Stalking Moon

by Неизвестный

  “Difficult.”

  “But not impossible. I know what you did with that medical insurance scam last year in Tucson. I know how much you got back, so I know you can dance your way through any bank account in the world.”

  “Who's your client?” I asked.

  “I don't even know. He's got or she's got cutouts, just like me and Bobby.”

  “Who is this guy, this Donald Ralph?”

  “Don, actually. He's also a Vietnam vet, plus he's a paraplegic. Kinda like one of those guys you see in computer geek movies, the guy who runs his wheelchair within a circle of computers and telephones and all other kinds of gadgets.”

  “Like the guy in The Matrix.”

  “Yeah. But that's a kid movie. Why did you watch it?”

  “For the technology. About your client—”

  “The client's not important. But the urgency comes from the fact that President Fox is reported to be closing in on indictments of some of the embezzlers. My client thinks this will make them transfer the money again, maybe several times. We need to monitor offshore banks, look for the cash, then grab it. Can you get there first, Laura?”

  It was the first time she'd used my name.

  “Maybe,” I said. “It's just not that easy. I'm used to finding cash, but there are a ton of island countries that have banks. Some of them are really small islands.”

  “Yeah. But you find people by first finding how they spend money.”

  “You said there were two clients. This is the first. Who's the person you wanted me to meet?”

  “First I should explain a little more about who I am. Why I do what I do. You probably thought that I—no, that Bobby Guinness—had a very big operation going. But the truth is that I've focused almost entirely on very carefully selected scores. Maybe three a month. I've closed all the rest of them out. You're the only person left, as I told you. So when this second score was pitched to me, I was all ready to say no when the client told me it was connected to smuggling, probably headquartered in Nogales.”

  “Drugs?”

  “People. Women. I wanted to say no to the score, but. . . I've discovered that money isn't the prime motivator any more.”

  “I'm in this just for the money,” I said. “I know my motives. What are yours?”

  “Changing.”

  “From what?”

  “When my own army, my own government denied that they've killed me, I thought what the hell, if their morality is fucked, so is mine. That's how I got into the gray areas between what's digitally legal and what's not.”

  “Like me.”

  “I don't know if I'm like you,” she said. “I really don't know you at all. But with the cancer, I seem to have gotten back my ethics. My morality. My sense of being a mother, responsible for a teenage daughter's future. Plus, I've got no health insurance. Since the US government denies that I got this cancer from Desert Storm, they won't pay for my treatments, which cost a hell of a lot of money when you're uninsured.”

  “You haven't sold me yet.”

  “On the contract?”

  I nodded.

  She upended the envelope, squeezed the sides, and shook it. A small scrap of paper fell out and floated to the ground. I reached down to get it.

  LUNA13.

  “That's the user name Bobby gave me,” I said. “Sorry. Donald.”

  “Yeah,” she said, draining the Diet Coke can and getting up for another. “That's where you come in. I can tell you in excruciating detail anything you want to know about cancer. But computers? The Internet? Hacking into bank accounts? That's you, baby. Listen. I've got to move around, catch my breath.”

  I followed her into the kitchen.

  “Can I ask you another question?” I said.

  “Sure.”

  “I just wondered. . . does the chemo affect your judgment?”

  “You want to know if I'm wacky about these two scores?”

  “Wouldn't you ask the same question of me?”

  “The chemo seriously fucks up my head. Almost every day. But listen, if you take all those drugs you told me about, then your body, or maybe just your head, is screwed up in some way that you just push underneath your mind and don't think about. I'm no different.”

  “Fair enough,” I said after a while. “Fair enough.”

  “So. LUNA13. There must be millions of user names on the Internet. How do you go about finding the one name you want?”

  “Not easy at all. You got specific email addresses, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “A user name. . . it's not as specific as an email address. Or a website URL.”

  “Why not?”

  “Have you ever been in a chat room?”

  “Alex has. I think her current user name is boogie4ever.”

