The Devil's Redhead (13 page)

He drove slowly, navigating awkward turns in the road as it followed ancient property lines. He checked the names and numbers on roadside mailboxes. Many bore RFD numbers that didn't jive with the address he had for Shel, and he ventured back and forth along the same five miles of narrow, curving asphalt, unable to make sense of where he was, how close he might be, how far. In the end he just returned the way he'd come to the same roadside market in Oakley.

He went to a bank of pay phones along the outside wall. Beside them, a fresh urine stain streaked the plaster where someone had unzipped and let go. The stain had a yeasty stench, and in a nearby station wagon three teenage boys downed beers and chortled madly. When a young woman emerged from the market, the teenagers emitted in unison a cheerless mating howl.

Abatangelo checked the phone directory, but Shel wasn't listed, even under misspellings. He called Information but the operator had no new listings, either. He tried to think of aliases she might use, recalled a few from the old days, checked these as well but only came up empty.

He walked toward the station wagon with the three sniggering drunks. Leaning down into the driver's side window, he said, “I'm hoping you guys can help me with a problem.”

The boys were white, neither poor nor well-to-do. The kind whose fathers worked construction or wore a badge or drove a rig, maybe two generations removed from Dust Bowl camp trash. They wore decent clothes, their teeth were straight, and their hair looked like it was cut by a woman. They regarded Abatangelo with expressions of dread. He crouched down, so as to look a little less imposing.

“I've got an address I'm trying to find out here, and I can't seem to get the thing right.”

The three teenagers exchanged glances with vague relief. One of them said, “Lotta people get lost out here.”

“Well,” Abatangelo said, “I guess I'm one of them.”

“What address you got?”

It was the driver who spoke. He seemed the oldest, with sandy-colored stubble on his cheeks and chin. Beside him, the guy riding shotgun, if that was still the term, was blond and good-looking and seemed the most frightened of the three. The last one had the Okiest features of the bunch and seemed bent out of shape about something. Skinny and big-eared, he sat in back alone. Riding President, Abatangelo thought. At least that's what they called it when he was their age.

From memory, Abatangelo recited the address he had for Shel, deciding against showing them the computer printout. They looked at one another as though to determine if anyone had a clue. It was the one in back who spoke finally.

“You ain't talking about the Akers place, are you?”

Abatangelo turned toward the voice. “What Akers place?”

“You'd know,” the driver said, “if that's where you were headed.”

“I'm not sure that's true,” Abatangelo replied. “I'm just looking for an old friend.”

The one in the back leaned forward, touched the driver's shoulder, and said quietly, “Gary, let's beat it.”

“Look,” Abatangelo said, “I'm not out here looking for trouble. There something I ought to know about this Akers place?”

The three kids looked at one another and then replied variously, “I never said that”; “Sorry”; and “School night.” The driver reached for the keys, but Abatangelo reached through the window and caught his hand.

“I don't know,” he said calmly, “what you three are so scared of, but it shouldn't be me. I'm not a cop, or I would've busted you for the beer already. I don't even know who this guy Akers is, so I'm not out for a fight, I'm not trying to score, I'm just looking up an old girlfriend. If there's something going on out near where I'm headed, I'd appreciate your telling me.”

His face was less than three inches from the driver's. He could smell the beer and the chewing gum on his breath. He let go of the boy's wrist.

“Gary, you tell me,” he said. “Give me directions to this Akers place, and we're square.”

The boy licked his lips, glanced at his friend beside him and then murmured his directions to Abatangelo. From his hours of to-and-fro on the road, Abatangelo had a fair idea of the property the boy was referring to. He recited the directions back to the boy and got a nod to affirm they were right.

“Now tell me what was so hard about that,” he said. None of the three youths looked at him. “Go on home, before you run into somebody not so understanding.”

He turned back to the phones and heard the station wagon's motor turn over and the transmission engage. The tires screeched on the smooth blacktop as the three youngsters fled. Probably his mother's car, Abatangelo thought, thumbing through the phone book again.

