Finnegan's week

by Joseph Wambaugh

  “Five hundred bucks?” Fin said. “Why cash?”

  “Don’t ask us,” Shelby said. “The guy at Southbay Agricultural Supply jist handed us an envelope with five big ones in it.”

  “Did you count it?”

  “Yeah, we counted it. Fer our own protection in case it wasn’t the right amount.”

  “You went in for a taco and left five hundred bucks of company money in the glove compartment?” Sam Zahn asked doubtfully, figuring correctly that they intended to scam the boss. He’d like to have strip-searched them both. “Hope you boys got another job to go to. Leaving cash in the truck? Your boss might not believe you.”

  Abel was the better actor and just smiled placidly. The ox started to twitch. He felt like turning his Mötley Crüe cap around backwards to show he wasn’t worried. Suddenly, the remaining cash, still in the leather jacket with the manifests, felt heavy. He needed some methamphetamine.

  “Anything else?” Fin asked. “Like maybe you left a fellow trucker sleeping in the van when you went to eat?”

  “No, but there was somethin in there that we oughtta call to your attention,” the ox said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Hazardous waste. Five drums altogether. Four from North Island and one from Southbay Agricultural Supply.”

  “How hazardous?”

  Abel shrugged, and Shelby said, “We ain’t got no idea. We jist haul that shit. We don’t know paint thinner from Agent Orange. We was supposed to bring it to our storage yard. The boss, Mister Temple, he handles it after that. He sends the real bad stuff outta state somewheres. To Texas or Arkansas, I think.”

  Now Fin was really glad that it would go downtown. He didn’t want a case involving the Environmental Protection Agency or any other bureaucracy. “Will your boss know if the stuff is particularly dangerous?”

  “Sure,” Shelby said. “The description’s there on the two manifests from the waste generators.”

  “Where’re the manifests?” Fin asked. “In the truck, I suppose?”

  “Een glove box,” Abel said sadly. “Weeth five hundred dollar.”

  “The generators of the waste got their copies of the manifest,” Shelby explained. “The navy at North Island and South-bay Agricultural Supply. Now we’d like to borrow your phone to call our dispatcher and have somebody pick us up, okay?”

  “The thief musta only wanted your truck,” Fin said. “He sure wasn’t after your load.”

  “He get lucky,” Abel said. “Get our boss money.”

  “Sure,” Sam Zahn said. “Sure he did.”

  When Fin got off duty and was trudging toward the parking lot, he saw a truck with GREEN EARTH HAULING AND DISPOSAL painted on its doors pulling into the parking lot to collect the haulers. Then Fin almost panicked when he spotted something on his Vette until he realized that what appeared to be a ding in the left front fender was only a shadow made by the streetlight.

  His 1985 Corvette was white with red leather, the second year of the major body-style change. His little beauty had a 240 h.p. fuel-injected engine with only 27,000 miles on it. It was the one thing of value that none of his three ex-wives had managed to confiscate.

  When people asked Fin why the hell he’d got married three times, he always said, “Because they were there.” When people asked if he was going to do it again he always said, “Islam permits four wives and every Arab and Iranian in California drives a Mercedes, so maybe four’s a magic number.”

  But to friends, Fin said he’d get married again when Cher had her new lips deflated. The pope would get married before Finbar Finnegan, he told them.

  While he was driving back home to south Mission Beach in rush-hour traffic, Fin slipped a Natalie Cole tape into the deck and relaxed the instant he heard her father sing the first lyric of “Unforgettable.” Fin had grown up listening to Nat Cole, Sinatra, Tony Bennett.

  A baby boomer of the Bill Clinton/Al Gore generation, he had three older sisters, the youngest of whom was ten years older than himself. Their mother had become pregnant with him in her forty-first year, and two years after his father was killed in a boatyard accident, his mother died of breast cancer. Fin had been raised by his sisters, who treated him more like a son than a brother. He’d listened to their music, gone to their movies, read their books. And each of them felt free to kick his ass when she felt like it.