  “Exactly. People make up these user names, but you can't tell the players by their fantasies. Luna. Could be anything. Anybody.”

  “It's Spanish for moon,” she said after a while.

  “It's also a moth. Listen, Mari. It could take me weeks to find who the person is. Months. Maybe never.”

  “I understand that. If you want up-front money, let me know. One last thing. Remember Don asking if you knew somebody who could watch your back? Not just muscle, but street smarts? Probably knows Mexico? Speaks Spanish?”

  I immediately thought of Rey Villaneuva, and as I did so, she smiled.

  “I know who you're thinking about.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “I know you, Laura. I know a lot about you. I know about that nasty business in Tucson last year. I know about Mr. Villaneuva. Can you get him?”

  “Maybe.”

  She drained the second Diet Coke, glanced around the kitchen looking for my trash bucket, lined herself up, and tossed a jumpshot. The can clinked on the bucket's rim and clattered around on my tile floor.

  “Losing more muscles,” she said with a grimace. “A month ago, I'd've made that shot. So. There's one more thing. This little ride Heather has arranged for me. I've got a tip-off that I have to check out. I want you to come along. But first, can you find Villaneuva today? See if he'll help us?”

  “Maybe,” I said, my eyes down and to the right, realizing I knew where he was.

  “Outstanding!” she said.

  “How much does Alex know?” I said. “About what you do.”

  “Not much. But then she's a teenager. She picks up things from anywhere, so she might realize that I have a whole other life. In time, she'll learn. I've made my peace with the cancer, so I forget the impact it has on other people. Let's be up front. You want to know how bad my cancer is. You want to know how fast you've got to find this money, and you're about to tell me that it could take weeks or months.”

  I did want to know, but how could I ask such direct questions?

  “Well. Truth or dare. I've got six weeks at the outside. But even if I die, you'll be able to get the money for Alex. That's all that's important.”

  “That's all?” I said weakly.

  “Of course not,” she snapped.

  A series of muffled explosions echoed back and forth among the hills.

  “What the hell is that?” I said.

  “Shotgun. Do people hunt on this property?”

  Meg, I thought.

  “It's my friend. Sorry.”

  “My daughter is qualified in all kinds of weapons, but she wouldn't shoot anything without checking with me first.”

  “Your daughter shoots? Guns?”

  “After Columbine, I vowed my daughter would know everything I knew. Come on. Let's go see what they're shooting at.”

  Meg and Alex strolled toward us, the sun bright behind them, darkening their bodies into shadow puppets. But I could see Alex was cradling the shotgun as Meg gestured wildly with both hands.

  “Your friend's got a drug problem,” Mari said.

  “More than you know,” I answered. “She's out of control.”

  “Oh, I don't think so.” Mari narrowed her eyes agains
t the sun, raised her right hand like the brim of a cap over her eyes. “She wants you to think that, but I've seen a lot of people about to slide over the edge. They get a wild look, their eyes don't focus on things very well, they don't smile a lot. Your friend? Nope. She's playing some game I don't yet understand, but she's perfect for what I want to do.”

  “And that's what?” I asked.

  “You'll see. Better that I don't try to explain it. Just wait.”

  7

  “That kid really knows how to shoot.”

  “Jesus, Meg. How could you let her near your guns?”

  “Said no. Three times. The kid”s a natural. Reminds me of you.“

  “I don't even own a gun.”

  “Didn't mean that. She's great with guns. From listening to her talk nonstop, I guess she's great at computers.”

  “So?”

  “You're both outsiders, Laura.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Look at you. Living out in the middle of nowhere. Traveling off to jobs where you bunker up in some hotel, staring at computer screens.”

  “I'm happy with that.”

  “Laura, you've got a serious lack of social skills.”

  “Yeah,” I grinned. “But I'm getting better at it.”

  “Are you?” she said, with a long stare ending in a sudden quiver of her cheek muscles. “Whoa. Time for downers.”

