The Black Ice

21

Bosch insisted that he drive, saying he did not want to leave the Caprice-it wasn’t his, he explained-in the parking lot. What he didn’t explain was that he wanted to be near his gun, which was still in the trunk. On their way through the plaza, they waved away the children with their hands out.

In the car, Bosch said, “How’re we going to make the ID without prints?”

Aguila picked the file up off the seat.

“His friends and wife will look at the photos.”

“We going to his house? I can lift prints, take ’em back to L.A. to have someone take a look. It would confirm it.”

“It is not a house, Detective Bosch. It is a shack.”

Bosch nodded and started the car. Aguila directed him farther south to Boulevard Lazaro Cardenas on which they headed west for a short while before turning south again on Avenida Canto Rodado.

“We go to the barrio,” Aguila said. “It is know as Ciudad de los Personas Perdidos. City of Lost Souls.”

“That’s what the tattoo means, right? The ghost? Lost Souls?”

“Yes, that is correct.”

Bosch thought a moment before asking, “How far is it from Lost Souls barrio to Saints and Sinners?”

“It is also in the southwest sector. Not far from Lost Souls. I will show it to you if you wish.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Is there a reason you ask?”

Bosch thought of Corvo’s admonition not to trust the local police.

“Just curious,” he said. “It’s another case.”

He immediately felt guilty at not being truthful with Aguila. He was a cop and Bosch felt he deserved the benefit of the doubt. But not according to Corvo. They drove in silence for a while after that. They were moving away from the city and the comfort of buildings and traffic. The commercial businesses and the shops and restaurants gave way to more shacks and cardboard shanties. Harry saw a refrigerator box near the side of the road that was somebody’s home. The people they passed, sitting on rusted engine blocks, oil drums, stared at the car with hollow eyes. Bosch tried to keep his eyes on the dusty road.

“They called you Charlie Chan back there, how come?”

He asked primarily because he was nervous and thought conversation might distract him from his uneasiness and the unpleasantness of the journey they were making.

“Yes,” Aguila said. “It is because I am Chinese.”

Bosch turned and looked at him. From the side, he could look behind the mirrors and see the slight rounding of the eyes. It was there.

“Partly, I should say. One of my grandfathers. There is a large Chinese-Mexican community in Mexicali, Detective Bosch.”

“Oh.”

“Mexicali was created around 1900 by the Colorado River Land Company. They owned a huge stretch of land on both sides of the border, and they needed cheap labor to pick their cotton, their vegetables,” Aguila said. “They established Mexicali. Across the border from Calexico. Like mirror images, I suppose, at least according to plan. They brought in ten thousand Chinese, all men, and they had a town. A company town.”

Bosch nodded. He had never heard the story but found it interesting. He had seen many Chinese restaurants and signs on his drive through the city but did not recall seeing many Asians.

“They all stayed-the Chinese?” he asked.

“Most of them, yes. But like I said, ten thousand Chinamen. No women. The company wouldn’t allow it. Thought it would take away from the work. Later, some women came. But most of the time the men married into Mexican families. The blood was mixed. But as you probably have seen, much of the culture was preserved. We will enjoy some Chinese food at siesta, okay?”

“Sure, okay.”

“Police work has largely remained the domain of the traditional Mexicans. There are not many like me in the State Judicial Police. For this reason I am called Charlie Chan. I am considered an outsider by the others.”

“I think I know how you feel.”

“You will reach a point, Detective Bosch, where you will be able to trust me. I am comfortable waiting to discuss this other case you mentioned.”

Bosch nodded and felt embarrassed and tried to concentrate on his driving. Soon Aguila directed him onto a narrow, unpaved road that cut through the heart of a barrio. There were flat-roofed concrete-block buildings with blankets hung in open doorways. Additions to these buildings were constructed of plywood and sheets of aluminum. There was trash and other debris scattered about. Haggard, gaunt-looking men milled around and stared at the Caprice with California plates as it went by.

“Pull to the building with the painted star,” Aguila instructed.

Bosch saw the star. It was hand-painted on the block wall of one of the sad structures. Above the star was painted Personas Perdidos. Scrawled beneath it were the words Honorable Alcade y Sheriff.

Bosch parked the Caprice in front of the hovel and waited for instructions.

“He is neither a mayor or sheriff, if that’s what you may be thinking,” Aguila said. “Arnolfo Munoz de la Cruz is simply what you would call a peacekeeper here. To a place of disorder he brings order. Or tries. He is the sheriff of the City of Lost Souls. He brought the missing man to our attention. This is where Fernal Gutierrez-Llosa lived.”

