by Daniel Pyne
Nobody around.
A collection of solvents sat open and reeking of methyls and benzenes and aromatic hydrocarbon isomers near a paint gun someone had left abandoned in the middle of the floor when the bust went down. Serpentine hoses coiled back to a fat, mute compressor. Three wildly colored custom Honda Element trucks were parked side by side just inside the delivery bay doors. DEL RIO MOTORS embossed on the license plate holders.
“I gave everybody the day off.”
Kirby turned as Mahrez came out of an office. Funeral-black suit, broken sloe eyes sunk back in their sockets, opaque.
“Orders for new boards are drying up, anyway,” he said. “It’s amazing how radioactive you can become when your luck turns. Clients go into review, suppliers go out of stock, friends disappear, suddenly nobody returns your calls.”
Kirby said, “I’m really sorry.”
Mahrez nodded out of habit. There was, Kirby realized, no reason for him to believe it.
“If you could tell us who you think is targeting you,” Kirby soldiered on anyway, “if we could get the guy who actually is importing this high-grade Mexican product everyone thinks you’re dealing—”
“—Rose would still be dead,” Mahrez said, hollow. “My life would still be a shambles.”
Yes, it would, Kirby thought, and said as much.
Mahrez frowned. “It’s not the dealing they hate me for, is it? It’s the getting out, the not getting caught.”
“They?”
“You. Cops, courts. Everybody who worked so hard to get me to this moment.” He stared at Kirby bleakly. The compressor kicked on, startling both of them. It clattered and moaned, topping off the pressure that had leached from the main tank while everything was idle.
“No, it’s grimmer than that.” Mahrez wanted Kirby to continue. “Nobody hates you—you’re a loose end to be tied up. A stepping stone, if we’re really lucky. A footnote in an unfinished case report if we’re not. None of this was personal.” Kirby thought about it, and added, “Whoever came after you was from your side of the equation.”
“You had to know that, going in,” Mahrez said. “What else aren’t you telling me?”
Kirby didn’t want to lie, so he changed subjects. “I knew this guy, once,” Kirby said, as the compressor shut down again, leaving an uneasy kind of quiet. “Corporate attorney. Had it all going gangbusters—the righteous job, the righteous house, membership at Rancho Santa Fe, trophy wife, summers in Maine . . . it all came apart because he took the high ground over something stupid, during the biggest case of his career. Something great and brave and noble and futile that he could never even tell anybody, afterward, that he had done.”
“Noting that the wife came listed after the golf,” Mahrez observed drily. “But go ahead.”
“Crushed him. I mean, completely. Divorce, depression, bankruptcy, goodbye job, ex got the house, Maine was a memory. Everything he had, everything he knew, was over.”
Mahrez was impatient. “Go right to the moral of the story, I don’t mind.”
Kirby spread his hands out. “That’s all. No moral, no redemption, no happily ever after. At first he blamed everybody else. But after a while he came to understand: there are no victims, only volunteers.” Kirby said, “You can blame me for what’s happened, and I can blame myself—God help me, I do—but you, you’ve got to think you wrote most of this epic tragedy yourself, man. However many years ago. When you were breaking rules and living large.
“Gotta pay to play,” Kirby added. “Isn’t that what they say?”
“They say that, and it’s trite,” Mahrez said.
“It’s all trite,” Kirby bit back.
If Mahrez had expected warm words, crafted sympathy, an appeal to his want for justice, Kirby just bled bitter and raw. “Get out,” Mahrez said softly. “I’m done talking to you people.”
“I don’t blame you,” Kirby allowed, chastened, and as he turned to go his eyes strayed to the delivery cars again, and the name on their complimentary dealer promotional license plate brackets abruptly slotted into his incomplete theory of the crime: Del Rio Motors.
Same as on the Wash-Tech vans.
“We get a fleet rate,” Mahrez explained, after Kirby asked.
Carefully thinking it through: “And free car-washing service?”
“I guess.” Mahrez shrugged. “My foreman makes the arrangements, I just sign the checks.”
“At Del Rio. Is your fleet salesman named Flavian?”
Mahrez said that sounded right, and wondered aloud how Kirby knew.
“Things tend to connect,” Kirby said. “In the swirl of a case.”
