“Flight plan,” Frank says.
“Yes. Now then, I don’t believe you will have any trouble finding her, but I told him the search might take ten days or so, perhaps two weeks, and that if he thought it necessary he could inform Charles that you might be gone that long. Do you agree that two weeks should be far more than enough time for you to find the girl and bring her here?”
“Well, ma’am, that’s just really hard to say,” Frank says.
“Not only that,” I say, “but suppose we do find her and—”
“Suppose?” she says. “What is there to suppose? Finding people is your principal proficiency. Of course you will find her. After all, she is not even in hiding, is she? Why would she be? She has committed no crime.”
“Well, ma’am, what I mean is suppose that when we find her she doesn’t want to come with us? That could present a problem.”
“That could present a lot of problems,” Frank says.
“If she’s not of a mind to accompany you, then you will have to change her mind. She cannot be more than sixteen years old. A child. Are you no match for a child? And do not forget for a minute that for someone so young to be exploited for such purpose as this degrading sort of . . . entertainment is a criminal offense. Whatever else she is, she is a victim. She requires rescue from such mistreatment and you will provide it. Tell her whatever you must to make her come back with you. Give her money.”
I can’t help thinking that the kid sure didn’t look like she required rescue. She looked like she was having a damn good time.
Catalina suddenly sits back and smiles shyly, a most unusual expression for her. “I cannot believe I am instructing you in your own profession. How terribly presumptuous of me.”
“No, ma’am, not at all,” Frank says. “You’re speaking frankly, making suggestions. Nothing presumptuous about that.”
“I’m relieved to hear it,” she says. “Because I would not like to seem presumptuous in suggesting that Rayo Luna go with you. She has better comprehension of a young girl’s mind and emotions than either of you and is better suited to persuade her to accompany you. Do you for any reason object to having her go with you?”
“Not me,” I say, and look at Frank.
“Me neither,” he says.
“Good. Harry McElroy has said I may send her with you.”
We can’t hold back smiling side glances at how far ahead of us the old girl is.
“One thing more. Harry McElroy has probably already informed Charles that I am sending the three of you to seek someone for me. In spite of his insolent manner, Charles is not a stupid man, and because of my request of the video from him after he made the Kitty girl’s pictures for Jessica, I suspect that he has already guessed whom I want you to find. He is certain to ask you if he is correct, but you are not to confirm it for him. You are not to tell him any details of your task. The more he finds out about it, the more likely he will want to be involved in it and probably even try to assume control of it on the basis of being your chief. But I do not want his assistance and you do not need it. The only ones to know the specifics of what you are doing are we three and Rayo Luna. And Jessica, of course. As soon as we complete our business here, I will inform both of them of the situation. I have told Harry McElroy that Jessica is also involved in this matter, even though she will not be going with you, and that I do not want Charles to harass her about it in any way. I will instruct Jessica that if he should try to bully information from her, she is to come and live with me until your return. So. Only the five of us are to know what you are doing. No one else. Am I understood?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Frank says.
She looks at me.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.” She picks up the DVD and hands it to me. “Do not neglect to return that to Charles. Now go and get her. Tell her what you must. Do what you must. But bring her back here and directly to me so I can see her in the flesh. That is the only way . . . Oh, dear.” She puts a hand to her mouth, then removes it from her small smile and points at the DVD. “Please believe me, I did not intend to make a joke at the girl’s expense.”
Frank and I grin anyway. Because in a manner of speaking, all of us have already seen Kitty Quick very much in the flesh.
We stop at a diner that knows us well and we’re given the private corner table we request. We order filets and a pitcher of Negra Modelo, and while we wait for the steaks we start on the beer and begin forming a game plan.
“I’ll have Rayo dig up whatever online information she can on anybody connected to the tutors video,” I say. “I’ve got a hunch there won’t be a website for the company. If there was, the DVD case cover information would likely have included it. There might not be much for her to find. If so, then what? Tucson?”
