by Rex Burns
Bunch asked the questions and then told me the answers. “Single. She’s a sales rep for an encyclopedia company out of Chicago. He didn’t get any closer than that because he didn’t know if we wanted him to.”
“Can he find out if Loomis got off the plane in Houston or if she got on?”
“Nellie? One more favor.” Bunch explained it. “Yeah. United from Denver to Mexico City this morning.” He gave him the flight number and our thanks and hung up. “He’ll call our office as soon as he finds out.”
“Okay.” I dropped a quarter into one of the three telephones that Bunch vacated and dialed Margaret’s number. She answered on the third ring, slightly breathless. “It’s Devlin. How are you and Dutch getting along?”
“Fine. Actually, I don’t see much of him. He’s working outside in the yard right now—he said he feels stale unless he gets some exercise.”
And he could keep a better eye on the neighborhood that way, as well. “Do you know a Nora Challis?”
“Challis? No, I can’t place the name.”
“She’s the one who visited you in the rental car—on the eleventh.”
The line was silent for a few breaths. Then, “Miss Challis! That was her name!”
“Whose name?”
“The encyclopedia salesman—saleswoman. I sent in one of those cards for information on a set of encyclopedias for Austin and Shauna. And then she showed up.”
“She was selling encyclopedias?”
“Yes! I’d forgotten all about that—she came to the door and told me who she was and I told her I’d changed my mind and didn’t want to see any samples. I was a bit irritated—they advertised that no salesman would call. I suppose technically they were right—it was a woman. But I remember being not at all certain that I wanted encyclopedias anyway, just a little more information. And then when the salesperson showed up I just said no thank you and closed the door.” She asked, “Is it important?”
“I’m not sure. But your information fits what we have from Houston.”
“Houston?”
“That’s where she lives. That’s why she had a rental car. Colorado’s probably part of her sales territory.”
“I’m sorry it’s nothing more earth-shaking. But it completely slipped my mind.”
“It still may turn out to be important if she’s tied to Loomis. Or to Carrie Busey.”
“Tied how?”
I wasn’t sure how much she really wanted to know. Her husband’s suicide was almost a year old by now, but the scar was, I knew, still tender. And here I was leading her to pick at the scab.
“How, Devlin? How do you mean they’re tied?”
“May be tied. Just a distant possibility.”
“I don’t understand. And I want to.”
“I think Loomis was involved with your husband in selling McAllister’s plans to Aegis. He did the same thing back in New York, at Columbia. And I’ve found evidence tying him to one of Aegis’s executives.”
“My God!”
“You didn’t hear of anything like that when you were his student?”
“No—and I’m not sure I believe it now. Are you certain, Devlin? Something like that—even a rumor— could ruin the man’s life.”
“There’s not enough for a court case. But I’m certain.”
“But … I mean—are you really sure you’re being objective?”
“Because of my father?”
“Yes.”
“I have evidence, Margaret. It has nothing to do with my father. I think the man ingratiated himself with your husband, made the proposition to him, and served as the go-between with Aegis.”
“That means … that means I helped cause it. It was through me that he met Austin.”
“Did you know what he was up to at Columbia?”
“Of course not!”
“Then don’t blame yourself for his faults. Or your husband’s. You trusted him and it turned out that he’s a hypocrite and a thief. That’s his responsibility, Margaret. Not yours.”
“Yes. Of course. But it still makes me feel … an unwitting accomplice or something.”
“You’re not, and that’s all there is to it. You dared to trust him—you dared to take him for what he said he was. It’s the kind of daring my father used to say made the world worth living in.”
“I … I suppose that’s true. It’s good to trust. And to love. But it’s not so good when that’s betrayed.”
“But the betrayal doesn’t diminish the quality of love and trust. Just of the person who betrayed it.”
“Yes.” The line was silent and I thought her mind was on her husband. But apparently it wasn’t. “Then that explains where the payoff money is.”
