The Last Chance Olive Ranch

by Susan Wittig Albert

  MCQUAID

  Friday Night

  As Blackie drove through the dark, rainy night, McQuaid finished his phone calls. He had connected with both of the guys at the SAPD. They understood the situation immediately and were eager to help, especially when they heard that if there were arrests to be made, they’d be the ones making them. Then he pulled up Google Maps on his cell and clicked from the map view to the street view of Romeo’s Wrecking Yard. He wanted to get a sense of where they were going and what they would be facing when they got there.

  Romeo’s was located in far south San Antonio, off I-35 at Cassin and over to Loop 353, the New Laredo Highway, which was lined with junkyards, automobile parts stores, equipment rentals, and stretches of empty, weedy lots. The street view on his phone showed him that the wrecking yard itself was concealed behind a head-high, white-painted corrugated sheet-metal fence, designed to block the unsightly acres of junked cars from the eyes of passing citizens. The fence stretched for almost a hundred yards along the highway, with Affordable Transmissions and Engines painted on it in two-foot-high red letters. A narrow steel utility building, its green paint speckled by irregular patches of rust, bore the sign Romeo’s Wrecking Yard. Auto Parts, Recycling, Foreign and Domestic. The structure wasn’t huge, just big enough to garage a couple of large trucks. In the street view, McQuaid could see a single door in the front, with what looked like narrow glass sliding windows on each side. He frowned. The building was the only one visible, but there could be more than one, hidden behind that tall fence.

  He clicked from the street view to Google Earth, then zoomed in close. He was looking straight down at the wrecking yard, and from what he could see, the long single-story metal building was the only one on the lot. So that’s where they had to be holding Sally. But behind the building were the junked autos and trucks: ten double rows of a couple dozen cars parked diagonally in each row—say, fifty vehicles times ten. Five hundred cars and trucks, more or less, in what appeared to be a more or less permanent configuration, although of course you never knew how long ago Google’s spy-in-the-sky satellite had flown overhead and captured this view. There appeared, as well, to be several buses and quite a few heaps of used tires, piled up here and there. In one corner of the yard was the crusher, which could flatten a half-dozen autos without working up a sweat. In the picture McQuaid was looking at, he could see a man standing beside the crusher, ready to operate it, and another man coming toward him, rolling a tire. He shivered, remembering that he had read recently that if you were sitting at an outdoor café, writing in your notebook and one of the current generation of spy satellites was parked overhead, it could make you out, easily. The next generation—the one that was already in the works—would be able to read the page in your notebook. It was pretty damn scary.

  He backed out, to a wider view. There were what looked like light standards at the back corners of the salvage yard, so far away that the lot itself would be dim and heavily flocked with dark shadows. He and Blackie had flashlights, but using them was problematic in a situation like this. If a shooter saw a flashlight approaching in the dark, he would fire to the right of it—his right, about belly-level. He’d hit his target 90 percent of the time, because 90 percent of the population is right-handed.

  Shaking his head, McQuaid took another look at the rows of junked cars. If Mantel and his friends were tired of listening to Sally or Juanita—or both—bitch at them about the accommodations, they could tape her mouth, tie her up, and stash her in one of those five-hundred-plus junkers. He hoped that wouldn’t happen. It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

  “Got any ideas?” Blackie asked in a conversational tone. “How do you want to handle them?” They had come off I-35 at the Cassin Lane cutoff to Loop 353.

  McQuaid pocketed his phone. “Still working on it,” he said briefly. He sat back in the passenger seat, eyes fixed on the highway unrolling ahead of them at the margins of the Charger’s headlights. In his mind, he was scrolling rapidly through a half dozen scenarios that might allow them to get Sally away from Mantel without getting her killed—and another three or four that might allow them to take out Mantel (and Lester and Romeo, if necessary) without getting killed themselves.

