David Corbett - The Devil’s Redhead

“You’d know,” the driver said, “if that’s where you were headed.”

“I’m not sure that’s true,” Abatangelo replied. “I’m just looking for an old friend.”

The one in the back leaned forward, touched the driver’s shoulder, and said quietly, “Gary, let’s beat it.”

“Look,” Abatangelo said, “I’m not out here looking for trouble. There something I ought to know about this Akers place?”

The three kids looked at one another and then replied variously, “I never said that”; “Sorry”; and “School night.” The driver reached for the keys, but Abatangelo reached through the window and caught his hand.

“I don’t know,” he said calmly, “what you three are so scared of, but it shouldn’t be me. I’m not a cop, or I would’ve busted you for the beer already. I don’t even know who this guy Akers is, so I’m not out for a fight, I’m not trying to score, I’m just looking up an old girlfriend. If there’s something going on out near where I’m headed, I’d appreciate your telling me.”

His face was less than three inches from the driver’s. He could smell the beer and the chewing gum on his breath. He let go of the boy’s wrist.

“Gary, you tell me,” he said. “Give me directions to this Akers place, and we’re square.”

The boy licked his lips, glanced at his friend beside him and then murmured his directions to Abatangelo. From his hours of to-and-fro on the road, Abatangelo had a fair idea of the property the boy was referring to. He recited the directions back to the boy and got a nod to affirm they were right.

“Now tell me what was so hard about that,” he said. None of the three youths looked at him. “Go on home, before you run into somebody not so understanding.”

He turned back to the phones and heard the station wagon’s motor turn over and the transmission engage. The tires screeched on the smooth blacktop as the three youngsters fled. Probably his mother’s car, Abatangelo thought, thumbing through the phone book again.

He discovered a listing for a Euell Akers, no address. He dialed the number but ten rings passed without an answer. He hung up and went inside. In accordance with a plan made up on the spot, he bought a six-pack for camouflage. Gotta go out and deal with some people named Akers, he thought, who clearly wield a serious fear factor with the locals. Just the kind of people to know this cranker pal of Shel’s, this Frank. Tell them I’m out here to look up a friend. I brought the brew, figured we’d sit around and shoot the goose. Story needs improvement, he realized, but there was time during the drive for that. He got back in the car, put it in gear and headed back out toward the same country road.

Frank and the twins proceeded in darkness along Pacheco Creek, driving the tool wagon and the two vans toward the scrap yards on Suisun Bay. Refineries lined the westerly hills above the road. Rail yards cluttered the lowlands to the east.

The vehicles turned into a landfill road parallel to a line of abandoned dry docks. The asphalt turned to gravel as the road curved along a small, unkempt marina. Beyond the marina, a cinder-block wall ran parallel to the road on the landward side. A half mile further inland, refineries towered along the hillsides, twisting dark masses with plumes of flame, ghostly exhaust and a webwork of light.

Frank and the twins slowed their vehicles, took up position along the wall and prepared to wait. A wind came up, carrying with it a stench of tap-line leaks and rancid water. From the nearby marina, ship tackle and boat lines clamored dully. Now and then moonlight filtered through the clouds drifting low overhead.

Frank studied the Martinez hillside beyond the refinery. A few of the houses had kitchen lights burning, left on for workers due home in a few hours from graveyard. There were fewer such lights than in the past. The refineries were closing here, moving to Mexico. Everything with an income to it was moving to Mexico, or Malaysia, or some other Third World backwater, and what wasn’t moving was staying put with foreigners running the show.

Face it, Frank thought, same thing here. Doing business with Mexicans.

After twenty minutes the vehicle he was waiting for appeared. It was a four-by-four, black with an enclosed shell. The small truck parked on the strait side of the gravel lane, its motor still running, from which Frank inferred they’d popped the ignition switch to steal it. He signaled with his headlights in a prearranged code and the Mexicans signaled back.

The moon, suddenly exposed, cast a stark, cold light as the Mexican driver stepped out of the four-by-four. He was joined by two companions who lowered the truck’s tailgate and unfolded themselves from the back. The three men greeted one another in whispered Spanish, eyed the moon, then ambled toward Frank and the twins.

The two groups passed each other at the center of the gravel lane, doing so wordlessly and without gestures of greeting or even acknowledgment. Soon the vans and the tool wagon, commanded now by the Mexicans, started up again and began to move. They followed the gravel lane west toward a pick-up road that would lead them south again, through a ravine lined with alders toward the highway. From there they would head off to Rolando Moreira’s worksites east of Suisun City.

Frank climbed inside the four-by-four the Mexicans had brought and discovered a newish smell. Stolen from a lot, he figured, checking under the dash for things that weren’t supposed to be there. Explosive things. Listening things. Satisfied, he turned on the headlights and put the truck in gear.

He took the same path out as the Mexicans before him, and a half mile down the way he spied beyond the marsh grass a dark sedan. It was Cesar’s car. Frank wasn’t surprised to see it but he wasn’t pleased, either.

He signaled by headlight to the car, received the same signal back, and pulled to a stop. Setting the parking brake, he rapped on the glass partition to the back, and told the twins through the glass, “Get out.” He didn’t wait for their objections. Instead, he just stepped out of the cab and went back to meet them as they scrambled off the tailgate onto the gravel.

“We’re just here to do a little meet ‘n’ greet,” Frank said. “Won’t be long.”

“Frank-o,” Chewy replied. His eyes glowed. “Shitload of money back here.”

“Later,” Frank said.

The driver of the dark sedan rolled down his window to speak as Frank and the twins approached. An intense aroma of mota wafted through the window crack.

“Francisco,” Cesar said, smiling. He was a small and wiry man with a disfiguring birthmark above one eyebrow. He eyed the twins, then extended his hand to Frank.

“Francisco, amigo . Quihubo? ”

The man beside him in the passenger seat giggled. In contrast to Cesar, this man was huge. The third man in the back was huge as well. Frank had met them once before. Humberto and Pepe.

“Whatch’all doin’ out here?” Frank asked. All down home.

Cesar said, “ Abrazos from Señor Zopilote. He’s happy. So am I.”

Cesar’s command of English rated somewhere between competence and mimicry. Frank, who’d grown up in San Diego, knew the accent well. The border was swimming with guys who spoke just like him.

“That name again?” Frank said.

“Zopilote,” Cesar replied, the goodwill draining from his eyes.

“I grew up along the border,” Frank said. “My mother was half-Mexican, she drove me in and out of TJ twice a month to score diet pills. So I know a little Spanish. In particular, I know what zopilote means.” It meant ‘vulture.’ ”I don’t recall it coming up before.”