Blood Work

44

IT TOOK HIM two days to find the picture that Daniel Crimmins as James Noone had drawn during the hypnosis session. McCaleb started at Rosarita Beach and then worked his way south. He found it between La Fonda and Ensenada on a remote stretch of the coast. Playa Grande was a small village on a two-tiered rock flow overlooking the sea. The village mostly consisted of a motel with six small detached bungalows, a pottery store, a small restaurant and market and a Pemex station. There was also a small stable for renting horses to ride down on the beach. The commercial core, if it was big enough to be called that, was at the edge of a cliff overlooking the beach. On the stepped bluff above it was a wide scattering of small houses and trailer homes.

What made McCaleb stop was the stable. He remembered Crimmins describing horses on the beach. He got out of the Cherokee and walked down a steep trail cut through the rock outcroppings to the beach. The wide, white beach was a private enclave about a mile long and enclosed on each end by huge, jagged rock flows into the sea. Near the south end, McCaleb saw the rock overhang that Crimmins had described during the hypnosis session. McCaleb knew that the best and most convincing way to lie is to tell as much truth as possible. So he had taken his subject’s description of the place at which he felt most relaxed in the world to be a true description of a place he knew. Now, McCaleb had found it.

He had arrived at Playa Grande through simple deduction and legwork. The description Crimmins had given during the session had obviously been the Pacific Coast. He had said he liked to drive down to this place and since McCaleb knew there was no California beach south of L.A. as remote as he had described or with horses on it, that obviously made the destination Mexico. And since Crimmins had said he drove there, that pretty much eliminated Cabo and the other points far south along the Baja peninsula. It took two days to cover the coastline that was left. McCaleb stopped at every village and every time he saw a cutoff from the highway to the beach.

Crimmins had been right. It was a truly beautiful and restful spot. The sand was like sugar and a million years of crashing waves had carved a deep bite into the cliff face, creating the overhang that resembled nothing so much as a rock wave, curled and about to break over the beach.

McCaleb was the only person on the beach to be seen in either direction. It was a weekday and he guessed that this stretch of sand lay largely unpopulated until the weekends. That was why Crimmins had liked it.

Three horses were on the beach. They milled around an empty feed trough while waiting for customers. There was no need to tie them. The beach was completely enclosed by water and rock. The only way off it was the steep trail back up to the stable.

McCaleb wore a baseball cap and sunglasses as protection against the power of the midday sun. He wore long pants and a windbreaker as well. But, entranced by the beauty of the spot, he remained on the beach long after he determined Daniel Crimmins was nowhere to be seen. After a while a teenager wearing shorts and a sweatshirt with no sleeves came down the trail and approached.

“You would like horse ride?”

“No, gracias. ”

From the pocket of his coat McCaleb pulled the folded photos Tony Banks had made from the videotapes. He showed them to the boy.

“You seen? This man… I want to find.”

The boy stared at the photos and made no indication he understood. Finally he just shook his head.

“No, no find.”

He turned and headed back to the trail. McCaleb returned the photos to his jacket and after a few minutes headed back up the steep incline himself. He stopped twice on the way up but the climb still left him exhausted.

McCaleb ate lobster enchiladas at the restaurant for lunch. It cost him the equivalent of $5 American. He showed the photos a few more times but got no takers. He walked to the Pemex station after lunch and used the pay phone there to check the machine on his boat for messages. There were none. He then called Graciela’s number for the fourth time while he had been on the road and once again got her machine. He didn’t leave a message this time. If she was ignoring his calls, it was probably because she simply no longer wanted to talk to him.

McCaleb checked into the Playa Grande Motel, paying cash and using a phony name. As an afterthought he showed the photos to the man behind the counter in the small office and got another negative response.

His bungalow had a partial view of the beach below and a wide view of the Pacific. He checked what he could see of the beach and it was still empty except for the horses. He took off his windbreaker and decided to take a nap. It had been a wearying two days of driving bad roads, walking on sand and climbing steep trails.

Before lying down, he opened his duffel bag on the bed, put his toothbrush and toothpaste in the bathroom and then arranged the plastic vials containing his medicines and the box of disposable thermometer strips on the bed table. He took the Sig-Sauer out of the bag and put it on the table as well. It was always a marginal risk taking weapons across the border. But at the crossing, as expected, McCaleb had been simply waved through by the bored Mexican federales.

