by Rex Burns
“She rents rooms only to people from El Salvador?”
“I think so. You understand how it is—people when they first come north are very, very frightened. Especially”—she hesitated and looked from me to Bunch—”especially if they are undocumented. I’m sure many of those rooming there are undocumented. Like Nestor.”
“She knows this?” Bunch asked.
“Of course. That’s how she makes her money.”
“You mean she charges them extra?”
“Yes.” And to provide them their false Social Security numbers so they could get the jobs, which she also arranged for. And to cash their paychecks when they lacked identification. Senora Chiquichano was a legal immigrant, and the others huddled behind the aegis of her legality—for a fee. Mrs. Gutierrez looked down at her hands with their tightly intertwined fingers. “I wanted Nestor to stay with us—my husband and I both asked him to. But he said no. He said he wouldn’t want to make our home any smaller than it already is. And there was the problem of the danger.”
“How’s that?”
“Immigration. If we were caught with him living here, we could go to jail or be deported.”
“Wouldn’t Mrs. Chiquichano be deported too?” asked Bunch.
“Yes. That’s why she charges so much, she says: to pay for the risk she’s in.”
The risk wasn’t all that great—the courts would have to prove she knew they were illegals, and no law required landlords to ask their renters for documentation. Ironically, the Gutierrezes were in greater danger by being relatives of the illegal than someone like Chiquichano, who exploited them but could claim ignorance of their status. “Can’t they rent a room somewhere else?” I asked.
The woman’s rounded shoulders rose and fell. “They’re afraid to trust anyone else, Mr. Kirk. Maybe someone else would demand even more. She’s greedy but at least she speaks their language and knows their people. She’s from their country. To frightened people, that means a lot.”
“How much did Nestor pay?”
“Most of what he made. She gave him forty dollars a week from his paycheck for personal expenses and savings.”
He netted around two hundred a week, I remembered, which meant he was paying as much as six forty a month for the closet-sized cubicle. Bunch and I had talked to about twenty occupants, and if the rents were comparable, then the income from that dump of an apartment house came to over twelve thousand dollars a month. Most if not all of which would be unreported to IRS, and little of which went back as property taxes or overhead. Add to that the other fees the woman extorted or any additional roomers we had missed, and that run-down rabbit warren suddenly began to look like a gold mine.
“No wonder she can afford a couple maids and a gardener.”
Bunch shook his head. “I bet she doesn’t pay them.”
Mrs. Gutierrez nodded. “Nestor told me—she brought two women into the country from a farm up near her father’s place. She promised to teach them English and give them a place to stay if they work for her for five years. She does the same to get workers for her cleaning business.”
“A fine old American tradition: bond servants.”
“Sounds more like slavery to me,” said Bunch.
“Is she bringing many more people from Ibarutu to Denver?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Kirk. The village—” The shoulders lifted and fell again. “Ibarutu’s in the guerrilla zone now. The government’s trying to move everybody out of there, so they don’t protect them from the rebels anymore. The rebels take food and money from the people and shoot them. So there aren’t many people left in the village now.” She added, “But a lot of people want to get out of El Salvador, and a lot of people know about Senora Chiquichano.”
Which was why they suffered and why they paid what they did to Mrs. Chiquichano and others. And why they would protect the exploiters who might, even for such a price, save the family members who were still down there. What was money for if you weren’t alive to spend it? Still, Nestor was worth about six thousand a year to his landlady, and unless she found another illegal willing to be extorted, Mrs. Chiquichano would have a hard time renting that cracker box room for six forty a month. Add to that the loss of income from Felix and Serafina, and you were talking a healthy pocketful of change each month. “Felix Frentanes was picked up by immigration at work this morning. He thinks Mrs. Chiquichano tipped them off about him.”
“Ah.” Her head nodded emphatically. “It’s something that woman would do.”
“How do you know?”
“She tells them—she told Nestor if he didn’t pay what she asked, if he made a disturbance or drew attention to himself or started getting too friendly with strangers, she would make a telephone call. She said she had friends in la migra, and all she had to do was make one telephone call. He would be arrested. Like that!”
“She’s a real barracuda,” said Bunch.
“Vinchuca,” said Mrs. Gutierrez.
“What?”
“Nestor said they call her la vinchuca—it’s an insect that sucks people’s blood while they sleep. Very poisonous.”
On the way out to the car, I asked Bunch why la patrona would be willing to turn in somebody like Felix who was so happy to pay so much.
“A couple reasons, maybe. She can replace him easily, or somebody’s willing to pay more for that rathole of a room.”
“She was already out Nestor’s rent. Then she turned in Felix. That adds up to at least twelve thousand a year loss, plus what she loses on skimming from the paychecks.”
“She must have a waiting list.”
“Or maybe Felix represented a danger that could cost her a lot more if she didn’t get rid of him fast,” I said.
“What the hell kind of danger would somebody like Felix be?”
“He keeps asking questions about his wife. He brought us in.”
“Yeah.” His little finger dug at something in his ear. “The wife that Mrs. Chiquichano says isn’t missing.” Bunch squeezed into the Healey’s seat and cursed both the car and its owner under his breath. “We’re back to that again, aren’t we?”
