Hot Wire

by Carson, Gary

  "Just Deacon and Heberto."

  "Gonzalez? The partner?"

  "Yeah."

  "Has anyone else approached you?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "What do you think I mean?"

  I just shook my head. I didn't know what he was talking about.

  "Screw this." Baldy finished his coffee and tossed the cup at my head. "We already know it was Chase and Matthews hired the little twat. Ain't that right, four-eyes?"

  "Shut up," Crewcut said.

  "Who else then?"

  They huddled for a while, but I couldn't hear what they were saying. Then Crewcut told me to stand up and he gave me back my stuff. Wallet, keys, change. I stuck them in my pockets.

  "OK," he said. "We'll check it out. Two cars. I go with you in your car and we'll take a look at this garage. A nice careful look." He nodded at Baldy. "He'll be right behind us, so just keep that in mind, all right?"

  They put on their jackets, then went through the room and cleaned it up, stuffing my clothes and junk into a plastic bag. Baldy dumped the ashtray and trash into another bag while Crewcut wiped the door knobs and furniture with a towel, cracking the window to clear out the smoke. It was a vanishing act. Some kind of routine.

  "Let's go," Crewcut said when they were finished. "We'll deal with her registration later."

  Baldy opened the door, checked the hall, then they walked me down the corridor and through a side entrance into the parking lot. The sun hurt my eyes. A box kite hung in the air over Cesar Chavez Park.

  "Nice and easy," Crewcut whispered in my ear while a pack of tourists waddled by on the sidewalk, laughing and jabbering in Spanish. We walked through the rows of parked cars to a dark blue Hummer parked under some trees on the far side of the lot. Baldy unlocked the doors, put the bags on the back seat, then got in behind the wheel and started the engine. Crewcut walked me around to the passenger side, opened the front door, shoved me in, then he slammed the door and climbed into the back where he could breathe down my neck.

  "OK," he said. "Now, where's your car?"

  "Other side," I mumbled. "Over by the Marina."

  Baldy drove us to the other side of the lot to find my car, but we had to circle around for a while because I couldn't remember where I had parked. My head was screwed up and I was thinking so fast it was just a blur. Dirty feds. Oakland detectives. Whoever they were, I had to take them back to the garage and give them the Lexus. Buster was off by now, but the day guy might see us drive into the alley. Maybe he'd call the station. Maybe I could get away when they opened the garage.

  "Stay close," Crewcut told his partner when we pulled up next to my Dodge. "We'll hit rush hour, most likely."

  "No problem." Baldy gave me a wink. "See you later, squirt."

  Crewcut got out and opened my door.

  "OK, Emma – you're driving."

  #

  We got in the Dodge and I pulled out, the Hummer right behind me. Crewcut rolled down his window and lit a cigarette while I followed the boulevard around to University and headed back towards the highway. Gulls clouded the South Sailing Basin. The commute flickered on the Bay Bridge: thousands of windshields and bumpers catching the sun as it rose over the city.

  "Watch your speed," Crewcut said. "We'll cross I-80 and take Ashby over to Emeryville."

  I checked the rearview. The Hummer was right on my tail.

  "Who approached you?" He came off bored. "Chase or Matthews?"

  "I told you what happened."

  "Chase or Matthews? Which one?"

  "I never heard of them."

  "I think you have." He was watching the traffic. "Your timing was too precise to be a coincidence. Somebody pointed you in the right direction, so just tell me how it worked."

  "That's all it was. A coincidence."

  "Nobody cruises around the West Oakland bottoms at that time of night just for the hell of it."

  He didn't know we'd gone down to Heberto's warehouse. Arn must've held that back because he was scared to say anything about the locos.

  "That's what we do," I said. "Cruise around looking for cars on Deacon's list."

  "He tells you which models to look for?"

  "Yeah."

  "Based on what?"

  "I don't know. The market in South America."

  "And Gonzalez ships them out through the Port."

  "Yeah."

