“I found these. Trehorn says people shoot out there, so they might not matter.”
Pike sniffed the brass as if the smell would tell him something, then handed them back. Maybe he could follow their scent.
“I marked Trehorn’s track with an E. The bigger truck is a quad. I want your read on what happened.”
Pike nodded again.
“You want me to take you out there?”
He shook his head. I had already texted him the longitude and latitude coordinates from my iPhone.
“Want Trehorn?”
“I’m good alone.”
“Okay. I’m going to see this attorney. Let me know what you find.”
It was one-thirty-two that afternoon when I left Pike in the desert, and drove to see Thomas Locano.
10
Thomas Locano had a nice suite of offices on the second floor of a two-story building overlooking Mission Street in South Pasadena. His was an older building with a red tile roof, plaster walls, and heavy wooden doors. Like the building, Locano was a gracious man in his early sixties. Two younger associates were employed in his practice, and his assistant was also his wife. Elizabeth, she told me as she led me into his office.
Locano smiled when he stood to greet me, but appeared uncomfortable.
Elizabeth Locano said, “Would you like coffee, Mr. Cole? Or something else?”
“I’m fine, ma’am. Thank you.”
She did not close the door on the way out.
Mr. Locano came from behind his desk so we could sit together in comfortable, overstuffed chairs, and offered a firm, dry hand.
“Nita tells me you’re working for her, and are aware of her status issue.”
“Yes, sir, I am. Did she tell you why I’m here?”
“Her daughter is missing. She believes it has something to do with her status, so she asked me to speak freely with you about these things.”
I passed him the note from the crash site.
“I found this twenty miles outside of Palm Springs at the crash site of an old drug smuggler’s plane. I believe it was written by Nita’s daughter.”
He frowned at the note, then tried to pass it back, but I didn’t take it.
“This isn’t Spanish.”
“No, sir. We believe it means ‘ask a coyote named Sanchez’ or ‘ask about a coyote named Sanchez.’ So that’s what I’m doing. Do you know of a coyote named Sanchez who brings people north through the Imperial Valley?”
Mr. Locano lowered the note. His cool expression told me I had insulted him.
“My practice is immigration law. I help clients obtain visas and green cards, and fight deportation and removal orders. If you believe I’m involved in something illegal, you misunderstand the nature of my work.”
“That isn’t what I meant to suggest, Mr. Locano. If I sounded that way, I apologize.”
He didn’t look mollified.
“Nita told me you’re the go-to attorney when undocumented aliens are arrested, so I’m guessing you’re familiar with how your clients enter this country, and who brings them across.”
“This is not something I’m going to discuss with you.”
I pointed at the note.
“Ask the coyote, Sanchez. Nita Morales saw the crash site when she was seven years old, and being smuggled into this country. She says it used to be a regular transfer spot where people brought north were handed off. Krista visited that same site this past Friday night, and it was the last time anyone has seen her. Today, six days later, I found this note and her driver’s license ten yards from the wreckage.”
He glanced at the note again, and frowned. This time when he offered it back, I took it.
“You believe she had contact with this person, Sanchez?”
“Maybe, but I don’t know. Either way, she wrote this note for a reason, so I want to ask him about it. I need a first name to find him.”
Locano nodded, but more to himself than me.
“I would like to help you, Mr. Cole, but this business you speak of is not what it was.”
“Are you telling me no one comes north anymore?”
“Of course people come, but the guides I knew are gone. The old guides were a cousin who had come to work the seasonal crops, or an in-law who came to visit relatives. If you gave them a few dollars they would help you, as much out of friendship as for the money, but the cartels and their hoodlums have changed this. They patrol the roads like an army to control the movement of guns and drugs, and now nothing comes north without their permission.”
“Including the coyotes?”
“Transporting people is big business now. Groups from Asia, Europe, and the Middle East find passage to Central America, and are taken north through Mexico in large groups. The new coyotes don’t even call them people. They are pollos. Chickens. Not even human.”
“Coyotes eat chickens.”
“Not only chickens, but each other, and each other’s chickens. Do you know what a bajadore is?”
“A bandit?”
“A bandit who steals from other bandits. These are usually members of different cartels, a Baja stealing from a Zeta, a member of the Tijuana cartel stealing from a Sinaloa or La Familia. They steal each other’s drugs, guns, and pollos — whatever can be sold. They even steal each other.”
“Sold. As in slavery?”
“Sold as in ransom. These poor people have already paid their money to the coyote, then they are kidnapped by the bajadores. They have nothing, so the bajadores demand ransom from their families. I do not know people like this. When they are arrested, I do not represent them.”
I felt my mouth dry as I took in what he told me.
“Nita received two calls from Krista and a male individual, the man demanding a fee for Krista’s return. Nita transferred the money, but Krista is still missing.”
Locano’s eyes grew darker.
“Nita said nothing of an abduction.”
“Nita believes it’s a joke or a scam. They only asked for five hundred dollars.”
Locano looked even more disturbed.
“This is small to you and a woman with a successful business, but it is a fortune to a family counting pennies. We are talking about poor people. A few hundred, a thousand, another five hundred. The bajadores know with whom they are dealing.”
“It still seems so little.”
“Multiply it times a thousand. Two thousand. The number of people abducted would astound you, but such abductions are rare on U.S. soil. Let’s hope Nita is right.”
Neither of us spoke for a moment, neither of us moved as I listened to the voices in his outer office, his wife speaking with one of the younger attorneys.
“Mr. Locano, you may not know this man, but you might know someone who does, or who can find out. Ask around. Please.”
He stared at me, and I could tell he was thinking. He tapped the arm of his chair, then called to his wife.
“Liz. Would you show Mr. Cole to the restroom, please?”
He stood, and I stood with him as his wife appeared in the door.
“Take your time. Wash thoroughly. It is important to be clean, don’t you agree?”
“It’s important to be clean.”
“Take your time.”
Elizabeth Locano graciously showed me to the restroom, where I took my time. It was a nice restroom, with large framed photographs of the pre-Hispanic city of Teotihuacan in southern Mexico, what the Aztecs called the City of the Gods. It was and remains one of the most beautiful cities ever built, and one I have always wanted to see. I wondered if Mr. Locano or his wife had taken them.
I washed thoroughly, then washed a second time because cleanliness was a very good thing, and it was right to be good. Mr. Locano was on the other side of the door talking over my request with his wife, and maybe making the calls I had asked him to make. I hoped so.
I was staring at the Pyramid of the Sun when my phone buzzed.
Mary Sue Osborne said, “This is your future wife speaking.”