Marty’s eyebrows shot up for a second as he refocused on the conversation. “This morning Marlene got a call from the State Department, of all things.” He exhaled smoke as he talked. “Seems they found Richie’s Blazer down in Mexico, about an hour or so inland from Mazatlán. Abandoned.” His voice broke for an instant. “There was blood on the side and Richie was nowhere around. They told Marlene that the damned thing’d been in the area for several days, but no one saw any gringos. It’s an isolated town called San Ignacio. Americans come through there about as regular as comets.” He looked hard at Frank. “And I’m sure the locals would’ve remembered a boob like Richie wandering around.” Pausing again, he added softly, “It was the boy’s blood type on the car, too.”
Streeter shifted in his seat. “Did your nephew have any business that would have taken him down there?”
Marty shook his head. “Not that I know of. He’s never been to Mexico before, either. But hell, even if he went down there for a vacation, that town’s so far off the beaten path it wouldn’t make sense that he’d end up there.”
“What did they mean when they said the Blazer’d been around for a few days?” Streeter pressed.
“Now that’s a hot one,” Marty said, getting visibly angry. “Seems the mayor had been squiring his mistress around town in the Chevy for a while. Looks like those greaseballs fucked up Richie and then used his car to get some trim. You believe that?”
Frank stepped in now. “Jesus, Marty. Age and prosperity sure didn’t do much to soften you up. It’s plain to see why you never got an appointment to the United Nations.”
“Marlene comments on the same thing.” Marty shrugged. “But I never saw any point in soft-coating things, even though I do try to tone down the rougher edges now and then.”
Streeter spoke up. “They didn’t find a body?”
“No. Nothing but the Blazer and a little blood.” Marty’s voice shifted back to polished and assured, like the Waterbed King’s from television. “They told Marlene that the State Department is doing all it can. Now that’ll make you sleep a whole chunk better at night. We called our congressman’s office but I won’t be holding my breath on that one, either. Pat Schroeder. She’s got her own agenda. Let some lady flier get grabbed at Tailhook and Schroeder’s your man. But a lost male constituent, hell, she probably won’t even lift a finger.”
Frank spoke. “I take it you want Streeter, here, to see if he can get a line on Richie.”
Slowly, Marty tapped his cigar on the edge of an ashtray on the desk. He stared at the bounty hunter. “I want you to get down to Mazatlán and ride herd on everything for me. We’re dealing with the United States government and a bunch of Mexican cops here. Between the two, they couldn’t find horseshit at a rodeo. Marlene and me want to do what we can for the boy. That means getting someone down there who knows his ass from his elbow. That means you, Streeter.”
Leaning over to one side, Marty reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a roll of hundreds the size of his fist. He tossed it on the desk. “There’s about five grand there, give or take. That’ll get you going. There’s a flight for Mazatlán leaving DIA in a couple of hours and I’ve already booked you a room at the El Cid. It’s a luxury hotel right on the beach, but don’t bother taking any tanning lotion. You’ll be inland, mostly. The American consul knows you’re coming. He’ll set you up with an interpreter. Then get out to that damned town and squeeze the hell out of anyone who knows anything. That sound like something you can handle, son?”
Streeter liked the way the cigar smoke smelled. It gave the room a warm, homey feel. He stared at the cash and then back at Moats. “I’ve worked in Mexico before. If it’s the local police doing the search, you might as forget you ever had a nephew. They tend to be corrupt and incompetent. State and federal cops are better but you’re still talking about just a notch or two above Barney Fife. And U.S. law agencies can’t do much with Mexican permission, which I’m sure they won’t get.”
“That’s exactly why I want you down there,” Marty said. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Taking a photo from it, he handed the picture to Streeter. “That’s Richie, my brother’s boy. His folks died about the time he got out of high school. Richie’s thirty-two now, give or take. It’d mean a lot to Marlene if you’d spend a few days looking for him. If you need more money, just let me know. Nose around and call me every night. Collect.”
