Shell Games jm-1

by Kirk Russell

  Marquez closed the file again, then took it off the table and slid it onto a chair so it wasn’t prominently in view. He didn’t want it in the moonlight anymore, wanted its presence diminished, wanted it where it was less important. He looked out on the deck again for the raccoon, then walked back down the hallway and lay down again. The file was a ghost net for him, the information and memories of Kline floating like the pieces of net that broke loose from fishing trawlers and rode undersea currents for years continuing to trap fish. You wanted to think it was over. You wanted to think he was gone, dead, or in prison somewhere. But it’s not over. He’s here.

  8

  Forty minutes south of San Francisco Marquez left Highway 1 and drove through fields of pumpkins out to a broad stand of eucalyptus trees along the bluffs. Fog shrouded the high branches of the trees and under the canopy the road was wet and dark. Droplets ticked onto the hood as he parked. Bailey’s black Suburban wasn’t there yet, but Marquez walked out any-way along the abandoned road to a concrete bunker built during WWII and waited, leaning against the yellowed concrete. Ten minutes later, Bailey waded through the ferns wearing cutoffs, sandals, and a gray sweatshirt. His ponytail was tied with colored rubber bands, the loose hairs at his forehead carried beads of water from fog.

  “Starter motor went out. I had to hitchhike up and walk out through the fucking fields. I saw you go by, but it was like you had wheel lock, dude.” Bailey held his hands up as though he had a steering wheel tightly gripped. His neck was rigid, his eyes staring straight ahead, smirking.

  “I guess I was thinking so hard about what you’ve got for us.”

  The team had written Bailey off as a panhandler trading poaching tips, a virus in the system after he’d burned them once. But he’d also given them a couple of good leads. Marquez watched him open a pack of Camels, taking his time, milking the moment.

  “You’re going to like this,” Bailey said. He pointed at the ocean with his cigarette. “A dude I know wants me to run him up to Point Reyes in my boat to pick up abalone he’s got stashed in a cove up there. He’s got something like five hundred ab in urchin bags sitting on the bottom of a cove near Elephant Rock.” Bailey gave Marquez a serious stare. “This one is going to cost more.”

  “What’s it worth, Jimmy?”

  “Five grand. You give me the word and I’ll tell him it’s a go, this morning. Otherwise, he’s asking someone else.”

  “When does this run happen?”

  “Day after tomorrow.”

  “We’re a go, but I can’t go five grand. The state is a tightass, Jimmy.”

  “Hey, man, the state wastes money for a fucking living.”

  “That’s its day job and this poaching fund is more like fun money. We can go two grand.”

  “Not happening.”

  “I can try my chief again. If you want I’ll call from here and you can listen.”

  “Whatever, but I’m not doing it for nothing.”

  Marquez rang through to Chief Keeler’s voice mail. He had to leave a message, that was no surprise-Chief Keeler never got to the department before nine. He watched Bailey draw hard on the cigarette, staring at him, something close to hate in the back of his eyes. He exhaled, blowing a stream of smoke, then flicked the ciga-rette past Marquez, bouncing it off the crumbling bunker.

  “There’s no respect, man,” Bailey said. “I’m just a tool to you people.”

  “I’m not trying to rip you off,” Marquez said.

  “And I need some operating cash.”

  “I’ll get you fuel money.”

  “I mean, like right now. Two hundred bucks.”

  Marquez got his wallet out. Bailey was agreeing to the two thousand without saying it and needed to save a little face by demanding fuel money immediately. He had two hundred in twen-ties that was meant to go a long way, but he folded it, extended his hand, but didn’t let it go.

  “Who’s the diver?”

  “A dude named Mark Heinemann.”

  “He berths at Pillar Point?”

  “Yeah, his boat’s the Open Sea.”

  “Is he a friend of yours? Do you hang with him?”

  “Sometimes. He thinks you people are already watching him, because I made up some shit about seeing people I thought were wardens. He listens to me, man.”

