The Zozobra Incident

by Don Travis

  “Great idea.” My heart swelled so much I was afraid it would split in two.

  “I brought an overnight bag… just in case.”

  “I think you might just need it.”

  Later, as his head hit the mattress, his charming passive-aggressive manner dissolved and he became a tiger. Or maybe the dragon tattooed above his left nipple.

  SATURDAY MORNING, in order to secure a favorable parking place, I arrived at the strip mall well before the scheduled delivery by the post office. The Ship-n-Mail’s plate glass window gave a clear view of the bank of mailboxes inside. After buying a book of stamps in order to affix the location of box 2223 in my mind, I returned to the car, counted off rows and columns, and zeroed in on the target. Then I walked to a nearby Starbucks to kill time and pad my waistline.

  Some investigators don’t like the windows of their surveillance cars heavily tinted, claiming this makes them even more visible. Around Albuquerque it seems like the glass in every third car was darker than the legal limit, so mine were tinted enough to assure few people would spot me lingering for what might turn out to be hours.

  I closed down the stakeout shortly before Ship-n-Mail was scheduled to lock its doors for the day. So far no one had even gone near the box. The clerk was a different thin-chested teenager this afternoon, so I tried to brazen it out, claiming to have forgotten my key and asking him to check my mail. The high school kid caught himself in time to ask for ID. When I declined, he inadvertently gave me the information anyway. The box was empty. That left a couple of possibilities. Either the delivery from the postal service had been delayed—possible, although unlikely—or this was a pigeon drop, a way station with instructions to forward the mail to another location.

  Hauling out my investigator’s ID, I banked on that singularly unimpressive scrap of paper, which totally lacked the legal authority to compel cooperation from anyone, to show the clerk.

  “Private eye,” he observed nervously. “Never met one before.”

  “Most people haven’t, son. I need the name and address of the box holder for 2223.”

  “That’s… that’s confidential information.”

  “That’s okay, I’m a confidential investigator.”

  He scratched a pimple on his cheek. “It doesn’t work that way, does it? I mean, that license isn’t like a badge or anything. Uh, is it?”

  “It’s authorization by the State of New Mexico to engage in confidential inquiries.” This kid didn’t take pressure well, so I applied some more. “That information is key to a very important case.”

  “Uh… sorry, mister, they’re real strict about that here. I think it’s something in the law.” He threw out this last tidbit like a lifeline.

  “All right, give me your name for my official report. You know, as being uncooperative.”

  The guy may have been a geek, but he stood his ground. “William Mackson.”

  Stifling a weary sigh, I grimaced. “Look, just so I don’t have to claim you stonewalled me, check the record and tell me one thing?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Are there any special instructions for the box?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like forwarding the mail, for example.”

  Young Billy disappeared around the bank of mailboxes for a moment. When he returned he cleared his throat nervously. “There’s standing instructions to mail the contents to… uh, somewhere else.”

  “I need that address, Billy. This could be a matter of life or death.”

  For a moment it looked as if that approach had scored, but then Mackson gave a wobbly shake of his head. “Sorry, sir, I can’t help you. Are you really going to put my name in there? You know, in the report?”

  “On the first line.”

  “Do you have to? I mean, I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “Sorry, son, I can’t help you.”

  Muttering beneath my breath, I returned to the car and dialed Del’s cell number.

  He did his cursing aloud. “What do we do now?”

  “Wait for the blackmailer to respond to your letter. In the meantime, I’m headed for the lab to see if they picked up anything from the notes and envelopes.”

  “Notes? Envelopes?”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you. I got a warning to steer clear of you and your smutty pictures.”

  “You got a threat?”

  “Yeah. A death threat, no less.”

  “Maybe we ought to think this thing through a little more carefully.”

  I tried to take advantage of the doubt in his voice. “We can always go to the police. In fact, that’s a good idea. This thing is bound to come out into the open sooner or later. We’ve worked our way through practically every social stratum in town.”

