Before leaving Ridgecrest to head south to San Diego to start digging, Rex consulted Roger. Whatever havoc was wreaked at the pizza restaurant and nearby businesses had apparently passed, and unlike the last time, Rex got to leave with half a box of pizza.
What he was searching for was a contact. Some kind of guide that could help him navigate through the netherworld of Tijuana and outlying areas. That would be the start of finding Ceasar Castillo, or 'El Rey.' He correctly guessed that Castillo was not the kind of person you just walk up to and start asking questions. The answer, ironically, came from within the pizza restaurant itself. It seemed as though a couple of the new staff had migrated upwards from San Diego, hearing that vacancies after the raid were desperately needed. The server, Montoya, knew exactly the man to talk to. It was, in fact, his own brother. The black sheep of the family. The one that decided to make his living running low-level petty crime rings in Tijuana. He stayed under the radar of the Mexican Federales and the US ATF agency, but the one thing he had going for him, is a deep, extensive knowledge of who's who, what they are doing, and whom they are dealing with. 'Chi Chi' Montoya was the one to talk to. Just throw is name out at any disreputable bar or strip club and you'll find him, particularly the ones with donkey shows.
All the good spy movies, plus that new television series about drug kingpins in Miami, had the heroes running around chasing people with guns. Getting caught with a gun after you cross the border is a great way to end up in a Mexican prison for months on end. Plus, if it came to gunplay, it was probably all over anyway. That said, you run into bad actors, and there is a need for personal protection.
No problem. The solution was simple. Rex had the foresight to bring the Sig Sauer P226 he relieved from the agent with him. He managed to locate an automotive maintenance club where one could pay a shop fee, and have access to all the tools and machines one would need to perform any level of vehicle overhaul. Filing the serial number off a frame isn't good enough. The stress imprints in the underlying metal can be rendered visible using special dyes. Five minutes with a milling machine, and a round milled slot three sixteenths of an inch deep through the serial number eliminated the possibility of future identification. The weapon was now neutral and usable. That one remains stashed in San Diego. Chi Chi would probably be able to help out with a weapon on the Mexican side. It would stay in Tijuana.
Mariachi music blared as men costumed in sombreros went through the tables replenishing stocks of bottled beer in ice buckets. Women in various states of undress performed stage routines as onlookers tossed bills in both dollar and peso denominations. The manager said to return to the establishment at eight o' clock the next day, and maybe Chi Chi Montoya might show. Or maybe he might not.
Rex visually tracked a man resembling Carlos Santana, but an older, grizzled version that looked like he might have just finished a three day drinking binge with Merle Haggard. He was different. Everyone else was either the young American college age crowd or the local indigenous party crowd. He visualized the man in his mind, moved to the side of the wooden bench as to create a space for the man to sit down, and watched him toss a few pesos on a stage and walk out of the club.
He was startled by a voice. "Is your name Rex?" A voice asked from the other side of the table.
He looked at the clean-cut kid that looked even younger than he was. He was slim, with jet black hair and a pencil thin mustache. Although clearly Hispanic, you would have thought he was hanging out with the drunken frat boys sitting beside him.
"Chi Chi?" Rex asked.
"That's me. Let's go someplace where we can talk. Follow me." They walked outside the noisy, open air barn style nightclub and walked down the street to a dimly lit bar that you wouldn't even recognize was a bar. It wasn't marked. The locals came here. If they didn’t know you, they might not even serve you. "Dos Tecate, por favor." he requested to the man at the bar as he walked out to a booth. "Welcome to my office. What may I do for you?"
"Your brother, out in the California desert, suggested I talk to you. I need some help finding someone."
He smiled. "My brother. I don’t even know him anymore. We don't talk. He doesn't exactly, how do I say, approve of what I do to make a living. But that's okay. Who is it that you are trying to find?"
"Ceasar Castillo. El Rey."
Chi Chi's eyes went wide. "You don’t need my help to find him. He's in the phone book. He has a house in Baja California, just outside of Ensenada. That's where his ranch is."
"Well okay, perhaps, let me rephrase that. He's working with someone, an American, I believe, who is running some guns. That's who I need to find."
"Look, there are two things I don't mess with. I don't mess with the cartels, and I don't mess with El Rey. My advice for you is to do the same."
"Great. So do you happen to know anybody that can help me?"
"I do, but it would cost you some good money."
