Wolf in the Shadows

by Marcia Muller

  The beach ended a hundred or more yards down from there at the mouth of the dry riverbed. The vegetation was thick: scrub cactus, yuccas, sycamores, and—farther back, straggling up the incline—greasewood. I kept walking that way, past a couple of old rotted wooden pongas—fishing boats—that Fontes and his neighbors probably allowed to remain there because they considered them picturesque. A few newer Fiberglas pongas were beached closer to the riverbed. As I neared it, I saw the outlines of buildings in among the vegetation— rough board shacks painted turquoise and lavender and pink, with rusted metal roofs and sheets for doors. Here and there a clothesline hung with bright garments stretched between the sycamore trunks, and in a clearing next to a trash dump strewn with shells and old car parts, children played. Women moved back and forth bearing baskets and buckets. I’d found the slums of El Sueño, carefully concealed so as not to mar the content of the hill dwellers.

  After a while I turned and walked back toward the rotting pongas. Looked them over, then perched on one facing the sea, setting my bag beside me. I began to experiment with the camera, focusing on the swooping gulls and pelicans. As I homed in on them, I remembered the claim of the clerk at Gooden’s: “You’ll be able to count the pinfeathers on a baby bird’s head at two hundred yards.” How right he’d been! I swiveled, focused on the settlement in the riverbed. A woman’s face confronted me unseeing, dark eyes cast down. I moved the lens to see what she was looking at; a knife slashed expertly into a plump tomato.

  If I could make out that much detail at this distance, think what I might observe at Fontes’s villa. The situation here was so perfect for my purposes that I crossed my fingers superstitiously against anything going wrong.

  Spying on Fontes was one thing, but covertly watching this woman prepare her supper made me feel like a voyeur. I set the camera down and continued to contemplate the sea. If the people at the villa had noticed me, let them watch. Let them get used to a solitary tourist looking out at the Pacific and occasionally trying to photograph the curious muted sunset. After a while I’d become part of the landscape to them, merely another expensively equipped traveler displaying an unwarranted fascination with a phenomenon that happens every evening.

  My back was turned to the villa, but my thoughts were very much on what might be happening there. First there was the Volvo, the one I’d followed last night when Ann Navarro drove Diane Mourning to the border. Ann Navarro, who in all likelihood didn’t yet know she’d been a widow since Sunday night. Sunday night, when Stan Brockowitz had been shot to death on the mesa. Shot by Marty Salazar? No way to know for sure, but if Salazar hadn’t personally shot Brockowitz, he knew who had.

  Which brought me to an unpleasant possibility that I thought I’d better face right now: the possibility that Hy had shot Brockowitz. According to Ann-Marie, there was bad history between Brockowitz and Hy. And Hy had been on the mesa that night. While he’d never said it in so many words, I knew he’d killed at least once. He, like me, had stepped over that line because there had been no other choice.

  No other choice. That was the key. If Hy had shot Brockowitz, It was because he’d been placed in an untenable situation. His motive would have had to be stronger than an old antagonism. Stronger than retaining possession of a two-million-dollar letter of credit.

  Letter of credit. Who had it now? Hy? Doubtful. I’d begun to suspect that somehow it had been taken from him and he hadn’t contacted RKI because he was attempting to recover it. Taken by whom? Salazar? Possibly, but if so, what did Salazar intend to do with it?

  And then there was Gilbert Fontes. Fontes, whose estranged brother operated the firm the L.C. was drawn to. And Terramarine—that was the odd number in this equation. As was the apparent relationship between Fontes, Ann Navarro, and Diane Mourning. And there was Timothy Mourning, missing for twelve days now. If the body on the mesa had been Mourning’s or even a Terramarine member’s, this whole scenario would have made more sense….

  Most of the other people on the beach had departed. The young mother called to her children, and they reluctantly straggled up from the surf. She bundled them in towels, put her arms around their shoulders as they walked to the stairway to one of the villas. Dusk was falling fast. The smell of cooking fires began to drift from the riverbed; voices, too, in musical counterpoint. A white-haired man walked past along the shoreline, his Irish setter leaping joyously through the waves. The man gave me an incurious nod; the dog paid me no mind at all.