We were. But the only thing that was clear about what we had come back to was that Mrs. Chiquichano seemed to be some kind of focal point of questions about a faintly possible link between Serafina and Nestor. “You want to get something to eat before we drive up to Erie?”
The sun was about fifteen minutes above the wall of mountains when Bunch guided the Bronco slowly down the road we had raced across the night before. We searched for telltale signs of disruption in the loose dirt along the weedy ditch.
“Is that the place?” Bunch pointed to a freshly scraped stretch of berm.
“If it is, I don’t see the battery pack.”
He got out and walked back and forth, peering into the ditch, then climbed back in. “I don’t think it’s the right place. I think the hill was steeper.”
“Maybe we should just look for that pit bull.”
“And maybe we can run over the son of a bitch.”
“Naw, he’d just rip the tires off.”
I asked, “Are we going to snatch the dog?”
“Goddamn it, I don’t have rabies!” He stopped the car again. “Besides, I’m working on it.” Getting out, he studied the torn earth and looked around at the prairie and the fencing beside the gravel road. “This has to be the place, Dev. There’s where I drove into the ditch to pick you up. And there’s where we pulled out.”
I got out too, and yes, it did look vaguely familiar. To the north the strobelike flash of that tall tower flickered against the clear evening sky like steady lightning, and to the west the ridge of brown fields crested to close off any view of the mountains. But their shadows had stretched this far across the prairie, bringing that early and long-lasting daylight to soften the rolling earth and cool the air. I began pushing through the knee-high weeds and grass in the trough of the ditch; Bunch strolled along the higher bank, head turning this way and that.
>
“Hey, hey!” Bunch trotted down into the weeds and pulled up the leather carrying case for the battery pack. “Look what I found!”
“Great!”
He opened it and checked the batteries and then began looking around.
“What’s wrong?”
“The ID tag. It must have ripped off.”
“Let me—” That was as far as I got. Between Bunch and me the earth exploded in a ripping pop, and an instant later came the sound of a shot, the tight crack of a high-powered rifle. Bunch flopped into the weeds and I sprinted back behind the automobile. Crawling into the front seat, I stayed low as I started it. A second shot thudded into the car’s window and tore into the seat back, sending a spew of stuffing across my face. Leaning out of sight, I steered by a glimpse of road and kicked open the rider’s door for Bunch to jump for. He did, eyes wide and mouth an angry line as he dived across the seat, and I floored the gas to scratch gravel into a cloud of dust. The sound of another shot echoed from the ridge, but where the bullet went I didn’t know. Bunch, peeking above the windowsill, said, “Oh shit,” and I glanced over to see, racing down the ridge like a line of Indians, half a dozen motorcycles bouncing wildly and trailing plumes of dust as they angled to cut us off.
“Turn around, Dev. Turn this fucker around!”
Slamming the wheel over and the brake down, I spun the car in a one-eighty skid and we headed back. The dust churned behind us and blanked out the mirrors, but the pop and rattle of straining motorcycle engines came clearly from beyond the cloud.
“It was a trap, Dev. The bastards were waiting for somebody to come for that case.”
“You just figure that out?”
“If you’re so goddamn smart, why didn’t you think of it before they shot at us?”
“I did. I just didn’t want to worry you.”
Ahead, the county road disappeared over a rise of ground, and beyond that was the paved highway leading east to I-25 and west to Erie. If we could get to the town, we’d at least be within shouting distance of a peace officer. Bunch was already on the mobile phone dialing the highway patrol from our list of emergency numbers and glancing back through the dust to tell me he could see them coming.
I swung onto the pavement. The car rocked up on two wheels and laid rubber as I floored the gas, and we sailed clear of the ground across a series of ripples in the tar. Beside me, I heard Bunch report gunfire and a car chase by motorcycles to a dispatcher, and then he hung up quickly. A sudden roar at my window, and in the mirror I saw a bearded face half hidden by a leather motorcycle cap as a cyclist lunged forward from the pack.
“Bunch, get the camera! It’s him—Taylor. Quick, get a shot!”
“What camera? We didn’t bring the goddamn thing!”
I swerved hard to cut across his wheel and he dropped back and hung like a hawk, ready to dart forward again and probably fire a pistol in my ear. The road tilted down sharply, and in the small valley ahead I saw the trees and roofs of the village and a set of emergency lights flashing red and white under the tree limbs and between buildings.
The dust had blown away and we could see the motorcycles close on our rear bumper. I slammed on the brake, and they exploded into darting, roaring confusion as they tried to avoid the crash. One spun across the pavement and up the berm to sail gracefully out of sight behind an embankment; another shot past us, his face open in a screaming curse as the high handlebars wobbled at the edge of control.
“Watch it, Dev! That’s Taylor—that’s our meal ticket. Don’t cripple the fucker.”
A solid thud told me one didn’t make it, and I glanced in the mirror to see a cartwheeling motorcycle fling its rider in a burning slide down the pavement and into the weeds beside the road. Stepping on the gas again, I roared downhill toward the welcome flash of lights on the patrol cruiser that wailed toward us.
