by Walter Grant
Returning to the driver’s seat, Max put the headset over his ears before plugging it into what was actually a receiver with a built-in tape recorder, pulled out the antenna, flipped on the power switch, and adjusted the gain control until a soft audible hiss came steadily through the headset. A few seconds later when the sound of a door bursting open came over the radio he switched on the recorder.
“Goddammit, they’re both gone!” This was the same voice Max had heard on the telephone when he eavesdropped in Gilbird’s office.
“Who was the guy and what did he want?” a second voice inquired.
“I don’t know,” declared the first voice. “He passed himself off as an insurance investigator. Claimed John took out a large insurance policy and wanted to look at the records.”
“Where is John, anyway?” the second voice asked.
“I don’t know, but it’s about time we had some answers and I intend to get some tonight. I’m going to stay around here and see if anything is missing. In the meantime, you two go over to that stupid bitch’s apartment and bring her back over here. If she isn’t home, wait around until she shows up. I intend to find out what the hell she knows about all this crap.” The sound of a door opening and closing came through the headset. Two men came out, jumped into the Camero and headed off toward town.
Max switched off the little receiver/recorder, collapsed its tiny antenna, and placed it along with the headset on the seat beside him.
“Well, isn’t that interesting?” Max said out loud, although talking to himself. He had assumed Gilbird was controlling the cell; obviously this was not the case. Someone had sent Gilbird to Juneau. Bell wasn’t in charge—he didn’t even know where Gilbird had gone, so who could it be? Tolinger? Possibly. If only he could be at that meeting tonight he might find out, but first he had to get the woman safely on her way. Making a U-turn out of the pull-off he glanced at a tree on the opposite side of the road where he had secured a similar receiver/recorder earlier in the morning. The bugs he’d left in Gilbird’s office had worked perfectly and would continue to operate for several days before their power cells were spent. In the meantime, the little device he had attached to the tree would record every word. He could retrieve the tape anytime.
The girl was waiting in the post office exactly as he had instructed her to do and she came running out when he turned into the parking lot. Max leaned over and opened the door. She was near panic when she climbed into the passenger seat and asked, “Where have you been? What took you so long?”
Max ignored the questions. He guessed she’d had time to think about her situation.
“What’s your name?”
“Claudia Russell. What’s yours?”
“Just call me Max.”
“I need some clothes and a few other things. Could we stop by my apartment and pack a bag?” Without answering the question, Max picked up the headset and held it out to her. “Put this on, I want you to listen to something.” She complied without any further questions. While Claudia was fitting the headset to her ears he rewound the tape. When she had the headset in place he pushed the play function and waited. It was easy to tell when the conversation on the tape ended. Claudia’s face lost its color, beads of perspiration broke out on her forehead, and she slumped back in the seat. Max switched off the tape player, reached over and removed the headphones. Neither spoke as he drove out of the parking lot and turned toward the center of town. When he reached Main Street he turned right and followed Highway 1 to 246, and headed for U.S. 101 at Buellton. As they passed the dirt road leading to Spic and Span Claudia looked over at the warehouse and then back at Max. “Who are you?” The question was only a whisper.
“It doesn’t matter. Are you okay?” She kept staring at him without answering or moving. He reached over and touched her shoulder. “Claudia, are you okay?” She nodded affirmatively.
“Did you recognize those voices?”
“The first one was Oscar Bell. The other one was a guy everyone calls Jake, I don’t know his last name.” She was silent for a few seconds, then asked, “Could we stop somewhere for a few minutes? I don’t feel well. Whenever I get scared or nervous I get sick.”
Max didn’t answer. The obvious questions flashed across his thinking. Had she contacted someone before meeting him at the post office? Was she trying to delay leaving the area, hoping for an opportunity to make contact a second time? Once again he dismissed his thoughts and questions as paranoia. A few more seconds of silence passed before she spoke again. “I haven’t eaten much in the last couple of days. Could we get some coffee and a sweet roll or something?”
Max thought she was on the verge of crying again. She rolled down the window and leaned her head against the door allowing the wind to blow in her face.
They were approaching Buellton, which consisted of a handful of gas stations and motels that had sprung up around the intersection of Highways 101 and 246. Lompoc was eight miles behind them, less than ten minutes away. Just two miles past the intersection was the Danish community of Solvang with numerous restaurants, shops, and hotels. What had once been just another ethnic community had now become a regular tourist trap on the well-traveled route between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Max was concerned about stopping at a restaurant only ten miles from Spic and Span, but knew the woman wasn’t faring well and figured some food might help her feel better while loosing her tongue at the same time. “Alright, we’ll stop at Solvang until you feel better.”
He drove past the first three restaurants and pulled into a hotel parking lot and guided the TransAM to a stop in front of a doorway with a sign declaring an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. He helped Claudia, apparently dazed by the turn of events and a bit wobbly on her feet, up the steps and into the restaurant. Max ate a stack of thin pancakes with spiced apples and sour cream with a side of bacon and drank coffee while he watched Claudia wade through a breakfast that would have made a Northwest lumberjack proud; she made three trips to the buffet table. Color returned to her face and with each bite she became more at ease and seemed quite willing to tell him everything she knew about Spic and Span janitorial, which wasn’t much.
