“Is that where you spotted me from?”
“Right.”
I turned onto the road. “How long have you been in Baja?”
“Too damn long. And I’d feel a whole lot better talking about this after we get to the shack.” Strain was eroding his speech—pain, too.
“Have you seen a doctor about that bullet wound?”
“They’ve got a woman down there who’s better than any doctor I ever went to. I’m okay, just tired. But I’m glad to see you, even if you have done something funny to your hair.” With an effort he smiled and touched my cheek.
I sped up as we passed Fontes’s villa. The automobile gate was shut now, and only muted light showed in the windows.
Hy added, “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, too, you know.”
“That could take all night.”
“McCone, we’ve got the rest of our lives.”
The road was deserted, the gates to most of the villas closed. After a little way, the riverbed appeared—untamed nature infringing on a tenuous civilization. Hy showed me the rutted track through the sycamores and cacti; I followed it toward the firelight. He pointed to a dilapidated shack that stood some distance apart from the others, and I pulled the Tercel in next to it.
As we got out, two figures approached through the trees, a bobbing flashlight beam moving along the ground in front of them. My hand went to my gun, but Hy stayed it. He called out to them in Spanish, and they slowed their pace, their posture altering subtly. Two male voices spoke in response.
The men came up to us and stopped, rays from the flashlight reflecting upward and glinting off the rifle that the first man carried; a handgun was tucked into the belt of the second. Their faces were hard and weather-toughened, their eyes wary and knowing and as ancient as the mountains that form the peninsula’s backbone. The old dangerous realities of life in Baja had been banished from outposts of high-tech civilization like El Sueño, but they’d retreated only so far as the edge of the brush.
Hy put an arm around my shoulders and drew me forward, telling them my name. To me he added,“This is Juan.”
The man with the rifle nodded.
“And Tomás. Tomás didn’t want me to go after you alone, but I thought two of us might attract the wrong kind of attention. He offered to fetch you for me, but I was afraid of what you might do to him.” He translated the latter into Spanish, and both men laughed. Hy joined in, but unconvincingly; he’d been speaking the truth.
The three spoke for a while longer; I could follow the conversation well enough to know the men were questioning Hy about what was going on at Fontes’s villa. Then Tomás asked Hy something else, and he asked me, “Have you eaten?”
“No, but I’m not hungry.”
“Maybe you will be later. Tomás says his wife will bring us food; there’re some people down by the fires that it’s best don’t see us.”
“She doesn’t need to—”
“She wants to. And she also wants to rebandage my arm.” He spoke to the men again, thanking them for coming to greet us, and led me toward the shack.
It was a single room: rough board walls, an iron roof that in places didn’t quite meet them, a packed dirt floor. A sleeping bag lay in its center, Hy’s carryall beside it. He turned on a small flashlight, then dragged the bag toward the wall; stuck the carryall behind it like a bolster, removed his gun from his waistband, and tucked it underneath. “It’s not much, but have a seat,” he said.
I did, feeling aches in muscles that had been forced into an awkward position for hours. I looked at my watch; still stopped. I smacked it; the second hand began to move again. The flashlight’s rays illuminated only the center of the claustrophobic little shack, leaving the rest in strange, angled shadows.
“These people,” I said, “how come they’re helping you?”
“Because they’re generous, even though they have very little. They fish in ways that don’t unnecessarily destroy marine life. And they hate Gilbert Fontes as much as I do. It’s a bond, having that in common.”
Hy seemed charged with nervous energy now. He paced back and forth, into the light, back into the shadows. “In the past dozen years, Mexico’s doubled its fishing catch. There’s a lot of government pressure to export more in order to bring in foreign currency; they even license the right to take the lobsters and abalones and shrimp to certain co-ops. Trawlers make big sweeps with the nets, gather everything up, pick out what they want. Then they shovel tons of dead or dying fish off the decks into the sea. Escama, trash fish, they call it. But it’s perfectly good food that hungry people could eat.”
