Spiral

by David L Lindsey

  Haydon and Mooney followed the aisle of ribbons that stretched along the edge of Richmond to Guiton. Nunn was there with a couple of patrolmen, walking along with their heads down looking into the grass that grew along the shoulder of Guiton. Farther down, a patrolman and a woman from the crime lab were squatting and looking at something on the ground.

  Nunn looked up as they approached.

  "A mess, huh?" he said, squinting into the sun.

  "Sure is," Mooney said. "Find anything?"

  Robert Nunn was a good partner for the punctilious Lapierre. He was a slightly built man in his early thirties with a blond, neatly trimmed mustache and lanky hair. He was a dedicated detective who unfailingly took advantage of opportunities to attend special law enforcement seminars and courses. His only interests were his work, his wife, and twin daughters, whom he worshiped.

  "Nothing," Nunn said, taking off his jacket and slinging it over his shoulder. There was a dark patch of perspiration between his shoulder blades. "The shooter who got away came out of this street. It seemed to me he was probably parked along here somewhere waiting for the limo to come by. If he waited very long I thought he might have smoked a cigarette or something. Chewed some gum, ate some peanuts, drank a Coke." He laughed and shook his head. "Left me a note, maybe."

  "No tracks from the cycle?" Haydon asked.

  Nunn ran his fingers through a hank of hair that was falling over his forehead and pushed it back.

  "Well, we think we've got something," he said, turning toward the woman and patrolman fifty yards away. "They're trying to get a moulage."

  Mooney continued talking to Nunn as Haydon walked along the shoulder to the woman in a white lab coat. She was on her knees now, mixing a latex base with a catalyst, stirring quickly, testing the consistency.

  "The dust is awfully fine, but the spray fixative ought to help a little," she said to the patrolman, who was on his knees too, holding two pieces of cardboard on either side of the faint track in the sand. She was young and had her sandy hair pulled back in a ponytail. "If you mix this stuff too thick, it'll break down the original when you pour it in. If you get it too thin, it's not going to want to set."

  They didn't pay any attention to Haydon as he stood behind the woman and looked over her bent back. The track was small. The shoulder along the street was mostly coarse gravel, with very little sand where a tire could make an impression. He was surprised they had found even this much.

  Carefully, the woman poured the latex mixture, now the consistency of thick milk, into the indentations of the original print in the sand. Designed to be quick-drying, the pinkish liquid was set in just a few moments. When she peeled it up, the moulage was far more effective than Haydon was expecting. The herringbone pattern of the tread was clear and unmistakable.

  "It's sharp," she said, pleased. "Maybe it was a new tire."

  Haydon turned and walked away. The lab technician and the patrolman had been so intent on what they were doing that neither of them had given any indication they knew he had been there.

  "What kind of a motorcycle was it?" Haydon asked, walking up to Nunn again.

  The detective grinned. "I was just telling Mooney that that depends on who you talk to. Only three people out of all that traffic around here noticed. Two guys said it was a Kawasaki, third guy said there was no doubt about it, it was a Suzuki." Nunn looked down into the grass again. "It was probably a Harley."

  "Anyone know if the shooters were Anglos or Latins?"

  Nunn shook his head. "They were wearing visored helmets with mirror finishes. I guess they might be able to tell about the one over there, although it looks to me like his face is a total loss."

  "Thanks, Robert," Haydon said. "We'll see you later."

  Nunn nodded, and kept his eyes down to the side of the road.

  As they approached the Mercedes, Dystal was going through the rest of the papers in the wallets of the two Mercedes passengers.

  "These boys work for a security firm here in Houston," Dystal said, holding up plastic ID cards. "Personal Security."

  "They should've seen one more film strip," Mooney said dryly. "Another half hour of training."

