Stocelli pursed his small lips thoughtfully.. “You play rough, don’t you….”
“So do they.”
“What’d they say when you told them that?”
“I’m supposed to get their answer this afternoon.”
Stocelli tried not to appear anxious. “What do you think they’ll say?”
“Figure it out for yourself. They need Michaud’s organization more than they need you. That makes you expendable.”
Stocelli was a realist. If he was frightened, he didn’t show it. “Yeah. You gotta figure it that way, right?” He changed the subject suddenly. “Who’s over here from Marseille?”
“Someone named Jean-Paul Sevier. Do you know him?”
His brow furrowed in thought. “Sevier?” He shook his head. “I don’t think I ever met him.”
I described Jean-Paul.
Stocelli shook his head again. “I still don’t know him. But that don’t mean anything. I never paid no attention to any of them except the guys running the organization. Michaud, Berthier, Duprè. I wouldn’t know the others.”
“Does the name Dietrich mean anything to you?”
There was no reaction. If Stocelli knew the name, he hid it well. “Never heard of him. Who’s he with?”
“I don’t know if he’s with anybody. Did you ever have dealings with anyone by that name?”
“Look,” growled Stocelli, “in my lifetime, I met a couple thousand guys. How the hell do you expect me to remember everyone I ever met? He’s nobody I ever did any business with, that’s for sure. Who is this guy?”
“I don’t know. When I find out, I’ll let you know.”
“All right,” said Stocelli, dismissing the topic. “Now, I got a little job for you. I want you to get rid of that goddamned package.” He gestured at the laundry bundle with his thumb.
“I’m not your errand boy. Get one of your own men to dump it.”
Stocelli let out a rumble of a laugh. “What’s the matter with you? You think I’m stupid? You think I’m dumb enough to let any of my boys run around this hotel with five kilos of pure horse? If they get picked up with it, it’s like putting the finger on me. Besides, you know goddamned well I can’t trust them to get rid of it. You know how much that stuff is worth? Whoever I give it to, the first thing he’s gonna do is try to figure an angle how he can peddle it Five kilos, that’s better than a million bucks on the streets. That’s too much temptation. No sir, none of my boys!” I changed my mind. “All right,” I said, “I’ll take it” Stocelli was suddenly suspicious of my easy agreement “Wait a second,” he growled. “Not so fast. How come you don’t tell me to go get lost? That’s no little favor I’m asking you. You get caught with that stuff and you’re gonna spend the next thirty years in a Mexican jail, right? From what I hear, those aren’t places to spend even thirty minutes. So how come you’re willing to stick your neck out so far for me?”
I smiled at him and said, “It doesn’t make any difference, Stocelli. I’m the only one around here you can trust to get rid of it for you and not get your ass in a wringer.” I wasn’t about to tell him what I had in mind. The less Stocelli knew about what my plans were, the better. Stocelli nodded slowly. “Yeah. Come to think of it, that’s funny, ain’t it? Out of all my boys, it turns out you’re the only one I can depend on.”
“Very funny.”
I picked up the package and tucked it under my arm, then turned to go.
“Let me know what happens,” said Stocelli, in almost a friendly voice. He walked to the door with me. “I get nervous sitting up here without knowing what’s going on.”
I took the elevator down to my room without meeting anyone. I opened the door with my key and walked in. And stopped. Lying on top of my bed was a brown, paper-wrapped package with a blue laundry list attached to it, identical with the one I held in the crook of my arm, the one I had just taken from Stocelli’s penthouse suite.
It took me no more than ten minutes to fix things so that when the police came they’d find nothing. If the pattern was the same, I knew that the police would have been tipped off that they could find one cache of heroin in Stocelli’s penthouse suite and another in my room. They were probably on their way to the hotel by now.
Less than half an hour later, I was in the lobby waiting for Consuela to pick me up. I wore my camera slung around my neck with a 250mm telephoto lens attached to it. Over my shoulder, I carried a large, top-grain, cowhide camera equipment bag.
Consuela was late. I put the heavy camera equipment bag and my camera down on the seat of an armchair. “Keep an eye on that stuff for me, will you,” I said to one of the bellhops, handing him a ten-peso note. I walked over to the desk.
The clerk looked at me with a smile.
“Senor Stephans, no? May I help you?”
“I hope so,” I said, politely. “Do you have a guest registered here by the name of Dietrich — Herbert Dietrich?”
“Momentito” said the clerk, turning to the guest card-file. He searched through it and then looked up. “Si, senor. El Senor Deitrich arrived yesterday.”
Yesterday? If Dietrich came in yesterday and Stocelli the day before, and he had been on the same plane with Stocelli, then where had Dietrich been for twenty-four hours?
I wondered about that for a moment, and then asked, “Would you know what room he’s in?”
“He occupies Suite nine-oh-three,” said the clerk, checking the file again.
“Would you happen to know what he looks like?” I asked. “Is it possible that you could describe him to me?”
The clerk shrugged. “Lo siento mucho, Senor Stephans. Es imposible! I’m sorry, but I was not on duty when Senor Dietrich registered.”
“No es importante” I told him. “Thank you anyway.” I passed him a folded bill.
The clerk smiled at me. “De nada, senor. If I can be of help to you in the future, please let me know.”
I went back across the lobby and picked up my equipment. I was hanging the camera around my neck when Consuela came up to me.
“My god,” she said, laughing at me, “you really do look like a tourist with all that photographic gear strapped on you.”
I smiled back at her. “Tools of my trade,” I said, easily. “I’m a freelance photographer, remember?”
“Tell me about it later,” Consuela said, looking at her wristwatch and then taking me by the arm. “We’ll be late if we get caught in traffic.”
We were just pulling out of the circular drive in front of the hotel when the police car turned in and came to a screaming stop in front of the entrance. Four policemen jumped out and walked quickly into the hotel.
“What do you suppose they want?” Consuela asked, peering into the rear-view mirror.
“Damned if I know.”
Consuela looked askance at me, but made no further comment. She concentrated on speeding along the Costera Miguel Aleman, past the Acapulco Hilton to Diana Circle, where Paseo del Farallon intersects the Costera. She took Highway 95 that goes north to Mexico City.
About a mile further up the road, Consuela turned onto a dirt road that led into the foothills. Finally, she pulled up in a gravel parking lot half filled with cars.
“El Cortijo,” she announced. “The farmhouse.”
I saw a wooden structure, painted bright red and white, actually nothing more than a large, circular platform built about six feet above the ground, surrounding a small, sand-covered ring. A shingled roof had been erected over the platform area, its center open to the sky and to the bright sun. The platform itself was a little more than ten feet wide, just wide enough for small tables to be set two-deep around its perimeter.