Nell studied Bobbie and thought she needed to lose ten pounds. And Nell couldn’t fail to notice how she fawned over Fin. He returned her fawning with a badly concealed “aw shucks” kind of foot shuffling. Nell half expected him to tug at his forelock. It was pathetic.
Before the conversation went very far, Fin said, “My Vette can’t carry three.”
Bobbie said, “My Hyundai isn’t very comfortable.”
Nell said, “We’ll take my Audi.”
“We need to go someplace and talk,” Fin said.
“Not someplace where they serve alcohol,” Nell said, looking purposefully at Bobbie. “Have you noticed that he drinks?”
Bobbie grinned at Fin and said, “No worse than a sailor.”
Had to stay home and cook pasta? Nell thought. Yeah. She thought she might faint if it got any more revolting. He’d actually blushed when Bobbie giggled!
“I know what,” Fin said. “There’s a nineteen-fifties lunch counter on Orange Avenue. Let’s go there for a burger and a coke.”
“Out-standing!” Bobbie said.
“In-tense!” Nell said.
“What?” Fin said.
“In-credible!” Nell said. “Let’s go hang out!”
“Is there something wrong?” Fin asked quietly.
“Of course not,” Nell said, with the first of an afternoon full of smirks. “This is all so predictable.”
* * *
The diner was a real fifties-style lunch counter, not one of the ersatz diners that’ve become popular in recent years. This one hadn’t changed since We-liked-Ike, except for an occasional paint job, or a new sheet of Formica on the counter, or some new plastic on the revolving stools.
Fin sat between the two women and ordered a Coke. Nell ordered coffee and Bobbie ordered a large orange juice, and a burger with everything.
“Gotta replenish the vitamin C,” she said, beaming at Fin and adding, “after last night.”
Nell noticed that Bobbie usually placed her hand on his forearm when she spoke to him.
“This is so touching, I don’t need sugar in my coffee,” Nell said to the waitress in a stage whisper.
In that she was getting on in years, the waitress turned her good ear toward Nell and said, “Excuse me?”
“Nothing,” Nell said. “Everything’s swell”
Nell also noticed that Fin deferred to Bobbie each time there was something to be explained to Nell during the fifteen-minute conversation. Nell learned about the theft from North Island, and that Bobbie felt it was very suspicious that Jules Temple hadn’t informed them that there was a navy investigator interested in the case.
When Bobbie and Fin were all through telling the story, Nell stared into the bottom of her coffee cup and said, “This is a squirrely case and getting more so.”
“I think it’s clearing up,” Bobbie said.
Nell said, “So Abel Durazo, Shelby Pate, and a deceased Mexican national named Pepe Palmera were in cahoots to steal the navy shoes, sell them in T.J. and …”
“Along with the truck,” Fin added.
“Okay, so they probably sold the truck, or at least planned to use it to haul the pottery … Wait a minute. The pottery shop in Old Town? Do you think …”
“It’s complicated enough,” Fin said. “Let’s not include him in this conspiracy.”
“Okay, for now it’s just those three.”
“Why didn’t Jules Temple tell you about me?” Bobbie wanted to know.
Nell smiled sweetly and said, “Maybe he didn’t think you were that important, honey.”
Fin shot Nell a dirty look and she returned it with a smirk, but Bobbie wasn’t fazed.
“I can’t believe he’d just think it was too trivial to mention,” Bobbie said. “Do you, Fin?”
“I tend to agree with Bobbie,” he said.
“Of course you do,” Nell muttered.
Then Fin turned to Bobbie and said, “But still, I can’t understand why Jules Temple would involve himself with the theft of two thousand pairs of shoes, not to mention going along with the loss of his truck.”
“Maybe the truck’s heavily insured,” Bobbie said.
This time Nell leaned forward on her stool, looked around Fin, and said, “There’s always a deductible on a policy, my dear, that he would have to pay.”
Bobbie leaned over, looked at Nell, and said, “Of course! Since I don’t have your many many years of investigation, I didn’t think a that.”
Fin interrupted quickly. “I think the faking of the truck theft lets Jules Temple off the hook as far as being part of any grand-theft conspiracy. Even if it’s just one of many thefts involving these guys.”
