by Alex Gilly
Finn was getting the picture. “Where’s the village, exactly?”
“About forty miles south of Mazatlán.”
Sinaloa, thought Finn. Caballeros de Cristo country. It kept coming back to them.
“What’s the village called?”
“Puerto Escondido.”
Where La Abuelita had said the young men had gone aboard La Catrina and disappeared.
“I told him I didn’t want to get involved with anything like that,” Mona continued. “I told him I had my daughter to think about. I said I needed to focus on fishing, making it pay for her treatment.” She drew another cigarette from the pack but didn’t light it. “That’s when he handed me the envelope. I can still feel its thickness in my fingers. It was more money than I could make in six months at sea.” She paused. Her lower lip was trembling again. “The kind of money that changes your life, Finn.” She lit the cigarette and for a moment stared into some private space within her.
“The first time, all it was was a package about the size of a brick, wrapped in black plastic, easy to hide. I never saw what was in it, but of course I took a guess.” She gave him a piercing look.
“Then it started happening more and more regularly. The shipments got bigger. Pretty soon, I wasn’t even bothering to put the net out. On top of that, Lucy wasn’t getting better, despite the treatment. The doctors said they wanted to try a different kind of treatment … an even more expensive kind. The pressure was getting to me, but the money helped. If you had kids, you’d understand. You wouldn’t look at me like that.”
Finn realized he was clenching his jaw. He’d been thinking of his father—how he had turned mule after his accident. How easy it must have seemed to him with a boat and an open sea, no one on the horizon. To Linda, too. Finn forced a smile. He watched her press her hand hard into her side, trying to stop it from trembling.
“Tell me about Diego,” he said.
She contemplated him for a moment. “What difference does it make now if you know?” she said quietly, as though to herself. She took another drag before she continued.
“Last Friday, Cutts phones me. Right away, I notice his tone is different. Before, he used to speak to me like we were partners, even though we weren’t, really. I mean, I didn’t think I could refuse him, you know? Once I’d done that first run? Anyway, I was scared of him, but he’d never threatened me and he always spoke to me in a friendly way—asked about Lucy, how she was doing. That all changed last Friday. He called late. I was at my sister’s. Lucy was asleep in bed. He told me to go to the boat. I said I couldn’t, I couldn’t leave Lucy, but then he said what he would do to Lucy if I didn’t go. It was … shocking. I went numb.
“I went into autopilot. I just did what I was told. I left Lucy with my sister and I went to the boat. The dock was deserted. I came aboard and I waited.”
She tapped the ash from her cigarette and glanced at Finn. “Then your friend showed up,” she said. “Diego.”
“What time?” he said.
“Really late. Around two in the morning.”
“How could he have known that you would be there at that time of night?”
She shrugged. “No idea. But when he arrived, he acted like he wasn’t surprised to see me. He asked me about Espendoza. He seemed to think that I was going to tell him something.”
He was set up, thought Finn. “Keep going.”
“All Cutts had said was, keep him there, don’t let him leave. So I did. We talked. I told him whatever he wanted to hear. He wanted to hear about Espendoza, so I told him how the kid had crewed for me. Then he said how you’d found him out in the water, and what had happened to his legs.…”
She composed herself and took another drag on her cigarette.
“The whole time we were talking, I had my phone in my pocket, waiting for Cutts to call, tell me what to do. I was going crazy. I wanted to run away, go back to my sister’s and grab Lucy and disappear. But I couldn’t leave. She couldn’t stop the treatment she was getting at the hospital and I … I needed the money to pay for it.”
“So Espendoza was on the Belle,” said Finn, his throat dry.
She smiled weakly at him. “Yes. He dealt with the … with Cutts’s connection in Mexico. I told Cutts it would make everyone in the fleet suspicious, me having this kid aboard who was obviously no fisherman, but Cutts insisted. ‘Make him blend in,’ he said.” She laughed bitterly.
