by Rex Burns
“What did Bunch tell you?”
“Not damn much.”
Uncle Wyn was my closest family—all of it, in fact—and he had given me the capital to get Kirk and Associates started soon after my father’s death. But the interest on the loan hadn’t been the real reason he backed us. It was for something to fill empty-nest days as well as for an echo of the competitiveness and excitement that had been the routine pace of life during his professional baseball years. Though I often discussed cases with him, I tried to avoid the ones that might hint of danger to the only son of his deceased only brother. But there was no avoiding what the man could see plainly, so I told him as much as he needed to know.
“The motorcycle gang? You think they did it?”
“Somebody set me up. Who else?”
Bunch wandered restlessly along the curtain separating me from my cellmate. “We’re going to have to square things, Dev. If we don’t, they’ll just keep coming at us.”
“I thought you were planning to snatch their dog?”
Uncle Wyn shook his head. “It’s not good, Dev. First assault, now you’re talking escalation. Preventive strikes. Whatever. I wouldn’t’ve given you the money to start this business if I knew it was going to lead to World War Three. You’re goddamn lucky. You know how goddamn lucky you are? You could have been dead twice over—shot at, booby-trapped in a goddamn tunnel. It was damn dumb you went out there alone in the first place!”
There was no answer to the question or to his anger. Bunch finally asked, “What’d the cop say about the bullet hole in the Healey, Dev?”
“He wasn’t looking for it and I didn’t help him find it. As far as I know, he never noticed it.”
“That’s good. I had the car towed to Archer’s.”
Archy didn’t report bullet holes to the police. “What the hey,” he told me once, “they don’t pay no repair bills.” I asked, “Did Archy say anything about her?”
Bunch shook his head. “Just a long, sad whistle.”
Which could have been the car’s dirge. I hoped not. There were only a few of the Austin-Healey 3000s still around. You saw them every now and then taken out of storage for a cours d’élégance or an old-timers’ rally on a sunny day in summer. But there weren’t many, and none for sale at a price I could afford. So a lot depended on what wizardry Archy could do with the pieces that were left. “I hope he can do something. She’s a good car—the only one I could fit in.”
“If he can’t, I don’t know who will.”
We talked over the variables of the attack until Bunch’s restlessness drove him to the doorway. “I’m going out and around, Dev. These places … .” His hand included all the life-support equipment. “If you’re not sick when you come in, you get sick looking at it.”
Uncle Wyn listened to the heavy tread of Bunch’s shoes fade down the corridor. “I knew a lot of guys like that—big guys, afraid of nothing except catching a bug.”
“I think the hospital reminds him of Susan.”
“Yeah, probably. It’s hard to get over something like that.” Uncle Wyn, too, stood and braced himself with the cane. “First he gets his goddamn leg nearly chewed off, now you get busted up. This line of work you guys are in, Bunch better get used to hospitals. Listen, that offer’s still open. You know—going into business with me. I’d really like that.”
“Thanks, Uncle Wyn. It may sound funny from a hospital bed, but I’m doing what I want to.”
“It’ll sound even funnier on your tombstone.”
CHAPTER 7
EVEN A SHORT stay in the hospital is one of those intense and all-encompassing changes of environment that leave one’s sense of time distorted. Coming back to the familiar office late in the afternoon, I felt … not distant, exactly, but placed at a slightly different angle to the routine life that had gone on without me. The accumulated mail was an indication of that routine, and I spent the rest of the afternoon winnowing advertisements and bills, many of which I had finally caught up on, while I telephoned here and there for leasing information on a car to replace the Healey. “Replace” wasn’t the word and I felt a pang of disloyalty for even thinking it. But either necessity overrode or I would walk. To make up for the pang, I called Archer’s Garage to check on the victim.
“This is Devlin Kirk, Archy. How’s my girl?”
“She ain’t no virgin no more. Ain’t much of nothing else, neither.”
“Can you put her together again?”