“Are those navy warehouses secure?” Nell asked.
“About as secure as Woody Allen,” said Fin.
“True,” Bobbie said. “They coulda pulled a lotta stuff outta our warehouses over a period of months.”
“Jules Temple can’t be part of that, Bobbie,” Fin said. “It doesn’t check out.”
Nell looked into her cup again and said, “Yet …”
“Yet what?” Fin asked.
“What if his truckers’re independent contractors as far as stealing is concerned, but in cahoots with their boss on something else?”
“Such as?”
“Such as dumping hazardous waste in Mexico, instead of Jules Temple having to spend the money to properly dispose of it.”
“Yeah!” Bobbie said. “I know he’s involved somehow. The guy’s oilier than Kuwait.”
“Could that be why he’s less than forthcoming?” Fin asked. “He’s a waste dumper?”
“Wait a minute,” Nell said. “No, it doesn’t wash. There were only a few drums involved here, and there’re manifests to deal with, waste belonging to different customers on two different manifests. How would he explain to the EPA that manifested waste never got to its destination?”
“By claiming the truck was stolen?” Bobbie suggested.
“To save hauling costs on a few drums of waste, he’s going to give up a truck? No,” Nell said. “No.”
“Okay, I give up,” Fin said. “Jules Temple has nothing to do with anything. Durazo, Pate and the dead man were partners in a conspiracy to steal from the warehouse and to steal the truck. Period.”
“Sounds right,” Nell said.
Bobbie said nothing. She clearly didn’t like anything about Jules Temple, including his goddamn haircut. All she’d say was “So let’s go hook up the two truckers. The shoe on the dead guy ties them in good enough for an arrest, at least.”
Nell nodded at Fin and said, “The porky dude’ll rat off the little Mexican, I bet.”
“Wait a minute!” Fin said. “Just when I got it sorted out another possibility jumped up.”
“Go ahead,” Nell said with a sigh.
“What if Pate and Durazo stole the shoes, but Pepe Palmera, a total stranger, stole their truck while they were having lunch at Angel’s. Isn’t that possible? Pepe Palmera got himself a cargo of waste and shoes, and he drove them straight to T.J.”
“Then Pate and Durazo’re telling the truth about everything except stealing the shoes from the navy?” Nell asked.
“Exactly,” Fin said.
“But if they had nothing to do with Pepe Palmera, then how easy is it gonna be to connect them up with the shoe that was on his foot?” Bobbie asked.
“Not easy at all,” Fin said, “unless they can be persuaded to drop a dime on each other.”
“Shit!” Bobbie said. “They just gotta be involved in a conspiracy with the dead guy. They drove that truck to T.J. The two thousand pairs a shoes’re in Tijuana and they know where at. They dumped the waste that killed that little kid.”
“I’m getting tired of this,” Nell said. “Let’s go find those two guys and sweat them. First the big fat one, then the skinny Mexican.”
Bobbie looked at Fin with anticipation. He looked back into her blue eyes for a few seconds and said, “Okay, sailor, but stay close to m
e. Hear?”
Bobbie beamed at him, and put her hand on his forearm.
Nell shook her head slowly, turned her face away, and said: “Dis-gust-ing.”
The old waitress shuffled over and said, “It ain’t that bad is it, love? I can make a fresh pot.”
CHAPTER 22
Abel Durazo didn’t see the ox’s pickup truck in the parking lot at Angel’s Café so he thought Shelby wasn’t there. But then he spotted Shelby’s hog parked directly in front with four other Harleys, and on each bike was a hated helmet, now required by law.
When Abel entered he found the ox watching two truckers playing Pac-Man. Shelby’s costume was designed to give off outlaw-biker death rays: black leather jacket, black jeans, studded boots, and a dirty gray tee with GRATEFUL DEAD in black across the chest. Instead of his usual loose and scraggly style, the ox had his dirty-blond hair tied back in a severe ponytail.
The ox showed his gap-tooth grin to Abel, threw a heavy arm around his partner’s shoulder, and led him to a quiet booth where they ordered burritos and beer.
“Why we meet so early, Buey?” Abel asked, after the waitress was gone.
