Baca Read online

  He got up, shaking his head, “This shit is way beyond you, Baca. You don’t want any part of it.”

  “Why’d you beat him, you and your buddies?”

  “We didn’t do anything to him.” He rubbed his chin, then said, “We got there too late.”

  “So, you were going there to beat him up but somebody beat you to it, pardon the pun.”

  “You are so over your head here.”

  I was hearing You don’t know shit again in a little different phrasing. I said, “Why don’t you fill me in? I’ve been hearing that all week.”

  Deco looked at me, and for a moment I thought he might spill it all. Instead, he sighed, “I’m not out to hurt Landman, know that first. But there are people involved that...”

  “That what?”

  He rubbed his chin, then said, “They’re bad people.”

  “Come on, Deco. You’re a Maravilla, one of the toughest gangs in Los Angeles. What do you mean, ‘They’re bad people’? Bad compared to who, the Maravilla? Give me a break.”

  “The Maravilla are a family, Baca. We do what we do to hold our barrio together, to protect each other and to keep our honor. We’re nothing like these others.”

  “Like how?”

  “They are merciless, without morals or scruples, and they only desire money and power.”

  “So they’re Democrats and Republicans.”

  Deco looked like he tasted something sour. “You won’t be joking if you keep messing in this. Landman crossed their path, started sniffing around, and now no one can find him.”

  “Is he alive?”

  “Lots of people still hunting for him. They don’t hunt for dead people.”

  “Who is ‘They’?”

  Deco looked at me, “How do you make a living?”

  “The mark of a true professional is to look like they’re not doing anything.”

  “Well, you’ve got that down.” He glanced out the window, then turned back and said, “Organized crime. That’s who ‘They’ is.”

  “All organized crime?”

  Deco sighed, “In LA. Mexican Mafia, Russians, those guys.”

  “What did Landman do to stir them up?”

  “He was nosing around and found something.”

  I took a long shot, “Did it have to do with something in the shoebox you took?”

  The skin around Deco’s eyes grew white and for a moment, I thought he might have a stroke. “You can’t know that!”

  I crossed my arms on my chest and said, “I’m the Karnak of Investigators. I see all, I hear all.”

  He was agitated now, “This is no game, Baca. That information could get us both killed.”

  “What was in the box?”

  “I can’t tell you.” Even as Martinez said it, I could see him considering the idea. This guy carried a load on his shoulders and was feeling all alone.

  I took one of my cards and wrote my home phone and cell phone numbers on it. I had to hold it out to him until my shoulder burned before he finally took it. “You call me when you want to talk. Ask Pretty Boy, I can be trusted.”

  He left with the card, but not before looking out the window at the parking lot for a good minute. I put my feet up on the desk and chewed on a pencil. This was starting to get like a fifties spy movie, all Thems and Theys and vague threats and furtive characters. Not me though, I wasn’t a furtive character. I was the guy who figured out everything. I just didn’t know when that part would start.

  **

  Hondo showed up at five PM with some limes, a saltshaker, and a six pack of Tecate in the cans. He opened two cans and took out his SOG knife to cut a lime into quarter wedges. I started to speak but he said, “Get one down, then we’ll talk.”

  We squeezed the lime wedges into and onto the can openings, then sprinkled it with salt. I hadn’t drunk Tecate in a while and it was cold and crisp, with the mixtures of salt and lime juice combining with each swallow.

  We finished our cans and Hondo made us two more before he talked.

  Hondo said, “Ever hear of Sakhalin?”

  “Yeah, it’s an island off the coast of Russia. I think it’s a military base, something like that.”

  “Uh-huh. The one that shot down a loaded Japanese passenger jet that got over their air space.”

  “That happened a good while back.”

  “Yeah, before the USSR collapsed.”

  “And?”

  “Simon Mortay was the one who gave the order to shoot it down.”

  “He was a Soviet officer?”

  “Yep. A rising star until that fiasco. Afterward he was shuffled to different assignments, then disappeared for a few years.”

