by Mark Parragh
“I never did get a coherent explanation of what this thing was meant to actually do, but I remember one time he was bouncing off the walls about how Taylor Swift was coming to something he set up, and he was going to pitch it to her. I finally decided the whole thing was about him trying to pick up celebrities.”
“That doesn’t seem inconsistent with the guy I met,” said Crane.
“By then I was starting to figure things out for myself, and I kind of backed away. I saw Alex a few times after that, at functions mostly. But I steered clear of Jason.”
“So why’s he living in Mexico under an assumed name?”
Josh closed the windows with Jason’s photos and leaned back in his chair. He won’t stop until he drags it all out. That’s what John does. That’s why you picked him.
“Not long after all this, everyone was suddenly whispering about him. Anywhere you went, the gossip was all about Jason.”
“The tech billionaire’s grapevine?”
“You’ve noticed how we all go to the bathroom together? That’s what we’re doing.” Josh paused and rubbed his temples with his fingertips. “That’s all I know from here out—gossip. But word was he took out this girl from a big-deal financial family, and he got aggressive. Some people said there’d been a couple incidents in college that his father had to cover up—I don’t know about that—but I guess this was too big to sweep under the rug. She and her family were out for blood. They were tight with the district attorney. The press was starting to get wind of something. Then suddenly, Jason was just gone.”
“Was there an arrest warrant?”
“I don’t know if it got that far,” Josh answered. “Is it important?”
“Could be,” said Crane. “If he’s a fugitive, it opens up some avenues. What happened after he disappeared?”
Here we go. “It was hard on Alex. Maybe six months later, he drank too much one night and ran his Maserati down a hillside outside LA. He suffered a traumatic brain injury, and he’s been in a private hospital up here ever since. He’s not who he used to be.”
“I’m sorry,” said Crane.
You didn’t do a very good job of keeping it out of your voice, did you?
“Alex had his flaws. Drinking wasn’t the only one. But he was good to me. When I was vulnerable, he looked out for me and made sure I got on my feet. I don’t like how things turned out for him.”
He paused for a moment, then, “John, what’s this about? What are you doing in Baja, anyway?”
“I’m doing a favor for a friend. I just ran across this guy, and things didn’t add up,” Crane continued. “I had no idea you had a connection.”
“Of course not. All right. I can put out some feelers, see what I can find out. Check back in a day or two, okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks, Josh.”
After Crane hung up, Josh sat alone in the darkened room, lit by the glow of his screen.
Alex isn’t who he used to be. Well, who is? The world always finds a way to grind you down.
Dude. Cheer up. Remember? New Batman.
Josh checked his phone. No new replies. Everyone he’d invited over was out of town or busy or just didn’t get back to him.
It was pretty short notice. You’re not hanging out in the dorm with the rest of the comics nerds anymore. Type A people are busy taking on the world.
They could drop what they’re doing, if they wanted to. Back at Stanford, this would make me a god. People would literally worship me.
But your friends don’t like Batman, and if they don’t like Batman, well, they’re no friends of mine …
Which is exactly why you don’t have any friends.
He didn’t have an argument for that. And now he was in no mood for the movie himself.
Josh sighed and shut down the screen. He sat alone in the dark for a moment, then he got up and wandered down the hall to see what was in those catering trays he’d had brought in.
Chapter 7
Chloe and Scott’s fight had apparently run its course by the time Crane hung up. At least, he didn’t hear them shouting any longer.
He noticed a small boat approaching the Gypsy and watched through the binoculars as it pulled up to the stern. Someone, presumably Boz, or Jason Tate, he guessed, climbed onto the platform and went up to the deck. Then two other figures swung the davit out and got to work raising the tender out of the water.
“You working out how to do it?” Chloe said behind him.
Crane put down the binoculars. She’d been crying, but she was putting on her stiff upper lip now.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Sure. Scott left a while ago. He’s going to get a motel room in town.”
“Burch said this was about a job?”
“Yeah. With the phone company or something,” she said. “His family isn’t rich. He’s got student loans, and his parents are after him. I get it. But he could have talked to me.”
She shook her head. “Anyway, that’s over. Who needs him? Are you going to sink the Gypsy or not?”
Crane got to his feet. Chloe wore jeans and a cutoff black T-shirt. Her eyes were red from crying, but she stood with a defiant posture, as if she were challenging him to call her on it.
“Boz’s real name is Jason Tate,” Crane said. “He’s a trust fund bro from the States. Apparently the locals’ read on him is spot on. He’s a real piece of work. But trafficking? I’m not sold.”
She was only half listening to him, he realized. She stared at the water as the waves gently slapped against the hull. The breakup with Scott had hurt her more than she was admitting.
“Chloe,” he said. She looked up at him. “I don’t think your friend’s on that boat. There’s no reason to think she didn’t just take the bus out of town like the police say.”
“Amy didn’t leave town,” said Chloe. “I know she didn’t.”
“Okay, what makes you so certain?”
She considered for a moment, and then said, “Come on.”
She led him across to the other hull and then below decks to the small cabin she’d shared with Scott. The place looked like it had been tossed. Scott had packed and left in a hurry. Chloe opened a compartment over the bunk and removed a small metal box. She knelt down to place it on the mattress.