“Espendoza didn’t blend in. He didn’t do shit. He was just a stupid, arrogant kid with a gun, playing gangster. His job was to be Cutts’s eyes, wave his goddamn gun around, make sure I didn’t lose my nerve and go to the coast guard or anything like that. He was dumb, he was lazy, he couldn’t handle his liquor, and he had a gun. I had to sleep with the door locked.”
Yet he’s the one who ended up dead in the channel, thought Finn. “Then what happened?”
“Like I said, Cutts had told me to keep him there. So I … I kept him there. It wasn’t hard. He was sitting right where you are now. We were drinking from these mugs. It was late. I didn’t know what would happen next. I was terrified, but I was on autopilot, just doing what I’d been told to do. He went outside to piss over the side. I heard three shots.… Oh, Finn, it was horrible.”
He tried to swallow, but he didn’t have any spit left in his mouth.
“Who killed him?”
“I didn’t see the actual … I was inside, I didn’t see it happen. But then Cutts and this other man I didn’t know came in. The man had a gun in his hand.”
“The other guy—what was his name?”
“No one told me, and I was too frightened to ask. He had dark skin, and he was wearing a suit. He had a foreign accent, Arabic it sounded like. I had no idea they were going to kill him, Finn. You believe me, don’t you?”
He smiled unconvincingly. “What happened next?”
“We went out on deck. The two of them carried the body off the boat. They told me to go back inside the cabin. I heard a car revving on the quay. I heard a splash. Then Cutts and the man came back. Cutts told me to scrub the blood off of the deck. While I was doing that, he told me what he would do to Lucy if I talked to anyone about what I’d seen that night. I said I hadn’t seen anything, but he still told me. The things he said … I could barely stand to listen, Finn. It was bloodcurdling. He’s a monster. He said if anyone asked, I was at my sister’s, with Lucy. He said that that was my story. He said to make sure to get the details straight with Rhonda—that’s my sister—in case any cops came around to ask her questions. Afterwards, I raced home, I held Lucy in my arms and didn’t let go. I almost took off. I thought about it, believe me. I wanted to get in the car and drive somewhere far away, out of state. But where could I go? I had to stay near the hospital for Lucy. And I needed the money to pay for it.”
She put her face in her hands and started sobbing again. Finn waited, trying to keep a lid on the rage seething inside him.
Linda stopped crying and took a breath before continuing.
“When you came around the next day, when I saw how kind you were with Lucy, I felt like I could trust you. I wanted to tell you everything. I almost did … but I couldn’t. I knew I was in too deep, and I thought if I told you, you would arrest me, and then who would take care of my Lucy?”
She paused, looked at him with wet green eyes, and said, “You’re not going to arrest me, are you, Finn?”
He didn’t answer her question. “Do you know where Cutts is now?”
“He called me this afternoon and told me to get the boat ready to leave at dawn tomorrow. ‘To resume operations,’ he said. That’s what the groceries are for. I told him it was too dangerous, the police were probably watching the boat. He told me there was nothing to worry about. He said the police had a suspect in their sights and that they were about to arrest him.”
Finn sneered. “What suspect?”
She looked straight at him. “You.”
Finn laughed. “Cutts thinks he can set me up for Diego
’s murder?”
“He said he has evidence.”
Finn’s feeling of incredulity started ceding ground to one of dread. He cast his mind back to that night in Bonito’s when Diego had asked Cutts, “You ever heard of a boat called the Pacific Belle?” Then Diego had told Cutts about the floater, even telling him his name. “A cholo from East L.A. named Espendoza.” Finn remembered him then saying to Diego, “Give me your cell. I hear of anything, I’ll call.”
Then, later that night, someone had mugged Finn and taken only his gun; they’d left him his wallet and his phone and his truck. His dread unfettered now, Finn realized that the killer had used his gun to kill Diego. And now all Cutts had to do was plant the pistol somewhere where Benitez would find it, and that would be that: the cops would have their evidence. If they needed a motive, all they had to do was ask Ruiz and Petchenko; they’d say that Finn had murdered Diego to cover up what had really happened on La Catrina.