  But although Google had given him a static, fairly clear preview of what they were about to get into, there were too many unknowns in this dynamic situation. Those windows in front would be useful in one scenario, for instance. But he couldn’t tell how many windows and doors there were in the back and the other side of that metal building. He also couldn’t tell whether the junkyard was guarded only by junkyard dogs (bad enough) or by a guy with a gun. Or by a guy with both a gun and a squad of junkyard dogs, who might be on patrol on the perimeter. And whether there were just three bad guys—Mantel, Lester, and Romeo—inside that metal building, or a whole cast of bad guys: Romeo’s and Lester’s friends and associates, recruited from the nearby streets and hangouts. For all he knew, Sally was being held hostage by a gang of five or ten. Or a dozen. In which case, he and Blackie would be pretty damned sorry they hadn’t called in Royce and his Special Response Team, who would storm the place in fine SWAT-team style and shoot everything that moved.

  At the same time that McQuaid was working dispassionately through the options, calculating odds and weighing outcomes, he was feeling a deep-down passionate gratitude (and even a measure of self-congratulation) that the woman Mantel was holding was his ex-wife and not his wife or daughter. He had certainly slipped up when he failed to anticipate the possibility of Sally’s showing up in Pecan Springs, where Mantel could snatch her. But that only showed that he had known what he was doing when he insisted on sending China and Caitie out of harm’s way for the weekend. His wife, whom he loved with a fiery intensity that sometimes frightened him, was out at the Last Chance Ranch, enjoying a quiet, uneventful evening with Ruby and a few friends. Things might be going up in flames here, metaphorically speaking, but China was safe and out of danger. He had to figure out how to get Sally out of Mantel’s clutches, but he could do that without investing a lot of emotion in the puzzle. If China were in jeopardy, he would be going crazy.

  And after a while he gave the whole thing up, for now, anyway. It was pointless to try to construct a plan until they got where they were going and he saw the actual layout and could figure out where Sally was being held, and by how many, and what kind of firepower they had. But right now he had two aces up his sleeve—or rather, two cell phones in his pocket: one of them his, the other the pink phone he had picked up while Candy was pouring herself another Scotch and water.

  And two ideas.

  “The major advantage we’ve got,” he said aloud, “is time.”

  “How do you figure that?” Blackie asked. He slowed and downshifted for the right turn off Cassin, onto 353. At the corner was a big salvage yard, a building materials warehouse, and a truck storage lot. It was mostly light industrial, storage yards, auto repair shops, and big empty fields here. There was no traffic and the area was dark, with only a few security lights burning. Romeo’s was a couple of miles to the north, on the other side of Leon Creek.

  “So far as Mantel knows, he’s dealing just with me—and I’m still back at the house in Pecan Springs, waiting for his call. He doesn’t have any idea that I’ve already got a fix on his location or that there are two of us as close as a couple of miles. When he calls, he’ll figure I’m at least an hour away.”

  Blackie frowned. “You’re not concerned that Lester’s girlfriend will phone him and tell him that his good buddy Harvey showed up at the trailer, looking for him? They might figure that was you.”

  “She could try.” McQuaid reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the pink cell phone. “But if she does, she won’t be using this.”

  “Uh-oh.” Blackie glanced at it. “Class-B misdemeanor theft.” He grinned. “Could get you a two-thousand dollar fine and a hundred eighty days in the hoosegow.”r />
  “I borrowed it,” McQuaid said. “She’ll get it back tomorrow or the next day. In the meantime, I thought I might use it to make a call.” He paused. “Or send a text.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Blackie was interested. “Who to?”

  “Lester,” McQuaid said. He turned on the phone and found Lester’s number at the top of Candy’s favorites list. “Not just now, though. I’m still working out the sequence. First, we have to find out if they actually are at Romeo’s. Second, we’d better be sure our backup is going to show. And third, we need to hear from Mantel. He’s using Sally’s phone to contact me. He should be calling any time now.” In fact, McQuaid thought uneasily, he should have called before now.

  As if Blackie had read his mind, he asked, “If he doesn’t?”

  McQuaid considered. “We’ll have to call him. But the longer he waits, the closer we are and the stronger our hand. Time’s on our side.”

  Blackie bent forward, trying to catch the street numbers on the mailboxes along the road. “Romeo’s should be coming up pretty quick now.”

  McQuaid looked down at his GPS. “This should be it. Next building on the right.”

