Taken (7 page)

9.

Three minutes after Danny Trehorn dropped me at my car, I stepped into a cold, crisp Burger King and bought an iced tea. I wanted to think about what I had found before I called Nita Morales because I wasn’t sure what it meant, or what to recommend. Also, I was hot. Palm Springs is like that.

Here is how the detective (
moi
) rehearses his report to the client: Krista Morales and Jack Berman arrived safely in Palm Springs, and were seen by others that past Friday night at a remote but well-known desert location. Krista and Jack had driven to that location in Jack’s vehicle, and, at their own request, remained alone when their companions returned to the city. They were neither seen nor heard from again except for two possible extortion calls during which laughably low sums of money were demanded. Six days following that Friday night, the detective ventured (ventured is always a good word to use with clients) to said remote location where he found items belonging to both Morales and Berman, including but not limited to both driver’s licenses, three hundred forty-two dollars in cash, and an incomprehensible note. Q coy Sanchez. Berman’s vehicle was not at the scene, nor were there any overt signs of foul play. (Foul play is another good term.)

The person who sold me the tea was a bulky young Latino maybe nineteen or twenty years old. His name tag read JOHNNY. When he gave me the change and thanked me, I showed him the note.

“Hope you don’t mind me asking, but do you read Spanish?”

“No, man. Sorry. Maybe Imelda—”

He called to a chunky young woman seated at the drive-through window.

“Imelda! You read Spanish?”

She eyed me suspiciously before she answered.

“A little.”

She came over and glanced at the note.

“What’s ‘q coy’ mean?”

“I was hoping you could translate.”

“Sanchez is a name.”

“Uh-huh.”

She shrugged.

“I don’t know ‘q coy.’ Maybe it’s misspelled.”

“Any guesses what they were trying to spell?”

“No, not really.”

A drive-through customer appeared, so she returned to her station.

Other customers had lined up behind me, so I took the iced tea and set up shop in a booth as far from everyone as I could get. Two men wearing Union 76 shirts came in a few minutes later, but they couldn’t translate the note, and neither could a thin woman with two round little boys.

The woman and boys took a booth near mine. The boys sat together on one side, she sat on the other, and put out cups of vanilla yogurt and French fries. Nothing like balanced nutrition. The boys pushed and pulled at each other as they shoved in the food, and laughed loud so people would look at them. When the woman told them to stop, they ignored her. She looked exhausted, but happy for the distraction when I asked if she read Spanish.

She studied the note, then handed it back.

“Sanchez is a name. I don’t know these other words.”

“Okay, thanks for taking a look.”

“‘Coy’ is kinda familiar, but I don’t know. I think I’m confusing it with something else.”

“If it comes to you.”

“I don’t think it’s Spanish.”

“Okay.”

The boys pushed and pulled, and when she again told them to stop, they laughed to drown her voice as if she didn’t exist.

She stared at them with hollow eyes, then leaned toward me and lowered her voice.

“I hate them. Is that so wrong? I really do hate them.”

The boys laughed even louder.

They were still laughing when my phone rang with a number I didn’t recognize.

“Elvis Cole.”

“Mary Sue Osborne.”

I took the phone and tea to a booth farther from the laughing boys. I could see my car in the parking lot, and watching it gave me a reason not to look at the woman hating her horrible little boys.

“Hey.”

“Hey back. I looked up your article online. That was a nice piece. They made you seem cool.”

“Seem?”

“Check out my bad self. I cracked Krista’s password. I tried all these passwords, and nothing worked, so I got stupid and typed in o-p-e-n. Shazam, and I found Jack’s address.”

“You made my day.”

“This would be true. I should be rewarded.”

“What’s his address?”

She rattled off an address on Tigertail Road in Brentwood. Tigertail was in an affluent canyon in the hills west of the Sepulveda Pass. Jack’s parents did pretty well.

I said, “As long as I have you, let me ask you something—do you speak Spanish?”

