Wolf in the Shadows (14 page)

I slipped down farther on the lounge, still not sleepy. The tops of the tall eucalyptus in the canyon blew lazily, outlined
against a cloud-streaked sky. Something rustled in the underbrush beyond the fence and, farther off, I heard a coyote cry.
By day, with sunlight silvering the eucalyptus and pepper trees and accentuating the brilliant colors of the wild plumbago
and bougainvillea that grew among the yucca and prickly pear and greasewood, the canyon was beautiful and enticing. As children
we’d played there, descending the stone steps that Pa had built into the steep downslope; the remains of our treehouse still
perched in one of the sturdier live oaks. But I’d never liked the canyon at night, particularly after our favorite black cat
disappeared into it. Then it was rendered wild and strange by the setting sun. Then all that moved down there were the hunters
and the hunted.

The coyote howled again—closer. In spite of the night’s warmth, a chill slid down my backbone. I closed my eyes, tried to
picture Hy’s face. All I saw was Gage Renshaw’s, and his expression when he said he intended to kill him. Hy seemed very far
away, even though tonight I’d gone to places where he’d been only some forty-eight hours before, talked with people who had
talked with him. Tomorrow I had to move faster, close the gap between us….

Something screamed farther up the canyon—a small animal taken by a larger one. I came alert, knowing there would be little
sleep for me tonight. Momentarily I was safe here, but people already were looking for me. One false step and they’d snap
me up as sure as the coyote snaps up its prey.

Wednesday, June 9

The Holiday Market was a drive-by hiring hall.

Dozens of men gathered in its weedy parking lot—drinking coffee from Styrofoam cups, talking idly, smoking. All were Hispanic
and most, I was sure, had not long been on this side of the border. As they waited, hunched against the dawn chill, hands
shoved into jacket pockets, their eyes expectantly watched the arrival of each truck.

The trucks that pulled into the lot belonged to any type of firm that used unskilled laborers, but the majority were building
contractors. Each driver followed a prescribed ritual: get out of the truck, stroll into the market, return a couple of minutes
later with coffee, then begin negotiating.

And if the police or the INS came by? Just stopping for a jolt of the old caffeine on the way to the job site, officer. Hiring
illegals? Christ, no, I wouldn’t do that, and these undocumented workers aren’t worth shit, anyway. Besides, this lot is posted.
You see that sign—No Loitering,
Prohibido el Pararse
. Hell, everybody knows that’s the local lingo for “Don’t be picking up your cheap labor here.”

That morning no INS sweeps interfered with the hiring process. I sat across the street behind the wheel of the Scout, watching
the contractors strike their bargains and the workers pile onto the trucks. They would receive far less than the union wage
for their day’s work, and benefits were unheard of, but they were the lucky ones. Those who were left behind—many too sick
or strung out for a contractor to take a chance on—would go hungry tonight.

After a while I got out of the Scout and locked it. It was overcast here by the beach, and even though the temperature hovered
in the high fifties, I felt a deep bone-chill from the fog-damp air. It was a little after six; when sleep hadn’t come to
me by five, I’d given up, taken a shower, and driven down here to the South Bay. Traffic was light on Palm Avenue; I waited
for a break, then crossed to the market. The knots of would-be workers drew back as I passed, eyes darkening with fear that
I might be
la migra
and resentment that I was neither a potential employer nor one of them.

The building was cement block, a garish green with orange trim, and its dirty windows were heavily barred. I noted a pay phone
a few feet from the entrance and went over there to have a look. The Plexiglas around it had been shattered, the directory
was torn apart, and the receiver dangled free. The vandalism didn’t look recent, so I assumed Hy’s purpose in coming here
hadn’t been to wait for a call from the kidnappers.

Inside, the store was that peculiar combination of ordinary small supermarket and bodega that you find in southern California
towns where mainstream blue-collar workers and military families live in uneasy proximity to recently arrived Hispanics. Tortillas
crowded the bread; strands of chorizo were looped above the meat counter. Beans, rice, and a variety of peppers were staples,
but the same was true of Hamburger Helper, canned tuna, and Idaho potatoes. Beer, candy bars, chips, and cigarettes seemed
to outnumber all other items.

