Spiral

by David L Lindsey

  Halfway through the oysters Rockefeller, Rubio signaled again. There was no code to indicate any need for communication, so Blas continued eating. He concentrated on the food, though it was awkward with only one hand. His left wrist was too sensitive even to use fork. He tried to remember a similar meal eaten under more pleasant circumstances. He remembered a similar fish, not red snapper, but something like it, in a beautiful little restaurant along the maleco in Montevideo. And the shrimp? There were memorable shrimp in Veracruz and, oddly, in a tiny fishing village called Monkey River Town in Belize, or at that time British Honduras. But it was also the place where he had tasted the worst liquor he had ever swallowed. Remembering, he sipped the Dewar's with greater pleasure.

  He must have played the game extremely well, for he did not know if he had missed an all-clear signal or if the one coming across now was simply late, but when the static of the new transmission broke over the radio, a cold stream flowed down his neck and back before he even comprehended the meaning. The fish stuck in his throat. He felt hot, stunned. Rubio was screaming: Negrete! Negrete Bias grabbed the radio and bolted outside, stood beside the palms the courtyard, panting, staring at the radio as if he would be able see what was happening too. Rubio screaming: Negrete! The single word over and over, almost drowned out by the roar of the car engine, the gunfire, the screeching tires, and the collision. Then men shouting followed by the piercing, unwavering electronic squeal of a smashed radio. It all had happened in seconds. Only seconds.XXX

  Chapter 50

  HAYDON had already gone by the office of Richland Charter Flights to take care of the charges and was waiting at the side of the tarmac when the small Learjet touched down. He watched as it turned in the late-afternoon light and taxied back toward him, its lights blinking and the falling sun throwing a fiery streak the length of its polished aluminum fuselage. Haydon had parked the Vanden Plas on the aircraft's approach to its hangar, and he waited with the sedan's emergency lights pulsing. The pilot pulled the sleek jet around until its wingtip almost touched the Jaguar's left front fender, and settled its engines. Haydon could see people moving behind the portholes, and then the side door lowered onto the asphalt. Renata Islas emerged first, carrying her briefcase, followed closely by Garner.

  "Good flight?" Haydon asked, taking her arm and opening the rear car door for her.

  "Beautiful," she said.

  Garner went around to the passenger side of the front seat as Haydon closed Renata's door and waved his thanks to the pilot. Haydon got in the car, started the motor, and drove across the tarmac to the exit gates. Turning onto Telephone Road, they headed for the Gulf Freeway that would take them straight into downtown.

  "Any problems at all?" Haydon asked, lowering his sun visor as he merged with the traffic on the freeway.

  "None," Renata said, opening her briefcase and taking out a manila envelope. "Consuelo was waiting for us. Look at these."

  Garner took the photographs from her and handed them to Haydon one at a time. There were four of them. Renata sat forward in her seat and looked around Haydon's shoulder, commenting on each photograph as Haydon looked at it.

  "This first one is the oldest. His senior-year picture at the Autonomous University of Guadalajara. Very handsome," she affirmed, and he was. He had a strong, firm-jawed face with a fairly low hairline and thick dark hair. He smiled easily at the camera, his teeth as white and straight as a film star's. His upper lip was long and almost full, with clean, delineated margins like those of a marble sculpture. His nose was a little broader than Haydon had imagined it, and his eyes were soft.

  "This one," Renata said, as Garner handed him the second one, "is about the same time. Consuelo had a seminar with him their first year in graduate school. This was taken on the terrace of one of the buildings at the university. The four other people are friends, of no importance here. Consuelo took the picture."

  The friends were having lunch around a wrought-iron table with a tile top. It was in the fall, perhaps, for they were all wearing light sweaters. The five students had lined up behind the table and had linked their arms together. Bias was on the end next to the balustrade that overlooked a campus mall with trees. Everyone was smiling. Bias was not as amused as the others.

  "This next was taken at a family gathering at the Medrano home in Guadalajara. This is Tico, Bias's older brother, and Jorge, the younger one. His two sisters with their husbands, his mother, and Apolinar. The others are cousins, aunts, uncles."