“I got some un-real news!” Shelby said. “We’re gonna go into partnership with Mister Jules Temple!”
Abel Durazo had often thought that the ox might someday just blow out all the wires in that massive skull, and now he feared it had happened. The Mexican looked around at all the various truckers, bikers, rednecks, and other lowlifes who used Angel’s for various purposes. Several of them looked much more demented than the ox.
“Tell me one more time,” Abel said carefully. “We going to be … partner weeth Meester Temple?”
“Senior partners,” Shelby said, cackling. “Man, my life’s become totally fucking amazing! I am in titty city, dude! I am gonna live in a meadow of meth! I am gonna reside in Harley heaven! ’Cept I ain’t buyin no more Harleys. You ever seen that Honda Shadow eleven hunnerd? It ain’t a fag bike like most a them. I’m thinkin about buyin me one. I’ll buy you one too.”
“Buey, you go crazy!” Abel said, with a sincerely worried look.
“If it wasn’t fer you makin me steal them fuckin shoes, none a this ever woulda happened,” Shelby said. “I am mega-fuckin stoked! Totally!”
“Okay, Buey, okay,” Abel said soothingly, the way you’d talk to someone straddling the railing on the Coronado Bridge.
“Know that manifest? The one from Southbay? We was haulin bad shit, baby! And Jules Temple manifested it as not-so-bad shit, okay to take to L.A. fer ordinary disposal! Kin you see where I’m comin from, dude?”
“No, Buey,” the Mexican said. “No.”
“I didn’t throw it away like you wanted me to. That manifest says we was haulin ordinary waste back to our yard for disposal at the L.A. refinery. But we was haulin big-time poison! And it killed the guy that stole our truck.” Then the ox paused and the gap-tooth smile vanished. “And … and it killed that kid, that kid with the ringworm.”
“We don’ know eef eet was the one weeth the reeng-worms!” Abel said.
“Okay, but it killed a kid. On’y it wasn’t our fault, was it, man?”
“No,” Abel said.
“Anyways, that shit was illegally manifested by that cheesy faggot, Jules Temple. We never woulda let it outta our sight if we knew we had real bad poison, would we?”
“But Buey, we never look at manifest!”
“I know, goddamnit, but that’s what we say to Temple. We say, we only did our thing in Mexico ’cause we thought we had ordinary waste!”
“He going to know we steal from navy.”
“So what? Stealin shoes for guys like us is no biggie. Illegally manifested waste that kills somebody is the end a the fuckin world fer him!”
It was the first time that Shelby had ever seen Abel look scared. Flaco was a ballsy little dude, but for once he looked scared.
“I don’ know, Buey.”
“You don’t know what?”
“Steal shoes, okay. Make report of stolen truck, okay. Tell Meester Temple we partner? I don’ know.”
“You jist lemme handle it, okay? You ’n me, we’re fifty-fifty. I’ll deal with Temple.”
“He ain’t like us, ’mano,” Abel said. “He deeferent people.”
“No, he ain’t like us. That bogus asshole don’t know dick about the real world.”
“Okay,” Abel said, “but I scared.”
“Don’t be scared. Jist concentrate on the cool time we’re gonna have tonight with six very very big ones that we’re gonna collect from Soltero.”
Then Abel broke into a grin. “Tonight, we have berry good time.”
“There you go, Flaco!” said the ox. “Party on!”
“We go to T.J. now?”
“Pretty soon,” Shelby said. “First we gotta stop by Green Earth before the overtime crew locks the fuckin place up.”
“Why we go there?”
“I gotta git somethin.”
“What?”
“Somethin I got in my locker. A derringer.”
“Wha’s that?”
“A little gun, dude. I ain’t goin down there to Soltero without an edge. Don’t worry, it’s untraceable.”
Abel said, “We get caught weeth gun in T.J., beeg problem!”
“I ain’t gonna be talked outta this. I’d rather end up in the Tia-juana jail with those sphincter-stretchers stickin a cattle prod up my ass than meet Soltero without a backup.”
“Buey,” Abel said. “I scared now!”
“I know,” Shelby said, “but I’m gonna make you rich and scared.”
