The Poisoners

XIX

The Warfel rescue expedition almost came to grief before it got started, shortly after dark. Driving south along Ensenada's main street, barely a block from the hotel, I headed Charlie Devlin's big Ford station wagon down into a kind of dip and hit a foot of water-well, call it eight inches. It was careless driving, I suppose, but even an old southwesterner like me, used to the intermittent streams and flash floods of that country, doesn't expect to meet a running arroyo in the middle of town on a clear spring evening.

"Hell, you should see Tijuana," Bobbie said after I'd nursed the half-drowned engine back to life and made it through the wash. "Anytime it's rained within a week, they've got a temporary river cutting the city in half, and only a lousy little two-lane bridge to carry all the traffic from one side to the other. You probably didn't notice, if you came through in the dark before anybody was awake, like we did; but on a busy weekend it can be the world's biggest traffic jam."

"You came down with Sapio and Tillery? What kind of a car are they driving?"

"It's Tillery's car, a Chrysler, the fancy model with the fake spare-tire cover growing out of the trunk lid. Don't you hate air scoops that don't scoop anything, and tire covers that don't cover anything? I mean, how phony can you get?" She drew a long breath. "Darling, do you want to know something? I'm still scared. In fact, I'm more scared."

"You could have stayed behind," I said.

"Alone?"

"I offered you a bodyguard."

"A cop? Thanks, I'll take Mr. Tillery any day, him and all his nasty friends, male and female and in between."

I grinned in the darkness. "What's with you and cops, Bobbie?"

"What's with you and cops?" she retorted. "I don't get the impression you're particularly fond of them, either."

I shrugged. "In my business, we sometimes find the official badge bearers getting a little too official, even in home territory. Then we have to get on the phone to Washington, and strings have to be pulled, and everybody gets very unhappy with everybody, especially with us. And in a foreign country like this, of course, the constabulary can make things very awkward indeed."

"Well, it's the same in my business, darling," Bobbie said, "except that we girls can't get on the phone to Washington. You'd be surprised what a cop sometimes figures his badge entitles him to, and I don't mean just payoffs of one kind or another. Hell, look at all these student riots. If I walked down the street, and somebody called me a pig-and that's a pretty nasty thing to call a woman in some places-and I grabbed a club and busted his head open, you know what would happen to me: when they finished trying me in court for assault and stuff, they'd make me pay damages till I was old and gray! A private citizen isn't allowed to hit anybody except in real self defense; name-calling doesn't count. But if you call a cop a pig and he clubs you, he figures he's a hero and deserves a medal for saving the country-and most of the time he gets it, too. Don't wish any cops off on me, darling. I'll just stick with you and take my chances."

"Okay, it's your choice," I said. I switched on the dome light. "But since you're here you might as well do some navigating. Take another look at those aerial photos and see if you can figure out just how far we go before we turn off to this Bahia San Agustin place. You're sure that's what Tillery said? Bahia San Agustin?"

"You asked me that before," she said, a little annoyed. "Yes, I'm sure! And it's right here on the photo with a hand-lettered name on it, like on all the rest of the prominent natural features along the coast. And it looks like a good, sheltered spot to bring in a boat you don't want a lot of people to see, nice and deserted. There doesn't seem to be a house or road within miles, except the track leading in from the main highway."

"The question is, why would Warfel risk landing at all, except at Bernardo where his lab is?" I shook my head ruefully. "Well, maybe we'll find out when we get there. For now, let's just hope we can hit the right road in the dark."

"Well, we've got a long ways to go yet."

We rolled on southward through the outskirts of Ensenada. Charlie Devlin's big wagon, for all its bulk, was considerably more pleasant to drive than the rental sedan I'd left behind. The power brakes were less sudden, the power steering had some road feel to it, and the beefed-up suspension was taut and competent. The engine was smooth and incredibly strong. It gave the massive vehicle the performance, if not the handling, of a sports car. Chalk up another point for the horse-loving, humorless Miss Devlin-but she was not the lady whose character concerned me now.

After studying the aerial photograph a little longer, Bobbie returned it to its envelope. She leaned back against the head rest, stretching her long legs as far as the car would permit. She was wearing sneakers and white jeans, a striped yellow-and-white boys' shirt with the tails out, and a fringed sarape-a coarse, gray-brown, patterned Indian blanket with a hole to stick the head through. Topping off the outfit was a brown hat with a brokendown brim, which she now tipped over her eyes. I cut the interior light and reflected on the various incarnations of Roberta Prince.

