Finnegan's week

CHAPTER 18

After leaving Green Earth, Nell found herself following Fin’s city car to the Mexican restaurant on Palm Avenue. He’d done it to her again. When she said she had to go back to the office, he said they had to talk about the case. When she said they could talk later, he said it was important that they talk now. When he suggested they have a business lunch, she said she still wasn’t feeling well from the night before.

And then he said, “Menudo! Carmen makes the best menudo in the world. You can’t have a hangover with a bowl of her menudo in your tummy.”

“No,” she said.

“I’ve got ideas about the case,” he said. “It’s important, Nell.”

And she found herself wheeling into the restaurant parking lot, pulling next to Fin, who was parked next to a San Diego County Sheriff’s car which was parked next to a Border Patrol four-wheel drive which was next to a San Diego P.D. patrol unit.

“Lineup,” Fin said, indicating the police cars. “Answer when your name is called.”

After they’d got seated and had ordered, Nell tasted a tortilla chip with fresh salsa. The very first taste burned the tip of her tongue, but not unpleasantly.

“So what’s your idea?” she asked, sipping her soda pop.

“That those guys know something about the dumping of the hazardous waste.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Did you see the reaction to the news about the kid? Suddenly those truckers were giving off about as much eye contact as browsers in a dirty bookstore.”

“Of course I saw it,” she said. “But it could just be guilt from maybe having left their truck unlocked.”

“Yeah, they coulda left it unlocked and be scared to admit it now.”

“And feel guilty about it. You know about guilt. You laid some on me to get me down here.”

“I really do care about this case, Nell.”

“Of course they stole their boss’s five hundred bucks,” she said.

“That goes without saying.”

“So maybe they just left their truck unlocked and they’re scared, especially now that a kid’s died.”

“But I think I was looking at big-time guilt,” Fin said. “Especially in Pate.”

“I gotta admit, I sorta felt the same way.”

“Yeah?”

“But it doesn’t make sense.”

“Why not?”

“What could they gain from dumping their load of waste in T.J.?”

“To get rid of it,” Fin said.

“Why?”

“What if they … sold their truck down there?”

“Sold it?”

“Yeah, for, say, a couple thousand. They’re gonna be outta work. What if they took the van down where Durazo is connected and just sold it to somebody who needed to haul pottery north?”

“And then made a phony police report claiming it was stolen from Angel’s?”

“Right,” Fin said.

“It’s possible.”

“Sure it is.”

“Why didn’t they dump the load on our side of the border?”

“That’s easy,” Fin said. “They figured that down there, there’d never be a follow-up investigation that might nail them. They got so much mutant-producing waste down there that even one-cell animals can ride bicycles.”

“I guess it’s the only thing that makes sense if what we saw was a guilt reaction,” Nell said.

“They dumped the drums in Colonia Libertad and they sold the truck to Pepe Palmera or to the pottery maker. When I met them on Friday night they claimed they took a taxi down to Southern to make the report. It sounded like bullshit at the time. Now I understand. They’d walked across the border.”

“Okay, so now what?”

“I don’t know, except the big guy might get the guilts so bad he’ll phone us up,” Fin said.

“Care to bet?”

“I don’t think so. On another subject, how about dinner tonight?”

“The menudo’ll see me through,” she said.

“How about tomorrow night? I’m cooking pasta and watching a Ross Perot infomational.”

“A Perot-ista! I mighta known. You weird little guys stick together.”

“Can you make it?”

“Call me tomorrow. I’ll see if I’m well.”

“Okay,” he said. “And maybe I can talk you into voting for Ross. He’s the only thing that can save our country.”

“You think America’s that desperate, huh?”

“Absolutely,” Fin said. “The watershed event that signaled the imminent collapse of American civilization was the colorization of The Maltese Falcon.”

Fin always felt particularly lonely for a few days after he didn’t get a job that he’d read for. He talked about it with other failed actors. It was more than the sting of rejection that successful actors could attribute to the vagaries of the business, or to the artistic decline in the popular arts, or to the dietary habits of casting agents and producers who’d consumed too much arugula in recent years. The intense loneliness really stemmed from the fact that all failed actors had denial-free moments when they thought that all those schmucks might be right!