“You keep thinking like that, and I’ll make you an associate in the firm. That’s the way I see it, too: your husband’s death came before he and Loomis split the money and Loomis kept it all. That’s probably what he used to skip with. That and whatever else he had socked away from his other deals.”
“Skip? You mean he’s gone?”
“Last seen this A.M. heading for Mexico. In haste.”
“Oh, my God … then it is true. All this you’re telling me really is true!”
I could sense some of the remaining props of her familiar world melt and collapse. She’d heard what I’d been telling her, but it had not yet reached the center of belief. Now she believed. And once again the outside world was suddenly as unyielding as a flash of icy light, or a raw stench, or a heavy, cold stone. “It’s true, Margaret.”
“Of course it is. I’m sorry. It’s just so shocking—it has so many implications.”
“Not for you to be upset over. The man’s gone, and I doubt that we’ll be able to find him. Latin America’s a big place, and a safe one for a man with that much money.”
“Why do you want to find him?”
“For what he knows about Aegis. With him, McAllister could have a strong case against them. And I still think Loomis knows something about Busey’s death.”
“I thought you were off that.”
“McAllister reduced our incentive, he sure did. But the woman’s dead, and Loomis might be a link of some kind.”
“You should let him go. Let him run and hide for the rest of his life—he deserves it!”
“He won’t hide forever. When things simmer down, he’ll come back to the States and get a new job. He’ll con the university into giving him a clean record—temporary insanity or a nervous breakdown—and they’ll do it. And he’ll start all over again.”
“That’s the university’s worry—it’s not yours or ours. Just let him go!”
“Hey, take it easy. There’s not much I can do about it anyway.”
“I’m sorry, Devlin. I’m just so disappointed—in him, in Austin. In myself for being so blind to what he was.”
“He fooled a lot of people who trusted him, Margaret. It’s nothing to blame yourself for.”
We talked for another minute or two and I promised to come by as soon as I could. And I made her promise to stay where Dutch could keep an eye on them. When I hung up, Bunch was moving restlessly between the plate-glass windows that overlooked the increasing number of cars and limousines and vans that had begun to arrive for the afternoon flights.
“Visiting hours started about twenty minutes ago,” he said. “I’d like to swing by the hospital before we head for the office.”
“What the hell are you waiting for?”
The message on the office answering machine was terse and to the point. “Kirk, it’s McAllister. I had an appointment with Loomis and he didn’t show. Nobody knows where he is. You call me and tell me what the hell’s going on.”
“Maybe he’ll put us back on the payroll again.” Bunch poured a cup of coffee from the Silex pot and sniffed it gingerly. “I think we left this on too long.”
“Just since yesterday.” I dialed McAllister’s private number and his secretary put me through immediately. “Well, Kirk? What can you tell me?”
I told him.
“Mexico? The son-of-a-bitch ran to Mexico?”
“Or points south. Under a different name and with a Canadian passport.”
“I’ll be damned. I’ll be double-damned!” I could hear the hiss of McAllister’s disgusted breath. “I suppose I should offer you an apology.”
“Accepted.”
“I said I should offer it, I didn’t say I’d do it!” He added, “But I do.” Then, “Do you have enough for a case against Aegis? Can we tie those bastards up in court?”
“Only if we get Loomis to testify. But I don’t think he would even if we find him.”
“I’ll drop every charge against him. It’s the bastards behind him that I want.”
“They’re the ones he’s afraid of, not the law. He’s worth a lot more to them dead than alive, now.”
McAllister pondered that. “You think they would do it? Kill him?”
“Yes, sir. I do.” I told him what I’d learned about Aegis.
“Good Lord. They have to be stopped.”
“They haven’t broken any laws that we can prove. So far, they’re more or less legitimate businessmen.”
“That galls!”
“If it makes you feel any better, the police have been notified about them and their connections. I think they’ll make what they can out of the construction rip-offs and then sell off the projects or claim Chapter Eleven. The FBI, IRS, local police agencies—they’ll all be camped on their doorstep if they stay.”
