Kirk Russell - Shell Games

“And what do you get for it?”

“One dollar an abalone plus the shipping costs.” He added, “They pay in cash.”

“How many have you shipped?”

“There’s no record.”

“Make a guess.”

“Three thousand a week.”

“How many weeks?”

Mauro shrugged. “All summer.” The abalone was delivered, cleaned, and then shipped out whole frozen or cut into steaks. In Asia, a smaller three-inch abalone was preferred and Mauro explained that all of the smallest went there. The boxes were deliv-ered separately and he didn’t know how that worked. Had he dealt directly with Bailey? “Yes, very directly.” Bailey had delivered weekly, driving a white panel van, but he didn’t think Bailey was diving. “But with money it’s always the same two men I deal with.”

“When was the last time?”

He watched Mauro consult a Palm Pilot. He turned it so Marquez could read the screen and then showed a record of past calls and meetings, which he now downloaded and printed out for them. Marquez folded the printout, put it in his notebook. When it seemed they’d gotten all they’d get from Mauro, Marquez stood up.

“We’re going to want to trap the two men here next time they call,” he said. He walked over to the computer now and sent copies of the e-mail to DFG headquarters in Sacramento, to himself, to Chief Keeler, to Ruter, and to Douglas at the FBI. He blew off the urge to lecture Mauro, saw fear edge back into his eyes and thought of Mauro begging Li.

“What about my family?”

“We won’t try to do a bust here. We’ll follow them and then we’ll link it to other evidence. We’ll try to figure out a way that protects you. But when it all goes down you’ll have to testify.”

“I can’t do that.”

But you’ll probably have to, he thought, though Mauro didn’t have to be convinced of that today. And he was right to be afraid of these people. He looked at the face Mauro’s camera had caught.

“What’s this man’s name?”

“Carlo.”

Marquez nodded and studied Molina’s face.

“When do you expect another delivery?”

“In the next few days.”

“We’ll be here for that one.” When Mauro didn’t respond, Marquez talked through how it would work. He took his time, slowing it down, getting a better read on Mauro. He explained how the bust would work, the partnership they’d be moving into, and suggested Mauro call his lawyer again. Marquez went outside to call Keeler. When he came back in, Mauro sat looking down at his desk. Probably wondering how else he could have played this, Marquez thought. Wondering if he should have talked at all. “These two men aren’t going to hurt you or your family,” Marquez said, but could see the fish broker didn’t have any faith.

“I know they’ll come here,” Mauro said. “I know they will.” He looked up abruptly. “I really don’t think you understand how serious they are.”

“So are we,” Marquez said. “So are we.”

Marquez ate lunch with the team at a Thai restau-rant in Oakland, then talked an hour with Chief Keeler about the opportunity Billy Mauro presented. At the end of the conversation Keeler transferred him to dispatch to replay a message left earlier, a report of an unauthorized fishing boat left in China Basin. The caller sounded like an older woman-she’d refused to give her name and had hung up without revealing which pier. Dispatch obviously thought the woman was a crank, but the timing was too coincidental to the missed meeting in Sausalito so Marquez decided he’d go by China Basin and run the wharves there before pulling his boat out of the water.

He crossed the bay, cutting his Fountain powerboat’s speed as he got close to the China Basin piers, then goosing it again as wake wash caught him from behind. The afternoon had turned sultry, high clouds masking the sunlight, and around him the air was heavy with the smell of bay mud. Ripples from his wake sloshed against the creosoted pilings as he hugged the ends of pier build-ings, checking each dock, easing his way along. He passed a large wharf renovation sign, one that had been there long enough for the lettering and the taxpayer money to fade away and then glimpsed a white boat berthed beyond two ancient crabbers, a metal boom arching over its stern. He brought his boat around, turned into the shadowed water under the strings of broken windows and weathered wood and saw white paint, black trim, a blue painted door, Davies’s boat, the Opal. The caller, who’d told dispatch that she lived on the pier, had claimed that three men had gotten off the boat.

As he turned to dock at an empty slip, a gray-haired woman on an ancient pleasure craft came out on her deck, called to him that he couldn’t dock there and he knew immediately that she was the caller. He tied off and walked down to talk to her. An iron gate blocked access to her gangplank and he showed his badge while she studied his torn jeans.

“You’re with Fish and Game?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He handed her a card.

“I called the police this morning, but they haven’t been out yet. They told me to call the Port Authority and Fish and Game.”

Skin disease, what might be rosacea had marred her cheeks. She covered her chin self-consciously as she scrutinized the card.

“Your message said the boat came in late last night.”

“Yes, it did. Very late.”

She handed the card back and told him the boat arrived at

1:30. She’d awakened to the noise and watched from the dark of her forward cabin as three men got off, leaving the boat tied with only a bowline, so it banged against the dock all night. That was why she’d called. The boat was going to damage the dock. She pointed up toward the street, describing as best she could the van that picked them up. Marquez looked at the concrete steps leading up from the dock, then at the chain-link gate lying nearly flat. They’d been carrying things but she couldn’t tell what because the dock lights were burned out. She thought she’d heard Spanish. He waited for her to elaborate and she didn’t, but unlocked her gate and came out on the dock, touched his wrist, her fingers like a tiny bird alighting. “I’m sorry I’m not more helpful. Will you find the boat owner and ask him to move it?”

“We’ll try to.”

“They’re not allowed to dock here.”

“If we find the owner, we’ll certainly tell him, but in the meantime I’d appreciate it if you’d call me at this number if you see anyone near the boat.”

Marquez looked around and wondered what possible arrange-ment she had to live here. Something grandfathered, some debt owed. The few other boats looked like they were permanently docked. He excused himself, walked back down and wrestled with the stern of the Opal, pulling it over to where he could tie it off, then got a flashlight off his boat, put on gloves and entered Davies’s cabin.

Three months ago he’d had a beer on the Opal with Davies. He’d heard a few comments about the dire world situation that he’d put down to beer talk, but wondered how those views played in now. That was a conversation he hadn’t shared with Ruter yet-Davies’s view of the Middle East, his certainty about the inevitability of a Third World War. Davies’s dive equipment was missing from its usual spot and he searched the bins and storage lockers before returning to the wheel. The pilot license, navigation manuals, maps, log, and equipment were neatly in place. So were the emergency radios, the flare gun, everything thieves would grab if the boat were left open and unattended.

He saw no evidence of struggle or violence and touched things in a minimal way, economizing his moves, not believing the cabin would become a crime scene, but knowing there might be impor-tant evidence here. There was ground coffee in a filter, but no coffee made, then something he couldn’t account for, a half-full Folgers coffee can, lying on its side in the trash, coffee grains spilling out across the wrappers underneath. He knelt and studied the coffee as though getting closer somehow would bring the answer out. They’d caught up to Davies, he thought. He’d been making coffee and had gotten surprised. Maybe Davies had dropped the can in the trash as a signal when a gun got pressed to his back. Marquez knew he should back out of the cabin now, not contaminate anything fur-ther. He stood slowly. He’d call the San Francisco police and see if he could get them to come out with their crime scene techs. Do that before calling Douglas. He walked out on deck, opened the hold and lay down, shone the flashlight beam on the dark water. There was little water in the hold, a foot or so, and he moved the beam back and forth until he was confident there wasn’t anything there. When he closed the hold and stood up, the woman was standing on the dock looking at him.