by Robert Crais
16
The police stayed with the Sanchez brothers as the day settled into darkness, and the cooling air grew silky. I bought a Diet Coke and two chicken tacos while I waited. The tacos were Mexico City style. Two small corn tortillas wrapped around chicken, onions, and cilantro, with a generous helping of fresh jalapeno and salty green tomatillo sauce. No beans or cheese. Beans and cheese were for sissies. The tacos were hot and juicy, and the heat increased as I ate. So good I ordered two more. Delicious.
I saw movement in the office from time to time, but my angle was bad to see more. Eighteen minutes after I ate the last taco, the red-haired cop came out to their car. He took a briefcase from the back seat, took out a folder, then put the briefcase back. He started back to the office, but abruptly stopped and studied the street as if he sensed someone watching. I stepped farther behind the taco stand, watching him through the sliver of space between the stand and a telephone pole.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, but I did not move.
He did a slow three-sixty until his eyes settled on the taco stand. A middle-aged Latina was ordering food. The red-haired cop was forty yards away, but I still saw the lines that trapped his eyes like spiderwebs.
The phone buzzed like an insistent alarm clock. I worried the woman would hear it, and turn from the window to look. I covered the phone with my hand, and waited.
He stared at the stand for eight or ten years, then abruptly returned to the office.
I checked the call, and found a message from Carol Starkey.
“Dude. What the fuck? Call me.”
Starkey talks that way.
I called her back.
“It’s me.”
“Are you trying to fuck me, you moron?”
She didn’t sound happy.
“What’s up?”
“I had the Feds in here, man. ICE. The Immigration police? They pinged my search on your boy, Sanchez. They wanted to know my fucking interest.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Oh, are we worried now? Are we scared I ratted you out?”
“I know you wouldn’t rat me out, Starkey. What’s the fallout on you? What did you tell them?”
“The name came up in a Green Light hit I’m working in Hollywood. Told’m I ran the name for due diligence, but my Rudy Sanchez lives in Venice, not Coachella. He wasn’t my guy.”
Green Light hit meant Mexican Mafia. La Eme. Dropping their name lent credibility to her search for a Spanish surname.
“Good dodge.”
“Did you know he was a coyote?”
“Yeah.”
“You asshole.”
“I wanted to find him, Starkey. What difference is it the kind of criminal he is?”
“Yeah, well, ICE was all over this fuckin’ criminal. He was involved with the Sinaloa cartel. Is there anything else you should tell me?”
“Who killed him?”
“If they know, they didn’t tell me. You got an idea?”
“Did they mention Korea or gangsters from Korea?”
“What are we talkin’ about here, the U fuckin’ N? Do you know something about this?”
“Not yet. I gotta go, Starkey. Thanks.”
“Don’t leave me hanging.”
“Gotta go.”
The three officers came out to their car as I put away the phone. I thought they would bring one or more of the brothers in handcuffs, but the brothers stayed in the office. Twelve minutes later, the youngest brother, James, came out, mounted a motorcycle parked beside the office, and buzzed through the gate. Eight minutes later, Eddie and Rudy Junior came out together, but went to separate cars. Eddie drove away first. Rudy J eased through the gate, but stopped in the street, pulled the gate closed, and locked it with a padlock. By the time he locked the gate and got back into his car, I pulled around the side of the taco stand, and turned out behind him.
Three-quarters of a mile later, Rudy Sanchez Junior pulled into the Ralphs where Pike had waited for me. Coincidence.
He was out of his car and heading inside when I pulled up alongside him.
“Get in.”
He started around me, so I tapped the gas, cutting him off.
“I’ll be here when you come out, Rudy. Get in.”
“I’m not getting in there with you.”
“All we’re going to do is talk.”
He started the other way, but I squeaked the rear end, cutting him off again.
“Talk, Rudy. I’m not going to lump up your face or arrest you. I might be able to help.”
He studied me.
“You’re not a federal agent?”
“I’m looking for Krista Morales.”
“I don’t know who she is.”
“That’s okay. It’s enough that I know. C’mon. Get in the car.”
Rudy stared at me for five heartbeats, then walked around the front of my car and got in. I drove to the far side of the Ralphs, and parked in a pool of shadow. He sat quietly, staring straight ahead as if an enormous weight was crushing him and he didn’t know how to stop it.
“Are you and your brothers part of this?”
He shook his head.
“No. The old man kept us out. It was his thing, not ours. He didn’t want us involved.”
“Bringing people north.”
“Yeah. North. He started when he was a kid, bringing up his cousins. He was born here. They weren’t. I guess he liked doing it.”
“Who were the Korean guys?”
“People with guns.”
“Gangsters?”
“Jesus, look at my face. I don’t know who they are. I never saw those guys before a few days ago.”
“Did they kill your father?”
“Not them. They paid to have people brought up, and their people didn’t get here. Two hundred thousand dollars. Two hundred. Now they want their money or their people, and they sure as hell aren’t paying a ransom to get them.”
I flashed on Nita Morales, getting the ransom demand.
“The people your father brought up that night were kidnapped?”