  Finbar Finnegan had spent so many years being bossed around by women that as soon as he got old enough he joined the marines, even though it was a dangerous time, at the height of the Vietnam War. Like most people who’d been in that or any war, Fin hadn’t fired a shot in anger. Near Danang there was the occasional incoming rocket, but being in a support batallion, he’d never even seen a live V.C. Only dead marines in body bags, being made ready for their trip home.

  Although Fin hadn’t had a John Wayneish marine career, although he’d bitched about the war as much as anybody, he was still vaguely uneasy about today’s new breed of police officers, particularly the young sergeants and lieutenants with laptop computers and no military experience. Somehow they all looked too much like Bill Clinton. Finbar Brendan Finnegan was casting his November ballot for Ross Perot, mostly because of Perot’s running mate, Congressional Medal of Honor winner James Stockdale.

  That night, after eating some leftover meat loaf, Fin stared into the mirror and wondered if Orson Ellis would actually follow through and get him the part. This time, if he got to play a character who was going to be in future TV episodes, who knows, something might happen!

  Fin slapped at the flesh between his chin and Adam’s apple, wondering what a little tuck would cost, and whether he could make his medical insurance cover it. After all, he had legitimate acting credits, so why shouldn’t cosmetic surgery be covered as a job-related medical expense?

  Orson Ellis had been right. The benchmark birthdays were harder on actors than on normal sane people. It was no consolation to remind himself that Clinton and Gore were considered young by every journalist in America. Forty-five was not young for a cop, and not young for a failed actor.

  His middle sister, Bess, the most sympathetic of his three siblings, offered some advice on the subject after he’d mournfully confessed to her how he’d dreaded the last birthday.

  Thirteen years older than Fin, and silently suffering the misery of hot flashes, Bess studied her baby brother for a moment and said, “Fin, honey, only sea anemones don’t age. How many movie roles’re out there for sea anemones? Now stop all this male menopause bullshit and have a piece of blueberry pie.”

  While Fin Finnegan was contemplating the injustice of being a human being and not an ageless anemone, a Mexican thief named Pepe Palmera had already spotted the abandoned bobtail van on the street in the Rio Zone just below Colonia Libertad. Within a few minutes the van was making its third trip of the day up the hill.

  The first thing that Pepe did that evening, after he got near his house, was to park next to the mesquite-dotted canyon and get rid of the useless drums in the back. Pepe could not read English, nor Spanish for that matter, but he understood what the skull and bones meant on the drums. He ransacked the glove compartment but found nothing except registration and insurance papers, which he threw away. He found a pair of new steel-toe shoes on the front seat of the van, and would later profoundly regret not having put them on his feet.

  The drums were very heavy, but Pepe was a determined thief. He managed to tip each drum and roll it on its edge to the cargo door, where he put his shoulder to it and pushed. But Pepe tipped the last drum a bit too far and it overturned, slamming onto his left foot before he could jump clear.

  Pepe screamed and sat down while the big drum with the death’s head placard rolled across the floor of the van and fell out onto the ground. Pepe knew at once that one toe was broken, perhaps two. He cursed and moaned, but eventually staggered to his feet and crawled out the cargo door.

  The truck was parked one hundred meters from the row of shacks where he resided with his mo
ther, and Pepe knew that there was a possibility that some other thief might steal the stolen truck, but that was the chance he had to take. His foot needed immediate attention.

  His mother would know of a poultice or some other remedy that would control the swelling, and maybe tomorrow he could use the truck to earn enough money to go to a doctor. But then again, what could a doctor do with broken toes that nature couldn’t do? Better to spend the money on some good marijuana, Pepe thought. That would help the pain better than anything.

  Pepe’s mother did her best to minister to her son that night, but the poultice didn’t help very much. Pepe was in great pain from the fractures and didn’t sleep well. And long before he got to sleep his van had been discovered by night prowlers.

  The prowlers were not thieves like Pepe Palmera. They couldn’t have stolen the van from Pepe even if they’d wanted to. The older of the pair, Jaime Cisneros, was ten years old. His companion, Luis Zúniga, was nine. But they were precocious in many ways, like most of the children of the border barrios.