I watched him pace, only half listening to what he was saying. I’d never seen him so hyper before. This was the Hy of the environmental protests, the man who defied and taunted the opposition, engaged in head-on confrontations with the police. There was a time after his wife, Julie, died, I’d been told, when he repeatedly hurled himself into the fray with little regard for his life or safety, but people who knew him then said he’d mellowed in recent years. Now it seemed he’d slipped back into that intense, perhaps self-destructive mode. Was it the pain from his gunshot wound that made him this way?
No, I decided, what primarily operated here was psychic pain. Exacerbated by the physical, I was sure, but deeply rooted in the years before I met him, before Julie died, even before he met her—the woman whose faith in him, he’d once told me, had kept him from destroying what little was left of his life. A week ago last Wednesday he’d reconnected with people from those nine lost years; the collision had released emotions that were eating at him in ways I couldn’t begin to imagine.
Would he finally share the secrets of those years? I hoped so, but somehow I doubted it.
There was a tap on the wall next to the curtained doorway. A slender woman with heavy Indian features entered, smiling shyly. She carried a basket filled with fruit and rolled tortillas that gave off a spicy smell; a clean bandage rode incongruously on top of a melon. In her other hand she held what looked to be a jug of home-brewed wine.
Hy said,“This is Sofia.” He spoke to her in Spanish, thanking her for the food, and she replied, motioning for him to sit down. As she knelt beside him and began unwrapping his bandage, he said, “Sofia cleaned my wound after I staggered in here early this morning. Put a poultice on it—leaves and God knows what. Evil-smelling, but it made my arm feel better. She’s been monitoring my temperature all day; it’s only a hair above normal.”
Sofia began swabbing the wound with liquid from a plastic bottle. Hy’s lips tightened and he looked away. After a moment he said, “What I’m telling you, McCone, is that physically I’m okay. The only thing wrong with me is that I feel like an asshole.”
Sofia seemed to understand that. Maybe by now the word “asshole” has—by virtue of their plenitude—achieved the status of an international password. She made soothing sounds, then smiled sympathetically at me. After all, when she was done here, she could leave; I, on the other hand, was stuck with him. Finally she departed, motioning at the basket and the jug and murmuring “Buenas nocbes.”
I asked, “Why do you feel like an asshole?”
“Long story.”
“I’m listening.”
“What say we eat first?”
I had to admit that the smell of the food was making me ravenous. We sat cross-legged facing each other and burrowed into the basket. The tortillas were wrapped around a fiery fish-and-vegetable mixture and fried. The melon dripped sweet juice. In contrast, the wine was raw and very, very dry. We ate with our fingers, wiping them on our jeans; we drank from a shared paper cup. When we’d eaten all the food, Hy poured another cupful of wine and we leaned against his carryall— shoulder to shoulder, arm to arm, thigh to thigh, toes touching occasionally—and told our respective stories.
I went first, since he seemed to need more time. He listened thoughtfully, asking an occasional question, making an infrequent comment. Had I met Dan Kessell? What had I thought of Gage Renshaw
? Renshaw hadn’t really meantit when he said he intended to kill him? He had? Well, son of a bitch!
When I got to the part about learning about the body on the mesa and thinking it was Hy who had been shot, he became very still, seemed to draw away from me, turn inward. After a moment he put his hand under my chin, tipped my face up so he could look into my eyes. “If I’d known, I’d have gotten in touch with you one way or another. You’ve got to believe that.”
“Why didn’t you contact me?”
“Same reason you haven’t been in touch with your friends or family—too dangerous.”
I went on with my story, speaking more swiftly now. When I finished, Hy lapsed into another withdrawn silence. Finally he said, “I’ve always known you’re good at what you do, but I didn’t realize how good. I’m not sure I would’ve gotten this far if our positions had been reversed.”
I shrugged.“I’ve had a lot of practice tracing people. Your turn now.”
Tension flooded his long body. He drank wine, poured some more. “Well, what you don’t know starts at that clearing off Highway One-oh-one in San Benito County.”
“What about—”
“It starts there,” he said firmly.