  “And now he’s here, working for the Russian Mafia.”

  “Bingo.”

  “Hey,” I said, “I thought you were researching property titles. How’d you wind up with this stuff?”

  “Oh, on a hunch I called a friend.”

  “What kind of friend knows stuff like that?”

  “You know.”

  I nodded, “Uh-huh. A friend from your third world days.”

  “I was working as a candle maker then.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “Gave a bunch of those folks in that area a whole new meaning to ‘light me up’.”

  Hondo spread his hands. “Mortay’s not the big honcho, but he’s important. It’s assumed Mortay’s using old military contacts to do some smuggling into the United States.”

  “Smuggling what?”

  “They’ll get back to me on that. Could be anything.”

  “I hear Boris Yeltsin Life-size Love Dolls are big this year.”

  Hondo drank the last of his second beer and said, “Yep, right along with the children’s working model Chernobyl Reactor, complete with real radioactive core. I hear it’s good for ages ten and up.”

  “That’s a Gotta-Have if I ever heard one. What’s the box look like?”

  “It’s color, shows two kids with no teeth and hair falling out playing with the glowing reactor. Thing’s a real eye-catcher.”

  “Too bad we don’t have kids, huh?”

  “Too bad.”

  Hunter walked in at that moment and saw us both with cans in our hands. She went to the small refrigerator and got herself one while Hondo cut another lime. She doctored the opening with salt and lime juice and took a long swallow as she sat on the edge of Hondo’s desk. She said, “Oh, that is fine.” She looked at us, “That all you two did today, sit around and drink beer while I worked my buns off?”

  I angled my head to look at her rear, “You didn’t work them all off. There’s a goodly portion left.”

  “Goodly,” Hondo said.

  Hunter looked under her arm at her rear, “Yeah, I’m getting flabby.”

  I almost choked on my beer. Hunter’s rear is about as flabby as the butt on an Olympic gymnast. You could bounce quarters off it.

  “You come up with anything?” Hondo asked.

  Hunter said, “Some. I read through the ICE reports before the woman called, then quizzed her about some of the points. Seems there’s a regular pipeline smuggling young, pretty women from Mexico into California, especially the LA area. The woman said a man recruited her daughter and several relatives, and he went from village to village to get the best looking ones and bring them up. The trick is, they don’t have to pay much to be smuggled, but the smugglers gather all their wages at the jobs until they’ve worked off the trip.”

  I said, “Isn’t that what we used to call indentured servitude?”

  Hunter said, “Uh-huh. But knowing what I know about smugglers, if they control all the money these women earn, then the women will never finish paying off their trips.”

  Hondo said, “How many are they bringing in?”

  “Not large numbers now, because they’ve expanded their operations. Maybe two dozen a month. What the smugglers have done is expand on what they’re doing. The women are carrying things into the country for the smuggler, and they’ve been joined ne
ar the border by other people being smuggled in, and these people are Caucasians.”

  “What do you make of that?” I asked.

  “The best guess is the Caucasians are East Europeans. They are paired with the women to pass as couples. It makes it easier to travel through the US if you’re a couple.”

  “Were the women in the canyon part of this?”

  “The woman I talked to in Mexico said she thought so.”

  “Why didn’t we find any men?”

  “Nobody knows, but my guess is the Caucasians are separated as soon as possible and sent somewhere else. They’re paying a lot of money to be smuggled in, and they’ll be taken care of. The women are expendable. If they get caught, they are only sent across at Tijuana, or like the ones in the canyon, documented and let go.”

  “What kinds of things are the women carrying into the country? Is it narcotics?”

  “No, it sounds like jewels and gold artifacts.”

  Hondo and I looked at each other. I said, “So, they must be stolen or the smugglers could bring them through Customs.”

  Hunter said, “Uh-huh. What they found, two Border Patrol Agents near El Campo worked a canyon north of town and found a woman who had been stabbed and left for dead. Her last statements were of carrying a wrapped package and that she was killed because she peeked inside.”