"Like what?"
"So you want somebody that can get you close to El Rey, is that it?"
"Yes. My Spanish isn't nearly good enough to do it myself."
"You should be prepared to spend on the order of ten thousand dollars."
"Okay." Rex downed his beer.
"Okay? You are actually prepared to spend that?"
"Yes, if I have to. Maybe you can help me with the negotiations."
"What business do you have with this man of which you speak?"
"He's costing American lives, and countless Contra lives in Nicaragua. I need to find him, and stop him. I don't really have any need to 'mess with', as you say, Castillo himself."
"Just because this man is running some guns down south, you are so passionate to stop him? Of the battles between good and evil on the list, that one seems to be not that high. There must be more to the story?"
"There is, but I don’t want to get in to it. Are you going to hook me up or not?"
"Tell me exactly it is that you want this person to do."
"I want someone to tell me where he is, and where he's going, for the next thirty days."
Chi Chi appeared to be deep in thought. You could tell he was trying to formulate a plan. Money has its own language, and the dialogue had already started in such. "Let me think about this, and poke around for a little bit. Meet me here tomorrow, same time. Eight o'clock."
"I'm not going anyplace. I'll be here."
"And don't go mentioning his name to any more people. It is a good way to end up in the gutter with a knife sticking out of your back."
"I'll take that under advisement."
The two-story red brick apartment house in the Bulgwang-Dong district of Seoul was built in the urban development abutting the foothills of the Bukhansan National Park. The northeast facing windows have a lovely view of the mountains, which will likely disappear when the planned high rise condominium apartments are constructed. But by then all of the families will have moved out anyway, so why not plan on selling it and moving into the condominium? It will have a fantastic view of downtown, and the Han River, which splits Seoul, and nearly half of the South Korean peninsula, in two.
Gyeong’s family was delighted with the news that So-Young returned finally from the United States. She wished so much that her parents had just kept the news to themselves. The room she grew up in had been transformed into an office for her father. It was clear that they expected her to move out, one way or the other. But it was she that wanted to move out, more than anyone. There was still a bed made up in the room where her brothers slept.
It was tense. Money wasn’t necessarily an issue, but still, they invested a lot of money in bringing So-Young with them to the States, and financing her American education. They understood that the whole visa issue wasn’t her fault. Still, either make it over there, or, well, there was Gyeong. He was a bright boy. The family is from a good class. He has a real future ahead him, with a guaranteed job at the Hyundai shipyard in Ulsan as an engineer. That would be a very different environment. Seoul is a big city with tall buildings and the river, but Ulsan is on the east coast of the peninsula near Busan.
The problem with Gyeong was that there simply was no chemistry. He wasn’t a bad looking kid, he was just unexciting, and he acted like more of a father than a potential mate and lover, and that just seemed weird. But it seems like too many Korean families have lost their daughters to Americans, threatening their culture and identity, although you wouldn’t know it by being in Korea, at least living among the population, and not near one of the major US military installations. So-Young was expected to maintain culture and tradition, otherwise, she was expected to be on her own.
One particular letter caught her attention. Her mother almost threw it in the trash. It was handwritten. In English. She didn’t understand the name Muse, but certainly could recognize the English spelling of So-Young Tang. Muse could be anyone. Was it a family name? Given name? The author clearly sought to avoid gender name assignment for fear of a possible deep-six by the family receiving it.
She opened it and read it. It became very clear who Brian “Rex” Muse was. That was the signature at the bottom. But she remembered his name. It was Alex, not Brian. It didn’t matter. It was him. He had her things. Personal things. Intimate things. The horses. The paperwork. The letters. Those essays.
It occurred to her that Rex Muse had been closer to her than any other man. She slept next to his warmth, in his strong, reassuring arms. He has seen her underwear. He had her underwear. He drew a close, personal connection that Gyeong could never even imagine in his wildest dreams.
And that was the problem. Gyeong probably didn’t actually imagine that in his wildest dreams. Being with him at functions was like going through the motions. Almost like he didn’t want to be there. He was physical. He was touchy feely. He liked to grab things he wasn’t supposed to, at least, yet, but just wasn’t the same. And there was that whole thing about his college buddies visiting Miari, in Northern Seoul to visit the prostitutes. He downplayed it, but the rumors never stopped.
