Hoch's Ladies

by Edward D. Hoch

  “Do you know where the jail is?” she asked.

  “If my directions are correct, it should be that building on the left.”

  “I’ll buy that. There are bars on some of the windows.”

  “We’d better have lunch first, so we don’t have to stop once we have Quentis in tow.”

  It sounded good to her, so they stopped in one of the hotel restaurants that catered to tourists. The food was good and it would go on their expense account for the trip. Munson drove to the jail and parked the rental car around the back of the building, in a dusty lot near the rear entrance.

  “I don’t like the looks of this place,” he said, nodding toward a group of youths playing ball in an adjoining field. “You’d better stay with the car and I’ll go in for Quentis.”

  “You can’t do that alone,” she objected.

  “One of their men can accompany us to the car. It’ll be all right.”

  Annie waited by the car with growing unease until she saw Munson reappear with the handcuffed prisoner. She recognized the bald Dunstan Quentis at once from his photograph and held open the rear door. Munson introduced the Mexican officer, Miguel Paseo, who’d accompanied them. He wished them a safe trip back. “Be careful of him,” Paseo warned, gesturing toward the prisoner. “He’s a mean one.”

  “We’ll get him back in one piece,” Munson promised.

  Annie made certain their prisoner’s handcuffs were attached to a security belt and then got in the back seat with him, sitting behind Munson. “We’re taking you to the airport at San Jose del Cabo,” she told him. “Then we’ll have you back in San Diego in two hours.”

  He looked at her and grinned, showing two gold teeth. “I’m not back yet,” he said.

  Munson spoke up from the front seat. “We have to warn you that anything you say during the trip may be used against you in a court of law. And if you act up we’ll put leg irons on you too.”

  “What about the pearls?” Annie asked her partner.

  “The authorities recovered them, but we just came for the prisoner. Transferring the pearls will be handled separately. There’d be too much risk sending them back with us and the prisoner.”

  “Makes sense,” Annie agreed.

  Dunstan Quentis said very little on the drive south to the airport, commenting once on the city he was leaving. “I’ll miss La Paz. They have beautiful beaches and beautiful ladies. I could have stayed here the rest of my life, gazing at the sunsets.”

  “And the pearls?” Munson asked him.

  Quentis didn’t answer. He just kept gazing out the window at the passing scene.

  As they neared the airport, Annie tried to make some conversation. “We’re nearly there. You’ll be on the plane in no time.” But her words brought no reply.

  Frank Munson pulled into the rental car return area, and Annie went around to the other back door to help Quentis out. That was when it happened. Their prisoner slid out fast, bumping Annie as if by accident and knocking her off balance. Then in a flash he was gone, sprinting across the asphalt toward a chain-link fence.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot?” Munson shouted, his service pistol already in hand.

  He raised it to fire, an easy shot at that range.

  Annie hit his arm just as he fired, the bullet going harmlessly off target. “Don’t shoot!” she yelled. “I’ll get him!”

  She couldn’t let the man die because of her bungle, and she was sure she could beat him to the fence. He’d never get over it anyway, cuffed to that belt. She took off running before her partner could fire again. Quentis was at the fence, with Annie not ten feet behind, when suddenly he whirled and threw the handcuffs at her face. She dodged and went down on one knee, and before she knew it, Quentis was over the fence. The car rental employees had scattered when Munson fired, and as he came running, trying to get a bead through the fence on the running man, they stayed hidden.

  He fired another useless shot and turned on Annie in a fury. “Christ, Sears, don’t ever do that again! You let him escape!”

  “He got the handcuffs off somehow. I didn’t—”

  “Get in the car!”

  They spun around through the rental car gate, with Munson showing his badge, and took off across the rutted field in pursuit of the running fugitive. But she could see that he’d make it to another fence and the highway before they were close enough to risk another shot.

  “Frank,” she managed to say as he slowed to a stop. “I’m sorry I messed up. I just didn’t want you to shoot him if it wasn’t necessary.”

  “It was necessary, Sears, believe me.” He pounded on the steering wheel in frustration. “Damn!”

  “What do we do now?”

  “I’ll tell you what we don’t do. We don’t go back to San Diego without him!”

  Annie could imagine her whole career going out the window as they drove along the highway trying to spot him. Of course, he was long gone, either on foot or after hitching a ride. “He’ll head north, back to La Paz,” she guessed. “He must have friends there. And a brother.”

  “What am I supposed to tell them back home?” His voice was still angry, and she really couldn’t blame him. “That I had an easy shot at him and you bumped my arm to save a cop killer’s life?”

  “No,” she said quietly. “Can’t you tell them there was a paperwork delay with the local police?”

  “That might work for a day,” he admitted. “No longer.”

  They drove in silence for a time, past the resort hotels and golf courses, scanning the highway without much hope. Finally she said, “We have to go back to that police officer, Paseo. He must know where Quentis was living when they arrested him. And what about that older brother?”

  Frank Munson nodded. “I’ll call Paseo on my cell phone.”

