“At the very end of the dock?”
“Yeah.”
“Nothing. No, wait, there is somebody moving around. You are good at this, you know that.”
“Hug me like we’re a couple.”
“No, hug me, and tell me you’ll come visit after the baby is born.” He held her and thought he could feel Julie with them on the dock. “God, I’m sorry, John.”
“Long time ago, now.”
“He’s out of the boat and heading down the dock.” Marquez talked into his wire mike. Shauf was sitting partway up a flight of wood steps at the condo complex and couldn’t see any other players and there was no confirmation yet the boat man was coming up to meet Li. Alvarez waited near an old railroad siding at the curve. Neither could see anything happening but could get there fast if it went down. “He’s watching us, John.”
“We’re looking at the ocean. Tell you what, let’s sit down here with our backs to him and look out at the water.” They sat down and a few minutes later Marquez turned his head as though he was just talking to Petersen. “He’s hiding in the shadows, hanging out about halfway to Li,” he said. “Looks like he’s thinking it over and may be talking to someone, could be waiting for somebody.”
They waited and looked out on a bay that was flat and quiet, the water a smooth charcoal color under the dock lights. He felt his pulse in his fingertips. He willed the man hiding in the shadows to approach Li.
“How long do you think he’ll watch?” she asked.
“Until he’s sure.”
Marquez called Li now, told him to pull the mike slowly from his ear after they’d finished talking. Told him to get out and look around. Told him there was a man sitting in the shadows thirty yards to his right. And Shauf reported Li getting out, Li standing with his hands on his hips, Li moving out in front of his truck, looking around, and then walking back and getting inside, starting the engine, headlights coming on, and then the man was up and moving toward Li. He came around to Li’s window and there was a conversation and Li’s truck rolled slowly forward with the man trailing, looking down at the dock again, checking the road behind and the haze of lights at the condo complex. The coolers packed with abalone the SOU had loaded in Li’s truck began to move down toward the man’s boat. In the distance Marquez made out the lights of the Marlin as it cleared Angel Island.
“Fifty-four feet of stainless catamaran coming fast,” he said, “subtle as a Doberman.” They got slowly to their feet and he watched Hansen slow the boat down and then he turned with Petersen as Alvarez and Shauf rolled into view. Li and the man had made their second trip down the dock each carrying one end of a cooler, seem-ingly oblivious to the people moving around them, and that didn’t feel right. They came back up the steps to the rear of the Toyota and when Marquez raised his badge the man hesitated as though he might run. But there was nowhere to go and the team closed around him.
“Mark Heinemann,” Marquez said, “it’s good to see you. We’ve been looking all over for you. The bad news is you’re under arrest.”
17
Marquez paused, taking in Heinemann’s now earnest face, the styled haircut he must pay real money for, razored lines at the neck, hair that wanted gel to complete the look, making him the best-looking diver along the coast as he dropped off the back of a rusted urchin bucket. They’d driven him to the Richmond Police Station, borrowed an interview box, got him a token Pepsi, and listed off the probable charges, including boat theft, all of which seemed to baffle Heinemann as though it had been someone else and not him, his frowning puzzled look saying this wasn’t the movie he’d been cast for. There’d been some mistake, which he was willing to help get cleared up. The old Vietnamese guy at Brickyard Landing, well, he didn’t even know him, in fact, had only offered to help him move the coolers because he happened to be on the dock and the Vietnamese guy had asked. Heinemann worked it so hard that Shauf couldn’t hide a smile and covered her lips with her hand.
“The owner of the boat you stole is very unhappy and looks like the wrong guy to rip off,” Marquez said. “He’s big, looks mean, I’d be careful.”
“I didn’t steal his boat.”
“You found it?”
“Look, warden, or whatever you are, man, they dropped me at Marina Bay. They told me what I was going to do tonight, okay. I do it or they mess up my girlfriend. That’s the way it’s been since Sausalito. I’ve been on a boat with a bunch of fucking Mexican divers, working off what they say I owe them.”
“Who are they?”
“I got tricked into all this by Bailey. I’m not going to bullshit you and pretend I wasn’t involved but I didn’t know what was going on.”
“Who are you working for?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, it was all Bailey’s thing.”
“Where’d the Emily Jane dock?”
“Eureka. Then they moved me to another boat and said I owed them, if you can believe that. But I never owed anything. It was bull-shit and I didn’t tell that Vietnamese guy I was buying any abalone. He made that story up when you guys got there. Obviously, you were watching the dude already.”
“They threatened your girlfriend so you cooperated with them.”
“Yeah.”
“Where are these Mexican divers from?”
“Baja.”
“How many divers?”
“Four, and me.”
“What’s the name of the boat?”
“El Gordo Burrito.” Heinemann laughed, but it was more of a bark, and not really a big dog bark, more like a guy who was nerv-ous and a little scared. Vain guy and not too bright was Marquez’s take. “I don’t know the name of the boat. If we weren’t diving, we were below deck like some sort of sweatshop, man.”
Marquez didn’t know what to do with that. It was farfetched, but could be true from the way he was talking. It was too off-the-wall to make up and would explain Heinemann disappearing.
“Was Bailey ever on that boat?”
“Fuck if I know.”
Back to attitude. Other than this story about a dive boat and threatening his girlfriend, he’d given them little since they’d hand-cuffed him in Point Richmond. He’d sung a David Bowie song as they’d driven him here, and then listened to the charges, including abetting in the assault of a peace officer, as though he was listen-ing to a waiter recite a menu. And he hadn’t asked for a lawyer yet, which might mean he wanted to try to deal his way out.
“They’ll kill my girlfriend if I started telling you a bunch of shit I don’t know about anyway,” Heinemann said. He took a drink of Pepsi and the brown soda dribbled down his chin before he could wipe it with his elbow.
He’s not lying about being afraid of whoever he was diving for, Marquez thought, then asked, “Are you in college?”
“What?”
“Are you enrolled at UC Santa Cruz?”
“No, well, I mean, I plan to.”
“Your girlfriend thinks you’re going to school there. You lie to her, why wouldn’t you lie to us?”
“She knows, man. Meghan knows what’s up.”
“She lied to us?”
“I’m not saying she lied.”
“Someone lied.”
“What’s the big deal about a fucking college?”
“The big deal is you keep coming up in the middle of these lies. You want us to believe you, but you don’t come across very believable. Tonight, you’re caught with a stolen boat buying illegal abalone and what you did in Sausalito could bring felony charges. You’re in a bad way, Mark. This story about working on a slave diving ship-why did you owe them for Sausalito if you held up your end? You picked up the abalone and transferred most of it to the Emily Jane. You got Bailey to use his boat.”
“Bullshit, I got Jimmy to do anything.”
“We’re getting this from Bailey. He’s going to testify against you. He’s pissed off you burned him.”
“Fuck him, he’s not pinning any shit on me. I’ve done one thing here, man. I dove for money. I needed the bucks to repair my boat and I’ll tell a judge that.”