And that’s where Fin’s head was after the rejection by that Harbor Nights bitch who dressed herself in politically correct vegetation. But then, to be rejected again by Nell Salter after he’d practically offered to cook, cut and masticate her dinner, well, he was feeling intensely lonely.

When Fin walked into the front door of the substation, Sam Zahn was at the counter talking to an attractive young woman in a blazer jacket and winter-white skirt. Fin spotted the bulge of a handgun under her blazer, a very big handgun.

Sam Zahn said, “Fin, this lady’s been waiting for you.”

“I’m Detective Doggett, U.S. Navy, North Island,” she said, putting out her hand.

That was quite a mouthful, he thought. He knew she’d shake hands like a guy and she did. “I’m Fin Finnegan, a trusty in this gulag.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“Nothing,” Fin said. “What can we do for you?”

“I already done it,” Sam Zahn said. “I mean I tried to do it, but I can’t. She’s interested in shoes.”

“So’s Mrs. Marcos and the National Basketball Association,” Fin said. He was tired.

“I wonder if you remember being present when Officer Zahn took a stolen-vehicle report last Friday? From two truck drivers?”

“Detective Doggett, it appears that this one’s turned into a career-maker for me,” he said. “Is it about the hazardous waste they picked up from the navy?”

“I told you, it’s about shoes,” Sam Zahn said.

“Did you happen to notice what the two truck drivers were wearing that night?” Bobbie asked. “On their feet?”

“On their feet?” Fin repeated.

“I can’t remember,” Sam Zahn said. “I prob’ly didn’t even look. The huge fat guy musta wore boots. He was the biker type. Did you notice, Fin?”

“Can’t say that I did,” Fin said. “What in the world’s that got to do with the hazardous waste from North Island?”

“I’m convinced that those two men stole a shipment of navy shoes from our warehouse when they were picking up the waste. We can now positively state that we lost about two thousand pair.”

Fin gaped for a moment, and Sam Zahn said, “What’s wrong?”

“Shoes!” Fin said. “Wait a minute, this is getting curiouser and curiouser. I might actually end up solving one! Big cans full of poison I don’t understand. Grand theft from a warehouse, I understand real good.”

“You do remember the shoes?” Bobbie said excitedly.

“No, I’m sorry,” Fin said. “But we have to talk about this.” He looked at his watch and said, “It’s quitting time. Come on back to my office.”

When they got there, Maya was just leaving. Everyone else had gone, and she looked Bobbie over, giving Fin a knowing smirk.

“This’s business, Maya!” he said, and her look said, sure.

When they were alone Fin said to Bobbie, “This joint shuts down at five.”

“I’m already on my own time,” Bobbie said, “but I thought it’d be worthwhile waiting for you, sir.”

He thought she was a great-looking kid. Wholesome, and corny as Kansas in August. Her navy formality charmed him.

“This is a very complicated case,” he said. “Look, I live up in south Mission Beach, so whaddaya say I follow you back to the base. We can drop off your car and go somewhere and talk about it.”

“Can’t we talk now, sir?” Bobbie asked.

“Detective Doggett, I’m old, tired and cranky. I gotta have a beer. I’ll buy you one, or I’ll buy you a soda pop, or whatever. But let’s you and me go to any old bar close to North Island, and I’ll tell you a long story that might have something to do with your shoes.”

“Well,” she said. “Well …”

“We can have the suds on the base if you want. What’s your navy rank?”

“Second class petty officer,” she said.

“We can go to the enlisted man’s … person’s club. Whatever.”

“I think I’d rather go to a civilian bar,” she said. “Okay, sir, if you’ll go to the main gate of North Island in thirty minutes, I’ll be waiting there. What kinda car do you drive?”

“A Vette,” he said with a hint of vanity. “I drive a white Corvette.”

“Right, sir,” she said. “See you then.”

* * *

By the time that Jules got back to Green Earth, his secretary had gone home and the office was locked. He saw a few employees still in the yard, but most had gone.

