The train rumbled across the tracks in front of us, pockets of sunlight flickering through the boxcars resembling bursts of light from flash frames in an old movie reel. Dave watched the train for a moment and then turned to me. “You mentioned Gonzales’ reference to Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. In that novel, the workers at a banana plantation are mowed down under machinegun fire as they attempt to strike. Thousands of bodies are tossed into boxcars, like those in front of us, and the bodies were shipped to the coast where they were dumped in the ocean. Shark feed. You said some of the workers in the pot fields came at you and Billie with machetes drawn.”
“They did.”
Dave nodded. The last boxcar in the train zipped by, and the crossing gates lifted. He put the car in gear. “Maybe somewhere in Gonzales’s operation, somewhere in his sick brain, maybe he’s reenacting imagery from what he considers to be the world’s best book, One Hundred Years of Solitude.”
As Dave pulled into the Ponce Marina lot I said, “So to profile Pablo, all we have to do is read between the lines in Marquez’s novel, and we’ll have an idea what motivates a narcissist killing machine.”
“Or at least what may have influenced him.”
“Look at how the Koran and the Bible have influenced generations.”
“Some biographers also have drawn parallels between the book of Genesis and Marquez’s story.”
I wedged the Glock under my belt as we headed down L dock, glad to be taking in the scent of the sea. Mullet jumped in the tidal waters. A fishing boat loaded with tourists chugged into the Halifax River, making its way to Ponce Inlet and the ocean. A fisherman on M dock cast a line toward the leaping mullet. He wore a baseball cap, watched the charter boat and puffed a cigar as he adjusted the drag on his line.
Dave stopped walking and said, “Your Jeep will be ready tomorrow. Except for the stitches in your shoulder, and the fact a self-absorbed little drug lord wants your head, I’d say things are getting back to normal around here. In no time, we’ll be our regular, old marina community of miscreants, misfits and pirates.”
“There’s no place like home.”
Dave scratched at his salt and pepper stubble on his chin. “What are you going to do about Elizabeth?”
“What do you mean, about?”
“If it wasn’t safe for her earlier, it has to be like living on the absolute edge now.”
“Pablo Gonzales is looking for me. I don’t think Elizabeth has any value to him anymore. Izzy’s dead. But before he died, he didn’t know Elizabeth couldn’t ID him. Neither did Frank Soto and ranger Ed. They killed Luke Palmer to prevent his possible testimony, but now Izzy’s death makes it all moot.”
Dave watched a white pelican sailing over the bay, its snowy feathers reflecting off the water. He said, “Vengeance is a savage but universal motivation, one shared among sociopaths and, unfortunately, many others in our species. Pablo Gonzales, the poster boy of psychopaths, will come for you like Santa Anna crossing the Texas border 150 years later. Elizabeth isn’t safe on your boat.”
“I know.”
Dave leaned up against the dock railing. He scanned the moored boats behind me. I watched the fisherman make a second cast, his detached glance drifting around the marina like the tawny smoke from his cigar.
Dave said, “I made a couple of calls, did a little research. Pablo Gonzales has everything money can buy as a drug lord. Most likely, he has hundreds of corrupt officials in his pocket. He has an arsenal that many small nations would envy. One thing he doesn’t have is a sex life. Pablo suffered a horrid bout with the mumps as a teenager. It settled in his balls and rendered him sterile and impotent. Consequently, no children. He contracted a disease that was eradicated in the states. So Izzy was the son he never had. Perhaps this explains his threats to you, the reference to castration. His raging bull, his non-realized fantasy, may be sexual in nature. A testosterone level extinguished by disease not desire.”
I said nothing.
Dave added, “Maybe the feds will find him. Maybe they won’t. There’s one man I feel sure would help if I asked him. And, as far as I’m concerned, he’s the only man I know that can help you at this point, and Sean… you need help.”
“Who’s this man?”
“You remember Cal Thorpe, of course.
“AKA Eric Hunter. He worked on the case that brought down the FBI breach.”
“At one time, I thought Thorpe was the best field operative our country has ever produced. And then you came along, Sean. You set a trap that caught the breach, and I knew at that point Cal Thorpe could learn something from you.”
“It was a collective effort. I didn't do it alone—”
“My only point in this reference is the fact that you worked with Thorpe at that time, and I believe you could use his skills right now.”
“Does this mean you think that agents Flores, Jenkins, Keyes and the rest of their team can’t prevent Pablo Gonzales from keeping his assassins from me?”
“What do you think?”
“I think one was just here. Casing us.”
NINETY-TWO
The twin diesels aboard a fifty-foot Ocean Sports Fisherman, three slips down from us, cranked in a cloud of exhaust smoke that floated over the marina in a bluish fog.
“What’d you say?” Dave asked, swirling around.
“He was fishing from M dock. And he was fishing with no bait on his hook. No tackle box. No bait bucket. He wore white sneakers. Pressed, expensive jeans. And he wore a New York Yankees cap on his head.”
“Where is he?”
“Gone. He looked our way for a second before walking down the dock, melting in with the crowd near the Tiki bar, and no doubt disappearing from the parking lot. But he may have left behind a calling card.”
“What do you mean?”
“He left his cigar butt on the railing. No bigger than your thumb, and that might be big enough. Let’s walk over there to see if it’s the same brand Izzy smoked.”
The man had left the wet cigar on the weathered and creosote-stained dock railing. I said, “It looks expensive, dark leaves, probably hand-rolled. It could be the same brand Izzy Gonzales smoked. We can store it in a Ziploc.” I stuck the tip of a ballpoint pen in the warm ash and carried it back to Jupiter.
Dave stopped walking near Jupiter’s transom. “Do you want me to call Cal Thorpe?” he asked.
“Does he have a family?”
“You know I can’t answer that?”
“You just did. I don’t want to risk his life.”
“He speaks Spanish like he was raised in Mexico. Maybe he can get in the inside, find the weak link to Gonzales.”
“All of that takes time, money and people in Langley who have a reason to toss me a rope. We don’t have any of that right now.”
“Maybe we do.”
“What do you mean?”
Dave folded his thick arms. “It depends on how bad they want Gonzales, and my guess is that in this political climate, they want him pretty bad. The president’s pledged to do whatever it takes to stop or dramatically curtail the flow of Mexican drugs smuggled across our border. But a billionaire, like Pablo would operate in an insular environment. It’d be like invading Fort Knox. However, you may be the catalyst to bring him out.”
“You mean the bait.”
“Look at it from this perspective, Sean. You’re already in his sights, and if that fake fisherman you spotted is connected to Pablo, it’s now only semantics. If you’re his prey, it stacks the odds in his court. If you’re bait, and if someone’s got your back, it can give you the edge in an international street fight.”