“Jeez, I don’t know. Even if I can find the parts, it’ll cost like hey. Why don’t you get yourself a Hyundai or a Yugo? You waste one of them, you ain’t out so much.”
“How about seeing what parts you can find, and let me know what it’ll cost?”
“All right. It’ll take some time, but I’ll put it on the wire. You want I should look for another Healey in case this one’s kaput?”
Talk about fickleness! But with a sigh I fell victim to the temptation. “See what you can find.”
“Probably be cheaper to do that. Oh, yeah, I found the bullet. It was in the fire wall on the rider’s side. Son of a gun just missed the gas tank. Went through the deck lid, the rider’s seat back, and halfway through the fire wall. That dude must of been firing a cannon at you.”
“Bunch or I’ll be by to pick it up. Thanks, Archy.”
One of the envelopes tucked away between mail order catalogs for electronics gear was from Warner Memorial Hospital, a response to the inquiry from Kirk and Associates Medical Underwriters about the treatment of services provided one Nestor Calamaro. The statement of account was accompanied by photocopies of the health insurance claim form and a standard-treatment form with its list of services and their diagnostic and procedure code numbers. The block for “Med. Emergency, Office” was checked with a dollar amount following; “Immunizations and Injections” noted a tetanus shot and its fee; a scribble under the “Sutures” section indicated that Nestor was sewn up. Farther down, columns of code numbers without labels had checks and amounts marked here and there. I matched them against the procedure code in the Blue Cross/Blue Shield physician’s manual and put together an impressive list of diagnostic tests. Nestor’s treatment involved an extensive battery of blood tests that seemed far beyond the needs of a simple cut. Apparently the hospital’s billing office was sensitive to the requirements for those services too, because a photocopy of the doctor’s order asking for them was appended. The doctor was Morris Matheney.
“Dev—you should have called me! I could have picked you up at the hospital.”
“That’s okay, Bunch. Uncle Wyn gave me a ride.”
“And a lecture?”
“The one about ‘consider the future.’ ”
“I’ve always liked that one. You all right? Head cleared up?”
“I feel a little dopey—and no comments, please. The doc said it was the result of concussion. And my shoulder’s touchy. But I’m a hell of a lot better off than the Healey.”
“That car’s no loss, believe me. I talked to Dave Miller in vice and narcotics. He didn’t know anything about the Wilcox farm people, but he said he’d ask around DPD.” He added, “Your uncle was right, you know—you really were dumb to get suckered that way.”
“Naw, I figured it for a setup, Bunch. That’s why I went out there early.”
“Well, that’s one way to check it out—stick your head up and see if they shoot. That the way the Secret Service taught you to do it?”
“ ‘If all else fails … .’ By the way, Archy found the bullet. It went through half the car before lodging in the fire wall.”
“Yeah. That figures. It was a high-velocity weapon they used on us at the farm, too. You know that hard crack they make?”
“Believe me, I do know.” Another envelope held something of interest to Bunch and I handed it to him. “You’d better see this.”
“What is it?” He read and then looked up. “They can’t do this—it’s my goddamn leg and my goddamn dog bite!”
The letter was from the city and county health department. It warned Bunch that unless the dog that bit him was located and tested, he could be subject to rabies shots. If he had established a religious exemption from inoculation, he was to call a certain number. If not, he was to call either the referring physician whose name appeared below or the health service, number supplied, and make arrangements to start the inoculations.
“They can’t do this!”
“It’s a public health issue. Rabies is a contagious disease.”
“I don’t have rabies!”
“The first sign is unreasonable anger and irritability.”
Bunch forced up the corners of his mouth “Then you’ve got fucking rabies. Look—I’m smiling. I’m talking very calmly and rationally. I do not have rabies. They cannot make me take those shots.”
“It doesn’t say you have to. It just says you might.”
“Goddamn dogs. Goddamn shots. I hate them both!” He pulled up his pants leg to show a scabby but smooth patch of flesh surrounded by the yellow of old bruise. “Look, it’s almost cleared up. No infection, no bleeding, no goddamn rabies.”
