Head Wounds Read online

  “What?” he asked, between bites.

  “You look tired.”

  “I should be, but I’m not. More wired than tired. It’s been quite a day.”

  “Is it over?”

  “I’m not going back to work, if that was your question.”

  “Good.”

  “But I may do a little computer research.”

  Grace’s smile faded. “That’s working.”

  “Not for long, promise.” Clayton stood to clear his plate.

  “Don’t make me come and get you at bedtime,” Grace warned.

  He stepped to her side of the table and kissed her. “You can come get me anytime.”

  Grace’s smile returned at full wattage.

  After they cleaned up the dinner dishes, Clayton sat with his laptop at the dining table. He recalled as a child hearing stories from Great-Uncle Percy, then in his late nineties, about a tribe of Kickapoos from Mexico, and fierce battles they fought with the Apaches in the long-ago times. He found it interesting that Goggin and Nautzile had gravitated from one tribal casino to another. He wondered if there was a connection.

  He accessed the intelligence reports posted on the department’s site and learned that the Kickapoos originally were from ancestral lands in the Great Lakes. Forced westward during the growing influx of European immigrants, they became ferocious enemies of the White Eyes and of other Indian nations, including the Apaches.

  Although they’d been granted tribal lands in Mexico, Kansas, and Oklahoma, it wasn’t until the 1980s that a reservation was established at Eagle Pass for a migrant band of Mexican Kickapoos that seasonally camped in a shantytown under the international bridge. Many accepted U.S. citizenship, others did not.

  It was interesting stuff, but hardly germane, as far as he could see. Was there a connection or not? He scanned Internet web pages, looking for any news stories that connected the Eagle Pass or Mexican Kickapoos to drug dealing, human trafficking, money laundering, or any other criminal undertaking. He looked for reports of Eagle Pass Casino mismanagement on several national gaming and regulatory compliance sites. Nothing popped up.

  He shut down the laptop and checked the time. Ordinarily, it was way too early to go to bed, but he was beginning to feel sleepy. He could hear the low sound of the TV in the family room and decided to join Grace for a while and watch the early news. His phone buzzed, showing an unknown out-of-state number.

  He answered and a male voice asked, “Are you really Apache?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “Give me a reason to.”

  “You wanted to talk to me, not the other way around.”

  “Agent Harjo?”

  “One more time; are you Apache?”

  “I am.”

  “Speak the language?”

  “Yeah, plus Spanish.”

  “Okay, here’s the deal. There’s a direct American Airlines flight from El Paso to L.A. leaving tomorrow midmorning. A ticket in your name will be at the check-in counter. With it will be instructions on where you are to go and how to get there. Follow them exactly. Take public transportation only to your destination. No taxis, no rental cars, nothing except the bus and your own two feet.”

  “Wait a minute, slow down.”

  “I’m not finished. Wear the scruffiest clothes you got—what you do yard work in will be just fine. Don’t shave. Bring no weapon or police ID. Tell no one about this. That includes your wife.”

  “I have to get approval.”

  “That’s been taken care of. Show up late and I’m gone. Show up early and a big Cherokee bouncer will give you a bruising you won’t soon forget.”

  “What is this place?”

  “You’ll find out. I understand you did some undercover assignments in the past, so this should be a no-brainer. Don’t look for me, I’ll find you.”

  “Is this going to be worth my time?” Clayton snapped. “Do you know who I’m looking for?”

  “We wouldn’t be having this conversation otherwise, Istee.”

  The phone went dead. The text icon at the bottom of the screen showed a new message that read: “Special duty assignment to Los Angeles next date approved by SO-1. Report upon return. Rodney.”

  Clayton powered off the phone. In the family room, Grace was thumbing through a magazine, half watching a PBS period drama about rich English aristocrats.

  He sank down next to her on the couch.

  “Who called?”

  “Work. Nothing important, except I don’t have to get an early start in the morning.”

