by Jodi Compton
Then I spent the rest of that day at the library, looking up articles on Tony Skouras.
As Jack had told me, Skouras had been profiled several times in magazines, and he spoke passionately and articulately about his ancestry, his proud fallen family, and his need to grab with both hands at the life he’d come here to attain. But he scoffed at the rumors that he was some kind of gangster.
“In the twenty-first century, that’s an outdated business model,” Skouras said in one article. “Intimidating people you need on your side, always looking over your shoulder for law enforcement and the IRS-what businessman would possibly want to run his operations like that? There’s just no need for it anymore.”
I almost believed him, but I had two bullet holes in me that said otherwise. The times never really get any less rough; the masks just get more civilized.
Straighter, briefer news stories detailed how Tony Skouras sold off the South Asian arm of his imports line-“the profit just wasn’t there”-and mounted a successful takeover bid for a rival shipping line. Nothing in these stories told me anything useful, except that one cited his lawyer, a Nicolas Costa.
At that point, I went outside and called San Francisco directory assistance, getting a number for Nicolas Costa, attorney at law. I programmed it into my cell. Just in case.
In addition to the business stories and the profiles, I found two short articles on Skouras’s heart attack and subsequent quintuple bypass surgery several years ago, and some reviews of his seafood restaurant, Rosemary’s. Skouras was quoted in one review as saying that he and his sons used to fish for their own suppers back when he owned a house in Bodega Bay. The quote made it sound very past tense, though, and I figured he’d probably sold the place long before.
But then, in one piece on Rosemary’s, there was mention of a fund-raiser held there, a six-course black-tie dinner that Skouras had held. The proceeds were to go to the family of a firefighter up the coast in Gualala. The firefighter had been killed on the job and left three kids behind, and it had come to Skouras’s attention because he was having a vacation house built in the steep, forested hills outside of town.
I felt something stir down in my stomach, and I wrote Gualala on my notepad.
“Time for a road trip,” I said to Serena when I got back.
“Yeah? You find something?”
“He used to have a beach house in Bodega Bay, and to be thorough, I’m going to check property tax records there,” I said. “But more recently, he was building a house in Gualala.”
“Where?”
“Exactly,” I said. “If it’s as remote as it sounds, it’d be ideal.”
thirty-four
Two days later, I was under a bush, watching a house I was pretty sure belonged to Tony Skouras.
As I’d predicted to Serena, I’d struck out in Bodega Bay. Property tax records had shown no housing in the area belonging to an Anton Skouras. It would have streamlined things greatly if Gualala and Bodega Bay had been in the same county. They almost were. But “Gualala” comes from an Indian word meaning “water-coming-down place,” and that creek was also the boundary line between Sonoma and Mendocino counties. Which required a trip to a whole new county office to search through records. It had been ten minutes to closing time when I’d finally learned that Tony Skouras owned a house there, not far from the creek.
Gualala itself was a quiet town where steep hills of redwood and manzanita came down almost to the Pacific’s edge. The town had grown up alongside Highway One, a strip of graceful motels and small shops. I’d guessed that the vehicles of choice up here would run to tough, working-class pickups and SUVs. That had influenced my choice when I’d gone car shopping the day before with about half the money CJ gave me.
He’d been generous, but I still couldn’t afford to buy off the lot. I’d used up half a day looking through classifieds and auto-trader magazines before finding what I needed: a late-nineties Ford Bronco, a red-brown SUV with a swath of gray primer paint on the side passenger door, an automatic transmission, and four-wheel drive. It was the kind of car that would fit in on the north coast of California, and with a V6 engine, it wouldn’t outrun everything on the road, but it’d get out of its own way. Serena had looked skeptically at the patch of gray primer and the hundred-thousand-mile-plus odometer, but I’d shrugged off her concerns. “If it weren’t for those things,” I’d said, “I’d never have been able to afford it in the first place. I know the gray paint makes it easy to identify, but when we actually go get Nidia”-by which I meant if-“we’ll be in and out so fast, Skouras’s guys won’t have time to spot us again.”
