Spiral (49 page)

When he was through, the two large suitcases packed
clothes sat in front of the suite door along with the two briefcases, containing the cash he hadn't yet spent, and the other containing

radio transmitter. On the brandy table in a plain white envelope he left a liberal gratuity for the man and woman who had been assigned to him during his stay. Then he called for a porter.

As he checked out, he paid his bill with one of his credit cards, necessary equipage for the modern traveler, especially one such as he who dreaded more than anything else to attract attention. He had always thought that one of the most peculiar absurdities about traveling in the United States was that cash was looked upon with suspicion almost everywhere.

He got on the streets in the very middle of rush hour. Risky timing. He had planned to be closer to the San Felipe crossing, in the event Gamboa decided to move while the streets were congested. Although it seemed improbable from Gamboa's point of view (it would have been practically impossible for him to escape an attack in such traffic), under the circumstances it would have been his most fortuitous decision, because Bias would not have been able to make it to the intersection in time. He needed to get closer to the crossing, and stay there.

It was happy hour, although the management would never have used so gross a phrase. You simply received a complimentary drink. He was eating an early dinner at Latouche's, a restaurant that seemed to cater to the young and affluent. For Bias it was in a perfect location, close to the Loop on Westheimer and only a few blocks from a small street that cut straight across to San Felipe just west of the rail crossing. He told the maitre d' that he was a doctor, that he needed the clumsy radio instead of the customary unobtrusive beeper because he had to be available for communication with the Life Flight helicopters. Would they mind seating him at an inconspicuous table so the periodic static would not disrupt their other guests? The maitre d' loved the idea, and seated him in a private cove under a canopy of smoked glass with a western view.

He played the game. Himself against himself. To forestall the tension of the waiting, he pretended to have no expectations of interruptions. With his two glasses of Dewar's and water, he ordered oysters Rockefeller to be followed by small portions of red snapper grenobloise and fresh artichokes stuffed with crabmeat. It would be a leisurely meal, eaten while he watched the falling sun descend behind the sparkling towers of the West Loop District, fire into diamonds.

Halfway through the oysters Rockefeller, Rubio signaled again. There was no code to indicate any need for communication, so Blas continued eating. He concentrated on the food, though it was awkward with only one hand. His left wrist was too sensitive even to use fork. He tried to remember a similar meal eaten under more pleasant circumstances. He remembered a similar fish, not red snapper, but something like it, in a beautiful little restaurant along the
maleco
in Montevideo. And the shrimp? There were memorable shrimp in Veracruz and, oddly, in a tiny fishing village called Monkey River Town in Belize, or at that time British Honduras. But it was also the place where he had tasted the worst liquor he had ever swallowed. Remembering, he sipped the Dewar's with greater pleasure.

He must have played the game extremely well, for he did not know if he had missed an all-clear signal or if the one coming across now was simply late, but when the static of the new transmission broke over the radio, a cold stream flowed down his neck and back before he even comprehended the meaning. The fish stuck in his throat. He felt hot, stunned. Rubio was screaming: Negrete! Negrete Bias grabbed the radio and bolted outside, stood beside the palms the courtyard, panting, staring at the radio as if he would be able see what was happening too. Rubio screaming: Negrete! The single word over and over, almost drowned out by the roar of the car engine, the gunfire, the screeching tires, and the collision. Then men shouting followed by the piercing, unwavering electronic squeal of a smashed radio. It all had happened in seconds. Only seconds.XXX

Chapter 50

H
AYDON
had already gone by the office of Richland Charter Flights to take care of the charges and was waiting at the side of the tarmac when the small Learjet touched down. He watched as it turned in the late-afternoon light and taxied back toward him, its lights blinking and the falling sun throwing a fiery streak the length of its polished aluminum fuselage. Haydon had parked the Vanden Plas on the aircraft's approach to its hangar, and he waited with the sedan's emergency lights pulsing. The pilot pulled the sleek jet around until its wingtip almost touched the Jaguar's left front fender, and settled its engines. Haydon could see people moving behind the portholes, and then the side door lowered onto the asphalt. Renata Islas emerged first, carrying her briefcase, followed closely by Garner.

"Good flight?" Haydon asked, taking her arm and opening the rear car door for her.

"Beautiful," she said.

Garner went around to the passenger side of the front seat as Haydon closed Renata's door and waved his thanks to the pilot. Haydon got in the car, started the motor, and drove across the tarmac to the exit gates. Turning onto Telephone Road, they headed for the Gulf Freeway that would take them straight into downtown.

"Any problems at all?" Haydon asked, lowering his sun visor as he merged with the traffic on the freeway.

"None," Renata said, opening her briefcase and taking out a manila envelope. "Consuelo was waiting for us. Look at these."

Garner took the photographs from her and handed them to Haydon one at a time. There were four of them. Renata sat forward in her seat and looked around Haydon's shoulder, commenting on each photograph as Haydon looked at it.

"This first one is the oldest. His senior-year picture at the Autonomous University of Guadalajara. Very handsome," she affirmed, and he was. He had a strong, firm-jawed face with a fairly low hairline and thick dark hair. He smiled easily at the camera, his teeth as white and straight as a film star's. His upper lip was long and almost full, with clean, delineated margins like those of a marble sculpture. His nose was a little broader than Haydon had imagined it, and his eyes were soft.

"This one," Renata said, as Garner handed him the second one, "is about the same time. Consuelo had a seminar with him their first year in graduate school. This was taken on the terrace of one of the buildings at the university. The four other people are friends, of no importance here. Consuelo took the picture."