  He shook his head. "I don't buy it. Somebody hired you to steal the Lexus and you're going to have to tell us what you know if you want to get out of this in one piece. Chase was playing a double game – understand? If you cooperate, we can give you protection. You can walk away – Willis, too – but if you don't cooperate, you won't last another week. They have to eliminate you now that the operation's blown. Get the picture?"

  "Screw you." I had no idea what he was talking about. "Why'd you have to kill her? You staked out my place and tried to set me up. You were just waiting for me to come home and find her."

  "What do you mean?" He sat up, frowning. "Who was waiting for you to come home?"

  He didn't ask me who'd been killed.

  "You tell me," I said, trying to stay calm. "You're the one who sent them."

  He shook his head, pretending to look baffled.

  "Someone staked out your apartment building?"

  "You know they did. You sent them yourself."

  "This happened this morning?"

  "You know when it happened."

  "Describe them." His eyes bored in.

  "Steffy didn't know anything,” I said. "She didn't have anything to do with it."

  "Just tell me what they looked like."

  "What're you asking me for? They were driving black SUVs and they were just waiting for me to come home so you could pin it on me."

  "We didn't send them."

  "You're a lying scumbag."

  "Just watch the road."

  He sat back, looking thoughtful. I pulled up to the light at West Frontage Road and stared into space, blinking to clear my eyes. The traffic was getting bad, cars all around us now, the exit ramp backed up with commuters trying to escape the gridlock on I-80. When I checked the rearview, I saw that the Hummer had fallen behind a FedEx truck in the right lane. Then the light changed and we crossed over the highway – eight lanes of parking lot backed up for miles in both directions. I could feel Crewcut watching everything I did.

  "Nice and easy," he said, blowing smoke out the window. "Turn right on Seventh and get us out of this traffic."

  We passed over the tracks and dropped down the ramp into Berkeley. I made the light at Seventh and turned right, checking the rearview again. The Hummer was a couple cars back on the left, its turn signal blinking. Then a patrol car came out of nowhere, cherries flashing as it switched lanes and passed the Hummer. I got this cold buzz and eased over a little to give the cop room to pass, but he pulled up right beside me and hit his siren, waving me over to the side of the road.

  "Shit," Crewcut said. "Is this piece of junk legal?"

  "Yeah." I turned off on the next street and parked at the curb, staring blankly at the dash. I felt completely calm. It was weird. "The registration's clean."

  "You're a popular girl, Emma." He got on his cell phone and called Baldy. "We've been pulled over...I don't know...something extraneous." Meanwhile, the patrol car pulled in behind us and the cop just sat there for a while, finishing off his donut or something. Watching the rearview, I saw the Hummer go by on Seventh.

  "Just relax," Crewcut said after he finished talking to his partner. "We've still got Willis, so don't do anything stupid, all right?"

  Nothing happened for five minutes. The cop must've been running my plates and yakking on his radio; I could hear the static over the traffic noise on Seventh. Then a second patrol car turned the corner and double-parked in front of us, and two cops got out with their hands on their holsters. One of them waited by their car and the other one moved to the sidewalk while the cop behind us strolled over and leaned down by
my window.

  "License and proof of insurance, please."

  He checked us out, scanning the dash and back seat while I got my wallet and dug through the glove compartment. I gave him my driver's license and papers and he looked them over, frowning like a clerk at the DMV, then he handed them back and fixed me with his X-ray vision. A typical burrhead cop, he looked like one of those flag-waving hot dogs straight out of a Criminal Justice class at some community college.

  "Emma Martin?"

  "Yeah."

  "Would you mind stepping out of the car, please?"

  They didn't search me because they didn't have a female cop handy and they were probably afraid of getting sued, but they cuffed my hands behind my back and read me the Miranda. They said I had a warrant for Grand Theft Auto, which could've been true, I guess, not that I cared right then. I was just glad to get away from Crewcut. After they dumped me in the back of one of the squad cars, they talked to him for a while, but he opened his wallet and showed them something and they let him go. Just like that.

  When we drove off, I saw him standing on the sidewalk, yelling into his cell phone.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The cops drove me to the Emeryville station, a modern brick building on the peninsula by the city marina. The police lot had a spectacular view of the Bay Bridge and San Francisco, one of those postcard views that lured millions of suckers to the Golden State, then bogged them down in gridlock while the Lefties taxed them to death.