While Nell was driving down the Silver Strand from Coronado she couldn’t stop thinking about how hard she’d worked on her hair that morning. First she’d ladled the mousse on her perm the instant she stepped out of the shower, then she’d combed it out ever so carefully, then she’d scrunched it up for twenty minutes until her do cried out: Tousle me with reckless abandon!
And Fin hadn’t even noticed. He couldn’t take his eyes off that kid. But of course that was typical. Why had she thought he’d be different from every other male person who walked the earth? Why was she even remotely concerned with what that three-time loser thought about her freaking hair?
For the first time, Nell Salter considered that it might not be horrible to get old, not if mid-life agony ended then. She hadn’t noticed that tension was causing her to goose the gas pedal.
Not until Bobbie, who was in the back seat, said, “Nell, I’m getting seasick.”
Nell turned toward Bobbie and said, “You’re a sailor, aren’t you?”
From the corner of her eye Nell saw Fin turn toward Bobbie as though to say: Just ignore the old girl. She’s a woman of a certain age.
“Doesn’t the ocean look pretty today?” Bobbie said, to make conversation.
Nell didn’t answer, so Fin said, “Lovely. Don’t you think so, Nell?”
Fin saw Nell move her lower lip slightly and mumble something. He said, “I guess the surfing’s okay down here, huh, Bobbie?”
“Not bad,” Bobbie said. “I know a guy that lives in Coronado Cays. He lets me use his jet ski sometimes.”
“How’d you meet him?” Fin asked.
“He’s a cousin of a girl I did sea duty with,” Bobbie said.
“Bobbie was in the Gulf War,” Fin explained.
“In a very small way,” Bobbie said. “Mostly we serviced the big ships. Nobody shot at us.”
“Your country was proud of all of you,” Fin said.
This isn’t fair! was all Nell could think. First of all, Fin Finnegan wouldn’t win first prize at the county fair. He was just a reasonably attractive person who made her feel … well, she didn’t know how he made her feel. But he’d made her like him somehow. He hadn’t seemed like a goddamn child molester! And that’s all this Bobbie was really, a child. Bobbie had never stared into a magnifying mirror and seen Armageddon. Her cosmetic light didn’t look like it was directed from the Point L
oma lighthouse, revealing every goddamn sag and crease! What did she know about being a woman? And why was he sitting there gazing at her so doglike? The face of a goddamn golden retriever on a bag of kibble is what he looked like!
While passing Hogs Wild in Imperial Beach, Bobbie said, “The big porky one, Pate? He invited me for a drink at that place, I think it was.”
Fin said, “Figures. It’s the kinda joint where you can’t decide if the patrons were raised by apes or wolves.”
“What’ll the navy say about you doing police work on your day off?” Nell asked, abruptly.
“I don’t know,” Bobbie said, “but if I bring back the guys that stole the shoes, I think … well, it’s kinda weird to say, but I think they might be proud a me. I think I’d be proud.”
Fin said, “You’d have a right to be proud.”
“For chrissake!” Nell said to the roof of the Audi.
“It’d be a very big arrest for me,” Bobbie said. “Maybe not for you guys.”
“It would be,” Fin said. “Those people murdered that little kid, as far as I’m concerned.”
That made Nell shut up. No matter what she felt about Fin mooing like a calf over this girl, there was still that at the bottom of the whole business. They were trying to bring to justice some people who had directly or indirectly caused the death of a man and a child. She had to keep that in mind.
Abel and Shelby arrived at Green Earth in Abel’s Chevy Nova long before the Saturday overtime crew had punched out. All the workers knew that the only reason they were getting the chance for overtime pay was because the boss had sold the business and had to get everything in order, even if it meant working the crew on Saturdays.
As Shelby Pate put it to Abel, “That cheesy prick pays overtime about as often as my old lady does my knob, and that bitch ain’t gave me some knobbin since she told me she wants a firm commitment. I’m all faced at the time and I go, ‘You want a commitment? Buy a vibrator, bitch.’ See, the problem is, my old lady don’t do meth. In fact, she don’t do no drugs at all. You’d think she’d understand that a mixed marriage won’t work.”
Abel smiled, but didn’t get it. He said, “We find good restaurant to eat tonight, Buey. We go to reech people’s restaurant.”
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