She had worked for Spic and Span almost six months, but knew very little about their operation. Almost everything took place at night, and she worked days. Her job consisted of such mundane chores as signing for deliveries, going to the post office, answering the phone and taking messages. Mostly however, she just sat in the outer office and listened to her radio.
She had come to Lompoc from Houston with a guy by the name of Warren Satterfield, an out-of-work carpenter who hoped to get a job in construction. A building boom followed the announcement by the air force of its intent to construct a new space launch facility for the military space transport system on South Vandenberg. The boom had cooled by the time Claudia and Satterfield arrived in Lompoc. He didn’t find a job and she continued supporting him and herself as she had done in Houston. She had managed to save a little money but made the mistake of opening a joint checking account with Satterfield.
She seemed relieved to be able to talk with someone about her problems and in doing so was able to supply Max with a few names and descriptions of people associated with Gilbird, including the description of two air force officers. Howard Tolinger fit the description of one of the officers. Bell seemed to be in charge, although Gilbird was listed as owner. Even after working there for six months, today was the first time she had ever seen the inside of Gilbird’s office.
Claudia was not the addlebrained person he had first thought her to be, but a fairly intelligent woman with a good middle-class background. Over a period of time she had made several poor choices involving a series of bad situations and simply lost control of her life, and consequently, the courage to try and regain control. Her downhill slide had started when after three years of college she dropped out to take a job with an agency promising travel, glamour, and big bucks. Her parents vehemently disapproved. The altercation with her parents res
ulted in her leaving home and taking an apartment with a girlfriend. The girlfriend got married and moved out, a boyfriend moved in, and from there it had only gotten worse.
Max promised her the financial support she’d need to give her time to put some order back in her life. In exchange for the financial help, she promised to finish college, take some self-improvement courses, and to join a health club. He warned her that the money would run out and she should give serious consideration to a realistic and attainable career, and forget about glamour.
When they returned to the car, Max counted out thirty thousand dollars from a concealed compartment in the trunk and put it into a thick brown envelope. He handed the money to Claudia as they pulled out of the parking lot, instructing her to put two thousand in her purse before sealing the envelope. Her eyes almost popped out of her head when she saw the thick stack of fifty-dollar bills. Her gratitude seemed genuine as she promised again, this time with a great deal of enthusiasm, to do exactly as she had said she would. Concluding with, “I won’t blow it this time!” Max wondered what she would be thinking if she knew the money had come from her dead boss.
He drove her to the Los Angeles International airport, purchased a ticket in the name of Janice Weaver, and waited with her until she boarded. He didn’t leave the terminal until her plane began taxiing toward the runway.
As Max drove down Century Boulevard toward Interstate 405 he was tempted to take the southbound ramp. San Diego and the woman of all his dreams and fantasies were less than two hours away. As tempted as he might have been, he turned north, as he knew he must.
ONE MORE BAG OF SCUM
It was five thirty in the afternoon when he drove into his garage on Surf Road. Not much to do until tonight. He figured he might as well get some sleep. But first a quick check of his recording equipment. There was nothing of interest on the telephone recorder. The video setup had recorded two vehicles. A clock in the video camera painted the time, to the nearest second, on each frame of the tape and established the time the two vehicles had passed in front of his house. There was nothing new to be learned from the tape about the Dodge Maxivan he had seen driving through the eucalyptus grove early this morning, except to confirm it had left Gilbird’s house.
The video of the second vehicle, however, was very interesting. An official air force sedan with two uniformed officers, fitting the description given him by Claudia, had arrived at five minutes past noon, stayed almost an hour and a half, leaving at 1:26. The young lieutenant driving, a very clean-cut looking kid was probably in his midtwenties. Max felt he had seen the lieutenant before, but couldn’t recall where or when. The passenger, an older man somewhere around forty-five or fifty, he recognized as Colonel Howard Kent Tolinger.
He reset the equipment and twenty minutes later, after eating a sandwich and taking a shower, he was asleep and dreaming of green eyes, red hair, soft creamy skin, and freckles.
Just before midnight Max braked the TransAM to a stop in front of Pablo’s A to Z Janitorial Services, on the outskirts of Santa Maria. A driveway on either side of the office led to a graveled parking lot in back with two Quonset huts and a covered area resembling a large carport with about ten Chevy vans parked underneath. The building had at one time been someone’s house. Probably the owner had started a business from his home and as he became more successful built a new house and kept his old residence for his office. The house was small by today’s standards, about nine hundred square feet. The interior walls had been replaced by four wooden posts attached to the ridge beam to support the roof, leaving one large room about twenty feet by forty-five feet. The layout of the room was similar to the lounge at Spic and Span with chairs, tables, vending machines, a microwave, and a coffeepot. A three-foot-high partition across one end of the room separated two desks, four filing cabinets, and a table surrounded by half a dozen chairs like the ones in the lounge. On the wall by the door opening out into the rear compound was a sign that read, Restroom Outside.