“Amy was sleeping on the beach,” she said. “I told her we could find a place for her here, but I guess she was used to it or something. But she did give me some things to keep for her while she was here. She never came back for them.”
Crane squatted down beside her as she flipped open the latches and opened the box. The first thing Crane noted was a Browning .32 automatic. Alongside it were a roll of Mexican banknotes, a plastic bag with a couple joints and assorted pills, a small Moleskine notebook with a pen clipped to the cover, and a US passport.
“She wouldn’t have left without this,” said Chloe. “Where’s she going without her passport?”
Crane checked the Browning. The magazine was full.
“Don’t let anyone see this,” he said. “It’s very illegal down here, and the sentences are harsh.”
“Duh,” she said.
The passport appeared to be real. The battered notebook was full of sketches from Amy’s travels, phone numbers, various other notes Crane couldn’t interpret. It ended before she arrived in Bahia Tortugas. A dog-eared photo was stuck between the pages. Three young women on the beach, arms around each other, mugging for the camera. Crane picked out Amy from her passport photo. She gave off a kind of neo-hippie vibe that fit with what Chloe had told him. Wherever she is now, Crane thought, she’s a real person with friends she loves, and parents somewhere. And she’s probably in trouble.
He stuck the photo back into the notebook and put everything back in the box except Amy’s passport. That he slipped into his shirt pocket.
“Okay,” he said. “That suggests she didn’t just leave town. I’ll see what I can get out of the police in the morning. If anyone asks after this, I’m a private detective wor
king for Amy’s parents, all right?”
She nodded, and Crane stood up to leave.
“I’ve got some tequila here,” she said suddenly. “You want to hang out?”
She stood up and fished the bottle out of a small locker against the bulkhead.
“Nobody’s going to want to be around me for a while after that whole scene,” she said. “I don’t want to just sit here alone and brood.”
“Okay,” he said after a moment. He could use some distraction himself.
She found a couple of plastic cups and poured a slug into each.
Crane sat back on the bunk, and Chloe sat beside him, legs crossed and facing him. They touched rims and drank. It was cheap tequila, but decent enough, Crane decided.
“So how’d you end up getting the call?” she asked. “From my dad?”
“I was at the inn when you called,” said Crane. “Just visiting.”
“Coincidence, huh?” she said. “Funny how things turn out.”
She took a long swallow of tequila and said, “That’s how Scott and I met.”
“You didn’t meet here?”
“No,” she said. “We came down together. We met last semester at UCLA. I was looking for a book in the library, but I messed up the call number and ended up in the totally wrong section. We ran into each other, and he helped me find where I wanted to be. We got talking, and he told me he was going to come down here after graduation. Hadn’t been for that …”
She finished the tequila and poured herself some more. She held up the bottle with a questioning look, and Crane held out his cup for a refill.
“What about you?” she asked. “I remember you being around from time to time. I guess my dad trained you. Stuff you can’t talk about. Do you still work for the government?”
“Not anymore,” said Crane. “But yeah, your father helped me get through training. He taught me a lot. And most of it I still can’t talk about.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “I’ve seen what he can do, remember? So that’s what you do.”
Crane said nothing.
“Keeps you in good shape, at least,” she said, and she reached out to run her fingertips down the side of his torso. He looked up in surprise, and she met his eyes with a distinct look of lust.
“Chloe.” He caught her wrist and gently returned her hand. He shook his head. “That can’t happen.”
“Right,” she said. “Because Dad’s like your father figure, and that makes me your sister or something.”
“No,” said Crane. “It would cause problems with Malcolm, and I don’t want that. But you’re not like my sister.”
“Someone else?”
Crane shook his head.
“All right, fine,” she said. “I’m sorry. I just … Look, I get that I can be … intense. I thought maybe for someone like you, that would be okay.”
He had to admit that Hurricane Group training would be useful in trying to keep up with Chloe.
“But you don’t want to be my rebound. I get it,” she said. “Bad timing.” She stood up and put the last of the tequila back in the storage locker where she’d found it. “Probably don’t need any more of that, either.”
Crane took the hint and stood up. “And I should go,” he said. “You’re going to be all right, Chloe. In my experience, nothing holds you back for long.”
She smiled at that, stepped across the cabin, and hugged him with her head on his shoulder. “You’re right,” she said as she released him. “That’s very true. Thank you.”
When he left, Crane headed back up on deck. Across the bay, the Gypsy’s lights were on. Crane stood and pondered the boat. Chloe would be all right. She’d find some new avenue for her energy soon enough.
But Jason Tate was starting to worry him. In the back of his mind, he was already working through what he had learned, turning facts over and fitting them together. Whatever was going on here still didn’t add up. Something was missing. There was something he didn’t know, and he needed to find out what it was.
Chapter 8
The next morning, Crane got up early and worked out on deck. People were beginning to stir as he got a quick breakfast from the galley. He dressed in a charcoal Kent Wang polo shirt over Prana hiking pants, and his black duty boots. Then he borrowed one of the tenders and headed in toward the municipal pier.
