insurance form was Manfred Westerling.' He spelled it out then added, 'Jawohl, mein herr. Westerling was Farvagny-le-Grand's wholesale manager here in L. A.'
'Okay. Gives us somebody to look for and question.'
'German national,' Hitch added. 'Hopefully he didn't get transferred back to Switzerland.'
Ten minutes later Sheedy's Mercedes came back down the private road and passed the guard shack. He was driving much slower. Hitch and I ducked down as he went past.
When we sat up, Hitch said, 'Aren't we gonna follow?'
'No. He's already talked to whoever he needed to. He's driving like a normal person now. My guess is he's going home to pout.'
We continued to sit there, both of us running through our options.
'I want you to do me a favor before we leave,' 1 said.
'Name it.'
'Get in your car but keep the headlights off. Then back up about a hundred yards and drive towards the gate at around sixty miles an hour. Once you get past me, turn your lights back on, then go by that guard shack as if you didn't know Potrero ends at that arch. I want the guard to leave his post and chase you up onto the property.'
'Why?'
'I've been sitting here, looking at that fancy mailbox down by the gate. I think I know a quick way to find out who owns this place.'
'Forgetting for the moment the illegal search aspect of reading their mail, the gate guard probably collects it every day and delivers it up to the main house, so the box will be empty.'
'If this guard is like most of the other plastic badges I've met, he's hijacking a few magazines to read on cold nights. Then he sends them up with the following day's mail. It's not an illegal search if I steal something that's already been stolen.'
Hitch smiled. 'That's very fine hair you're splitting, dude, but I like it. You've always got some devious shit happening. That's gonna be very good for your character, movie-wise.'
Sumner grinned as he got out of the MDX and into his Porsche. A minute later he had backed up and was speeding past me. I watched as he snapped his headlights on, then flew past the guard shack and up the drive.
The uniformed guard came running out, shouting as Hitch's Carrera disappeared up the long lane leading to the ranch house on the top of the hill. The guard got into an electric cart that was parked nearby and gave chase.
I put the MDX in gear, and as soon as he was out of sight, I drove up to the guard shack, stopped, left the motor idling, got out and went inside.
The shack was empty, but as I suspected, there were six or seven magazines with address stickers lying on the counter. 1 took one, got back into my car, hit reverse and backed out of there. Then I turned and reparked in about the same spot I'd been in before.
A minute later Hitch's Porsche came back down the lane followed by the electric cart. He was being escorted off the property. Once he was through the arch he continued down W. Potrero.
Then he switched off his headlights, hung a U-turn, and reparked behind me. A moment later he was again seated in my front seat.
'How'd you do?' he said.
I handed him the sports magazine I'd just lifted.
'Who the hell is Diego San Diego?' he said, reading the label.
'That's what we're going to find out first thing tomorrow.'
Chapter 47
I arrived home twenty minutes behind Alexa. It was almost half past midnight. We agreed to finish a few more work items and meet in fifteen minutes for a nightcap on our patio before bed.
I sat in the big chair in our den and began to make notes in my casebook about what I'd learned that day. I made a chronological list, starting with what Jose Del Cristo had told us about London Good Delivery Bars and gold bullion, followed by my meeting at Sheedy's house, the trip into the West Valley, and finally Rancho San Diego.
Next I went on the Internet and Googled Diego San Diego. He was not too widely written about. You had to make a concerted effort at anonymity to be that wealthy, own a multimillion-dollar Arabian horse ranch, breed thoroughbreds, and at the same time stay nearly invisible to the press. However, the few stories I did find proved thought-provoking. As I read the meager selection, I accumulated some interesting facts.
Originally from one of the hill towns above Cartagena, Colombia, Diego San Diego came to the United States as a teenager in the early forties. Cartagena is the capital of Colombia. It is a known haven for drug dealers and money launderers and is one of Farvagny-le-Grand s main marketing centers. I was beginning to wonder if the Farvagnyle-Grand jewelry company was actually some kind of elaborate Colombian drug laundry.
San Diegos business interests sounded semi-legit, unless you'd spent the last two days investigating the Vulcuna case. He'd been a polo player, which was only interesting because it hinted at too much disposable income, a little like those South American drug lords who build zoos in their backyards. Diego had also been a show- business financier all through the
nineties, and a commodities broker since 1978.
As I read all of this, it seemed to hit all the right hot buttons. My Colombian mystery man was quickly rising in this twenty-five-year-old pool of yellow shit.
In an article about a cancer fund-raiser in 1998,1 found an out-of-focus picture of him obviously taken without his permission. His left hand was thrown out toward the lens, partially blocking the shot. The article noted that he was notoriously publicity shy and abhorred being photographed. Interestingly enough, it was a personality quirk shared by A1 Capone, Carlos the Terrorist, and a dozen other killers and world-class criminals.
I searched around and found another photo taken in 2004. The quality of that one wasn't very good either. He was moving in the shot, causing it to blur at the edges. His back was slightly turned to the camera, so he was caught in a three-quarter profile.
From what I could see, Diego San Diego appeared to be a very tanned, fit man in his mideighties. He had a full head of steel gray hair. His teeth looked big and strong, reminding me again of the Amazon River crocs and those foolish birds that wandered into the jaws of death to feed.
The story under the photo stated that Arabian horse breeder Diego San Diego had been a large benefactor of the City of Hope Oncology Center since the death of his wife, Maria Elaina Blanca San Diego, from breast cancer ten years earlier.
Diego was continuing to gain energy as the primary focus of my investigation. But I was so tired I couldn't plot a decent course of action. My head felt like a ball of cotton.
I shut off the computer, grabbed a bottle of Corona beer from the fridge, and went out to the backyard. Alexa was just finishing her e-mails so I sat in one of the metal chairs to enjoy the view while I waited for her.
My thoughts quickly turned away from the beautiful moonlit water and fresh ocean breeze to more venal, monetary concerns. For instance, where was my twinkling jeweled carpet of city lights? How come I had no large bubbling Jacuzzi at my elbow and no plate-glass windows that looked down on the clouds?
Hitch parked his expensive sports car under a porte cochere while my leased Acura was pulled up next to my neighbor's trash cans.
I was trying not to let any of those pesky flies land on me when my wife came out holding a cold beer and sat down. She also looked extremely tired. It had been a long day for us both.
'My detective commanders all got their estimated budgets in late,' she said. 'It gets worse every year.'
'Well, they have divisions to run,' I replied, wondering as I said it if Jamie Foxx would really agree to star in Prostitutes Ball, doubling our potential domestic gross.
She sighed. 'It's getting way tougher to make a decent financial plan with all these city budget cuts.'
'Right,' I agreed as I sipped from my bottle. Corona is good beer, I thought, but just for the hell of it, maybe I should pick up a few six-packs of that imported German lager that Hitch drinks.
