Bad Penny

by John D. Brown

  “You want me to follow?” Pinto asked.

  “You’d better believe it,” Frank said, then turned to Sam. “Let’s get this thing moving. I think we’ve got ourselves a lead.”

  25

  Tail

  SAM BACKED OUT of his parking stall and drove to the exit.

  Across the road the Twinkie guards and police officers were still doing a search. Even though Frank was in the back seat with tinted windows, he still ducked down.

  Sam made his left hand turn and accelerated along the main road.

  A few moments later Carmen said, “We’re good. You can sit up now.”

  Pinto cut in. “The Nissan is turning left at the light.”

  “Got it,” Sam said.

  Frank looked back at the bakery and verified that nobody was following them. Then he turned back around. “You’re sure that’s the woman?”

  “I’m positive,” Carmen said. “Look at the birthmark on the side of her neck.”

  Frank hadn’t noticed it at first, but there it was like half of a small flower.

  “How is it possible?” Frank asked. “Out of all the people in Colorado we find her.”

  “There are dozens of slave sites between here, New Mexico, and the western part of Texas. But they’re run by only a handful of trafficking organizations. We got lucky.”

  “We’ve been living right,” Sam said.

  Frank said, “Plan A—we take the driver of that car and beat him until he talks.”

  “Plan B?” Sam asked.

  “I don’t think we’ve gotten that far yet.”

  The Nissan went through the intersection. Sam rolled up a number of seconds later to a red light.

  Pinto said, “He’s running south.”

  They waited for the cross traffic making left turns. Then waited for the cross traffic going straight through.

  “He’s easily a mile ahead of you,” Pinto said. “Taking a right.”

  The light turned green and Sam hit the gas, made the left-hand turn, accelerated down the road.

  “Watch it,” Frank said. “Last thing we need is a ticket.”

  Sam let off the accelerator a bit.

  “You got him, right Pinto?”

  “I got him,” Pinto said.

  It took about ten minutes before they finally were able to see the Nissan ahead of them. The driver made a left off the main drag and then a quick right past a 7-11 and an auto parts store into a residential neighborhood. It was an older neighborhood with smaller houses. A little run down, but a few of the houses had conscientious owners. He parked in front of a bungalow and ran to the house and banged on the door.

  A cholo opened the door.

  “That’s one of the slave sites,” Carmen said.

  “How can you tell?” Sam asked. “It looks like all the other houses.”

  “There are a couple of profiles for these places. When they’re in the city, they’re often at the edge of a residential neighborhood, usually next to a business area, or a road that gets more traffic. There’s easy access from behind, maybe an alley; in this instance a parking lot. I guarantee there’s a gate in the back fence. And then you have the windows—the blinds are always down. You’d think they were vampires.”

  “They’re worse than vampires,” Frank said.

  Sam drove past the house.

  Carmen said, “That’s the door watchman. They’ve already done a telephone interview. But they’ll do another screening here. Where are you from? Where do you live? How did you hear about us? If the cochino passes, the watchman lets him in. He pays the money to the ticketero who gives him a playing card or maybe a poker chip. Then he waits in the living room on the couch with the other men. When it’s his turn, he chooses a girl, but sometimes there are only two in the house, so maybe he doesn’t have much choice. He gives her the card, they go to one of the rooms, and then he rapes her.

  “In his mind, it’s not rape, right? It’s business. Because the girls aren’t tied up; they’re working off the cost of the coyote; they’re making an investment in their future. It’s Walmart—high volume, low price. The girls are making it rich. But they’re not. They’re forced to service sometimes thirty to forty men a day. And they keep nothing. She gets maybe five or ten dollars a card. But then the padrotes charge her hundreds for condoms, more for room and board, for shampoo and clothes, more for protection. So much she’ll never pay the debt.”

  “I’d wager most of those customers know exactly what they’re doing,” Frank said.

  Back at the house, the door watchman yelled something to those inside, then he hustled down the front porch and out to the Nissan with the first guy.

