by Manuel Ramos
“I know all that, Luis. What’s new?”
“How’d you like to take a quick trip to Mexico? A vacation, more or less?”
I stopped in mid-dip of a tortilla chip into a dish of salsa.
I made a wild guess. “La Paz?”
“I got a call from the cop that María Contreras talked to about Sam’s death down there. Apparently she contacted him just before she disappeared. She gave him my name and number.”
“This cop has news?”
“His name’s Fulgencio Batista.”
“Where do I know that name?”
“The original was the dictator of Cuba before Castro threw him off the island.”
“Sounds phony.”
“Maybe his father was an anti-communist. Maybe he had a sense of humor, seeing as how the family already had the last name. Maybe it’s just a name. I don’t know.”
“Whatever. You sure he’s a cop?”
“I checked up on him. Talked with some of the local feds who work with the Mexican police. According to them, Mr. Batista is part of the Policía Federal Ministerial, the PFM. What we used to call Federales. He was pulled in on the case because Sam was a U.S. citizen and his death involved what looked like pirates, maybe drug-smuggling. They wanted a high-profile cop to work the case.”
“He team up with U.S. cops?”
“He has. That one fed that interrogated you when you were arrested. Collins? From the DEA?”
“I remember him. Hard ass. Big ego.”
“That’s the guy. I’ve run into him a few more times. We developed a certain level of trust, especially after the way your case turned out. Anyhow, Collins said that Batista has been involved in dozens of high-profile arrests. And I mean involved. He once was captured by some cartel guys. They tortured him for a couple of hours before he managed to escape. He killed four of the gangsters getting away.”
“Sounds like he can take care of himself.”
“That same cartel has issued a death notice for him, and a five hundred thousand dollar reward.”
“He must be doing something right.”
I sauntered to the kitchen and dug out two more beers from the ice chest set up in the corner. I asked Corrine if she needed any help. She shook a large serving spoon at me and uttered a Mexican curse, which I took to mean she didn’t require my assistance right then. When I got back to the couch the nachos were finished.
“All this action from a run-of-the-mill case. What Batista want? They finally figure out what happened to Sam? They find a body?”
“Something like that.”
I waited.
“The case is cold. Almost four years and no developments. But Batista called me because he was trying to find my client, María. He had news for her that he thought she would want to know.”
“So something did turn up?”
“Yeah.” He waited one beat. “They found the guide that Sam hired for his fishing trip.”
“After all this time? I thought he was dead, too.”
“Exactly.” He nodded his head. “Batista said he turned up about a month ago in a sweep of drug traffickers off the Southern Baja coast. The guide, a certain Francisco Paco Abarca, was arrested when officers in the PFM and a dozen Mexican marines captured four fishing boats heading north that were empty of any fish but were well-stocked with kilos of heroin. Needless to say, Batista was a little surprised that Abarca was alive.”
The doorbell rang.
“Hold that thought, Luis.”
I opened the door to more guests. It was close to five-thirty so I figured Corrine was ready to start serving. There was no denying that I was hungry.
“Let’s eat,” I said to Luis. “Then you can finish telling me why I should go to Mexico and have a heart-to-heart with Fulgencio Batista.”
14 [Luis]
don’t start me talking, I’ll tell everything I know
María’s death fortified my decision to retire. Gus and Rosa rolled with it and eventually they traded ghoulish jokes about what happened, but I couldn’t let go of the image of the dying woman in my office, desperately trying to tell me something. I saw her gaunt, exhausted face in my dreams. I heard her sickly voice in the early autumn breeze that whipped leaves around my house. A client dying in my office was extreme, even for me, and when the police concluded that they had nowhere to go because the death was from natural causes and they had no suspects, I came to terms with closing the shop and getting on with the rest of my life. I didn’t believe in signs or omens or fortune tellers but the ominous demise of Ms. Contreras was an unwelcome reminder that I was on the down side of my own existence. It made me think long and hard about how I wanted to spend the next fifteen or twenty years, if I was lucky.
I instructed Rosa to line up a few attorneys who’d take referrals from us. She had numerous friends in the Latino legal community of Denver, and I had no doubt that she could find trustworthy alternatives for my clients. I gave her a few names of old pals who might take a client or two, but most of my attorney acquaintances were either retired themselves or close to it, or dead.
I met with the office landlord and we worked out a timetable that would get me out of the lease by the end of the year, more or less. By the beginning of November and the Day of the Dead, Rosa and I were well on our way to retiring my law practice.
Of course, the one thing I knew for sure that I wanted to wrap up before I locked the office door for the last time was the Contreras matter. There was just too much left undone for that client. She’d come to me with her story about Richard Valdez and the missing money and seemed sincere when she asked for my legal assistance. She used me and my office to find out where Valdez was staying, but she should have known that already. Was she really that out of touch with her dead husband’s affairs? Why me? According to Gus she was on the scene when someone, most likely Valdez, was killed. The unknown second man in the house—who was he? Where had she disappeared to for those crucial days after the fire? What happened to her that destroyed her health, and why did she come to me on the day she died? She looked like she wanted me to help her, but with what?