  Hondo asked, “Did she say what was inside?”

  Hunter took a sip of Tecate and looked at Hondo for several seconds, then at me, “The woman said it was a golden egg, covered with green, red and white jewels.”

  Hondo and I were silent as it sunk in. “A Faberge egg?” I said.

  “What it sounds like,” Hunter said. “That was the last thing she said before dying.”

  “Ho-ly shit,” I said.

  “Even if it’s a copy, they had to be smuggling it in because it was stolen,” Hondo said.

  “And each woman was carrying something?” I said.

  Hunter nodded. “So, about two dozen pieces a month over the last year.”

  I said, “Be nice to know if that egg was original. We could narrow things down pretty fast then.”

  Hunter said, “Yep. That’s the only account we have, and it doesn’t describe in detail what the egg looked like.”

  Hondo said, “Well, with what I found out today about the Russians involved in smuggling, and Faberge eggs are Russian, maybe we can start there, see where it takes us.”

  Hunter said, “Sure, but after we eat. I’m starving.”

  **

  We went to a place in Santa Monica on Entrada Drive that served good chicken fajitas and nachos and we continued our talks, but switched to iced tea to drink. I paid for the meals and we went back to the office, getting there about seven PM.

  The answering machine light was blinking on the phone and Hondo pushed the PLAY button. Mickey’s excited, breathless voice came over the speaker, “Ronny, Hondo, I’ve been checking into some things and I think I’m really on to something! I’ll be sleuthing this evening and I’ll fill you in tomorrow morning. If it works out to what I think, you’ll be so excited! It will help us find Bob, and answer a lot of questions, too. I know, I know, I’ll be careful. Talk to you tomorrow. Bye-bye.”

  I picked up the phone and called Mickey’s cell phone, but got no answer. I left a message for her to call, then called every other number for her and got no answers on any of them. I left messages on them all and hung up after the last one. I said, “Mickey’s going to get a real chewing out when we see her again.”

  Hondo said, “She was too excited not to have found something.”

  “Yep.”

  We sat in silence for a moment, then Hunter said, “Not much sleep tonight, huh?”

  **

  It was ten o’clock the next morning before we heard something, and it wasn’t Mickey. Sergeant Vick Best called and I answered.

  Best said, “Ronny, we found one of your business cards this morning.”

  A sinking feeling settled in my stomach. Hondo and Hunter watched me. I said, “Where?”

  “You know somebody named Mickey Haile?”

  I closed my eyes and nodded. Hondo whispered, “Oh, man.”

  I said, “Yeah, where is she?”

  “She? It’s a man, Ronny, wearing a woman’s clothes.”

  I said, “Where is Mickey?”

  After a second Vick said, “It’s a body. A bicyclist found it this morning. We’re on Mulholland Highway, a mile west of where it intersects with Old Topanga Canyon Road.”

  “We’re headed that way.”

  “Ronny, it’s not pretty. If you’d rather talk-”

  “We’re on our way.” I hung up as Hondo pulled the keys from his pocket.

  **

  There were a dozen law enforcement vehicles parked along the shoulder of the road and twenty yards from the pavement, we saw the yellow crime scene tape outlining a draw that angled up into the mountains.

  Vick saw us coming and lifted up the tape. He said, “They’ve finished gathering forensics and we’ll be taking the body in a few minutes.”

  He led us into the draw and I saw Mickey. She was wearing her pink and green biking clothes and was lying on her stomach on the talus in the bottom. Her face was toward us and was almost unrecognizable. Someone had beaten her until all the bones were broken. I walked to the body and knelt down. The fingers on her right hand had been broken and there were a dozen holes the size of grapes over the backs of her legs. The holes weren’t round, but oval, like someone inserted a slim blade and moved it around the way you use a stick to stir paint. She’d been alive when they finished. Dried blood left tracks like red roads from each wound along her legs, indicating she had moved, or been moved, while she bled.

  Hondo squatted beside me and looked for several seconds. He pointed at the holes in her legs. “These are at nerve clusters. Pain would have been the kind to pop your skull off.”