  Sam slowed and pulled to the side of the road.

  The two cholos got into the car and drove back out of the neighborhood.

  “Go around the block,” Frank said. “We’ll catch them on the main road.”

  They did catch them and followed them to a second house much like the first. It couldn’t have been more than a mile and a half away. This one was down the street from a church.

  The second watchman joined the other two men in the Nissan. On his way to the car, he made a show of his gun.

  “They’re gathering their forces,” Frank said.

  “Or going out for food,” Sam replied.

  They followed the Nissan to an auto shop and picked up another guy. This one pulled the gun out of his waistband before he got into the back of the car.

  “That’s four guys with guns,” Sam said. “We still going with plan A?”

  “We’ll follow them and see,” Frank said.

  They followed them onto I-25 which runs straight through Denver. Half an hour later they were running south, leaving the Denver metropolis behind.

  To the west, the Rockies rose up and towered over the landscape. Here the land stretched out in gentle hills with very few trees. They traveled down I-25. Before they reached Colorado Springs, the Nissan exited the freeway and headed east into the country. There were plains, plains, and more plains, as far as the eye could see. And then they started seeing hillocks covered in patches of ponderosa. They were close to the Black Forest area.

  Pinto had been their eye in the sky this whole time. It had allowed them to keep out of sight, to follow the Nissan with more than a mile between them. But Pinto came on the line. “I’m going to have to drop down and fill up the plane.”

  “How long?” Frank asked.

  “I’ll be back in forty-five.”

  “Roger that,” Frank said.

  Sam sped up. A few minutes later they spotted the Nissan way up ahead, and Pinto flew off. Sam closed the distance until they were maybe only a half a mile back. The area was pretty here. Miles of pines and meadow and more pines. They followed the Nissan into a little town; on the way out the Nissan turned down a road flanked by pines.

  Sam was slowed by a truck hauling hay and traffic coming the other way. He finally made the turn, sped down the road, but the Nissan was nowhere. They came to a T with a little gas station and bowling alley on the other side.

  They looked left, looked right. There was nothing on the road.

  “Crap,” Sam said.

  There were some teenage boys in the parking lot by the bowling alley. They were lounging up against a big yellow pickup, talking to some girls in a Volkswagen.

  Frank said, “Lets go talk to those kids.”

  Sam drove across the road, but the teens were packing up. They were in their cars and moving before Sam could get to them. He rolled down his window but they motored over to the bowling alley and exited the parking lot there.

  “Should I chase them down?”

  “Pull up to the front,” Frank said. Sam drove past a car at the pumps to the front by the ice chest. Frank took out his phone and found their position with GPS. The little town they’d gone through was Calhoon. He Googled Calhoon with Lupine and Luke and Ludwig, but didn’t find anything. Tried Lucifer and Luna. Even tried Lugworm. Nothing. He got out of the van and w
ent inside the station to the stout blond woman at the cash register. There was a rack of gum on the counter. Frank took out a package of bubble gum and put it on the counter. “Got a question,” he said. “I’m looking for the Goroza place.”

  The woman shrugged and shook her head, rang in the bubble gum.

  “The owners of the big bakery,” Frank said.

  “I don’t live around here,” she said.

  A twenty-something guy standing by the candy bar aisle had been listening to the conversation. “You talking about that place on Lullaby?”

  Lullaby, of course. “Why, yes,” Frank said.

  The guy gave the woman at the counter a look.

  “What?” Frank said.

  “Nothing,” the guy said.

  “No really,” Frank said.

  “Just take a left out of here,” the guy said. “Head down the road. Lullaby’s a couple miles down on your left.”

  Frank turned to the woman. “What’s he not telling me?”

  The stout blonde said, “That’s that place with the grotto, right?”

  “Yeah,” the younger guy said.

  “Ah,” the woman said and dismissed him. “They’re Catholics. They’ve got this grotto thing with the statue of Mary in it. They light candles. Prayers. That kind of thing.”