If he was going to do this, he decided, he needed to lay down some smoke to cover what he was really after, and leave an obvious trail to follow. So he spent most of the morning strolling through town, asking the locals if they’d seen Amy Carpenter. He showed her passport photo around, and found a couple people who recalled seeing her. Mostly they remembered that she didn’t dress like the yachters who were the bulk of the outsiders passing through Bahia Tortugas, and that her Spanish, like his, was unusually good for an American.
After an hour or so, Crane found a shopkeeper who insisted that he’d seen her boarding the morning bus for Vizcaino outside his store five days ago. Crane thought it sounded like a speech he’d practiced in front of a mirror.
Eventually, Crane decided he’d done enough. Anyone asking about him would find plenty of anecdotal evidence to support the idea that he was a private investigator searching for a missing American girl. So Crane made his way to the local police comandancia and found himself talking with the chief, a man named Moreno. Chief Moreno was a simple man with a simple job. There wasn’t a lot for him and his three officers to do in Bahia Tortugas beyond the occasional drunk and disorderly call. Moreno was certainly not a graduate of any police academy, but Crane felt his fondness for his hometown, and his desire to protect it.
For his part, Moreno seemed happy just to have a visitor. “Most of the boats come through, they refuel, maybe they stay a night or two,” he said, “but they stay aboard. They just talk to each other. They don’t really get to know Bahia Tortugas. We have so much to offer.”
Crane asked him about Amy Carpenter. Moreno confirmed that Chloe had reported her missing, and he’d investigated. Several witnesses had claimed to see her leaving town. Were they lying? It was possible, but he had no evidence to contradict them.
Crane took Amy’s passport from his pocket and flipped it open. Moreno looked at it in silence for a long moment.
“Well,” he said, “it’s possible she lost it.” Crane didn’t think Moreno believed that.
“Can I ask how you come to have her passport?” Moreno asked. “And why are you here in Bahia Tortugas?”
“I’m a private detective,” said Crane. “Her parents have been worried about her, and they hired me to find her. The trail ends here.”
“Well, thank you for coming in and letting me know,” said Moreno. “We wouldn’t want any misunderstandings.”
“No,” said Crane. “Certainly not.”
“I’ll get in touch with Vizcaino,” Moreno said with a sigh. “We’ll see if she turned up there. If you learn anything more, I’d appreciate it if you’d let us know.”
Crane promised he would. Then he turned the conversation to the club at Punto Dorado, and to Boz, saying that the last time Amy’s friend saw her, she was leaving a party with him.
Moreno grew more circumspect. He was definitely aware of Boz’s reputation and had heard many stories of goings-on at Punto Dorado. But, he told Crane, his superiors had made it very clear that his was a municipal police force. His jurisdiction didn’t extend to Punto Dorado. Nor did it cover Boz, no matter where he happened to be.
The message was clear to both Moreno and Crane. Boz was protected from on high. Crane gathered Moreno didn’t care for this but knew he could do nothing about it.
The discussion had stopped being a pleasant distraction for Moreno, and Crane had learned all he was going to learn here. They shook hands, and Crane stepped out again into the heat of the afternoon.
He headed down toward the water and wandered until he found a bar on the beach called, appropriately enough, La Playa. It had a patio covered in palm fronds that offered a de
cent view over the bay and proved to have a friendly bartender named Hector. He had time to kill; the Emma was cruising deeper water today, collecting their water samples and salinity data. Chloe had said they’d be back before sunset.
So Crane relaxed with a couple cold beers, listening to Mexican pop music on the bar’s tinny radio, watching the sailboats, and going through what little he knew, trying to fit the pieces together. Chief Moreno seemed like a decent enough man, but international fugitives, missing Americans, big money, and what looked like some kind of cartel connection put all of this well out of his league. If nothing else, his promise to contact the police in Vizcaino meant he hadn’t already done so. That seemed an obvious first step to Crane. So the local police were keeping out of it. Crane wondered if that extended to him now that he was getting involved.
And of course, Chloe brought a whole other angle to things. She seemed to have calmed down, which was supposedly his goal in coming here. But he didn’t know how long her patience would last if he didn’t produce Amy or sink the Gypsy.
And her instincts aren’t bad, he thought. Everything about Tate was skeevy, from his odd background and assumed name to the two big, well-armed men watching over him. It was possible they were former cartel soldiers who Tate had hired as muscle. But someone with Tate’s combination of money and need to keep his head down would have to come to the attention of the cartels sooner or later, if only as a ripe target. But it didn’t seem as though he was being extorted. No, there had to be something else.
Crane spent the rest of the afternoon rolling the pieces around in his mind, fitting them together in different ways. But he never found a picture that made sense to him. Finally, he noticed the Emma sailing back into the bay.
He dropped a few notes on the table and headed down to the pier. Perhaps Josh had learned something useful.
Two figures sat waiting near the end of the pier as Crane returned to where he’d tied up the tender. They stood up as he approached, and Crane recognized Tate’s two bodyguards from Punto Dorado. He sighed. So his questions around town had hit a nerve. Or else Boz was just pissed off about losing his shooting match.