The friends were having lunch around a wrought-iron table with a tile top. It was in the fall, perhaps, for they were all wearing light sweaters. The five students had lined up behind the table and had linked their arms together. Bias was on the end next to the balustrade that overlooked a campus mall with trees. Everyone was smiling. Bias was not as amused as the others.

"This next was taken at a family gathering at the Medrano home in Guadalajara. This is Tico, Bias's older brother, and Jorge, the younger one. His two sisters with their husbands, his mother, and Apolinar. The others are cousins, aunts, uncles."

The setting seemed to be in a garden or courtyard of the home. There were colonial arches of a colonnade in the background, a portion of a sloping tiled roof. The family had arranged themselves in several rows for the photograph, and though it was a relaxed occasion, Haydon thought the grouping of persons was interestingly formal. In the center was the unmistakable presence of Apolinar and his wife, Solana. The two daughters sat cross-legged on the grass in front of their parents with their husbands kneeling behind. Tico and Jorge stood on either side of their mother, each with an arm around her shoulders. Bias stood beside his father, both men with their hands clasped correctly behind their backs. The rest of the people seemed to be arranged in their own family groups around the Medranos. Haydon looked at Bias. Although his brothers and sisters were dressed in casual clothes, Bias and his father wore suits and ties. Apolinar also wore a stern expression, as if he was well aware of his burdensome position as patriarch of all those around him. Bias's expression
as not so easily interpreted. The eyes which had seemed soft in the earlier picture now seemed to bear a look more akin to melancholy. His posture seemed to indicate that he was a part of the picture only reluctantly. Every person in the photograph was smiling, except the bullying father and his compliant son.

"This one I did not expect to get," Renata said. "It is the most recent. His wedding picture, 1980."

That was all she said, as if the picture spoke for itself. There were only the two of them in the photograph, Bias and his new wife, standing on the flight of steps of a church with its gothic arched doors vaguely visible in the background. Bias was dressed very formally in gray striped trousers and black cutaway. His bride's wedding dress was traditionally long-trained and veiled, the veil pushed up and back for the photograph. She was a handsome girl, blond and rather tall, at least as tall as he was. Both of them were smiling, of course, but Bias's smile was not genuine. His eyes, which in the past had been first soft, then melancholy, now were blank, devoid of any kind of expression at all. They could have been glass.

"How old was he in this picture?" Haydon asked.

"Twenty-six," Renata said. "What do you think?" she asked as Haydon handed the wedding picture back to her over his shoulder.

"Maybe we should use two of them," he said.

"Which two?" she asked. She seemed to be curious about more than just his choice of selection.

"I'd say the one on the terrace, and the wedding picture."

"Yes," she said quickly. "I think those are the ones."

"The school picture is too old," Haydon explained, "and I'm afraid the one with the family is too small. By the time his face was blown up to a useful size, it would be too grainy."

"Yes," Renata said, sitting back. "Yes, I think so."

"What's your opinion, Mitchell?" Haydon asked, looking over at Garner. He had been unusually quiet since they had arrived at the airport.

"I agree," Garner said. "I think he could be recognized from those, unless he's undergone a dramatic change."

"Good. Then we'll go with those," Haydon said, and he glanced once more at Garner, who was looking straight ahead into the approaching columns of city lights.

There wasn't time for Haydon to drop Garner and Renata Islas at his house before he delivered the pictures to the photography lab at police headquarters on Riesner Street. Haydon asked them if they wanted to wait for him in the homicide division offices, but they chose to wait in the lobby instead. Haydon delivered the pictures, and made sure copies would be taken immediately to the newspapers and television stations along with the artist's sketches of Rubio Arizpe. The sketches and photographs were to be accompanied by a press release and a formal HPD request that the pictures be considered urgent public-service items. This request was hardly necessary. The media were starving for information about the investigation.

Haydon made a quick pass by Dystal's office and learned that ballistics had determined that the casings in the garage where Ferretis's body had been found had not been fired by the Mac-10s that had been in the possession of the Gamboa guards they now held in custody. A further indication to Dystal that the missing Negrete and his two companions were indeed the strong-arms within the group. Fingerprinting had no success in matching the few prints found at the Waites' with the men in custody.

The DEA and FBI were still responding negatively. They were aware of the existence of
los tecos,
but they had nothing in their files definitely tying them to specific death-squad activities. There were plenty of rumors of
teco
involvement in all kinds of political intrigue, including narcotics trafficking by wealthy politicians, but very little of it had actually been confirmed. Basically, it was the same kind of information Haydon had gotten first from Mitchell Garner. And there was nothing in their files about Bias Medrano, Rubio Arizpe, or Ireno Lopez.

"Fact is," Dystal said, looking up at Haydon from his creaking office chair behind his desk, "when they see these pictures, they're not gonna be satisfied with just taking information we pass on to them. They're gonna want to know your sources."

"I won't do that," Haydon said.

"Well, I didn't think you would," Dystal said. "But I thought you ought to be looking for it. They're gonna be all over you, like chickens on a June bug."

"Have you heard anything from Gamboa?" Haydon asked, changing the subject.

"Not a peep, but I imagine they're walking around the house with their guns cocked."

"They did check the house and grounds for explosives?"

Dystal nodded. "When they picked up Negrete's boys they took dogs and electronics through. Nothing."

"How do you think they're going to use it?" Haydon said, turning around and looking out the plate-glass window in Dystal's office.

The squad room seemed no more busy than normal. The investigation had gotten organized. The work was being done, but it didn't show anymore.

"I don't see how they could," Dystal said. "I think they know they've screwed up and they've pulled out. They may get him sooner or later, but it's not going to be here. Not now."