The whole scene is depressing. It’s everywhere. Korean girls have this romantic notion that live in the United States with a westerner would be safe and fulfilling; a notion that is, with the advent of human trafficking, more the exception rather than the rule.
Rex, as he is calling himself now, is a GI. There are lots of GIs in Korea. Many of them leave with Korean wives. Rex is different. So-Young has made it a point to distance herself from the American military culture, yet here she is, full circle, reading this letter from a GI she met, accidentally, in one of the oddest places in the United States, at least from her limited perspective.
But what did this all mean? He really didn’t say anything definitive. He didn’t say he was coming here. She knew he was in some sort of deep, grave trouble, but whomever he visited in Los Angeles must have managed to help him find a way out of it. After all, the note got to him. He mentioned that. The one promise he did give was that he would hold her things safe for her, so she could get them at some point in the future.
That was the problem. At some point in the future. She hardly knew him; they were together for only for about a fifteen hour period. It seemed like much longer, and yet shorter at the same time.
At least they didn’t toss her comfy stuffed Hello Kitty that she used to fall asleep with during her childhood, although it did start to reek of cooking oil and chili spices. She fell asleep on top of it, letter still in hand when a voice jarred her awake.
Her mother spoke to her in Korean. “Gyeong is on the telephone. He wants to ask you if you would like to go on a driving trip to the mountains on Sunday for a picnic.”
This was going to be the ultimatum. Gyeong had told her that he would officially ask for her hand in marriage on some sort of trip. It was ironic, but although the road trip had not yet happened, she knew she was already at the fork in the road. She knew that she had until Sunday to make a decision, but not really. Acceptance of the invite in itself was an acceptance of a marriage proposal, lest she cause him to lose face by rejection. No, she had to make up her mind then and there. “Tell him I am feeling sick with a cold, and that I am not up to it.”
He’ll probably ask again in a week. He’ll get the same answer. Certainly by the third time, if he dares to try, he will get the message.
Chi Chi Montoya was already waiting in his booth when Rex arrived. Rex took a seat across the booth and looked him in the eyes. “So, what can you do for me?” Rex asked.
“All right. I thought about it, and I think I have a way to do what you ask. You have to understand though, that there is risk involved for me. If the Federales find out I’m poking around in El Rey’s affairs, I could find my way into prison. If El Rey finds out I’m poking around in his affairs, I could find my way in to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.”
“Understood.”
“Okay, El Rey has two weaknesses: cigars and women. I can get the right cigar, and I can get the right woman. The right cigar will come from Cuba. But it’s a very special type and one very hard to find. The woman is a working girl. One that is twenty two, but that does not look one day older than eighteen.”
“Likes under aged, huh.”
“Not under aged, let’s just say, first harvest, ripe off the tree.”
“I get it. How much?”
“Two thousand, five hundred United States dollars per week.”
“That’s ten thousand dollars per month.”
“Your math is good.”
“How much does she get?”
“Obviously enough so that she remains interested.”
Rex performed some mental calculations. The money wasn’t out of question, but he would have to do some explaining and justification to Simon. It’s not the kind of thing you can just call up over the telephone and just discuss. Simon actually had three sets of Navajo 1 secure telephones. They were developed by the NSA for use by senior government officials while traveling, and were housed in a briefcase. Rex did not have the benefit of one. Regardless, independent judgment rules. Ten thousand was about the limit at which Rex could spend without specific authorization. And obviously, Chi Chi read him well. “Okay. Tell you what, I’ll up the ante. Let’s make it simple. You find this man I’m looking for, I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars. You have up to a month to find him.”
“What if we don’t find him?”
“Then my ten thousand would have been a waste, don’t you think?”
The small, thin Brazilian girl with flowing blondish hair entered the exclusive member’s only gentlemen’s nightclub where El Rey would come to drink expensive single malt whiskeys and world class tequilas. And you could get cigars. Cohibas. You couldn’t get Havana Cohibas in the States, but you could here. The distinctive yellow and black print boxes were available in the humidor. At fifty dollars apiece, it was an indulgence of the wealthy.
There was only one way that Isadora was going to be able to walk in the place to pander non-club cigars to the members. That transaction occurred in his office. ‘You want my members to smoke your cigars? You come back dressed in a tight, black, clingy but stylish evening gown that doesn’t scream whore, and you smoke my cigar in the office until smoke stops coming out.’ He was mildly worried that having a girl run around with a cigar box might make El Rey and a couple of the others feel that the establishment was cheapening, but why not. She looked young and fresh. And ay caramba, could she smoke a mean cigar.