He discovered a listing for a Euell Akers, no address. He dialed the number but ten rings passed without an answer. He hung up and went inside. In accordance with a plan made up on the spot, he bought a six-pack for camouflage. Gotta go out and deal with some people named Akers, he thought, who clearly wield a serious fear factor with the locals. Just the kind of people to know this cranker pal of Shel's, this Frank. Tell them I'm out here to look up a friend. I brought the brew, figured we'd sit around and shoot the goose. Story needs improvement, he realized, but there was time during the drive for that. He got back in the car, put it in gear and headed back out toward the same country road.

CHAPTER

7

Frank and the twins proceeded in darkness along Pacheco Creek, driving the tool wagon and the two vans toward the scrap yards on Suisun Bay. Refineries lined the westerly hills above the road. Rail yards cluttered the lowlands to the east.

The vehicles turned into a landfill road parallel to a line of abandoned dry docks. The asphalt turned to gravel as the road curved along a small, unkempt marina. Beyond the marina, a cinder-block wall ran parallel to the road on the landward side. A half mile further inland, refineries towered along the hillsides, twisting dark masses with plumes of flame, ghostly exhaust and a webwork of light.

Frank and the twins slowed their vehicles, took up position along the wall and prepared to wait. A wind came up, carrying with it a stench of tap-line leaks and rancid water. From the nearby marina, ship tackle and boat lines clamored dully. Now and then moonlight filtered through the clouds drifting low overhead.

Frank studied the Martinez hillside beyond the refinery. A few of the houses had kitchen lights burning, left on for workers due home in a few hours from graveyard. There were fewer such lights than in the past. The refineries were closing here, moving to Mexico. Everything with an income to it was moving to Mexico, or Malaysia, or some other Third World backwater, and what wasn't moving was staying put with foreigners running the show.

Face it, Frank thought, same thing here. Doing business with Mexicans.

After twenty minutes the vehicle he was waiting for appeared. It was a four-by-four, black with an enclosed shell. The small truck parked on the strait side of the gravel lane, its motor still running, from which Frank inferred they'd popped the ignition switch to steal it. He signaled with his headlights in a prearranged code and the Mexicans signaled back.

The moon, suddenly exposed, cast a stark, cold light as the Mexican driver stepped out of the four-by-four. He was joined by two companions who lowered the truck's tailgate and unfolded themselves from the back. The three men greeted one another in whispered Spanish, eyed the moon, then ambled toward Frank and the twins.

The two groups passed each other at the center of the gravel lane, doing so wordlessly and without gestures of greeting or even acknowledgment. Soon the vans and the tool wagon, commanded now by the Mexicans, started up again and began to move. They followed the gravel lane west toward a pick-up road that would lead them south again, through a ravine lined with alders toward the highway. From there they would head off to Rolando Moreira's worksites east of Suisun City.

Frank climbed inside the four-by-four the Mexicans had brought and discovered a newish smell. Stolen from a lot, he figured, checking under the dash for things that weren't supposed to be there. Explosive things. Listening things. Satisfied, he turned on the headlights and put the truck in gear.

He took the same path out as the Mexicans before him, and a half mile down the way he spied beyond the marsh grass a dark sedan. It was Cesar's car. Frank wasn't surprised to see it but he wasn't pleased, either.

He signaled by headlight to the car, received the same signal back, and pulled to a stop. Setting the parking brake, he rapped on the glass partition to the back, and told the twins through the glass, “Get out.” He didn't wait for their objections. Instead, he just stepped out of the cab and went back to meet them as they scrambled off the tailgate onto the gravel.

“We're just here to do a little meet 'n' greet,” Frank said. “Won't be long.”

“Frank-o,” Chewy replied. His eyes glowed. “Shitload of money back here.”

“Later,” Frank said.

The driver of the dark sedan rolled down his window to speak as Frank and the twins approached. An intense aroma of
mota
wafted through the window crack.

“Francisco,” Cesar said, smiling. He was a small and wiry man with a disfiguring birthmark above one eyebrow. He eyed the twins, then extended his hand to Frank.