“That’s what bajadores do. They steal people, then milk their families. The old man was hijacked.”
“How do you know a bajadore took them?”
“Some cartel assholes came to see us. They told us a bajadore ripped off the pollos.”
The feds had told Starkey Rudy J’s father was involved with the Sinaloa cartel.
“He worked for Sinaloa?”
“How’d you know that?”
“I know stuff. I’m a swami.”
“Not by choice, man. Those Sinaloa pricks stole his business.”
This fit with what Thomas Locano had told me.
“So he wasn’t a freelance coyote? The Koreans gave their money to the Sinaloas?”
“Hell, yeah. Shit, we didn’t even know the old man went out that night. Then some kids found him in the lake. That’s when Spurlow and Lange came to see us. That’s how we found out. Then the Sinaloas came around and told us the bajadore got him-some guy called the Syrian.”
Starkey was right. It was beginning to sound like the United Nations.
“A Syrian from Syria?”
Rudy J rubbed his face with both hands.
“Who the fuck knows? They made it sound like this guy rips them off all the time. Mostly, they told us they’d kill us if we talked to the police.”
“And let you hang with the Koreans?”
Rudy J slumped, and shook his head.
“They said they’d take care of it, but you saw. I think Sinaloa is scared of those guys, but they ain’t giving out refunds.”
“So the Koreans are looking to you.”
Rudy blinked hard, and I knew he was blinking back tears. He suddenly shouted.
“FUCK!”
I watched him there in the shadows, and believed him. Rudy J and his brothers had not known what their father was doing that night, were not part of his father’s business, but were now held hostage by the event
s of that night like Nita and Krista Morales.
I said, “You know the old crash site where a drug runner’s plane went down, south of here in the desert?”
Rudy J slowly looked at me.
“I used to go out there when I was a kid. All of us did.”
“Did your father use it as a transfer point?”
Rudy J frowned, but I could see he was thinking.
“Sometimes. Coyotes and smugglers used that old wreck all the time, then no one used it for years. I remember him saying, man, why waste a good spot?”
“What about the night he was killed?”
“I don’t know. It’s not like he told us his routes or anything, but he liked that spot. He said it was easy to find.”
Maybe too easy.
I could see Rudy Senior’s big truck lumbering out of the desert, and a man called the Syrian moving in fast to hijack his human cargo. It was easy to see Krista and Jack being caught in the Syrian’s net.
“Maybe we can help each other, Rudy. The Sinaloas who came to see you, can you reach them if you have to?”
“You’re not a fed?”
“Would it matter if I were?”
He studied me a moment longer, then turned away as if he was embarrassed to admit the truth.
“Not at this point. No. I just want to get out of this nightmare.”
“If I need to talk to them, will you set it up?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll set it up. They gave me a number.”
I brought him back to his car, dropped him off, then drove home to the city. Everyone had a story, and the stories were fitting together, but I needed more, and I wanted it fast.
Krista and Jack had been taken. They had been taken by a bajadore the Sinaloa cartel called the Syrian. I had done good work that day.
I gazed into the black landscape beyond the freeway lights, and knew Krista and Jack were out in the darkness. If I found the Syrian, I would find them.
I drove with the windows down, and the clean roaring wind, until I was free of the desert, and called Joe Pike.
17
The silky night air was cool as I drove west toward Los Angeles. The wind’s heavy scream carved a peaceful place in the world when Joe answered my call.
“You on the hat?”
“The hat joined up with the Beemer, and followed it to a soju bar on Vermont north of Olympic. The hat and the suits went in, so I’m watching the bar.”
Soju was a Korean liquor.
“Is that in Koreatown?”
“Yes. The Blue Raccoon.”
I jotted the name.
“What are they doing?”
“Unknown. They’re inside, I’m a block off. The bar’s in a two-story strip mall. A barbeque place. Noraebang studios. A couple of businesses. Valet. Upscale place.”
I sketched out what I had learned from Rudy J about the Koreans and Sinaloas, and how the brothers were caught in the cross fire.
Pike said, “Is he telling the truth?”
“I think so, yes. The police are on them, the Koreans are jamming them for the two hundred thousand, and the Sinaloas are letting them hang. That can be good for us. If the Sinaloas told the truth about this guy they call the Syrian, it’s possible the Syrian scooped up Krista and Berman along with the hijack. Rudy confirmed his father sometimes used the crash site as a transfer point.”
Pike grunted.
“Would the Syrian take them south?”
If they were south of the border, it would be more difficult to find them and reach them.
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about the Syrian, and neither do the brothers. All they know is what the Sinaloas told them.”
“Can you find out?”
“I’m on it. I’m calling Locano as soon as we hang up. If he can’t help, we’ll find another way. If we have to, we’ll go straight to the Sinaloas.”
Pike grunted again, and this time I knew he liked it. Pike was a straight-ahead person.
I said, “We need intel on the Koreans, too. Can you get the tags off the Subaru and the Beemer?”
“Stand by.”
Pike recited the two tags as I copied them.
“How long can you stay with these guys?”
“Whatever it takes.”