Now my new ride was parked about a mile behind me, alongside a fire road; I’d hiked from there. Already, the quiet was unnerving, and I knew the coming night would be blacker, and the stars more plentiful, than anything I’d seen in years of city living.
The night before, knowing what lay ahead, I’d dosed up on ghetto pleasures. Serena and I had walked to the liquor store for a bottle of inexpensive tequila, and then we drank and ate her homegirl cooking and played nearly two hours of Grand Theft Auto before crashing a little after midnight.
The next day, I’d driven my new SUV up into the real Northern California.
It wasn’t an easy journey. The gatekeeping mechanism to this rural paradise was Highway One, a mostly single-lane road that devolved into twenty-five-mile-an-hour twists and turns that induced carsickness in nearly everyone but the driver of the car.
If you weren’t distracted by nausea, though, you could enjoy some of California’s most beautiful scenery. Fields of mustard flowers, glimpses of cobalt Pacific and white breakers, farm stands, silver-timbered barns, pumpkin patches, on and on. At intervals, you drove through towns where signs repeatedly invited you to stop for espresso, artisan chocolates, and bed-and-breakfast lodging.
The house below me was a classic mountain vacation place. It was built of what looked like natural redwood timber, with plate-glass windows, a broad deck with a gas grill and a hot tub, both covered for the autumn and winter ahead. I had very little doubt that it was the Skouras house, for two reasons. One, it was occupied; electric light glowed from several windows. At this time of year, most of the houses up here were likely unoccupied and closed up tight. Second, I was pretty confident in the orienteering skills I’d learned back east, despite the well-known NCO joke about GPS devices being “lost lieutenant finders.”
I hadn’t seen Nidia. I hadn’t gotten a good look at anyone. I’d seen figures behind the windows that were clearly grown men, but that was all.
I was not long on patience. This was not a pleasant place to learn it. As I waited, I reviewed the things I was here to find out. Was Nidia here? That was the key question. If so, how many men were guarding her? Was there an alarm system in the house? Was it the kind that went off loudly and alerted the household to an intruder, or was it one that silently tipped off a security team elsewhere? What about the simplest of security systems, a dog?
The night grew darker, making the inside of the house ever more visible through what windows were unobscured by blinds. I trained my binoculars on the window and observed. There were two men inside. Both were white and in their twenties. One was lean and cleans haven with gold-brown hair. The other was shorter, squat, with thinning brown hair and a chin beard. A television flickered in the room they were in. Occasionally one or the other got up, probably to go to the kitchen or the bathroom. I caught a glimpse of the shorter guy with a bottle of beer in his hand.
Except there was someone in the upstairs bedroom as well. There was light shining there, and a blue flicker as of a TV, but maddeningly, nothing was visible through the window except an expanse of beige wall and part of a sliding closet door. No one came to the window to look out. Dammit, weren’t prisoners always supposed to be looking out the only windows available to them, gazing in great melancholy at the outside and freedom? Nidia, come to your window.
She did not. The night grew darker still.
&n
bsp; Finally the lights in the house went out. I gave the inhabitants of the house about twenty minutes to fall asleep, then I came out from under the bush to do my close-up reconnoitering. My legs shook underneath me and my muscles groaned from being folded for so long. I took the SIG out of my backpack and slipped it into the waistband of my cargo pants, and carried my flashlight in my hands.
The temperature had already fallen under the dew point, and the natural grasses were wet under my feet as I crossed the yard. Quietly, I circled the house. There was no chance of my getting inside tonight, nor climbing up to that window to see who was in the guarded bedroom. This was just reconnaissance of the outside, the doors and windows.
I saw no telltale wires or window stickers that would have suggested a security system, and that made sense. Most security systems were wired into a central office that would send out an armed guard when the alarm was tripped. If Skouras’s men were holding a hostage here, it wasn’t like they were going to want some rent-a-cop charging up here. Skouras’s men would TCB by themselves.