“Or collide,” Mahrez added.
—
DEL RIO MOTORS was a pimp-my-ride heaven, performance cars and custom builds, but fleet sales were the dealership’s cash cow, especially to boutique local businesses like Nick’s Stix Surfboards.
In the fishbowl showroom, Tina Z. had corralled and grilled a trio of nervous, commission-only salesmen for several minutes, and they answered all her questions to the best of their abilities, nodded, gestured to the back, and finally the small one with the sweater vest led her through the double doors to the service bays.
Work stopped as mechanics watched the curvy federal chick thank the salesman and stroll out to a tin-roofed station against the cyclone fence, where a couple young Latino men were washing and detailing cars ready for pickup. Parked alongside the metal canopy was the familiar Wash-Tech van, back doors gaping to reveal a cargo bed filled with buckets, rags, chamois and shelved solvents, cleaners and Armor All. Weatherproof video cameras were trained down on the area from the lot light stanchions, probably more to monitor employee behavior than for security. Tina made a mental note to get a warrant for the archived output, hoping it would go back at least a week’s worth.
She smiled and lobbed some high school Spanish at the men, one of them ignored her, the other, compact, his broad freckled shoulders hung with a grimy wifebeater, worried a headlight lens with his sponge but met her gaze.
Tina Z. said, “Sí, sí—I soy un policía. No, I no estoy aquí to bust you, siempre y cuando mantenga contestar mis preguntas.” She wasn’t sure she’d said that right, so she added, in English, “As long as you answer my questions.”
Now she had both men’s attention. She showed them an ID packet of eight-by-ten black-and-white photographs of their crew in the Mahrez driveway.
“A stranger took a ride with you yesterday.” They regarded her cautiously. “Un desconocido. Stranger? Ayer.” She’d reached the limits of her middle school Español and faltered. “Tomó un paseo . . . um, he asked to go with you . . . contigo.”
“Hey!” A big florid white man in a spotless shop shirt stitched with “Boyce,” a man who looked like he hadn’t picked up a tool in years and when he had was at odds with it—his promotions probably due more to canny politics than ability, or aptitude, Tina mused—came charging out of the service manager’s office on soft, shined penny loafers. “Can I help you?” came out as a growling accusation.
Tina Z. badged him, unimpressed. She’d spent her career suffering and managing men like this one; pale white baby boomers forged in the fires of Vietnam draft evasion and tempered by a bitter resentment that the whole sixties free-love thing had never panned out for them. “Zappacosta. FBI. Do these men work for you?”
As she’d expected, Boyce leapt to the assumption Tina was here for an immigration bust, and he wanted no part of it. Backpedaling as fast as he could, he stuttered, “Um. No, no ma’am. They, um, they’re . . . no, independent . . . contractors. Look, I—we—”
Tina Z. let him flounder, and returned her attention to the sturdier of the two detailers, who seemed afraid to say anything more in front of the man who signed his checks. She asked for his name. “Arnulfo,” the man said, tentatively.
“He’s Mexic
an,” Boyce blurted. The pager clipped to his belt kept humming.
Without looking at the service manager, Tina said, “¿Es este tu jefe, Arnulfo?”
Arnulfo nodded.
“What’s he telling you?” Boyce asked, but he’d already figured it out. “They don’t tell me their legal status, I don’t ask. You can’t get Americans to do these jobs,” he added, defensively. “I know that’s no excuse, but it’s the truth, and these guys do great work. I don’t want any trouble.”
Tina turned to Boyce, smiling. “Obviously.” Then she played him, hard, and fast: “I don’t, either. So. Listen up. Is it Boyd?” She knew what his name was.
“Boyce.”
“Boyce, I need to ask these gentlemen a few questions in private and if I find out after I’ve left you’ve called the border patrol on Arnulfo or his buddy, here, and had them deported so as to cover your backside—particularly before next payday—I’m going to come back with a warrant and close you down.” The service manager started raising his hands to protest his innocence, but before he could say anything, Tina continued, “Matter of fact? I’d like you to get them H-1B visas. Make it legal. I’ll check back in with you about it next week.”
Boyce closed his eyes. “You know what a hassle that is?”