“That does make me feel a little better. But the bastards should be behind bars—and they would be if it wasn’t for the damned left-wing courts. Damned liberals soft on crime!” He sighed heavily. “Well, the older I get, the more limitations I seem to discover. As for Loomis, what the hell—let him go. I don’t want anyone else dead because of this mess. Let him enjoy … Cabo San Lucas! By God, that’s where the bastard is: Los Cabos!”
“How do you know?”
“Two years—hell almost three years ago, now—we were talking deep-sea fishing. He mentioned he had a finca on the Mexican coast and that he could walk to the harbor where the charter boats docked. I asked him where it was and he said Cabo San Lucas!”
CHAPTER 16
THE TRIP TO Cabo San Lucas by Mexicana Air takes I about three hours, and I was lucky enough to get the last single seat on a flight crowded with grinning tourists eagerly drinking the complimentary margaritas. The several fishing villages that make up the cape’s scattered population form patches of dusty green at the tip of the thousand-mile finger of rocky waste that’s the Baja California peninsula. The towns had been there for centuries, clinging like whelks to the meager subsistence that the sea and rocks provided, and much of the population was the offspring of pirates who had sheltered in the lee of barren, guano-streaked rocks to dart out and strike the Spanish ships that cruised the Pacific coast from Chile north, or that lumbered across the central Pacific to the isthmus with the riches of the Philippines in their holds. Now it was a newly discovered tourist mecca, but the ancient tradition of piracy was still alive in the fleets of drug runners who moored their glistening yachts in the small harbor behind the Arch and lounged in the sun while counting their money. Loomis would be right at home.
It was a long shot, but McAllister had insisted—putting us back on the payroll with a joke about having his accountant work overtime to fire us so he could hurry up and rehire us. It wouldn’t take more than a day to be certain, and the chance to get Loomis was worth that. Make the offer, McAllister told me; find the man and make the offer.
Through the quivering window on one side of the plane, the flat, dead-looking waters of the Sea of Cortez gradually gained life, rippling like wrinkled aluminum foil with the Pacific surges that rolled into the sea’s mouth from Tahiti or China. Through the other window, when the plane finally banked for its landing, the earth was a brown tumult scarred here and there by patches of gray green crops and meandering lines of arroyos that hid a little moisture from the tropic sun. On the steep glide down toward the new airport’s single strip of black asphalt, I could see the small houses scattered among palm thickets and stiff cactus and linked by webs of unpaved roads and meandering dirt trails. As I bounced on the broken springs of the creaking taxi that carried me the thirty or so miles to the town of Cabo San Lucas, I glimpsed boxlike houses nestled in the saguaro and cholla and, occasionally, the sudden luxuriant green of carefully tended gardens and palm trees that marked hotels perched at the edge of the sea.
The territory of Baja California del Sur is controlled by the Federal Police based a hundred miles north in La Paz; but the several towns of Cabo have their own local police—municipals who patrol the highway and answer emergency calls in squad cars that look like the highway patrol vehicles in any number of states north of the border. They would be my last resort because they would have questions of their own. My guess was that someone in the village—shopkeeper, waiter, bartender—would know of the gringo whose picture I showed them. I also guessed that the harbor Loomis had told McAllister about was at San Lucas instead of one of the lesser indentations along the almost featureless stretches of sandy cliff and beach.
We lurched and swerved through low sandy hills tangled with sun-scorched shrubs and cactus, passing on blind curves with the faith of a devout Catholic. When we neared one of the billows of green palms, the driver would point and name the resort—”Calinda Aquamarina,” “Palmilla”—and tell me what attractions each had: sport fishing, surfing, skindiving, a notable restaurant. Finally, dropping out of a last tangle of highway past skinny, long-horned cows that grazed on cactus, he pointed ahead to the spine of tan rock that sank into the sea beyond the glitter of distant white buildings. “El Cabo—the tip. Beyond that, splash!”
