"It was all right," Haydon said. "How about you?"
"Got home late, got up early." He was freshly shaved and smelled of Mennen's aftershave. Sometime within the last couple of days he had gotten a new haircut. He looked squeaky-clean, the tips of his brown boots shiny from beneath the bottom of his brown suit pants. But his fresh appearance disguised the effects of a night that probably had yielded only a couple of hours' sleep. Haydon knew without asking that before going home last night, Dystal had made a grim trip to the morgue.
"I'm gonna set a meeting for the whole bunch of us at eight," Dystal said. "We got a lot of catching up to do. Since you're not going to have a complete report till later on, I'd appreciate it if you'd just get up and tell your story." Dystal sipped at the coffee tentatively, looking at Haydon for a reaction. "A to Z. Everybody's gonna want to know, and everybody needs to know. We got nearly thirty-five detectives on this shift who'll be locked into this thing till something breaks. This way you get it over with in one dose and all the guys'll get the facts they need. You do that?"
"Okay," Haydon said. Dystal was right. "Have you got a cigarette?"
Dystal pulled the white pack of generics out of his shirt pocket and shook one up for Haydon. He lit it with his chunky Zippo, which still snapped smartly when Dystal closed it despite being so old there were only traces of the nickel plating still left on the case. The bulldozer insignia welded to one side was nearly smooth from years of rubbing against pocket change. The cigarette was terrible, as Haydon knew it would be, but he inhaled deeply anyway.
"Thanks for calling Nina last night," he said.
"I didn't think she needed to be surprised by that," Dystal said. "It's tough."
What he really meant was, he'd wanted her to be prepared for whatever state of mind Haydon might be in when he got home.
Lapierre and Nunn came in together and said good morning. Since Lapierre had been put in charge of coordinating the two investigations, Dystal told him what he thought he wanted to do about having Haydon speak to the other detectives.
"That's good," Lapierre said, looking at Haydon with his calm, smoky eyes. "We need to put everything in perspective as soon as possible. Robert and I are working on a list of players, and their relationships. Stuart, if you'll look over the list in a minute we can have it duplicated in time to hand out at the meeting. Can you think of anything else we could give them?"
Haydon shook his head. "I'll try to have the report before I leave today." He heard the division room filling with the day-shift detectives. By now everyone had heard about Mooney, from other detectives or on the news, and the usual noise that took over in the mornings was decidedly subdued.
"Okay," Dystal said, straightening up. "I'm gonna get busy. I'll make the announcement over the intercom in a few minutes. See you in a little bit."
When he turned away, he pulled the office door halfway closed behind him.Without saying anything else, Lapierre and Nunn turned to their work as Haydon swiveled around and faced the computer terminal. For the next forty-five minutes he didn't stop working on the report except to go over the list that Lapierre had mentioned.
At eight o'clock, everyone filed into the meeting room. All the desk chairs were full, and a few stood or squatted on the floor against the walls. Dystal said some words about how the investigation would be conducted, and then turned it over to Haydon, who began relating the essentials of his and Mooney's activities from the previous morning until last night. He tried to anticipate questions by relating the sequence of events in considerable detail, as if he were reciting the report he would later type. The detectives listened quietly, and Haydon knew that each of them was following his story point by point, looking for the fatal mistakes that could have prevented Mooney's death. If he had been in their place he would have been doing the same thing, not as an indictment, but as a kind of self-test. If it had been them and their partners instead of Haydon and Mooney, would it have ended the same way? If chance was the only guilty party, which of them would have been talking this morning and which would have been in the morgue?
When Haydon was through, Dystal asked if there were questions, and when there were none Haydon sat down. Lapierre got up and started handing out copies of the list.
"The first thing I ought to tell you," Lapierre said, "is that we didn't get a hit on any of these names from the computers in our narcotics division, or from the DEA's computers. Well, that's not quite right. The chauffeur of the limousine had a couple of marijuana busts, but that's it. Some of us were betting on leads in that area, but we're not going to get them. That covers the DEA files in Mexico too. They just don't have any records of those names. Something may come up later, under aliases maybe, but as of now, nothing.
"However, the cache of literature we found last night in the house at the Belgrano address seems to be pointing us in another direction. The next thing we need to do is to get with the FBI records, and conduct a thorough search on radical right-wing political groups to determine if there are any connections here. The neofascist type of propaganda is familiar to us by now, but the difference in this instance is that it was all printed in Spanish, the target of the assassination is a Mexican national, and it's possible the shooters are also." Haydon sat through the next hour only half listening to Lapierre's measured and methodical briefing followed by assignments to the various teams of detectives. Although he was himself presenting a controlled, even detached, appearance, he resented the cultural practice that called upon them to react to Mooney's death with a businesslike demeanor. He was as guilty as the next man regarding this, and he knew that Mooney would have done the same. Death was a complicated event for the survivors. If there was a proper way to deal with it, he did not know it. Even in the most sophisticated societies, perhaps more so in sophisticated societies, death remained the single most confusing event in the human experience. The one true disappearing act for which there could never be an explanation, or any real understanding.