“Francisco,
amigo. Quihubo?
”

The man beside him in the passenger seat giggled. In contrast to Cesar, this man was huge. The third man in the back was huge as well. Frank had met them once before. Humberto and Pepe.

“Whatch'all doin' out here,” Frank asked. All down home.

Cesar said,
“Abrazos
from Señor Zopilote. He's happy. So am I.”

Cesar's command of English rated somewhere between competence and mimicry. Frank, who'd grown up in San Diego, knew the accent well. The border was swimming with guys who spoke just like him.

“That name again?” Frank said.

“Zopilote,” Cesar replied, the goodwill draining from his eyes.

“I grew up along the border,” Frank said. “My mother was half-Mexican, she drove me in and out of TJ twice a month to score diet pills. So I know a little Spanish. In particular, I know what
zopilote
means. It meant ‘vulture.' I don't recall it coming up before.”

“He's the boss,” Cesar said.

“I thought you worked for some guy named Moreira.”

“Don Rolando?”

“Rolando Moreira, yeah.”

“He owns the hotel where we met,” Cesar admitted. “A
hacendado
, land owner, developer, you know. But I work for El Zopilote. He'd like to meet you, by the way.”

“Abrazo
,” Humberto shouted suddenly from the backseat.
“Quihubo, amigo.
” He and Pepe started giggling again. Cesar reached over and slapped at Humberto's head. Humberto yipped in mock pain and he and Pepe fell into dopey laughter. Cesar turned back to Frank. “Idiots,” he said apologetically.

“Tell Señor Zopilote or whatever you really call him I'd be glad to make his acquaintance,” Frank lied. Buy time, he thought.

“Bravo,” Cesar said. “Tonight?”

Overhead, the moon vanished again beyond the clouds.

“Tonight's a little soon,” Frank said. “When things settle down. There's gonna be quite a stir once Felix finds his stuff is gone.”

“Perfect,” Cesar said. “Because I was told to pass along a little something. An offer. If you want to make some real money, we are very interested in learning how to get a message to Mr. Felix.”

Frank, to conceal his shaking, toed the gravel at his feet. “No fooling? What sort of message?”

“A friendly message.”

From behind, Frank heard Mooch whisper, “Fan mail? From some flounder?”

Frank spun around and glared. Mooch coughed in his hand and stared off toward the refineries. Turning back to Cesar, Frank leaned down closer to the car window and asked, “This wouldn't have anything to do with that
chavo
got strung up to a tree out on Kirker Pass Road, would it?”

With his forefinger Cesar scoured a cigarette pack tucked inside his shirt pocket. Shortly he withdrew a mangled cigarette and put it to his lips. “A friendly message,” he repeated.

“I thought your boss Moreira had no truck with crank,” Frank said. “Just a builder.”

“Absolutely,” Cesar responded.

“But El Zopilote, he's more broad-minded.”

“Francisco …”

Frank leaned down closer and whispered, “That's what this was all about, right? You didn't need any cable, you didn't need any of that shit, or not so much you were willing to pay me thirty grand. You wanted a crack at Felix Randall. A little
venganza
, am I right? What was the boy's name? Gaspar Arevalo. From the county of Sonora, if I remember right.”

“We would be very interested,” Cesar responded. He extended his hand in the Latin fashion, palm down, for Frank to take. “We'll make it worth your while. We already have. We'll talk?”

Frank took Cesar's hand, gripped it perfunctorily, and stepped backed from the car.

“Till then,” Cesar said. He put the sedan in gear and eased it from the gravel shoulder. As they went, Humberto sang,
“Vaya con Dios
…
Quihubo culero Francisco
…”

Frank stared at the receding car with newfound dread. Collecting himself after a moment, he signaled for the brothers to get back in the truck.

“That little guy,” one of the twins remarked. “He's one butt-ugly little cooze.”

Frank turned about in a sudden fury. It was Mooch, of course. “Come again?”

Mooch took a step back. “Hold the phone, Frank.”

“You know what ‘cooze' means in the joint, right?”

The boy kept retreating.

“I asked you a question.”