  The darkness deepened. Fires danced down in the riverbed; I smelled fish and tortillas frying, heard men and women laughing. I twisted around and saw that the villas on the hill were now ablaze with light; music and cocktail-time chatter drifted down, as did smoke from mesquite barbecues. My stomach growled forlornly. The temperature had dropped; it was still comfortable, but as the night wore on it would grow cold. I had no heavy jacket or sweater; those things remained in bungalow 7 at La Encantadora.

  Well, I told myself, you’ve endured far worse ordeals than a cold night on a beach.

  I turned all the way around and studied Fontes’s villa. The doors to the terrace stood open, and the white-jacketed waiter moved back and forth through them. No one else was out there; no one stood at any of the lighted windows. My eyes still on the house, I slipped down onto the sand, pulling my bag and the camera with me. There was an open space between the pongas, just large enough for the camera. I shoved it in there, found a piece of wood and used it as a shim to tilt the camera at a good angle. When it was full dark and no one moved on the beach, I lay down on my stomach, put my eye to the scope, and focused on the terrace.

  The waiter was setting a plate of hors d’oeuvres on one of the tables. He distributed coasters, then arranged four cushioned chairs around it. After viewing his handiwork with apparent satisfaction, he went behind the bar and looked expectantly at the door. The lens’s focus was so fine that I could see the web of lines around his eyes deepen as he smiled at the first arrivals.

  I moved the camera slightly and focused on Diane Mourning’s thin, humorless features. With her was the woman I’d identified as Ann Navarro. They got drinks, then carried them to the table and began a conversation. On Mourning’s side, it was intense; her brow was drawn into worried creases and she spoke emphatically, bobbing her curly head to punctuate every three or four words. I was able to lip-read a few: “no way,” “he can’t.” Navarro’s heavy Indian features remained calm; she spoke very little, but occasionally made soothing gestures.

  I studied Navarro’s with interest. She was plain, almost homely, and apparently had the sense to realize that elaborate trickery with makeup would not enhance her looks. On the whole, her mannerisms suggested she was comfortable with herself; when she spoke she displayed a certain confidence and authority. Without knowing her, it was impossible for me to tell if what her employee had said about her—that she had no real ethical base—was true. But observing her convinced me that this was a woman who, once committed to a plan such as the kidnapping, would carry it through calmly, with attention to detail. If she now had any regrets or any guilt, no sign of either was apparent. While Mourning’s face was drawn with lines of strain, gaunt from lack of sleep, Navarro’s was smooth and rested. While Mourning punctuated her conversation with nervous gestures, Navarro sat still, entirely at ease.

  Suddenly Mourning glanced toward the door. Her face tightened and she reached for her drink. Navarro looked that way, too; while her expression didn’t change, something flashed in her eyes—anger, I thought, carefully checked but there nonetheless. I moved the lens and focused on a big man in a white dinner jacket who was crossing the terrace. He was Hispanic, in his sixties, with iron-gray hair and a flaccid, fleshy face; his thick features spread as if they were made of wax that had been left too long in the sun. Beneath the skin, however, was a hardness that hinted at a stubborn will; his eyes were equally hard and sunk deep in their sockets. Gilbert Fontes?

  The man smiled in a way that managed to be both polite and con
descending before he sat down across from Mourning. She nodded curtly and drained her glass, then set it down—hard, I thought. Immediately the waiter appeared with a drink for the man, took Mourning’s glass away for a refill. Ann Navarro leaned across the table and said something to the man that ended in “Gilbett.” Fontes, all right.

  The three chatted idly for a while; I couldn’t make out anything they said. Then their heads turned toward the door. Fontes’s expression was welcoming, but with the trace of condescension I’d noticed when he greeted the women. Navarro’s lips tightened. Fear showed in Mourning’s eyes. I moved the camera and zoomed in on Marty Salazar.