He had finished the report, been debriefed by the DA's investigators, by the detectives from internal affairs, and by the shooting-team investigators. Now he had gone across the squad room and was looking through the glass wall into Bob Dystal's office. Dystal was trying to get off the telephone, and motioned for Haydon to come in.
"Allrighty," Dystal was saying. "You bet. Uh-huh. You bet. Appreciate it. Talk to you later." He hung up the telephone and leaned back in his swivel chair in a kind of controlled stretch that made the chair creak and pop as if it were about to explode. "Sit down, Stu," he said, and he rubbed his face with his thick, chunky hands.
Haydon came in, closed the door behind him, and took the chair in front of Dystal's desk. He was tired, too. The day had been interminable.
"You've talked to the DA's people, and the others?"
Dystal nodded. "I don't think there's goin' to be any problems."
"How long?"
"A few days, I guess."
"At a desk?"
"Yeah." Dystal looked at Haydon. "They're a little squeamish, Stu. All the shooting that's been going on. They don't want to give the media anything to rake them over the coals about. Being real cautious on this."
Haydon sat there a moment. Dystal pulled out a drawer and propped a boot on it. He picked up a rubber band, looped his big thumbs inside, and started strumming it with his ring fingers.
"What's on your mind?" he asked slowly.
"I'm going to make a request for a brief leave of absence."
Dystal studied him from under his eyebrows, fiddling with the rubber band. "Leave of absence," he said.
"That's not out of line under the circumstances."
"No," Dystal said, shaking his head a little. "I don't think anybody'd see it as being outta line." He shot the rubber band into the metal trash can with a hollow thunk. "Except maybe me."
Haydon waited.
"Somehow I can't see you wanting to take a breather just now," Dystal said. "How come I don't think you're just going to sit this thing out?"
"I just need to be away from it a few days," Haydon said.
"You mean you just don't need to be tied to a desk a few days," Dystal countered. "A kinda crucial time for this investigation."
Haydon didn't say anything. He was giving Dystal his chance to play it by the rules, take the request at face value.
The big lieutenant's face seemed suddenly heavy, and weary. The pressure and the lack of sleep caught up with him in a physical change that took place as Haydon watched. Dystal brought his booted foot down off the desk drawer, and he turned in his chair to face Haydon.
"Listen to me, Stu." He stopped, his eyes sagging. "You gonna make me do this? Have I gotta tell you what you're doing? You're gonna be stepping all over us, or we're gonna be stepping all over you. The first time one of the guys comes across your tracks he's got to report it. We're gonna have to haul you in. I mean, I can't even think about this it's so stupid."
"I need a few days' leave of absence," Haydon repeated, as if Dystal had never said anything. "I feel emotionally and physically exhausted," he said, using the rote phrasing he had heard in the department's bureaucratic handling of such cases. "It would do me good. I could get something from Fry to corroborate that. They're going to want me to talk to him anyway."
Dystal grabbed a piece of paper that had been lying on his desk and wadded it up, staring at it, thinking. He wadded it thoroughly, tightly, into a small compact ball, pressed it and molded it with his blunt fingers in the palm of his hand until the muscles in his massive forearms rippled and bulged. His jaw muscles worked just as hard. Then he stopped, opened his hand, and let the marble-sized pellet roll onto the desk, where it came to rest against the clear Lucite ashtray in the shape of Texas with the rattlesnake rattles embedded in the bottom.
He looked up.
"I'll do the paperwork for it before I leave tonight." He started to say something else, but stopped. Then he said, "I'm gonna trust you to let me know something when I need to know it."
"If I hear anything," Haydon said.
CHAPTER 19
HAYDON walked directly out of Dystal's office and through the squad room to the third-floor corridor. He didn't look left or right, didn't speak to anyone, didn't give anyone a chance to speak to him. He took the stairs instead of the elevator, the gritty sound of his quick-paced footsteps amplified in the emptiness of the stairwell. Staring straight ahead, he strode out the rear door of the department headquarters and into the flat heat of afternoon, hurrying across the asphalt of the motor pool service yard and into the parking garage. The elevator door didn't open fast enough, didn't close fast enough. The ride was agonizingly slow. He didn't wait for the air conditioner to cool down before he wheeled the Vanden Plas into the down ramp of the garage, his tires screeching in the tight turns.
Not until he was out of the garage, and headed downtown on Washington, did he feel any sense of relief from the tightening in his chest. If he hadn't been through this before, he would have thought he was having a heart attack. But he knew himself, to that extent at least, though it had taken him years to recognize the signs for what they really were.He had felt the first twinges of claustrophobia while sitting at the computer terminal finishing the report. It had been difficult to concentrate on the details, and several times he had found himself simply staring at the screen, unaware of what he had written. Before he had finished, he knew he would not be able to continue within the framework that the department inevitably would impose on him. By the time he walked into Dystal's office the decision was behind him. As far as he was concerned, he was out of it. It had taken a tremendous amount of self-control to get through the conversation. He wanted out from under the restrictions of the department. If Dystal hadn't gone along with him, he would have resigned. It was suddenly that important to him. Within half an hour's time, it had become an absolute necessity.