  I said, “They aren’t bullet holes.”

  “Nope.”

  We looked at Mickey for several more minutes, then climbed out to join Vick. He called over the primary Investigator and had him stand with us and ask his questions. We answered them and when we mentioned the phone message from last night, Vick looked at the ground and shook his head.

  “Haile shouldn’t have tried to do it alone.”

  “I know.”

  Hondo said, “Crime Scene people come up with anything?”

  “Doesn’t look like it. We couldn’t even find any tracks down to the body.”

  Hunter stepped closer and pointed at the ground beside us, “Looks like a couple people here went straight to the edge and came back. You can see where they walked over their own tracks.” I looked where she was pointing and couldn’t see anything. There was little soil, only the faintest dusting over the gravel and exposed rock. I lifted my foot and looked where it had been and couldn’t see that I’d ever stood there.

  Vick said, “Border Patrol, a tracker, right?”

  Hunter nodded. “You want me to take a look?”

  “Yeah.”

  Hunter said, “I’ll need to take a look at the soles of whoever walked around here.”

  Vick motioned over the investigator and several others. The Crime Scene people had left but Vick said they were wearing Reeboks, if that helped. Hunter checked everyone’s shoes, including ours, then walked to the body.

  We moved to the side and watched her. Hunter took her time, studying a three-sixty around the body and working in ever-larger concentric circles out of the draw. It took fifteen minutes before she reached the pavement. Hunter turned to look at the body and rubbed the back of her neck. She studied the terrain for a moment, then went to the edge of the draw and knelt. She nodded to herself, rose, and walked to us.

  “Nobody took Mickey into the draw. They…no, make that he--threw her into it from the edge.”

  I looked from the edge to the body. The killer threw her away like trash.

  Vick said, “You sure?”

&
nbsp; Hunter nodded. “Two people went from the road to the edge of the draw and the long striding one was carrying the body.” Hunter pointed at a spot. “He threw Mickey from there, got his legs into it and scrooched the gravel with his foot as he pushed off, kind of like somebody throwing the shot put. It left a small pressure ridge in the ground where his left foot rotated in the follow through, so my guess is he’s right handed. They probably weren’t out of the car more than thirty seconds before they were rolling again.”

  The investigator was writing as Hunter talked. He said, “I may have to call you as a witness on this.”

  Hunter said, “No problem. I’ve done it before.”

  Vick asked if there was anything else we wanted to add, and we shook our heads. He waved the men down with the body bag and they put Mickey’s tiny broken form inside and zipped it up.

  Hunter said in a hoarse voice, “I think I’ll go back to the car.” I noticed Hondo had put on his sunglasses.

  I bit the inside of my cheek to get control and said to Vick, “We think of anything, we’ll get in touch.”

  Vick looked at me, “You remember that. We’ll be on this and do what needs to be done. Don’t interfere in the investigation, Ronny. That goes for you too, Hondo. I mean it.”

  I said, “We’re working on finding Bob Landman.”

  Vick said, “Yeah, but you and I both know this is all tied together, and we’re looking for Landman. Don’t get in the way.”

  I turned and walked to the Mercedes with Hondo. Before we drove away, Hondo put up the top on the convertible. He said, “Too much blue sky and sunshine right now. It should be raining.”

  Hunter tapped my shoulder and said, “Can I borrow your handkerchief?” She’d put on Ray Bans like Hondo and her nose was red. I gave her my handkerchief and wished I had brought my own sunglasses. With the top up, I couldn’t even say the wind was causing my eyes to water.

  CHAPTER NINE

  As we drove away, I said to Hondo, “You remember Mickey’s home address?”

  He looked at me and nodded.

  Hunter said, “Yeah, maybe there’s something we can find.”

  “You can’t go.” I said.

  “I sure can. You watch me.”

  Hondo said, “No, Hunter. If Vick or his people walk in on us, it’ll be your career. We can’t let you risk it.”