The Big Gamble - Michael Mcgarrity [58]
“By responding to their ads. Would you like a hard copy of the Web sites we use the most?”
“That would be a big help. Do you keep tabs on any local smut photographers?”
Vialpando printed out the hard copy, signed off, and shut down the computer. “Give me a name.”
“Thomas Deacon.”
He reached over, got the sheets off the printer, and handed them to Piño. “I’m not familiar with the gentleman’s work.”
“How should I proceed with Cassie Bedlow?”
“If she really is a front for a prostitution ring, she’ll be looking for girls who are vulnerable—down on their luck, out of a job, hurting for money. Girls that are estranged from their families or far away from home.”
“That’s good to know. I told her I was divorced, I’d just moved here from Durango, didn’t have a job yet, and was pinching my pennies,” Piño said.
“Nicely done,” Vialpando said with genuine sincerity. “Are you?”
“Am I what? Pinching pennies? What cop doesn’t?”
Vialpando laughed. “Are you divorced?”
Piño studied Vialpando. In his early thirties, he was way beyond average looking, with intelligent brown eyes, no receding hairline, and a slightly turned-up nose. She shook her head. “You have to get married to do that, and I’m not. How about you?”
“You know the old saying: become a detective and get a divorce.”
“That must have been tough,” Piño said.
Vialpando shrugged. “Fortunately, it ended before we’d started a family.”
Piño waited a beat for more, like perhaps an invitation to grab a cup of coffee. Nothing came. “Thanks for the tour of the wonderful world of vice,” she said.
“Any time,” Vialpando said with a laugh. “Will you need backup tomorrow?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What time are you coming down?”
“I’ve made an appointment with Bedlow for ten o’clock.”
Sergeant Jeff Vialpando smiled shyly. “If you’d like, I’ll buy you lunch and you can tell me what you’ve learned about my backyard.”
“That would be very nice,” Detective Ramona Piño said demurely.
Clayton didn’t like El Paso very much, not even with a pretty sunset in full view on the western horizon. A hundred and twenty miles south of Ruidoso, it was sandwiched between the New Mexico state line and the Mexican border city of Juárez, across the Rio Grande. In spite of new shopping malls, spreading residential subdivisions, and a partially revitalized downtown area, El Paso held no appeal for him. Perhaps it had something to do with geography. It was the westernmost city in Texas, much closer to the New Mexico state capitol in Santa Fe than to white-bread Austin. It was a gateway city, heavily populated by native Hispanics, as well as a growing number of both legal and illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America. It was a desert city with blistering wind-storms, little rain, and brain-deadening hot summers. But most of all, it was an industrialized city, filled with warehouses, freight companies, NAFTA maquiladoras just across the border, wholesale distribution centers, and major drug runners operating out of Juárez.
The interstate and major railroad tracks cut through the city. Endless truck stops, gas stations, and vast, fenced storage yards lined the highways. Squalid barrios on both sides of the border spread way beyond city limits. All of it gave Clayton a dismal feeling.
Captain Vincent Calabaza of the El Paso Police Department headed up an intelligence unit that was part of a multiagency drug interdiction task force. Housed in a new building built with federal funds, the task force consisted of agents from DEA; FBI; Immigration and Naturalization; Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; and a host of state and local officers.
A heavyset man in his fifties, Calabaza listened while Clayton asked about Luis Rojas, and ran down the reasons for his inquiry.
“Are we talking about the same Luis Rojas?” Calabaza asked when Clayton finished.
“He owns a trucking company,” Clayton said.
“And you think he may be a party to a homicide?” Calabaza asked. “Or running whores in Ruidoso?”
“Is he a friend?” Clayton asked, reading Calabaza’s skepticism.
Calabaza snorted a laugh. “I don