They say that, in 1962, just before John F. Kennedy signed the Cuban embargo, he had his press secretary buy up all of the Cuban H. Upmann Havana cigars in the Washington D.C. area. Although they do not have the prestige and reputation as Cohibas, those that smoke them report they are best aged somewhere between ten and fifteen years for the cleanest, strongest taste. Only the truest, most studied, and experienced connoisseurs of Cuban cigars would recognize them for what they are.
El Rey thumbed his salt and pepper mustache and goatee as he eyed the girl from across the room. She looked young. She didn’t look Mexican. She looked Brazilian possibly, maybe Argentinian. What was she doing here? He sipped the large shot glass of a local tequila that was so smooth, it almost tasted like butter. Perhaps a nice cigar would go well with the next shot. Perhaps it was time to rummage through Don’s humidor. But El Rey was mildly curious about the box of cigars the girl was carrying. A couple of the members looked at them, shook their heads, and sent her on her way.
“Ven aqui,” El Rey ordered firmly as the girl worked her way over to the couch where he sat. She moved in a flowing, enticing manner that did not match her apparent age. “What do you have there?” He asked in Spanish.
“Cigars. From Havana,” the girl replied.
“How much?”
“For you, Senor Castillo, please take one, for free.”
She knows who I am. Nice touch. “Let me take a look.” El Rey’s eyes bulged out slightly as he saw the labels. “Where did you get these?”
“My boss purchased these in Havana, before he unfortunately passed from a liver condition.”
El Rey examined them. “These look older. Do you know when they were made?”
“They said 1970. They were very expensive.”
He took one of the cigars from the box. It was not dried out and ruined from sitting in a hot, desiccated environment to which cheap cigars often succumb. It was the real deal. Properly kept in the humidor, all these years. Here was a young girl, here obviously with the permission of the management, trying to sell him. El Rey immediately began to be suspicious. “This, boss of yours, what did he do?”
“He was a powerful exporter in Brazil. Guilherme Santos.”
“I don’t know the man personally. I have heard of him. You worked for Guilherme Santos?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“I was his personal assistant. I set up his meetings, and made arrangements when he traveled.”
“What kind of business was it that he did, exactly?”
“Even in passing, I made the promise to him that I would never share the details of his business.”
“I see. Tell me. What exactly are you doing here?”
“I’m looking for a job.”
“Very interesting. Have a seat.”
She could tell that El Rey was deep in thought. It was the same shifting of his fingers through his goatee that she witnessed before. He probably has a wife. He probably has girlfriends, and probably more than one. He’s a collector, like that box of H. Upmann cigars. He’d probably smoke one or two, savoring them, and then set the box aside with the rest of his collection, for posterity. That’s probably what he would do with her. But, she could probably live very nicely on what El Rey might pay her over the course of weeks, or maybe a month, or maybe longer. There was Chi Chi, and while Chi Chi was young and virile, she was still a whore, and Chi Chi treated her as such. This man, El Rey, in contrast, had a gentle, yet frightening presence. Unlike Chi Chi, the cheap street hustler, El Rey was at the top of his league. Chi Chi was scared of the Federales, the Federales were scared of El Rey.
He carefully snipped the cigar ends with a cutter, and lit the smoke, rolling it gently in his mouth. “This cigar is like ambrosia. It is perhaps one of the best I have ever smoked. What is your name?”
“Isadora.”
He liked the fact that she was quiet about Santos’ business, even though he was dead and there was no need to be. It displayed trust and dependability. The thing about this girl was that she was not about emotion. She was physical. Physical about getting things done. She was probably very physical in bed, with no need for some sort of emotional attachment that he had to maintain with his girlfriend. He needed someone he could turn on and turn off. This was exactly the type he needed. “I will give you a trial. I am travelling to San Diego on business. You come with me and handle my travel arrangements. Meet me, at this place, Tuesday morning at seven o’clock and we will go from there.”
Isadora stepped off the bus from Ensenada into the small tenement she shared with several other girls. There was a shared telephone that the girls could use, mainly for calling pimps and dialing customers’ pagers, but it wasn’t being used at the time. She hesitated to pick up the receiver. El Rey was someone you didn’t cross. She knew that. But Chi Chi did too, and if she left, she was done with the Tijuana scene, and she couldn’t burn that bridge. She took a deep breath, and dialed the number. It was scary proposition, but it was exciting too. It was the closest she would ever be to becoming a James Bond female protagonist. Never mind that they typically end up dead.