He looked at the frightened woman sitting opposite him. She was right: Cutts was a monster. To protect his narcotics-smuggling operation, he had murdered Diego and set up Finn for it. But Linda … Linda, with her beautiful green eyes, had played the honey trap. She’d been the lure that had fooled Diego. Finn’s head said she was a victim, but his heart saw it differently.
“What happened to Espendoza?”
“I swear I don’t know—”
“Bullshit. All this traces back to the floater. Diego didn’t know you were running narcotics on the Pacific Belle. He didn’t know any of that. All we had was Espendoza’s body and his probation officer linking him to the Pacific Belle. Something spooked Cutts and it goes back to Espendoza. What happened to him?”
“I don’t know—”
Finn slammed his fist on the table. “Don’t lie to me, Linda!” He was shouting.
She started sobbing again. “I swear on my life, Finn, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.” She dropped her head in her hands.
Finn looked at her without pity. “To Diego,” he said, and he emptied what was left of the bourbon into his mug.
She stared at him in horror, not touching her drink. He downed the bourbon, picked up the Glock, slid the clip back into it, and got to his feet.
“Where are you going?” she said.
“To Bonito’s.”
“Finn, no!” She jumped up and blocked his way.
“Listen to me, Linda. You’re right, I could arrest you. You’re in deep, maybe even as accessory to murder. What happens to you next depends on whether you knew Cutts was going to kill Diego, or whether you chose not to know. Either way, that’s up to the law to decide. You’re also looking at aiding and abetting, accessory after the fact, failure to report a crime, obstruction of justice, trafficking in controlled substances, and who knows what else. But here’s the thing: if everything you told me tonight is the truth—if Cutts threatened your daughter’s life—there’s not a jury in the state that’s going to put you away for it. Especially because now you’re going to go home, pick up Lucy, go to the LAPD, and ask for Detective Mike Benitez. And you’re going to tell him everything you just told me. You can trust him. He’ll protect you and Lucy. You were frightened like any mother would be. People will understand. But you still did the wrong thing.”
“But you promised you’d protect me!”
He shook his head. “No. I promised I’d make sure Cutts doesn’t touch a hair on Lucy’s head. And I will.”
“He’ll kill Lucy, Finn! You have no idea who you’re dealing with!” She grabbed hold of him. “Please don’t, Finn, please…”
He threw her off with more force than he’d intended to. She fell onto the bench and started sobbing again.
“Do as I say and everything will be all right,” he said.
She looked up at him with utter desperation, her face wet with tears, her hair disheveled.
A voice inside Finn, a very faint voice struggling to be heard, told him that the right thing to do was to stay put for a moment, to give her a bit more time, to talk her through her terror, reassure her.
But he didn’t feel like doing the right thing.
The best he could do was to say, “You got plenty of problems, Linda. I know it. But I promise you this: Diarmud Cutts is no longer one of them.”
“Finn, wait!”
He walked out without turning back.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Finn stormed through the door of Bonito’s, his hair and jacket wet from the rain, and his Glock double gripped in front of him. The first thing he saw was Cutts standing behind the bar with a shotgun, aimed squarely at him. There was no one else in the bar. The door swung shut behind Finn, its little bell tinkling, the door stifling the sound of the rain still falling outside.
“Drop it, Cutts.”
Cutts kept the shotgun leveled at Finn. “A bit presumptuous of you, lad, don’t you think?”
Finn took a tentative step forward.
“That’s it, keep coming,” said Cutts. “You ever seen what a shotgun will do to a man at close range?”
Finn halted. If he pulled the trigger, would there be time for Cutts to pull his? In the bar’s yellow light, the white-haired Irishman, wearing his usual white, short-sleeve shirt, looked old and sick. Surely his reflexes were diminished, thought Finn.
On the other hand, Finn had been drinking for days. He didn’t feel all that steady-handed.
“I’m giving you a choice, Cutts. Either give yourself up, or else we shoot it out here. Up to you.”
Cutts contemplated Finn for a moment. Then he said, “Where I come from, negotiations always take place over a drink.”
“I’m not here to negotiate,” said Finn.