  “I’m not ready for that yet.”

  “Okay, you’re the boss. I’ll try to find Emilio again and lean on him some more. Not going to be easy finding the little shit this time. I gotta get going if I want to catch Gloria McInnes over at K-Y Lab by six.”

  Del chuckled. “That name always grabs me.”

  “Yeah, and I know where.”

  The trip, which required bucking the reduced weekend rush-hour traffic coming out of Kirtland AFB and Sandia Labs, wasn’t worth it. Gloria handed me back the blackmailer’s notes and envelopes with a grimace.

  “Nothing, BJ. No strange fingerprints on the notes. The envelopes had a couple that are probably from messengers since they weren’t on the notes inside. I printed them and ran them through the database, but no hits. There was no saliva on the glue sealing the envelope or the paste gluing the letters and words to the paper. So there’s no stray DNA to test. Really, there’s nothing except a few traces of a powder that probably came from surgical gloves. The envelopes are of cheap quality, as is the paper. Sorry, my friend.”

  “Well, you tried. But this guy’s too careful. Do a formal report, including all the fingerprints, just in case, and send me a bill, will you? Pay yourself something extra for working the weekend for me.”

  AFTER EMILIO failed to show up at the C&W that night, a friendly cop put out the word.

  A cruiser spotted Emilio’s distinctive Mustang on Sunday morning, and it was still parked in front of a West Central motel by the time I got there. The motel office was locked, so I settled down to wait. Half an hour dragged by before Emilio emerged from a room with a tall, thin, middle-aged man in tow. The lovebirds laughed and giggled their way to his car and roared out of the parking lot. I was afraid they were heading for a bar, but Emilio dropped his companion off in the Cottonwood Mall parking lot on North Coors and roared away, leaving the obviously enchanted john standing on the pavement gazing longingly after him.

  I exited the lot in a more sedate manner but had to step on it in order to keep Emilio in sight. Fortunately he came to his senses before either of us garnered a speeding ticket, slowing as he hit the congested commercial area near the I-40 interchange. He continued south and turned off Coors onto one of the residential streets in a neighborhood of small cinder-block homes.

  The Mustang turned into a driveway to one of these, coming to a halt in front of a converted garage. He got out of the car and disappeared inside.

  So this was the lion’s den. Or rather the coyote’s lair. I got out of my car and politely knocked, enjoying the dismay that puckered Emilio’s features when he answered the door.

  Chapter 8

  WHEN EMILIO denied sharing the photographs with anyone else, I used threats and intimidation to haul his butt to my home. No harm done; he already knew where I lived.

  The house my father built was in a settled neighborhood of 1950s contemporary cross-gabled homes. Most had stone foundations and red brick walls with tall windows and white trim; ours was green. The house was symmetrical, fronted by a wide, low-ceilinged porch enclosed by a stone balustrade crowned with a wooden railing. Square, tapered pedestals supported a heavy roof at the corners and on either side of the concrete steps. Pale shrub roses and English Legends li
ned the front of the house while Heirlooms bordered the driveway running up the west side to the detached garage. I know this because, as a kid, I helped Mom plant every one of them. Schoolteacher that she was, she made sure I knew what I was planting.

  Unusual for Albuquerque at the time, the house had a basement that Dad always intended to finish as a game room, but which ended up as storage space. Now it became a makeshift jail when I took Emilio by surprise and locked the sturdy door behind him.

  Then I mowed and trimmed the lawn and cleaned the kitchen while he fermented a little. The lady who came once a week to tidy the house was due tomorrow, but the work drained some nervous energy and tamped down my urge to throttle Emilio Prada. He finally quit pounding on the door, electing to poke out one of the tiny basement windows instead. Although it was too small for him to slither through, he gave it a damn good try. When he gave up the effort, I drove to a hardware store on North Fourth for glass and putty, and put him to work repairing the damage.

  The job finished, Emilio faced me with a small putty knife in his hand. He considered coming after me, but in the end he tossed the blade aside and spread his hands in a plea.