In turn, the phone in Rex’s hotel room rang with a distinct electronic buzzing sound. “Yeah?” He asked in the most language neutral tone he could muster. It’s pretty much the universal word for ‘hello’ when spoken in most Anglo-Latin countries.
“He’s traveling to San Diego on Tuesday.” Chi Chi spoke without preamble.
“Where in San Diego?” Rex asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Any details?”
“Not enough to bother to tell you in person, yet. I will follow up tomorrow when I get more information.”
Rex hung up the phone. That was the day after tomorrow. ‘Traveling to San Diego on Tuesday’ could mean anything. The one thing he wished he had was a portable phone. Simon had that Motorola Dynatac that he carried with him in his car. It was big, like an oversized hand held citizens band walkie talkie, but you could actually walk around and carry the thing. Damn things are expensive though. Four grand is a lot of money. Then again, he’s spending ten grand worth of snooping and ass just to get one name.
Sheboygan, Wisconsin got cold in the winter, and 1974 had been a particularly rough year at the start. But at least school was out. Martha Dahl was unsure if Alex would be able to move on to the 6th grade. He seemed disinterested. But it was just them, plus Aunt Livia. Papa Dahl came home last week. They discharged him, and he was done with his service. They say the war was almost over anyway. Papa Dahl walked with a limp now, and he didn’t seem like the same man he was before he left.
The house looked like something the Munsters probably lived in, just a little smaller. It was two stories, square, built on a raised brick foundation, and it had both an upstairs and a downstairs balcony, plus the little attic space with a window facing the street. God knows when it was built; they say the turn of the century, but it had been in the family for generations.
Alex fudged with the rabbit ears to bring more clarity to the grainy raster images that scrolled annoyingly up or down the screen if you didn’t have the knob adjusted perfectly. But the images were disturbing. Service members returning from war. They were getting eggs thrown at them, and they were being called ‘baby killers.’ Flags were burning. The one thing about Sheboygan, and probably the only thing about Sheboygan that Alex liked, was the fact that his father was treated as a hero here. The American Legion hosted a party for him and several other local returning service members at the post. They had hot dogs, hamburgers, and they even brought in one of those machines that made soda pop. And of course beer, for the adults. But Papa Dahl just seemed like he was sitting in a daze.
“What was it like over there, Pop?” Alex asked.
“It was a whole different world. It was like being on a different planet. Remember when we took them cross country trips to California in the Rambler?” Papa Dahl replied.
“Sure, I remember. Hollywood. Disneyland.”
“Remember that train you took, and it went in to a big tunnel, and slowly went by and you watched the dinosaurs eat? It was kind of like that. Being in a train, watching the dinosaurs go by. Except a lot of them were trying to eat you.”
“Did you ever kill anyone?”
“Mark my word, Alex! Stop that questioning right now!” Aunt Livia yelled in a loud voice. “Let your father sit in peace!”
“Livia, it’s okay!” Papa Dahl replied. “It’s okay. You go on about your business. He’s old enough to know about what goes on in life.”
“Lord have mercy, exposing that boy to such things.” Aunt Livia muttered mutinously.
“Just shoo, find your sister and get your shopping done at the grocery store why don’t you?” Livia walked out of the room in a huff. He redirected his attention to Alex. “To answer your question, no. I was support. Supply. I saw some nasty fighting, and I had to take cover from artillery more times than I can remember, but I didn’t have to be in the middle of it. Them line grunts did.”
“How did you get hurt?” Alex asked.
“Fifty-five gallon barrel of oil rolled off the back of a deuce on me as I was dragging a pallet of C-rations. Not all of us was heroes. I’m not one to complain though, if I had been one of them, I probably wouldn’t be here now.”
“I wonder what it would be like to be one of them.”
“One of them what?”
“One of them ones that were heroes.”
“There were two types. There were the guys that were drafted, just like me, and then there were the lifers. The ones that signed up. There were these certain guys in our unit, they were called Long Range Recon Patrol operators. Lurps. They were crazy. They would head out on choppers, get dropped off in the mountains, spend days out there doing their missions, and then they would get picked up and brought back. They always seemed to survive. They actually seemed to enjoy it.”