The market was empty except for a young mother with an infant and two toddlers who was getting started early on her day. I
went directly to the counter and showed my I.D. to the heavyset Hispanic man at the cash register. He glanced at it, then
stared at my face, his expression hard and immobile. When I held up Hy’s picture and asked if he’d seen him on Sunday evening,
he shrugged and turned away, muttering, “
No tengo inglÉs.
”

The hell you don’t, I thought, noting that he had the
Union-Tribune
open to the sports page. But I went along with it, summoning up what Spanish that working in San Francisco’s Mission district
had helped me retain from high school.
“En domingo, está aqui?”

He looked at me as if I were speaking an alien tongue.

I repeated the question.

He shrugged, feigning bewilderment.

“Look,” I said, motioning at the newspaper, “I know you speak English. This has nothing to do with you or what’s going on
in the parking lot. I just want to know if you saw this man here on Sunday evening.”

“No tengo inglÉs.”

I took a twenty from my bag, placed it on the counter, and pushed it toward him.

He looked at it, shook his head, and pushed it back toward me.

Serious resistance here. Because of the illegal hiring—or something else entirely? Something to do with Hy’s visit?

I added another twenty, looked inquiringly at him.

He shook his head and turned away.

I pocketed both bills and went back outside. Most of the men were gone from the lot now, and those who remained had fixed,
desperate expressions, eyes following every truck that moved by on Palm Avenue. For a moment I considered trying to question
them, but quickly decided against it.
No tengo inglÉs
—and besides, none of them would have been here on a Sunday. I passed them by, and all the way back to the Scout, I could
feel their anxious, hungry gazes follow me.

*    *    *

Taking a different route back to San Diego, I drove west on Palm Avenue, past fast-food restaurants and liquor stores and
bars that mainly catered to the military, then followed the Silver Strand to Coronado. The Glorietta Bay area was much more
built up than I remembered it; one of the more startling changes was that the Casa del Rey Hotel, where one of my most—literally—painful
cases had begun at a private investigators’ conference, had been torn down to make way for yet another condo complex. Thank
God that the developers so far hadn’t gotten up the nerve to attempt to supplant the venerable Hotel del Coronado, which now
stood alone in its Victorian splendor.

As I drove across the soaring expanse of bridge from Coronado to San Diego, I turned serious attention to the dead end at
the Holiday Market. The proprietor’s reaction to my question about Hy had been extreme; there was no way I would get him to
talk. But was there another avenue of approach? I needed an in, someone he would be inclined to trust….

Well, one solution to the problem was obvious to me, but it would mean violating a cardinal rule: when there’s a possibility
of danger, never involve, even to the smallest degree, family members or other people you care about.

Now I assessed the danger. I’d shaken RKI’s operatives, I was certain. There had been no one waiting outside my father’s house
this morning, no one tailing me. I’d be taking a calculated risk, but the odds were on my side. Anyway, what could RKI really
do? Torture my husky, six-foot-four, streetwise brother into revealing my whereabouts?

I looped onto the San Diego Freeway north, then caught 94 west toward Lemon Grove.

*    *    *

Visiting John’s neighborhood in Lemon Grove is like taking a trip back in time. The streets are without sidewalks and hilly,
the lots irregular, the small dwellings highly diverse. People keep chickens, goats, ducks, and horses; packs of wild dogs
roam free. Ethnically, the residents are as diverse as the architecture and, so far as I know, live in relative amicability.
Even what my brother calls the “car collections” in some yards are overgrown with vines and wildflowers.

John’s house sat atop a knoll a few blocks over the line from San Diego’s Encanto district. Its driveway was unpaved and rutted,
winding among yucca trees that grew in profusion on the downslope. The small stucco house had a red tile roof and a fresh
coat of—appropriately—lemon-yellow paint; a bench—stolen from a downtown bus stop in one of John and Joey’s last thieving
rampages—sat under a mulberry tree, and on it were two beer cans. I smiled, picturing my brother relaxing there as he surveyed
his domain.

