Shell Games

by Kirk Russell

  “Where did he go when he ran?”

  “Oh, he wouldn’t tell me. He had to talk to the director of Fish and Game, and then he was very coy.” Buehler looked at Keeler from under his eyebrows. “As near as I can tell we have to give him back his boat.”

  “I pulled a gun off the Condor that DOJ is looking at, right now,” Marquez said. “Maybe that’ll buy us time or a way to hold him when he surfaces.”

  “That’s what your chief told me, but you see the problem we’ve got if we hold his boat.”

  “Sure.”

  “We’re going to cut a deal with this lawyer.”

  “You don’t mean pay him?”

  “Bailey was in our employ and we’re not charging him with anything. We don’t want the lawyer going to the media. No, of course, we don’t need to roll over but we can’t hold his boat indefinitely and maybe it makes sense to give it back. See where he takes us. We can stall but only so far.”

  Marquez thought it over, didn’t say anything.

  “Let’s talk about why you’re here,” Buehler said, and Marquez knew the prelude was over. Despite the conditioned air he felt sweat prickle on his spine. He didn’t want the FBI’s heavy hand over him. Before they knew it they’d be getting three sets of papers stamped just so they could set up surveillance in a harbor. “We’ve had very direct inquiries from the FBI that we believe you should know about. They’ve asked for and we’ve provided the names of the members of the SOU.”

  “You’re kidding, sir.”

  “I’m not. We also got asked for information through the DFG liaison to the California antiterrorism unit here in Sacto even though nothing in this has anything to do with terrorism.” Marquez knew that by nightfall the FBI would have photos and be building a file on the team. He picked at the food, no longer hungry and very sur-prised the Feds had been given that information. No doubt the line was that they needed to know for the safety of Marquez’s team, in case there was another overlap, but his gut said the truth lay some-where else. He watched Buehler drink a full glass of water, diluting the scotch, and was glad it was Buehler, not him. Marquez didn’t miss walking out into hot afternoon sunlight and needing to take a nap to metabolize alcohol. But he was roaming a different country of the mind now, in many ways a worse one, about Katherine. He focused on the table again. This FBI request only reaffirmed his certainty about Kline’s presence. The waiter returned and they ordered coffees after the dishes were cleared, both Buehler and himself ordering double espressos, the chief ordering black coffee. “How old are you, Lieutenant?” Buehler asked.

  “Forty-six.”

  “I’m ten years older than you and I was too young for it, but what I’m leading to are the similarities between this post 9/11 gear-up and the way the FBI responded to the Cold War communist threat in the fifties. They spent a lot of money and threw a lot of agents at the problem and our enemies just adapted. They’re in the process of making the very same mistakes. Their real problem is their ability to get inside these organizations; it always has been. Now, I don’t know what they’ve got going with this individual they say they’re trying to apprehend, but I do know they hold the power right now. Trying to fight the Feds this year is like wading up a fast, cold river. We’d only get so far. They have their good years and their bad ones, and right now everything is running their way.”

  When no one said anything Buehler folded the credit card receipt and stood up. “Let’s go, gentlemen.” They stepped outside and Buehler clapped Marquez on the back, telling him not to worry about the FBI getting their names. “If we can’t trust them, we’ve lost anyway.” Marquez watched him get in a black Mercedes convertible and wave as he drove off. He turned to Keeler.

  “You were quiet, Ed.”

  “I didn’t want to do anything that would interfere with him hearing himself.”

  Marquez smiled. “What’s your take on the Feds?”

  “They do have something they’re afraid you’re going to inter-fere with and they plan to keep track of your whereabouts. If they had their way your team would be wearing mountain lion collars.”

  “They’re protecting poachers.”

  “I won’t argue with that, but don’t start preaching at me. Buehler’s correct, we’re not going to fight them and win.”