  The setting seemed to be in a garden or courtyard of the home. There were colonial arches of a colonnade in the background, a portion of a sloping tiled roof. The family had arranged themselves in several rows for the photograph, and though it was a relaxed occasion, Haydon thought the grouping of persons was interestingly formal. In the center was the unmistakable presence of Apolinar and his wife, Solana. The two daughters sat cross-legged on the grass in front of their parents with their husbands kneeling behind. Tico and Jorge stood on either side of their mother, each with an arm around her shoulders. Bias stood beside his father, both men with their hands clasped correctly behind their backs. The rest of the people seemed to be arranged in their own family groups around the Medranos. Haydon looked at Bias. Although his brothers and sisters were dressed in casual clothes, Bias and his father wore suits and ties. Apolinar also wore a stern expression, as if he was well aware of his burdensome position as patriarch of all those around him. Bias's expression as not so easily interpreted. The eyes which had seemed soft in the earlier picture now seemed to bear a look more akin to melancholy. His posture seemed to indicate that he was a part of the picture only reluctantly. Every person in the photograph was smiling, except the bullying father and his compliant son.

  "This one I did not expect to get," Renata said. "It is the most recent. His wedding picture, 1980."

  That was all she said, as if the picture spoke for itself. There were only the two of them in the photograph, Bias and his new wife, standing on the flight of steps of a church with its gothic arched doors vaguely visible in the background. Bias was dressed very formally in gray striped trousers and black cutaway. His bride's wedding dress was traditionally long-trained and veiled, the veil pushed up and back for the photograph. She was a handsome girl, blond and rather tall, at least as tall as he was. Both of them were smiling, of course, but Bias's smile was not genuine. His eyes, which in the past had been first soft, then melancholy, now were blank, devoid of any kind of expression at all. They could have been glass.

  "How old was he in this picture?" Haydon asked.

  "Twenty-six," Renata said. "What do you think?" she asked as Haydon handed the wedding picture back to her over his shoulder.

  "Maybe we should use two of them," he said.

  "Which two?" she asked. She seemed to be curious about more than just his choice of selection.

  "I'd say the one on the terrace, and the wedding picture."

  "Yes," she said quickly. "I think those are the ones."

  "The school picture is too old," Haydon explained, "and I'm afraid the one with the family is too small. By the time his face was blown up to a useful size, it would be too grainy."

  "Yes," Renata said, sitting back. "Yes, I think so."

  "What's your opinion, Mitchell?" Haydon asked, looking over at Garner. He had been unusually quiet since they had arrived at the airport.

  "I agree," Garner said. "I think he could be recognized from those, unless he's undergone a dramatic change."

  "Good. Then we'll go with those," Haydon said, and he glanced once more at Garner, who was looking straight ahead into the approaching columns of city lights.

  There wasn't time for Haydon to drop Garner and Renata Islas at his house before he delivered the pictures to the photography lab at police headquarters on Riesner Street. Haydon asked them if they wanted to wait for him in the homicide division offices, but they chose to wait in the lobby instead. Haydon delivered the pictures, and made sure copies would be taken immediately to th
e newspapers and television stations along with the artist's sketches of Rubio Arizpe. The sketches and photographs were to be accompanied by a press release and a formal HPD request that the pictures be considered urgent public-service items. This request was hardly necessary. The media were starving for information about the investigation.

  Haydon made a quick pass by Dystal's office and learned that ballistics had determined that the casings in the garage where Ferretis's body had been found had not been fired by the Mac-10s that had been in the possession of the Gamboa guards they now held in custody. A further indication to Dystal that the missing Negrete and his two companions were indeed the strong-arms within the group. Fingerprinting had no success in matching the few prints found at the Waites' with the men in custody.

  The DEA and FBI were still responding negatively. They were aware of the existence of los tecos, but they had nothing in their files definitely tying them to specific death-squad activities. There were plenty of rumors of teco involvement in all kinds of political intrigue, including narcotics trafficking by wealthy politicians, but very little of it had actually been confirmed. Basically, it was the same kind of information Haydon had gotten first from Mitchell Garner. And there was nothing in their files about Bias Medrano, Rubio Arizpe, or Ireno Lopez.