I mean, first there had been the sexy, Hollywood-type gangster-moll with the undulating walk, the heavy make-up, and the various glamor-pants getups; and then there had been the nice, tall, tomboy-kid-next-door-trying-to.. be-ladylike-once she got some clothes on-in a pretty yellow dress, with just a touch of lipstick.

That was the attractive companion with whom I'd had dinner, during which she'd told me what Tillery had told her over the phone: essentially just that he'd be seeing her, and paying her for her services, later that evening when he got back from Bahia San Agustin down the coast. Afterwards we'd taken a stroll along the waterfront hand in hand, watching the sun disappear into the Pacific and pausing now and then for some amorous by-play that was supposed to be just for show but didn't quite work out that way. We'd returned to the hotel slightly disheveled and reasonably sure that, whether or not the syndicate boys had had us under surveillance earlier, there was nobody watching us now.

I'd gassed up the car while Bobbie was changing into a more durable costume; and now I had this lanky, longhaired, female-hippie-type beside me, complete with sarape, floppy hat, and a hate for the pigs. You had to hand it to her. Any part she played, she threw herself into heart and soul; but it would be nice if I could ask the real Roberta to stand up and take a bow. I remembered Charlie's warning. Well, I hadn't really planned to turn my back on anybody tonight, anyway…

"You'd better stop, darling." Bobbie sat up and pushed back her hat. Her voice was calm. "It's the Mexican immigration guy. Let me handle him."

I'd already seen a man in a khaki uniform emerging from a roadside shack to flag us down. "What's he doing down here?" I asked, bringing the station wagon to a halt.

"Oh, Ensenada's treated as a border town, no red tape, but if you want to continue down Baja you're supposed to have a tourist permit and stuff." She patted her pockets. "Hell, I left my room key at the desk. Have you got yours?"

"Well, yes," I said, "but-"

"Never mind. Give it to me."

She took the key and cranked down the window. The immigration inspector, or whatever he was, came up to greet us politely. Bobbie broke into fluent, atrocious Spanish, waving the key and explaining, as far as I could follow her, that we were American tourists staying in Ensenada and just wanted to take a little moonlight drive down the beautiful peninsula since it was such a lovely night. The seсor could understand how it was. Si, we'd be coming back shortly. An hour? Well, that was hard to say. It was such a lovely night. It might be just a little longer than an hour…

"You've got to appeal to their romantic natures," she said as we drove away with official permission. She tossed the key into my lap. "Well, actually they're not very strict. As long as they know you've got a room in Ensenada and are planning to come back soon, they'll generally let you through. Obviously Tillery and his bunch got through-at least I assume they're ahead of us, don't you? Of course, they may have thought to get themselves fixed up with the right papers, like you should have."

I said, "Hell, my dope-chasing associate could have got me honorary Mexican citizenship, judging by the way she talked, but nobody told me I was going to have to pass any check points. Thanks. Are there any other surprises lurking along this highway?"

"Not that I know of," she said. "Of course, I've been down only a little beyond the end of the pavement, some ninety miles south, but this bay we're going to isn't nearly that far. As a matter of fact, I think you'd better plan on slowing down as soon as we get through that black-looking range of hills ahead. There seem to be all kinds of lousy little goat-paths leading off into the boondocks, and we don't want to miss ours, do we?"

Actually, we had no trouble finding it. There was even a weathered sign, at just about the right mileage from Ensenada, reading Bahia San Agustin 11 km. As I'd expected, it wasn't much of a road, just a pair of ruts across the desert that was now vaguely illuminated by half a moon. I turned off the highway, stopped the big Ford, and got out to check the ruts by the glare of the headlights. After studying the tracks in the dust for several minutes, I got into the car once more, frowning thoughtfully.

"Well, can you track the varmints, Davy Crockett?" Bobbie asked. "Did the critters take this road, Dan'! Boone?"

"I think so," I said. "At least, a big car with new tires came through not very long ago. But there's been some other traffic before it. A truck of some kind-a husky, six-wheeled job, if I read the sign correctly-and a jeep."

"A jeep? That man called Willy was driving a jeep last night, wasn't he? Frank Warfel's driver and general handyman? I never met him while I was with Frankie, but I heard Jake telling Tillery about him."