Shelby Pate offered Jules his usual surly nod as he shambled toward the parking lot with Abel Durazo. Abel smiled at his boss and waved.

When Jules got in his office he found the usual phone messages relating to customers, and some written notes from Mary about billing. But there was another message in her handwriting that lay apart from the regular stack. And there were two business cards clipped to it.

The message said: “Mister Temple. The police were here talking to Shelby and Abel. They have traced more problems to our stolen truck. Two children in T.J. were contaminated. One has died. You can call the detectives tomorrow for more information. Can I reorder the new computer disks or do you want to do it?”

He looked at the business cards. The first belonged to Nell Salter, criminal investigator for environmental crimes at the District Attorney’s Office. The second belonged to Detective Finbar Finnegan of the San Diego Police Department.

The message and the business cards took his breath away. Jules had to sit down. Abel Durazo and Shelby Pate had actually passed him outside and said nothing! What did it mean? What did any of this really mean?

He had to fight the urge to look up the address of that fat pig and that little Mexican and drive to their houses right now. Except that he had to get home and change for his “date” with Lou Ross. And no doubt, scum like those two would head for some hangout after work to get drunk or do drugs, so he couldn’t find them anyway. What the hell did all this mean?

* * *

Jules Temple was right about Shelby Pate and Abel Durazo being at a bar. Abel ordered two Mexican beers and tried to talk about their dilemma, but the ox just wanted to drink tequila shooters and think.

Hogs Wild was a biker hangout in Imperial Beach, and there were six Harleys in the parking lot by the time the two haulers arrived in Shelby’s battered Ford pickup. Almost every pickup in the lot had a gun rack inside.

The saloon had been the scene of some legendary brawls, including a few with sheriff’s deputies. The bar mirror was cracked and taped in three places, and the metal shade hanging over the pool table looked like it’d been strafed by an M-16. The sawdust on the floor was not there to absorb beer, but blood. The jukebox may as well have been owned by Garth Brooks; you could sit there for an hour before you’d hear any other country singer. In Hogs Wild it was either country or heavy metal. The saloon was windowless and dark, day or night.

After his third shooter, the ox said, “I jist know it was the kid that tried to sell me the gum.”

“Goddamn, Buey!” Abel cried in frustration. “It don’ matter wheech one!”

“This ain’t our fault, is it, Flaco?” The ox was pleading.

“No, ees no’ our fault, ’mano! We don’ know a fucking thief steal our truck down een T.J. Why he no’ dump the drums right where we leave truck? Right there een Rio Zone? Why he drives goddamn truck up to Colonia Libertad where peoples at? Goddamn thief! I happy he dead!”

“But the kid!” The ox actually choked back a sob.

That frightened Abel. “Buey, you stop! We get in beeg troubles! You keep talk like thees, we get caught!”

“Them shoes!” Shelby said. Then he signaled for another shooter. “I warned you about them shoes!”

“Stop thees, Buey!” the Mexican said.

Shelby said, “It ain’t our fault, is it?”

“No!”

“We had no way a knowin this would happen.”

“No way.”

“But I feel bad, Flaco. I got this real bad feelin. It’s in my gut. Like, it ain’t never gonna go away. Do you feel like that?”

“I no’ have time,” Abel said. “Tomorrow we going to T.J. We going for our money. Buy drink, food, womens! Remember, Buey?”

“Yeah,” Shelby said, staring into the mirror behind the bar. His image was fractured in that cracked and filthy mirror and the tape dissected his moon face. When the ox opened his mouth, the tooth gap made him look lupine. Shelby the wolf, he thought. He downed the shooter and quickly ordered another.

“You feel okay now?” Abel asked.

“I’m feelin better, yeah,” he said. “I gotta get me some fear.”

“What?”

“Cringe.”

“What?”

“Meth. I gotta pulsate, then I’ll be okay. Lemme have twenny?”

“Okay,” Abel said, taking a twenty-dollar bill from a small roll in the side pocket of his jeans.

“I’ll pay you back tomorrow.”

“Okay, Buey,” Abel said. “Tomorrow you be reech. I be reech too!”

