Kirk Russell - Shell Games

Roughly a mile north of Fort Bragg he turned shoreward, and Marquez adjusted the positions of the SOU wardens. He had let everyone know they’d take Li down today and he could feel the excited tension, and yet, he wanted to play it as far as they could. Maybe Li would return to the Sea-Lite Motel after diving, maybe today they’d take down his connection, as well.

Li skirted the coast, moving from cove to cove, several times reversing direction, and Petersen observed, “He knows he’s taking too many chances. He may feel us.”

Marquez agreed. “I called Hansen from Noyo, didn’t get him though.”

He was trying to reach the skipper of one of the Fish and Game boats, the Marlin, working out of San Francisco Bay. He expected a call back soon enough, though Hansen’s crew was doing a lot of homeland security patrols and was less available. He’d also had another call from “Docktalk,” the Pillar Point informant, Jimmy Bailey, claiming his lead was worth five thou-sand dollars.

Fifteen minutes later, Li had on scuba gear and was sliding into the water. The wind was rising and the Zodiac rose and fell on oily rollers. Marquez watched the two black-haired sons riding the swells, the younger boy’s fingers tightly gripped around a rope. The sky had been blue overhead after sunrise, but was milk-colored now and Petersen was right; Li should have sat out today. But he’ll try to get it over fast, Marquez thought. Li was a capable enough diver and he had his sons with him.

They waited for him, ready to videotape whatever happened next, expecting an urchin bag with a float attached to bob to the surface. They’d confiscate his dive equipment and impound his boat. Last time, he’d been selling to restaurants and out the back door at card games, taking twenty, thirty red abalone a week, net-ting a grand in cash, putting the money in an education account for his sons. He’d brought bank statements to court.

This time would be different. It would be harder to lean on cultural differences, much harder to argue ignorance. But poaching was low-level crime in California, not exactly a hot-button issue for the public. Counties rarely had the money to prosecute or supply public defenders and judges were reluctant to give poachers prison space that could go to a three-strikes shoplifter.

An orange float surfaced. The boys maneuvered the Zodiac over, and wrestled the bag aboard, then Li hooked an arm over the gunwale and his older son pulled him up. He rested and ate. He unzipped his wetsuit and smiled and joked with his boys while his eyes scoured the cliffs.

When it was time to dive again, the older boy, Joe, suited up with him. Marquez watched them disappear under the surface and then picked up his phone.

Bailey had called again and left a message as though he’d for-gotten their prior conversations. Listening to it reinforced that he was on the make. Bailey drifted, repeating himself, droning on as though his stream of consciousness made a message, but finished with “I might have something on the dude you’re looking for.”

Marquez called Bailey back, left a quick “Got your message, let’s meet tomorrow.”

Li and son surfaced with another urchin bag and climbed on board. A puff of blue smoke rose from the engine and the Zodiac moved out and then circled, as if he was trying to decide whether to continue north and dive another bed. With the wind rising he was probably gauging the weather. Petersen sung a corny, “Should I stay or should I go?” as the Zodiac did another loop, a big donut on the water.

He went farther up the coast and dove again, Joe going in with him. Then it began to look like rain. Wind gusted along the cliffs and the light flattened as the seas rose. The young boy alone in the boat looked frightened and Li must have felt the change, because he surfaced with only a partial bag. After they were on board and Li had shed his tanks, he reassured his younger son, tousling his hair, and it occurred to Marquez that the boy might not be a swimmer.

The Zodiac turned south and the team started back toward Noyo Harbor. Not much doubt that he’d run straight there, though it would be a slow ride in these swells. Two wardens, Cairo and Melinda Roberts, were already waiting at Noyo. Marquez drove through Fort Bragg, bringing up the rear, a nervous anticipation vibrating in him as he waited at the stoplights. He played back Bailey’s message again and took a call from Nick Hansen on the Marlin, who deadpanned their old, running joke.

“Sorry, guy, I’m going to spend the day with my girlfriend. You’ll have to take him down without me holding your hand,” Hansen said. Marquez smiled, some edge taken off the morning. Hansen went on, “I got your message and we’re already on our way to you. We’ll be another thirty minutes. You’re going to want us to stay clear, right?”

“Yeah, we’ll call you if we need you to close, but it should go down in the harbor.”

“Check with you in half an hour.”

Hansen clicked off and Marquez took the little jeep out onto the flats above Noyo. He watched the Zodiac slow and hold up before entering the harbor, a small black boat rolling on the swells. Li was on his cell phone now, but didn’t seem to be talking to his wife. She was in the passenger seat of an old maroon Nova parked in the lot beyond the businesses and the bridge reconstruction, right out along the harbor mouth where Roberts and Cairo had a good view of her. She was staring out at the harbor. She wasn’t holding a phone.

“He’s not talking to her,” Cairo said.

“Who’s on the dock?” Marquez asked.

“A couple of locals.”

“Anyone else on a phone?”

“No.”

“He’s holding up and he’s on his phone. Someone is tipping him off. Are you sure it’s not his wife?”

“Roger that, we’re positive, and we’re scanning the cliff, but we don’t see anybody from down here. Unless they’re in a motel room.”

They knew the watcher could be in one of the rooms on the bluffs above the harbor. They’d look for light, a reflection off binoculars, but a watcher could sit ten feet back in a room with the window open and Marquez’s gut told him it was someone in the motel, in the Sea-Lite. It had to be and he tried to work his way along its windows as the Zodiac rolled off a swell and faced the open sea. Lightning flashed at the horizon as Li took control of the Zodiac from his older son, backed away from the harbor and started down the coast. Marquez was unable to hold the disappointment from his voice because he knew Li had been warned off and would likely dump the catch at sea.

Melinda Roberts repeated again that it didn’t look like the woman in the car was talking, but she was definitely Li’s wife. They’d just run her plates and gotten back an Oakland registration address, a different name, not Li, not Li’s address, but maybe a car borrowed from a friend or relative, and Marquez returned his focus to the Zodiac. Li had kicked his speed up and bumped south through rain showers and heavier swells. Marquez checked in with the Marlin, talking to Hansen.

“What’s your position?”

“Two miles south of you.”

“He spooked and is headed south not far offshore, moving slow, and could be looking for a place to beach. We’ve got one of these rain cells moving through.”

“Do you want me to close?”

The Marlin was a relatively new department boat, a stainless, high-speed catamaran built by Kvichak out of Seattle. Would Li recognize it? Hard to say, but with the heavy seas and curtains of rain he had his hands full and probably wasn’t as watchful.

“Yeah, to within a quarter mile, and I’ll keep talking to you.”

Marquez hopscotched along the road shoulder as rain ham-mered the windshield. Petersen was furthest down and had the best view. Gusts shook the jeep and he knew Li didn’t belong out there anymore. It looked like he was running scared and without a plan.