Li stood a moment looking at him, then opened the door. He looked down at the worn wood floor of the shop, gesturing for Mar-quez to come in, waiting for him to pass by, letting Marquez lead the way to the rear office because he was a police official. Marquez knew that Li had given his sons American names to protect them. He remembered Li saying that, describing the birth of his older son, Joe, born an American in an American hospital, and how he was raising his sons American and the things he was buying. “I buy computer games, CD burner, stereo TV,” as though these things were talismans that would protect the boys. They dressed like the American kids they were and spoke English with their friends, wore high-topped tennis shoes. He’d talked about them going to college and his own business expanding, and temporarily left the abalone problem in the courthouse. It had been Marquez’s impres-sion that it was through his sons that Li felt connected to this country and something of that had to be gone now.
They sat at the table, what served as his office behind the counter, the cash register at the very rear of the long rectangular space. The walls were high and old, white paint fading toward yel-low, cigarette smell permeating the air.
“I can’t tell you more,” Li said. “I go to prison, okay. You arrest me, okay. I understand.”
Marquez showed him the photos they’d had made of the two men who’d visited Li. “These are the men that came to see you.” Li shook his head. “That came to your house.”
“I don’t know those men.”
“We videotaped them and had these prints made. Have you sold them abalone?” Li shook his head but Marquez felt an energy building inside. He didn’t want to violate Li’s grief, but he had to know, had to sway Li over onto their side. There was no one else, no other real lead left. “These guys came to threaten you and now we’re going to give it back to them. We’re going to threaten them, but we have to know how to find them.”
He watched Li’s eyes, knew this was the moment he’d go one way or the other. “Phone only good one time only. They change all the time.”
“Show me the number.”
Li got a piece of paper from a drawer.
“Let’s try it anyway,” Marquez said. “If they answer, tell them you have five hundred abalone you hid in a friend’s freezer and you need to sell before we find it. You can tell them we’ve been here several times and we’re threatening you. You need the money. You’ll sell cheaper, okay? These buyers will be suspicious, but they’re here to get abalone and they may try to work out a way to do a deal. So we’re going to give it a go. I’m going to punch in your phone num-ber and we’ll see if they call you back, okay? Can you do that?”
“They say they will kill my other son if I tell you.”
His eyes were dark, shining with sadness, liquid, not under-standing how he could be asked to risk that. He shook his head, made as though he was going to rise and leave the table.
“We won’t let them kill Joe and we’ll help with the move to Colorado.”
Li had told him about the move, that it was all set and Marquez’s idea was that Joe and Mrs. Li leave early, even if it was for an extended visit and he had to help Li make the rest of the arrange-ments himself. He wondered if Keeler would go through the roof, but he didn’t see another way to keep it moving here. It was a route, a way to do it, and Li could plea-bargain out by cooperating. His gut turned asking Li to risk another son, but he was confident that if they got the boy and his mother out of town today they’d be safe. He started calling the number on the piece of paper, watching Li as he did.
Maybe you pay for all cruelty somewhere. It should be that way, but he didn’t know what else to do with Li other than to force him to help.
It was hard enough to get a county DA to go after poachers when they had the whole ring. Spending money prosecuting abalone cases didn’t get district attorneys re-elected. It was hardly a hot-button issue.
Tell most people that white abalone was the first ocean species humankind could genuinely claim bragging rights to extinguishing and they’d shrug. Big deal, extinctions happened. Talk about man-aging resources and they’d agree with you, as long as it didn’t cut into their lifestyle too much. Where was abalone in the scheme of things? It wasn’t an African elephant, an orca, or lion. Not much glamour in an abalone and there never would be.
A century ago, abalone had been so plentiful along the California shoreline that all you had to do was wade in a foot or two and pick them up. Shellmounds attested to how plentiful they’d once been. Their shells had become a source of jewelry and inlay. Japanese had set up factories and shipped huge quantities home for food. Diving came after the easy stuff was gone and we’re down to the end game for a species that has survived for a million years.
Marquez looked at Li and knew he didn’t have the right to offer this man-who’d raked through ab beds for a week-taxpayer money to help move out of the state. And he didn’t have the right to promise Li he wouldn’t be prosecuted.
When the pager beeped he punched in the number for Li’s shop and hung up. Within a minute, or maybe no more than thirty seconds, the phone rang. Li picked it up and sweat started on his forehead. Marquez listened in on the conversation. The man talk-ing on the other end was smooth, quiet, and very clear.
“If you’ve got more abalone to sell, then stay by your phone and I’ll call you back in half an hour,” he said, and hung up.
Now it was very quiet in the shop and Marquez couldn’t get Li to talk and sat silent himself. He smelled ginger and an herb he couldn’t identify. The front door opened, bells tingling, and one of the older women who’d been at the house when they’d presented the search warrant came toward the back. Li called to her, his voice tight with anxiety, the pitch rising, maybe warning her off in Vietnamese. There was a rapid exchange and then she was closer, standing at the half wall separating the office area from the shop, wagging a finger at Marquez before turning and leaving.
A half hour passed. Forty-five minutes and he felt Li’s nervous-ness grow. Then the phone rang again. “Yes, hello,” Li said, and almost immediately instructions were given. Li made rapid notes, his gnarled hand agile across a piece of paper. Marquez held the phone to Li’s ear while he wrote with his good hand. “Tonight,” the voice said. “11:00.” Marquez heard it very clearly, then a slowly delivered warning. “If anything is wrong, if you’re not there, if anyone is with you, if we see anything, then it’ll happen just like we told you.”
“Yes.”
“So you want to be really sure, because we’ll wait and we’ll do what we said. If you’re lying and they’re telling you they’ll protect you, they’re wrong. What’ll happen is we’ll wait for your kid as long as it takes, and I bet you know about waiting. I think all you gooks are born knowing how to wait. Same thing, my man, and you got to understand the people who hired me, they leave it open. They’re good for the money and they just want the job done even-tually. You don’t want that to happen.”
“This abalone is stored at a friend’s house.”
“Okay, you be sure now. Don’t let the Gamers suck you into this.”
The line went dead. Marquez tried to talk it out with him and explained how they’d deliver more abalone to him this afternoon in an ex Webvan truck. The lettering was still on the side; he’d rec-ognize it. Shauf would handle the drop with Alvarez’s help. They’d help Li load his Toyota.
“We’ll be there with you.”
Now, he got Keeler on the line and talked over protecting the family, getting the chief to agree they’d move Joe Li and his mo-ther this afternoon, leaving out the Colorado part for the moment. He called Shauf as they finished.