“They’re backing off, Dev—they’re pulling out.”
CHAPTER 5
WHETHER OR NOT the officer believed in our innocence, the bikers had worse press than we did, and there was no evidence to show we had contributed to the assault.
“I stopped by the side of the road and the next thing we knew, we’re getting shot at … .”
The officer looked up from his report. Behind him on the wall of the small concrete block building that was the highway patrol district headquarters, a detailed map of the region charted every road and public right-of-way in different colors and varying types of lines. From a back room came the sound of a bored voice talking on a telephone.
“You just happened to stop there. Why?”
“Trying to find a Mr. William Taylor.” I showed him my ID. “We’re working for an insurance company. We think he filed a false claim.”
“Ah.” The officer leaned back into the creak of his swivel chair. “So you went looking for him?”
“We went looking for where he lives. We didn’t go on their property. In fact, we didn’t even know that was their property.”
He looked as if he didn’t believe us. “Well, if you’re not going to file charges, Mr. Kirk, there’s not a hell of a lot we can do about what occurred this afternoon, is there?”
“If we file charges, it’ll come out we were looking for Taylor. We don’t want to alarm the suspect.”
“It’s pretty plain you alarmed the whole damn bunch, now ain’t it?”
“We didn’t know they were there, Sergeant.” Bunch raised a hand palm out. “Scout’s honor. We really didn’t know they were there.”
“If we had,” I added, “we sure wouldn’t have stopped.”
“Well now, that much I can believe.” The sergeant finished his report and shoved a copy toward us for a souvenir. “The arresting trooper didn’t see anything except a traffic violation by one of the bikers, who was parked in the middle of the highway for some reason trying to start his vehicle. The rest claimed they were only out for a ride and weren’t chasing anybody. You won’t swear to them doing anything, but there’s that bullet hole in the window of your car. And somebody called in an alarm claiming somebody was being chased and shot at.”
I shook my head, innocent. “We didn’t see who shot at us, so we can’t swear it was one of the gang. You know there’s no sense going to court with nothing stronger than that.”
“Yes. Well now, that’s so. But if I was you two, I wouldn’t go near their place again. Like it or not, they got a right to do whatever the hell they want on their own land. And to kick anybody off that land they don’t invite on—or whoever doesn’t have a warrant. And so far, the sheriff hasn’t had any call to file a warrant on them.”
“Why are they so touchy?”
“Because they’re up to something.” It was obvious to the sergeant. “They’re growing pot or making LSD or some crap like that out there. But until there’s enough evidence for a warrant, the law gives them every right to do it until they’re caught. And you people be real smart to stay the hell away from that place, insurance scam or no. That’s not a bunch of Boy Scouts out there; they’ve been linked to more than one homicide and beat the rap every time.” He fished around in a desk drawer for a business card. “Here’s Sheriff Hoveland’s number. Next time you want to go out there, you see if he can take you. Save you a lot of hurt and me a lot of paperwork.”
Mrs. Ottoboni’s porch light gleamed brightly, as it had for more than two years—since she saved my life by calling the police when a pair of hoods jumped me as I came home in the dark. I’d offered to pay part of her electric bill—it was for my security, after all—but she refused, claiming she did it for her own peace of mind.
The familiar smells and sounds of my half of the Victorian two-story welcomed me, and I swigged down a Bellehaven ale as I stuffed a frozen dinner into the microwave. While it was electrocuted, I stood under the hot shower to steam out some of the weariness of the evening’s adventures. Then, as I ate from the cramped plastic dish, I listened to the messages on my machine. The only one that caught my undivided attention wa
s a muffled voice that called me by name and said he was going to stomp the shit out of me.
Bunch got to the office first in the morning and was listening to a similar threat on that machine.
“You know who this is, don’t you?”
I picked the mail out of its drop. “I don’t recognize the voice but the message is familiar.”
“What are we going to do about it?”
“You want to start a war?” Bunch didn’t answer. “I don’t. I think they’re trying to scare us off. They’re up to something on that farm, and they don’t want anybody snooping around. They don’t know we’re after Taylor; they think we’re after whatever they’re trying to hide, and they’re not sure how much we know. Let’s just let things cool off for a couple weeks and then see what we can do.”
“Think Security will go for that?”
Schute had wanted the case closed as soon as possible. “I’ll give him a call in a bit and explain things to him.” Most things, anyway.
Two of the envelopes held letters I’d been waiting for. One was a reply from TRW, the commercial credit bureau we subscribed to: Mrs. Chiquichano’s name was on their files and came back clear. The other was my return envelope with the credit report on Mrs. Chiquichano from the Citizen’s Bank and Trust. It gave her an A rating, sketched the method of payment on her home—monthly—and contained the list of references supplied by the applicant. The names included the address of next of kin, one Alonso Hernandes, a brother, living in Coronado, California; Morris Matheney, M.D., whose office in the Associated Medical Pavilion was over on Downing Street near Warner Memorial Hospital, and Rebecca White, an ex-employer whose address was also local.