“
Si
, amigo. Well,
poquito
. I’m fluent in French and Italian, but I can get by in Spanish.”

“I’m going to read you something. I think it’s Spanish.”

I read it, then spelled it. Q coy Sanchez.

She said, “It isn’t Spanish.”

“That’s what everyone says.”

“Did Kris write it?”

“Would it matter? Let’s say she did.”

She was silent for a moment.

“I’m guessing, but I think it says ask about a coyote named Sanchez.”

“It does?”

“The Q. It’s a shorthand we use at the paper. Query, question, ask. Coy—you write fast, you abbreviate. I’m guessing ‘coyote’ because every article on her desk is something about coyotes sneaking people across the border. Also, I’m a genius.”

“I loves me a smart chick.”

“I knew you’d see the light. They always do.”

“Okay, there’s one more thing.”

“I know. You want me to read all these articles to see if a coyote named Sanchez is mentioned.”

“Affirmative.”

She made a big deal of sighing.

“I’m so easy. You should take advantage of me.”

“Thanks, buddy. This is a big help.”

“Buddy. Every girl’s dream, being a hot guy’s buddy.”

“I’m old enough to be your father. Kinda.”

“Only small minds are limited by society’s conventions.”

I was still smiling when I hung up and phoned Nita Morales. She was in a meeting, but immediately came to the phone. I told her where I was, launched into a rundown of what I had learned. I was just beginning to build up momentum when she surprised me.

“She went to that airplane?”

“You know about it?”

“This is how I came. She wanted to know what coming north was like, so I told her. Meeting there was common then if you came up the Imperial Valley. Our guide called it the airport. It was a safe place to meet and easy to find. He would say, tomorrow we are going to land at the airport, and you will get on another airplane. I hope that pilot knows how to fly. He thought this was funny.”

“What was your coyote’s name?”

“We did not call them coyotes. They were our guides.”

“Okay. Who was he?”

“I don’t think I ever knew. I was seven.”

“Have you heard of a coyote named Sanchez?”

She sounded annoyed.

“I don’t know people like this. People in my situation, we’re not part of some underground society. You think we get together, have margarita parties, and laugh it up about how we put one over on Uncle Sam? I was seven. It’s something you try to put behind you. These things are not part of my life.”

I told her about the things I found in the bush, including the handwritten note.

“Mary Sue thinks it means ‘ask a coyote named Sanchez.’”

“Ask what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it has nothing to do with where she is or why she’s missing, but if she wanted to ask Sanchez something, then I want to ask him, too.”

“The attorney I saw knows about these things.”

“The attorney you saw when you looked into changing your status?”

“Yes. He is an immigration attorney who is sympathetic in these matters. I know he represents undocumented people when they are arrested. I have his number.”

“Okay.”

“Thomas Locano. He was very nice. Here—”

She gave me a number with a Pasadena area code. I asked her to call him. As her attorney at that time, he would need her permission to share information.

“Mr. Cole? I will call the police if you think it is best.”

“I’ve been involved less than five hours. Let’s see what develops.”

“I would give up everything for her, Mr. Cole. Without hesitation. I want you to know this.”

“I know you would, but you won’t have to. Nothing happening now is about you. It’s about finding Krista and bringing her home. The police won’t ask your status, and don’t care.”

“Are you sure?”

Outside, a red Jeep Cherokee pulled into the parking lot and parked beside my car. The man inside did not get out. He waited without moving, dark glasses locked forward, immobile as a statue.

I checked the time.

“Yes. I’m sure. This is why I’m the World’s Greatest Detective.”

“You are trying to make me smile again.”

“Yep.”

“It did not work.”

“I know. But I had to try.”

I put away my phone, and went out to the Jeep. The man behind the wheel looked at me as I climbed into the passenger seat, but said nothing. Conversation was not his strong point.