I pulled the Scout up next to a shiny new Mr. Paint truck and got out. Behind the house, by one of two oversized garages,
stood numerous plastic paint buckets, apparently washed and set out to dry. The sun was just breaking through the cloud cover
as I walked toward the house and heard music—sixties rock, the only thing John will listen to. A good sign that my brother
was at home and probably in the mood for an early visitor.

As I stepped up to the front door, hand poised to knock, the music abruptly broke off; from a loudspeaker perched somewhere
in the trees behind me, John’s voice said, “Sharon McCone, who told you you could steal my Scout?” Then the screen door flew
open, and I was enveloped in a bear hug.

When he released me and I recovered my breath, I stepped back and looked him over. In appearance John and I are as different
as can be: he has blond hair, and his features betray the Irish side of the family; I’m a genetic throwback to my great-grandmother,
Mary McCone, a Shoshone woman who joined my great-grandfather Robert on his westward journey. But John and I have always been
closer to each other than to any of our other siblings, and now I was pleased to see that he looked both healthy and—judging
from his leather vest and cowboy shirt and new polished western boots—prosperous.

“Pretty snappy duds,” I commented. “What’s with the speaker?”

“Rowdy neighbors moved in downhill. When they get too loud, I turn the thing on and issue warnings with a heavy biblical flavor.
Scares the shit out of them to think God’s paying such close attention.” He held the screen door open, and I ducked under
his arm, smiling.

I hadn’t remembered the little living room as a claustrophobic’s worst nightmare, but that was how it seemed today. John’s
office had expanded along the entire left-hand wall, and his sound system took up the one opposite. The couch was pushed dangerously
close to a fireplace that angled alongside the glass door to the patio, and the rest of the floor was covered by stacks of
cardboard cartons. John had only bought the house right before the Christmas holidays, but this was carrying on the post-move
chaos far too long.

“What’s all this?” I nudged the closest box with my toes.

John glanced into it. “Ma’s dishes. You know, the ones with the ugly apples?”

“How could I forget them? But why are they here? I thought she gave those to you when you got married and Karen kept them.”

He tried to step around me, couldn’t find footing, and finally lifted me and set me on a stool in front of the breakfast bar.
“She did. This is Karen’s stuff. I’m storing it for her.”

“Why?”

“She’s getting married again and going off to Italy with the guy while he’s on a year’s sabbatical. He’s some kind of professor
at State. She sold her house, he gave up his apartment, and when they get back they’re going to buy a new place, so in the
meantime I’m stuck with everything.” John went behind the bar and held up the coffee pot, raising an eyebrow in question.

I nodded yes. “How do you feel about that?” I asked, then realized I sounded ridiculously like a therapist.

“Being stuck with the stuff? It’s a pain in the ass. Her getting married? I think it’s great.” He poured a mug of coffee and
set it in front of me. “My spousal support payments stop, and I get the boys for a whole year while she’s over there. Plus
he’s a nice guy, the kids like him, and Karen’s so happy she’s practically turned into a human being.”

“Well, you’ve come a long way since the days when you wouldn’t call her anything but ‘that bitch.’ ” I raised the mug in a
toast.

“Yeah, I guess I have.” He looked away from me, gaze turned inward, but he glanced back just in time to see me gag on the
strong coffee. “Shar, you don’t look so good. And what’re you doing here at seven-thirty in the morning, anyway?”

I set the mug down, pushed it away. “I don’t look good because I haven’t had any sleep in forty-eight hours. And the reason
I’m here is a long story.”

He waited. When I didn’t go on, he said, “So you want to tell me about it?”

“Yes, and to ask a favor. But don’t you have to go to work soon?”

“I
am
at work.” He drew himself up with mock dignity. “You’re looking at a white-collar type. I turned the on-site supervision
over to my foremen, and now I stay home and run the business end.”

“But I thought you liked being out on the job sites.”

“I do, and I’ll probably go back to it after Karen returns from Italy and we’re sharing custody again. But in two weeks I’ll
be a full-time papa, and I need to be here for the boys.”

My big brother was certainly a transformed man. If it hadn’t been for the general disorder in the house and the loudspeaker
in the trees, I’d have sworn that an alien had taken up residence in his body.