“Yeah, I do, not to mention a couple grand up front and you’ll have to pay them minimum wage and so forth, but hey. What a shame.” She stared at him. Boyce sulked, thought about making a comment, then gave up on that, his shoulders dropped, he glared at Arnulfo and eventually shuffled back toward his office, checking his pager for all the messages he’d missed.
Tina was still waiting on Arnulfo. Her original question hanging.
“This man you want. This stranger. Yes: He took a ride with us, but we don’t know him, so,” Arnulfo told her. “And he never said his name.”
“Who told you to take him?” Arnulfo’s face flushed red, and Tina guessed why. “How much did he pay you to take him on?”
Arnulfo hesitated, which was all the answer she wanted—yes he paid them—so she put up her hands to indicate the amount wasn’t really all that important, and shuffled through the pictures again: “Which one is he?”
“Five hundred dollars,” Arnulfo said.
“Okay.”
Arnulfo traded cautious looks with his colleague, then thumbed the lone, fat, thick-necked Anglo in the photograph and Tina’s heart sank as she suddenly realized where she’d seen this guy before. Dark eyes, doughy face.
Just the other day, he’d been out in her driveway, with Bert. Not looking at a motorcycle.
—
“HIS NAME IS ELLIS VAN HOUTEN. Owns a gun store out in Hemet. Unimpressive rap sheet, to be honest, mostly misdemeanors and skinhead scofflawing, but documented association with the Hells Angels and White Aryan Resistance. For a while he may have worked security for RJM labs and our own Mr. Meth, Robert Miskinis. San Diego Sheriff’s got him on their watch-and-worry list as a probable murder-for-hire guy. But so far nothing’s stuck.”
Kirby and Fish were in one of the small conference rooms at the Federal Building on Kearny Mesa, listening to Tina Z. and studying her still photos excerpted from the Del Rio Motors security cameras, as well as stills from the Mahrez security tapes, spread out across the table.
Tina looked oddly discomposed, preoccupied, Fish thought, but she soldiered through it. “Arnulfo alleges Van Houten paid the auto detail outfit five hundred bucks to let him tag along on the appointment to Mahrez’s house yesterday morning.” Tina found and slid prominent the image of the burly white man wielding the upholstery vacuum, hunched like a coal miner in the cramped Aston Martin.
Fish said, “Two hours later, kaboom.”
Tina gave a distracted affirmation.
“What’s wrong?”
She glanced at Kirby, poker-faced, shrugged. “What?”
“You seem—”
“—nothing. No, I’m—it’s just—”
Fish watched them, curious. Tina shrugged again. Kirby, suddenly aware of Fish watching, nodded and seemed to decide to back off, “—okay.”
“Anyway,” she continued, voice brittle now, “I called ATF. They can confirm Van Houten has access to military-grade C-4 and detonators through his store.”
Fish watched as Kirby moved the photos around like puzzle pieces. The husky sunburned man, his hair wrought almost wheat chaff by the sun, his tiny rat’s eyes bored into the flat of his face, had worked inside all of Mahrez’s cars. His scuffed boots’ run-down heels gave him a bowlegged cant. He looked, Fish thought, like a bad guy.
Kirby sat down. “We could have stopped this.”
Fish said, “Don’t go there, man.”
Tina Z. agreed too quickly, “We didn’t know. Couldn’t have known. Hazel’s right.” She started to clean up, shuffling and stacking and restacking the surveillance stills and faxes in the OCD way she did when something was weighing on her. Fish could recognize her moods, but generally didn’t understand them. His mother liked to remind him that Tina Z. was married. Fish’s standard response was that she was just a friend.
Kirby started to ask her another question, but Tina beat him to the punch, deflecting, “Why are you always all dressed up now?” in reference to Kirby’s latest fancy suit.
“I’m not.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“You are. Yes. That fucking suit.”
Kirby looked down at what he was wearing, as if he just had noticed it, too.
“That’s the one,” Tina agreed.
Fish felt like a guy watching a tennis match. Kirby changed subjects; now he was the one deflecting. “Do we know who paid Flavian’s bail?”
“Flavian himself,” Fish said. “Believe it or not. From a Mexican bank account he had with over a quarter-million bucks in it.”
