Stalking Moon

by Неизвестный

  The server brought three plates of appetizers, laid them carefully on our table.

  Twenty men and women were now chattering away near the fountain. Men and women servers passed between them with full trays of margaritas. An extraordinarily handsome man came up from the parking lot. Passing our table, he looked back at Nasso and then down at the appetizers.

  “Exquisite, these little quesadillas,” he said. “Tea-smoked duck, I'd say, wrapped up like holiday presents.”

  “Francisco,” Nasso said. “How are you?”

  “Well. Thank you. And who is this, Jake? Somebody from your office?”

  “Madeleine Hunter. Not from the office. She sells Mercedes. In Scottsdale.”

  “Delighted.”

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Francisco Angel Zamora.”

  He took one of my hands, raised it near his lips. His dark blue silken suit fit perfectly on his solid, well-muscled body. Unlike most of the men on the terrace, Zamora wore no tie, just a collarless white pima cotton shirt buttoned at the neck.

  “I have an S5000. Fully armored. Not many of them around, I'm told.”

  “I sold three last week,” I said, unable to resist.

  “Well, you know what they say about Phoenix. LA without the beach. I'd rather drive my C Class convertible, but too many people in Nogales would love my head out in the open so they could get me in their sights and blow me to pieces.”

  He went out onto the terrace.

  “The businessman.”

  “Right. Works with Medina. He also owns the biggest, newest, baddest maquiladora in Sonora. All kinds of electronic stuff. And he has the reputation of paying top wages, with health plans, frequent worker breaks, the whole nine. yards. A model Mexican entrepreneur. All kinds of connections with the new Fox government. Public campaigns against the drug cartels.”

  “He's coming back.”

  This time, I noticed that he wore absolutely no rings, no jewelry of any kind, not even a wristwatch. He pulled another chair over and sat between us as a server hovered. A frosted margarita glass appeared quickly in front of him, but he left it untouched.

  “Those women,” Zamora said. “Are you working that case?”

  “I'm thinking of working on the Atlantic salmon,” Nasso said, tapping the menu. “But I can't rule out the Tomato, Polenta, and Mushroom Souffle.”

  “If I can be of any help.”

  “Mr. Zamora,” I said. “Señor Zamora. What is a maquiladora?”

  “An assembly line. Parts come in, we put them together, we ship them out. Televisions, CD players, DVD players, MP3 players—well, you get the idea.”

  “When you said 'these women,' ” Jake asked Zamora, “who did you mean?”

  “The two who were murdered, of course.”

  “But nobody found their bodies,” I said.

  “It was on the news. You can't ignore CNN. Once they've shown dead bodies with no explanation, the entire United States news media is on the story all day, all night. Jake, aren't you working on that case?”

  “Did the women's names mean anything to you?” Nasso asked.

  “Hundreds of women work for me. I hardly know all their names, but I can certainly check our employment records.”

  “Please. That would be great.”

  “I'll have it done tomorrow.” He stood up. “Jake. Good to see you. Miss Hunter, I'll visit you in Scottsdale when I'm ready for another Mercedes.”

  He went back out onto the terrace.

  “Where did you come up with that name?” I asked. “Selling Mercedes?”

  “From The Sopranos. That crazy woman, Gloria, the one Tony met at the Mercedes dealership.”

  In the crowd, I saw Xochitl Gálvez move behind an elderly lady in a large pink hat. Xochitl came back into view, and Zamora appeared behind her and placed a hand on her left arm. She shrugged it off and walked off the terrace, passing our table without a glance at me. Jake saw me watching her.

  “Who's that?”

  “A waitress,” I said, not wanting to tell him about meeting Xochitl, or that I had another connection to LUNA13. “A server, I guess she's called. Some restaurant in Tucson, but I really don't remember where.”

  Dance appeared at the far end of the terrace, wearing a very pale blue tuxedo and a cranberry silk aviator's scarf around his neck. A woman bowed to him, whispered in his ear, and Dance began a soft-shoe routine. The crowd parted, and he swiveled to a moonwalk, headed toward the bar. The woman who had bowed turned. It was Pinau.