Even in the four-o'clock migration that had already begun to curdle downtown traffic, he was less than five minutes away from the RepublicBank Center, which was only six blocks away across Buffalo Bayou, and the Gulf Freeway. He pulled into the garage entrance, took his ticket from the buzzing dispenser, and started looking for a parking place.
Again the sound of his own footsteps followed him across the granite paving of the northern arcade of the main floor. From a pay telephone he called Frank Siddons's law firm on the forty-eighth floor and asked for Mitchell Garner's office.
Garner was a young man in a hot field. He specialized in international law, and together with another attorney represented all the firm's clients involved in Mexican litigation. Haydon's father, whose own legal practice involved a great deal of Mexican law, had been responsible for convincing Frank Siddons nearly eight years earlier that he should acquire some Mexican specialists for his own firm. The first man Siddons hired, Edward Rhodes, had been an authority on Mexican business law, and then in 1980 Garner had been hired away from a political position with the State Department because of his expertise in Mexican politics and criminal law. After Haydon's father died, both Rhodes and Garner had helped Haydon with the legal complications of his father's considerable Mexican involvements, as well as handling the periodic paperwork involving Gabriela's nieces and nephews.
When Garner came on the telephone, he immediately expressed his sympathy.
"I was eating breakfast and flipped on the television," he said. "Usually I don't do that, but I'd just told Janice . . ." He paused awkwardly, as if embarrassed. "How are you holding up, Stuart?" he asked.
"I'm all right," Haydon said. "But I need to talk to you."
"Of course, sure. Come on up."
"I'd rather not. I don't feel like seeing Frank right now, or anyone else, really. Could you come down?"
"Sure. Where are you?"
"I'm on the ground floor now, but why don't you meet me on the bridge at the third level?"
"You want to go somewhere we can sit down?"
"No. The bridge would be best."
"I'll be right there."
Garner appeared at Haydon's side without speaking. He was breathing noticeably, his chunky frame beginning to take its toll even in the short brisk walk along the corporate corridors. His blond, prematurely thinning hair was cut short, still reminiscent of the conservative influences of Washington. He wore only white or pale blue shirts with button-down collars and striped ties. In the last year or so he had ventured into braces for his trousers. They looked good on him, suiting his style and manner.
"I'm sorry to get you down here like this," Haydon said, turning to Garner. "I appreciate your taking the time."
"No trouble." Garner tried to hide a hard swallow.
Haydon saw the curiosity in Garner's eyes.
"I'll get right to the point," Haydon said, glancing again out over the space. "The address on Chicon where Ed was killed last night was the site of a killing that Ed and I had caught early yesterday morning. A man was found lying on the sidewalk outside the gates of this large old house that appeared to be unoccupied. After we made that scene, I ran by the county clerk's office to find out who had been paying the taxes on the place. It turned out that for the last four years they were paid by a corporation. The Teco Corporation."
Haydon thought Garner's eyes narrowed slightly at this, but he didn't stop.
"Last night, when we got inside the house, we found some interesting literature in one of the bedrooms. It looked like radical right-wing material, even fascist. Anti-Jewish, antihomosexual, anticommunist. Pretty strong propaganda. In Spanish. The stuff was printed in Guadalajara, Jalisco. I got in touch with the secretary of state's office in Austin, and found out that the corporation was registered four years ago. All the officers are Mexican citizens. A couple live in Guadalajara, a couple in Colima, several in Mexico City." He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Garner. "The registering agent is a Mexican-American here in Houston: Enrique Cordero Rulfo."
Garner looked at the list of officers. His face was set, and Haydon had the impressi
on the names weren't of as much interest to him as something he had already heard.
After reading each name, Garner shook his head and looked at Haydon. "I've never heard of the Teco Corporation," he said, "but
I think I know what it is." He looked at the piece of paper, not seeing it, but thinking. He folded it, unfolded it, ran his fingers along the crease. Watching him, Haydon realized he had never before noticed that his friend's nails were manicured.
Garner seemed unsure how to begin. He turned square to the railing and stared straight across through the massive windows that reached up from the floor, looking out onto Louisiana Street.
"That attack on the limousine is tied to this, too, isn't it?" he
said.
"It's almost certain."
"The news said they got a Mexican named Sosa, Sosa Real."
"That's right. You know him?"
"I think I might."
Haydon wondered how many Sosa Reals Garner "might" know. He decided not to say anything about Gamboa.
"I don't know, Stuart. I'll just tell you what comes immediately to mind. Okay?" He frowned thoughtfully. "The states of Guadalajara and Colima are centers for some of the most right-wing political thinking in all of Mexico. In Guadalajara, much of this attitude grows out of the Autonomous University, which was founded by conservative, wealthy Catholics decades ago. The university system there is dedicated to inculcating its students with right-wing philosophy. Nothing wrong with that, naturally. The National University in Mexico City more than balances it out by leaning all the way in the other direction. However, in reality, the university in Guadalajara is much more than an educational system with a conservative philosophy. It's been charged that it receives funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the CIA, and has been a haven, a sort of safe house, for many of Anastasio Somoza's infamous guardia. It is also the seedbed, the center, of a secret order, called los tecos."
"I don't know the word," Haydon said.
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