  Blackie slowed and cut the dash lights and they both looked to the right. A wooden sign announced Romeo’s Wrecking Yard. A streetlight shone wanly at the curb and a single security light over the front door of a narrow metal building was mirrored in a collection of puddles in the asphalted parking area. On each side of the front door was a narrow sliding glass window, with light shining through, but barely. The windows appeared to be streaked with grime. There was no door visible on the south side of the building and McQuaid couldn’t see the back, but on the north side, close to the rear, there was another security light over a door. No windows that McQuaid could see on either side. A green Chevy Camaro detailed with scrolled red and gold flames was parked out in front, an anonymous-looking dark blue Volvo beside it. A black pickup truck with Romeo’s Wrecking Yard painted on the door was pulled up alongside the building. Three vehicles.

  “The Camaro is Lester’s car, according to Candy,” McQuaid said as they cruised past. “The Volvo could be the car Romeo is giving Max, so he can drive it to Mexico. Looks like the truck belongs to Romeo himself. I’m guessing that there’s just the three of them inside. Or four. And Sally.”

  “So we know they’re here,” Blackie said. “But they don’t know we’re here. Have you figured out how you want to play it?”

  “Getting closer,” McQuaid said. At that moment, his cell phone buzzed. “McQuaid,” he said into it.

  “If you want your wife alive,” Mantel said in his gritty voice, “you’ll have to drive down to San Antonio to get her. South side of town. Take I-35 straight through, then head west on Cassin to Loop 353, the Laredo Highway. Right on 353, about two miles, to Romeo’s salvage yard. You’ve got one hour.”

  McQuaid looked over at Blackie and gave him a thumbs-up. “An hour!” he squawked, putting a panicky yelp into his voice. “Hey, man, give me a break! San Antonio is a good forty-five minutes from here, and the south side is maybe a half hour more. And if I run into traffic—”

  “I don’t give a good goddamn about the traffic,” Mantel broke in. “You get your ass down here and take this broad off my hands, or I’m gonna kill her, swear to God. She’s—”

  There was a commotion. “Mike!” Sally cried. “Mike, is that you? Oh, please, hurry! Hur—”

  “Shit!” a male voice exclaimed. “Damn it, Max, the bitch bit me.”

  Mantel laughed. “That’s what you get for clapping your hand over her mouth, Lester. Feisty broad, ain’t she? Better tape her trap shut again.” He spoke into the phone. “We’re getting damn tired of your wife. She don’t know when to quit.” His voice hardened. “You come on now, McQuaid. When you get here, come to the door on the north side and ring the buzzer. And don’t even think of pulling any fancy tricks. Come with a crowd and your woman will be dead. Come by yourself, and I’ll turn her over to you so we can get our business done. Our unfinished business.” There was a pause. In a lower, darker voice, he said, “Hey, man. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? We’ve got a score to settle, you and me.”

  McQuaid clenched his fist, straightened his fingers. He was flashing back to the time before, remembering his hand holding the gun rock-steady, aimed at Mantel, his finger on the trigger, ready to pull. He was remembering how it felt to choose. He had made a choice—and now five people were dead. Five who would be alive if he had made a different choice.

  “You get what I’m saying?” Mantel repeated impatiently. “If you don’t, say so and I’ll spell it out for you.”

  “I get it,” McQuaid said roughly. “I’ll be there in an hour.” He clicked off. “He wants me to think that this is going to be about the two of us. He’ll hand Sally over and then there’ll be a one-on-one shootout. But I have the idea that’s not what he’s setting up. He’s telling me to come to the rear door and ring the buzzer.”

  Blackie nodded. “He probably plans to station a shooter—Lester, maybe, or Romeo—in one of those junked autos with a clear view of that door. Ring the buzzer and you’re a dead man.”

  “Lester, probably. But they figure they’ve got an hour before they spring their trap. They have no idea we’re already here.” McQuaid checked the rearview mirror. No traffic behind or ahead. “Pull over and let me out, Blackie. I’m going to make sure those yahoos don’t try to leave the premises while we’re not looking—or if they do, that they don’t get far.”

  Blackie pulled over to the curb. “How do you aim to do that?”