  “Fuck,” Nasso said.

  “That's Pinau Medina.”

  “Pinau Beltrán de Medina. Courtesan to the Zedillo brothers, whore to Mexico City and the regions beyond.”

  “She told me that she's a judge.”

  “She is.”

  “Part of your task force, she told me.”

  “Let's go.”

  “Aren't we eating?”

  “Why bother with dinner, when you've already had the appetizers.”

  In the parking lot, I saw Xochitl get into a taxi. We walked past Zamora's Mercedes, and Jake stroked the rooftop, drawing a finger down the heavily smoked glass of the driver's side window, which opened automatically.

  “Yes?”

  Zamora's driver had one hand resting on his throat, the fingertips moving just inside his suit jacket. Nasso rapped his knuckles on the rooftop, and the man's hand stopped moving.

  “I know you,” Nasso said. “Two years ago, I busted you over near Agua Prieta. You were a coyote then, and look at you now.”

  “America,” the driver said, carefully placing his hands on the steering wheel. “A wonderful land of opportunity.”

  Nasso led me to his battered Honda Accord and drove out of the parking lot.

  “Hungry?”

  “Atlantic salmon sounded good.”

  “There's this place on Country Club. Ensenada. They make these gulf shrimp dishes smothered in onions and garlic. Nothing costs more than ten bucks.”

  “Are you buying?”

  “America is buying. Tonight you get to wet your beak courtesy of my government expense account.”

  “I don't think so. Just take me home.”

  “Home? Sonoita? I don't think so. Back to Wheatley's and that pig. You saw the pig that lives next door? Imagine. What an incredible barbeque that pig would make.”

  “How was dinner?” Taá asked when I was inside her house.

  “We barely ate. Listen. Why did he take me there?”

  “He's got a thing for you.”

  “Oh, please.”

  “No. You're his ideal body type. Tall, thin, white teeth, great boobs, short hair.”

  “You're kidding me, right?”

  “Nope.”

  “Taá. Tell him I'm not interested. And don't tell me that you're interested.”

  “You're not my type,” she said with a smile. “I'll tell him.”

  “We met somebody there. A guy named Zamora. And Pinau Medina.”

  That got her attention immediately.

  “They were there together?”

  I couldn't remember if I'd actually seen them together or not.

  “They hate each other,” Meg said. “Hmmm. I'm going to have to find out why they were both there. Okay. I'm going to work, then to bed. Night.”

  “You expect me to sleep every night with these things on my legs?”

  “I've got handcuffs. Take your choice.”

  Handcuffed to a bed while I slept. What a dreadful concept.

  “I'm out of tampons,” Taá said when I woke up. “I've got to go to Walgreen's.”

  “Okay.”

  Thinking I was too nonchalant, I started the tea kettle.

  “You want anything?”

  “Maybe some more Mountain Dew? A few Snickers?”

  “Sure. What, uh, you're gonna be okay? I'll just be ten, fifteen minutes. Want to come with me?”

  “No. I'll just be writing a program,” I said. “Something to check chat room c
ontent. I was working it over last night, I've got too many lines of code in my head. If I leave, I'll forget what I was going to do.”

  “You're sure you'll be okay?”

  She clearly didn't want to leave me alone, but clearly had to go out.

  “Mountain Dew. And don't get the big bottles, it loses its fizz. A can or two. Half a dozen cans,” I added quickly. Anything to make her think I needed caffeine.

  “See you, then.”

  “See ya.”

  At my laptop keyboard, I began typing, running my left index finger over the screen to check the lines of programming code. She stood in the doorway for a moment, one hand resting on the frame, but I only saw her at the edge of my vision and kept focusing on the keyboard, frowning to make it look even more real. A few minutes later, I heard her car start up. I went to the front window, watched her unlock the gate, pull out onto the street, and get out to relock the gate. I stayed at the side of the window as she went down the street, stayed there for another five minutes, and coasted back, slowly, passing the front of the house. She tipped up her sunglasses and studied the house for at least a minute. Then she drove off again.

