He came back with a small pry bar and ripped the cabinet door off, feeling a base satisfaction as the hinges tore out of the aluminum and the door fell on the cabin floor. Inside, he found a red metal toolbox. The upper tray carried a couple of screwdrivers, pliers, a tool for stripping electrical wires and a roll of electrical tape. He lifted the tray and underneath was a gun with a taped handle and a box of nine millimeter shells. He moved the gun with the screw-driver and saw that the serial numbers had been filed and burned.
“What have we got here, Jimmy?”
He knew Bailey would say he’d bought it or won it from some-body in a bar, that he didn’t do the serial number work, didn’t even know about that and kept it on board out of fear of poachers, particularly since he was working for the government. If he got the right judge, and there were a few of them, he’d get nothing more than a lecture.
“Marquez, who are you talking to in there?”
He turned at the voice, something familiar in the timbre, stepped out of the cabin and saw Charles Douglas. He lifted a gloved hand in recognition, but didn’t say anything yet. Five years ago, Douglas had been an FBI special agent, but he’d probably advanced since then. He’d had the moves of a guy on his way up. They’d worked together briefly on a child-kidnapping case Douglas had been assigned to. Four kids had disappeared at random out of California coastal towns and the FBI came up with the idea they were looking for a lone male boat owner. Douglas had requested Fish and Game’s help. As far as Marquez knew the kidnappings had stopped, but the case had never been solved. He figured Douglas was here as the emissary from the Bureau because they’d worked together before.
“Did they send you to explain it away?” Marquez asked.
“It was my call to back the pursuit off.”
“Then you’re just the guy I’d like to talk to.”
“Let’s go sit down somewhere we can talk. Let me buy you a cup of coffee. There’s a little place, Flora’s, Floradito, something like that, I’m sure you know where it is.” He pointed down the water. “Why don’t you meet me down there in fifteen minutes?”
“See you there.”
Marquez put the tray back in the toolbox, shut the lid and was still thinking about it. He slid the dope into an evidence bag and dropped the bag in his pocket. He took another thirty seconds in the cabin. When he came back out he climbed off the boat with the toolbox and evidence bags in hand, then set them down as he peeled the gloves.
Douglas was already outside his car in front of Flora’s when Marquez drove up. The deli faced the bay and had tables outside that were damp with dew and splattered with gull guano. Flora’s did its true business at lunch and through the afternoons when the weather was good, but also sold coffee, bagels, and pastries to the early crowd. They carried their coffee outside and gulls wheeled overhead looking for food as they cleaned a couple of chairs.
Douglas looked unchanged. He was black with Cherokee blood and especially proud of the Cherokee. He was a history buff and could tell you anything you wanted to know about the Cherokee tribe. He’d come through 9/11 and the partial reorganization of the Bureau, and looked just as confident as the last time Marquez had seen him.
“Since when does the Bureau give free passes to poachers?” Marquez asked.
“I’m going to explain what I can.”
Of course he was. He was here to explain and the only prob-lem with that was the FBI was as stingy with information as a politician with the truth, and it was the Bureau’s habit to always make their investigations more important than any other-9/11 had given them another magnitude of throw weight, but as near as Mar-quez could tell, it hadn’t made them more competent. More busy, definitely. Under the direction of the Coast Guard, the Department of Fish and Game had done numerous patrols with the Marlin, checking bridge abutments at the Golden Gate, Bay Bridge, and Richmond/San Rafael, as well as watching the bay. Calling off the Marlin probably felt like calling off one of their own. There were stories floating all the time now about boats loaded with explosives, bridges targeted, the deeper fears of nuclear bombs delivered with cargo ships. The Marlin now carried automatic weapons, .308’s. But the terrible new possibilities didn’t cancel out his own job and he hoped Douglas wasn’t going to throw terrorism at him.
“I’m going to tell you more than I should,” Douglas said, his face showing the heavy burden the Feds carried. It had no effect on Marquez though, and if anything, it made him think less of Douglas, though he’d always liked him. Saying he was going to tell him more than he should probably meant he was going to lie, so maybe the Bureau really did have a live operation they needed to protect. “We’re close to capturing an individual we’ve been after for many years. He’s responsible for the deaths of five people in law enforce-ment that we know of and he’s suspected of being behind the killing of a judge in Houston and a DA in Arizona in ‘97. There is an indi-vidual on the Emily Jane who’s in our employ as an informant and who has dealings with this individual’s organization.”
“So Kline is here.” He saw Douglas had been prepared for that, which must mean he’s talking with Ruter.
“I can’t name names.”
“Are you involved in the investigation of the diver homicides?”
“We’re assisting.”
“Okay, well, we’re looking for a large market poacher who’s buying up north coast ab and it could be Kline. Are you telling me he’s our buyer?”
“I can’t tell you what I know yet, but I may be able to in the next day or two. I’ve got to get cleared first.”
“How close are you to him?”
Douglas looked down at his coffee and picked up the cup, then immediately put it down again. He got out his card and wrote a couple of phone numbers on the back.
“These are private numbers you can reach me at. The top one will get me day or night.”
“Where’s the Emily Jane this morning?” No answer for that either and if you’re a Fed long enough, you turn into one, Marquez thought. You start thinking your questions and thought processes are better and you begin to walk among the anointed. He took the card and pocketed it. “How about you call me when you’re able to talk,” Marquez said, as he stood up.
“Don’t leave yet.”
“I learned not to underrate him. He’ll make the reality fit your fears. Thanks for the coffee, Charles, and it is good to see you again.”
“I’d like it if you stayed and talked.”
“I’d be doing all the talking, but give me a call if that changes.” Marquez took four steps and turned back, looking at Douglas’s face. “How’d you know to find me here?” Douglas didn’t answer. “I guess that says it all. I’ll see you.”
14
Marquez stopped at the Sausalito police station on his way to the hospital to meet with Chief Keeler. He knew and liked the police captain, a frank and genial man named Jim Gerhardt. Sausalito police worked out of brown painted trailers that sat on a grassy hump of a hill at the end of Locust Street, trailers they’d inhabited since their former station had flooded nearly a decade ago. Marquez parked between two boats on trailers and wondered if Gerhardt would have stayed if he could have looked into the future and seen himself in a trailer park this long after the flood.