So the past was still to be off limits. In spite of my pointed references to his friendship with Gage Renshaw and Dan Kessell and my stressing how Renshaw had mentioned giving him a “taste of the old action,” he intended to keep the door closed on those subjects. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, how it would affect our future relationship. But I didn’t want to make an issue of it now; there were too many other things I needed to know.
“Go on.”
“Okay, something seemed wrong with the whole setup from the first. Diane Mourning was too unemotional, even for a basically pragmatic and unimaginative person. And Gage had told me the kidnapping might be of the husband’s own manufacture. Terramarine was another thing that didn’t fit: I’d never known them to keep such a low profile. And Colores, the firm the L.C. was drawn to: I know something about Emanuel Fontes, and he’s not the sort to mess around with eco-terrorists, especially the ones who aren’t particularly competent. So I went down there to San Benito expecting a surprise—and I got it.”
“Stan Brockowitz?”
“Uh-huh. I recognized him, even though he had on this really silly disguise. He recognized me, too, started to take off. I gunned my car, thinking I could stop him, and ran into a damn rock.”
“But you didn’t tell Renshaw what had happened.”
“No. I was starting to get a very bad hit off the situation. I doubted the kidnappers would contact RKI again if Brockowitz was sure I’d recognized him. But in case they did, I figured the less Renshaw knew, the more convincing his negotiations with the kidnappers would be. And I suppose that underneath it all I don’t really trust Gage.”
“Why not?”
“History,” he said curtly. “Anyway, I guess Brockowitz wasn’t sure whether I’d made him or not, because the contact woman—Navarro, I found out later—called almost immediately, and I flew to San Diego. You know pretty much what went down there. Funny you getting that lead on me because I mistakenly approached the young woman at the market. I went down there, waited a long time, and was fairly pissed when I saw her crossing the parking lot. I blew it, too, used Brockowitz’s name. Didn’t make that mistake when Navarro finally showed.”
“Hy, why do you suppose Navarro used her own name?”
“Slip of the tongue when she called me at the Bali Kai. I could tell she was rattled, wanted to take it back as soon as she said it. Anyway, when she showed up at the market, she gave me a map, told me to be at that place on Monument Road at eleven. I went down there, checked the area out, but I didn’t go up on the mesa, never even noticed the road.” He shook his head. “Been away from the action too long, I guess.”
I ignored the questions the comment gave rise to; asking them wouldn’t do me any good, anyway, “It was Brockowitz who picked you up in the Jeep?”
“Right.”
“What happened on the mesa?”
He sipped wine, eyes focused at some point in the darkness—both the darkness surrounding us in the shack and, I guessed, a pocket of it within himself. After a moment he said, “Brockowitz told me he had Mourning up on the mesa. He was armed; so was I. We drove up there. It felt wrong, but I wasn’t about to back out; my job was to bring Mourning home. Brockowitz suggested we leave our guns in the Jeep. I agreed; I had a backup piece. So did he, I found out later. Probably planned to kill me after I gave him the L.C. I knew too much. We went into the burned-out adobe.”
I could picture the scene: darkness, except for the distant lights of Tijuana and San Diego, a few fires glowing on the hill where hundreds of Mexicans waited for their chance to make a run for it, icy wind off the sea. And the adobe: formless, black. Two men: both edgy; one orchestrating events; the other trying to stay one step ahead of him.
“Mourning wasn’t there, of course,” Hy went on. “No one was. Brockowitz had a torchlight. He set it on the ground, told me to hand over the L.C.”
“And then he’d produce Mourning?”
“He had no intention of doing that. Mourning, he said, had planned the kidnapping; the two million was his money, and he had a right to it. I asked what about Diane Mourning— wasn’t it her money, too? Brockowitz seemed to find that very funny. He said Phoenix Labs was on its way to Chapter Eleven and that one of the Mournings should get clear with something. Stan was getting ready to go for his piece, I think, when Salazar came through the door.” He paused. “Of course, I didn’t know his name at the time. To me, he was just your run-of-the-mill bandit.”
“Did Brockowitz go for his piece then?”