  Luis decided to run home and borrow some of his brother’s mechanic tools to open the drums. Jaime said there might be motor oil inside them, and if there was, it could be sold for more money than they had ever seen. Even reclaimed motor oil had great value, Jaime said. His father always bought used motor oil for his Plymouth.

  While the thief, Pepe Palmera, slept fitfully, Jaime and Luis labored beside the van, working on the bung that was screwed into the drum. They both had to pull on the wrench handle with all their combined weight before they had success, working there by moonlight.

  CHAPTER 7

  “We don’t know how many pallets’re gone, but we know there’s been a major theft,” the warehouse superintendent said to Detective Bobbie Ann Doggett. “We’ll have to do a complete inventory.”

  “When did somebody last see pallets in this spot?” Bobbie asked, indicating the only vacant space in that part of the quayside warehouse.

  “Five days ago,” he said. “One of our people can definitely say they were here then.”

  “And you’re sure the pallets contained boxes of shoes?” Bobbie asked, glancing at the report she’d received from a patrolman.

  “Flight-deck shoes,” the supervisor said. “Like these.” He pulled up his right trouser leg and showed Bobbie his steel-toe high-top shoe. “I could be wrong, but I think there’s hundreds of pairs missing. Maybe more. We’ll soon know.”

  “How many civilian truckers would you say had access to this warehouse during the past five days?” Bobbie asked. “Both day and night?”

  “Well, we’re prestaging,” he said, “so I’d say a dozen. Maybe a dozen haulers.”

  “A dozen. No more than that?”

  “Could be more, I don’t really know,” the supervisor said.

  It was the same story every time: no suspects, uncertainty as to what was stolen, not sure when the crime occurred. At least this time it was narrowed down to the past five days.

  When Bobbie was leaving, the supervisor said, “Guess our security around here ain’t too good, huh?”

  “I’d rank it with domestic beer and the House Armed Services Committee,” Bobbie replied.

  After returning to the office Bobbie notified Naval Investigative Service of the grand theft, figuring they’d want to deal with it due to the large amount stolen. She got a female special agent on the phone, and after explaining the case to the woman, Bobbie said, “Guess we could handle it if you want us to. A dozen different civilian haulers coulda done it. Maybe more.”

  “A dozen? Hopeless,” the special agent said. “We’re still snowed under around here. The Tailhook business is taking forever. Tailhook’s turning into the thing-that-wouldn’t-die. Halloween, part ten!”

  “I don’t mind working on this one,” Bobbie said eagerly. “It’s pretty dead around here right now.”

  “You got it, honey,” the special agent said. “Let us know if you come up with a suspect.”

  After Bobbie hung up she had other things to think about besides navy shoes. Tomorrow night was quarterly qualification with her.45 automatic. They’d be using the North Island pistol range for the night shoot instead of the Border Patrol range. Bobbie liked it when she got to shoot the practical weapons course. She enjoyed the challenge of speed-loading, running, dropping to her knee to shoot multiple targets. But night shooting also had its charms. The smell of cordite and the muzzle flash were thrilling. And it was a relief to discover that the navy’s trusty 1911 model.45 didn’t kick all that much, not like a.357 magnum.

  An instructor had said to her: “It’s a great old handgun. When you got a big punkin ball going at your target from that huge black hole, you know that if you hit what you’re aiming at nothing’s gonna be coming back at you. Very reassuring, this old gun.”

  It was a big pistol for such a small woman, but Bobbie Ann Doggett had surprised everyone including herself by being a very competent shooter.

  By the time that the thief, Pepe Palmera, awoke before dawn, his toes were black and swollen, but not quite as painful as before. Still, he was too sore to wear his new shoes, so using a broom as a cane he hobbled barefoot down the pothole-studded street to the stolen van.

  When he got to the truck he stumbled into a pool of liquid. He used his flashlight and saw that a drum had been pried open and tipped over, spilling onto the road. The oily liquid had a horrible odor, but wasn’t scorching his feet, so he knew it wasn’t acid. It smelled something like the D.D.T. they used when he was a boy.

  Pepe wiped off some of the stinking stuff in the weeds by the road. He’d felt some discomfort when that slime slithered between his toes and bathed the deep fungal cracks in his skin-that dermal absorbent slime.

