Kirk Russell - Shell Games

“Starter motor went out. I had to hitchhike up and walk out through the fucking fields. I saw you go by, but it was like you had wheel lock, dude.” Bailey held his hands up as though he had a steering wheel tightly gripped. His neck was rigid, his eyes staring straight ahead, smirking.

“I guess I was thinking so hard about what you’ve got for us.”

The team had written Bailey off as a panhandler trading poaching tips, a virus in the system after he’d burned them once. But he’d also given them a couple of good leads. Marquez watched him open a pack of Camels, taking his time, milking the moment.

“You’re going to like this,” Bailey said. He pointed at the ocean with his cigarette. “A dude I know wants me to run him up to Point Reyes in my boat to pick up abalone he’s got stashed in a cove up there. He’s got something like five hundred ab in urchin bags sitting on the bottom of a cove near Elephant Rock.” Bailey gave Marquez a serious stare. “This one is going to cost more.”

“What’s it worth, Jimmy?”

“Five grand. You give me the word and I’ll tell him it’s a go, this morning. Otherwise, he’s asking someone else.”

“When does this run happen?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

“We’re a go, but I can’t go five grand. The state is a tightass, Jimmy.”

“Hey, man, the state wastes money for a fucking living.”

“That’s its day job and this poaching fund is more like fun money. We can go two grand.”

“Not happening.”

“I can try my chief again. If you want I’ll call from here and you can listen.”

“Whatever, but I’m not doing it for nothing.”

Marquez rang through to Chief Keeler’s voice mail. He had to leave a message, that was no surprise-Chief Keeler never got to the department before nine. He watched Bailey draw hard on the cigarette, staring at him, something close to hate in the back of his eyes. He exhaled, blowing a stream of smoke, then flicked the ciga-rette past Marquez, bouncing it off the crumbling bunker.

“There’s no respect, man,” Bailey said. “I’m just a tool to you people.”

“I’m not trying to rip you off,” Marquez said.

“And I need some operating cash.”

“I’ll get you fuel money.”

“I mean, like right now. Two hundred bucks.”

Marquez got his wallet out. Bailey was agreeing to the two thousand without saying it and needed to save a little face by demanding fuel money immediately. He had two hundred in twen-ties that was meant to go a long way, but he folded it, extended his hand, but didn’t let it go.

“Who’s the diver?”

“A dude named Mark Heinemann.”

“He berths at Pillar Point?”

“Yeah, his boat’s the Open Sea. ”

“Is he a friend of yours? Do you hang with him?”

“Sometimes. He thinks you people are already watching him, because I made up some shit about seeing people I thought were wardens. He listens to me, man.”

“Who’s he selling to?”

“That’s another trip. A dude comes around and talks to you if you’re interested, but then you have to call a pager number.”

Marquez placed Heinemann now, a stocky, bowlegged, dark-haired man in his early twenties with an older boat. They’d wondered about Heinemann before.

“We were chilling on my boat and this freak was on the dock looking for him and then took him up to a car near the sportfishing shop,” Bailey said.

“What type of car?”

“Some kind of four-door.”

“What kind?”

Bailey shrugged, didn’t know the make. “The main man told him they’d waste him if he didn’t keep it cool with them, but that they’d treat him real fair if he did. I would have shined it on, right there.”

“What did the man look like?”

“Don’t know.”

“Ask him, okay?”

“Is that like part of my two grand? If I don’t come up with a description of these freaks you aren’t going to pay me when this is over?”

“You’re going to get a thousand upfront and you’re going to give it back if there’s no abalone at Elephant Rock. If there is, you get the second thousand the next day. But we need the buyer.”

“The problem is I can’t fucking ask a bunch of cop questions so Heinemann starts wondering about me.” He smiled. “I can’t stick out like you guys do.”

Bailey’s face looked pinched, the gray skin prematurely aged by sun and wind. Marquez looked down at him, remembering all the things he didn’t like about him. He looked hungover and wasted, but his eyes glittered, so maybe he’d popped something to get going and maybe that’s what made him talk a little loose this morning.

“What else did he say?”

“I don’t know.”

“Try to remember.”

“Sorry.” Bailey gave a tight smile, eyes distant, something dif-ferent about him today. “We’d done a bong and some beers.”

“You were toasted?”

“Yeah.”

“What about the guy that came down the dock?”

“Definitely an ex-prison man, kind of a mix of Mexican and I don’t know what else. Asian from his eyes, a stir-fried dude. Black hair, black eyes, stare right at you type of number, the way they get fucked up inside and want to mess with people all the time.” Bailey lifted his ponytail off the back of his shirt. “Got a tail a little shorter than this,” making scissors out of his fingers to show. “Guy was maybe five eleven and pretty buffed.”

“Get something we can turn into a drawing and it’s worth money.” Marquez paused to make certain Bailey registered that. “We’ll pay for it separate from the Elephant Rock ride. Get me something I can work with, Jimmy, and I’ll make it worth your while. Could be worth a grand if we can get a clean description. But if you make something up, you could be looking at charges.”

“Fuck, man, you don’t change. You’re never going to lay down any trust.”

“That’s right, the deal is I don’t want to have to trust.”

“I don’t get that, man.” Bailey shook his head and played it out until Marquez looked bored.

“Talk to him and get a better description,” Marquez said. “Get something I can work with.”

“Think I’ll pass, dude.”

“If it’s good enough, we’ll come up with a bonus.”

Bailey shook his head. “You bust Heinemann, you can ask him.”

He knew if he pushed Bailey now he’d get a promise of a description, but his gut told him that Bailey would just make something up if he heard any more money talk. It would be better to wait a day and keep working him.

“Walk me through the order of things,” Marquez said, after giving it a rest, switching back to the abalone now, and Bailey went with the change.

“We pick it up at Elephant Rock and take it to Sausalito. So we’ll leave here like midday or so, go to Elephant and I’m not sure what time yet, but like real early the next morning we pass it off onto another boat in Sausalito and Heinemann gets paid. He’s going to split from there and I come back to Pillar alone.”

“What dock in Sausalito?”

“Down near the engineers’ dock. Like right in there.”

“Okay, we’ll be there.”

Marquez waited the usual fifteen minutes after Bailey walked away, then started back toward the truck. Halfway back he heard a car alarm and started running. He knew from the pulsing sound that it was his rig. He punched in Roberts’s number on his cell phone as he reached the asphalt and saw one of the windows in the king cab had been popped out and lay broken on the ground. He killed the alarm as she answered. Both storage bins had been jerked out from behind the seats.

“Bailey shows up late to the meet, doesn’t have a car, and this happens. Throw cuffs on him,” Roberts said.