  Grace smooched his cheek. “Good. Get some sleep.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  Smooched again by Grace, Clayton wearily climbed the stairs, his thoughts churning. Everything about Harjo’s phone call told him the man was undercover, probably working narcotics. He wouldn’t risk blowing his cover on something trivial, so Celine Shepard must be a big deal. But was she a big deal to the DEA, or just to Harjo?

  Clayton got into bed. Tomorrow, he’d be walking blind into a situation outside of his control, to a place he knew nothing about, in a city where he was a complete stranger. Not a reassuring exercise in confidence-building.

  He could bail on taking the risk and make another attempt to connect with Harjo through official channels. The idea wasn’t appealing. He doubted—just from Harjo’s tone—that he’d go for it. More likely, the agent would turn silent and become permanently unavailable.

  There was something happening that went way beyond the Mescalero casino caper, Celine Shepard, the double homicide, Cosgrove’s murder, and a nameless, faceless killer. Clayton wanted to know what it was. Special Agent Bernard Harjo was the key.

  He fell asleep with a promise to himself not to die in L.A.

  CHAPTER 3

  Following the instructions that came with his airline ticket, Clayton left LAX on a Metro bus, got off in downtown, walked to a light rail station, and took the train to a stop in East L.A. He left the station and walked along the empty sidewalk next to the roar and blur of never-ending traffic, wondering if there was any place in the city where stillness and silence existed. He doubted it.

  The nature of the cityscape, unfriendly to pedestrians, further soured his already unhappy mood. He’d obeyed Harjo’s demand not to tell Grace where he was going or why. By doing so, he’d broken a family pact they’d made years ago to always know how to find one another. Here he was, with Grace unaware of his whereabouts, undercover without a cell phone or police ID, in a strange city with no backup, about to meet a DEA agent he knew nothing about.

  His decision not to say anything sat heavy on his mind. He should have told her.

  Careful along the way to stay alert for any tails or signs of surveillance, he remained watchful as he neared his destination. He walked past sprawling windowless industrial warehouses, large metal-clad complexes home to major manufacturing companies, and long-haul trucking outfits with cavernous loading bays that backed up to a noisy nearby freeway. With mountains hazy to the east and the ocean invisible to the west, paradise did seem paved-over.

  A forlorn side street with a block of run-down buildings, mostly shuttered storefronts, interrupted the dreary commercial architecture. Clayton paused outside the Legends Lounge and took a last, long look around. Except for two old men sitting on a curb sharing a bottle in front of a vacant shoe repair shop and a shuffling old woman pushing a shopping cart filled with her possessions, the sidewalks were empty.

  He was right on time.

  The Legends Lounge’s broken neon sign tilted precariously above the entrance, and the front windows were covered with faded advertising posters of popular brands of whiskey and beer. He pushed his way inside with an elbow to avoid the crusted, filthy door handle and paused to let his eyes adjust to the dark. The place was long, narrow, and stank with the smell of booze sweated out by generations of serious alcoholics.

  Six men perched on barstools faced a large grimy mirror adve
rtising a Mexican beer and a big-screen television that hung above a shelf of half-empty whiskey bottles. On the TV, a show relived the greatest touchdown moments in Super Bowl history. The man closest to the door, a muscular, surly-looking Indian with shoulder-length dark hair, eyed Clayton suspiciously. Probably the Cherokee bouncer Agent Harjo had warned him about.

  At a row of booths against the opposite wall, a snoring drunk sat slumped over, his head resting on the table with an empty shot glass near his limp hand. Clayton glanced at the bartender, who jerked his head in the direction of a man alone at a back table, his face hidden beneath the brim of a cowboy hat.

  The man said nothing when Clayton approached, eyeing his ragged blue jeans, faded long-sleeve work shirt, and scuffed boots.

  “You don’t look much like an Indian,” he finally noted in Spanish.

  “Just what does an Indian look like to you?” Clayton shot back. “Are you Harjo?”

  Harjo nodded. “I am. Sit down.”

  Clayton slid onto a chair. “Why the cloak-and-dagger?” Underneath the cowboy hat, Harjo had high cheekbones, a wide nose, and deep-set eyes. His hair was tied in a long braid that fell midway down his back.

