‘Like we don’t have a goddamn clue where he is?’ Ty said.
Lock cleared his throat. ‘There’s that. But what if he never surfaces? Do we just let it go?’
‘Can’t do that either, can we?’
‘Okay. Let’s set ourselves a deadline. If we knew right now where he was, how long do you think we’d need to put everything together for a hostile extraction?’ Lock asked.
‘Day, maybe two.’
Lock signalled to the waitress for the check. ‘Two days’ time we head down there. If we don’t know where he is, maybe we can flush him out.’
‘Or get ourselves killed,’ said Ty.
Lock lifted his coffee mug and clinked it against Ty’s glass of orange juice. ‘That’s always an option too.’
The waitress dropped by with the check. Ty gave her his patented never-fails smile. She ignored him but took Lock’s credit card and came back with her phone number, which she had written on the back of the receipt.
Ty stared at it as she walked away. ‘You gonna call her? I mean the girl’s eyesight’s clearly not the best, but she is kind of cute.’
‘Don’t go there.’
‘What? You gonna be a monk the rest of your life? You gonna give yourself a bad case of DSB?’
Lock grimaced, knowing he would regret asking the obvious question. ‘DSB?’
‘Deadly Sperm Back-up, brother. Messes up a dude’s mind if he holds on to that dirty water too long.’
Lock pushed away his plate. ‘Can’t understand why you don’t get yourself more dates, Ty. Real old-school charmer such as yourself.’
Ty open-palmed an apology. ‘Hey, I’m just sayin’.’
‘Well, don’t.’
Ty’s BlackBerry chimed. He picked it up and took a look at the screen, then clicked the read button to open the email that had just dropped into his inbox.
‘Something?’ Lock asked him.
‘That break we needed?’ Ty said. ‘American guy I’ve been talking to down there who’s plugged into one or two of the local crews. He thinks he spotted Mendez in a bar.’
‘When?’
‘Last night,’ smiled Ty.
‘Where?’
‘Little town outside Santa Maria called Diablo.’
Lock tried to think back to his map. He was sure he’d registered that name. ‘Wasn’t that close to where Brady found him the last time?’
‘Think so.’ Ty thumbed further down the email. ‘Looks like he wasn’t alone either.’
‘Security?’ Lock asked.
Ty’s expression clouded. ‘Doesn’t mention it here but there was an American girl.’
Lock was already at the door. ‘Think we’d better move that departure date up.’
‘A day?’
‘No,’ said Lock. ‘We leave now.’
‘I can be good to go in an hour.’
‘Make it thirty minutes,’ said Lock, shouldering out on to the sidewalk.
Twenty-seven
The Audi would stay where it was. Lock gave the valet who had seen it in its blood-drenched condition a hefty tip to take it out of the garage and drive it around Los Angeles on a pre-determined schedule that broadly correlated to his previous movements over the past week: a car that didn’t move would alert the suspicion of anyone still monitoring the tracking device.
In his hotel room, he gathered some of his belongings. He left some clothes on hangers in the wardrobes in case someone decided to take a closer look. He also left his toothbrush and razor. The toothbrush he would replace; the razor could go unused. He hadn’t shaved for the past week, figuring that if Mendez had changed his appearance to deflect attention then so would he.
The hotel was paid for until the end of the following week. That was the time-frame Lock had allowed to locate, kidnap and repatriate Mendez. If it took any longer than ten days they could keep the rest of his stuff or throw it away: the chances were that he wasn’t coming back.
He pulled a pre-packed duffel bag on to his shoulders and took one last look at the room, then left. In the corridor, Ty was waiting for him. They walked in silence to the elevator and rode it down to the parking garage. They got out and went to a white Ford Ranger double-cab pick-up truck.
They slung their bags into the back. The Ranger would take them over the border where they would switch vehicles. Ty got behind the wheel and drove out of the garage, both men on the lookout for someone following them.
Lock pulled a picture of Charlie Mendez from his jacket pocket and clipped it to the sun visor as a reminder. Mendez stared back at him with a broad grin. If Lock had his way, he wouldn’t be smiling for much longer.
They took Interstate 5 as far south as San Diego, then picked up the Kumeyaay Highway and began to head east through the Cleveland National Forest. Finally, Ty broached the subject that had been preying on their minds. ‘He was seen with a girl. You think he was…?’
Lock stared out of the window at the dry, scrubby desert, as the road flirted with the Rio Grande only to switch north again. ‘A leopard doesn’t change its spots.’
Twenty-eight
Towering roadside crosses, painted pink and entwined with dried flowers, greeted Lock and Ty as they crested the hill, the border area of Mexico laid out beneath them. Lock counted six of the twenty-foot-high wooden structures. A hundred yards down the road they came to four more, one after another, high desert stretching off into the distance on either side of the highway. He waved for Ty to pull the white Ranger into the side of the road.
‘What’s up?’ Ty asked.
Lock looked towards the crosses stony-faced but said nothing. ‘Just want to take a look.’
Ty pumped the brakes and the car slid to a halt on the gravel.
Lock got out and walked towards the base of the first cross. A photograph, wrapped in clear plastic, was fastened to it. He hunkered down in the dust and studied it.
A young Mexican woman looked back at him. She had long dark hair, soft brown eyes, and the hesitant self-aware smile of someone unused to posing for the camera. She was wearing a black high-school graduation gown over her clothes and clutching a mortarboard in her right hand, her whole life ahead of her. At the bottom of the photograph was a name: Rosa Perez. Beneath that, in the same neat handwriting, were the dates of her birth and death. Rosa had been nineteen when she died.
Lock straightened up and, shielding his eyes from the strengthening mid-morning sun, took in the vista below. Santa Maria lay before him. Official estimates put its population at 1.5 million but that was almost certainly out by at least half a million. Like the other border cities along the Rio Grande, the city had drawn in hundreds of thousands of people from the poorer south of the country to work in its maquiladoras. Free trade between the countries had allowed American companies to shift jobs a few miles across the border and save themselves tens of millions of dollars in lower wage costs and taxes.
The workers in the maquiladoras were mostly young women. They were considered more dextrous when it came to the assembly line, and the factory owners could pay them less than they would men. They were also the ones who had been turning up dead for more than a decade. Thousands of them, spirited off the streets, raped, murdered and dumped, often mutilated or dismembered, like trash, all over the city.
The roadside crosses were one part memorial and one part caution. No one in Santa Maria was safe from the ravages of a crime rate that had made it the most dangerous city in the world. But young poor women were the most at risk. It was the same the world over, but here, in Mexico, it had taken on new depths of depravity. Worst of all, no one knew who was behind it. There were theories and whispers, but no answers. Only more killings.
Lock reached out to touch the picture of the girl and his mind forced him back to Melissa. He rose, packing away his feelings. He and Ty had a job to do. A job that wouldn’t afford them any distractions. There would be time to mourn the dead when they were done. First they had to find Mendez.