“The way business has been around here lately, Street, it’s not like you can turn your nose up at that kind of money,” Frank said. “Plus, Marlene’s one fine lady.” He threw Moats a glance. “Too good for this old fart.” Looking back at his partner, he added, “All those ex-wives of yours, I know at least a couple of them get alimony.”
Streeter knew that between his regular expenses, his credit cards, and the stipend he paid two of his four former wives, there was no way he could turn down five thousand dollars. He studied the photo. Richie’s curly charcoal hair and mustache stood out. Eyes large and intense. He wasn’t bad-looking and he had the same I-want-to-get-in-your-pants grin that his uncle used on television. The bounty hunter looked up at Marty. “We’ll take it day by day. First thing tomorrow, call the consulate and let them know that as far as they’re concerned, I am the Moats family. They shouldn’t hold anything back from me. And give me all the numbers where I can reach you day and night.”
“Thank you, son.” Marty paused. “There is one other thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Richie’s probably not traveling alone. He’s got a girlfriend and he’s convinced she burps perfume and pees champagne. The guy can barely get through the day without seeing her. No way he’d take a trip like this and leave Tina behind. She works in what you might call an exotic field. Some sort of local porno operation. Used to be a stripper, too. But I’ll tell you one thing, you see Tina Gillis, you’ll understand why he wants to be with her night and day.”
“Anything else I should know?”
Marty shook his head. “This’ll get you going. And don’t worry about expenses. Just do what you have to do, son. Whatever it takes.”
“Look, Marty,” Streeter said, “if your nephew’s alive and if he has any brains and common sense at all, he’ll probably turn up at the consulate pretty soon.”
Moats studied him for a moment. “Yeah, and if my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle. You follow my drift, son?”
Streeter shook his head slowly. “I’m not sure I want to.”
“It don’t matter. Just get down there and find out what’s going on.”
THREE
“The trouble with Mexico,” Streeter’s father had told him years ago, “is that the Germans didn’t stay long enough.”
He’d explained to his son that in the early nineteenth century, German explorers had settled parts of Mexico but then left within a few years. In Harold’s mind that was bad news for the locals. “Those Krauts should’ve stayed longer. Laid down some of their famous order and discipline. The Mexicans themselves are good people, but nothing works the way it should down there. Nothing’s on time and nobody seems to know what they’re doing. Don’t seem to give much of a darn, either.”
The bounty hunter thought of that as he drove through the darkness from the Mazatlán airport to El Cid. He felt queasy. Streeter didn’t like to fly. It wasn’t being in the air that he minded, it’s just that he hated being a passenger. Not that he knew how to fly, but he felt best when he was steering whatever it was that was moving him. Also, he’d had three stiff Johnnie Walker Reds en route. Four, if you counted the one at the Denver International Airport bar. His stomach sure as hell was counting it as his rented Volkswagen Jetta bounced over the empty, pitted streets heading west to the beach just before midnight. All he wanted in the world was to go to sleep.
But that wasn’t about to happen quickly. When he got to his room and crawled into bed, the Scotch-induced queasiness kept him awake. After about a half hour of lying there in his boxer
shorts, he got up and walked out onto the small balcony facing the kidney-shaped swimming pool. The night air felt sensuously thick and warm, and the moon seemed close enough that you could hit it with a solid five-iron shot. Oil lamps on tall metal stands flickered around the pool. As Streeter leaned into the railing he felt alone. Suddenly he heard a woman laughing down below. On one of the huge lounge chairs close to the pool, a man and a woman lay curled together, cuddling. The woman had long, dark hair and wore a red dress. Streeter couldn’t see her face but her tanned, shapely legs were obvious. The man wore light slacks and a deep-blue shirt. Both appeared to be young and they were kissing and giggling. Now Streeter felt really alone.
