by Stuart Woods
“Mr. Barrington?”
“Yes. Brandy?”
“Hey, Stone; I found your man.”
“Where is he?”
“In Tijuana, of course.”
“All right, you found him; now how do I find him?”
“You come to Tijuana.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow afternoon; it’s not a bad drive, three to four hours, depending on traffic. What kind of car will you be in?”
“A Mercedes convertible, black.”
“No, no, you don’t want to be driving around Tijuana in that. You park your car at the border, and walk across; I’ll have somebody meet you.”
“All right, what time?”
“Say three o’clock?”
“I’ll be there.”
“Wear a red baseball cap, so my man will know you.”
“All right.”
“Cordova wants a thousand dollars to meet with you.”
“For as long as I want?”
“How long do you want?”
“Maybe an hour, maybe more.”
“He’ll do that, and Stone?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t forget the rest of my money, too.”
“See you at three o’clock.”
Thirty-five
STONE TOOK THE FREEWAY TO SAN DIEGO AND MADE IT in three and a half hours. He had some lunch at a taco joint near the border, then put the money and his little dictating recorder into his pockets, put on the red baseball cap he’d bought at the Centurion Studios shop, parked the car, and walked to the border crossing. He was questioned by a uniformed officer.
“What’s the purpose of your visit to Mexico?” the man asked.
“A business meeting.”
“What kind of business?”
“I’m a lawyer,” Stone replied. “I’m interviewing a witness.”
“Let’s see some ID.”
Stone showed his U.S. passport.
“Are you carrying more than five thousand dollars in cash or negotiable instruments?”
Stone was not about to lie about this. “Yes.”
“How much?”
“About seven thousand.”
The man handed him a declaration. “What’s the money for?”
“I have to pay the man who located the witness for me.”
“Fill out the form.”
Stone did as he was told, handed it over, and was waved across the border.
“You better be careful, carrying that much money,” the officer said.
“Thanks, I will.” Stone walked slowly down the busy street, waiting for somebody to recognize him. He saw no one, and no one seemed to take note of him. He had never been to Mexico before, and he was nervous. Everything he had read about the place in the newspapers had led him to believe that the country was a vast criminal enterprise, with drug dealers and kidnappers on every corner and a corrupt police force. So far, he didn’t like it.
A block from the border, he sat down at one of two tables outside a little restaurant. A waiter appeared. “Cerveza,” Stone said, exhausting his Spanish. A moment later, he was drinking an icy Carta Blanca, the only thing he intended to allow past his lips on this trip. He had finished the beer and was wondering if he had come on a fool’s errand when a small boy dressed in ragged jeans and sneakers ran up to him.
“Señor Stone?” the boy asked.
Stone nodded.
The boy beckoned him to come.
Stone left five dollars on the table and followed the boy. They turned a corner and came to a Lincoln Continental of a fifties vintage, a giant, four-door land yacht of an automobile. Brandy Garcia sat at the wheel and beckoned him to the passenger side.
“Give the boy something,” Garcia said.
Stone gave the boy five dollars and stuck the red baseball cap on his head.
The boy turned the cap backward, grinned, and disappeared into the street crowd.
Stone got into the car and waited for Garcia to drive off, but he simply sat there. “Well?”
“I want the rest of my money, first,” Garcia said.
Stone took a precounted thousand dollars from a pocket and handed it over. “The rest when I’m sitting down with Cordova.”
“Fair enough,” Brandy said, and put the car into gear. “Pretty nice buggy, eh?”
“Nicely restored,” Stone admitted. “I haven’t seen one of these in years.”
Garcia turned a corner and sped down the street, oblivious of the pedestrians diving out of his way. “I got three more beauties at my house,” he said. “I got a Stingray Corvette, a ’57 Chevy Bel-Air coupe with the big V-8, and a ’52 Caddy convertible, yellow. All mint.”
“Well,” Stone said, “I guess the Lincoln is the closest thing we’re going to get to inconspicuous.”
Garcia laughed and turned another corner. “Everybody knows me in Tijuana,” he said. “Why be inconspicuous?”
Soon they were leaving the busy part of town and driving down a dirt street. The houses were getting farther apart, and after a while there were very few houses. Garcia slowed and turned down a dirt road; a mile later, he turned into a driveway and drove a hundred yards to a little stucco house in a grove of trees, with an oversized garage to one side.
“Here we are,” Garcia said, parking next to a beat-up Volkswagen and getting out of the car. “Cordova is already here; that’s his car,” he said, jerking a thumb in the direction of the VW. Stone quickly memorized the license plate number before he followed Garcia into the house.
“How’s Cordova’s English?” Stone asked, as they walked through a tiled living room and out onto a patio.
“Ask him yourself,” Garcia said, nodding toward a large man seated at a patio table next to a small swimming pool, hunched over a beer. “That’s Felipe Cordova, and you owe me another three grand.”
Stone handed him the money, then walked to the table and took a seat opposite the man, getting a look at his shoes on the way. He saw the swoosh logo. “Felipe Cordova?”