The images and memories would remain until they were satisfied or I lost them because of old age. Any chance for a peaceful retirement hinged on my finding out the answers, the truth about María Contreras. I had to put that ghost to sleep.
The contact from Batista of the Mexican federal police came out of the blue, and at first I had a difficult time believing anything he told me. He spoke without much of an accent. In fact, he was very polite, too polite, I concluded. But all he asked for was how to contact Ms. Contreras. “I promised I would call her if we uncovered something new but the numbers I have for her don’t work.”
“She’s dead, months ago,” I said.
“I’m sorry to hear that. How did she die?”
“Heart attack.”
“Anything suspicious about her death?”
“She was in miserable shape when she died. She disappeared for a few days. I think something very bad happened to her. She came to me for help, but she died before I could learn much from her, or help her in any way. So, I am suspicious, yes.”
“That’s troubling. What do you mean she disappeared?”
“I lost touch with her. She went missing. She was my client but I didn’t know where she was. I heard nothing from her, had no way to contact her and then one day she walked in on me here at work. She looked terrible. She actually died in my office before she could explain what happened to her.”
“Was she ill or injured?”
“Both, in my opinion. She had a heart attack but it was obvious she’d also been through some physical abuse. But the official verdict here is that she died from consequences of unknown trauma. In other words, they can’t say for sure.”
“I feel badly about this. I wanted to talk with her because I have some news. I’m too late, it appears. When she asked me about the investigation into her husband’s death, I had to admit that nothing had been done
for years. We lost momentum because we had no leads at all. The men who attacked the fishing boat and who we thought killed Contreras and his guide vanished. There was a time when the pirates were extremely active in the Sea of Cortez. Attacks on fishermen, tourists, cruise ships, every day. That slowed down and now it rarely happens. So there was nothing for me to tell her when she asked. Now, al fin, there is a development.”
“Thanks for following up,” I said. “It’s more than I would have expected. I know only some of the facts surrounding her disappearance and then her death. There are many unanswered questions.” Like why was she involved in the killing of a man in her dead husband’s old house?
“I wonder if Francisco Abarca can shed any light on all this,” he stated.
When I asked for more details he didn’t hesitate to tell me.
“Where is Abarca now?” I asked after he finished his account of the arrest of the fishing guide.
“Sitting in La Mesa prison in Tijuana. He’ll be there for a few more years. We have him on several charges. We, meaning me, control where he sits out his sentence since he’s facing federal charges. We put him in La Mesa and will keep him there until we come up with a better place.” He sounded sure and pleased with himself. “I thought the widow would want to know that we will be asking him about Señor Contreras and the incident on the boat. So far, he has not said anything about anything, but a few months in our custody should soften him up and persuade him to be more cooperative. Eventually, he will tell us all we want to know.”
The man’s words made me uneasy. I hoped he never arrested me.
“The questioning will now include this new information you have given me.”
“I’d like to talk with him myself,” I said. “Do you think that would be possible?”
“Highly unusual, señor. There would have to be an overwhelming reason.”
“I’d be asking as an officer of a court of the United States. That may not mean much in Mexico. My client died under strange circumstances. This man has a connection to the death of her husband. He’s a witness that could be very useful in resolving my client’s interests, even if she is dead. Maybe I can visit him in prison?”
“I can’t promise anything, but I’m not opposed. He’s not allowed visitors. We have him in what your prison wardens call solitary confinement. I won’t forbid you speaking with him. It might help us finish the investigation. It may take some time, and I can’t make this decision on my own. Mostly, it’s a matter of processing the papers and getting the right signatures.”
When the call was over I summarized it for Rosa, who typed up a memo for the file.
“I never liked this case, from the jump,” she said. “Stranger and stranger, like Alice falling in the hole with the white rabbit.”
After we finished gorging ourselves at Corrine’s Day of the Dead dinner, I tried to bring Gus in the loop. We sat in Corrine’s basement surrounded by someone’s meager possessions: a few shirts and pants hanging in a portable closet, dozens of records and CDs, a handful of paperbacks with lurid covers and a framed painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe. A pair of stuffed black trash bags huddled in a corner.
“This all yours?” I asked.
He looked around the room. “Not really. The clothes and books, yeah. Everything else is Corrine’s.”
I picked up a worn record album cover. B.B. King. Live and Well. “You listen to this stuff? Not too old for you? These are from my day, what I listened to as a student. This one’s 1969, more or less.”
“The music belonged to my father, and now Corrine. I like it.”
I set down the album and gave Gus a quick update.
“Batista called you today?” Gus asked.
“Yeah. I just found out about this Paco Abarca.”
“He knows what happened to Sam, might even have killed him. And he may know why María disappeared and then died.”
“That’s what I think. I need to find out for sure.” Paco Abarca suddenly had become a very important man. He was a man I had to see.
Gus looked at me in that way he’d developed that said he had a difficult time with my logic. “Why? Who cares? The woman is dead. It’s not the money, is it?”
