Ten minutes later Jack Mahanani drove his Buick away from the Special Warfare section and into Coronado. He kept going, heading for the bridge into San Diego, then on toward East County. He was going back to the Casa Grande Casino. He wanted another run into TJ. If he was going to do it, he’d better get it done. Or if he was going to try to outwit them, he’d better figure out how.
He’d been thinking about a hundred pounds of cocaine. What would that bring on the wholesale level? He’d heard the price of drugs was down, but a hundred pounds should still be worth well over a half-million dollars. He’d heard coke was going for twenty thousand a kilo. What he could do with that kind of money. Yeah, and how quickly he would be dead in a lonely stretch of the Borego Desert. Must be some way. What could they do, go to the police? No, they had their own way of dealing with thieves. He shivered. Hell, he had to figure something.
He just made it in the door at the casino when Harley nailed him. It was as if he had been waiting.
“How’d your ride go last night?”
“Good, except the tacos gave me heartburn.” They both grinned. “I want another ride tonight. Have one scheduled?”
“We don’t schedule. We go whenever we get a driver. You want to go, you got a ride. You have different clothes on, good. Why not wear a hat too. Every little bit helps.”
“I’ll get one. I go back down to San Ysidro?”
“Right. You’re not packing a hideout, are you?” Harley moved in close to Mahanani and patted him down. If he’d had a wire-recording device on, Harley would have found it.
“Okay, Jack. I’ll call Jose and tell him you’re coming. Give it three hours before you come back this time. They can check by computer to see how long your license-numbered car was gone. They don’t like twenty-minute stays in the country and then a drive out. The car will be clean and hasn’t been driven across for six months. They check on that too. Just be casual. Don’t act drunk or they’ll pull you over and hold you. Just nice and easy.”
“Sure, yeah, and me looking at ten years if I get caught. I must be nuts. But it’s a try. Hell, I can only die once, right?”
“Yeah, right. But you sure as hell better not blow our operation while you’re getting dead.”
“No sweat. I’m gone to Tijuana.”
He drove to San Ysidro the same way he had the previous night, and found the garage with Jose there. The second time around, it seemed routine. Hell, he was a dope smuggler, a candidate for the big house. Jose checked him out and handed him the keys. His wheels for this trip was a 1992 Ford Taurus. The paint job was still good, and it only had one dinged rear fender. It had some junk in it, including some stuffed toys and a kid’s game. After the short drive to the border, he went through the Tijuana gate, and the Mexican guard waved him on through without stopping. They liked the American dollar the tourists brought with them.
He made the turn on Presidente Avenue and pulled up to the same garage. Three beeps with his horn, and the garage door rolled upward and he drove inside. The same Mexican came over as he stepped out of the car.
“Hola.”
“Yeah, hi, where is there a better restaurant than the café?”
“Better eats?”
“Right.”
“Two blocks down. Good eats.”
“I’m supposed to wait three hours this time.” The Mexican nodded, and Mahanani waved and headed for his dinner. He hadn’t been a fan of Mexico, almost never came down here. He’d gotten drunk here once a year ago, and had nearly never made it home. That cured him of TJ. He walked to the restaurant, tried to read the Spanish menu in the window, but gave up and went inside. He had a steak with all the side dishes and two bottled Cokes. He couldn’t even risk drinking a beer, and he wanted something bottled so he didn’t get food poisoning. The steak was good, and he meandered back to the garage. The Taurus sat outside, so he knocked on the door and the Mexican man nodded.
“Car ready, but wait two hours.”
Mahanani had no trouble with that. He crawled in, pushed the seat back as far as it would go, and reclined it. He could stand a two-hour nap.
It was almost three hours before one leg cramped and woke him. The sleep had left him groggy and bleary-eyed. He walked around the car a dozen times; then he was ready. He drove carefully, but had trouble keeping his mind on the road. His stomach growled and he quickly felt ill, but he didn’t know why. Maybe the flu bug the other guys had. He shook his head. It was only three or four miles; then he’d be back in his own country and in his own set of wheels.
It took all of his concentration to find the border. He drove up to the tenth open inspection gate, and waited ten minutes to get up to the man. The border guard started to wave him through, then stopped and came up to the window.
“Sir, are you all right? You look a little strange.”
“Got the flu coming on, I think, but I can drive.”
“You could pull over into secondary inspection and have a half-hour nap. Would that help?”
“No, I had some coffee, I should be okay. I don’t have far to go, just into Imperial Beach.”
Mahanani blinked and stared wide-eyed at the border guard. “Yeah, I’m doing better now. Just some gas, I think. Thanks for the help.” He let his foot off the brake, and the car rolled ahead. The guard hesitated, then waved him on through. Mahanani was sweating like a marathon runner in July. That had been so close. If they’d pulled him into secondary inspection, the drug-sniffing dog would have roamed around his car automatically, and he’d have been busted and on his way to Chino State Prison for ten to fifteen. Shit, what a fucking close call.
He was still sweating, his stomach growled, and his whole gut felt like it was going to explode. A mile down the road there was a little turnout, and Mahanani pulled off the freeway and opened the door quickly. He vomited out the door before he could get his feet on the ground. He retched three times, then shook his head. Maybe it was the steak. He wiped his mouth and wished he had some water. But he did feel better. It had been a bug of some kind. He closed the door, sat there for five minutes while his stomach settled down, then started the engine and drove away into the traffic with no trouble.
Ten minutes later he delivered the car to Jose, and received a receipt for four hundred dollars. Jose looked at him sharply. “Why did you take so long to drive six miles?”
“What do you mean? I came right here. Oh, I had to pull over and throw up. I guess I had some bad food. There’s still some of the vomit on the edge of the door. Take a look.”
Jose did. “So, be careful what you eat down there. Take a few McDonald burgers with you the next time. Don’t ever stop once you leave the garage. We have you on a clock. Just a warning.”
Mahanani climbed into his Buick, found the can of Coke he always kept in the tray, and drank half of it. Then he drove back to Coronado with no trouble. Damn, there had to be some way to beat them at their own game. Just thinking about that half-million-dollar cargo he had transported made him ready to invent all sorts of plans. Something had to work. Now he knew they had him on a clock from the time he left the garage until he beeped for Jose. They would know how long the wait time was at the border. One TV news channel gave the wait time every ten minutes. Not even a long holdup at the border would get him off the hook. No time to stop on this side and stash the goods. Oh, sure, if he tried that, he’d be dead before he could get back into his Buick.
But he kept thinking about it. How in hell did he get out of this mess, stop being a fucking mule, get his Buick pink slip back, and pay out his IOU at the casino? A thought crept into his mind, but didn’t seem to make sense. Did the casino management know that these two men were working a drug-smuggling operation? He shrugged. How could they not know? They were making millions off the gambling, but a few hundred thousand on the side from drugs wouldn’t hurt. Top management over there had to know.