“I’m interested. Do you have a card?”
She drew the card from I know not where, held it toward me between two extended fingers. Black nail polish, fingers glittering with jewels set in silver.
I gave her one of my own cards, thanked her and meandered down the hall and around the corner.
The mold maker briefly looked up at me through a glass door. I saw that the thumping music came from a boom box set on the office floor beside him. He sat on a folding chair next to a floor heater, a large wooden easel on his lap and a pencil in one hand.
Past a sculptor working in clay.
And a wholesaler of Mexican guitars, which hung from his ceiling.
Then onward to a glass office door on which an image of Jesús Malverde — patron saint of narcos — had been skillfully etched. Malverde wore his usual neat Sinaloan mustache, knotted scarf, and stony gaze.
Above him, in frosty letters:
And below Malverde’s etched gaze, just a few yards from me, clearly visible through the door glass, sat a man with his boots up on a desk, eyeing me knowingly.
I’d been made and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it but close the door behind me.
Thirty-Three
“Mr. Roland Ford, what a pleasure to meet you.”
“All mine, Mr. Santo.”
He stood and we shook hands. He was thickly built, medium height, with a head of black curly hair falling to his shoulders and a trim mustache. Malverde in need of a haircut, I thought. He wore a black guayabera with white embroidery, jeans, and a gold bracelet of interlocked serpents on each wrist.
“What brings you here?” he asked, plopping back into his chair. “Please, sit.”
I didn’t. “A tip on a stolen identity case. It fizzled, so I’m on my way out.”
“But out is that way,” he said with a smile, pointing vaguely toward the lobby. “Which of my fine neighbors here had your interest?”
“Please, Mr. Santo.”
“Of course, of course. Our curse is our curiosity.”
“Well said. I’d appreciate it if you’d keep my real name to yourself. Today I’m Robert Franklin, a commercial real estate broker. Like I said, it was a dead end anyway.”
I handed him a card.
“And you must be looking for industrial space here on behalf of a client in Los Angeles,” he said.
“Good guess.”
“When I work in Los Angeles, I am sometimes the Realtor Ron Montero representing clients from San Diego.”
“We PI’s are a cagey crew,” I said.
“Judging by your presence at his press conference, I’d say you’ve been hired by Assemblyman Strait,” said Santo. “My wife is addicted to missing-persons stories, so she forwards the highlights to me almost every day.”
I nodded.
“Natalie Strait is still missing?”
And nodded again. Santo sat back and crossed his thick fingers over his ample gut. “I am saddened by the slaughter in the Palomars yesterday. Dalton Strait must feel surrounded.”
“By?”
“Misfortune. Natalie. Kirby. His many legal troubles.”
“Have you worked for the Straits?”
“No, never.”
A quick flash in which I understood much. Tempted as I was to show Santo a picture of Brock Holland and Gretchen Deuzler, such a gamble could sink me if this PI with the narco-saint emblem on his door was in any way tied to them. They could be friendly, for all I knew. Certainly the opportunity was good, right here in this strange building. And in the larger sense, the New Generation Cartel had hundreds of eyes, ears, and guns in this jammed quarter of the border. El Chapo’s splintered Sinaloans did, too. And all the meth freebooters. A Malverdean PI would certainly be a temptation to any of them. Even if Santo was independent of Holland and the killers who had taken five lives in the Palomar Mountains, a report of my presence here in the National Allied Building might be valuable to someone.
“You have had some big adventures,” said Santo. “I saw you on the news when the terrorists hit San Diego. When the FBI woman was killed. And before that, when the helicopter was shot out of the sky and crashed on your property! You are the only celebrity PI I know who is not a TV character.”
“I liked it better when I could waddle around the world in secret,” I said.
“As a real estate agent or an insurance salesman! As a bird-watcher in naturalist’s clothing and the big binoculars strapped to your chest. As a Hollywood producer. Those are disguises I’ve used before. No one recognizes me, but I’ve never been famous.”
“Thanks for your help, Mr. Santo.”
“How did I help you?”
“By keeping this between us professionals.”
“Why not? What else would I do in this age of The Chaos Committee? Even we privateers must stick together.”
I toured the rest of the first floor with a leasing agent’s air of critical optimism. Caught a sharp glance from Maria, another disinterested look from the mold maker, then wandered to the far southeast part of National Allied. Aging elevators spook me so I took the stairs to the second floor. At the landing were double doors with glass windows.
The left window announced in crude stick-on letters:
And on the right:
The sandpit being a grunt nickname for Iraq.
The same unfriendly faces being Maria’s analysis of the people here.
No intercom. No surveillance camera visible. Two companies trying to be ignored. Not the business model I had come to know.
I moved closer to the glass and looked in. The lobby was lit by fluorescent tubes behind opaque plastic ceiling panels. Jittery light, yellowing plastic, dead flies. The room was spacious, and mostly empty. Three metal desks with little on them, chairs in tight. Another double door on the far wall, leading back to the guts of the operations.
I heard the distant rhythm of the mold maker’s music. The slamming of a door. Brakes whining outside. Tried the doors.
I sized things up. I wanted in. Santo was right: our curse is our curiosity. And so much of National Allied to be curious about, starting with Brock Holland’s presence here for extended hours over the last four days, very possibly right here in this upstairs Sandpit/Native World suite. Four men and three women. Unfriendly, making no eye contact. By appointment only, or just plain no admittance. Don’t forget Raul Santo, a narco-drawn PI who I saw as a fat black spider centered in a web and having his eight legs within reach of so many relevant things. Such as the drug trade that enamored him. Such as Brock Holland and Gretchen Deuzler. And other unfriendlies at whose door I now stood. And maybe even, through Brock Holland, Natalie Strait — about whom Santo had directly inquired.
Things sized up, I set my course.
Made sure to shake hands and say goodbye to Pete Giakas. Thanked him again for the tour. Took the scenic route to my truck, noting the old-school National Allied alarm system fed by a single 120 VAC line nailed high under the eaves of the metal wall with plastic fasteners. Saw the fire ladder, elevated eight feet off the ground to discourage the casual user.
Drove downtown for lunch at the Waterfront, one of my old haunts with Justine. Talked to Burt, Dalton, Lark, and Tola. Swung by a big-box store for an extension ladder.