The phone line was quiet for a moment; then she said, “I can’t resist an enticing invitation like that. I’ll meet you in Old Town at four-thirty tomorrow afternoon.” Before she hung up, Nell said, “There’s one more bit of news that might mean something. The dead guy’s foot was cut off and the ants tried to take it home. Except they all died. And anticipating your avid interest in all this I’ve asked that the medical examiner send blood and tissue samples to a specialty lab ASAP to discover why the ants died. And I’m gonna phone the hauling company and find out exactly what they were hauling in case tomorrow we get a lead on where the thief dumped it.”
“Okay,” Fin said, wondering if he’d made a mistake. This babe was actually interested in doing police work!
Late that afternoon Jules Temple crawled all over his bobtail van like a live ant on a dead foot. He’d gone to the tow yard with Abel Durazo to pick up the van, and before he’d even completed the paperwork Jules had looked in the glove compartment, under the seat, behind the seat, under the rubber floor mats and inside the cargo area before he was satisfied that the manifest was not there.
He was particularly elated to learn from the police that the driver of the van, presumably the thief who stole it, was a Mexican national with a police record. Which meant that the waste was probably in Mexico!
As the cops saw it, the stolen van had been driven south of the border, cold-plated, crudely painted to get rid of the company name, and used to haul merchandise for a Tijuana pottery maker who was no doubt aware of the truck theft because the invoice found in the van wrongly showed that the pottery was owned by the deceased.
“Are you sure there were not any documents of mine in the truck?” Jules asked the detective who’d notified him.
“Like your registration? No, they got rid of that,” the detective said.
“But was there anything of mine?”
“Like what?”
“Any paperwork? Anything at all?”
“There was nothing in the truck to tie it to Green Earth Hauling and Disposal,” the detective said. “Naturally, the thief didn’t want U.S. Customs to make that connection when the van came back north.”
“He must’ve thrown away my manifests,” Jules said.
“Of course he’d throw away any paperwork.”
“That’ll cause me some extra trouble,” Jules Temple said. “But never mind, I’m just happy to get the van back.”
“I doubt you’ll ever hear from the Mexican side about your hazardous waste if that’s where it got dumped,” the detective said.
“Of course not,” Jules said, cheerfully. “Somebody’ll de-head the drums and make barbecue ovens for pigs. They might even cut them horizontally and use them for tubs to bathe their babies in. Well, thanks again. I’ll write a letter of commendation to your boss.”
After Jules hung up, he thought about calling Burl Ralston to assuage his fears. But then he thought, fuck him, let the old bastard percolate. He deserved it for even thinking about ratting off Jules Temple to the Environmental Protection Agency.
For the rest of the afternoon Jules went to a topless bar down on Midway. There was a new dancer he’d heard about who could set off the Richter scale. Jules was dead serious about taking the $743,000 he was going to net from the sale of his business and investing it in a club that would drive every other joint out of business. There was a market for upscale clientele including Asian businessmen, not just for the MTV generation who seemed to frequent those places. Jules had lots of ideas.
* * *
The strange odyssey of the bobtail van was the topic of conversation most of that day at Green Earth Hauling and Disposal. Of course, the majority of the conversation concerned Abel Durazo and Shelby Pate, who were enjoying the attention. Both were happily surprised that Jules Temple had no intention of firing them even though he’d as much as accused them of stealing his $500.
Abel kept his share of the cash at home in a bedroom that he rented from a Guatemalan family. On Saturday night, Shelby lost most of his in a bikers’ bar in National City, too fried on crystal meth to be gambling on a game of pool, but doing it nonetheless.
Shelby and Abel had speculated privately about why the boss hadn’t fired them, finally deciding that, until escrow closed, Jules Temple didn’t want to make personnel changes that might send a signal to the future owner that there were problems at Green Earth. He wouldn’t want the guy to rethink the purchase.
It was during one of these conversations that Abel said to Shelby, “Tell me, Buey, was joo berry much scared when we make the report? And the cop he say, ‘Sure. Money een glove box. Sure.’ Was joo scared like me?”
“I ain’t scared a no cops,” Shelby bragged. “They can’t jist search people without a good reason. This ain’t Mexico, dude. He mighta figgered the money was on us but he couldn’t do nothin about it.”
“I was scared, ’mano” Abel said. “That money feel like a bomb een my pocket!”
For the first time, Shelby remembered that on Friday night he’d had the money in the pocket of his leather jacket. With the manifests from North Island and Southbay Agricultural Supply. For the first time he realized that the manifests were still in the pocket of the jacket.
“I fergot to toss them manifests away,” he said to Abel. “They’ll still be in my jacket.”
“Toss them,” Abel said.
“I’ll toss ’em tonight,” Shelby said. “The jacket’s in my bitch’s closet.”
And he would’ve done that if he hadn’t decided to stop for one drink in Imperial Beach, where a biker he knew sidled up and said, “I can let you have a quarter a go-fast for twenny bucks. This special sale can’t be repeated.”
Shelby couldn’t resist. He bought a quarter of a gram of methamphetamine, got zombied-out, and forgot all his good intentions.
A day that had started well for Jules Temple ended on a troubling note when the phone rang just as he was leaving for home.
“Mister Temple,” the telephone voice said. “This is Nell Salter. I’m an investigator with the District Attorney’s Office, investigating environmental crimes.”
“Yes, and what can I do for you?”
“It’s about your stolen van,” Nell said. “The thief who was killed in it may’ve had a toxic substance in his body.”
“I wouldn’t doubt that,” Jules said. “Probably a doper, huh?”
“Organophosphate poisoning might cause some of the things observed.”
“Like a pesticide?”
“Possibly,” Nell said. “What I’m wondering is, could he have been contaminated when he dumped your hazardous waste? What exactly were your people hauling?”
Jules’s mind was racing! The goddamn waste just might turn up somewhere! That fucking Mexican thief! Jules said calmly and truthfully, “The navy’s waste was contaminated diesel fuel. And one drum from Southbay Agricultural Supply contained Guthion.”
“Guthion,” Nell said. “That’s a dangerous insecticide.”
“It sure is,” Jules said.
Nell said, “That’d explain his bizarre behavior when he ran wildly into freeway traffic. He was probably hallucinating.”
“This case is interesting,” Jules said. “What’re you gonna do now? Search for the missing drums?”
“Since the truck got to Tijuana, the drums might be there,” Nell said. “Unless he dumped them somewhere between Imperial Beach and the border. The police and sheriffs have been notified, of course. I’ll make a few calls to Tijuana.”
“I see,” Jules said. “To trace the dead man’s activity?”