All the locks that I could see were standard, a dead bolt on the front door and a plain knob lock. Regular locks on the sliders. Nothing on the windows. A break-in would be child’s play for Payaso or Serena, if only I could predict whether the guys ever left Nidia here by herself. They might never do so.
I walked the driveway. It was a good quarter-mile long, all dirt, and about half that length was visible from the front of the house. So we’d be able to get halfway up in the Bronco before the guys inside would even know strangers were coming. All the way, if they weren’t looking out the windows and they had the TV or stereo on loud enough not to hear the engine.
The garage had a window. I looked inside and saw the looming shape of a black SUV, newer than the one I was driving. I raised the flashlight and aimed the beam down at the license plate, repeating the seven digits to myself several times until they were locked in my memory.
As I headed back up the hill to my bivouac, it occurred to me that everything about the house spoke of confidence. They didn’t have special locks and security. There was no dog. It was clear that they knew-or rather, thought-that no one was looking for Nidia.
That was probably the only thing we had on our side.
It was midmorning the next day when I finally saw Nidia.
I was under my sheltering bush, stiff, tired, and still hungry after eating two energy bars. The bright light of day made it hard to see anything that was going on inside the house. I’d only caught glimpses of the same two guys, moving back and forth, typical morning stuff.
And then motion outside the house caught my eye. I grabbed the binoculars.
Two people were walking the rolling unfenced land. One was the tall young clean-shaven guy. The other was Nidia. She was not only recognizable, she was recognizably pregnant, her stomach full and round.
Her reddish hair had not been cut, so that it now hung well past her shoulder blades. I couldn’t see her expression clearly through the glasses, and I was glad about that. Because this was an abomination. They looked like they could have been lovers, or a young husband and wife expecting their first child. He was close by her side, almost solicitous, in case she stumbled.
It sickened me. Three months of that. She’d lived in the hands of strange young men who pretended to be taking care of her, when I suspected they’d be ready and willing to kill her when the time came. Three months without contact with anyone who cared about her, her family, her friends. If I’d had a rifle, I might have shot him. I had been a good enough shooter at school to do it.
Taking a steadying breath, I lowered the binoculars and withdrew deeper into the bush.
thirty-five
“Tell me again, why you didn’t stay up there another day?” Serena asked me.
“I could have,” I said. “But even if I’d spent three or four days in research, there’s no guarantee their schedule wouldn’t change the day we go up there. I just want to go up and do this, soon.”
We were in a narrow, windowless theatrical-supply store. I was watching what I said, not wanting the clerk to overhear anything suspicious.
Serena was looking at a lovely and fairly authentic-looking diamond choker. Paste, of course. All around us were romantic things: jewelry and feathers, yards of satin, glass slippers. It was dissonant in the extreme with everything else Serena and I had purchased today. That list would have given anyone pause: pepper spray, duct tape, gloves, ski masks, handheld radios, and another pair of binoculars.
“You and me always make the most interesting shopping trips together, prima,” Serena told me, raising her eyebrows. She was thinking, I knew, of the trip we’d made a year ago to the Beverly Center.
“I hope we live to make a few more,” I told her.
I’d planned the raid on the drive home, and had quickly realized that I wouldn’t need as much gang backup as I’d thought. Later, if we got Nidia out safely, we’d need more guys, to guard her in shifts. But for now, based on my reconnaissance, we were only going to be taking down two unsuspecting guys in an isolated house. What it would require was a fire team, not a squad. If Payaso, Serena, and I couldn’t do this by ourselves, we probably couldn’t do it at all.
The clerk ambled down the counter toward us. “What can I help you girls with?” he said.