“No dog either.”
“I said I’m working on that.” His voice emphasized sweetness and light. “But if I steal that dog, Dev, it’ll be because I want to and not because some fucking bureaucrat tells me to. I’m not going to do one thing I damn well don’t want to do.” Tossing the crumpled letter into the trash, he added, “And while you’ve been laying around in the hospital pissing and moaning about that lousy car, I’ve been working. You know what today is?”
“The day before tomorrow.”
“An anniversary. The third week to the day that Nestor disappeared.”
I waited for him to tell me why that was important.
“I went back over his route home. I figured maybe other people were on schedules too. That they touched his route the same time every Tuesday, maybe, or worked in the area and started home about the same time. People we missed when we went out to knock on doors.”
“And?”
“Well, if you’re not all that interested … .”
I was interested; Bunch had a good idea. But he didn’t need me stroking him—he was doing well enough on his own. “Out with it.”
“An ice cream vendor. You know these people that pedal ice cream carts around town? The three wheelers?”
“A tricycle cart? He saw something?”
“She. Got legs on her like a linebacker. Face like one, too. She remembered seeing Nestor get picked up by a van.”
“How’d she know it was him?”
“His picture. She says she crosses Williams Street every afternoon, all summer long, just about five-fifteen. Two or three times a week, she’d see Nestor coming down Forty-seventh Avenue, and he’d usually buy something from her—Popsicle, snow cone, something cheap like that. He always walked by himself, but he was friendly, like he didn’t have many people to talk to. In fact, she thought that’s mostly why he bought something—to practice his English, and maybe because she was somebody he kind of knew. So she was surprised when this van pulled to the curb and Nestor went over to see what they wanted. Then he got in, and off they went.”
“He just got in? Didn’t argue with them or try to run?”
“That’s how she described it. They talked for a few seconds and then he got in.”
“Description?”
“Plain white van. No side or back windows. Colorado plates, but she didn’t get a number.”
“She see anybody?”
“She thinks it was a man driving, but she’s not sure. A man in the rider’s seat talked to Nestor. White. She didn’t think he had a beard or mustache, but she won’t swear to it after this long. By the time she crossed the street, they were already pulling away.”
It wasn’t much and it didn’t seem to lead anywhere. But so far, it was the last glimpse of a missing person. “If it had Colorado plates, it probably wasn’t the immigration people. Federal plates are white.”
“That’s what I figure. I checked with missing persons again, too. Nothing on either Nestor or Serafina. But I found out where Mrs. Chiquichano’s cleaning crews will be working tonight.”
“How’d you do that?”
“The usual, Watson: ratiocination and inductive reasoning. Besides, she had the work schedule posted on her office wall.”
“You went by?”
“After hours.”
Bunch told me what else he’d found in the office of Olympia Janitorial Services, and it didn’t come to much—a small desk, an answering machine on the telephone, a work schedule for the crew, and a file drawer with a few employee records. “She could run the business out of her home. All she really needs is a phone. But she’s got this dinky one-room office in a house over on Twenty-third.”
“Who owns the house?”
“Good point. I’ll check with the tax people.” He heaved off the desk. “Let’s get some dinner and then see what the cleaning crew has to say.”
Bunch drove his Bronco and we headed for the southwest corner of the city, an area of shopping malls and office complexes surrounded by restaurants that did good business with the singles and working couples who populated the area. Health spas, mom-and-pop franchises, and large, high-rise apartment buildings filled up the rolling hills and promised luxury living close to downtown.
“How many employees?”
“The books say ten. But her schedule only lists about fifty jobs. There’s no need for ten workers to clean that few offices once a week.”
“Shadow employees? A tax dodge?”
