“A deeply rooted tendency toward discretion. After all, it was a murder. Look at his background; why would he want more attention, or any?”
“OK, he’s discreet. But he’s also a habitual felon hiding here in the tall grass of San Miguel. Have we turned up anyone else with more than a traffic ticket? Put him next to Anne Harris and Bill Frost in the line up. Even the Alwyns or Julian Soames. See how he looks.”
“So let me get this straight. What you’re telling me is that this morning I called up this guy, gave him everything but my social security number, told him I was investigating a murder which he probably did, and then went and stood outside his house for half an hour so he could practice getting the cross hairs of his rifle correctly placed in the middle of my forehead?”
“Pretty much. Plus, if it is him, he already knows how to get into your house and leave a body there. You know what? You two get dressed now, throw together an overnighter, and get on over here, OK? Have Maya pack up that Liga Mexicana futbol jersey she always wears. Bring that bottle of brandy. I’ve got pictures of him being faxed down. We’ll pick them up in the morning.”
“No hay problema.”
Maya learned years ago that I don’t panic. It simply doesn’t work for me. In a crisis a great calm washes over my mind and I think, “What should I do next?” She had understood most of the conversation from what I said to Cody, and I felt her punches landing all around my bare back.
“And now we are dead next, right?” She was not yelling, but I sensed she was searching for the Spanish word for pencil neck, or perhaps simply idiot. Sometimes being a good painter was not enough, especially in the last few weeks.
“OK, let’s pack it up. The house is not safe, we are staying tonight with Cody.” Normally she would have made a crack about how that gave her a choice of boyfriends, but now she flew through the bathroom, gathering toothbrushes, makeup kits, and dental floss. We were in the artmobile in less than four minutes. She had dressed in 30 seconds, which was normally what it took her to undress. No bodies were in the zaguan when we left. Not quite a first, but I was OK with it.
It is good being the friend of an oversized ex-cop with multiple guns who has killed people in the past. Cody had the guns out on a table when we arrived. I was trying to look brave for Maya, who despite her high pitched tone was probably braver than I was. I had never seen her falter.
There were two .38 revolvers with a full box of bullets.
“You have never seen these,” he said. “It took major stealth to get them down across the border, but after all those years as a cop I find I can’t be without them. I won’t be able to explain it if we have to use them, but it will be better than being dead. I prefer revolvers because they don’t jamb. Ever. Are we straight on this? I am giving you one, and the cylinder is full. Six shots. If it takes you more than that, you don’t deserve to live.”
That was clear enough.
“Shoot in the upper center of the chest. The head shot is usually lethal, but it’s harder to hit if it’s in motion, and in these situations, it often is. OK?”
“Yes,” I said. “What happens now? Are we safe here?”
“I don’t think he knows about me, unless you told him that too on the phone. You didn’t give him my address?”
“Only the first two numbers. And I didn’t tell him which unit.”
“That’s my boy.”
“So we just wait until he comes after us?” asked Maya, with an expression she must have meant to be a grin, but wasn’t.
“We’re much better than that, sweetheart.” He put his arm around her narrow waist. “In the morning we take the battle to him. I think until then we’ll be OK here. But I want one of us to be up all night. The sofa folds out, so you two can sleep there. And no funny business. I’ll stay up first.”
“We already did the funny business,” said Maya, poking me in the ribs.
“Good. You two get some rest.”
Right. This was going to be sweet dreams.
“I don’t think he can get through the front door because no one is likely to buzz him in this late, so I’ll be on the balcony looking both inside and out. I’ll wake one of you in three hours.” He opened the sofa and unfolded the mattress. “If anyone taps on the door, I’ll hear it. Don’t answer, and don’t stand in front of it.”
At this point I was preferring the part where a dollar’s worth of sweat gave you only a dime’s worth of information. I had more information than I could handle. Cody went out to the balcony and put the chair near the rail so he could see below. I put my arms around Maya but I knew sleep was not likely.