  Salazar was dressed as he’d been on Wednesday night, in a pale summer suit. The glare of the terrace’s floodlights threw his sunken cheeks and the rattler-plate scar on his forehead into dramatic relief; my focus was so fine that I could make out the short lashes rimming his hooded eyes. As he crossed the terrace, he took a cigarette from his pocket and lighted it. I followed him with the lens.

  Salazar joined the group, taking the chair to Mourning’s right. She recrossed her legs, shifted away from him. He glanced knowingly at her and smirked. Navarro’s nostrils pinched in disgust, but she moved her chair closer to the table and began talking earnestly with the two men. Again, I couldn’t make out many of the words, but the conversation was definitely spirited. Salazar was doing most of the talking. After a few minutes he sat back and extended his arms, hands together, fingers pointing like the barrel of a gun. He jerked them as if firing—one, two, three times—then threw his head back and laughed uproariously.

  No one else laughed. Fontes watched Salazar analytically, as if he were observing a rare type of snake. Navarro turned away, pressing her fingers to her temples. Mourning jerked in reaction, as if she herself had been shot. After a moment Fontes signaled to the waiter for another round of drinks.

  I felt stunned, a little sick. Could Salazar have been describing how he shot Stan Brockowitz? Surely he wouldn’t do that in the presence of Brockowitz’s widow—unless she’d been an accessory to the killing. Even then, though, would her reaction have been so restrained? Perhaps he was describing the way he’d shot Timothy Mourning. Perhaps Diane had been an accessory to her own husband’s murder and now found the reality of it more than she could stomach.

  Who knows? I thought. You really can’t tell anymore what people will do.

  The fresh drinks arrived; Mourning reached eagerly for hers. The conversation went on—in Spanish now, I thought—punctuated by headshakes, gestures of acceptance and protest, and some table pounding on Salazar’s part. Mourning remained withdrawn from it, huddled in her chair, expression growing glassy. Navarro and Salazar appeared to be arguing bitterly; Fontes watched them with his cool, analytical stare.

  My eyes ached from straining to see through the scope. I took a moment to rest them. It was cold now. I had no idea what time it was; my watch had mysteriously stopped, its luminous dial claiming it was only five-eleven. It seemed I’d been on this beach for countless hours. My back hurt from lying flat and tensed; my neck ached from craning it at an awkward angle; I was pretty sure a splinter from the ponga had worked its way through my jeans and into my ass. I rolled over, looked up at a brilliant scattering of stars. The sound of voices from the riverbed was now underscored by the strains of a world-weary guitar. It made me feel lonely. Lost.

  In a sense I was lost. Had lost touch with the man I’d traveled all this way to find. Hy—his face, his body, his very essence—had become vague to me, obscured by a tangle of people and relationships and intrigues and crimes that really had very little to do with either of us. I felt as if I’d started along a straight corridor and somehow made a wrong turn into a maze. Too much more of this bumping my nose against its walls and I’d lose touch with everything that mattered….

  Movement up on the terrace. Doggedly I hunched over the camera again. Fontes and Salazar were standing. Salazar said something to Mourning and, when she didn’t respond, reached down and jerked her to her feet. She stood, limp and spineless. Salazar took hold of her shoulders and turned her toward the door.

  A man came through it, followed closely by Salazar’s body-guard, Jaime. The man was stocky and walked in a shambling gait; his clothing and mop of dark blond curls were disheveled. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, several days’ growth of beard, and a numb, bewildered expression. When he saw the others on the terrace, he stopped. Jaime shoved him forward and he stumbled, then stood facing them, shaking his head.

  I pressed the camera’s shutter.

  Ann Navarro’s expression went quickly from shock to chagrin. She looked from the man to Fontes, mouth turning down. Fontes gave her a long, measured look of triumph.

  Diane Mourning cried out as she recognized her husband. Timothy stumbled toward her, but she stepped back, face horror-stricken, putting out both hands, as if to fend him off.

  I pressed the shutter again.

  Movement behind me. A step on sand so soft that it had cushioned the others. A hand across my mouth before I could roll over or reach for the gun. A voice, low and so close to my ear that I felt moist, warm breath.