Tina’s brow creased. This didn’t seem to compute for her. “Flavian’s our local distributor?”
“No. Flavian’s a pawn in a bigger game,” Kirby insisted.
Fish had more, though, he’d been saving it. “Another wire transfer from the same account same day he got sprung: ten thousand bucks, to Gun Heaven. Van Houten’s shop out in Hemet.” He figured that settled it.
“Flavian was dead before the hit on Mahrez’s wife even happened. We need to arrest Van Houten. He’s key. If we can tie him to the—”
“—if we can tie him to the bomb,” Tina overlapped Kirby, “we can try to flip him on whoever hired him.”
Fish struggled to catch up. “Wait. I just told you it was Flavian that hired him—”
Kirby interrupted, “Hazel, think: Is it credible that Flavian Bolero is managing the movement of twenty to fifty kilos of cocaine over the border every month? Or that Juan Blanco would trust him to do so?”
Fish didn’t much enjoy the free-floating speculation that Kirby and Tina thrived on. “Well. No. But—”
“I bet he never even knew he had a Mexican bank account. Because if he did, he wouldn’t have been selling cars and living in a trailer park.”
Fish’s head hurt.
“You got a date?” Tina Z. asked Kirby pointedly, back on the suit.
“No.”
Frustrated, Fish didn’t want them going down this road again, “Kids, can we please not get sidetracked—”
“I do not,” Kirby told Tina again, because she just kept staring at him, “have a date with anyone.”
“You’re going out with her,” Tina said.
“New policy. We have to dress for work.”
“Oh.” Fish thought Tina looked disappointed that Kirby couldn’t have made up a better excuse.
He tried again, “Can I just ask: If Flavian is the pawn, and Blanco is the chess master—”
“Grand master,” Tina corrected.
“What?”
“Staying o
n the chess theme.”
“I’m saying, we leap the local guy and get Blanco. Let him tell us who his partner is,” Kirby said.
Had Kirby lost his mind? Blanco was in Mexico, Blanco was Mexican, they—none of them—had any jurisdiction there. The local was their only play. Fish sighed. “Aw, geez. Kirby—c’mon—don’t, don’t don’t. Blanco? That is a dog that don’t hunt.”
“Always a first time, Hazel.”
And a last one, Fish thought grimly. But, well, at least they had a plan, a direction. Forward movement.
“You taking her somewhere fancy?” Tina asked, still on it.
Kirby ignored her. “I’ll arrange warrants for Van Houten, his shop, and his house. Still Task Force, we’ll get extra bodies, but you guys ride point.”
“Go slow. Be gentle,” Tina trolled. She was up and moving. “I’ll go clear this with the boss. Hazel? Call me in thirty?”
“There is no date,” Kirby said.
“Sure. Keep telling yourself that.”
Fish asked Kirby if they should put Mahrez back under some kind of protection.
“If he’ll agree to it,” Kirby said.
“Why wouldn’t he agree?” Tina wondered from the doorway, even though they all knew the answer.
—
TEACUP POODLES TUMBLED and growled on the grass.
Backyard of his property skimmed with twilight, Mahrez stood, no expression, looking out at the tailings of a quiet sunset that had broken for one glorious moment beneath the regathering clouds, and the slate sea’s ragged whitecap tessellation.
He didn’t know what to do with Rose’s dogs.
In fact, he’d forgotten all about them until, while he was moving swiftly through his house, sloshing the solvent he’d brought from the factory over floor and furniture, dousing everything, the dogs had come skittering out of her room, snuffling, sneezing, barking, determined to get as far away from the foul smell as they could. They darted out the open back door, and he followed them, forgetting that she was gone, worried that they’d run away and she’d be heartbroken.
He’d had no life before he met her, just the all-consuming illegal enterprise (or, later, the all-consuming effort to walk away from it) and his understanding with Vic and the endless parade of related incidents and adventures linked only by their chronology and his participation in them. No ex-wives, no bastard children; he’d lied and used, taken liberties and ruined reputations, broken hearts, dropped friends and become irreconcilably estranged from his extended family, missed both parents’ funerals, burrowed deep into a corrupted version of bodhisattva in which nothing mattered but the moment and that he could justify his nihilism.