As he dropped off to sleep with his head between two musty pillows, he decided he would try the beach again at sunset. Crimmins had described the sunset during the hypnosis session. Maybe he would be on the beach then. If not, McCaleb decided he would begin looking for Crimmins in the scattered neighborhood above the village. McCaleb was confident he would find him. He felt no doubt that he had found the place Crimmins had described.

He dreamed in colors for the first time in months, his eyes darting under tight eyelids. He was on a runaway horse, a huge Appaloosa the same color as the wet sand, galloping down the beach. He was being chased but his unsteady mount prevented him from turning to see who it was behind him. He only knew that he must run, that if he stopped he would perish. The animal’s hooves were throwing great clods of wet sand in the air as it galloped.

The rhythmic cadence of the horse’s gallop was replaced by the pounding sound of his own heart. McCaleb came awake and tried to calm his body. After a few moments he decided he should check his temperature.

As he sat up and put his feet down on the carpet, his eyes checked the bed table by habit. He was looking for the clock that was on the table next to his own bed on the boat. But there was no clock here. He looked away and then his eyes darted back to the table as he realized the gun was gone.

McCaleb quickly stood up and looked around the room, an eerie feeling of dislocation coming over him. He knew he had placed the gun on the table before sleeping. Someone had been in the room while he slept. Crimmins. He had no doubt. Crimmins had been in the room.

He hastily checked the windbreaker and duffel bag and found nothing else missing. He scanned the room again and his eyes came across a fishing pole standing in the corner of the room next to the door. He went to the corner and grabbed it. It was the same model rod and reel combination he had bought for Raymond. As he turned it in his hands and studied it, he found the initials RT had been cut into the cork hand grip. Raymond had marked the pole as his. Or someone had marked it for him. Regardless, the message was clear. Crimmins had Raymond.

McCaleb was fully alert now, his chest filling with the constricting ache of dread. He punched his fists into the arms of the windbreaker as he put it on and then left the bungalow after studying the door and finding no sign that the lock had been tampered with. He moved quickly to the motel office, the bell ringing loudly overhead as he shoved the door open. The man who had taken his money stood up from the chair behind the counter, an uneasy smile on his face. He was about to say something when McCaleb, in one unhesitating motion, stepped to the counter, reached over it and grabbed the man by the front of his shirt. He jerked him forward until his body was prone over the top of the counter, the edge of the Formica digging into his substantial gut. McCaleb bent down until he was in the man’s face.

“Where is he?”

“Que?”

“The man, the one you gave the key to my room. Where is he?”

“No habla -”

McCaleb pulled down on the man’s shirt harder and put his forearm on the back of his neck. McCaleb could feel his own strength flagging but pushed down harder.

“Bullshit, you don’t. Where is he?”

The man sputtered and moaned.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “Please. I don’t know where he is.”

“Was he alone when he came here?”

“Alone, yes.”

“Where does he live?”

“I do not know this. Please. He say he your brother and have surprise for you. I give him the key so he surprise you.”

McCaleb let go and pushed the man back over the counter so hard that he fell backward right into his chair. He held his hands up in a beseeching manner and McCaleb realized he must be truly scaring the man.

“Please.”

“Please, what?”

“Please, I don’t want to have trouble.”

“It’s too late. How did he know I was here?”

“I call him. He pay me. He come here yesterday and say you might come. He give me phone number. He pay me.”

“And how did you know it was me?”

“He give me picture.”

“All right, give it to me. The number and the picture.”

Without hesitation the man reached to a drawer in front of him. McCaleb quickly reached over and grabbed his wrist and roughly jerked it away from the drawer. He opened the drawer himself and his eyes held on a photograph sitting on top of a clutter of paperwork. It was a photo of McCaleb walking along the rock jetty near the marina with Graciela and Raymond. McCaleb could feel his face turning red as the anger pushed hot blood into the tightened muscles of his jaw. He held the photo up and studied the back. There was a phone number written on the back.

“Please,” the motel man said. “You take the money. One hundred American dollars. I don’t want trouble for you.”

He was reaching into his shirt pocket.

“No,” McCaleb said. “You keep it. You earned it.”

