"In other words, the company is willing to take the loss," Teddy said.
"Exactly."
"Then lay some of that nice paper on me, my good man. Teddy loves Paulie's paper." He stuck out his bony hand.
LaMonica pulled an envelope out of his back pocket and handed it to Mora. "You're the only person besides myself who knows about these. You will not deal them to anyone else. Use them yourself or throw them away."
"In other words, Paulie has bigger plans for the checks. Teddy gets the picture. Your secret is safe with Teddy," Mora said reassuringly.
"Has Sandy been around?" LaMonica asked.
"She stops in for a few almost every night," Teddy said. "She's got a new boyfriend. He sticks with her like glue. Do you know who I'm talking about?"
LaMonica shook his head.
"The spook that drives the gold-colored Caddy. I think his name is Cole," Teddy said, "but he calls himself Mr. Cool."
"Never heard of him."
"Typical spook weight-pumper," Mora said. "He just got out of San Quentin. Supposedly he's wanted for violation of parole."
"How tight is she hooked up with this Mr. Spook or whoever he is?" LaMonica said. He drank a shot of tequila and bit into the lemon. Warmth rushed to his face.
"From the looks of it she ain't just 'trying one out,'" Teddy said. "You'll probably have to go through him if you want to use her."
A young man wearing a safari jacket slid in the door and surveyed the crowd. He had greasy duck-tailed hair and no color in his face. An Oriental woman in skintight clothing followed him, her T-shirted nipples pointing like camouflaged radar. The man gave a clenched-fist salute to Teddy and the couple sat down at a table with two well-dressed Mexican men.
Teddy Mora shook his head. "Things are nothing like the old days," he said. "That asshole will sit right there at that table and will, without so much as lowering his motherfuckin' voice, settle on a price with those two pushers. Then he'll probably do the deal; yes, actually make the goddamn transfer, right out in the parking lot. He'll have his bitch drive the dope across the border tonight. When she gets busted he'll actually wonder why. And when she hands him up he'll wonder why again. It'll probably never occur to the poor dumb shit that he did everything wrong; that, for all anybody knows, half the customers in this place are federal snitches waiting to tip off the customs people at the border. To that young jack-off, life is what he sees on TV. All the young punks today are out of touch with reality. To them everything is just a game. Maybe it's because they all get probation the first time out these days." Mora leaned into another shot of tequila and bit a lemon wedge. "People have been dropping like flies around here," he said. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "There's gotta be a turkey in the crowd," he whispered, "but I just can't figure out who. Somebody gets arrested almost every day, it seems like. This place is getting a bad name. Couple of American narcs bust in here the other day with the Mexican cops. They handcuffed a guy sitting right at the bar and dragged his ass out of here like a dog-some fugitive from L.A. I mean, like how in the hell did they know he was here?" Teddy's eyes surveyed the other tables suspiciously. "When I figure out who it is, I'll have the cocksucker snuffed out." Teddy chuckled. "Thank God down here it only costs two or three hundred bucks."
"Or just tell me and I'll do the job for free," LaMonica said. He smiled.
Prune-faced Teddy licked the rim of his shot glass. "Remind me never to piss you off, Paulie the Printer," he said.
Chapter 10
After an hour or so of driving up and down the streets of Ensenada like a tourist looking for a room, LaMonica found the gold Cadillac with the MR COOL license plate. It was parked in front of a motel that looked like the others in town, a place with lots of rooms built around a swimming pool that was too small and a bar that was larger than the restaurant. He pulled into a lot across the street, where he could keep an eye on the rooms and the car at the same time.
For the next couple of hours he watched the comings and goings of the guests, mostly blue-collar types: hefty men in Bermuda shorts and uninteresting women carrying straw purses. Everyone was in various stages of tanning. They splashed one another in the pool, chased kids, and passed around bags of potato chips.
Leaning back in the seat, LaMonica recalled how he and Sandy Hartzbecker had first met. They'd been sitting on plastic-covered sofas in the dingy reception area of the federal parole office in downtown Los Angeles. His first impression of her was that she was a woman who would be impossible to describe. She was neither homely nor attractive, and her face, as well as her height, weight, bra size, and shape of hips, was totally unremarkable. Even her age would be difficult to guess. She had crow's-feet but it was difficult to tell whether they were caused by excessive exposure to sun and wind or the normal aging process. She wore a loose-fitting blouse and jeans, and cheap tennis shoes. Her mousy-brown hair was in pigtails, and her complexion was forgettable; unblemished and devoid of makeup of any kind.
She was precisely the type of woman he had been looking for.
He could tell by the form letter she kept folding and unfolding that it was probably her first post-release visit.
"Who's your parole officer?" he said.
She referred to the form. "Mr. Askew."
"He's mine, too," LaMonica said. He lowered his voice. "He's big on playing big brother — a God-squad type. Cry on his shoulder a little bit and ask for advice on something. He'll love it. If you ask, he'll go for waiving the monthly visits."
"Thanks for the information." Her German accent was muted and as dreary as her appearance.
After his visit to the parole officer, LaMonica waited in the hallway outside the office. When she came out, they entered the elevator together. The door closed.
"You were right," she said. "He went for it."
"Where'd you do your time?" he said.
"Terminal Island."
The elevator door opened. They dodged through a crowded lobby onto the street. LaMonica offered her a ride and she accepted.
"What are you into?" she said when they were in the car.
"Paper." LaMonica started the engine and slipped into the halting downtown traffic.
"I did some once," she said. "Hundreds. I passed them in clothing stores in the San Fernando Valley." She gave an amused smile. "I bought so many cheap blouses I could have opened my own shop."
"What's your business?"
"My old man's business was heroin. I did time because I carried for him. I saw the feds following me so I got scared and threw the bundles out the window. It was the stupidest thing I've ever done in my whole life. I just lost my cool. When they arrested me they told me that if I hadn't thrown the stuff, they never would have known I was carrying. Every time I think about it it makes me sick."
"Who's your old man?"
"He's dead," she said. "A rip-off. It happened while I was in." She sighed. "But it may have been for the best. If I was with him now I'd probably be right back in all the shit."
LaMonica pulled up to a run-down apartment house in the shadow of the Ambassador Hotel. Without asking, he turned off the engine and accompanied her up some steps to her door. She unlocked it and he followed her in. The one-bedroom apartment was sparsely furnished: a worn sofa and chair, a stack of German-language paperbacks on an end table next to a framed photograph of Sandy holding hands with a black man and dressed in army fatigues. They were posed on a cobblestone street.
"That was my old man, in case you were wondering," she said without emotion. She tossed her purse down and sauntered into the tiny kitchen. She opened a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of bourbon. "He was a dope fiend and pusher, but he was always good to me."