“No other selection,” Frank says. “The PO box is all we got. And yeah, sure, there are legal ways to get such confidential information as the name of a box holder, but most of them take a while, and we don’t wanna sit around twiddling our thumbs all that time. We go to Tucson and either keep watch on the box till a key holder shows up and we front him, or we find out who the key holder is and where he lives and we pay him a visit. I’m for choice number two.”
“So am I. We need somebody with an inside line who can get us the box holder’s name pronto.”
“Mateo,” Frank says.
“Who else? As close to the border as Tucson is, the Jaguaro network probably has a contact of some kind who can come up with the name.”
“Right. But first call Spur and get us a flight to the García ranch tomorrow morning. Then call Félix and tell him what time we’ll be there and that we’ll be needing a vehicle to go to Tucson. A proper one.”
Félix García is the present patriarch of our kin in El Paso. The Garcías have been linked to our family by marriage since the early 1920s. They’re good people and we’ve done each other plenty of favors over the years. As for a “proper vehicle,” that’s our phrase for one that’s almost totally bulletproof, except that its ballistic glass is resistant only one way. Its outer side resists a bullet’s entry, but a round fired from inside the vehicle easily passes through the glass, even the windshield. Another marvel of modern engineering. I don’t have to ask why he wants such a vehicle. We’re only slightly acquainted with that stretch of the border, and it’s one of our basic rules that whenever you enter unfamiliar territory it’s best to be prepared for all possibilities.
I call Rayo and get a recording and tell her to call back as soon as she hears this. Then I ring up the operations manager at the airfield and tell him there are three of us who need to go to El Paso tomorrow, more specifically to the Half-Moon Ranch and its private airstrip just north of the city. He puts me on hold for a moment, then comes back and asks how a nine fifteen takeoff sounds. We’d arrive at the Half-Moon sometime around noon, depending on the in-flight weather. I say that’s fine and he says we’re on.
I next connect with Félix. I hasten through the amenities and then tell him we’re flying up to his place tomorrow morning and give him our ETA. Our pilot will radio the ranch landing field when we’re a half hour from arrival. When I tell him we need a proper vehicle for a trip to Tucson, he says that’s fine, we’ll have it.
I’m about to phone Charlie when Rayo gets back to me and says she’s just talked to Catalina, who told her what was happening and that she would be going with us. She’s being cool about it, but I’m pretty good at reading her tones and can tell she’s excited by the assignment. I tell her our takeoff time in the morning, then instruct her to search the net for anything she can find on Kitty Quick, the other actors in The Love Tutors, the director Dick Stone, and Mount of Venus Productions.
“I’m on it,” she says.
My call to Mateo catches him having supper at a restaurant, too. Like ours, his phone—and every other shade trade and Jaguaro phone—has an encryption-plus security system second to none. I give him the Mount of Venus PO box information and tell him what we w
ant. He says the Jaguaro intelligence web has a station in Nogales—the Mexican Nogales, a far more populous town than the neighboring Nogales on the U.S. side—and it’s got all sorts of law enforcement contacts in Arizona. He’s pretty sure they can come up with something as simple as the name of whoever’s renting a particular PO box in Tucson. “Might take a while, though,” he adds. “Maybe till tomorrow afternoon.”
I smile at his notion of “a while” and I tell him that by tomorrow afternoon would be real good. “We’ll be getting into Tucson around five.”
“Oh, hell, you’ll have it by then. One of my guys will call you with the info. Take care, cuz.”
“Always do, primo. Thanks.”
I’m just about to call Charlie when the phone buzzes in my hand, and it’s him, saying he’s been trying to get me for the past ten minutes. His father’s told him about Aunt Catalina borrowing us and Rayo Luna for a week or two to go find somebody for her, and Charlie is majorly irate that she wouldn’t tell Harry Mack who we’re looking for. It pisses him off even more that we won’t tell, either.
“Can’t, man, we promised her,” I say.