Pike, Joseph, no middle initial, learned the tracking arts as a boy who grew up at the edge of a logging town, and later refined those same arts when he hunted men first as a combat Marine, then later as an LAPD police officer and a private military contractor in Africa, Central America, and the Middle East. If I was good at hunting men, Pike was better. Pike had also been my partner in the agency since we bought it together, and my friend for even longer.

“Thanks for coming.”

His head dipped once. A two-hour drive, and he had come without asking why, and without explanation.

Now, I told him about Krista Morales, her Friday night at the crash site, and what I found when I walked the scene. I gave him the nine-millimeter brass casings and the spent shotgun shell.

“I found these. Trehorn says people shoot out there, so they might not matter.”

Pike sniffed the brass as if the smell would tell him something, then handed them back. Maybe he could follow their scent.

“I marked Trehorn’s track with an E. The bigger truck is a quad. I want your read on what happened.”

Pike nodded again.

“You want me to take you out there?”

He shook his head. I had already texted him the longitude and latitude coordinates from my iPhone.

“Want Trehorn?”

“I’m good alone.”

“Okay. I’m going to see this attorney. Let me know what you find.”

It was one-thirty-two that afternoon when I left Pike in the desert, and drove to see Thomas Locano.

10.

Thomas Locano had a nice suite of offices on the second floor of a two-story building overlooking Mission Street in South Pasadena. His was an older building with a red tile roof, plaster walls, and heavy wooden doors. Like the building, Locano was a gracious man in his early sixties. Two younger associates were employed in his practice, and his assistant was also his wife. Elizabeth, she told me as she led me into his office.

Locano smiled when he stood to greet me, but appeared uncomfortable.

Elizabeth Locano said, “Would you like coffee, Mr. Cole? Or something else?”

“I’m fine, ma’am. Thank you.”

She did not close the door on the way out.

Mr. Locano came from behind his desk so we could sit together in comfortable, overstuffed chairs, and offered a firm, dry hand.

“Nita tells me you’re working for her, and are aware of her status issue.”

“Yes, sir, I am. Did she tell you why I’m here?”

“Her daughter is missing. She believes it has something to do with her status, so she asked me to speak freely with you about these things.”

I passed him the note from the crash site.

“I found this twenty miles outside of Palm Springs at the crash site of an old drug smuggler’s plane. I believe it was written by Nita’s daughter.”

He frowned at the note, then tried to pass it back, but I didn’t take it.

“This isn’t Spanish.”

“No, sir. We believe it means ‘ask a coyote named Sanchez’ or ‘ask about a coyote named Sanchez.’ So that’s what I’m doing. Do you know of a coyote named Sanchez who brings people north through the Imperial Valley?”

Mr. Locano lowered the note. His cool expression told me I had insulted him.

“My practice is immigration law. I help clients obtain visas and green cards, and fight deportation and removal orders. If you believe I’m involved in something illegal, you misunderstand the nature of my work.”

“That isn’t what I meant to suggest, Mr. Locano. If I sounded that way, I apologize.”

He didn’t look mollified.

“Nita told me you’re the go-to attorney when undocumented aliens are arrested, so I’m guessing you’re familiar with how your clients enter this country, and who brings them across.”

“This is not something I’m going to discuss with you.”

I pointed at the note.

“Ask the coyote, Sanchez. Nita Morales saw the crash site when she was seven years old, and being smuggled into this country. She says it used to be a regular transfer spot where people brought north were handed off. Krista visited that same site this past Friday night, and it was the last time anyone has seen her. Today, six days later, I found this note and her driver’s license ten yards from the wreckage.”

He glanced at the note again, and frowned. This time when he offered it back, I took it.

“You believe she had contact with this person, Sanchez?”

“Maybe, but I don’t know. Either way, she wrote this note for a reason, so I want to ask him about it. I need a first name to find him.”

Locano nodded, but more to himself than me.

“I would like to help you, Mr. Cole, but this business you speak of is not what it was.”

“Are you telling me no one comes north anymore?”

