Wolf in the Shadows - Marcia Muller [57]
“A Jeep came by, maybe about fifteen minutes later. The guy got in, and it drove up on the mesa.”
“This mesa—what’s on it?”
“Not much. Rocks and dirt. A burned-out adobe. You need a four-wheel drive to get up there. Sometimes tourists go look at the view, but la migra warns ’em off. It’s dangerous even during the day—too close to the canyons.”
I considered that. “It’s a strange place for a meeting, if the border patrol watches it.”
Abrego smiled. “Hell, they can’t watch it at night; they’re too busy chasing my people in and out of those canyons. You gotta remember, they only got around thirty guys working a shift, and they cover the whole county, including the border checkpoints and the airports. I’ll tell you, though, your friend and whoever else was in that Jeep were taking their lives in their hands going up there. Bad stuff goes down all over the place at night. Real bad stuff.”
The words chilled me. I asked, “Luis, did you see the Jeep come down again?”
“No. My people made it through maybe five minutes later.” He shook his head, pulled heavily at his beer, emotion clouding his eyes. “People made it through,” he repeated, “and then I lost ’em.”
“What happened?”
“Damned San Onofre checkpoint—you know, the border control station near Oceanside?”
I nodded. It was where many illegals attempting to travel north on Interstate 5 were stopped.
“The way we work it,” Abrego said, “we drop our passengers off before we get to the checkpoint. Tell ’em to run across the freeway when it’s clear and go around the station in the brush. No way la migra can patrol that whole area. These people we’re moving, they’re tired, scared, their judgment isn’t so good. My organization, we know they’re gonna head north anyway, so we try to help ’em have a safe trip. But some of ’em just don’t make it across the freeway.”
Beside me, John grunted.
Abrego gripped his beer bottle, looking down, shaking his head. “About two hundred and fifty people been killed up there, run down because they couldn’t tell how fast the cars were going. A couple of years ago they posted signs—down here by the port of entry, too. ‘Caution,’ and a picture of a family running.” He looked up, eyes bleak. “You know what’s so funny about that? A lot of our people can’t read. They don’t know ‘caution’—in English or in Spanish. They look at those signs and they think they mean it’s a safe place to cross.” He bit his Up, raised his beer bottle, drank again. “I explain it real careful to my people, so that wasn’t the problem last night. These people were from a little village. They never seen cars going that fast before. They … just … couldn’t judge the speed.”
I reached over and touched his hand. “Luis, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, thanks.” He wiped his nose with his hand. “So about this guy … Ana says he’s your friend.”
“Yes.”
“Well, even though I didn’t see him come off the mesa, I think I can help you.”
“Oh?”
“Guy I know. Name’s Marty Salazar. He’s slime. He’s such slime I want to kill the bastard, just wipe him off the face of the earth—you know? But I’ve got something on him, so he’ll talk to you.”
“And you think he knows something about my friend?”
“Yeah, I sure do.” Abrego nodded, face grim. “Marty followed the Jeep up there.”
Fourteen
Abrego excused himself and went to make some phone calls, and John and I waited in the booth. After a moment John said, “Interesting guy.”
I nodded.
Fifteen seconds or more passed. He asked, “So what do you think?”
I shrugged.
“You’re awful quiet. Worried?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What, you think Abrego’s not on the level?”
“No, I’m pretty sure he is.”
“This Salazar character, then. You’re—”
“Let’s just drop it for now, okay?”
He frowned, but backed off.
In truth, I was very worried—so much so that I couldn’t voice my concerns. Something had gone wrong on that mesa, I was certain, and I couldn’t shake the sense that something was about to go wrong again. Even though I was closer to finding Hy than at any time since this thing began, I’d never felt so distanced.