Kirk Russell - Shell Games

“And did he?”

“We never got that far. He pulled the gun and we got into it and then I found he was wired up.”

Marquez had heard the gun story, the fight on the boat Davies had described to Ruter. Skepticism must have shown on his face because Davies reacted now.

“You don’t believe me?”

“Tell me what Huega told you about Guyanno.”

“Do you think I’m in with them?”

“No.”

“But you think I’ve fucked up.”

“You’re in a fucking mess, I’m sure of that. What happened? Were they robbed?”

“Okay, look, this is what Danny told me. He’d been drinking in town with Stocker and Han and they were all going to party a little more that night and dive in the morning.”

“When was this?”

“The night they were killed. He left his truck near the bar and rode up with Stocker to the campground, figuring to get his truck the next morning because they were going out early anyway. He was in the cab of Stocker’s truck because he didn’t have a sleeping bag. Danny said after they’d gone to bed, he smoked a joint and listened to the radio while lying on the truck seat. He went to sleep and he wasn’t sure what woke him up. He didn’t hear their car, didn’t see headlights, but he thinks it was yelling that woke him up, maybe Stocker yelling. There was no one in the campsite and then he heard screaming farther up the trail. They were putting all their attention to Han when Danny got near enough to see. Han broke free and ran and they shot him, then dragged him back and he saw the man with the silvery hair bend over him. He said Han’s screams carried down the canyon. It was Han they really wanted to hurt.”

“He saw it all?”

“No, he took off, got his ass down that trail, rolled Stocker’s truck out of the lot and started it before the road bumps up. The truck is somewhere up in those dirt roads in the mountains along the Lost Coast. Huega’s ex knows where he hid it. So you know they came down, saw the truck was gone and put it together. The next morning I met you there and by the afternoon they’d called me looking for Huega.”

“Why didn’t you tell the detectives?”

“Because their minds are already made up.”

“And you’ve been making up stories,” Marquez said.

“I’ve been fucking with them because they’re stupid. They don’t get the imperative, you know? They don’t get it.”

“You told the detectives earlier that there were three men. Was that coming from Danny Huega?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s get the detectives in here.”

“Bring them in and I’m done talking.”

“Then give it to me slowly, everything you can remember Huega saying. Start with the time. What time of night was this?”

“I never asked him that. They probably closed a bar. He went to sleep smoking a joint, he probably didn’t even know the time.”

“Describe the men one by one.”

Marquez took notes and the account didn’t vary much from Davies’s earlier telling. Two men had guns, one had a ponytail and the other was smaller, slight of build, wiry. The third man had come behind them, but he couldn’t read any of their faces. The third man was the tall one, the one running things. He’d had an accent of some sort and had stepped into the moonlight not far from where Danny Huega was holding his breath. Davies grinned at that thought. “Danny said he walked like he was floating across the grass. He had hair that reflected the moonlight and Danny saw a blade, but that’s about it. He didn’t even say what color he was either, just the hair and the way he came out of nowhere.”

“Dealing with these poachers have you ever heard a descrip-tion of a man like this?”

“No, I’ve been dealing with Mexicans and with a white guy whose face you’d want to forget.”

“Describe his face.”

When he did Marquez knew they had their first link. It was the pair in Oakland, the white with the hatchet face and the Hispanic who was vaguely familiar. He was sure if Davies saw the video he’d recognize him, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to show it to him.

Ruter opened the door and Davies stopped talking. Marquez listened to the detectives try to get him to say more, but Davies was done and Marquez left the room. Around midnight, Ruter came out and they stepped outside.

Marquez felt like the whole encounter had been disjointed and strange, but that Davies had mixed in truth. Either Huega or Davies had been at Guyanno during the murders. There was some indefin-able thing he could feel, some truth mixed in. Ruter believed it had been Davies, that Davies was wobbling and close to confessing. He’d seen this before.

“That’s why he asked for you,” Ruter said. “He wanted to confess to you, not us. Then he got a little more spine while you drove up here. If you’d been twenty minutes away, he would have confessed. He was right on the edge.” Ruter pounded a fist into his palm, “But dammit, we can’t hold him.”

“What happens now?” Marquez asked.

“We’ll have to kick him loose until we can tie him in.”

“Let me know when he’s back out there.”

“Oh, I will. Hell, he’ll probably call you. You’re the only pure play, remember?”

When he got on the road Marquez called Petersen, told her he’d pick up a couple of beers for himself and whatever she wanted to drink and meet her in Fort Bragg. They met on Elm Street and walked down the old road alongside the Georgia-Pacific property, between the blackberry bushes and down to Glass Beach where for decades earlier in the past century the citizenry of Fort Bragg used to dump its garbage into the ocean. Over the years the broken china, glass, and metal had been worn by the ocean, the glass rounded like small stones that glittered now in the moonlight. They sat on a rock and Marquez handed her a mineral water and opened the beer, a bottle of Indica from the Lost Coast Brewery.

“What do you think about Davies now?” she asked.

“I think he’s got a private agenda he mixed up with ours.”

“What do we do with him now?”

“Nothing. He’s a suspect.”

“At least Ruter is talking to us,” Petersen said. “He’s opened up to you.”

“Yeah, we’re tight now.” He saw her white teeth in the dark-ness. He listened to another wave break and his head was buzzing in a way that made him wonder if he’d ever sleep tonight. “This is what I think probably happened. Davies gave Huega to the people who’d killed Stocker and Han. Maybe that was about abalone or maybe it was dope, but the bottom line was money. Some deal went sour and Davies delivered to gain credibility with them. If it’s Kline, he’d need to do that. He made comments to Ruter about crossing an abyss there’s no returning from.”

“Or he was there and he killed Huega.”

“That’s what Ruter thinks.”

“Ruter can count me in on that one, too. Either way, I guess you don’t have to defend Davies anymore.”

“Is that how I’ve sounded? You think the detectives are right about that?”

“Definitely.”

Marquez opened another beer. He wasn’t sure yet what it meant, but he knew what had changed tonight. Any connection he had with Davies was gone.

The Pacific Condor floated on a darkening sea, its rust stains lost to the fading light. Bailey was at the stern, Heinemann in the cabin. From the cliffs Marquez and Roberts watched Bailey finish a Coors, then crumple the can and send it spinning like a coin across the water.

“Jerk,” Roberts said. “That was for us.”

“He’s making me thirsty.”

They lay in low scrub brush and dry grass and it had been hot with the sun on them all afternoon. Now the fog was on its way in. Melinda’s face was flushed, her eyes bright. It seemed to Marquez that her anger toward Bailey had grown steadily.