  "Fact is," Dystal said, looking up at Haydon from his creaking office chair behind his desk, "when they see these pictures, they're not gonna be satisfied with just taking information we pass on to them. They're gonna want to know your sources."

  "I won't do that," Haydon said.

  "Well, I didn't think you would," Dystal said. "But I thought you ought to be looking for it. They're gonna be all over you, like chickens on a June bug."

  "Have you heard anything from Gamboa?" Haydon asked, changing the subject.

  "Not a peep, but I imagine they're walking around the house with their guns cocked."

  "They did check the house and grounds for explosives?"

  Dystal nodded. "When they picked up Negrete's boys they took dogs and electronics through. Nothing."

  "How do you think they're going to use it?" Haydon said, turning around and looking out the plate-glass window in Dystal's office.

  The squad room seemed no more busy than normal. The investigation had gotten organized. The work was being done, but it didn't show anymore.

  "I don't see how they could," Dystal said. "I think they know they've screwed up and they've pulled out. They may get him sooner or later, but it's not going to be here. Not now."

  "I'm not quite that sure," Haydon said. "But it seems they would be running a tremendous risk to go ahead with it after those pictures hit the news tonight."

  "You'll get me something in writing on Bias's background?" Dystal reminded him.

  "In the morning."

  "Along with Miss Moreno's stuff," Dystal said.

  Haydon, already walking out the door, nodded, waved, and kept going.

  On the way to her house with Haydon and Mitchell, Renata Islas assured Haydon that she was not in the least afraid to go back to her bungalow in the little compound off Canal Street. She was in a good humor, saying that she felt better than she had in years because she felt she had made some real progress in striking a blow at the tecos. Haydon assured her he would keep her apprised of what was happening, and thanked her for making the hurried and tiresome round-trip flight to Guadalajara. He went into her house with her and insisted on waiting in her living room while she checked the rest of the house. She laughed at him, saying that she had been going into her house alone for five years, and that tonight was no different. But when she came back into the living room from checking the rest of the house, her smile seemed somehow sad. Haydon did not think it was the dim lighting that made her eyes sparkle as she thanked him and said that it was good to have a man care in that way again.

  Haydon walked back to the Vanden Plas, got in, and started the motor. "All right," he said, turning on the headlights and pulling away from the curb. "You've been incredibly patient, Mitchell. What's the matter?"

  Garner turned to him and said, "How many people knew we were going to Guadalajara, Stuart?"

  Haydon felt immediately uneasy. "Just us, and Dystal. I had to let him know. Why?"

  "We picked up tails at the Guadalajara airport," Garner said. "You know I'm no expert on this sort of thing, but I spotted these two guys on a fluke. When we got to the airport there were no flights coming in or leaving. The place was relatively deserted. In fact, I probably wouldn't have spotted them if Renata and her friend hadn't decided to go to the rest room as soon as we got there. I let them walk off, wanting to stretch my legs a little, and then I immediately thought better of letting them go off alone, so I started after them. They were just on the other side of the concourse, and I saw which corridor they were heading for. I was so far behind them there were several people in between us.

  "It just so happened that everyone turned off before the women got to the rest rooms except this one guy who thought, I'm sure, that they were heading for the exit at the far end of the corridor. He was closing the gap behind them when they suddenly turned into the rest room. He walked on by, then made a U-turn and stopped. I realized he'd been following them, and was a little flustered that he had seen me make him. I stopped too, and looked behind me in time to see a second man stop and turn back to a water fountain a few steps away. There were only the three of us in the corridor. The man who had been following the women simply looked at me, and the one at the water fountain finished his drink and then headed back to the concourse. The other guy and I stayed where we were until Renata and Consuela came out. They were so busy talking they didn't even notice him, and the three of us walked back to the concourse. The man in the corridor didn't follow us directly, but let the second one pick us up as we entered the larger part of the airport. It was an accident that I made them, but I'm sure of what I saw."