  “It isn’t always Mary,” the young guy said.

  “Oh, no?” Frank asked.

  “I haven’t seen it, but some say they perform other rites.”

  The stout woman rolled her eyes. “Don’t listen to him; he doesn’t even have a job. Nothing to do but think up weird things.”

  Another car pulled up to the pumps. It was a man and woman with bicycles riding in a rack up on top.

  Frank motioned at the road. “So I take a left, go a couple miles, and then another left.”

  “You got it,” the guy said.

  The price for the bubble gum appeared on the register display. Frank handed the woman two one dollar bills. She made change, and Frank picked up his gum.

  “Have fun,” the guy said.

  “They’re bakers,” Frank said. “They make frostings and snack cakes.”

  “See,” the stout woman said.

  Frank left the two behind to argue about the propriety of talking about your neighbors and walked out to the minivan. He Googled 743 Lullaby, Calhoon, Colorado. A moment later he was looking satellite view of a big old rambler with wooden shingles, a long drive, and a swimming pool. It was a pretty big spread nestled in the middle of huge swaths of ponderosa pines.

  There was a barn, what looked like another smaller house, and some outbuildings. There were adjacent fields and corrals ringed by white post fences. One field looked like a place to ride horses. Frank zoomed in. Sure enough, the satellite had captured someone on a horse in that field. Frank zoomed out and then a bit more. A little farther away a stream ran through the pines to a fishing pond.

  Sam said, “What is that? Forty acres?”

  “A regular gentleman’s ranch,” Carmen said.

  “Let’s get down the road,” Frank said. “Make sure this is the right place.”

  They found Lullaby right where the guy at the gas station said they would. It was a country road running through a landscape of pines and prairie grass. The land on the right of the road was fenced off. About a mile down the road they came to a newer section of fence. Every fifty feet the barbed-wire fence had a square No Trespassing sign.

  “I think this is the start of their property,” Frank said.

  They passed pines and fields and a lot more No Trespassing signs, and then the entrance to the long driveway came into view. Alongside the drive was the riding field he’d seen from the Google maps with the white post fence. At the end of the drive were a bunch of SUVs. At the back to one side sat the Nissan.

  “The troops have gathered,” Frank said.

  A number of men sat at a table on a shaded patio next to the house. Colorful chickens milled about the yard. Behind them a peacock sat on a fence post. Beyond the peacock, in the far corner of a field, stood a gaggle of ostriches.

  Frank shook his head. “The Gorozas have got their fingers in all sorts of pies.”

  “Their oldest son has an MBA,” Carmen said.

  “Which goes to show that college degrees don’t make a man smart,” Frank said.

  Sam continued a mile past the house then stopped along an empty section of road running through more prairie and pines without a single No Trespassing sign. This was probably some rancher’s land used to graze cattle.

  “Okay,” Frank said. “That was the first pass. Now we need to do some close recon.”

  “We’re just going to walk up?”

  “We’re going to drive up,” Frank said. He put on his no prescription black-rimmed glasses. “It’s a courtesy call to inform the owners of the property that Xcel Energy will be conducting a gas line survey in the area. If all goes well, I’ll get in and check their furnace.”

  “What am I going to do?” Carmen said.

  “You’re going to take the binoculars; between Google terrain and this first pass I found the perfect spot for you to keep an eye on things. You’re going to watch our backs.”

  “What about me?”

  “You’re going to sit in the van.”

  “Okay,”

  Frank took out his bubble gum. “Have a piece.”

  “It’s full of sugar; it will rot your teeth.”

  “You ever seen a bad guy blowing bubbles?”

  “No.”

  “All right then. You’re bored. You’re in the van. You’re blowing bubbles.”

  Sam took the gum, unwrapped his piece, and began to chomp. Then he put it in gear, made a three-point turn, and headed back toward the house.