Bosch got out, carrying the Juan Doe file with him. As he walked around the front of the car, he again rubbed his hand against his jacket, where it hung over his holster. It was a subconscious move he made every time he got out of the car and was on the job. But this time, when the comforting feel of the gun beneath was not there, he became acutely aware that he was an unarmed stranger in a strange land. He could not retrieve his Smith from the trunk while in the presence of Aguila. At least not until he knew him better.

Aguila rang a clay bell that hung near the doorway of the structure. There was no door, just a blanket that was draped over a wood slat hammered across the top of the passage. A voice inside called, “Abierto,” and they went inside.

Munoz was a small man, deeply tanned and with gray hair tied in a knot behind his head. He wore no shirt, which exposed the sheriff’s star tattooed on the right side of his chest, the ghost on the left. He looked at Aguila and then at Bosch, staring curiously at him. Aguila introduced Bosch and told Munoz why they had come. He spoke slowly enough so that Bosch could understand. Aguila told the old man that he needed to take a look at some photographs. This confused Munoz-until Bosch slipped the morgue shots out of the file and he saw that the photographs were of a dead man.

“Is it Fernal Gutierrez-Llosa?” Aguila inquired after the man had studied the photographs long enough.

“It is him.”

Munoz now looked away. Bosch looked around for the first time. The one-room shack was very much like a large prison cell. Just the necessities. A bed. A box of clothes. A towel hung over the back of an old chair. A candle and a mug with a toothbrush in it on top of a cardboard box next to the bed. It had a squalid smell and he felt embarrassed that he had intruded.

“Where was his place?” he asked Aguila in English.

Aguila looked at Munoz and said, “I am sorry for the loss of your friend, Mr. Munoz. It will be my duty to inform his wife. Do you know if she is here?”

Munoz nodded and said the woman was at her dwelling.

“Would you like to come with us to help?”

Munoz nodded again, picked a white shirt up off the bed and put it on. Then he went to the door, parted the curtain over the opening and held it for them.

Bosch first went to the trunk of the Caprice and got the print kit from his briefcase. Then they walked farther down the dusty street until they came to a plywood shack with a canvas canopy in front of it. Aguila touched Bosch on the elbow.

“Señor Munoz and I will deal with the woman. We will bring her out here. You go in and collect the fingerprints you need and do whatever else you need to do.”

Munoz called out the name Marita and a few moments later a small woman peeked through the white plastic shower curtain hung across the doorway. When she saw Munoz and Aguila she came out. Bosch could tell by her face that she already knew the news that the men were there to deliver. Women were always that way. Harry thought of the first night he had seen Sylvia Moore. She knew. They all knew. Bosch handed the file to Aguila, in case the woman demanded to see the photos, and ducked into the room the woman and the Juan Doe had shared.

It was a room with spare furnishings. No surprise there. A queen-sized mattress lay on top of a wooden pallet. There was a single chair on one side of it and on the other a bureau had been made out of a wood and cardboard shipping crate. A few articles of clothing hung inside the box. The back wall of the room was a large piece of uncut aluminum with the Tecate beer trademark printed on it. Wood-slat shelves went across this, holding coffee cans, a cigar box and other small items.

Bosch could hear the woman crying quietly outside the shack and Munoz trying to console her. He looked around the room quickly, trying to decide which was a likely spot to lift prints. He was unsure if he even needed to do this. The woman’s tears seemed to confirm the identity.

He walked to the shelves and used a fingernail to flip open the cigar box. It contained a dirty comb, a few pesos and a set of dominoes.

“Carlos?” he called out.

Aguila stuck his head in past the shower curtian.

“Ask if she has handled this box lately. It looks like it was her husband’s stuff. If it’s his, I’ll try some lifts on it.”

He heard the questioning in Spanish outside and the woman said she did not touch the box ever because it was her husband’s. Using his nails Harry put the box on top of the makeshift bureau. He opened the print kit and took out a small spray bottle, a vial of black powder, a sable-hair brush, a wide roll of clear tape and a stack of 3 × 5 cards. He laid all of these out on the bed and set to work.