  The cops seemed edgy. Maybe they knew who I worked for and they were worried about making a procedural error that would screw up the bust. Who knows? One way or another, they had to handle me with kid gloves because this was California and my lawyer could charge them with harassment if they didn't say "please" and "thank you." They helped me out of the squad car, nice and polite, then they walked me into the station and started to book me on the G.T.A., but they didn't get very far in the process.

  I was a hot item, I guess. The minute we got there, a couple suits walked up, flashed their badges and started arguing with the cops and the sergeant sitting behind the front desk. The suits looked like feds, but I was too wasted to care anymore. Out of the frying pan and all that crap. Slouched on a bench with my hands cuffed behind my back, I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I guessed they were fighting over charges and jurisdiction. Finally, some Big Deal waddled out of his office and the cops went into a huddle while I tried not to pass out.

  They decided to skip the booking – a weird thing to do – then they walked me down a hall and locked me into an interrogation room with my hand cuffed to a chair. It was all too familiar: the florescent lights and dead flies, the chair bolted to the floor, the table nicked with scratch marks like somebody had been gnawing on the wood. I could hear bells at the fire station next door and boat noises at the marina on the west side of the peninsula. The room smelled like Lysol and burnt coffee.

  Time dragged by, then the door opened and Jacobo, of all people, walked into the room, followed by this Chinese dork in a gray-flannel suit and a muscle-bound dyke wearing a Highway Patrol uniform. It was a regular parade of Law Enforcement diversity: one bent cop and a couple of EEOC hires – what a laugh. Seeing Jacobo gave me a jolt, but I should've expected the sleaze bag. He was a dirty cop playing a double game, but he was still a detective on the Auto Theft Detail so he had to go through the motions. The three of them sat down at the table and took out some files and junk, then Jacobo broke the ice, his eyes bloodshot and trapped in their sockets.

  "Well, well, Emma. Back again. Can't say I'm surprised or anything, but you got some problems, darling." He looked bad – worse than usual – and his casual act had an edge like a razor. He was still wearing the same white shirt and black tie from last night when he had collected his payoff from Deacon. "This is Agent Chang, U.S. Customs, and Officer Mellon, a special investigator for the California Highway Patrol. They've got some questions and there's another fed waiting to talk to you after we're done. Get the picture?"

  Chang and Mellon checked me out while he was talking. They must've seen my mug shots already, but they still looked shocked to find Little Bo Peep cuffed to a chair with bruises all over her face. I didn't fit my profile and that screwed with their tiny brains. They should've been recording the session, just to protect themselves if nothing else, but I didn't see any cameras or tape recorders, so they probably wanted to cut a deal off the record.

  "I've got nothing to say," I said, contradicting myself.

  Jacobo gave me a deadpan, but it looked like it took some effort. He came off nervous, biting his lower lip, tapping a finger on the table, but the dyke from the C.H.P. and the suit from Customs didn't seem to notice. They were studying me like I was a lab rat that had just grown a second head.

  "Miss Martin." Agent Chang cleared his throat. He was Americanized, no accent at all, a prissy-looking bureaucrat with a round head, glasses and black hair parted down the middle. "Six months ago, the California Highway Patrol, U.S. Customs, and the Emeryville and Oakland police departments formed a joint task force to investigate contraband smuggling through the Port of Oakland. Your name came up during the course of our investigation."

  "I've got nothing to say."

  "Do you know a Jeffrey Deacon, also known as Jiggles? He runs a service station in Emeryville called Deacon's Nite-N-Day which we have reason to believe is a front for a stolen-car ring operating throughout the Bay Area."

  "I've got nothing to say."

  Jacobo coughed into his fist. He had to be sweating. Chang's glasses reflected the florescent lights and made him look like one of those cyborgs on Star Trek.

