten minutes to find the show suite, park and ask the saleswoman working the desk if she had an address for Edward Brand. They were down from the States and wanted to visit. The woman checked her files, but there was no record of a sale to anyone by that name. There were hundreds of names on the list. The chances of figuring out what name he had registered under were zero. T
hey returned to the golf clubhouse and parked in the shade.

  They checked out the clubhouse, a hub of activity as many of the day’s golfers were just finishing their rounds and coming in for something to drink. Alan asked one of the pros for a scorecard and perused it, taking in the lay of the land. The course was actually two full tracts of eighteen holes. The ocean course led west from the clubhouse toward the water, while the desert course ran through the undulating hills along the northern edge of the development. They walked through the pro shop into the restaurant and onto the outdoor patio. The view from the south-facing balcony was the last few thousand yards of land sloping to the water, then the deep blue of the Pacific Ocean. A little to the west, a rocky hill with a solitary, white lighthouse jutted above the coastline. Taylor and Alan sat at one of the tables and ordered a drink.

  “Maybe he likes to golf,” Alan said.

  “So?”

  “Rather than running all over the place looking for him, why don’t we let Brand come to us?” The drinks arrived, and Alan sipped his Corona. “We could set up shop in the development, see if we can find a rental villa that overlooks the clubhouse. One that gives us a good view of the restaurant and the finishing hole on the desert course. That way, if he’s a golfer, we’ll see him as he’s putting on eighteen. Or if he comes in for lunch. Works both ways. And we’ll see him teeing off on the first hole if he’s playing the ocean course.”

  Taylor thought about the idea. “That would mean staying in Cabo for a while. Days, maybe weeks.”