  “Who’s he selling to?”

  “That’s another trip. A dude comes around and talks to you if you’re interested, but then you have to call a pager number.”

  Marquez placed Heinemann now, a stocky, bowlegged, dark-haired man in his early twenties with an older boat. They’d wondered about Heinemann before.

  “We were chilling on my boat and this freak was on the dock looking for him and then took him up to a car near the sportfishing shop,” Bailey said.

  “What type of car?”

  “Some kind of four-door.”

  “What kind?”

  Bailey shrugged, didn’t know the make. “The main man told him they’d waste him if he didn’t keep it cool with them, but that they’d treat him real fair if he did. I would have shined it on, right there.”

  “What did the man look like?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Ask him, okay?”

  “Is that like part of my two grand? If I don’t come up with a description of these freaks you aren’t going to pay me when this is over?”

  “You’re going to get a thousand upfront and you’re going to give it back if there’s no abalone at Elephant Rock. If there is, you get the second thousand the next day. But we need the buyer.”

  “The problem is I can’t fucking ask a bunch of cop questions so Heinemann starts wondering about me.” He smiled. “I can’t stick out like you guys do.”

  Bailey’s face looked pinched, the gray skin prematurely aged by sun and wind. Marquez looked down at him, remembering all the things he didn’t like about him. He looked hungover and wasted, but his eyes glittered, so maybe he’d popped something to get going and maybe that’s what made him talk a little loose this morning.

  “What else did he say?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Try to remember.”

  “Sorry.” Bailey gave a tight smile, eyes distant, something dif-ferent about him today. “We’d done a bong and some beers.”

  “You were toasted?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about the guy that came down the dock?”

  “Definitely an ex-prison man, kind of a mix of Mexican and I don’t know what else. Asian from his eyes, a stir-fried dude. Black hair, black eyes, stare right at you type of number, the way they get fucked up inside and want to mess with people all the time.” Bailey lifted his ponytail off the back of his shirt. “Got a tail a little shorter than this,” making scissors out of his fingers to show. “Guy was maybe five eleven and pretty buffed.”

  “Get something we can turn into a drawing and it’s worth money.” Marquez paused to make certain Bailey registered that. “We’ll pay for it separate from the Elephant Rock ride. Get me something I can work with, Jimmy, and I’ll make it worth your while. Could be worth a grand if we can get a clean description. But if you make something up, you could be looking at charges.”

  “Fuck, man, you don’t change. You’re never going to lay down any trust.”

  “That’s right, the deal is I don’t want to have to trust.”

  “I don’t get that, man.” Bailey shook his head and played it out until Marquez looked bored.

  “Talk to him and get a better description,” Marquez said. “Get something I can work with.”

  “Think I’ll pass, dude.”

  “If it’s good enough, we’ll come up with a bonus.”

  Bailey shook his head. “You bust Heinemann, you can ask him.”

  He knew if he pushed Bailey now he’d get a promise of a description, but his gut told him that Bailey would just make something up if he heard any more money talk. It would be better to wait a day and keep working him.

 
“Walk me through the order of things,” Marquez said, after giving it a rest, switching back to the abalone now, and Bailey went with the change.

  “We pick it up at Elephant Rock and take it to Sausalito. So we’ll leave here like midday or so, go to Elephant and I’m not sure what time yet, but like real early the next morning we pass it off onto another boat in Sausalito and Heinemann gets paid. He’s going to split from there and I come back to Pillar alone.”

  “What dock in Sausalito?”

  “Down near the engineers’ dock. Like right in there.”

  “Okay, we’ll be there.”

  Marquez waited the usual fifteen minutes after Bailey walked away, then started back toward the truck. Halfway back he heard a car alarm and started running. He knew from the pulsing sound that it was his rig. He punched in Roberts’s number on his cell phone as he reached the asphalt and saw one of the windows in the king cab had been popped out and lay broken on the ground. He killed the alarm as she answered. Both storage bins had been jerked out from behind the seats.