When Cody’s hand touched my shoulder three hours later I knew I had slept, but I wasn’t sure why. Maya shook her head. Her hair was a mess. I sat up and Cody put the gun in my hand. It was colder and heavier than I expected and it brought me instantly awake. It was 2:45.
“This is the safety.” He slid a button on the side back and forth. “We’ll leave it off. Keep it in your hand. Anyone climbs up toward the balcony, just pull the trigger. We’ll figure it out later. Maybe put the body in your entry. That seems to work as a cover.” He left for the bedroom.
Cody did the command part well, but I was not so sure about him being asleep. Maya rolled over and faced the wall. I went out to the balcony and sat in the chair. There were small covered lights lining the paths in the garden. No one could approach the balcony without being seen. There was no way I was going to fall asleep because my heart rate was approaching its upper limit. I wondered whether Schleicher was now machine-gunning our bed at Quebrada. We hadn’t thought to put pillows under the blankets. Nice guy. A skilled house restorer. A staff to lean on for young girls. I thought General Santa Anna, a richly complex and not entirely upstanding individual himself, might be happy at who was occupying his house. but I wasn’t.
At 5:45 I shook Maya’s shoulder. She sat up quickly with her fists out and a snarl on her lips. “It’s only the pintor,” I said.
“It’s a good thing.”
I showed her the action of the safety. There was no sun yet; it was about an hour and a half off. She pulled a blanket over her shoulders and went out to the balcony and I laid down again in my clothes. As a painter the only time I usually spend questioning what I am doing is when a picture fails. But now I had dragged everyone into this. Cody could probably take care of himself, but he hadn’t been tested for a while. Maya, I knew, was resourceful and tough, but Schleicher was a real low life. Perhaps as Julian Soames had suggested, I just should have told Marisol no thank you, it’s not my thing. Maybe my stock would have gone down with Maya, but we never would have taken all this risk. You can probably second guess yourself to death, or to sleep.
Because at about eight o’clock the next morning the smell of bacon and pancakes on the griddle pulled me back to the smallish condo hanging on the hill above the Santa Monica. Maya was at the table sipping a cup of coffee, the .38 lying within easy reach. She had never put on the futbol jersey, and was still wearing her jeans and a white tee shirt that said, “GODDESS” across her chest, a gift from me in a sentimental moment. Cody was in a wife-beater tee shirt with a shoulder holster under his left arm, turning the bacon. How could anyone replace friends like these? I hoped I wouldn’t have to try before this mess was over.
We sat down to eat. “He didn’t come for us,” I said.
“Only because he didn’t know where you were. You won’t be surprised to learn that I have a plan,” said Cody. “We hit the house on Cuadrante today, as soon as we know he’s gone.”
“Hit it?” asked Maya.
“Yes. We get inside and scope it out. I want to see that collection and whatever else is of interest. Mostly, I want to see his gun, if he has one, and I don’t doubt for a minute that he has. Can you rent a car? Because the artmobile is too well known.”
“I can rent a car,” she said. “Any special kind?”
“Anonymous. A small Chevy or Ford with the tinted windows. Something you can park acro
ss the street and watch the house from. Paul and I are going to need my Escort for getaway, but we’ll need someone outside.”
I tried to recall whether I had committed a felony before. It seemed like I would have remembered.
“And then the police will come after you?” asked Maya.
“He won’t call them. I don’t think Mr. Schleicher wants them in his house. It’ll be just between him and us.”
“Oh, this is good,” she said, rolling her eyes. I knew she was wishing she had stayed in México City with its low crime rate and clean air. Where kidnapping is unknown.
“Well, it could hardly get any worse than it is now,” he said.
We dropped Maya off at the Hola RentaCar agency on San Francisco and went on to Caravan, which is a business on the same block as the post office. Many people in San Miguel, and not just the ex-pats, don’t use the local post office for international mail. Sometimes it can be fast, but most often it’s not, and you never know which it’s going to be. Caravan collects mail in Laredo, Texas for all its clients, so we all have a US address. Once a day a courier from Caravan picks up the accumulated mail and drives it down to San Miguel, and at the same time sends off all the mailings from us. It’s a good system, although it adds to the cost of mailings, but at least you know pretty closely when your mail is going to arrive. Caravan also sends and receives faxes and supplies Internet service for anyone who doesn’t have it at home.