“Nope, he froze. I got mine out, but Salazar shot it right out of my hand, just like in the western movies.” Hy’s smile was pained, self-mocking.“He got me up against the wall, went through my pockets, took my cash. All the time Brockowitz stood there looking stunned. Tough guy, Stan.”
I felt as if I were living the scene as he told it. I could feel the terror trapped within the adobe, smell Brockowitz’s fear-sweat mixing with the sea air and cordite….
Hy went on, “The L.C. was in an envelope inside my carryall.” He patted our bolster. “Salazar ripped it open, found the L.C., looked at it. And then he just went crazy. Screamed, ‘This is what you call a fuckin’ ransom? Just a piece of paper, man? He must ’He must have been outside long enough to hear everything we’d said about the Mournings and the two-million-dollar payoff. Anyway, he tossed the bag at me and went for Brockowitz. And that’s when Stan went for the gun in his pocket.” Hy shook his head. “Dumb shit had stuck a thirtyeight in his pocket, for Christ’s sake. It snagged. Stupid bastard.”
“And Salazar shot him.”
“Yeah. And I dove out of there, using the bag as protection. Ran like a fool expecting a bullet in my back. Salazar didn’t even fire.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Down the far side of the mesa, where that horse ranch is. Didn’t even think about the rental car I’d left on Monument Road; somebody probably hot-wired it and drove it across the border before daybreak.”
“And then what?”
“I got lucky for a change. Fell in with some illegals who were headed for a safe house in San Ysidro. They were leery of me, but those people are so afraid, and I spoke Spanish and looked like I was in more trouble than they were. They let me come along, and the next morning I started asking around. I’d gotten a good look at Salazar; he’s distinctive, well known down there. By eleven I had a name and address. Got some money—Salazar didn’t take my credit cards—set myself up with another car, and staked out that alley off of Island Avenue where he’s got his place.”
“How come those charges didn’t show up on the account when Kate checked with American Express?”
He grinned wryly. “Because I actually found one of my own cards that hadn’t expired. Given what had gone down, I didn’t want to invo
lve the foundation any more than I already had.”
“Okay, and then?”
“Nothing until Tuesday night. Around eight Salazar and a big guy—I think the same one who was on Fontes’s terrace tonight—came out in a hurry. The guy drove him to General Aviation at Lindbergh; a Cessna picked up Salazar, and the other guy left. I hung around, talked to the line people. One of them told me the Cessna belonged to Gilbert Fontes. I got him to check with Clearance Delivery; the pilot had said he was VFR for El Sueño, Baja.”
“Ironic,” I said. “You must have been flying out just as I was flying in. We missed each other by only that much.”
“Negative. I drove. These small airfields, any stranger attracts attention. Trouble was, the car broke down north of Ensenada. I had to have it towed, notify the rental company. Then I hitched a couple of rides, didn’t get here till late Wednesday night. This whole venture has turned into a black comedy of errors.”
“So where did you stay? Here?”
“Not that night. There isn’t even a hotel in the town, and they shut everything down at sunset. I ended up sleeping on the beach. The next morning, much the worse for wear, I went into the village, bought the sleeping bag and supplies, started asking around about Fontes. Wrong move again. There’s too much money to be had here; the shopkeepers don’t want to gossip or give out addresses—particularly not to a scruffy-looking gringo, even if he’s buying things on a credit card. So I wandered around, pinpointed Vía Pacífica as the most likely area for a guy with a Cessna to live. Spotted these shacks and struck up an acquaintance with people who’ve got no stake in protecting the rich folks.”
Hy’s words were slurred with weariness now. He reached for the wine jug, but then let his hand fall limp to the sleeping bag. I said, “Tell me the rest of it in brief, then get some rest.”
“In brief, I’ve been watching Fontes’s place ever since. No sign of Salazar until he shot me early this morning, although Fontes’s car fetched somebody from the airstrip a couple of hours before Diane Mourning and Ann Navarro showed up last night. The way I figure it, Salazar made a quick return trip to San Diego on Tuesday night or sometime before you saw him on Wednesday, then came back late on Friday.”
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