  “Bailey shows up late to the meet, doesn’t have a car, and this happens. Throw cuffs on him,” Roberts said.

  “Try to find him and run the plates on any vehicle that comes off this road. You should see him cutting across the fields. He was on foot unless he had a ride waiting or he’s with whoever broke in.”

  “I’m on it; I don’t see him yet. I’ll call you back.”

  The glove compartment door hung by one hinge. He cleaned the glass off the seat and backed out, smelling urine as he drove away. He realized someone had pissed on the carpet behind the passenger seat through the opening left where the window had been. His laptop, binoculars, night vision gear, tactical vest, and files were gone, including the criminal history package on James Allen Bailey, the drug peddling charges. Marquez reached under the pas-senger seat and felt the laptop components and the relief that came with finding them. All they’d gotten was the IBM shell. The mem-ory and hard drive were under the seat. The CD with everything relevant was still there.

  Roberts phoned back as she got on the access road. “I see him cutting through, going toward the highway,” she said. “And there are papers all over the side of the road. I see your plastic bins. I’ll go get him.”

  “Let Bailey go.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No, someone may be watching him. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

  When he drove up she was out in a pumpkin field gathering papers. Some of his clothes were in the shoulder ditch. She’d found two pairs of pants, socks, his tactical vest, camping gear, Bailey’s criminal history file, and a fair amount of loose papers Marquez would have to sort later.

  “We ought to go pick him up,” she said. “I really don’t get letting him walk away.”

  “We know where he lives and we know where he berths. There’s nothing we can do right now but question him, and he’ll deny any involvement and then blow off making this boat ride with Heinemann.”

  “Don’t you think that was all bullshit so he could get his friends into your truck?”

  “We’re going to play out the hand.”

  “I don’t understand, Lieutenant. He just ripped us off for several thousand dollars and he’s walking across a field. What are we doing?”

  The SOU had thirteen vehicles it rotated through. Most had steel toolboxes with hidden locks, bolted down to prevent theft because the team was often parked in remote areas. But in the past month he’d switched vehicles several times, and again last night, switching the jeep for the black Nissan pickup, and as a conse-quence he was using plastic bins. It had just caught up to him.

  They searched the fields, shoulder, and ditch, but didn’t find anything more. When they quit searching he assessed what was missing, hoping it was a run-of-the-mill theft. What they’d kept were things they could sell and they’d dumped everything that was obviously law enforcement, including his tactical vest. He called Chief Keeler and told him what had happened as he drove south to Pillar Point with Roberts following. Air rushed in the bro-ken window and the truck stunk of piss. He drove into Half Moon Bay to buy something to clean it and kept talking with Roberts.

  “I don’t like it any more than you do, and I don’t like Bailey, but bracing him isn’t going to help us. If we’d seen a vehicle pulling away, then we could have done something. But we didn’t and we’ve got to know about Bailey’s lead.”

  “His lead is bullshit. He’s playing us for saps.”

  “Let’s get a cup of coffee and take a look at Heinemann’s boat.”

  They parked well away from Pillar Point Harbor, then eased up in Roberts’s van, walked the last quarter mile, quietly angling for the shops. He pointed out Bailey’s boat, the Pacific Condor, and Heinemann’s Open Sea, three berths down.

  “Bailey told me Heinemann thinks we’re already watching him.”

  “Another lie. His little criminal mind has been trying to think of ways to get more money out of us and he hit on the fact that you always park there to meet him. Then he got some other part of Team Bong to help him.”

  Marquez pointed out the apartment they’d used to watch Pillar Point in the past. They could still borrow it and would have an SOU warden here when Bailey pulled out with Heinemann the day after tomorrow. If an excuse came from Bailey before that, then Roberts was almost certainly right. He could see Bailey now; he’d made it back to his boat and was working shirtless in the morning sun.