“Stay with the Beemer. He goes home, get the address.”
Pike hung up without another word, and I called Thomas Locano. It was after office hours, but I called his office first, and left a long, meandering message. I wanted to give him time to pick up in case he was working late, but he didn’t. I looked up his unlisted home number, and that’s where I reached him.
Mr. Locano sounded disturbed.
“We’re unlisted. How did you get this number?”
“I’m a detective, Mr. Locano. I had it in two calls.”
He still didn’t like it, and now sounded impatient.
“Well, what? We have guests. We were about to sit down.”
“Rudolfo Sanchez is dead. He was murdered on the same night Krista Morales and her boyfriend disappeared.”
“Oh my God. Hold on. I have to move to another room.”
I heard movement, then he came back on the line, talking as he walked, though his voice was low and guarded.
“All right, I can talk. Are these two things connected?”
“I believe so. Sanchez wasn’t a freelance operator like you were told. He used to be, but a cartel took over.”
“Which cartel? The Bajas, Tijuana, the Beltran-Leyva, who? There are many.”
“He was bringing people north for the Sinaloas. They believe he was hijacked by a bajadore they call the Syrian.”
“How do you know these things?”
I told him about Rudy J and his brothers, and how Rudy Senior had sometimes used the crash site as a transfer point to deliver the people he brought north.
“We know Krista and Berman stayed at the crash site after their friends returned to town. If they were at the scene when Sanchez arrived, it’s possible they were swept up in the hijacking.”
“You believe the bajadore has them?”
“Yes.”
I described the cartridge casings and tracking patterns Pike and I found in the desert, and how they indicated three smaller vehicles had assaulted a larger vehicle. I told him about the brown stain Pike found, and the footprints indicating a large number of people had clustered at the back of the larger truck.
“It would explain the ransom calls Nita received from her daughter. That’s how bajadores work their kidnappings, isn’t it? They force the victims to call their families.”
“Yes. This is how it is done.”
“Have you heard of this guy before, the Syrian?”
“Never. Is he from Syria?”
“No idea. They didn’t use his given name or say why he was called the Syrian, and Rudy didn’t ask. He just wanted them to leave.”
Locano was quiet before speaking again.
“Were the sons involved?”
“Rudy says they weren’t, and I believe him. They’re scared. They’re caught between the cartel, the police, and Korean gangsters who had people on the truck. I need a lead on this guy, Mr. Locano. If he has Krista Morales, then I need to find him.”
Mr. Locano was quiet for several long moments, but I knew he was thinking, and I knew he would help.
“I have helped people who were with the Sinaloas. Let me speak with them.”
“That would be great.”
“May I have your home phone? I might call tonight, or early tomorrow.”
I gave him my cell and my home, then asked for a second favor.
“I’m going to phone Nita, but I would like you to call her, too. She could use some reassurance.”
“Because she has no documents?”
“Yes, sir. She has enough on her mind without having to worry about losing her home and her business.”
“She’ll lose neither. The Immigration courts are overloaded with violent criminals they can’t deport fast enou
gh. A woman like Nita with an established business and employees can easily get a stay of removal. These things are at the judge’s discretion. We see this all the time.”
“Will you explain this to her?”
“Should it come to that, I will represent her.”
“Thanks, Mr. Locano. For that, and for everything. Anything you find out about the Syrian will help.”
“I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
I put down the phone, and took a deep breath. I wanted to call Nita Morales, but wasn’t yet sure what I was going to tell her and how I was going to say it. I rolled down the window and filled the car with the thunder of rushing air. The tail lights ahead were frozen red eyes; the oncoming headlights were screaming white tracers. I had been racing hard all day, maybe too hard, maybe so hard I needed to slow down before I made a mistake that cost Krista Morales her life.
Pike had given me the tags off the Subaru and Beemer. I rolled up the window, found the scrap with the numbers, and called an L.A. County Deputy Sheriff I knew who worked the West Hollywood night watch. She was fast, efficient, and happy to cooperate for two guaranteed Dugout Club seats to a Dodgers-Giants game.
The DMV showed the Subaru was registered to a Paul Andrew Willets in Northridge, California. I wasn’t an expert on Subarus, but the DMV showed Mr. Willets as owning a blue Subaru, and the hat man’s car was tan. This told me the hat man was driving a stolen car, and had swapped plates with Mr. Willets’s vehicle.
The BMW told a different story. It was registered to something called Yook Yune Entertainment with a Wilshire Boulevard address showing a suite number. The suite might be an actual office, but I suspected it was a mail drop. I used my iPhone to google Yook Yune Entertainment, but found no website, business listing, or mentions of any kind.
Joe Pike was still parked one block from the strip mall when I called to fill him in. Neither the Beemer nor the Subaru had moved. It was seven minutes after ten that night.
Pike said, “Yook is a family name. Don’t know about Yune.”
“Forget the hat. Follow the Beemer when it leaves. A residential address might help us get an ID.”
“Remember Jon Stone?”
“Sure.”
“Jon speaks Korean. He spends time here. He might be able to help.”