  “I dunno what you want from me!”

  “I want the name of the man or woman who took the negatives. I want to know who’s trying to blackmail Del and threatening me.”

  His large eyes flickered. “Threatening you? Hey, man, it ain’t me.”

  “Didn’t think it was. But you know who it is, and you’re going to tell me.”

  He pounded a palm with his fist in frustration. For one moment the street tough had showed his face before hiding behind the male prostitute again. “I told you about everybody.”

  “You didn’t tell me about Estelle.”

  Obviously surprised, he recovered quickly. “I thought you meant men. You talked to Estelle?”

  “You bet. Was that your kid in the car with her?”

  His jaw muscles clenched. “Kid? Oh, you mean the little guy? Naw. I didn’t even know her when she had him. What’d she say?”

  “That you were a low-down snake in the grass and she never wanted to see you again. Showing her pictures of you and Del wasn’t very bright.”

  “Guess not, but I thought it’d spice things up some.” He tried out a half smile. “I look pretty good in them pictures, huh?”

  “Maybe so, but sticking it to Del probably wouldn’t do anything for a woman except maybe turn her off.”

  “Not all of them. Turns some of them on like you wouldn’t believe. But not Estelle, I guess.” Emilio suddenly stripped off his shirt and squared his shoulders. He was huskier than he looked. “Let’s get down to what you really want so you can take me back home. I need some rest.”

  I managed to react by the time he had his trousers halfway over his slender hips. “I won’t touch you, Emilio. I don’t want anything from you except what’s locked up in that thick skull. Names, man, names. And get dressed.”

  He grinned. “You like Emilio, don’t you? Go ahead, won’t hurt nothing to admit it.”

  “You’re not my type.” Damn, the fucker was handsome right down to his toes. And by now that’s about all that remained hidden from view.

  “Come on,” he cajoled. As a professional he no doubt recognized desire lurking amid the revulsion.

  I walked up the steps. “When you decide to cooperate, give me a call.”

  “Hey, man, wait.” I turned to find him stuffing himself into his pants. “You in big trouble, you know. You can’t lock me down here. That’s kidnapping. You made a mistake, Mr. Private Investigator. And it’s gonna cost you a bundle. I might even complain about criminal stuff. This is way worse than carving up my car seat. Big time. Federal stuff.”

  Hands on my hips, I stared down at him. “Play it that way if you want. But you’d better leave town as soon as you file the complaint. Maybe even leave the state. You won’t be able to pick up a john without the cops riding your ass. It won’t take long for word to get around that you’re poison. In a week all you’ll be able to score will be street pickups on East Central. By the end of the month, you won’t even be able to do that. Every time you exceed the speed limit, they’ll give you a ticket. Every time you leave a bar, you’ll get pulled over. How long do you think it’ll take them to nail you for DWI? They’ll impound that pretty car of yours and sell it at auction to pay your fines. That’s what’s waiting for you.”

  “You fulla shit! You can’t do that. You ain’t no cop no more.”

  “How do you think I found you today? I put out a call, and a blue-and-white spotted your Mustang at the motel. So I just waited and followed you and your sugar daddy. All I have to do is let the cops know you’re preying on rich men, and you’re through.”

  Emilio wilted. “A’right! You let me go, and we’ll call it quits.”

  “No way. We’re going upstairs, have some coffee, and talk like men. You’re going to root around in your memory and come up with some more names. And this time don’t leave out the women.”

  “Didn’t show them to no women except for Estelle.”

  He turned civil as we sat at the dinette table, nursing cups of hot coffee. And I have to admit, he made an effort. Emilio was able to describe a few more men, but he didn’t know their names. Finally he came to the crux of the matter.

  “If you got threatened, don’t that mean you already talked to the dude who’s trying to get to old Del?”

  “Either that, or it’s someone who heard about my inquiries. Let’s look at this from another direction. Why did you keep the pictures in your backpack? Why not leave them home?”