He yanked the door open then, hitting the overhead bell so hard that the twine it hung from snapped and the bell bounced into the corner of the office.

He went through the gravel parking lot and over to the phone at the Pemex station. He dialed the number on the back of the photograph and listened to a series of clicks on the line as the call went through at least two call-forwarding circuits. McCaleb cursed to himself. He would not be able to trace the number to an address, even if he could get someone in local authority to do it for him.

Finally the call reached the last circuit and started ringing. McCaleb held his breath and waited but the call was not picked up by human or machine. After twelve rings he crashed the receiver down onto its hook but it bounced off and dropped, swinging erratically back and forth beneath the phone. McCaleb stood frozen by anger and the impotence of his position, the light sound of the still-ringing phone buzzing from below.

After a long moment he realized he was staring through the glass pane of the phone booth at the motel parking lot. His Cherokee was there and one other car. A dusty white Caprice with a California plate on the back.

Quickly, he left the booth, crossed the parking lot to the trail and headed down to the beach. The trail cut between rock outcroppings and obscured any view below. McCaleb didn’t see the beach until he got to the bottom and made the final turn to the left.

The beach was empty. He walked straight out to the water’s edge looking both ways but the sand in both directions was deserted. Even the horses had been taken in for the day. His eyes were eventually drawn to the pocket of deep shadows beneath the rock overhang. He headed that way.

Beneath the overhang the sound of the surf was amplified to a magnitude that sounded like the cheering in a stadium. Moving from the bright light of the open beach into the deep shadows temporarily blinded McCaleb. He stopped, closed his eyes tightly and reopened them. As his focus returned, he saw the outlines of the jagged rock surrounding him. Then from the deepest pocket of the enclave stepped Crimmins. He held the Sig-Sauer in his right hand, the muzzle of the weapon pointing at McCaleb.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said. “But you know I will if I have to.”

He spoke loudly so that his voice would carry above the din and echo of waves.

“Where is he, Crimmins? Where is Raymond?”

“Don’t you mean, ‘Where are they?’ ”

McCaleb had assumed as much but the confirmed knowledge of the terror Graciela and Raymond were feeling at that moment-if they were still alive-cut into him. He took a step toward Crimmins but then stopped when Crimmins raised the aim of the weapon to his chest.

“Easy now. Let’s be calm. They are safe and sound, Agent McCaleb. Not to worry about that. Their safety, in fact, is in your hands. Not mine.”

McCaleb made a quick study of Crimmins. He had jet black hair and a mustache now. He was growing a beard or needed a shave. He wore pointed-toe boots, black jeans and a denim cowboy shirt with double pockets and a design seam across the chest. His current look put him somewhere between the Good Samaritan and James Noone.

“What do you want?” McCaleb demanded.

Crimmins ignored the question. He spoke in a calm voice. He was confident he had the upper hand.

“I knew if anyone would come, it would be you. I had to take precautions.”

“I said, what do you want? You want me, is that it?”

Crimmins stared wistfully out past McCaleb and shook his head. McCaleb studied the weapon. He could see the safety was off. But the hammer was not cocked back. It was impossible to tell whether Crimmins had chambered a round.

“My last sunset here,” Crimmins said. “I have to leave this place now.”

He looked back at McCaleb, smiling as though inviting McCaleb to acknowledge the loss.

“You performed much better than I had anticipated.”

“It wasn’t me. It was you, Crimmins. You fucked up. You left your fingerprints for them. You told me about this place.”

Crimmins frowned and nodded, acknowledging the mistakes. A long beat of silence went by.

“I know why you came here,” he finally said.

McCaleb did not reply.

“You want to take from me the gift that I gave you.”

McCaleb felt the bile of hate rising and burning in his throat. He remained silent.

“A vengeful man,” Crimmins said. “I thought I told you how fleeting the fulfillment of vengeance is.”

“Is that what you learned, killing all of those people? I bet when you closed your eyes at night, the old man was still there, no matter how many you killed. He wouldn’t go away, would he? What did he do to you, Crimmins, to fuck you up so bad?”

Crimmins tightened his grip on the gun and McCaleb could see his jaw take on a more pronounced line.