“Do you think I’ll ever have to go to Vietnam?”
“I reckon not. They say this war will be over in a year, maybe two. But you never know. Remember Uncle Robert from Chicago?”
“The guy with that old car he was fixing?”
“Yeah him. Well, he enlisted in the Navy, just so he didn’t get drafted in the Army. They put him on one of those patrol boats in the Mekong and last I heard his boat got blown up by a rocket, with him on it.”
“That’s terrible! He was a swell man. But, what about that?”
“I guess what I’m saying is, if you gotta go there, stay out any way you can, or, if you can’t, go big.”
Alex grabbed his bicycle and rode down to the local store where the kids hung out. It wasn’t a big store like the supermarket where Mom and Aunt Livia did their shopping. It was the place where the poor people shopped. The storeowner was a short, bald man that always wore an apron around his waist. He was so proud about how he had all the cans and boxes of goods arranged just right, and in the right order. To Alex, it just looked like cans and boxes on wooden shelves. But the one thing they could do there was to get a cold bottle of soda pop and a chocolate bar with the money they saved up. The bald man didn’t mind the kids too much, as long as they didn’t make trouble, especially if they bought stuff.
But trouble found its way there. Kenny Pratt was the school bully, and he had his minions with him.
“Hey! Whatcha got there?” Pratt asked.
Alex slid the chocolate bar he purchased in the back of his pants pocket, trying to hide it. “Nothing for you, Pratt.”
“Are you Dahl, or are you dull?” Pratt replied. The other kids laughed. “Why don’t you give me that chocolate bar you’re hiding in your pants?”
“You want it? Why don’t you come try to get it?”
Fists were pummeling. Legs were kicking. In the end, Alex was lying on the ground, bleeding, minus his chocolate bar, and the bullies left before the storeowner could chase them off. One small consolation is that the bar got smashed to shreds in the process. A thin, black kid, from the poor section, came over and sat next to him, assessing the situation. “Man,” he said, “you need to learn the arts.”
“The arts?”
“You know, Bruce Lee. Karate.”
“That stuff doesn’t work. It’s just movies.”
“All the brothas are studying it. It works. Why don’t you ride with me? We’ll show you some moves.”
Lawrence Washington was a decorated World War II vet. He remembered Alex from the party at the legion hall. He sat back on his rocker and watched as he sparred with the boys. A white boy was out of place in this neighborhood, but at least they had something to focus on besides petty crime and reading all about this Malcolm X bull. One thing was clear though. That white boy, Alex, was getting it; he was actually pretty good.
That first walk back to school signaled the end of summer. It would get cold again, quickly. He managed to avoid Pratt successfully for the last two months, but today, Pratt intercepted his path. Last year, they both encountered each other on the same path, on their way to start the fifth grade. Pratt insulted his mother. Alex struck first. Pratt won. This year was a little different. Alex was to report for sixth grade. Pratt for fifth grade, again.
“Your mother’s still a whore,” Pratt whined.
“Really?” Alex said. “I have one daddy. They say you have so many daddies going in and out your door, you can’t count them all.”
That struck a nerve. It was actually the truth. Pratt charged him. Alex moved to the side. “Let the other guy’s force work for you.” Pratt tripped over an extended ankle and went flying into the grass. He charged again, this time in a low tackle.
The sharp one-two hits from Alex’s downward traveling elbow, followed by a hard upward knee sent Pratt to the concrete sidewalk, semiconscious. Marcus and his gang had taught him well. He dusted himself off, and continued his walk to the school as if nothing had happened. The three boys that were Pratt’s friends looked at the slumped figure, crying on the concrete, and walked away, following Alex’s lead to the school. “Stay out or go big” was his only comment.
“Biesbol?” Isadora asked, as the dark green Lincoln Continental pulled in to Jack Murphy Stadium for the game.
“El Rey loves his baseball.” The driver replied, looking back towards the two occupants of the rear seat. “Goose Gossage has been good for the Padres since he was signed on.”
“I am meeting a business partner here.” El Rey ordered. “I need you to make some arrangements for a hotel for tonight. The driver will take you.”
The white Isuzu pickup made a good platform for Rex to stand on while he scanned the entrance of the parking lot with a pair of binoculars. Look for a new, metallic green Lincoln Continental. Mexican plates.