The ox grinned at his partner, saying, “For one night we’ll be rich. We’ll prob’ly give it all to some Mexican whores after we drink about a quart a cactus juice.”

Abel gave the ox a playful punch on the shoulder just as a voice behind them said, “They’s a cantina right down the street, amigo. You can drink down there.”

He wasn’t quite as big as a cement truck and he sported the beard of a werewolf. He wore a cutoff gray sweatshirt and black jeans as grease-caked and filthy as Shelby’s. His boots were savagely studded with metal discs, and you could shoot pool on his belt buckle. He was about Shelby’s age and size, but his body mass looked concrete-hard.

“A little slack, dude,” Shelby said, looking into the mirror at the leering widebody. “We ain’t wantin grief.”

“Then go on down the street with your little amigo. Them Messicans down there’ll drink with you. Won’t they, amigo?”

“Le’s go, Buey,” Abel said, standing up.

“We ain’t goin nowheres,” Shelby said, watching the bearded giant in the fractured mirror.

“Then I go home,” Abel said. “I see you tomorrow, Buey.”

The last time this happened, Shelby had let Abel go home, and settled for petty revenge by slashing the bike seat of the guy that ran them off. Shelby hadn’t wanted to get it on with that other dude, but he felt differently this time. He felt that nothing would ever be right for him again.

The ox grinned at the mirror, and his missing tooth made him think again: Shelby the wolf. The fact was, Shelby Pate didn’t care what happened to him. Not anymore. He’d become … transformed.

He turned on his stool and faced the monster looming over him. He said, “Kin we jist have our shooters, dude? Kin we do that without you goin turbo?”

“Sure you kin,” the bearded biker said. “Down the avenue with the other Messicans.”

The ox looked around for a moment. He was a nodding acquaintance of most of the bikers and rednecks in the bar, but this guy was the new gunslinger in town. Everyone watched with rapt anticipation, especially a pair of biker mommas in dirty T-shirts sitting at a corner booth. There’d be no taking sides. Nobody cared one way or the other who went to the E.R., just as long as somebody did.

Shelby said, “Tell me, Big Kahuna, how do your friends over there feel about it?” Shelby pointed to a group of neutral pool shooters who were watching and waiting.

The bearded biker turned his face toward the pool table and said, “Everybody here feels just like …”

He didn’t get it out. The ox rose up with Abel’s full bottle of Carta Blanca and smashed it across the eyes of the bearded biker. Shards of glass and beer pelted the pool players. The bearded biker grabbed his face and toppled back in one piece, crashing down like a boulder.

“You’re mine,” Shelby said calmly.

He kicked the bearded biker three, four, five times in the upper body. Abel heard ribs break with the second kick. The next one was in the kidney and the bearded biker screamed in agony, jerking his hands away from his bloody face, trying to protect his body. The next kick only made him whimper.

Then the bartender said to Shelby, “That’s enough, dude. You learned him about life ’n times. That’s enough.”

“You kin pay the bill, Flaco,” Shelby said, stopping the attack. “I need what I got fer some brews. I’m all overheated.”

When Shelby and Abel were walking out of the bar, they heard the bartender say to the supine biker, “You want me to call nine-one-one or can you get your own self to the hospital, dude?”

After they were outside, Abel said, “Le’s go, ’mano! Le’s get away!”

“Go on home, man,” the ox said to him. “Take my pickup. I gotta git cranked.”

“Get sleep tonight,” Abel said. “We got bees-ness in T.J.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about me,” Shelby said, turning to go back inside.

“Buey!” Abel cried. “Joo crazy? Don’ go back een there!”

“Why not?” Shelby said. “Did you see them Harley honeys back in the corner? Them two with dirty hooters from hangin on the backs a bikers? They’re gonna be all wet from seein that blood on the floor. I bet they both gimme a blow-job before the night’s over. That is, if I kin score some cringe fer them.”

When Shelby swaggered back into the bar, the bloody bearded biker was in a fetal position, and a customer was phoning for paramedics.

The ox showed the bartender his gap-tooth grin and said, “I fergot to ask. Do you validate parking?”