  She uncapped a vial, dropped three small yellow pills into her right hand, and flung them into the back of her mouth. She swallowed with a shudder.

  “Valium. Takes the edge off.”

  We watched Mari and Alex ride over a hill and disappear, leading Meg's horse. Meg begged off riding back to Heather's stables after I promised to drive her there. I thought she was just weary of riding, but she had something else in mind.

  “You going down to see Rey?”

  “No,” I lied.

  “He's got this thing for you, Laura.”

  “Come on.”

  “He talks to me about it.”

  “Whatever.”

  “He's changed, Laura. You should give him a chance.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Hey. When was the last time you had sex?”

  I blushed and she grinned.

  “No big deal,” she said. “I'm screwing two guys right now. I want it. I need it.”

  “Not me.”

  “Not yet, you mean. So. You going to see him?”

  On my way to Nogales to see Rey about backup for the client meet later in the afternoon, I thought about everything Man had told me. I'd decided to at least meet the client, and then I'd decide whether to take the contracts.

  Or not.

  Meg was right about one thing. It wasn't so much a matter of lacking social skills as it was the need to acquire them. Meet people. Make a few friends. Move out of my casita, move into a neighborhood. Totally new thoughts for me.

  I blanked them out.

  Man had two clients, two possible contracts, two different kinds of work.

  Embezzlement and smuggling.

  The first thing was easy. I'd tracked so much money as it fluttered around the world that I knew just about every kind of Internet possibility for transferring funds.

  But smuggling.

  Living near the Mexican border, smuggling was a subject never more than day's news away from reality. Drugs were a major problem. But many smugglers were turning to people instead of drags. This summer, even though it was only July, more immigrants had died in the Arizona deserts than any previous year. And for the first time national media regularly featured stories about immigrants being smuggled from other continents into Mexico, across the US border, and to states in the northeast, the south, and even to isolated states like North Dakota.

  I couldn't figure Mari's interest in smuggling people. She'd told me a lot, but in some ways, she'd told me very little.

  Pulling into Nogales, driving mostly on autopilot, I almost blundered into the one-way street that funneled traffic into the border crossing point. I swerved abruptly into a no-parking zone, narrowly missing a Ford pickup loaded with laborers. They laughed at my driving, swearing good-naturedly after me and raising beer cans in salute.

  Ahead of me, past the US and Mexican customs plazas, the roadway into the Mexican city of Nogales slanted up through the notch between two hillside colonia neighborhoods. Groups of shacks and huts intermingled with sturdier houses, unpaved streets, power lines and sewers weaving randomly through the rough neighborhoods. Buenos Aires, one of the tougher colonias, lay directly in front of me. I'd heard that many smugglers operated out of the houses.

  It was the border that so threatened me. Once beyond it, my entire existence depended on totally different circumstances, and I wasn't sure I wanted to risk being involved, particularly if it meant I had to deal with the drug and smuggling cartels. Many Mexicans accepted their rough existence with a shrug. Fatalismo, they'd say. Life down here, it is what it is.

  Seeing a break in traffic, I pulled away from the curb and went looking for Rey.

  8

  “Drop your gun!” the man screamed, squeezing his left forearm around the neck of the young woman in front of him. Both of them wore cammie jumpsuits and hockey helmets with clear plastic visors.

  “Fucking drop your gun or I”ll fucking blow her fucking head off.“

  Gunshots echoed loudly throughout the old factory building. A uniformed policeman crouched in the Weaver stance, his body turned sideways at a thirty-degree angle, left hand underneath and supporting the grips of his paint gun. Hesitating, he bobbed and weaved as he tried to get a line of sight. The visor of his hockey helmet was misting up from sweat.

  “Oh, for Christ's sake,” Rey said with disgust. “Shoot the son of a bitch.”

  “I might hit her.”

  “He's going to kill her anyway. Shoot him before he shoots you.”