The man nodded.
Stone offered his hand. “My name is Barrington.”
Cordova shook it limply, saying nothing.
“You have any problem with English, or you want Brandy to translate?”
Cordova looked at Garcia, who was stepping back into the house, and Stone took the opportunity to switch on the little recorder in his shirt pocket.
“English is okay,” he said, “but I got another problem—a thousand bucks.”
Stone counted out five hundred and placed it on the table. “The rest when we’re finished, and if you tell me the truth, there might be a bonus.”
“What you want to know?” Cordova asked.
“You work for a gardening service in L.A.?”
“Yeah.”
“You work sometimes for Charlene Joiner, in Malibu?”
Cordova smiled a little. “Oh, yeah.”
“You work for Mr. and Mrs. Calder, in Bel-Air?”
“Yeah.”
“You were at their house the day Mr. Calder was shot.” It wasn’t a question.
“I don’t know nothing about that,” Cordova said.
“Thanks for your time,” Stone said. “You can leave.”
Cordova didn’t move. “What about my other five hundred?”
“If you want that, you’ll have to start earning it,” Stone said.
Cordova glared at him for a moment. “I didn’t cut the grass that day.”
“No, you were there to burgle the place.”
Cordova chuckled. “Shit, man,” he said.
“I’m not here to arrest you; I think you know the cops aren’t going to find you here. They’re not even looking for you.”
“What makes you think I’m a burglar?” Cordova asked.
“Those Nikes you’re wearing cost a hundred and eighty bucks,” Stone said. “You didn’t buy them cutting grass.”
“Shit, man . . .”
Stone slammed his hand on the table. “Shit is ri
ght,” he said. “That’s all I’m getting from you.”
“Okay, okay, so what do you want to know?”
“Did Calder catch you in the house?”
“I never got into the house,” Cordova replied.
“You were right outside the door; you were seen,” Stone lied.
“By who?”
“By Manolo’s wife; you didn’t see her.”
“Then you know I didn’t get in the house. I only got as far as the back door. I went in through a little gate where we take the equipment in.”
“And what did you see at the back door?”
“First, I heard something.”
“Like what?”
“Like a gun going off.”
“How many times?”
“Once. I was almost to the back door when I heard it. I took a few more steps, and I looked through the door. It was a glass door, you know? With panes?”
“I know. What did you see?”
“I saw Mr. Calder lying on the floor in the hall, and blood was coming out of his head.”
“What else did you see?”
“I saw the gun on the floor beside Mr. Calder.”
“What kind of gun?”
“An automatic; I don’t know what kind.”
“What color?”
“Silver.”
“What else did you see?”
“I saw a woman running down the hall.”
Stone’s stomach suddenly felt hollow, and he couldn’t speak.
Cordova went on. “She was wearing one of them robes made out of that towel stuff.” He rubbed his fingers together.
“Terrycloth?”
“Yeah. It had this . . .” He moved his hands around his head.
“Hood?”
“Yeah, a hood. She was barefoot; I don’t think she had nothing on, except the robe.”
“Could you see her body?”
“No, just her feet.”
“Did you see her face?” Stone held his breath.
“No.”
Stone let out the breath.
“But it was Mrs. Calder.”
Stone’s stomach flip-flopped. “If you didn’t see her face, how do you know it was Mrs. Calder?”
“C’mon, man, who else would it be, naked and in a robe in the Calders’ house?”
“But you didn’t see her face.”
“No, but it was her. Same size and everything; same ass, you know?”
“Which way was she running?”
“Away from me—that’s all I know, man; I got the hell out of there, you know? I was over that fence and out of there in a big hurry.”
Stone took him through it again, made him repeat every statement, but nothing changed. Finally, there was nothing else to ask. He shelled out another five hundred, and Cordova put it in his pocket.
“You want to make another three hundred?” Stone asked.
“Sure.”
Stone put the money on the table. “Sell me your shoes.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll give you three hundred dollars for your shoes.”
Cordova grinned. “Sure, man.” He shucked off the Nikes and put them on the table. They were dirty, beat up, and huge. He put the money in his pocket, gave a little wave, and lumbered toward the house, padding along in his stocking feet.
Garcia came out of the house. “How’d it go?” he asked.
“Great,” Stone said. “Just great. Get me back to the border.”
“I see you got yourself some shoes.” He held his nose.
“Just get me back, Brandy,” Stone said, feeling sick.
Thirty-six
STONE DROVE BACK TOWARD LOS ANGELES IN A FOG, torn between what he had believed had happened to Vance Calder and what Felipe Cordova had told him. He had thought Cordova had murdered Vance, but every instinct he had developed as a cop, interrogating witnesses, told him that Cordova had told him the truth in their interview.
“I’ve been fooled before,” he said aloud to himself. Cordova still could have done it; maybe he was a better liar than Stone had thought. The only good thing about Cordova was that the LAPD had not questioned him, didn’t want to. He would not like to see the Mexican on the stand, testifying against Arrington.