  I hurried into the backyard.

  The toolshed was locked with a padlock. Taá had created an obsessively neat border of stones around a bed of flowers. I took one of the stones and smashed at the padlock until it opened. Inside, I found the lopping shears I knew had to be there, since her hedges were as neatened as the row of stones.

  It took fifteen minutes, but I finally cut through the tracker anklet. I carried it into the kitchen and laid it on the table on top of my file folder. But I had no luck with the stun anklet and didn't want to risk getting knocked out just a few feet away from freedom. I suddenly realized that there must be a signal activated by a transmitter, hidden somewhere in the house, and operated by electrical power.

  Back outside again, I circled the house until I found the circuit breaker panel on the side of the house near the pig. Sophie snuffled at me through the fence, but the woman wasn't outside. Like the toolshed, the circuit breaker panel was secured by a padlock, which I also knocked open. I started turning off individual breakers and finally just threw the master power switch.

  Hoping that the transmitter wasn't controlled by batteries, I walked slowly to the front gate, holding my breath for the last three feet. Nothing happened. I crossed over the dirt sidewalk area just as a FedEx truck pulled up.

  “You Wheatley?” the driver said. I nodded. He gave me an envelope and had me sign his electronic tracker pad. While he drove off down the street, I headed the other way to collect my identity kits from Meg.

  22

  Walking to the first corner, as soon as I got onto the cross street, I began to run toward 6th Avenue, looking for a ride. Outside a bodega I saw a lowrider car, three vatos gathered around it as the driver worked his hydraulics to make the left side rock and roll. I had a twenty-dollar bill folded into my left palm. Without hesitating or talking to the vatos outside the car, I went straight to the driver's window and dropped the twenty on his lap.

  “I need a ride,” I said.

  He stared at me through his sunglasses, not touching the bill.

  “Just to a used car lot,” I said. “Take me to one, I'll give you another twenty.”

  “What car lot?” he said, not sure how to read me. “Why should I do this?”

  “I need to buy an older pickup truck.”

  “Ford? Chevy? What you talking, lady?”

  “I don't care what kind. Just a truck. You find me the used car lot that's got one, let's say I give you another twenty. Sixty dollars, just to drive me mere. Now.”

  “Cool,” he said. “Show me the extra forty. How I know you got it? How I know you're not going to carjack me?”

  He smiled at his own joke, nodding at his friends who drifted around behind me.

  “Uh uh. You get me there, I get you the money.”

  “Reason I'm asking, why go to a car lot? Fernando there, that dude with the bandanna, he's looking to get rid of his '85 Chevy shortbed. You got the cash, you can deal with him direct. He signs over the registration slip. You got it, no dealer fees, no law, you're on your way free and clear.”

  “Fernando? You really got a pickup to sell?”

  Fernando wore paint-stained coveralls over bare arms and shoulders. He nodded, shyly motioned his head towards a battered brown and gray pickup parked at the end of the lot. I walked straight to it, ignoring the vatos as I raised the hood.

  “Start it up for me,” I said to Fernando, who reached through the closed door and twisted a key ring. The engine ran smoothly, with not the slightest burr of trouble.

  “I take care of it myself,” he said. “It's got almost two hundred thousand miles on it, but I put in new valves, new rings, change the oil every three thousand.”

  “It's really yours?”

  He got behind the wheel and opened the glove box, taking out the Arizona registration slip. “I'm a senior at the university. Sociology major. Need to sell this for fall tuition. Twenty-four hundred I'm asking.”

  “That's an honest price,” I said.

  “What do you think I am?” he said cynically. “Some street thug, some no good Mexican vato halfass car thief? You got the cash, or are you just jerking me around?”

  “No. The money is real. You just have to drive me to get it.”

  “Yeah, right. I give you a ride, drop you off, you get a free taxi service, I'm stuck with nothing but a busted promise. How do I know you're not fucking with me?”