  McQuaid dug in his pocket and showed him. “Just the kind of thing your friendly neighborhood vandal would bring to the party.”

  “Should work,” Blackie said approvingly. “Want help?”

  “You stay here and keep the motor running.”

  “I’ll do it. You keep clear of the junkyard dogs.”

  McQuaid planned to. But if there was a dog at the junkyard, it wasn’t in the vicinity. He got out of the car and swiftly walked the twenty yards back to the metal building where the two cars and the truck were parked. Squatting in the shadow of the truck, it took him fewer than twenty seconds to make a quick thrust into the left front tire with his pocket knife. Then he moved around to the front of the building and took care of Lester’s Camaro and the Volvo with the same hard, swift strokes. And then, crouching low, he went to the window to the left of the door and peered in, hoping to see Sally—or failing that, identify where the others were.

  But the window had never been washed, and the light inside was dim. All he could see was a shadowy grouping of several people-sized shapes and an occasional movement. Listening hard, he could make out the raspy sound of laughter and a voice or two but no words, and then the sudden metallic blare of a diesel train whistle a block away blotted out even that. He took a good look at the window itself while he was at it. It was a single-paned slider, locked but not barred. It shouldn’t give them any trouble.

  Three minutes after he left the Charger, he was back again.

  “Get a look inside?” Blackie asked as he got in.

  “Yep. Couldn’t see how many, but I don’t think it’s more than the three of them—and Sally. Of course, Lester or Mantel may have invited a couple more. They could be expecting them to show up in the next hour.” That would make sense, McQuaid thought. It was all the more reason to get this show on the stage now. He pointed ahead. “See the corner where the board fence ends? Laramie Street. That’s where our backup is supposed to meet us. Turn right there.”

  Unpaved, Laramie wasn’t much more than a wide dirt alley. There was an empty, block-sized field on the left; on the right, Romeo’s. Here and around the back, the head-high sheet-metal fence was replaced by a six-foot chain-link with a couple of strands of barbed wire strung along the top, obviously installed with the idea of making it difficult for thieves to get
into the yard and strip parts from the automobiles before the salvage yard owners got around to doing that job themselves. But it wasn’t impossible to get over it, McQuaid thought, eyeing the fence. All they needed was a bolt cutter and they were in. He wouldn’t be surprised to see a dog or two on patrol, though. That’s what most yards used to protect the premises.

  “What did Jocko say they’d be driving?” Blackie asked as the Charger’s lights picked out a black van parked off the road, a half block from the corner at the end of the chain-link fence.

  “The department’s black Ford van,” McQuaid replied. “Looks like they beat us here.”

  Blackie flicked his lights twice and pulled in behind the Ford. As he did, the doors opened and two guys in plain clothes—two reassuringly large guys—got out and came toward them. Blackie cut his lights and buzzed down the window.

  “Hey, Jocko,” he said. “Climb in, man. Let’s talk about how this is going down.”

  Jocko was a burly, sandy-haired man in his thirties with a red brush of a mustache and shoulders like a wrestler. He was dressed for night work in a black canvas jacket and jeans, with a black cap that said Spurs in dark gray letters. Carlos was a square-chinned, gray-haired man dressed in a military-style dark blue nylon jacket over a brown shirt, with jeans and black canvas shoes. The shoulders of their jackets were rain-spotted, as if they’d been out and about. Both of them wore side arms under their jackets, and both had an air of personal competence and authority.

  As they got into the Charger, McQuaid felt immediately better. Yep—four to three was a lot better odds than two to three. And these weren’t guys you’d want to mess with. What’s more, they were local badges, which meant that he and Blackie weren’t going to be hauled in for operating on somebody else’s turf. He reached across the Charger’s seat and shook hands with Jocko and Carlos.

  “Thanks for coming out tonight,” he said. Blackie echoed him.

  It had been a while since they’d all been together and they spent a minute or two catching up, renewing their friendship, getting reconnected. Male bonding, China would have said. But not long, because they were there for a reason and McQuaid was anxious to get the job started and get it done right. He had briefed both of them on the phone, and they had checked in with their boss in Homicide before they came.