  “What’s going on now,” Roberts went on, “is his friends are headed up to San Jose to sell the equipment and then they’ll bring his share back to him. Meanwhile, he’s setting up to scam us out of more money. It blows me away. I’ll bet you dinner he burns us and there aren’t any abalone hidden at Elephant Rock.”

  “Make it a lunch and I’ll take the bet.”

  He’d felt a difference in Bailey last night on the phone and then again this morning. Bailey had something that made him bolder. He was down there working on his boat because he thought he was going to Elephant Rock, otherwise he’d be sleeping off last night. He believed in what he was selling, maybe not all of it, but enough. Marquez looked at the Open Sea, checking for Heinemann, think-ing over what Bailey had told him about the meeting Heinemann had with the buyer.

  “You’re going to lose, Lieutenant. No way is a guy like Bailey going to help us out,” Roberts said.

  “I’m making a different bet, Melinda. I’m betting he’s going to sell out a friend and you’re betting he won’t.”

  9

  “We’ve got a couple of guys down the street,” Alvarez

  said, from where he was parked watching Li’s house.

  “How long has the family been home?”

  “About an hour and until a few minutes ago all the people stopping by have looked like relatives and friends. Now, we’ve got this pair, both male, one white, one Hispanic, sitting in a car down the street. How long until you get here, Lieutenant?”

  “I’m coming up from Pillar Point with Roberts. We’re just south of San Francisco but there’s some traffic.”

  “These two circled the house once and parked a couple blocks away.”

  Marquez had made the decision to leave two wardens, Alvarez and Shauf, in position to watch Li’s house. He’d gotten a search warrant, and yet had hoped they’d be able to let the family mourn, hadn’t wanted to invade their privacy today. But neither was he going to let Li move abalone out of the garage.

  “You’re sure they’re watching the house?”

  “Ninety percent sure. Do you want me to go ahead and give the Oakland police a heads up?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Good enough, we’ve got it under control anyway. Hey, what happened with Bailey? We heard you got broken into.”

  “Yeah, while I was meeting with him. They got everything fenceable, laptop, camcorder, all the night vision equipment, binos.”

  “Bailey?”

  “Probably.”

  “What are we going to do a
bout it?”

  “I don’t know yet. We’ll see what happens the day after tomorrow.”

  “That’s when he runs up to Elephant?”

  “That’s what he says.”

  He told Alvarez about Bailey’s tip, the abalone supposedly stashed at the bottom of the cove at Elephant Rock, and they talked fifteen minutes on their phones about Bailey while Marquez thought about Li. Marquez didn’t have any illusions about Bailey and felt embarrassed about the break-in, that he didn’t have the equipment secured.

  It took another half hour to get to Oakland. When Marquez exited the freeway Roberts was less than ten cars behind him. She followed him to a small park not far from Li’s, where Alvarez was already waiting for them. Shauf was watching Li’s house. They walked out across the sunburned grass and put some distance between them and the gangbangers hanging around the fringes of the park.

  “They’ve gone inside,” Alvarez said of the two men. “They walked up the sidewalk and we taped them. They aren’t family.”

  Without waiting to be asked, Alvarez handed Marquez the camcorder and Marquez turned his back on the street and played the video. It had been shot at the outer range of resolution, but he could still make out facial features. One man looked something like Bailey’s description of the man who’d been down on the dock at Pillar Point. Black-haired, a face made of hard-angled planes as though constructed from flat pieces of sheet metal.

  “What about the car?”

  “Rental and we’re getting a name, right now.”

  “How long have they been inside?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  Marquez was aware that they were making a series of assump-tions here. They had nothing on the men other than they were vis-iting the Li family. But they might also be doing an ab count at the garage freezer or threatening Li.

  “We’ve got the warrant,” Alvarez said. “If he let these two in the door he might be happy to see us afterwards. Maybe today is the day to talk to him after all.”