  “See anything interesting, McCone? ”

  Shock flooded me. I wrenched away, twisted around.

  Looked up into the grimly humorous eyes of my missing lover.

  Twenty-Two

  I stared at him in shock, unable to believe he’d turned up alive and whole on this remote strip of sand. My lips were parted, but I couldn’t speak.

  Hy nudged me aside, lay flat, and put his eye to the camera’s viewfinder. I flopped back on the sand, landed hard, as if I’d lost my equilibrium.

  “Son of a bitch! ” Hy whispered.

  I wasn’t sure which of the things transpiring up there on the terrace so fascinated him, nor did I care. Still disoriented and struggling to comprehend this startling turn of events, I tugged at his elbow. He swatted my hand away, and I saw that the left sleeve of his dirty T-shirt had been ripped out and his upper arm sported a bandage.

  “You’re hurt!”

  “Ssh! Flesh wound, that’s all. I’ve got Salazar to thank for it.”

  Finally he turned away from the scope, and I saw he was deeply tanned and wore a short, stubbly beard. His hair curled wildly, as disheveled as Timothy Mourning’s.

  “What happened?”

  “Tell you later. We’d better get out of here.”

  “We can’t leave while they’re—”

  “Going inside, all of them.” He pushed up, pulled the camera out of the hole, and hefted it.“Come on, somebody might’ve spotted us. You took an awful chance here, McCone.”

  “What about you, Ripinsky? What the hell have you been—”

  “Save it.” He shoved my bag toward me. “Let’s go.”

  He was giving orders. For nearly a week I’d tracked him. With very little to go on, I’d followed only a few paces behind, then come out even—maybe ahead. And he had the nerve to give orders!

  I choked back a sarcastic remark; common sense dictated we do as he said. “Keep low,” I whispered, giving an order of my own, and began moving toward the beach access.

  “Where’re you going?”

  “I’ve got a car up at the parking area. We’ll get it, stake out the front of the house in case any of them decide to leave. While we do that, you can explain some things.”

  “Forget it, McCone. The local cops and a private security force patrol up there. To say nothing of Salazar and his pals. What do you think I was doing when I got this”—his hand touched the bandage—“at around four o’clock this morning?”

  I hesitated. “Well, I can’t leave the car there. If they find it, the rental contract’ll tell them all they need to know.”

  “How do they know about you—”

  “Save it, Ripinsky,” I said in a perfect parody of him.

  His lips twitched in a faint smile, and he remained crouched on the sand, eyes glittering in the lights from the villas. “Okay, you’re rig
ht. We’ve got to get that car. We’ll need it later on, anyway.”

  We! He could disappear for all that time and never bother to contact me. He could place me in a situation where the danger was tripled because of all I didn’t know. He could sneak up on me on a deserted beach in a strange land and act as if it was perfectly normal to find me there. And then he could blithely make the assumption that we were acting in partnership- All that, with no explanations!

  Suddenly I was seized by an uncharacteristic desire to swat him right smack across the bridge of his hawk nose. I restrained myself, aware on some level that my relief at finding him alive and reasonably whole—or him finding me, to put it more accurately—had given my anger release. Now I could both recognize and admit that I’d been terribly angry with him ever since this whole business began.

  The realization didn’t make me feel any better. I tried to speak, strangled on the words, and simply began creeping toward the beach access.

  At the top of the path I paused, hand on my father’s gun, scanning the parking area. A couple of the older vehicles were still there, the Tercel nestled companionably between them. Hy came up behind me, his hand moving in such a way that I knew he had a gun tucked under the T-shirt in the waistband of his jeans. In concert, our breath slowed as we watched and listened. When I was satisfied no one waited there, I touched his arm and we moved to the car.

  Once inside, I asked, “Any idea where to go from here?” “Yeah. Turn right, drive past Fontes’s place, and keep going. By the riverbed there’s a dirt track leading toward the beach. Take it.”

  I started the engine.“We’re going down where the shacks are?”

  “Uh-huh. People there’ve been letting me stay in an abandoned one since last night.”