  The policeman still hesitated. Rey quickly drew his own paint gun and aimed it at the gunman, who immediately swung his own paint gun around the woman's right arm and fired. A large blob of red paint splattered onto the policeman's visor, knocking his head back. He staggered in obvious pain and dropped to his knees. Rey backed off ten feet and fired his paint gun at the policeman's left thigh. Blue paint splashed all over the leg and crotch of his cammies and he shouted in pain.

  “Ice it down,” Rey said.

  “Are you crazy?” the policeman shouted. “What did you do that for?”

  “Next time there's a hostage situation, you'll remember. The hostage is dead anyway. Forget about lawsuits, forget about looking for your best shot, just unload. What's your standard weapon?”

  The policeman ripped off his helmet and flung it across the room. He tried to stand up, but his leg gave out, and he slumped to the concrete floor. Rey knelt beside him and put a hand on his shoulder.

  “I know you don't like me much, right now. I know you're hurting. Just focus on this thought. You're alive.”

  “Ah, fuck you.”

  “And you're angry as hell. That's okay with me. Now come on, stand up.”

  He offered an arm, but the policeman refused assistance and tottered to his feet.

  “Enough of this shit,” he said.

  “Not a chance. We're running this again, from the top.”

  The gunman in cammies took off his helmet and began wiping the visor clean.

  “Captain,” the policeman said, “I can hardly stand up. Forget this shit.”

  “You can forget it, Officer. And you can forget working for the Pasadena Police Department. Make your choice, right now. Continue training and you continue your job.”

  The policeman's shoulders sagged, but he slowly nodded.

  “What's your standard issue sidearm?” Rey asked again.

  “Glock 17.”

  “God help you if you ever get in a real situation like this. In a high school, or an office building, whatever. But all the instincts ground into you from police academy, you've got to rebuild those
instincts right here. You can't hesitate, you can't think, you don't even squeeze off a double tap and then wait to fire again. Confronted with the assassin, you empty your magazine as fast as you can squeeze them off. I don't care if you're using the Glock or an assault rifle, you empty the magazine and reload. Did you ever see that movie Heat?”

  “What is this shit. You want me to watch a movie?”

  “Los Angeles movie,” Rey said patiently, ignoring the policeman's obvious anger. “Big bank robbery scene. Robert DeNiro, Val Kilmer, they don't hesitate firing their M-16s at policemen. Full automatic. New clip. Full automatic. Kill the son of a bitches, before they kill you. Got that? Watch the movie.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  “Watch it tonight,” the captain said. “Go to a video store, rent the movie.”

  “There's no VCR in my hotel room.”

  “I've got the movie on DVD,” Rey said. “Tonight, we can have a few beers, watch the movie. Okay?”

  “Whatever.”

  “All right,” Rey said. “I'll give you all fifteen minutes to reset, then we're running the whole scenario again.”

  As the three of them left the warehouse space, Rey carefully set his paint gun on the floor, avoiding me for a minute. He took a deep breath and faced me. A sudden spasm of gunfire echoed through the building and he held up a hand, palm toward me, and went to an electronic console to flick a switch. The gunfire stopped abruptly.

  “Sorry. Part of the training atmosphere. It's a tape loop. I forgot it was on.”

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey.”

  “Been a while.”

  “Eleven months.”

  “How you been?”

  “Ah, shit,” he said. “I've been dreaming about this day forever, and here you are, and all of a sudden I'm the same hopeless, nervous, useless son of a bitch I was at Miguel's funeral. Come on. Let's get out of here.”

  We ate burritos and chile rellenos at a rusted metal table outside Pico's Taco Delight on the Northside of Nogales. The restaurant was built into an old Texaco station, its ancient paved driveway cracked and spotted with patches of grass and weeds. Bougainvillea vines grew from a jury-rigged pico's sign built over the forty-year-old rooftop. The red bougainvillea flowers spilled down onto the gas pumps.