  Twenty minutes later, Sacramento was a skyline behind Mar-quez and in his rearview mirror the windows of the taller build-ings reflected orange and red in the late sun. He crossed the causeway and rode through Davis in a stream of cars running fifteen miles an hour over the speed limit and still jockeying with each other for better position. He called Katherine. Maria answered, giggling, her teenage voice carrying relief at having her mom home, setting aside her war with her for a few hours. She put Katherine on.

  “I’m on my way in,” he said.

  “I’ll handle it alone, John.” Her voice got quieter. “Maria and I are going to dinner together.”

  “You’re sure? I’m only an hour away. I’ve got something hap-pening tonight, but not until later. Or tell me what restaurant and I’ll come there.”

  Kath was silent, keeping her distance, still upset over this morning, then saying she had to get off the phone as though talking to a business acquaintance. A profound sadness welled up from deep in him after he’d hung up, and he drove without taking any calls, letting the phone ring through to voice mail until he was coming through the dry hills above Vallejo and could see the bay in the distance, a milky haze above it, the sky red behind. He thought about the fragility of the connection now with Katherine, how the smallest thing said could trigger all the anger and an immediate turning away. She’d flown home and driven to find him and he’d failed her the next morning.

  He listened to his messages, gassed the truck, and got back on the freeway. He talked with Shauf, Petersen, and Alvarez, and when he got into Marin he was still on his cell phone, finalizing how they’d track Li tonight, using all the team, bringing Roberts back down from Bragg, and still it wasn’t enough wardens if the other side was smart. He drove through Marin and checked for Katherine and Maria at the Indian restaurant that was one of Maria’s favorites, but didn’t see them and didn’t know what he would have done if he had. He bought a burrito and coffee and ate as he crossed the bay again and hooked up with the team in Oakland.

  Two lights were on in Li’s house, both downstairs. At 10:20 the garage door opened and Marquez rang through to the hands-free setup they’d installed in Li’s truck. Li took three or four rings to answer and his voice was nervous and high-pitched.

  “They call already.”

  “We’re right with you. Leave this phone open now like we talked about.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Marquez brought the SOU up behind and ahead of Li now. They floated him in a bubble and he listened to Li answer the phone with his own heart thumping hard at the poacher’s voice, the clipped instructions to Li, the racial condescension as the man asked Li, did he understand. Li went east on I-80 and exited into Emeryville, crossing under the freeway and running up the frontage road on the bay side and then making a U-turn as the frontage road passed the base of Berkeley. In the darkness away from any street-light and out along the road to the Berkeley Marina he eased to the shoulder and parked. It could go down right here, Marquez knew, a car pulling up behind Li, a casual transfer of coolers. No big deal, a little business, nothing more than that and over in seconds.

  “Can you believe that?” Petersen asked, her voice soft and quiet. “If the Marlin was in port the crew could walk up and be our backup.”

  Li wasn’t a mile from where the Marlin regularly docked, but the boat was on patrol. Marquez called Hansen, let him know where they were, that they were waiting. He talked with Li again, reassuring him. Then Li’s phone rang, sharp and hard and loud in the truck. New instructions came and Li got on the freeway east-bound again, took the 580 cutoff and headed north toward the Richmond/San Rafael Bridge before reversing himself at the toll plaza. The caller said get off in Poi
nt Richmond, then directed him to the tunnel and ran him out the empty road toward Brickyard Landing and the marina there.

  Marquez remembered a rock quarry filled with water, a dirt road running through the low humped rockbound hills behind the marina. It was another way to approach Brickyard, but after think-ing about it he discarded it, and drifted the SOU in, one, then a second car down the long open road past the shoreline park and around the curve. To the left was a condo project built into the low rounded hills, and to the right, the harbor and the dark water reflecting the marina lights. The first warden turned up toward the condos, would have to talk to the guard at the gate.

  Li had parked near Brickyard Cove Marina, and Marquez drove the road now, was the only car to follow Li’s truck and anyone watching was watching now. He brought Petersen in behind him as Li got out and walked into the marina parking and stood where they’d told him to wait, away from the boats at the lot perimeter and under the lights. Marquez scanned the shingled and wood-sided buildings surrounding the marina lot. The metal-roofed condos across the street were quiet, a few lights on, no one visible outside, glass faces staring across the water. He drove past and parked, nodded to Petersen as she joined him and slipped her hand into his, walking side by side with him, leaning into him as they ran their ploy.