“Of course people come, but the guides I knew are gone. The old guides were a cousin who had come to work the seasonal crops, or an in-law who came to visit relatives. If you gave them a few dollars they would help you, as much out of friendship as for the money, but the cartels and their hoodlums have changed this. They patrol the roads like an army to control the movement of guns and drugs, and now nothing comes north without their permission.”

“Including the coyotes?”

“Transporting people is big business now. Groups from Asia, Europe, and the Middle East find passage to Central America, and are taken north through Mexico in large groups. The new coyotes don’t even call them people. They are
pollos
. Chickens. Not even human.”

“Coyotes eat chickens.”

“Not only chickens, but each other, and each other’s chickens. Do you know what a
bajadore
is?”

“A bandit?”

“A bandit who steals from other bandits. These are usually members of different cartels, a Baja stealing from a Zeta, a member of the Tijuana cartel stealing from a Sinaloa or La Familia. They steal each other’s drugs, guns, and
pollos
—whatever can be sold. They even steal each other.”

“Sold. As in slavery?”

“Sold as in ransom. These poor people have already paid their money to the coyote, then they are kidnapped by the
bajadores
. They have nothing, so the
bajadores
demand ransom from their families. I do not know people like this. When they are arrested, I do not represent them.”

I felt my mouth dry as I took in what he told me.

“Nita received two calls from Krista and a male individual, the man demanding a fee for Krista’s return. Nita transferred the money, but Krista is still missing.”

Locano’s eyes grew darker.

“Nita said nothing of an abduction.”

“Nita believes it’s a joke or a scam. They only asked for five hundred dollars.”

Locano looked even more disturbed.

“This is small to you and a woman with a successful business, but it is a fortune to a family counting pennies. We are talking about poor people. A few hundred, a thousand, another five hundred. The
bajadores
know with whom they are dealing.”

“It still seems so little.”

“Multiply it times a thousand. Two thousand. The number of people abducted would astound you, but such abductions are rare on U.S. soil. Let’s hope Nita is right.”

Neither of us spoke for a moment, neither of us moved as I listened to the voices in his outer office, his wife speaking with one of the younger attorneys.

“Mr. Locano, you may not know this man, but you might know someone who does, or who can find out. Ask around. Please.”

He stared at me, and I could tell he was thinking. He tapped the arm of his chair, then called to his wife.

“Liz. Would you show Mr. Cole to the restroom, please?”

He stood, and I stood with him as his wife appeared in the door.

“Take your time. Wash thoroughly. It is important to be clean, don’t you agree?”

“It’s important to be clean.”

“Take your time.”

Elizabeth Locano graciously showed me to the restroom, where I took my time. It was a nice restroom, with large framed photographs of the pre-Hispanic city of Teotihuacán in southern Mexico, what the Aztecs called the City of the Gods. It was and remains one of the most beautiful cities ever built, and one I have always wanted to see. I wondered if Mr. Locano or his wife had taken them.

I washed thoroughly, then washed a second time because cleanliness was a very good thing, and it was right to be good. Mr. Locano was on the other side of the door talking over my request with his wife, and maybe making the calls I had asked him to make. I hoped so.

I was staring at the Pyramid of the Sun when my phone buzzed.

Mary Sue Osborne said, “This is your future wife speaking.”

You see how they won’t quit?

“What’s up?”

“Okay, I went through her research. I didn’t see anything about anyone named Sanchez, coyote or otherwise. Sorry, dude.”

This meant I was down to Mr. Locano. If he couldn’t or wouldn’t come through, Q coy Sanchez would go nowhere.

I was thanking her when my phone buzzed with an incoming call, and this time I saw it was Pike.

“Gotta go, Mary Sue. Thanks.”

“No chitchat? No flirty repartee?”

I switched calls to Pike.

“Elvis Cole Detective Agency, the cleanest dick in the business.”

“It’s worse than you thought.”

I stared at the Avenue of the Dead while Pike told me.