“This is not about that,” he responded angrily. “It’s about you. I want you to live. I want to live. None of it will have been worth it unless you live. Don’t you see that? Don’t you feel the bond between us? We are tied together now. We are brothers.”

“You’re crazy, Crimmins.”

“Whatever I am, it is not of my doing.”

“I don’t have time for your excuses. What do you want?”

“I want you to thank me for your life. I want to be left alone. I want time. I need time to move my things and find a new place. You will have to give it to me now.”

“How do I know you even have them? You have a fishing pole. It’s nothing.”

“Because you know me. You know I have them.”

He waited and McCaleb said nothing.

“I was there when you called and groveled to her machine, when you pleaded for her to pick up like a pathetic schoolboy.”

McCaleb felt his anger become shaded with embarrassment.

“Where are they?” he yelled.

“They are close.”

“Bullshit. How’d you get them across the border?”

Crimmins smiled and gestured with the gun.

“The same way you took this across. No questions asked going south. I gave your Graciela a choice. She and the boy could ride up in the front and be on their best behavior or they could ride in the trunk. She acted accordingly.”

“You better not have hurt them.”

McCaleb realized how desperate he sounded and wished he hadn’t said it.

“Whether that happens depends on you.”

“How?”

“I leave now. And you do not follow. You do not attempt to track me. You get in your car and go back up to your boat. You stay by the phone and I will call you from time to time to make sure you are there and not following me. When I know I am safe from you, I will let the woman and the boy go.”

McCaleb shook his head. He knew it was a lie. Killing Graciela and Raymond would be the final misery Crimmins would joyfully and without guilt bestow on him. The ultimate victory. He knew that no matter what happened after, he couldn’t let Crimmins off the beach alive. He had come to Mexico for one reason. He now had to act on it.

Crimmins seemed to know his thoughts and smiled.

“No choice, Agent McCaleb. I walk away from here or they die alone in a black hole. You kill me and no one will find them. Not in time. Starvation, darkness… it is an awful thing. Besides, you forget something.”

He held the gun up again and waited a beat for McCaleb to reply but there was nothing.

“I hope you think of me often,” Crimmins said. “As I shall think of you.”

He started walking toward the light.

“Crimmins,” McCaleb said. “You have nothing.”

Crimmins turned and his eyes dropped to the gun now in McCaleb’s hand. McCaleb took two steps toward him and raised the muzzle of the P7 to his chest.

“You should have checked the duffel bag.”

Crimmins countered by raising the Sig-Sauer to McCaleb’s chest.

“Your gun’s empty, Crimmins.”

McCaleb saw doubt flick through the other man’s eyes. It went by fast but he caught it. He knew then that Crimmins had not checked the gun. He didn’t know that it contained a full clip but no round had been chambered.

“But this one isn’t.”

They stood there, each man holding the muzzle of his gun a foot from the other’s heart. Crimmins looked down at the P7, then up to McCaleb’s eyes. He stared intently, as if trying to read something. In that moment McCaleb thought about the photo in the newspaper article. The piercing eyes that showed no mercy. He knew then that he had those eyes again.

Crimmins pulled the trigger of the Sig-Sauer. The hammer snapped on an empty chamber. McCaleb fired the P7 and watched as Crimmins jerked backward and fell flat on his back on the sand, his arms outstretched at ninety-degree angles, his mouth open in surprise.

McCaleb moved over him and quickly grabbed away the Sig-Sauer. He then used his shirt to wipe off the P7 and dropped it on the sand, just out of the dying man’s reach.

McCaleb got down on his knees and leaned over Crimmins, careful not to get blood on himself.

“Crimmins, I don’t know if I believe in a God, but I’ll hear your confession. Tell me where they are. Help me save them. Finish it with something good.”

“Fuck you,” Crimmins said forcefully, his mouth wet with blood. “They die and that’s on you.”

He raised a hand and pointed a finger at McCaleb. He then dropped it to the sand and seemed drained by the outburst. He moved his lips once more but McCaleb couldn’t hear him. He bent over closer.

“What did you say?”

“I saved you. I gave you life.”

McCaleb stood up then, brushed the sand off his pants and looked down at Crimmins. His eyes were tearing and his mouth was moving as he labored for his final breaths. Their eyes connected and held.

“You’re wrong,” McCaleb said. “I traded you for me. I saved myself.”