  “That's a very good point. Well, the promise is real. But a promise is as good as it gets unless you take me there. I guess you'll just have to trust me.”

  “Okay. But they ride along behind us.”

  “Not a problem. I just need to make a phone call.”

  I suddenly realized I had no money and no cell phone, but noticed a public phone inside the bodega.

  “Give me some change.”

  “Lady, you're really something. You're gonna give me twenty-four hundred dollars, but you want to borrow some small change?”

  “Just enough to make a phone call.”

  He shrugged, fumbled in his jeans pocket, and dumped a handful of coins into my outstretched hand. I called Meg's private line.

  “Ready,” I said when she answered.

  “Give me fifteen minutes to set it up,” she said, giving me an address.

  Meg had left my package at a house in central Tucson, an expensive area just north of the Arizona Inn, with large single-story houses of four- to five-thousand square feet.

  Fernando navigated the complicated neighborhood street plan, his friends tailing us in the muscle car, until we found the address. The house was no different than its neighbors, the landscaping no different, no bars on any windows and no visible security precautions. I didn't even bother going to the front door.

  A row of large clay ollas lined the gentle curve of the driveway, each olla filled with three-foot-high stalks of Mexican honeysuckle, the dirt underneath carefully groomed. Several hummingbirds flitted among the flowers, one swooping down to rest in the stretch of zebra aloe snaked between the ollas. A gardener came around the corner of the house, a bamboo rake over his shoulder, headphones on and plugged into a Walkman at his waist. He stopped to look us over, then idly raked underneath the aloe.

  “Ah, come on!” Fernando said. “That dude's gonna make us vamanos.”

  The gardener seemed to be singing a few lyrics of the song he was listening to, but I saw a microphone clipped onto his blue denim work shirt collar and knew he was connected by cell phone to Meg. He moved slowly between the ollas, stopping briefly at the third from the end to wipe his neck before walking out of sight. I hurried to the olla and gently parted the greenish honeysuckle stalks. Some of the inch-long orange flowers flecked off as I twisted them this way and that until I saw the bright metal cap from a Dos Equis beer bottle. Scooping out dirt with my hands, I found a large Ziploc baggie, and insi
de that, another baggie that contained four manila envelopes.

  Opening one of the envelopes, I counted out five five-hundred-dollar bills and took them back to the pickup, laying them on the hood and placing a small pebble to hold the bills secure against the slight morning breeze.

  “Lady. I don't have a hundred to give back to you.”

  “Just sign the slip over to me. What are you studying?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Why do you want to be a sociologist?”

  “I actually want to be a lawyer. Want to work in Legal Aid, help these illegals that La Migra hassles all the time.

  “That's cool.”

  “Let me clean the junk out of the pickup bed.”

  He motioned his three friends to help remove several old plastic milk crates and a large burlap bag full of empty paint cans, but I stopped them.

  “No,” I said, realizing it added to the image of a working-class pickup. “Leave it all in there, I'll dump it when I've got time.

  “What game you running, lady?”

  The four of them edged around me, boxing me against the step side box near the driver's side door. One of them raised a hand, and the gardener came around the other side of the house with a garden hose, the water running in a long, lazy three-foot arc as he watered some plants. Incredibly, one of the hummingbirds flew to the bottom of the arc of water and seemed to walk up the stream, drinking until he reached the nozzle of the hose. The gardener stood like a statue, but his eyes were on us, not the hummer.

  “Wow,” one of the vatos said, and in that instant all four of them stood transfixed, like six-year-old boys. “Did you see that?”

  “Are we cool, Fernando?” I said, and the hummer flew away.

  “Yeah.” He stuffed the bills into his jeans. “So, like, how come you want a beatup old pickup like this?”

  “I'm going on a sociology field trip.”

  “Oh yeah? What kinda people are you studying?”

  “Single women who can't live a quiet life.”

  The vato with the funny car drifted over.

  “Where's my forty?”

  “Ask Fernando,” I said, cranking the shift into first gear. “He's got an extra hundred.”