There was no sign to indicate who was in charge. A sign wasn’t necessary; one look at the competent-looking old man, with his desk in position to survey the entire room at a glance, and Max knew he was the man he wanted to talk with. Two younger men sat at one of the tables drinking coffee. All three watched Max with conspicuous curiosity as he entered the room. The old man behind the desk looked up from a ledger and peering over his reading glasses, watched, but did not speak as the stranger walked across the room toward the partition. Max stopped in front of the desk and stood looking at the old man for about five seconds, lending an air of authority and perplexity to his presence before asking, “Are you Pablo Montoya?”
The old man had no intention of being intimidated by a pushy man in a fancy suit. Leaning back in his chair, he took his time looking the stranger up and down before finally answering, “Si.”
“Mr. Montoya, I’m with the Internal Revenue Service.” Max held out his identification for the old man’s inspection and handed him a business card even the expert eye could not have spotted as bogus. The old man looked over the ID and took his time reading the business card before replying, “I pay my taxes, señor.”
“I’m sure you do, Mr. Montoya. I’m not here to inquire into the way you conduct your business. I’m here because I need your help, sir.”
“And how might an old janitor like me help the almighty IRS?”
Max didn’t know if the old man was just being cynical or if he had more reason than most to hold the IRS in contempt. He remembered the vehicles parked out back. They were all relatively new and appeared to be in good condition. At this time of night these vehicles should be out on the job. Based on this and what he had already gleaned from the records at John Gilbird’s office he replied, “Mr. Montoya, we have noticed your business has declined over the last couple of years while one of your competitors has increased his business tenfold during the same period. We suspect he has set out to bankrupt his competition and is using unfair trade practices to accomplish his goal. The IRS suspects that Spic and Span is in violation of the Rico Act and we have asked the Justice Department to file charges. However, the Justice Department kicked it back to us, saying that we don’t have enough evidence. And that’s why I’m here. I’m trying to gather more evidence against Spic and Span, and I would appreciate your help and cooperation, sir.”
Pablo Montoya leaned even further back in his chair as he weighed the cost of collaborating with the IRS. Several seconds later, his decision made, he asked, “Would you like some coffee, señor?”
“Gracias, si.”
The old man’s face softened a bit as Max replied in his native language. “Manuel, dos cafes, por favor.”
Pablo pointed to the chair beside his desk. “Take a load off, young fellow.”
Max walked through the open gate in the partition, settled into the chair and waited for Manuel to bring the coffee. When it arrived, he took a sip and found it strong and bitter. It tasted like it had cooked for three days in a pot which hadn’t been cleaned for six months. He raised his cup slightly in a salute, even though he found it a vile brew. “Muy bueno.”
“No it’s not.” The old man laughed. “It’s terrible; nobody around here knows how to make good coffee.” After a pause he added, “But nobody cares either.”
They both laughed. “Well, it sure wakes you up.” He lifted his cup a bit higher this time.
The old man didn’t waste any time on idle conversation. “So you want to know about Spic and Span?”
The old man continued without waiting for an answer. “Well, they have almost put me out of business. I’ve lost half the contracts I had in Santa Maria and all but two of the contracts at Vandenberg, and I’ll probably lose those when they come up for bid. For the last year I bid jobs at cost just to keep my employees in work and still I lose the contracts.”
The old man took a sip of coffee, and then added. “They are losing money on every job. I know. I’ve been a janitor for thirty years. I know!”
Max had no doubt the old man knew the janitorial business and was speaking the truth. He forced down another swallow of coffee before asking, “What about the office buildings in Casmalia and Guadelupe? They show substantial profits on both projects?”
Pablo sneered. “Have you seen Casmalia and Guadelupe?”
Before Max could answer the old man continued. “Guadelupe is a farming town. You could hire local labor to clean every office in town for less than it would cost to drive over and back. Casmalia is an old railroad town with a whopping population of twenty-two people.” He took another sip of coffee and waited for the man from the IRS to react.
“Well, Mr. Montoya, Spic and Span paid taxes on over twelve million dollars last year. If what you tell me is true, and I do believe you, where do they get their profit?”
The old man was astonished. “You mean you really don’t know?”
“No sir.”
“They sell dope. They bring it in through Vandenberg. That’s the reason they bid the contracts so low. It gives them easy access to the air base.”
Max had never considered the KGB would be running a dope-smuggling operation, but it made sense. Wow! What a sweet deal. The narcotics were flown onto a government installation and unloaded while the air force unwittingly provided them with some of the best security in the world.
The surprised look on his guest’s face told Pablo the man knew nothing of the dope-smuggling operation. “I tell the truth, señor. They supply pushers from Ventura all the way up the coast to San Luis Obispo.” Max, realizing there was much to be learned from Pablo Montoya, shifted in his chair to a more comfortable position and took another swallow of coffee; it tasted delicious.
It was well after 1 a.m. when Max drove away from A to Z Janitorial. According to Pablo, Bell, a small-time pusher from Oakland, had been recruited to wholesale cocaine, using Spic and Span as a front for the operation. Bell had brought Jake Hatcher, a former Hell’s Angel, with him to put the arm on any of their clients that got out of line or caused trouble.