Wolf in the Shadows - Marcia Muller [109]
“Across from the old dairy on Monument Road. Do you know it?”
He nodded.
“Be there at midnight, but don’t give up on us until first light.”
“And if you don’t show?”
Heart-stopper of a question. I forced the obvious answer aside. “Be there the next night.”
Renshaw gave me a look that said he was aware of the correct answer, but he also chose to ignore it.
“And don’t forget to bring our money,” I added, just to needle him.
“I’ll bring it, even though I’m aware that you’re not doing this for the money.”
“No?”
“No. No more than you went after Ripinsky for money, or to satisfy a grudge. You may think I’m a coldhearted son of a bitch, and in most ways I am, but I harbor dim memories of what it’s like to love someone so much you’d risk your life for them.”
“I don’t—”
“You may think you don’t. Probably you“ve been hurt in the same ways Ripinsky has. You’ve backed off, refused to give your feelings that name. But you do love him.”
Stunned at his invasion of my emotional privacy, I pushed back from the table.
Renshaw reached over and grasped my arm. “However,” he went on, “in the extreme unlikelihood that I’m wrong, I’ll tell you this: I’d give a great deal to see what you’d do for somebody when you get around to the real thing.”
Twenty-Six
After I dropped the Tercel off at the downtown Avis office, I had a quick sandwich and walked over to Eighth Street, where I caught the southbound trolley. The bright red light-rail car was packed with returning Mexicans, up on a day pass to shop, play tourist, or visit relatives. A few stared at me—a lone American in clothing of Mexican manufacture—with frank curiosity; when I stared back, they looked away. Forty-some minutes later the trolley let us off in San Ysidro. Along with the crowd, I walked across the freeway overpass, down the ramps, through the turnstile. Then I caught a cab to the address Luis Abrego had given me in Colonia Libertad.
By now, I thought as the cab sped along the side streets, Hy would be back at the hotel, having arranged for yet another car—a specially equipped one this time. I wouldn’t need to rely on his linguistic abilities to transact my business with the coyote; most of the citizens of this border city spoke good English, just as most San Diegans had picked up enough Spanish to get by. During the past twenty-four hours, I’d realized my Spanish was better than I’d suspected. The coyote and I would manage just fine.
The address turned out to be an auto-body shop sandwiched among row upon row of colorful shacks with lush gardens that made them seem all the more wretched by comparison. At a nearby food stand an elderly woman was frying tortillas on a stove made of an oil drum. Ragged children played stickball in the street, chickens strutted and scratched, and a mangy dog tethered to a fencepost barked incessantly. The cab driver didn’t want to wait for me, but agreed when I gave him five dollars and promised another five later.
The auto-body shop was open, even though it was Sunday. I stepped inside the dark cavernous garage and saw that one wall was covered with the world’s largest collection of banged-up hubcaps. No one was working, but toward the back two men in coveralls sat on a bench, smoking. The scent of marijuana drifted my way.
I went back there and asked, “Alfonso Mojas?”
The taller of the two—a lean, dark man with missing front teeth and acne scars on his hollow cheeks—looked up and said, “Who wants him?” His English was Americanized, only lightly accented.
“Luis Abrego sent me.”
The man turned to his companion and spoke softly in Spanish. The other rose, cupping the joint in his hand, and left by a side door.
“I’m Mojas,” the man said. “Call me Al. What d’you need?”
“I want to hire you.”
“To do what?”
“Take some people north.”
“So why don’t they come here theirselves?”
“I’m one of them.”
Now he frowned. “Lady, maybe nobody told you, but lookin’ like you do, you can just walk across.”
“I’ve got a problem that prevents that. How much do you charge to make the trip?”
His eyes moved over me, obviously