Wolf in the Shadows - Marcia Muller [72]
“Where’s it located?”
“San Clemente.”
“Perfect place,” I commented, thinking back to the days of Nixon’s western White House. “Who do they raise funds for?”
“Pretty much the same groups as the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. But there’s a difference.” Anne-Marie paused briefly. “Look, can you hang on a minute? I have to take another call.”
“Sure.” I waited on hold, mulling over this new information. When Anne-Marie came back on the line, I said, “Before we go on about Brockowitz, do you recognize the name Ann Navarro?”
“Navarro’s Brockowitz’s wife.”
“Okay, as you were saying …”
“Brockowitz is a former Greenpeace member, was fairly high-placed. Around six or seven years ago he made a big power play and was forced out. He got his revenge by establishing his fund-raising firm and courting big business. His methods … I call them Green Peril tactics. He portrays major figures in the environmental movement as Fu Manchus and the rest of us as their dacoits, scurrying around to carry out their evil schemes.”
“Clever,” I said. “The specter of an evil empire is a great scare tactic—and a great way to raise money.”
“Right. And Brockowitz raises a lot of it. What his contributors don’t realize is that he’d turn on their causes in an instant if he saw greater profit potential elsewhere, and that his administrative costs are padded. A good deal of the money he raises gets siphoned off into his own Swiss bank account.”
“Is that fact or just speculation?”
“Pretty solid speculation. One of my good friends, believe it or not, is an IRS auditor in Orange County. She goes after big-time defrauders, and for years she’s been obsessed with nailing Brockowitz. She’s come close, too, and that’s gotten her slashed tires and a fire in her house that the arson squad labeled suspicious in origin.”
“Brockowitz sounds like a sweetie. Anne-Marie, do you suppose Hy knows him?”
She laughed wryly. “You bet he does. Remember when Hy was arrested at that anti-logging demonstration in Siskiyou County last March? It was Brockowitz who set him off, taunting him from behind the picket line. The bad blood between the two of them goes way back to when Stan was still active in Greenpeace.”
Interesting—very. “Okay,” I said, “how would I go about getting to know Brockowitz? Or Ann Navarro?”
“Well, I’m not too sure about Stan. People with so many enemies tend to be wary about letting strangers get too close. But Navarro … They haven’t been married more than a year, so she probably hasn’t had time to get into quite as paranoid a state. As I recall … Hold on a minute and let me double-check this.”
Again I waited. Anne-Marie returned quickly. “I remembered correctly,” she said. “Navarro owns a store called the Swallow’s Nest in San Juan Capistrano.”
“What kind of store is it?”
“I’m not sure, but from the name I’d say it sells tourist crap.”
“Thanks, Anne-Marie. This has really helped.”
“Shar, when’re you coming home? Hank needs to talk with you. He’s been—”
“I know he feels bad about everything, but I’ll try to make it up to him. Tell him …” I paused, unsure what I wanted to say. Finally I finished somewhat lamely. “Tell him I’ll see him soon.”
Eighteen
To get to San Juan Capistrano, sixty-some miles north of San Diego, I had to pass through the San Onofre checkpoint. The distant nuclear reactor, its cones like dormant volcanoes against the sparkling sea, filled me as always with a dull foreboding; the caution signs beside the freeway that displayed the silhouettes of a fleeing family deepened my gloom. No illegals were attempting to cross the eight lanes of pavement now, and the immigration people looked bored as they waved cars through. But under cover of darkness,