  "We know you work for him," he said. "And we also know that Deacon recently formed a partnership with a man named Heberto Gonzalez – a Mexican national who runs a drug operation in West Oakland and is a suspect in half a dozen drug-related murders. We have reason to believe that Gonzalez and Deacon ship stolen cars through the Port of Oakland to points in Central and South America, then use the profits to bring back large quantities of heroin, cocaine and marijuana."

  "I've got nothing to say."

  "Sure she knows them," Jacobo said. If he was acting, he was doing a good job of it. "Emma jacks cars for Deacon. We popped her two years ago, but they threw it out on a technicality."

  Chang gave him a look that could have meant anything, then turned back to me. "You haven't been formally charged yet, but I'm told there are multiple federal and local charges pending against you and I can tell you now that it would be in your interest to cooperate with us before everyone starts piling on."

  There it was. The big offer to snitch.

  Jacobo snickered, but he came off scared. This Task Force had some kind of jurisdictional crap going on in the background and it was obvious they wanted to flip me before the other feds could grab their action. Jacobo knew I could rat him out and I knew everything I said would get back to Deacon. Jacobo was Deacon's bag man – if he wasn't a plant or some kind of informant. Maybe he'd been working for the feds all along and now he was worried about blowing his cover with Deacon. After last night, I was ready to believe anything.

  "Ever see a fight at a baseball game?" he asked. "You know those brawls that clear the benches and everybody piles up on the mound? Well, you're the one on the bottom."

  "That's an understatement." Mellon, the Highway Patrol dyke, consulted her notebook. She was a typical bull dyke: buffed up, square jaw, mean little eyes and a mullet haircut. "You've been getting sloppy, Emma. Two witnesses saw you trying to start a Camry in Piedmont last night and we have reason to believe you were also involved in the theft of another car – " She skimmed the notebook with a fingernail, moving her lips while she read. " – a 1999 Sentry that was apparently towed off by the Deacon tow truck after you reported it had been immobilized with wheel locks." She settled back in her chair and clasped her hands on her burly gut. "We've also got you on videotape stealing a Lexus in Oakland – you didn't spot that security camera on the roof, did y
ou? Your partner told us all about it."

  "Who's the partner?" Chang asked, like he didn't know.

  "Arnold Willis," Jacobo said. "Another kid. We picked him up last night."

  That rattled me out of my stupor, but I tried not to show it.

  I didn't say a word. Didn't blink. Didn't move.

  Somebody had told them everything we had done last night, but I knew it wasn't Arn. It couldn't have been Arn because Crewcut had snatched him and I didn't think Crewcut had anything to do with these clowns. He was surprised when the locals pulled me over and I couldn't see him working for Customs or the police, not to mention the Highway Patrol. The stuff about the security camera was probably another lie and that meant we had a rat somewhere. Somebody at the top.

  Jesus Christ.

  I tried to think it through. Nobody else knew about the Lexus except for Arn, Buster, Deacon and Heberto – and maybe Jacobo if Deacon had already told him about it. Deacon had said he was going to tell him after their meeting last night, so call it fifty-fifty Jacobo already knew. And he'd know about the other cars, too, because Deacon had to let him know what we were doing so he could side-track any investigations by the Auto Theft Detail. So it boiled down to a process of elimination. Crewcut was holding Arn and I was pretty sure Crewcut wasn't a cop. Buster would never talk to the police. No way. Deacon and Heberto were out of the question, so that left Jacobo, Mr. Washed-up Bag Man. I glanced over at him and he looked away, dodging my eyes like a guilty weasel.

  I should’ve known.

  #

  The three of them watched me brood for a while, just waiting for me to crack up and spill my guts all over the table, I guess. They must've thought I was going to burst into tears and confess and beg them to let me snitch off my friends, but I had other things on my mind like that scummy rat Jacobo. When I didn't say anything, Chang cleared his throat, took off his glasses and polished them with his tie, frowning like a social worker who just wanted to help a troubled kid. The feds liked to help, all right. They'd helped a lot of kids when they burned them alive at Waco.

  "We'll talk about particulars later," he said, "but we already have more than enough to charge you, personally, with at least one count of felony-one organized criminal activity. That's five-to-life, Emma, but we're prepared to deal on a reduction if you agree to testify against your employers."