“That’s the Arch?”
“Yes. Like a window. This side, the Sea of Cortez, that side, the Pacific. You must take the tour to Lover’s Beach—swim in two oceans. Very nice—very cheap. You are looking for fishing?”
“No. I’m looking for a person.”
“Oh?”
“An emergency. He’s here on vacation, but I have important papers for him to sign.”
The brown eyes in the rearview mirror looked at me without expression and I lifted from my briefcase the impressive sheaf of papers that made up the Columbine Project.
“You are maybe police?”
“No. I’m a lawyer. Soy un abogado.”
“Ah. The lawyers and the vultures,” he said in Spanish. “They fly around in the same circles.”
“But the lawyers can eat more than the vultures.”
“Ha! Es verdad!”
The road suddenly ran out of pavement in a rattle and skid of gravel and a scattering of warning signs that marked construction.
“It’s a drainage ditch around the city for the floods.”
“You get that much rain here?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Some day. But I don’t think so.”
The town’s edge was a swirl of new highway construction that tangled the light traffic of cabs, tour vans, and the ubiquitous flatbed trucks that were used for everything from construction to family outings. The pop and sputter of small motorcycles filled the sun-washed streets as we slowed to a stop-and-go crawl past the bright facades of shops and restaurants. “Where does this man live?”
“I don’t know where he’s staying. I have to find him.”
“Ah. He’s a Norteamericano?”
“Canadian.” I showed him Loomis’s photograph. “Edward Holtzmann. He has a finca somewhere near the harbor.”
“Okay—that’s not so hard. We will look.” His eyes snagged mine again in the rearview mirror. “I can be your guide, yes? I know Los Cabos—we will find him.”
“That’s fine.”
Nothing said about money—that would come later; but McAllister could afford it. The driver, a greater happiness at the prospect of a day-long hire and a job out of the ordinary, turned completely around while he drove and
held out a hand, “My name is Juan Rodriguez.”
Our first stop was a cantina that faced across the main street to the harbor, where small boats of all kinds lay moored and pointing at the open sea. On the other side of the flat water, a large hotel jutted from a rise of high ground and overlooked the town; behind the cantina, the spine of gray-and-brown rock lifted steeply toward the pale and hazy sky. Scattered across its barren face, houses clung above the dusty heat of the village, propped by masonry arches and concrete pillars. “My friend owns this bar—he knows everything about San Lucas. You wish to come in? Good food, good drinks!”
“Perhaps after we find him.”
Juan Rodriguez was only slightly disappointed. “Only a few minutes.” He took the photograph with him and I strolled along the narrow walk past the tourist shops to gaze at the harbor and the open-air market that formed a cluster of thatched roofs. On the near horizon loomed the white massiveness of a cruise ship, and scratches of white marked the steady shuttle of barges going back and forth from the ship to the quay. From this angle, the Arch wasn’t visible, but glass-bottomed boats and motor cruisers filled with brightly dressed tourists moved steadily from the harbor and back, rounding a shoulder of steep rock for the gap in the mole that protected the small harbor from the sea. Now and then, a fishing boat, its rods lifted high above the conning tower like a row of feelers, pushed slowly through the smaller skiffs and outboards that constantly crossed the glaring surface. Despite the smallness of the village, there was a sense of urbanity and congestion, the sudden boiling up of human activities that marked a crossroads in what was otherwise an alien wilderness of desert and empty ocean. It had a cosmopolitan note reinforced by the French and Spanish, the German and English that idly drifting clusters of tourists spoke as they strolled from one shop to another in the weighty midday heat. It was the kind of place that Loomis could comfortably be lost in—remote enough from the United States for safety, yet not isolated nor vacantly provincial. And his money would go a long way.
“Ah, there you are! My friend, he does not know this man personally but he has given me many places to ask for him.”
“Where do we start?”