“Tell you what I think,” he says. “I think you’re going to look for the Kitty Quick girl from the sex movie. First, Jessie wants me to make prints of her. Then the old Cat wants to see the flick. Then you guys are going to try to find somebody for her. Doesn’t take a genius to put it together. Tell me I’m wrong. Or better still, tell me what the Cat woman wants with her. The Spur guys informed me Harry Mack’s let you have a plane to El Paso. That where she is?”
“Come on, man. This is how the Cat wants it. One thing I can tell you is this job’s no big deal, take my word for it.”
“That so?” he says. “Well, if it’s no big deal, what’s the big fucking secret?” We both go silent for a few seconds before he says, “Stop by on your way out in the morning. I’ll have breakfast bagged and ready.” He cuts off before I can thank him.
“No big deal, eh?” Frank says. “Try telling that to the Cat.”
“You know what? We’d be a hell of a lot better off if Charlie was in on this. He’s got contacts everywhere and I bet some of them have ties to the skin flick business and could get some inside info on this girl.”
“Could be, little brother. But you know what?”
“Yeah. Try telling that to the Cat.”
“Even if we tried to use Charlie’s help on the sly, she’d find out. You know she would. We would then be on her shit list for the rest of her life.”
“Oh, man, we don’t want that,” I say. “That would mean for the rest of our lives.”
We bust out laughing. And chuck the notion of asking for Charlie’s covert assistance.
It’s full night by the time we arrive at the Landing. Rayo’s truck is parked next to the stairway to my house, and by the glow of light from the front window we can see her sitting in a deck chair on the veranda. She and Frank wave to each other as he heads up the stairs of his place. She’s in jeans and a black T-shirt and custom-made running shoes that have metal toes and heels stitched into them. Frank and I will be wearing the same kind of shoes tomorrow. There’s a travel bag at her feet, and I know it contains almost the same things as Frank’s and mine—the Glock 17 she prefers to our Berettas, a Quickster suppressor, a shoulder holster, three extra fully loaded magazines, a few flex-cuffs, and very little in the way of clothes other than underwear, T-shirts, and a light windbreaker or something of the sort that can be tightly rolled and easily packed and whose chief purpose is to hide our shoulder holsters when we carry in public. Any other clothing we might require we’ll buy as need arises. She, too, has a Mexican license and passport, a carry permit, and a Toltec Seguridad ID. The bag also makes clear that she has come to spend the night.
“Since we’re leaving early,” she says, “I thought I might as well sleep here rather than have to drive over from the beach in the morning.”
We go in the house and she tosses her bag on the sofa. I get two bottles of Carta Blanca from the fridge, uncap them, and give her one, and we go back out on the veranda.
She tells me she made a net search for Kitty Quick and found out there are scores of porn actresses named Kitty something-or-other, but “Kitty Quick” came up only in reference to The Love Tutors. The movie itself came up only on sites that review porn films but offer little information on them beyond a cursory summation, an overall rating, and the names of the production company, director, and lead actors. It’s been in release about three months. It has an excellent rating on every site, and the Kitty girl has reaped praise in all reviews.
“Got nothing but the same sites in my searches for Sunny Diamond, Ginger Snapper, Dick Stone, and the male actors,” she says. “Either The Love Tutors is the only movie any of them have ever been involved in, or they’ve been in others but, for whatever reason, used other names in them, even the director.”
A breeze has kicked up off the Gulf and carries the wonderful smell of an imminent storm. It rains a lot in the summer around here, and the night storms are my favorite. The clouds are deepening the darkness. We finish our beers and go inside.
“Listen,” I say, “I still haven’t caught up on the sleep I lost out on in Mexico, and there’s no telling how much sleep this gig is gonna cost us. I need all the snooze I can get tonight, but the only way that’s gonna happen is if we crash in separate rooms.” Even as I’m saying this, I have to work hard at not picturing her with her clothes off and losing my resolve. I really do need the sleep.
