Spike laughed. “Talk about a helluva photo op. That pale-butted pipsqueak bouncing up and down between the legs of some methed-up hooker in a skid-row hotel.”
Gage cast him a sour expression. “I’m glad I already finished my lunch,” Gage said, pushing away his plate. Spike was still grinning, now red-faced. “You better finish the thought before you explode.”
“And Meyer working his little pene, yelling, ‘Motion denied! Motion denied!’ ”
Spike laughed, stomach bouncing, until tears formed at the corners of his eyes. He wiped them with his napkin. “Man, what an image.”
“Are you done ruining my meal?”
“I hope so.” Spike rubbed his side. “I think I pulled a muscle.”
One of the Jaliscos walked over to the jukebox, dropped in fifty cents, then punched a button. He returned to his table as an accordion blast began “El Corrido Contrabando,” a ballad celebrating Amado Carrillo Fuentes, Lord of the Skies, a Mexican who smuggled hundreds of tons of cocaine in 727s, then faked dying during plastic surgery and retired to Colombia.
“Is that song for your benefit?” Gage asked.
“No. They think I’m an insurance salesman. Just a guy selling term life.” Spike grinned again. “When I’m really pushing life terms.”
Gage shook his head. “You still get a kick out of this.”
“That’s why I can’t bring myself to retire. It’s even hard to think about it.”
Spike’s grin faded as his sentence trailed off. He paused, his face turned somber.
“Middle age is weird. You think about things you never thought about before. It hit me the other night that from the moment my father came across the border, he never felt at home again anywhere. Not in Mexico and not in Arizona, even after he became a citizen.” Spike tapped the gold badge clipped to his belt under his jacket. “And I’m not sure I really felt at home until I got this piece of metal. Maybe that’s why he wanted me to follow you up here. Kinda makes it hard to give it up.”
Spike paused again, thinking, then his eyes brightened. “Well, that and Placita. She couldn’t stand me hanging around the house all the time.”
“She tell you that?”
“Straight out, the first time I talked about it. Then she reached for the phone and threatened to make her nephew give me a job driving one of his cabs-until I showed her a news article saying it was more dangerous than being a cop.”
“But she’d made her point.”
“Yeah, big time.”
Spike pulled his case log out of the manila envelope.
“That’s another thing.” Spike skimmed down the chronology. “Charlie wouldn’t tell me how he got over to Geary Street where he got shot, but I think he took a taxi. A Checker cab driver remembered dropping off somebody who resembled Charlie two blocks away about twenty minutes before it happened. Charlie denied it was him. But I think it was.”
“So he didn’t want to use a car that could be traced to him?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“Sounds like you spent as much time investigating Charlie as you did whoever shot him.”
“More. He was stonewalling. There had to be a reason, and it wasn’t a no-harm, no-foul case. A few days after he was shot he got pneumonia and it seemed like he wasn’t going to make it. Would’ve made it a homicide right then.”
“What did the neighborhood canvass turn up?”
“We got a possible ID of Charlie at a coffee shop. Eyewitness IDs are bad enough, but this was one where the clerk had no reason to pay attention at the time. So I’m not sure what to make of it.”
Spike tilted his head toward the two men, one of whom was opening his phone. The man held it to his ear, nodded, then snapped it closed. Thirty seconds later, a younger Hispanic man entered and pulled a chair up to the Jaliscos’ table and set down a small black canvas duffel, stretched tight by its contents. He was dressed in Levi’s and oversized sweatshirt and wearing wraparound sunglasses.
“Looks like they’re going to do the deal right here,” Gage said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there was heroin in that bag. They wouldn’t need a briefcase of money to buy so few kilos of cocaine.”
Spike punched redial on his phone, reported in to the surveillance officers driving down Mission Street toward the restaurant, then disconnected.
The three men kept casting quick glances around the restaurant, too often for Spike to risk another photo.
“They’re bringing a dog,” Spike said, sliding his phone into his jacket pocket. “He’ll take a little sniff as they walk outside.” He smiled. “Then off to the pokey.” He pushed his plate away. “What’re you working on besides Charlie?”
“The main one is a trade secrets case. Fiber-optic switches. My clients developed a switch-a kind of splitter-that tripled fiber-optic line capacity. FiberLink. The owners mortgaged their houses and borrowed from their retirement accounts to fund their research. Really nice people. The brains were two women who used to work at Intel. They came up with the switch on their own time, then brought in some friends to form the company.”
“What happened?”
“One of their husbands smuggled out the design and sold it to OptiCom, which used it as the backbone for their bid to wire Western Europe, and they won. I chased him around Europe for a couple of weeks, then cornered him in Zurich. I brought him back and delivered him to the FBI.”
“Why’d he do it?”
“Jealousy. He thought his wife was cheating on him.”
“Was she?”
“I don’t think so, but it still wouldn’t justify what he did.”
Spike looked over at an abandoned newspaper on the next table, an unopened business section lying on top. “How much was the European contract worth?”
“Billions and billions and billions. OptiCom’s stock went through the roof. The world’s biggest fiber-optic company doubled in value overnight.”
“I’ll bet their stock is going to tank when this hits the news. I mean really plummet.” Spike smiled, then rubbed his hands together. “Maybe it’s time for a little insider trading. I’ve been doing a little reading. Seems there’s a way to make a lot of money if you know a stock is going to crash.”
Gage smiled back. “Too bad you don’t know of one.”
“Yeah.” Spike sighed. “Way too bad. I guess I’ll have to keep making money the old-fashioned way. Slurping at the public trough.”
Gage pointed at the envelope. “What’s next?”
“Retrace my steps, see if I missed anything. But I’ll lay off for a while if you’re going to do something. You’re probably in a better position anyway, what with the attorney-client privilege issues.”
“That’s fine. I’ll make it quick. I need to make sure whatever Charlie was up to doesn’t snap back at Socorro again.”
Spike and Gage both alerted to the Jaliscos leaning back against the window next to them. The newcomer’s hand was under his sweatshirt.
“Something’s going sour,” Gage said. “Maybe it’s a rip-off.”
The newcomer angled his chair away from the Jaliscos, giving himself a view of the rest of the restaurant. He glanced around, his eyes hesitating when they fell on the cook and the waiter behind the counter to Gage’s left, then on Gage and Spike, as if counting the number of witnesses who’d have to be eliminated.
Gage caught the waiter’s eye, then tilted his head toward the kitchen. The waiter nodded his understanding: If two witnesses escaped there would be no reason kill the remaining ones.
The newcomer caught the motion and pushed himself to his feet. Seconds later all three dealers were waving guns at one another, then at the waiter, the cook, Spike, and Gage.
Spike slipped his right hand under the table and rested it on his gun while Gage rose with his hands up and eased toward the counter. Three barrels tracked his movement. The newcomer yelled, “Freeze, asshole.” But Gage took a final step, coming to a stop in front of the cook and waiter.
The waiter pulled the cook to the floor with him and used Gage and the counter for cover as they crawled into the kitchen and toward the back door.