  After going home and drinking coffee, he found his broken toes felt better, so Pepe eased into the steel-toe shoes, not bothering to wash his feet. If only he’d been wearing those shoes when the drum had toppled over! Then Pepe drove the van to a pottery maker named Rubén Ochoa who sold his goods to customers in San Diego and Los Angeles. Rubén was always in need of a truck.

  The pottery maker was happy to see the thief that morning. It seemed that he had a consignment of pottery that had to get to San Diego, and the truck he’d planned to use had transmission problems. Pepe had a pasaporte, a laminated border-crossing card good for seventy-two-hour visits to the U.S. but not good more than twenty-five miles from the border. Since the delivery was to San Diego, Pepe could do the job for him, and when Pepe returned to Tijuana, Rubén would pay him top price for the delivery, and take the stolen truck off his hands for a good price.

  Striking a deal was a sure thing, so while the two men haggled over details, one of Rubén Ochoa’s workers carried the pottery consignment to the van while another spray-painted the doors to obliterate GREEN EARTH HAULING AND DISPOSAL.

  Still another worker drove to a nearby junkyard to buy an ignition with a key that worked, to replace the damaged one. While en route, he stole a pair of Mexican license plates from a truck parked on the street.

  The U.S. Customs officers might check license plates, but they’d seldom do a check on vehicle identification numbers, and if they did, Pepe was prepared to say that he couldn’t find his vehicle registration card. And he could even produce bogus documentation claiming that he was the owner/hauler of the pottery.

  By the time that Pepe was ready to leave for the Otay Mesa border gate, he wasn’t feeling well. The little thief was perspiring, and had a terrible headache. Also, he had to keep swallowing saliva that kept forming in his mouth. He ran to the toilet and vomited, feeling a little better afterward.

  Influenza was going around Colonia Libertad, and the other colonias as well. He’d been stricken by it a week ago and, until now, thought he was getting better. Pepe hoped that the wait at U.S. Customs would not be a long one. He wanted to deliver the pottery, get back to Tijuana, buy some marijuana, and go to bed until the fever passed.

  Luis Zúniga, though younger, had always been
stronger than his friend Jaime Cisneros. Jaime had asthma and had been sickly all his life, but even Luis got nauseated after they’d tipped over the drum full of oily liquid. The liquid was slimy and smelled terrible. Both children knew it was not motor oil, new or reclaimed. Luis got splashed with the stuff, but Jaime got absolutely drenched. It splashed onto their faces, hands and clothing, and they ran to Luis’s house to rinse it off as best they could in a tub of water outside.

  Luis got very sick to his stomach when he went to bed that night, and he developed the worst headache of his life. His mother gave him aspirin but it didn’t help. Jaime got what his mother thought was his worst asthma attack ever. In the middle of the night she gave him some medicine but he couldn’t hold it down. He tried his inhaler but it didn’t seem to have any effect.

  The mother of Jaime Cisneros became extremely frightened when her son began to salivate. He started drooling like a hungry dog. He also got very short of breath, but the most frightening thing of all was that his pupils seemed to bounce!

  Jaime’s mother got a flashlight and looked into her son’s eyes. One pupil looked small, one looked large. Then they seemed to trade sizes! Within fifteen minutes he was convulsing. By the time the uncle of Jaime Cisneros drove the boy to the Hospital Civil, Jaime was not conscious.

  Later that morning Luis Zúniga was admitted to the same hospital with symptoms similar to Jaime’s. He had lost control of bowels and bladder during the night. He had tried to get up to get a drink of water, but his vision was so blurred that he tripped over a kitchen chair and fell. His father found him on the floor and drove him to the hospital.

  After examining Luis Zúniga a doctor asked the boy’s mother what her son had had to eat the night before. His symptoms were similar to a person who had been poisoned, the doctor said. He asked if the rest of the family was all right.

  She told the doctor that her family was well, but then she remembered that Luis had been playing with his friend Jaime Cisneros all evening, and they had come home very late. She suspected that the boys had bought tamales from a street vendor. She’d always warned Luis about street vendors. They used cat and dog meat in their tamales, she’d always told her son.