  Paseo answered at once on the other end. “We had some trouble,” he began. “Quentis got away from us. I don’t know how it happened. He got loose from the handcuffs and made a run for it. Look, I need to know where he hangs out, who his brother and his friends are. No, we can’t go back without him. Call the SDPD and tell them there’s been a paperwork delay, and you can’t release him till tomorrow I know, I know. Listen, do this for me and I’ll make it worth your while.”

  He snapped the cell phone shut and Annie asked, “Did you just offer him a bribe to lie for us?”

  “It’s no big deal. I’ll give him a liter of rum.”

  “That’s still a bribe.”

  “I’m trying to save your skin, Sears, in case you didn’t notice.”

  That silenced her for a few minutes. When she’d finally gotten up courage to speak, she asked, “Did he give you an address?”

  “Where they arrested him, yeah. Don’t know if that’ll do us much good. It’s the last place in the world he’d head for. A man named Kurt Striker lives there. Don’t know what his connection with Quentis could be.”

  But they had to start someplace. The address was near the docks, and that gave Munson an idea. “There’s a ferry runs across the Gulf to Los Mochis on the Mexican mainland. That would be his best way out of here if he wanted to get away fast.” When they reached the harbor area they checked the schedule and found the next trip wasn’t until six thirty that evening.

  They found Striker’s address easily enough. It was one of those iron-shuttered colonial houses Annie had admired earlier, with a line of trees separating it from the beach. A bandstand stood near the water’s edge, an afternoon plaything for a half dozen small boys romping around on it. A police car was parked in front of the house and the officer, Miguel Paseo, was just coming out the door. Munson cursed under his breath and got out of the car with Annie behind him.

  “He’s not here,” Paseo told them. “I checked.”

  “Not likely to come here either with a cop car out in front,” Munson told him. “Who’s inside?”

  “Fellow named Kurt Striker and his girl.”

  “I want to see them.”

  “What’s the use? Quentis has
n’t been back here since we arrested him.”

  “I want to see them,” Munson repeated.

  The Mexican police officer shrugged and led the way back to the door. He rang the bell, and after a moment it was opened by a Mexican girl wearing a T-shirt and jeans. She appeared to be still in her teens. “What? You back again?”

  “We need to see Striker,” Munson said, forcing his way into the house. It was a shabby place, about what Annie expected along the docks, with the curtained windows admitting only dim light.

  A man in an undershirt and pants came in from the kitchen. He was smoking a cigarette and had a tattoo of a harp on his upper left arm. “What is it now?” he asked, annoyed at the interruption.

  “These are the San Diego police,” Paseo explained. “They insisted on speaking to you personally.”

  “I told Officer Paseo everything I know,” Striker said.

  “Dunstan Quentis has escaped from our custody. It’s urgent that we apprehend him,” Frank said.

  Striker gave him a smirk. “And how did that happen, Sergeant Munson?”

  “He got free of his handcuffs somehow. We thought he might head back

  here.”

  “No chance of that.”

  “What was your relationship with him?”

  “I met him in a bar. He was a fellow American and we struck up a friendship. He wanted to know where he could sell some pearls. I sent him to Papa Belota’s, a pawn shop I visit sometimes. I don’t know what happened there, but the police came and arrested him here that night.”

  “He’d given this as his address?” A shrug. “I suppose so.”

  “Was he living here?”

  Striker glanced at the girl, who said nothing. “I gave him a bed. He promised me a cut of the money when he sold the pearls.”

  “Did you know they were stolen?”

  “Of course not! He said they belonged to his grandmother.”

  “All right,” Munson said finally. “I need to find our missing prisoner. If he should come here or contact you, let us know.”

  “Will do.”

  As they were leaving, the girl followed them to the door. When she was closing it she whispered in Annie’s ear, “Quentis here!”

  At first Annie wasn’t sure she’d heard her correctly, but by the time they reached their cars she repeated the words to Munson and Paseo. “She says he’s in there! Right now!”

  Munson doubted that. “She probably just meant he was there earlier, before he was arrested, but we already knew that.”

  She turned to Officer Paseo. “Can’t we go back in and search the place?” He shook his head. “We’d need a search warrant, just like in your country.”

  “How long would it take to get one?” Munson wanted to know. “Depends on the judge. Probably tomorrow at the earliest, the way things

  move down here. It’s late in the day already.”

  “All right,” Munson told him. “Get it as fast as you can and ring me on my cell phone when you do. Can you get a patrol car to drive past here a few times? If they think we’re watching the house he may stay put, if he’s in there at all.”

  “Maybe we should stay here,” Annie suggested.

  Munson shook his head. “I’ve got one other place we might try—Papa Belota’s, where Dunstan Quentis tried to sell his pearls.”

  The pawnshop was in an older part of the city, away from the glitter of the resort hotels. It had a large sign announcing Papa Belota’s, with a crude painting of three gold balls. Steel shutters rolled down at night, and when Annie and Munson reached it a lumbering old man was pulling them down. Annie was surprised when she glanced at her watch and saw it was already after five.

  “Hold up there!” Munson called to the man. “We’re police. We have some questions to ask.”

  “I have no answers. It is after five o’clock.” Munson showed his badge and the man laughed. “That’s the San Diego police. You have no authority here.”