It was a feeling he had been wrestling with more and more lately, and traveling by himself intensified it. He had a growing, gnawing sense of loss at all the time he was spending alone, without a special woman in his life. Thinking of his failed marriages and the countless flings he’d had over the years didn’t help. And those flings were getting further apart and, more important, less and less satisfying. His this-pilot-flies-solo attitude had been fun and free in his twenties, but merely okay in his thirties. By now, it was getting hollow and sometimes painful.
A couple of months earlier, he had broken up with his latest girlfriend, a Denver police psychologist. That was one he thought might lead to something permanent. But she’d taken a job at a California clinic and their clunky attempt at a long-distance relationship had ended fast. Standing on his balcony now, watching the couple below, Streeter wondered if maybe he should have tried harder with her. Too late. The last time he’d talked to Linda she had sounded uninterested and even alluded to a man she was dating in Los Angeles. Neither of them had called the other since. He glanced back into his suite. Another empty bed in another strange room. No one back home waiting for him, hoping he’s all right: safe, happy, sleeping well. No one to give a shit. No one but Frank and that didn’t exactly count. Not in the way he needed it to count this late at night in the quiet hotel on the hazy magical beach at Mazatlán.
And there was no one on the horizon either. In Streeter’s line of work, he didn’t meet many keepers. Mostly just hyper girl-women with too many problems and too little time. The few quality ones he met usually worked in law offices and seemed to have husbands, fiancés, or boyfriends. Or they weren’t interested. Or he wasn’t.
He glanced back at the couple. They were getting up from the lounge chair now. They hugged one more time and then walked toward the rooms holding hands. Streeter stood back from the railing. Maybe a cigar would help calm him. Smelling Moats’s Corona that afternoon had put him in the mood. He got dressed and went to the lobby to buy one. When he got back to his room he started pacing and smoking. To keep his mind occupied, he ran through the possibilities of what might have happened to Richie and Tina.
He knew little about Richie Moats, and less about his girlfriend. Marty had said his nephew had no police record other than for shoplifting right after high school and a DUI in his mid-twenties. Richie and a friend named Eddy Spangler had run a boiler-room telemarketing operation for the past two years selling “Premium Investment Programs” that were little more than glorified coupon packages. They made a nice profit, but as Uncle Marty had put it, “Richie thinks sticking money in the bank is about the same as sticking it into a shredder. He’s never saved a dime.”
Like his uncle, Richie was born to sell. Brash and outgoing, he considered the truth to be something you trotted out only if it helped you close a sale. But behind all the flash and trash, Marty had said, when Streeter walked him out of the church earlier that day, he was “jumpy, and he tries too hard. It’s like he’s always scared or trying to prove something. All that fast talking won’t fool you for long.” As for Tina, the old man knew little other than that she was a knockout. Streeter figured it was unlikely that they had come here to pull something illegal. Unlikely, but not impossible. Anything was possible with a scammer like Richie. As he finally dozed off, Streeter realized he had no idea what he’d be getting into when he hit San Ignacio.
Walking to his car the next morning, he felt the Mexican humidity clinging tightly to him. Coming from Colorado, where there’s so little moisture in the air, he experienced any humidity as unbearable. The drive from the hotel to the consulate was two miles on a main road along the oceanfront. Located on the south side of Mazatlán, the U.S. consulate was a few short blocks off the beach. It was a stucco building overgrown with dense, trimmed vines and shaded by large trees, and tucked away in a residential area. When Streeter arrived a few minutes before nine, there already was a line of about fifty people waiting for it to open. Most of them had come to get entry visas for the United States.
Streeter told the guard at the entrance that he had an appointment with Ben Howell, the vice consul assigned to the Moats case. He was steered inside, where the cool red floor tiles, freshly painted white walls, and faint odor of disinfectant reminded him of a clinic. Within minutes Howell appeared at his office door behind the huge front counter. He nodded for Streeter to join him.
“Mr. Moats called me last night and told me you might be by this morning,” he said as he let Streeter into his office and closed the door. “Did you have a good flight?”