  “I usually don’t meet people at my office,” Harjo replied, switching to English. “You’re an exception. Don’t ask for more of an explanation.”

  “It never entered my mind. What have you got for me?”

  “Slow down, Istee,” Harjo replied. “First, I want the specifics on your killer’s MO.”

  Clayton laid it out. The ear-to-ear surgically sliced necks, the scalping of both victims, the clean crime scene with no—as yet—helpful trace evidence, and the after-the-fact murder of the killer’s accomplice, a helpful, clueless hotel night manager.

  With a slight smile on his lips, Harjo shook his head in appreciative disbelief throughout Clayton’s rendition.

  “You know this guy?” Clayton asked when he finished.

  “I know of him,” Harjo replied. “But this the first I heard that he did wet work north of the border.”

  “Does he have a name?”

  “That, I don’t know. He’s a freelance sicario, not tied to any of the drug cartels. They call him El Jefe, because he’s the baddest Mexican assassin of them all. Commands top dollar and hand-picks his jobs.”

  “Indigenous? Mestizo? Hispanic?”

  Harjo shrugged. “I don’t know if he’s an Indian, mixed-blood, or a blond, blue-eyed descendant of the Spanish conquistadores.”

  “How does he tie in with Celine Shepard and the two hundred thousand James Goggin and Lucy Nautzile ripped off from her at the casino?”

  Harjo pushed back his chair and crossed his legs. The Cherokee near the front door relaxed. “I don’t know that he does.”

  “You don’t know a lot of stuff,” Clayton observed.

  Harjo laughed, pointed at the bartender, and held up two fingers.

  “Why did you bring me here?”

  “Celine Shepard is really Carmella Schuster, a German-Mexican whose great-grandfather immigrated from the Fatherland after World War II and landed in Piedras Negras. Probably a Nazi. At least a sympathizer. He married a local Mexican girl and settled down. To make a long story short, Carmella is the lover of Sammy Shen, a Chinese-Mexican from the same town. He’s pure Asian, no mixed blood. Chinese are particular that way. They grew up together and pissed both families off by falling in love. I want Sammy.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s a third-generation Chinese gangster who, among other enterprises, specializes in laundering large amounts of Mexican drug cartel money. He filters it through different venues, but particularly likes to use casinos as a conduit. Much easier and safer than banks or front organizations, especially if you have key people on the inside.”

  “Were Goggin and Nautzile his people at Mescalero?”

  “Hell, no,” Harjo huffed. “They took Carmella’s money all on their own, with no knowledge of who she was. I’m surprised they stayed alive as long as they did.”

  “Why did you hush up the theft?”

  “Carmella does front work for Sammy, casing casinos as possible places to move large sums of money. If it looks promising, Sammy either bribes an existing key employee or recruits someone to get on the inside. At the time, our guy at the Mescalero casino was the chief of security. He was close to sealing a deal with Sammy through Carmella when your victims walked out with the two hundred K and blew it sky-high.”

  “You still haven’t told me why you cleaned up for Carmella.”

  “In the hopes Sammy would try again. So far, it’s a no-go.”

  “Why am I here?”

  Harjo paused to let the bartender deliver two bottles of beer.

  “Goggin and Nautzile got dead because they showed up at the Eagle Pass Casino, which is on the doorstep of Sammy’s home ground and exactly the wrong place to be. I’m betting Sammy found out where they were and contracted El Jefe to kill them. Find the sicario and just maybe we can lasso Sammy and Carmella.”

  “Is it that hard to do?” Clayton asked, taking a beer from Harjo’s outstretched hand.

  Harjo nodded. “He runs his organization like a miniature CIA. He’s got properties and homes around the globe that he uses once and then sells. He’s got a network of agents and analysts that have outsmarted us for years. We’ll plug up one of his money streams and he’ll open five more on different continents. Now we’ve got intelligence that Sammy’s planning to open his own string of casinos on the Mexican side of the border. If and when he does that, the illicit millions pouring into the United States will be almost immeasurable. He’ll use shadow companies to buy up high-end commercial and residential properties, just like the Russian mobsters have been doing for years. Hell, he’ll probably buy control of a few state-chartered banks and some small real estate companies to make it all look legit.”