  They walked out slowly along the dock, Marquez wearing a billed cap, an old leather coat, Petersen’s hand firm and strong hold-ing his hand. They passed a line of houses with boats docked out front as Alvarez reported steadily through an earpiece Marquez wore.

  “I really am going to miss you,” Petersen said, making light of it, though he knew that was her shyness. She was tender and made her way in the world with joking and humor, even with those they’d just busted. It was the innate mark of her gentleness. “I’m so used to seeing that big old scarred head of yours.”

  “You make me sound like an old elephant.”

  “In a way you are.”

  “I’m going to miss you, too. I really am.”

  “Roberts will tell you how to run things.”

  “Bet on that.”

  “John, how come you never had any kids? I mean, you were alone so long before Katherine and Maria.”

  “I had girlfriends.”

  “Yeah, I was one of them. You know what I mean.”

  “I thought I told you once.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “There was someone who I thought I was going to be with for-ever and she got killed on a trip we made together to Africa. This was a long time ago and we were pretty young and stupid about where we camped. I got drafted at the tail end of Vietnam, but never shipped out, and when I got out Julie and I went to Africa. Do you see Li still?”

  “Yes.”

  “We were going to travel for a year and were doing it on next to no money and camped near a game preserve in Kenya. I went into town for supplies one afternoon and came back and she was gone. When she didn’t come back that night I got to the local police and their first reaction was she’d gone off with another man. I found her two days later by driving around with one of the locals and watching the buzzards. She’d been raped and shot, then dumped in the grass less than a mile from where we’d camped. The animals had already gotten to her and it was the hardest thing of my life. I had a real hard time accepting it. When you’re young you think everything has got to work out the way it should.”

  “Who killed her?”

  “They suspected elephant poachers, three men they held for a while and then released. I had their names and I went to find them later and planned to kill them. But I found I couldn’t do it because there hadn’t been enough proof it was them. Turn toward me, face me like you want to be close to me and tell me what you see on the silver-gray boat down at the end.”

  “At the very end of the dock?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nothing. No, wait, there is somebody moving around. You are good at this, you know that.”

  “Hug me like we’re a couple.”

  “No, hug me, and tell me you’ll come visit after the baby is born.” He held her and thought he could feel Julie with them on the dock. “God, I’m sorry, John.”

  “Long time ago, now.”

  “He’s out of the boat and heading down the dock.” Marquez talked into his wire mike. Shauf was sitting partway up a flight of wood steps at the condo complex and couldn’t see any other players and there was no confirmation yet the boat man was coming up to meet Li. Alvarez waited near an old railroad siding at the curve. Neither could see anything happening but could get there fast if it went down. “He’s watching us, John.”

  “We’re looking at the ocean. Tell you what, let’s sit down here with our backs to him and look out at the water.” They sat down and a few minutes later Marquez turned his head as though he was just talking to Petersen. “He’s hiding in the shadows, hanging out about halfway to Li,” he said. “Looks like he’s thinking it over and may be talking to someone, could be waiting for somebody.”

  They waited and looked out on a bay that was flat and quiet, the water a smooth charcoal color under the dock lights. He felt his pulse in his fingertips. He willed the man hiding in the shadows to approach Li.

  “How long do you think he’ll watch?” she asked.

  “Until he’s sure.”

  Marquez called Li now, told him to pull the mike slowly from his ear after they’d finished talking. Told him to get out and look around. Told him there was a man sitting in the shadows thirty yards to his right. And Shauf reported Li getting out, Li standing with his hands on his hips, Li moving out in front of his truck, looking around, and then walking back and getting inside, starting the engine, headlights coming on, and then the man was up and moving toward Li. He came around to Li’s window and there was a conversation and Li’s truck rolled slowly forward with the man trailing, looking down at the dock again, checking the road behind and the haze of lights at the condo complex. The coolers packed with abalone the SOU had loaded in Li’s truck began to move down toward the man’s boat. In the distance Marquez made out the lights of the Marlin as it cleared Angel Island.