  The men in the Mercedes were the first to be moved from the scene and put into the morgue vans. Then the police wrecker came in and towed the Mercedes away. Angiher morgue van backed up to the limousine. It was then that Haydon noticed the four television cameras being pointed down at them from the overpass above, and two reporters recording "on the scene" coverage as the bodies were dragged out of the open doors of the limousine and wrestled onto aluminum gurneys. It wasn't Haydon's case, so he kept his mouth shut and backed out of sight under the overpass.

  When the last of the four men had been loaded and the van pulled away from the scene, a second wrecker backed in and started hooking onto the rear bumper of the limousine. The detectives gradually left what they were doing and gathered around the crushed cycle with their backs to the sun. Now they would see if anything could be learned from what was left of the dead assassin. As the wrecker driver put his truck in gear and eased away from cement embankment, the twisted metal in the limousine began to groan and pop. With a shrill grating sound the car slid down the incline, and the motorcycle came with it, embedded in the grille and the front of the motor. The helmeted rider came with the motorcycle, his torso clinging to the cycle. His legs dangled free, almost severed. There would be no face for identification.

  No one said anything as the attendants from the third morgue van began pulling the rider off the distorted motorcycle. He came away in three parts, which they laid in approximate order on a collapsed gurney. There was a windbreaker mixed in with some of him, and Dystal had the attendants lay it aside so he could go through its zippered pockets. They were empty. The blue jeans pockets were empty. The jogging shoes were like a billion other pairs. With the last part of him the machine pistol fell out on the pavement, bent double with two fingers pinched in its creases. The morgue attendants covered the reassembled cyclist with a sheet and loaded the gurney into the van.

  The wrecker drivers pried as much of the motorcycle off the limousine as they could to prevent loose parts from falling in the street as they towed it in. When the wrecker finally pulled away, the last morgue van followed it past the bright markers of the red tape and into the traffic.

  The detectives stood in a loose group next to the cement pillars in the middle of the overpass and compared notes, listened to the general summaries of the information that each of them had gotten in the last hour and a half. Pigeons roosting on the trusses overhead burbled in the high shadows. The sun was still a couple of hours above the horizon, and the heat under the overpass was dry and harsh.

  When they had gone over most of the known facts, there was a brief silence before Dystal said, "Okay, Pete, have you got everything covered?"

  Lapierre referred to his notes. "Marshall and Coates will take the two men in the Mercedes. Singleton and Watts will take the Austin man, Lowell, and Crisman. Haydon and Mooney will get Sosa, the chauffeur, and the leasing company. Nunn and I will follow up on the prints, the DEA, and ballistics. I need to get together with you to work out the rest of it."

  "So far so good," Dystal said. "Anybody want to put in their two bits before we get outta here?"

  No one said anything. They knew what was next.

  "Okay," Dystal said with a massive sigh. "We got to get some positive IDs, and notify families. Could take all night, so let's get going. Everybody check in tomorrow morning, sleep or no sleep. I want to stick with this thing till we have something meaty.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE office of Executive Limousines was on Westheimer, not far from Chimney Rock Road and the Galleria. Haydon parked in the empty parking area in front of the white one-story building and walked up to the front door as Mooney went around back to the service area. The sign on the door said they were open from nine o'clock until six. It was five forty-five, but the door was locked. Haydon walked along a covered walk
way beside a flowerbed of tattered zinnias to the side of the building and followed Mooney around to the back.

  Two black men were washing a limousine in one of the stalls, and Mooney was talking to them.

  "They're closed," Haydon said, walking up to them.

  One of the men wearing rubber boots and a rubber apron looked at his watch.

  "They not 'sposed to close till six."

  "That's what the sign says, too," Haydon responded. "But the door's locked."

  The two men exchanged glances over the top of the limousine, and then the one closest to Mooney looked toward the rear of the building and pointed his chin at a Lincoln sitting near the back door.

  "Thas the boss's ca' right theah. You jus' bang ona back doah. He ain't gone."

  "What's his name?" Mooney asked.

  The man bent down and dipped his washing mitt into a bucket of foamy soap. "Val-ver-de. Jimmy Val-ver-de. Mista Val-ver-de." He grinned at his partner over the top of the limousine again and went back to smearing the car with giant sweeps of sudsy water.