She tilts her head sideways and gives me a look, as I open up the futon on the other side of the coffee table fronting the sofa and toss one of the sofa pillows on it. “Take the bedroom,” I tell her. “I’ll crash out here.”
“Let me get this straight. You’re saying that my, ah . . . unbridled passions, my . . . animalistic cravings have been depriving you of your proper rest these past few days?”
“I would’ve phrased it less poetically, but yeah. Only because I was already so ragged out when I got back.”
She issues a theatrical sigh. “Come to bed, buster. I promise not to take advantage of you.”
“Yeah, I know how that goes. I’ll stick with the futon.”
“Bucka-bucka-bucka,” she says, flapping her outthrust elbows like chicken wings, then picks up her bag and moseys off to the bedroom, putting a little extra swish in her butt.
I waken to the blasting thunder of the storm. The rain’s drilling hard against the roof and windows, and every lightning flash illuminates the room with a shaky pale glow. The air’s heavy with the smells of mud and ozone.
Then I comprehend that what actually woke me was the feel of Rayo’s hands slipping under the waistband of my shorts. I’m lying on my side and she’s on her knees behind me, and as I roll toward her, saying, “For Christ’s sake, girl—” she whisks the shorts down and off my legs as dexterously as one of those guys who can snatch a tablecloth from under a setting of dishware without upsetting so much as a teacup. Then her hand is on me and achieving its familiar and swift effect, and I can’t keep from laughing as she says in a deep, old-time horror-movie intonation, “I am the succubus Rayora, come to put you in my power and deplete you of your masculine vigor!” Then she’s astraddle of me and her hips are in action and that’s it, she’s depleting my manly vigor, all right. I’m done before she is, and then her back arches like she’s been punched in the spine and she gives a little quiver and slowly folds down onto my chest and laughs softly against my neck.
“I oughta press rape charges,” I say.
“Oh, no, sir, no. What you should do is thank me most earnestly. Because now you’ll really sleep well, and your welfare is my utmost concern. My own base needs are of no matter whatever.”
“Medical studies have shown that excessive and inexpert sarcasm can wither a tongue.”
“Oh, dear God, what a deprivation to you if I lost my tongue.” She gives me a peck on the forehead. “And by the way, sailor, you’re welcom
e.”
She detaches from me and sashays off to the bedroom.
She’s pretty good at getting her way when she sets her mind to it. A lot like Aunt Catalina in that respect.
At dawn the storm has passed. The Landing smells fresh and cool and holds a thin layer of ground fog. I’m glad Rayo doesn’t ask if I slept well after her nocturnal sortie on the futon, because in fact I slept like the proverbial log and I really don’t want to hear her crow about it.
When we come down the stairs with our travel bags slung on our shoulders, Frank’s already waiting in the Mustang, sipping from a plastic mug of coffee and reading a magazine. Like us, he’s wearing a baggy, untucked chambray shirt over jeans—the easier to conceal a pistol in our waistband should we need to—and steel-toed and -heeled running shoes. Frank and I both have white name tags stitched in red over the left pockets of our shirts, Frank’s reading JAKE, mine NICK. We’ve made use of these shirts many times before. I tell him of Charles’s takeaway breakfast offer, so we swing over to the Doghouse and they wait in the car while I go in, holding The Love Tutors down against my leg. Only the usual early birds are there, having breakfast at the counter. Charlie’s working the grill and sees me and brings over a pair of carryout orders in plastic bags.
“Egg-sausage-cheese burritos in one,” he says. “Coffee and cuernos in the other.” A typical cuerno is a croissant-shaped pastry lightly coated with a sugar crust, but his cuernos include a cream filling. He knows I love them.
“Thanks, cuz,” I say. I slide the DVD across the counter.
He picks it up, gives me a two-finger “Up yours,” and says, “I hope the cuernos rot your teeth out.”
The Bones of Wolfe Page 10