We stood out on the sidewalk and studied the two faxed photos that had come down from Chicago. They were apparently late mug shots from the time of Schleicher’s last arrest, which made them about ten years old. They showed a square-headed jowly man with thick dark hair and eyebrows. The description indicated he was five feet ten inches tall and weighed one hundred ninety pounds. He had no tattoos, but there was a three-quarter-inch scar at the left corner of his mouth. He did not resemble my image of a connoisseur.
After checking my house for intrusions and finding none, we alternated with Maya watching the house on Cuadrante, parked so we could see down the garden side as well as the front, and switching every two hours. We did not want the same car parked there all day. “Too bad there’s no place to get donuts here,” Cody said. “It’s so hard to do surveillance without donuts.”
Nothing moved all day. Then around six o’clock, a man who had to be Schleicher came out the front door and opened the carriage gates. A moment later a blue Mercedes sedan emerged. He locked the gates again and drove off, turning left on Cuadrante. When he reached the end of the block, we pulled out after him. I called Maya on my cell phone.
“We’re leaving with him now,” I said. “We’ll keep you posted.”
The streets are too narrow in San Miguel for a wild car chase, and the traffic is often too thick, so it was easy to stay a block or so behind Schleicher and be invisible, I hoped. He threaded his way toward the edge of town and turned onto the road for Querétaro. This was a break. There is nothing much between here and Querétaro, and it’s an hour’s drive away. That would give us some time. Once he cleared the outlying businesses, we turned around and went back to Cuadrante. Maya was still in place across the street and we parked a bit down from her. She opened the window as we came up.
“Dial Paul’s cell phone number and both of you keep your phones on and we can chat as this goes down. If Schleicher comes back let us know immediately,” said Cody.
“Roger,” She said. The girl knew her slang. I kissed her on the cheek, trying not to show how nervous I was, but I bumped my head on the door frame. We walked down the side street as the sun was going below the mountains. When we came to the garden gate Cody pulled a clear plastic bag out of his pocket. It held what looked like a ball of hamburger.
“I ground up three heavy duty sleeping pills in this,” he said. “They were past their expiration date, but I don’t think it matters in this case. We’re going to give that dog a rest.” He wadded the end of a piece of string into the ball, repacked it, and slid it with his foot under the two inch gap at the bottom of the gate. Most of the string stayed on our side.
“You’ve done this before,” I said.
“Something like it. Dogs are easy.” He tapped softly on the gate and there was the patter of four leather feet on gravel and the string abruptly disappeared.
We waited for half an hour and then went to the carriage gate and tossed a pebble over it. Then another. Nothing happened. Cody went back to his car and returned with a bolt cutter and broke the padlock. We were in. “Can’t be helped about the lock,” he said. “It’s first class and we don’t have another 20 minutes to work on it. Schleicher will just have to know we’ve been here.”
“How’s the dog?” asked Maya on the cell phone.
“He nodded off,” I said. Behind the house along the back wall was a garage for the Mercedes and the servants’ quarters I had seen from the side street. No light came from either building, but we still moved as quietly as we could. Between them and the house was a serene garden where we could make out a fountain in the center with benches around it. We took out our flashlights and went up three steps to the back entry. The dog snored softly below, eight inches of string hanging out of his mouth. He was lying on his side, with his feet stretched out in front of him. Suddenly he twitched and started making that funny whining noise dogs make when they chase rabbits in their dreams.
The rear door was eight feet high with two of the vertical wooden panels replaced with glass. Cody scanned the sides of the doorway for an alarm keypad and found none. Then he pulled out a small packet of tools and began to work the lock. It was antique in style and opened easily. No alarm went off as we went in. I aimed my flashlight around the room. The shutters on the windows were closed and there was no chance the light could be seen from the street.