  “Look,” Annie said, “we only have a few questions. Can’t we come in for five minutes?”

  “No.”

  “You’re American, aren’t you? Down here hiding from the police. Why else would you be helping the local authorities?”

  He glanced around nervously and waved them inside, under the half lowered shutter. The place was a litter of objects, pawned for a fraction of their value. Violins and saxophones competed with cameras and jewelry. Annie even saw a portable typewriter from another era, reminding her of the one a character pawned in The Lost Weekend. Munson pointed out a German Luger, someone’s relic from World War II.

  “What do you want?” Papa Belota asked.

  “We’re looking for Dunstan Quentis,” she told him. “We know he brought you some stolen pearl necklaces to sell, and you reported him to the police.”

  “Am I to be hounded for obeying the law?”

  “We just wondered what your relationship is with Quentis.”

  “There is no relationship. I never saw him before he walked in here with those pearls.”

  “You must get many pearls in this city.”

  “Not so many. Folks are more likely to sell them to jewelers. But the police had issued an alert about these stolen necklaces. As soon as I saw them I reported it, and they arrested him at the address he’d given me.”

  There was no more to be learned at Papa Belota’s. As they went back to the car Annie had another idea. “What about that older brother Quentis had down here? Wouldn’t Quentis have contacted him?”

  “It’s worth a try,” Munson agreed. He called Officer Paseo on his cell phone and asked about the brother. He made a few notes and then hung up. “Brother’s name is Benedict Quentis. He’s in the wholesale fish business. Runs a company that sends a boat out to buy fish as soon as they’re caught. The fishermen sell to him and don’t need to come into port to unload their catch.”

  “Do you have his address?”

  “Yeah. He might still be around the docks. It’s not the sort of job where there are regular office hours.”

  They found the brother without difficulty at the dock where his boat was anchored. He was obviously older than Dunstan but bore little resemblance to him. For one thing, he had a thick head of dark hair, handsome features, and a suave manner that seemed more capable of obtaining pearls by persuasion than by robbing jewelry stores. He was laughing and joking with his men.

  “I know nothing about my brother,” he insisted after they introduced themselves. “The last I heard he was serving time in a California prison. If he was on the run, he’d never come to me.” As he spoke he watched his men unloading the day’s catch into a wheeled cart to take inside.

  “A good day?” Annie asked.

  “Average.” The cart bore the name of Benedict Quentis and a symbol of a cup and a coiled serpent.

  “What’s that?” she asked. “Do you catch snakes too?” He smiled at the question. “It is a symbol of Saint Benedict. I come from a Catholic family.”

  “You and your brother studied to be priests,” she remembered.

  “It didn’t take for either of us, especially Dunstan. I think that broke my mother’s heart. It’s a blessing she or my father didn’t live to see what became of him.”

  “He’s wanted in the States for killing a police officer,” Munson told him. “Nothing about him would surprise me.”

  He had to leave then to help with the fish.

  “There’s nothing more for us here,” Munson decided. “You don’t think he could be lying?” Annie wondered.

  The detective smiled. “Think Quentis is hiding here under a pile of fish?

  Want to go searching for him?”

  “Then where do we go?”

  “There’s still the ferry to Los Mochis for us to check out. It’s almost six thirty.”

  The ship proved to be a large car ferry capable of transporting scores of vehicles and several hundred passengers across the hundred and forty miles to Lechuguilla Bay and Los Mochis. The journey took almost thre
e hours, but a good crowd was lined up for the evening trip.

  “If he is here we’ll never find him in this mob,” Annie said.

  “They all have to pass through that gate. We’ll spot him if he’s here.”

  They scrutinized the boarding passengers and even checked the cars in line, but Quentis was not to be seen. “If he’s wearing a wig over that bald head we might never spot him,” she said.

  “You’re right about that. I’ve been looking for baldies.”

  The last of the passengers hurried on just before sailing time, and Munson turned away. “Another good idea gone sour,” he decided. “Maybe he stayed near the airport after all.”

  But then suddenly she gripped his arm. “Is that him? The man running for the gate?”

  “It sure is! Stay away from me this time, Sears. I’ve got him.”

  Quentis saw them at the last moment. He seemed to skid to a stop and change direction, but Munson already had his weapon out. “Freeze, Quentis, or you’re a dead man!”

  The fugitive turned suddenly toward them. It was unclear whether he meant to surrender or attack them, but Munson didn’t wait to find out. He fired three quick shots, all three catching the bald man in the chest.

  “You had to shoot him three times?” Annie asked later. “I wasn’t taking any chances this time.”

  “He wasn’t even armed.”

  “Don’t worry so much, Sears. Nobody asks many questions south of the border. He’s a cop killer, remember?”

  Officer Paseo had come at once following Munson’s call to his cell phone. Unlike Annie, he saw no problem with the shooting of a cop-killing fugitive. “They’ll probably give you a medal back in San Diego. Saves them the cost of a trial. You going to take the body back with you?”

  Frank Munson thought about it. “No point in that. His parents are dead and his only sibling is down here. Maybe Benedict Quentis will even pay for the funeral, though I doubt it.”