  Mooney said to the man, "How many of these damn things you wash in one day?"

  "Too many," the man said, "fuh what I gets paid."

  "Damn right, Pooch," his buddy agreed.

  "What's the matter? Valverde a cheap-ass?" Mooney asked. He was warming up. By the time he got through with them, he would have learned more than they had ever dreamed they would tell a white man, especially a cop.

  Haydon turned and walked to the back of the building. The rear door was flanked by a row of fat junipers planted in both directions to the edge of the building. He knocked on the door. No response. He knocked again, harder, and called Valverde's name.

  Someone called back, but Haydon couldn't understand the words. He waited, and suddenly the door was jerked open.

  "Yeah? Yeah?" A man in his late thirties was looking around at him from behind the door, which he did not open all the way. He was irritated, and wasn't trying to hide it. "We're closed," he said.

  "Mr. Valverde?"

  "Yeah. Right." He looked Haydon over. "Who are you?"

  Haydon held up his shield. "Detective Haydon, with the Houston Police. I need to talk to you a few minutes."

  Valverde looked at his face now, instead of his clothes. "What's the matter?"

  "I've got some information for you. May I come in?"

  "Information? What information?"

  Haydon nodded, but didn't say anything more.

  "Okay. Hold on." Valverde closed the door, opened it immediately. "Gimme five seconds," he said, and closed it again.

  Haydon patiently returned his wallet to his pocket. He looked around at Mooney, who had pulled off his coat and tossed it over his shoulder as he chatted with the two car washers. They had stopped what they were doing and were leaning on the limousine grinning and listening to Mooney.

  "What's the matter?"

  Haydon turned to see Valverde standing with the door wide open. His attitude was still challenging, but there was an underlying note of concern that he was trying hard not to give in to.

  "Mr. Valverde, one of your limousines has been involved in a collision. I need to ask you a few questions."

  "A wreck?" Valverde grimaced. "Where? A bad one?"

  "May I come in?"

  "Yeah, okay. Come on. My office."

  Valverde turned and motioned for Haydon to follow him. They walked a few yards down a short dark hallway with imitation wood-grain paneling. The shag carpet smelled musty. Looking at Valverde's back, Haydon noticed that one of the hip pockets in his trousers was turned inside out and caught under his belt, causing his pants to pucker at the waist. It looked as if he had put them on in a hurry.

  They turned into an office on the left. A desk and credenza of dark wood faced outward from a corner. There was a portable television on a wire stand with a VCR hookup, a collection of cheap-brand liquor on a cart with wheels, and a sofa with nappy brown fabric. Haydon would have bet that everything had been purchased in one load from an office-furniture outlet, at reduced prices. There were photographs on the walls of the Houston skyline at night.

  There was also a brunette, a decade younger than Valverde. Haydon's impression was that she didn't quite fit into the setting. She seemed a little rich for Valverde's blood. Her cool pink silk dress clearly had cost more than Valverde's desk, which she was pretending to tidy up.

  "We can finish this later, Celia," Valverde said with a cocky tone of double entendre as he walked around behind the desk where she was killing time.

  "I'll finish posting the receipts, then," she said, having to squeeze past him. Valverde didn't give her much room.

  As she walked by Haydon, she cut her eyes up at him and said, "Excuse me," her smile hidden from Valverde by the angle of her head. Haydon watched her walk out the door. She had nice legs, and they were bare.

  Haydon looked at Valverde, who stood behind his desk with a cocky grin. Valverde knew the girl had class, and he was proud that Haydon had seen it. With typical hustler reasoning, he thought that having a girl like that around boosted his own rating on the sophistication scale. It never occurred to him that he only suffered by the comparison. As Haydon watched Valverde light a cigarette with the macho flourish of the postcoital smoker, he wondered why the girl was slumming with such a creep.

  Haydon pulled the carbon copy of the leasing paper found in the glove box of the limousine from his pocket and handed it to Valverde.