A smile flicked its tail at the corner of Cutts’s mouth. “Of course you are. Think it through, boy. You’re a murder suspect. I’ve got customers who’ll swear on the Holy Bible I never left the bar that night. What have you got?”
“Linda Blake.”
Cutts chortled. “Just a momentary lapse by the lady, Finn. Who can blame the poor woman, with all the stress she’s been under? Or maybe it was those blue eyes of yours which persuaded her. Either way, she’s since seen the error of her ways. She’ll swear on her daughter’s life that she was at her sister’s all night the night of your partner’s demise. Just like she is tonight.”
Finn tried to make sense of what he was hearing. No more than fifteen minutes had elapsed since he’d walked off the deck of the Pacific Belle. What was Cutts talking about? Then he noticed the cordless phone sitting on the zinc-topped bar. He cursed himself. In that short interval, Linda had lost her nerve.
“You really think you’re quicker than me, Cutts?”
“All the bluster of youth,” said Cutts. “No man can know the hour of his own death, lad, but I’ll lay my money down that this isn’t mine. I’ll even tell you why: if you were as sure of yourself as you would have me believe, you would’ve pulled that trigger by now.”
Finn’s Jim Beam buzz was wearing off. He felt a tremble in his forearms. His mind felt muddled, unfocused.
“And you forget,” continued Cutts, “of the two of us, I’m the one with nothing to lose.”
A voice inside Finn’s head said, Pull the trigger. To hell with the world. Just pull the damn trigger.
Then he thought, What if Mona spends the rest of her life believing I killed her baby brother?
If there was an afterlife, thought Finn, would he be able to endure it knowing that Mona was hurting because of him? The Irishman was right: he had something precious to lose. If he died without bringing Diego’s killer to justice, he’d be leaving Mona to a life without consolation. Finn didn’t believe in closure—he had never shut the door on what his father had done, and knew he never would—but he did believe that justice was at least some kind of remedy. He wanted to give that to Mona. What he did with himself after that didn’t matter.
He had to get out of Bonito’s alive, grab Linda, and take her someplace safe, like he should’ve done
in the first place. After that, he would come back for Cutts.
He started edging backward toward the door, keeping his gun on the old man behind the bar. But before he got to the exit, he heard the little bell tinkle and felt a gust of cool outside air and then cold metal against the base of his neck. A male voice behind him said, with a foreign accent, “Slowly put your gun on the floor.”
Behind the bar, Cutts smiled.
* * *
Turned out, Cutts had been serious about the drink. Finn was sitting on a stool, a shot glass filled with amber liquid in front of him on the bar. Cutts was looking much happier. He’d put away his shotgun. The man with the accent was sitting a couple of stools away. He hadn’t said another word since sneaking up behind Finn. In his hand, still pointed at Finn, was Finn’s Glock. On the bar next to him, and out of Finn’s reach, was Finn’s service weapon. Like the guy was starting a collection of Finn’s guns.
The man wore a dark suit over a dark shirt, no tie, his open collar revealing a gold chain. He had on a pair of suede slip-ons, the kind with the little tassels that Finn thought looked tacky. He looked like he was in his fifties, clean-shaven, with well-groomed black hair and intelligent dark eyes. He had light skin. Linda had said he sounded Arabic, but Finn had spent many months in the Persian Gulf and the guy didn’t seem Arabic to him. Not that it made a difference to Finn one way or the other.
He eyeballed the man and said quietly, “I’m going to kill you for what you did to Diego.”
The guy smirked.
“Come, come, forget about all that,” said Cutts. “Take a drink, lad. Then we can talk.”
Finn slowly turned his attention to the shot glass Cutts had placed in front of him. For the first time in his career as an alcoholic, he felt almost repelled by the sight of alcohol.
Almost.
Finn had screwed up big-time and was feeling it. He’d charged in like a bull, head down, straight at the billowing red skirts. The old man had outplayed him. What difference would a drink make now? he rationalized. He picked up the glass, threw back its empty promise, and slammed it down on the bar. The heat started in his gut, then rose through his chest and up to his head.