“Stage blood,” I told him.
thirty-six
Two days later, I was lying by the edge of the road in Gualala. It was the only road down to Highway One from the Skouras place, the only one the tunnel rats could take to get groceries and supplies. It was also very lightly traveled, which was why I could lie on the roadside, stage blood staining my cheap disposable jacket, as though I had been in a hit-and-run.
Serena had wanted to play the victim. Her argument had been convincing: It was likely that the guys guarding Nidia were part of the ambush team in Mexico, therefore they’d seen me before. They’d seen me in the exact same position, at roadside. She’d worried that it’d be a tip-off.
I’d considered it but argued her down. “I’ll have my face turned away from him,” I’d said. “He’ll never make the connection to Mexico. It’s way too bizarre. You’re overthinking this.”
The truth was, this part was dangerous. I’d wanted Serena safe on the hillside, watching the house. Payaso and I would be the first team.
There was a vehicle coming my way. Serena, in the same surveillance spot I’d taken above the house, had already radioed down to Payaso and me that one of the guys was coming, allowing us to take our positions. I’d gotten the idea from something one of my West Point instructors mentioned, offhandedly, about overseas security and diplomat-protection postings. He’d said that terrorists and kidnappers like to put empty baby carriages in the road to get Americans to stop and get out of their cars, and that drivers have to be trained to ignore them. I’d used myself in lieu of the baby carriage-it would allow me to get into point-blank range automatically rather than trying to walk up behind the guy.
In our plans, we’d taken as a starting assumption that Skouras’s guys never left Nidia alone. For that reason, a roadside ambush was useful. A single guy would be easy to take down. We’d get the car he was driving, his keys to the house, and an extra weapon. Then we could walk right through the front door of the house, no trickery or door-kicking necessary.
I was sure, I’d told Payaso and Serena, that no one could drive right past a girl lying on the roadside motionless. “Even if this guy’s no Samaritan,” I’d said, “morbid curiosity alone will make him stop.”
If he didn’t, our job would get a lot harder. We wouldn’t have his keys to the front door. But we’d go through with the raid, anyway.
The engine sound grew stronger, louder. The air stirred around me as the SUV pulled up and stopped. A door opened and slammed. Athletic shoes made their squinching rubber-soled noise on the asphalt.
And then-what a fucking gentleman-he nudged me with his toe. “Hey,” his voice said.
I wait
ed for him to sit on his heels beside me before I rolled over and stuck my SIG in his face, cocking it so he’d know I was ready to fire. “Don’t fucking reach for anything or I’ll put a round in your face,” I said. “Don’t test me. I will.”
He was the stocky guy I saw through the windows last week. Up close, he had almost innocent brown eyes, now wide with shock.
“It’s you,” he said. He was also one of the tunnel rats, it seemed.
“Yeah,” I said. “Teach me about roadside ambushes, prick. See how good I learn.”
Behind us, Payaso had come out of cover, holding his gun on the driver. I didn’t have to tell him to search the guy. We’d discussed it all in advance. “Get his everything,” I’d said. “Billfold, cell, gun if he has it. Who knows what’ll come in handy?”
Payaso did this, and then walked him off the road to bind him in duct tape.
I called after him: “Put on your gloves. I think duct tape holds fingerprints.”
Admittedly, it was unlikely that Skouras’s men had access to any law-enforcement computers, but if they did, they could learn Payaso’s real name from his prints. That was something even I didn’t know. Much less did I want Skouras having it.
I walked down to where we’d parked the Bronco out of sight. Our handheld radio was in the passenger seat. I picked it up and radioed Serena. “Warchild, this is Insula, we’ve achieved our objective down here. Over.”
“This is Warchild. You guys rock. What’s your ETA? Over.”
We should have stuck to cell phones. There was nothing like CB radio to inspire totally idiotic speech patterns.
I said, “ETA five minutes. Holler if you see anything funny, otherwise radio silence, okay? Over.”
I didn’t need to tell her any more. Her job now was to cover the house and driveway, to radio in if there were any unexpected visitors while Payaso and I were inside.