  "They were Mexicans?"

  "One was. The other was Anglo."

  "How old was the Anglo?"

  Garner hesitated, thinking. "I don't know. I guess . . ."

  "Young enough to have been Elkin?"

  "No," Garner said quickly. "No. He was early forties. He couldn't have been."

  "That's all that happened, just what you've told me?"

  "That's it."

  Haydon drove in silence a little way. "I don't know what to think," he said. "But as soon as we get home I'm going to have a stakeout put on Islas's house. I don't know how to figure this. I have a feeling we're just on the edges of this thing. And I think that's where we're going to stay."

  Chapter 51

  BLAS drove. It was the only thing he knew he could do and still feel as if he were in control. If he sat still, he would have the tendency to think they knew precisely where he was. He knew that, because it had happened to him before. More than once. So he drove, his swollen wrist throbbing in his lap.

  He was sweating profusely, but it had nothing to do with the temperature. The new rental car had a superb air conditioner, which he turned on high. But it wasn't the heat. It was a cold sweat and it began as he stood by the palms at Latouche's, listening to Rubio screaming Negrete! Negrete! Negrete! and then the car crash, and the scream of the radio. He felt as if he were being lowered into the Pacific, into the green waters off Cabo Corrientes, down, down to thirty-three feet, where the pressure was twice what it was on the surface, down to sixty-six feet, where the pressure was three times what it was on the surface, down, down .. .

  He was not sure that it wouldn't actually kill him someday. It wasn't the confrontation he feared, for he had never panicked in a firefight, or even when it had been worse than that, as in the gritty back streets of Cartagena or the jungles beyond Monkey River Town. The great fear was the squeezing pressure of waiting. When he had heard Rubio screaming he had not felt afraid for Rubio, nor for himself. He had begun to sweat because the scream had announced the beginning of the waiting.The waiting was a fearful thing because Death hid behind it, and
Death hiding was a fearful thing. He had seen Death mano a mano, and it no longer horrified him. Horror, up close, loses its meaning, because you believe yourself to be, at that point, lost, and your mind provides you a state of grace. He had gone that far before, twice, but he had come back. Death had not taken him, and once he had regained his distance, his mind took away the grace and reinstated the horror. So he did not fear Death itself, but he feared the lurking approach of Death, where the horror lay in the waiting.

  The waiting was a fearful thing because Death hid behind it, and Death hiding was a fearful thing. He had seen Death mano a mano, and it no longer horrified him. Horror, up close, loses its meaning, because you believe yourself to be, at that point, lost, and your mind provides you a state of grace. He had gone that far before, twice, but he had come back. Death had not taken him, and once he had regained his distance, his mind took away the grace and reinstated the horror. So he did not fear Death itself, but he feared the lurking approach of Death, where the horror lay in the waiting.

  With darkness came anonymity. The headlights of his car were identical to the headlights of the cars in front and back of him. He became lost in the night streets.

  Fixing his eyes on the taillights of the car in front of him, he tried to assess his chances of still succeeding. To be honest with himself, he had to admit it appeared impossible. What were the odds now that of all the square feet in the city, Gamboa would cross the nine square feet where Bias had buried the explosives? Could he surveil Gamboa's house closely enough to anticipate his use of San Felipe, and still remain unknown to the police who, he had assured himself, were watching the Gamboa residence? Only by chance. How long would he have before Rubio talked? Yes, Rubio would talk. If the technician is knowledgeable, and Negrete certainly was, it is almost impossible for the subject not to talk. Hadn't Ireno talked, Rubio's fellow Indian, his fellow coyote? Only once in his life had Bias seen someone actually refuse to be broken. A woman, no, a girl really, and she would not speak in spite of the vast and ingenious cruelty that took hold of her body. He had watched them break and tear and burst her, turn her wrong side out, and disassemble her. The beautiful girl would not talk. She had not been beautiful to the eye, not really. But when it was over, Bias knew she was beautiful to the heart.