“She’s doing it on her apartment house. Why not on the cleaning business, too? On the books, she has a small business with ten independent contractors who work part-time—no FICA, no mandatory medical to pay. In fact, she runs four or five illegals who work their butts off for nothing. She writes off a little overhead, pays a little tax, pockets a lot of wages. Anybody needs to know, that’s how she struggles along to make a living. Meanwhile, she’s got a sockful of thousand-dollar bills tucked away somewhere.”
“You think she launders the money somehow?”
“Why should she, Dev? Is IRS after her? No. Is she living beyond her means of support? No. What she can’t do is invest the money—not legally, anyway. My guess is she’s hiding it outside the country. El Salvador, maybe. Cayman Islands. Hell, maybe she just stuffs it in a trunk under the bed. She wouldn’t be the first one to bury a coffee can full of dollars in the backyard.”
True enough. The people who had to worry about laundering money were those who wanted to spend a lot of it in this country and whom the IRS had under a microscope. The Bronco edged to the curb in front of a line of tan brick shops and parked behind a battered carryall. Through the plate-glass window of a friendly neighborhood loan company, we could see bustling figures vacuuming, wiping, dumping trash cans into large plastic garbage bags. A man leaned against one wall and smoked as he watched the women work quickly. Bunch rapped on the glass door and the man looked up, puzzled. Then he came over to open it slightly.
“Yes?”
“Are you with Olympia Janitorial Services?”
“Yes.”
Behind him, the women had stopped to stare. I recognized the one on the vacuum cleaner as the woman who had been washing Mrs. Chiquichano’s car. Her eyes recognized me too, but her face was a mask.
Bunch flicked his ID card and leaned against the wavering door. “We’d like to ask you people a couple questions.”
The man’s pockmarked face turned a sick gray and his lips sucked up somewhere under his full mustache. Sudden tension rang like a bell through the room, and for a moment they looked like birds poised to leap into the air.
“We’re private detectives,” I said in Spanish. “We’re looking for two missing people.” I held up the photographs of Nestor and Serafina. “Do any of you know these people?”
The man, breathing again, shook his head. “No.”
Bunch easily p
ushed the door open against his weight and stepped in. “You haven’t even looked at the picture, my man. Here.”
He stared first at Bunch, growing aware of his size, then carefully studied the photographs. “No sir. We don’t know these ones.”
“Show them to the ladies, Dev.” He smiled at the man. “What’s your job on the crew?”
“Me? Supervisor. And I drive the truck.”
“Mrs. Chiquichano pay you well for that?”
Behind me, I heard the supervisor mutter uncomfortably and Bunch ask something else. The first woman looked carefully at the photographs and then, mute, shook her head and turned quickly back to her mop and pail. The next shrugged and said, “No.” The woman on the vacuum cleaner looked hard at me before she gazed at the photographs. “No, sir,” she whispered, her eyes snagging mine again. Without moving her head, she rolled her eyes toward the back door and then handed the picture to me. We thanked them, and the man watched us pull away into the night. I told Bunch to go around the block and let me off at the alley.
“What for?”
“One of the women wants to tell me something.”
“Jesus, Dev, don’t you ever learn? It could be another setup.”
I pulled my cap tighter over the bandage that still gripped my scalp. “These people have no reason. The bikers are the only ones to pull crap like that.”
“I’ll follow along anyway.”
“Suit yourself.”
But halfway down the silent and dark alley, I was relieved to think of Bunch at my back. The only light came from the main street, over the wall of stores—a thin glow reflected off the low clouds that had started to fill Denver’s shallow valley as the day’s air cooled. The far end of the lane was marked by a fainter gray, and glass chips grated beneath my shoes as I picked my way past garbage cans and Dumpsters whose doors hung blackly open. The sudden rush of a dog behind a fence on the other side brought a prickle of quick sweat down my back, and I paused a moment to let the deep growls die out.
It was hard to make out the shop names on the doors, but I glimpsed light falling from a rear window and peered through the dirty glass. One of the women scrubbed rapidly at the washroom mirror. I leaned beside the closed door and waited.