It was another gentleman collector’s room, but unlike Perry’s, the furniture was all eighteenth century. There was nothing eclectic here. The pictures were correct for the period and in perfect condition. The frames were also of the period. Mercier again, I thought, the restorer whose name we had seen in Tobey’s office in Dolores Hidalgo. Between the small windows on the side of the carriage drive, rows of cabinets displayed more than a dozen superb Mayan pieces including two of the Jaina figures similar to what the Alwyns had. Above them were trays of carved jade and rows of gold jewelry. It was two or maybe three times what Perry had on display. It seemed like Schleicher must have bought from other dealers as well, because the office records showed Perry as Tobey’s largest customer.
I opened the cabinets and looked at each of the ceramics. Under my flashlight I could see that some of them were almost unmistakably by Ramon Xoc; the incised drawing had the same loopy quality of the pieces I had seen at Perry’s party. Others were unlike Xoc’s work. The Jaina figures might well have been genuine, but that was a harder call to make, and I was not the one to make it.
Cody was seated at a mahogany desk with an inlaid leather writing surface. His flashlight picked out the gold tracery on the leather. He pulled out the center drawer and then beckoned me over. It held a large automatic.
“It’s a Glock Nine. Definitely not the weapon that did Tobey and Ramon. This one would have taken most of their heads off.”
The other drawers contained a small local phone book, a pair of scissors, pens and pencils, an engraved letter opener with an antique look, and an address book. Cody turned to the C page and there was Tobey’s name and the Galeria Cruz phone number. In the last drawer was a medium size manila envelope with the name “Sandy” written in pencil in the lower left corner. Inside were four photographs of an obviously underage blond girl with no clothes on. She was not in an art pose, at least not one I would have used.
“At least we know his tastes haven’t changed. Now I’m wondering why he didn’t use this gun on Ramon and Tobey.”
“Is it too noisy?” I asked.
“They’re all too noisy. And there’s no silencer on this. Doesn’t mean he hasn’t got one though. I just don’t
see it.”
“I can’t reconcile this rude, perverted, drug-addicted child molester with everything I’m seeing in this house. This is the home and furnishings of someone who buys opera tickets.”
“Paul, the Mafia dudes buy opera tickets. They love it. You can’t make any assumptions about people based on the fact that they commit crimes. It can be nothing more than a business. They come home at the end of the day, they eat dinner, they talk to their kids about their geography assignment. Next morning they go off to work again and put somebody down. Think of The Sopranos. Schleicher just happens to have better taste than most. He probably grew up that way.”
“You’re saying there’s no link between virtue and culture.”
“Exactly. None that I’ve ever been able to find.”
“Damn.” I was getting restless. We had waited half an hour for the dog to drop off. I didn’t want to see headlights moving along the carriage drive since that was our escape route. Schleicher would be instantly alerted as soon as he went to open the gates and saw the ruined lock.
“Nothing moving out here,” said Maya’s voice on the phone. “But it’s getting late. I missed some of that about the Mafia dudes.” There was a nervous edge to her voice.
“I’ll fill you in later,” I said.
We moved silently through the rest of the house. Between the back sitting room and a large formal reception room in front was a dining room with quantities of old silver and more of the same kind of pictures, and a library with tall floor to ceiling book shelves and a ladder that moved along a rail. The books were of the same period as everything else and didn’t appear to have had much use. Mostly heavy leather-ribbed bindings, all in sets. Beyond that was the kitchen, definitely not of the period, with state-of-the-art stainless steel appliances and sleek cabinetry. Schleicher was probably a gourmet chef too.
Up the grand staircase, all limestone and marble, we found a central atrium with a leaded glass skylight and bedrooms all around. Two were suites with sitting room and bath, three more single bedrooms but also with bath, and four more were not furnished. There had been some remodeling here, but the eighteenth century style had been mostly retained. Only the bathrooms were modern. Who wants a chamber pot now or a zinc tub to bathe in? In the largest bedroom facing the street was a Spanish colonial armoire adapted to hold a television set and a sound system.
Twenty Centavos: A Mystery Set in San Miguel de Allende Page 20