  He flashed a self-conscious smile. “I liked to take them out and look at them sometimes. Old Del and me, we looked pretty good together. He’s a prime cut of beef too, you know.”

  “But why the negatives? Why not put them away someplace safe?”

  “Dunno. They was in that envelope with the snaps, so I just left them there.”

  “Who had access to your backpack?”

  Another shrug. “Anybody, I guess. I kept it on the back floorboard of the Mustang mostly.”

  “With the top down, right?”

  “Well, sure. That’s what a convertible’s for. I keep it down anytime it ain’t raining.”

  “Why not lock the bag in the trunk?”

  “I do sometimes. But when I’m in a hurry, I just toss it in the backseat.”

  Emilio had no inkling of the real value of those photographs. Of course that did not mean there wasn’t something locked up in his head that could help my investigation. But if he had such a tidbit tucked away, I was unable to extract it, despite spending another hour questioning him. I finally wrapped it up when hostility began battling with exhaustion. By then he’d given me two more names to check out.

  I stood and poked him on the shoulder, bringing his head up from his folded arms. “Okay, I’ll take you home now.”

  “About time.” The street tough was back. “Still might turn you in.”

  “Be my guest. But right now, get your butt in gear before I decide to let you walk home.”

  He shot up out of the chair. “Let’s go.”

  As we approached the front hallway, he rubbed his eyes. “You ain’t never gonna find this dude. Not from asking me questions, you ain’t.”

  “Oh, I’ll find him all right. If not from one of your pickups, then we’ll get him through the post-office box he rented.”

  He halted in his tracks. The purr of a motor caught my attention—

  Something crashed against the picture window in the living room.

  “What the hell—?”

  The sound of breaking glass. A muffled whump. The unseen motor revved. Tires screeched on the asphalt. I hit the front door in time to glimpse the tail end of a red pickup disappear around the corner. But I had little time to think about that. A curtain of hungry orange flames eating at my veranda demanded immediate attention. I vaulted over the end of the porch to the driveway and scooped soil from a rose bed.
It required three trips to smother the fire. There didn’t appear to be any real damage, but both the porch and front window frame would need fresh paint, and the brick wall would require a good scrubbing. The shattered remains of a bottle and a scrap of cloth not totally consumed by the flames marked it as a Molotov cocktail.

  As I stood congratulating myself for long ago replacing common screens on my windows with steel-wire mesh, which had prevented the bottle from breaking the window glass, I realized Emilio had vanished.

  Sirens!

  Old Mrs. Wardlow across the street must have called the fire station a couple of blocks down the road. Damnation. I’d have to hang around and explain things, and probably answer some awkward questions for the cops who would follow. In the meantime Emilio was in the wind. I wondered if the assailant had known the kid was in the house with me. If so, that changed the dynamics of the thing. Both of us could be targets, so I needed to talk to him again.

  By the time I finished downplaying the event to the firemen and street cops who showed up, an anonymous brown Ford sedan pulled to the curb and disgorged Gene Enriquez.

  “You okay?” Gene, my old APD partner, stopped at the foot of the steps where we’d congregated.

  “Yeah, fine. How come you’re here?”

  “I heard the call and recognized the address.”

  “Come on inside, and I’ll fill you in.”

  The patrolmen who’d just heard me claim the Molotov cocktail was a kid’s prank looked as if they wanted to join us, but Gene sent them to canvass the neighborhood for possible witnesses. I suggested they start with the white brick across the way. Mrs. Wardlow saw everything that went down on the street.

  I poured Gene a cup of hot coffee and gave him a piece of the story, figuring he was due something now that violence had broken out.

  He listened without interrupting until I finished and then asked a few questions of his own. At length he leaned back and sighed. “So, Dahlman’s still screwing with you, huh?”

  I had no secrets from Gene. He understood the place Del had held in my life; he also knew the details of the rupture between us. “Yeah, you might say that. Although this is a straight business deal.”