Wolf in the Shadows - Marcia Muller [106]
He thought for a moment, staring unseeingly at the TV. Then he said, “Okay,” and pulled a cocktail napkin toward him. “You got a pen?”
I nodded and fished one from my bag.
Luis wrote two names and an address and phone number for each. “This first guy I trust, but the only reason you should go to him is if you can’t get hold of the other. He’s not really what you’re looking for—not tough or smart enough. This other guy, he’s sly, he’ll steal you blind if you don’t watch him, but I think you got what it takes to control him. If you can, he’ll get you through.”
I took the napkin and tucked it into my bag. “How much will he charge?”
“How many of you did you say?”
“Three, maybe four.”
“He’ll start out asking a lot, because he’ll know you’re in trouble. But he’ll settle for five, six hundred American.”
“Thanks, Luis. I appreciate this.”
“You really have to do it that way?”
“I think so.” I consulted my watch: four thirty-three. “I’ve got to go see somebody now who might help me, but I doubt he will.”
“Why not?”
I hesitated; in Luis’s world, RKI’s policy of not going into Mexico wouldn’t make a bit of sense, and I didn’t have time to explain. “He just won’t, that’s all,” I said, slipping off the barstool.
“Guy’s an asshole, then.” Luis got up too and followed me to the door. “Where’s your car?”
“In front of your apartment building.”
“I’ll walk with you. I sit around this place too damn much.”
We walked in comfortable silence. Luis didn’t press me for more information about what I was involved in, and for that I was grateful. When we got to where I’d parked the Tercel in the shade of an old pepper tree, I shook his hand, then unlocked the door and climbed in. Looked up to see him staring, perplexed, at the donkey piñata. His eyes moved to the backseat and he frowned.
“What’s all this?”
“I bought it to make myself look like a tourist when I crossed the border. Do you know anybody who would like it?”
“… Uh, sure, but—”
“Then will you take it, please? I don’t have any use for it.”
“Okay. I know some people who’re real homesick. Maybe this stuff ll cheer them up.”
As he removed the donkey, sombrero, wood carvings, serape, and marionettes from the car, Luis handled them gently, almost reverently. One person’s tourist crap was another’s treasure from home. He placed them on the steps of his apartment, then returned and leaned in my window, taking my right hand in both of his.
“Stay safe,” he said, “and call me later to tell me about it.”
“I will.”
Then he said something softly in Spanish.
“What?”
He shrugged, looking slightly embarrassed. “Just something I tell the people I drive when I let them off.”
“And it means?”
“Trust in no one but yourself and God.”
Twenty-Five
I got to Hotel Del ten minutes early for my appointment with Gage Renshaw. While crossing its baronial darkpaneled lobby, I looked around for signs of RKI operatives lurking behind potted palms, but saw only well-heeled visitors and a contingent of Japanese tourists who stood near their heaped luggage, eyes glazed by jet lag. Downstairs by the ladies’ room I found a pay phone and called Gary Viner.
“I assume you haven’t been able to contact Stanley Brockowitz’s widow yet,” I said.
“No. We asked Orange County to send a man out to their place in Blossom Hill. Nobody home, but you know what? There’d been a break-in.”
“Burglary?”
“None of the obvious things had been taken. And no vandalism.”
Salazar’s man, snatching Tim Mourning.
“And here’s another peculiar thing,” Viner added. “Looked like somebody’d been held prisoner in one of the bedrooms. Would you know anything about that, McCone?”
“How could I?” In order to derail that train of thought, I said, “I do know where Brockowitz’s wife is, though, and I plan to see her later this evening. I’ll break the news about her husband, if you like, and have her call you to verify it.”
“Why don’t you just tell me where she is and let us take care of it?”
“Can’t. I’m … meeting her in a public place