  “Fifty-four feet of stainless catamaran coming fast,” he said, “subtle as a Doberman.” They got slowly to their feet and he watched Hansen slow the boat down and then he turned with Petersen as Alvarez and Shauf rolled into view. Li and the man had made their second trip down the dock each carrying one end of a cooler, seem-ingly oblivious to the people moving around them, and that didn’t feel right. They came back up the steps to the rear of the Toyota and when Marquez raised his badge the man hesitated as though he might run. But there was nowhere to go and the team closed around him.

  “Mark Heinemann,” Marquez said, “it’s good to see you. We’ve been looking all over for you. The bad news is you’re under arrest.”

  17

  Marquez paused, taking in Heinemann’s now earnest face, the styled haircut he must pay real money for, razored lines at the neck, hair that wanted gel to complete the look, making him the best-looking diver along the coast as he dropped off the back of a rusted urchin bucket. They’d driven him to the Richmond Police Station, borrowed an interview box, got him a token Pepsi, and listed off the probable charges, including boat theft, all of which seemed to baffle Heinemann as though it had been someone else and not him, his frowning puzzled look saying this wasn’t the movie he’d been cast for. There’d been some mistake, which he was willing to help get cleared up. The old Vietnamese guy at Brickyard Landing, well, he didn’t even know him, in fact, had only offered to help him move the coolers because he happened to be on the dock and the Vietnamese guy had asked. Heinemann worked it so hard that Shauf couldn’t hide a smile and covered her lips with her hand.

  “The owner of the boat you stole is very unhappy and looks like the wrong guy to rip off,” Marquez said. “He’s big, looks mean, I’d be careful.”

  “I didn’t steal his boat.”

  “You found it?”

  “Look, ward
en, or whatever you are, man, they dropped me at Marina Bay. They told me what I was going to do tonight, okay. I do it or they mess up my girlfriend. That’s the way it’s been since Sausalito. I’ve been on a boat with a bunch of fucking Mexican divers, working off what they say I owe them.”

  “Who are they?”

  “I got tricked into all this by Bailey. I’m not going to bullshit you and pretend I wasn’t involved but I didn’t know what was going on.”

  “Who are you working for?”

  “I don’t know. Like I said, it was all Bailey’s thing.”

  “Where’d the Emily Jane dock?”

  “Eureka. Then they moved me to another boat and said I owed them, if you can believe that. But I never owed anything. It was bull-shit and I didn’t tell that Vietnamese guy I was buying any abalone. He made that story up when you guys got there. Obviously, you were watching the dude already.”

  “They threatened your girlfriend so you cooperated with them.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where are these Mexican divers from?”

  “Baja.”

  “How many divers?”

  “Four, and me.”

  “What’s the name of the boat?”

  “El Gordo Burrito.” Heinemann laughed, but it was more of a bark, and not really a big dog bark, more like a guy who was nerv-ous and a little scared. Vain guy and not too bright was Marquez’s take. “I don’t know the name of the boat. If we weren’t diving, we were below deck like some sort of sweatshop, man.”

  Marquez didn’t know what to do with that. It was farfetched, but could be true from the way he was talking. It was too off-the-wall to make up and would explain Heinemann disappearing.

  “Was Bailey ever on that boat?”

  “Fuck if I know.”

  Back to attitude. Other than this story about a dive boat and threatening his girlfriend, he’d given them little since they’d hand-cuffed him in Point Richmond. He’d sung a David Bowie song as they’d driven him here, and then listened to the charges, including abetting in the assault of a peace officer, as though he was listen-ing to a waiter recite a menu. And he hadn’t asked for a lawyer yet, which might mean he wanted to try to deal his way out.