Black, dark green, blue, they all looked damn near the same. There were a few. And it was absolutely essential that he spot it in the entrance. By the time it got parked in the lot, it would be too late. He looked down at his watch. The inflow of cars was starting to slow down as game time approached.
Then he saw it. This was some special custom color. It had to be him. It filtered through the traffic, and then the Hispanic man with the salt and pepper mustache goatee got out. He’s being dropped off. Another man came to greet him. It was a man in a dark suit, wiry, with white hair.
Rex took off in a run, slipping between the stragglers trying to make it through the gate before the first pitch. Rex made it through the gate, showed his ticket and then followed the pair of men to their seats. Directly behind and above the two men in the next row, was a pair of empty seats. There were several empty seats in the row. Hopefully, the row wouldn’t be full to every last seat.
As the singer started the national anthem, the fans stood up and most put their hand over their heart. El Rey stood and observed. The white haired man stood at strict attention. He was military; either ex-military or military in civilian garb. After the crowd seated, a man with a box of popcorn and sodas started to make his way through the row where Rex was seated. Rex, at the same time, noticed the man’s ticket sticking out of the front pocket of his suit jacket and had a thought.
As the man pushed his way past Rex, an errant knee bumped him, causing the vendor to lose a bag of popcorn on to the white haired man in the suit. The man in the suit cursed. In the confusion, as the vendor tried his best to clean up, Rex was able to pull the ticket out of the man’s jacket pocket.
“These people are careless,” the white haired man grumbled to El Rey.
“You should see our soccer games.” El Rey said. “They get much worse.”
“So, I have some good news for you. The guns you have been after, the Colts, I’ve been able to secure them. I can have them shipped to you in a week.”
“Outstanding. Let’s talk business later. The game is about to start.”
“Great. I’ll get us a couple beers.”
“Actually, I need to remain alert for tonight.” El Rey said with a grin.
“I know what that means. You lucky dog!”
Rex fired off a series of shots through a small instamatic camera, catching various angles of the man holding the ticket with the name of Roy Mills.
The Lincoln Continental dropped El Rey and Isadora off at the lobby of the hotel. A bellhop attended to his bag. “I trust you have a key to the room?” El Rey asked.
“I have a key to your room, yes,” she replied, nervously.
He frowned slightly, perhaps she misunderstood the protocol. Make nothing of it. Yet. “Well, then take me to it.”
The bellhop left with a five dollar bill. Isadora stood in the bedroom, unsure of what to do next. It wasn’t that she was unsure of what would happen next, it was more that she was unsure of how to facilitate it without coming across as an outright whore. Feign some innocence. That kind of thing excites egomaniacs like El Rey. “I want to thank you for taking me with you on this assignment.”
He stood behind her, and started to caress her shoulders. “You do understand, that your position will require a close working relationship... do you have a problem with that?”
“I am open to learning,” she murmured, feigning a nervous tone, as her dress fell to the floor.
It did occur to Rex that there was no particular reason to share his excitement of success, which was huge. Guns! Military! Roy Mills! Bam, got ‘em nailed! It would take a couple of days for the film to get there, be processed, and for Simon to confirm that this was the man they were after, and issue further instructions. For now, Rex left Chi Chi and his implant in a holding pattern, keep tracking and reporting, no progress yet. At some point, Chi Chi would want to know what happened. The problem was that Rex had absolutely no way of knowing what El Rey may have told the girl. And anything he tells the girl would filter back to Chi Chi. So far, the girl had not given any indication of the nature of El Rey’s visit.
Rex was back in the Tijuana motel, anxiously waiting for a call. That call finally came. The beeping electronic bell sounded. “Hello?” Rex answered.
“It’s not the right man.” Simon replied.
“What? You did see my notes right, the write-up of the conversation? It has to be!”
“Nope.”
“Are you sure?”
“We checked him out. He’s a dealer in antique and rare firearms. His clients are collectors. He’s one hundred percent legit.”
“But he’s... military.”
“Old habits die hard. Ex-military. Korea veteran. No known links whatsoever to anything that he shouldn’t have links to. Rest assuredly that will not be the case with the man we are looking for.”
Rex put the receiver down. Simon must be confident. He said all that in the clear. But he’s probably right. What a disappointment. The ball game was probably an afterthought. It was probably just a superficial excuse to get out of town for the night so he could screw Chi Chi’s girl.