“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.