The car phone rang. Stone punched the send button, so he could talk hands free. “Hello?”
“Hi, it’s Betty. Joan called from New York, said to tell you that everything was in hand with the house. The roofer is going to start in a couple of days, and it will take him a week to finish.”
“Good news,” Stone said.
“She also said that Dolce was waiting at the house when she got back from Teterboro, and that she told her that you’d returned to L.A. Does that mean we can expect more candid snaps?”
“I certainly hope not. I’ve already told the guard at the gate not to let her into the studio again, but maybe you’d better call and reinforce that.”
“Will do.”
“Any other calls?”
“Marc Blumberg called, said he just wanted to catch up with you. He’s at his Palm Springs house; you want the number?”
Stone fished a pen and his notebook out of his pocket. “Shoot.”
Betty dictated the number, and he jotted it down, careful to keep the car on track.
“Your bags are piled up in the entrance hall; want me to unpack for you?”
“Thanks, I’d appreciate that. I was too tired to bother last night.”
“I’ll send your laundry out, too.”
“Thanks again.”
“Stone you sound funny—depressed.”
“I’m just tired,” he replied. “The round-trip cross-country flight messed with my internal clock.”
“Want to have dinner tonight?”
He knew what that meant. “Give me a rain check, if you will; I just want to get some rest.”
“Okay, call if you need anything.”
Stone punched the end button, then dialed Marc Blumberg’s Palm Springs number and punched the send button again.
“Hello?”
“Marc, it’s Stone.”
“Hi, there, you in the car?”
“Yeah, I’m just north of San Diego.”
“What are you doing down there?”
“I’ve been to Tijuana to meet with Felipe Cordova, of Nike footprint fame.”
“What did he have to say for himself?”
“It’s a long story; why don’t we get together when you’re back in L.A.?”
“Why don’t you come here, instead? I’ll give you some dinner and put you up for the night. You could be here in a couple of hours.”
“Okay, why not?”
“You got a map?”
“Yes.”
“Take I-15 to just short of Temecula, then cut east over the mountains.”
“Okay, what’s the address?”
Blumberg gave him the street and number and directions to the house.
“See you in a while.” He hung up, then saw a sign for I-15 just in time to make the turn.
He found the turnoff for Palm Springs and followed the curving mountain road, enjoying the drive. His head began to clear, and almost without effort, things started to line up in his mind. First of all, he still believed Arrington was innocent; second, he felt that Cordova was the best suspect; third, he was going to do whatever it took to get Arrington out of this. He forced himself to consider the possibility that Arrington had shot Vance. If so, he rationalized, it must somehow have been self-defense. He could not let her be convicted, especially after what had happened in New York. He was in her thrall again, if he had ever been out of it, and all he wanted at the moment was a future with Arrington in it. By the time he had found Marc Blumberg’s house, his ducks were all in a row.
The house was a large contemporary, sculpted of native stone and big timbers, on several acres of desert. Marc greeted him warmly and led him out to the pool. The sun was low in the sky, and the desert air was growing cool. A tall, very beautiful woman
was stretched out on a chaise next to the outside bar.
“This is Vanessa Pike,” Marc said. “Vanessa, meet Stone Barrington.”
The two shook hands. It was difficult for Stone not to appreciate her beauty, especially since she was wearing only the bottom of her bikini.
“What’ll you drink?” Marc asked them both.
“I’ll have a gin and tonic,” Vanessa replied.
“So will I,” Stone echoed.
Marc motioned him to a chair opposite Vanessa, who showed no inclination to cover herself, soaking up the waning rays of afternoon sun.
“Aren’t you getting chilly?” Stone asked.
“I’m rarely chilly,” she replied, with a level gaze.
“I believe you,” Stone said.
Marc came back with the drinks and joined them. “So, how’d you ever find Cordova?”
“A friend at the LAPD put me in touch with a guy named Brandy Garcia, who knows the territory down there.”
“I’ve heard about him,” Blumberg said. “A real hustler.”
“Took him less than a week to find Cordova.”
“Where’d you meet?”
“At Garcia’s house. He seems to be doing very well for himself.”
“I don’t get it; why would Cordova talk to you?”
“Because I paid him a thousand dollars, plus another three hundred for his shoes.”
“You got the Nikes?”
“I did.”
“Was there a cut on the sole?”
“There was; they’re in my car; they’ll match the photograph the cops took.”
“Now that is great! What did Cordova say?”
Stone took a deep breath and told the lie. “Denied everything; wasn’t at the house that day, went to Mexico, because somebody in the family was sick.”
“You couldn’t shake his story?”
Stone shook his head. “No way to disprove it, without telling him about the footprint, and I didn’t want to tip him off about that.”
“You think there’s any way of getting him back, so the cops can question him?”
“No, short of arranging another meeting and kidnapping him, and I don’t think a judge would look kindly on that, not even a judge you play golf with.”
“You’re right about that.”
“He’s not coming back to L.A. anytime soon; he’s gone to ground, and I doubt if we’ll ever see him again.”