  26

  Target

  THEY COULDN’T JUST let Carmen off in full view of the house, so Frank directed Sam to drive about half a mile past the house and then pull to the side of the road. Carmen took Sam’s binoculars, scrambled down the shoulder, over a fence, and into a stand of trees. Frank figured it would take her about seven minutes to get in place. So he and Sam got out of the van and walked around like they were doing something important. Frank’s leg was still hurting, but he tried to loosen it up anyway. He brushed the stray Cheerios out of the van and moved the diaper bag and anything else that said this was a family vehicle into the trunk with the Cub Scout crap. With every Cheerio that fell to the ground he realized just how sketchy this plan really was.

  They heard Carmen’s hard breathing on the conference call as she ran. A few minutes later she said, “Okay, I can see the knocker on the front door and the labels on the beer bottles the men are drinking on the patio.”

  “How many people are there?”

  “There are eight out on the patio. No, wait. Two more coming out of the house with plates of food.”

  “Is Flor there?”

  “I don’t see her. It looks like there are two sentries, one by the driveway, and another out back talking to a girl by the barn. That’s twelve men.”

  “Who else is there?”

  “There’s a young girl serving drinks.”

  “Do you recognize any of them?”

  “I see José. I see Hector. The rest I don’t know. I wish I had a camera with a telephoto lens.”

  Frank wondered about her previous operation, how they operated, what success they’d had. “I bet you a penny this is their pow-wow,” he said. “They’re discussing Jesus’s death, and how to react should the authorities trace anything to them. Probably some other contingency planning. And, of course, they need to plan the operation outside Hudson where we present ourselves for a four a.m. execution.”

  A lawn mower cut into the call. “I’m back,” Pinto said. “We miss anything?”

  “Christmas,” Frank said and looked up into the sky. Pinto’s plane was small and high up. “What do you see?”

  Pinto said, “You’ve got a lot of people at the house.”

  Frank wonde
red if Ed was there. A big meeting like this, he ought to be there. “Carmen, can you see Tony?”

  “No Tony,” she said.

  Pinto said, “Someone’s on a horse ride south of the property. There’s something down there, back in some rocky overhang. I think it’s a statue.”

  “That’s the grotto,” Frank said.

  “The rest of the area’s clear. Everyone else is moving about close to the house.”

  Eyes in the sky, com-linked to the whole team, someone watching Frank’s back—it was just like old times. Except not really.

  “Any propane tanks?” Frank asked.

  There was a pause while he checked. A moment later he came back on. “None visible from the air.”

  Frank said, “Carmen, you keep us apprised. Anybody new shows up, anybody changes locations—I want to know. Pinto, watch the wider area.”

  “Roger,” Pinto said and muted his phone.

  “Carmen?” Frank asked.

  “Roger,” she said.

  Frank said to Sam, “It’s time.”

  They got back in the van. Only then did Frank realize that the license plates on the van were Wyoming plates. Someone working for Xcel of Colorado would not be driving a Wyoming minivan.

  Frank got back out and used his wrench to unscrew the bolts holding the plates. Then he put them in the back with the rest of the stuff and wondered what else he’d missed. “When we go down the driveway, don’t turn around until it’s time to leave. A missing front plate is less noticeable than a missing back one. And you busy yourself in the van, like you’re taking calls and doing work. Get some paper and make notes.”

  “Okay,” Sam said.

  The sound of the Cessna roared into the call. Pinto said, “There are actually two riders. I missed the one. The riders have passed you. You’ll see them on your right as you drive toward the house.”

  “Roger,” Frank said.

  Pinto muted his phone again and the sound of the Cessna cut out.

  Sam turned the minivan round once more and drove down the road back toward the long driveway that led to the house.

  The key was going to be getting inside the house to get as much a feel for it as he could. He had a flashlight in his tool belt. He figured he’d bluff them, tell them that the survey was prompted by contaminants, and that he needed just a few seconds to judge the color of their gas flame.