Streeter nodded. The room had the same tight clarity as the reception area. Ben, however, did not. He was round, soft, and bearded, and wore rectangular wire-rimmed glasses. In his flowered cotton shirt, he looked like a young Santa Claus vacationing in the tropics. Despite that, he had hard eyes and a manner that was anything but warm and fuzzy.
“I’ve got some news for you, but I don’t think it’ll make Mr. Moats very happy,” he continued. “I’ve been on the phone with the chief of the San Ignacio police for the past hour and it seems that late last night they made a couple of arrests. Two local guys with bad reputations. The police haven’t found Richard’s body yet, but the chief says that the men confessed and they’re going to show them where he’s buried.”
Streeter sat up. “Confessed to what? From what I was told, this was being treated as a missing persons.”
“Until last night.” Ben swiveled slightly in his chair and his eyes narrowed. “We had hoped that Richard had just gotten separated from his car and was lost. But since the police tracked down these two, we have a homicide. I know it’s going to be rough on the family, but once we have the body, there won’t be any doubt.”
Streeter considered that for a moment. “You say you haven’t called Mr. Moats yet?”
Howell shook his head.
“Let me do it. I want to get up to San Ignacio right away and see what’s going on for myself. I’d hate to get the family all worked up if this is a false alarm. We can call Denver when I get back.”
“I don’t know. They should hear this as soon as possible.” Ben leaned forward and put his elbows on his desk. “Hell, I guess a few more hours won’t hurt. After all, Mr. Moats did say that I was to treat you like family. Maybe they’ll have found a body by then. I’ll wait until you get back but make it here by three.”
“Thanks. One other thing. Martin Moats told me you’d arrange for an interpreter.”
“Rafael should be here by nine-thirty. He’s a good man. Reliable and knows the area.” Ben sat back again. “He owns a little T-shirt shop in town and he’s got some free time. Speaks perfect English and won’t charge you much.” Howell thought for a moment. “Look, I don’t know what you think you can accomplish up there, but the chief seemed pretty sure of what happened and that they’ve got the killers.”
“That might be, but I was sent here to get a firsthand look.”
Howell stood up. “I’ve got a call to make. Would you mind waiting outside?”
“No problem.”
Streeter went back to the reception area, which was now filled with the people who’d been outside. Most of them sat in a long row of lacquered wooden benches waiting their turn with the woman at the front counter. He took a seat along one wall. Suddenly a young woman with short
red hair wearing blue jeans and a white blouse, and a bearded man carrying a small television camera blew into the room. She appeared to be flustered and hot. He just looked hot. She looked around and glanced at Streeter without reacting. He stared back and tried to remember where he’d seen her before. It came to him as she walked toward the counter. Lise-something-or-other from one of the Denver television news shows. He never could keep straight which station had which reporter. Lise had just started in Denver, and Streeter placed her at about twenty-five. He liked watching her on television, even though she wasn’t particularly professional. Not yet, anyhow. On camera she always seemed sincere, if uncertain of herself at times. He pegged her for hardworking, trying to prove herself in a new market. She was fairly plain-looking by TV standards, but she had a nice smile. A small, upturned nose added to her youthful appearance. Abbott, that’s it, he remembered. Lise Abbott. In person she was shorter and thinner than she appeared to be on the screen, but she had the same earnest quality.
It figures that the media would pick up on Richie, Streeter thought. Blood on the car and a connection to the Waterbed King of Colorado. The receptionist said something to Lise and she and her partner lifted the half door in the front counter and marched toward Ben’s office. Then they opened his door and went inside.
A few minutes later, a man looking to be in his mid-thirties, thin but with a confident open face, walked into the reception area. Wearing a plain white T-shirt and khaki shorts, he glanced around for a moment before going to the front counter. He spoke to the woman for a couple of minutes, the two of them laughing and talking as if they knew each other well. Then he turned toward Streeter as the receptionist pointed to the bounty hunter and said something. Streeter figured the guy must be Rafael, so he stood up. The man walked over to the large gringo and extended his hand.
Streeter Box Set Page 47