He picked up the spray bottle and pumped four sprays of ninhydrin mist over the box. After the mist settled, he took out a cigarette, lit it and then moved the still-burning match along the edge of the box about two inches from the surface. The heat brought up the ridges of several fingerprints in the ninhydrin. Bosch bent over the table and studied them, looking for complete examples. There were two. He uncapped the vial of black powder and lightly brushed some onto the prints, clearly defining the ridges and bifurcations. He then unrolled a short length of tape, held it down on one of the prints and lifted it. He pressed the tape against a white 3 × 5 card. He did it again with the other print. He had two good prints to take back with him.

Aguila came into the room then.

“Did you get a print?”

“A couple. Hopefully they are his and not hers. Doesn’t seem to matter much. Sounded like she made an ID, too. She look at the pictures?”

Aguila nodded and said, “She insisted. Did you search the room?”

“For what?”

“I do not know.”

“I looked around. Not much here.”

“Did you take fingerprints from the coffee cans?”

Bosch looked at the shelves. There were three old Maxwell House cans. He said, “Nah, I figured her prints are on them. I don’t want to have to print her to clear her for comparisons. It’s not worth putting her through that.”

Aguila nodded but then looked puzzled.

“Why would a poor man and his wife have three cans of coffee?”

It was a good point. Bosch went to the shelves and took down one can. It rattled and when he opened it he found a handful of pesos inside the can. The next one he pulled down was about a third full of coffee. The last one was the lightest. Inside he found papers, a baptismal certificate for Gutierrez-Llosa and a marriage license. The couple had been married thirty-two years. It depressed him to think about it. There was also a Polaroid photo of Gutierrez-Llosa and Bosch could see it was Juan Doe #67. Identity confirmed. And there was a Polaroid of his wife. And lastly, there was a stack of check stubs held together in a rubber band. Bosch looked through these, finding them all for small amounts of money from several businesses-the financial records of a day laborer. The businesses that didn’t pay their day laborers in cash paid with checks. The last two in the stack were receipts for sixteen dollars each for checks issued by EnviroBreed Inc. Bosch put the check stubs into his pocket and told Aguila he was ready to go.

While Aguila expressed condolences again to the new widow, Bosch went to the trunk of the car to put away the fingerprint kit and the cards with the lifts he had taken. He looked over the trunk lid and saw Aguila still standing with Munoz and the woman. Harry quickly lifted up the rug on the right side of the trunk, pulled up the spare tire and grabbed his Smith. He put the gun in his holster and slid it around on his waist so that the gun would be on his back. It was under his jacket but an eye looking for such things could see it. However, Bosch was no longer worried about Aguila. He got in the car and waited. Aguila got in a few moments later.

Bosch watched the widow and the sheriff in the rear view mirror as they drove away.

“What will happen with her now?” he asked Aguila.

“You don’t want to know, Detective Bosch. Her life was difficult before. Now, her hardships will only multiply. I believe she cries for herself as much as her lost husband. And rightly so.”

Bosch drove in silence until they were out of Lost Souls and back on the main road.

“That was clever, what you did back there,” he said after a while. “With the coffee cans.”

Aguila didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Bosch knew he had been in there before and had seen the EnviroBreed stubs. Grena was scamming and Aguila didn’t like it or approve of it or maybe he was just unhappy because he hadn’t been cut in on the deal. Whatever the reason, he was pointing Bosch in the right direction. Aguila wanted Bosch to find the stubs. He wanted Bosch to know Grena was a liar.

“Did you go to EnviroBreed, check it out on your own?”

“No,” Aguila said. “This would be reported to my captain. I could not go there after he had made the appropriate inquiry. EnviroBreed is involved in international business. It holds contracts with government agencies in the United States. You must understand, it is a…”

“Delicate situation?”

“Yes, this is true.”

“I’m familiar with those. I understand. You can’t buck Grena but I can. Where is EnviroBreed?”

“Not far from here. To the southwest, where the land is mostly flat until it rises into the Sierra de los Cucapah. There are many industrial concerns there and large ranches.”

“And how close is it between EnviroBreed and the ranch owned by the pope?”

“The pope?”

“Zorrillo. The pope of Mexicali. I thought you wanted to know about the other case I’m working.”

They drove a little bit in silence. Bosch looked over and saw that Aguila’s face had clouded. Even with the mirrors, Bosch could see this. His mention of Zorrillo probably confirmed a suspicion the Mexican detective had held since Grena had tried to derail the investigation. Bosch already knew from Corvo that EnviroBreed was just across the highway from the ranch. His question was merely one more test of Aguila.

It was a while before Aguila finally answered.

“The ranch and EnviroBreed are very close, I’m afraid.”

“Good. Show me.”