That surprised me. “No, of course not. I doubt the money will ever turn up. Its location died with María and Valdez. No, it’s not the money.”
“Then what?”
“I, I . . .”
“What? You owe it to her? You must be joking.”
“I know, it’s hard to explain. But, at the end, the morning she died, she came to me, for something, for help. We don’t really know what happened in the house, who set the fire or why she tricked us to get at Valdez. We don’t even know what happened to Valdez. I guess I need to find out. That’s all I can say.”
“I thought you were retiring. I’m already looking for another job. I’ve told Dirty Harry. He’s not happy, but he figures I’m on a short leash and so far I’ve been a real good boy. So he’s looking for a job for me. I’ve made plans to move on. But it sounds like you’re not there. Like you’re ready to invest some serious time in tracking down these answers you say you need. Is that it?”
“All I’m planning, so far, is to meet with Batista so he can set up a visit with Abarca. I’m betting the guide knows something that may help me get to the bottom of some of this.”
“Or he may not know anything that will help you understand the woman. More likely, he won’t talk to you. Why should he? Especially if it means you want to know about his role in the killing of Sam Contreras.”
“Yeah. It’s a long shot. But, I’m gonna do it.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“And you want me to come along on this wild goose chase?”
I put on the leather jacket I’d draped across a large cardboard box marked “Christmas.”
“No. I didn’t mean that. I only wanted to talk with you about it. I can’t ask you to get any more involved. In any case, you can’t leave the state. No, this is something I have to do.” I zipped the jacket and readied myself for the breezy November night air.
Gus stood up and walked over to me.
“I can’t let you do this on your own. I owe you that much. I may not like it, but I’ll help. Bringing me in to work in your office. The deal you worked out when I got arrested. There’s a lot there between us.”
“Not that it wasn’t important, Gus, but I was just doing my job. You don’t owe me.”
“We see things differently. Besides, I think I can really help. I’ve got some skills I’ve developed over the past few months.”
I paused, thought for a few seconds. “There’s still the problem with you being on parole.”
“I have a few ideas about that. You forget. I have a connection in the Denver Police Department. And Dirty Harry? I think he’s starting to like me. If we tell him you need me to work on a case, he might approve a temporary absence from Colorado. It’s been done.”
I must have smiled because he smiled at me.
“Ever wonder what the Baja coast is like in November?” he said.
“And then Tijuana, and the prison,” I said.
“Sounds like fun.”
15 [Gus]
it’s a thin line between love and hate
“No way. No fuckin’ way.”
“It’s work. Móntez needs my help. I told you about the Contreras case. There’s finally a break in the story.”
I tried not to sound pitiful. I presented the idea to Dirty Harry during my regular sit-down meeting with the parole officer. He immediately hated it.
“This smells. You know it, I know it and Móntez knows it. The whole damn state knows it. These types of requests are never granted. Never. Somebody closer than your mother has to die in another state, and even then it’s unlikely you could leave Colorado. You get down to Mexico, decide you like the idea of not having to report in any more and you never come back. Or, you slip back and end up somewhere else in the States. Where does that leave me? Dillings will have my as
s for letting any of that happen.”
“What if I get something official from the Mexican police? What if they agree to watch me, or report to you, or whatever the hell you want?”
He snorted through his nose. “Is that supposed to make me feel better? Mexican cops don’t exactly have a reputation for honesty. Or for cooperating with Americans who work in criminal justice enforcement, like me.”
He was pissing me off but I called on the patience I’d discovered in prison and kept myself in check.
“Harry, look.” I tried to sound sincere. “Let’s quit the bullshit. What’s it gonna take to make this happen?”
“You’re somethin’, you know that?” He snorted again.
I hated the guy. “Yeah, I know that. I’m a pain. It’s only that I got something good going with Móntez. Why mess with it? It’s what you want. Gainful employment.” He cocked his neck to the right and stared through me with milky blue eyes. “What has to go down for me to keep my job by doing what Móntez wants? It’s probably the last big thing we work on together before he retires. This is important to me. You know that.”
“It ain’t gonna happen, Gus.”
He glanced over his shoulders as he said the words. He cracked his knuckles. He looked bored. He let the breath out of his lungs and his lips shook. Then he stood up and shut his office door. He clicked the lock.
“What now?” I asked. I stretched forward in the hard wooden chair and put most of my weight on the balls of my feet.
I felt like I was back on the streets standing up to the latest jackass who’d decided that the Corral family would be his target for the week. Sometimes they fooled around, bluffing, and I didn’t have to do anything. More often, they hassled Corrine or Max, or me, and then I had to escalate to protect our good name, or my sisters’ safety, or whatever was the object of the jerk’s particular obsession. I grew up on defense, and that’s where I found myself that day with Dirty Harry.
“Look. Between you and me. Right?” Harry almost whispered. I eased up on my feet. “I could use a favor. Maybe we should talk. Uh . . . how bad you want to go to Mexico?”