I said, "Well, I don't know exactly whose driver and general handyman he is-when last heard from, he seemed to be working for Beverly Blame-but that's our Willy, all right. Of course, jeeps aren't exactly scarce in this country, and a lot of them come with identical tires, but the tracks do look familiar. Maybe Warfel's putting into this San Agustin place simply to collect Willy, but it would seem even simpler if Willy just met him at Bernardo where he's got to land anyway. And who wants a big truck down by the shore tonight, and what's it carrying? Is Frankie's boat picking up another shipment we don't know about? If so, it can't very well be heroin. The world's yearly production would hardly take up that much room or be that heavy-hell, one kilo is a lot of H, I'm told, worth over a quarter million bucks; and that's only two and two tenths pounds."

Bobbie said, "Of course, it could just be coincidence. It could just be a Mexican rancher hauling feed to his cattle, or something."

"It could be, except that I don't see any cattle around or any ranches either, and there wasn't any sign of habitation in that aerial shot. Let me see the thing again."

She handed me the envelope, and I switched on the light once more and studied the photograph. It takes a little adjustment for a man brought up on topographical maps, as I was, to make sense of an aerial photo, but once you get used to the idea you can get a much better notion of the terrain from a print like that.

I said, "We'll be approaching from the northeast, but the road actually passes well inland and hooks back around to the south side of the bay where the land is fairly flat. On that side it looks like there are just some dunes running out into a long sandspit that more or less shelters the anchorage. But there seem to be some steep bluffs or rocky cliffs on the north side, terminating in a rocky headland and some reefs. If I were Tillery, I'd put myself somewhere on that northern cliff, where I could cover the whole beach. The only catch is, if I were Warfel, I'd put a couple of sentries up there first thing, just to keep guys like Tillery honest. Well, we'll see. Cross your fingers; here we go."

It was just as rough as I'd expected from my previous experiences with Mexican back-country roads, but the stiffly sprung station wagon took it better than I'd expected and only scraped bottom occasionally. My big concern was the people ahead who weren't supposed to know that there were people behind them.

I ran without lights as much as possible, a precaution that slowed us down considerably and annoyed Bobbie terribly. She'd started worrying that we'd be too late, and of course it was a possibility, but I was gambling that Warfel would have stayed well off shore, out of sight, as long as there was any light at all. The Fleetwind was no speedboat; it would take him some time to bring it in from beyond the horizon. Anyway, late or early, there was only one way for one man to handle three or more, and it didn't involve barging around carelessly with headlights glaring.

My precautions paid off after about five miles. Creeping over the top of a ridge in blackout status, we saw headlights in the basin below. They weren't going anywhere; and dark figures were moving around the dim shape of the stalled car that, in the weak moonlight, had something of the look of a stranded whale.

I said, "Well, there they are. I figured, if their transportation was an ordinary sedan, they'd stick it sooner or later. You can practically Count on it. City folks just never do seem to master this kind of driving." I studied the dim, distant scene. "My God, how many of them are there, anyway?"

"I count five," Bobbie said.

I sighed. "Maybe I should have brought that regiment of Mexican policemen that was offered me." I let the Ford roll forward to get it off the skyline, stopped it by a clump of shadowy, wispy trees I didn't bother to identify, and cut the switch. "Wait here, doll," I said.

"Don't be silly. I'm coming with you."

I said, "Sweetheart, I'm sure you're a great dancer and entertainer, but how many deer and elk have you stalked in your life?"

She said, automatically indignant, "I wouldn't kill a poor defenseless animal-"

"Says the girl who had steak for dinner, rare. Only somebody else killed that poor defenseless steer for her, so it's all right. You should hear my chief expound on the subject of people who can't bear to inflict death but are perfectly willing to profit by it to the extent of a good meal." I grimaced. "All right, skip the defenseless animals. How many armed men have you sneaked up on and slit the throats of?"

"Ugh," she said with a shiver. "Well, none, but-"

"Then just what the hell do you figure qualifies you for this duty? Stay here. If they dig it out and drive off, wait and I'll be back. But if those headlights go out and come back on again after five seconds, hurry on down there on foot. I don't want to take the chance of getting this heap stuck in whatever they've found to bog down in, but I may need your help, so don't loiter. Okay?"

She hesitated, and drew a long breath. "Okay, Matt. Be careful."

"Sure," I said. "Hell there are only five of them. I'll be careful."