  “This is all very interesting, but none of my concern.”

  “Exactly,” Harjo replied. “Sammy won’t be looking over his shoulder for you. Nor will he care if you’re hunting El Jefe. He’ll figure the chief can handle anything we throw at him.”

  “Are you trying to set me up?” Clayton asked.

  Harjo sighed and took a long pull on his brew. “As a gesture of agency cooperation, I’m offering you a chance to use our resources. You get El Jefe with our help. We in turn get a shot at Sammy Shen and his girlfriend.”

  “As I understand it, Mexico has yet to fully legalize casino gaming,” Clayton said.

  Harjo leaned forward in his chair. “I’m impressed you’re so well informed. Sammy’s close to buying up enough Mexican politicians to get that law changed. If that doesn’t work, he’ll find another way.”

  “Just how close can you get me to El Jefe?”

  “A confidential informant working with our Eagle Pass agent is willing to trade El Jefe’s location in exchange for dropped charges on a low-level marijuana bust. El Jefe supposedly lives somewhere in Sammy’s neighborhood, on a godforsaken part of the Bolsón de Mapimí in Northern Mexico.”

  Clayton sipped his beer. “This CI knows where El Jefe is?”

  “That’s what he says, and he’s been reliable in the past. As he tells it, our target has a large ranchero out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “I want to see his dossier.”

  “Of course. It will be waiting for you at your office.”

  “Why do you want to give this to me?”

  “Because El Jefe doesn’t know you, and I’m too well known to the Mexican federal police and local cops owned by the cartels. They’d sell me out in a heartbeat.”

  “Your cover’s blown south of the border,” Clayton rephrased.

  “Pretty much.”

  “No way I’d go in alone without police powers, ironclad authorization, and backup. Besides, my bosses will never go for it.”

  Harjo drained his beer. “Don’t bet on it. If you take this on, you’d go undercover with a DEA agent commission in your pocket, official sanc
tion, and backup in the person of Special Agent Danny Fallon. He’s a former Navajo police officer and highly decorated Iraq combat vet with three tours under his belt. Speaks fluent Navajo, Spanish, some Chinese, and a smattering of Arabic, in case you encounter any Iraqis.”

  “How come the Mexican police don’t know Fallon?”

  “Another good question. Danny’s out of the Vancouver, British Columbia, resident office, specializing in drug-money laundering investigations involving Chinese nationals. He’s never been assigned south of the border, thus he’s an unknown quantity, like you. Plus, he’s former Special Forces.”

  Clayton smiled. “Hell, you don’t need me. Just send in your guy.”

  “You’re not interested?”

  “Interested, yes. Willing, no.”

  “You’re skeptical and need corroboration.” Harjo held out a USB flash drive. “I understand. Take it.”

  Clayton hesitated. “What is it?”

  “Five case studies by the Mexican Centro Nacional de Intelligencia of assassination MOs identical to your double homicides. The victims were two corrupt high-ranking federal police officials, a district court judge who refused to be bribed, an Army colonel on the payroll of a major cartel, and a human trafficking smuggler who kidnapped the wrong girl. None of the criminal investigations were released to the public.”

  “I’ll take a look.”

  “Good.” Harjo put the flash drive in Clayton’s outstretched hand.

  “But it doesn’t mean I’ll play ball.”

  Harjo stood. “I know you’ll want my bona fides. You’ll find a file on your desk when you get home.”

  Clayton got to his feet. “Maybe there’s another way to get to El Jefe and your pal Sammy Shen.”

  Harjo smiled and nodded in the direction of the bar door. “If you think of it, let me know and I’ll go to work for you. Don’t take too long deciding.”

  “I won’t.”

  “This meeting never happened. Understood?”

  Clayton nodded. “It was your party.”

  The Cherokee was at the door waiting to usher Clayton out. Busy watching the video replay of an end zone catch in a decades-old Super Bowl, the customers at the bar paid no attention as he passed by.