  "A couple of hours ago this limousine was ambushed by two gunmen on motorcycles. Your driver, Esteban Moreno, and the man who signed these papers, Ramon Sosa Real, were two of the four killed."

  Valverde looked as if Haydon had slapped him across the face. "God bless!" He sat down hard in his chair. He looked at the leasing papers. "Goddam! What the hell ambushed! What's this ambushed? What happened?"

  Haydon briefly told him what had taken place. Valverde looked at him without blinking, incredulous. He put out the cigarette he had just lighted.

  "We need to find out if Sosa has an address here in Houston," Haydon said. "We have only his Mexican driver's license with an address in Mexico City. I'm assuming you have more complete information than what is on that leasing agreement."

  Valverde stared at Haydon, and slowly started shaking his head. "Son of a bitch," he said vaguely. "It was an Ogara Caddie, for Christ's sake! Damn thing cost fifty-five thou! Goddam!"

  "Your car is at the police station downtown. You can make arrangements to pick it up after our crime-lab people are through with it."

  "I not believin' this," Valverde whispered. "Incredible."

  Haydon glanced at the flashing blue digital numbers on the VCR. The tape that had been playing was on hold. A rental box lay on the top of the machine. The film was Swedish Holiday. Triple X.

  "Mr. Valverde, do you have more information about Mr. Sosa?"

  Valverde looked at Haydon, his mind finally coming around to the question. "Uh, yeah, but listen." He swallowed hard, put his hand to his bottom lip, and massaged it between his thumb and forefinger as he thought. "The thing is, I deal with a lot of very wealthy people here. They're . .. discreet. I tell them this information's confidential." He looked up at Haydon with an expression that pled sympathy for his position.

  "I really need to move quickly on this," Haydon said, stepping over to the end of the sofa. He leaned over and pulled at something sticking out from under one of the cushions. The panty hose that stretched out slowly between Haydon's fingers and the sofa were sheer, pale pink with a tiny rosebud pattern. Without saying anything he held them up, folded them carefully, and laid them in one of the letter trays on Valverde's desk.

  Valverde looked at him, pursed his lips contemplatively, and nodded. He got up, walked over to a filing cabinet, and pulled a manila folder from the files. He flopped it down on his desk and sat down again.

  "Look," he said. "Really, this guy is, was, one of my best all-time customers. I mean, it'd be nothing for other people like him just t
o go to some other service if they don't like the publicity I'm getting here. Know what I mean? They don't need me. I need them."

  "It'll be all right," Haydon said.

  Valverde rolled his eyes in resignation and handed Haydon the leasing application.

  Haydon looked at it. "This was filled out in 1983."

  "Right. He's been using me since then. My best customer."

  "Is this address still good?"

  "Yeah, I guess so. The drivers go there."

  "Is this his address?"

  "That's what it says."

  "This is a little vague. Under 'occupation' it says 'Executive.' "

  Valverde shrugged. "I don't hassle them about details. This city's full of executives. That's why I call this place Executive Limousines. I cater to the upper-echelon types."

  "How often do you lease to Sosa?"

  "He's had that one four months straight. Pays a month at a time."

  "And before that?"

  "Month here, three months there. A regular thing."

  "How regular?"

  "Two, three times a year."

  "Does he request a special driver?"

  "He likes Moreno. Been using him a couple of years."

  "Why?"

  "He's trained. Security. Couple of my drivers have evasive-action training. You know, reverse outs, handbrake turns, J turns, spotting tails, cloak-and-dagger all the way. That's a big thing now. Everybody's afraid of being popped off. Terrorism. I sent a couple of the guys to this three-day course. If some of my clients feel more comfortable having a driver with that kind of expertise, then they can have him. I charge about twenty percent more for their services."

  "Are they pretty good at evasive action with a stretch limousine in heavy traffic?" Haydon asked.

  "Hey, look," Valverde said defensively. "I send them to the damn school. They're certified."