rumbled. The big truck lurched, and moved.
Jack didn’t know what to do. All around them, people wept, and others spoke in voices too low to hear. A woman on the other side of the truck wailed, then Jack decided he wasn’t sure if it was a woman or not. The body odor smells were so strong, Jack tried not to breathe. He held Krista tight, and spoke into her hair.
“Anyone here know where they’re taking us?”
Krista spoke more Spanish, and this time a man’s voice answered. A woman joined in, but their conversation was short, and then Krista switched to English.
“They say we’re going to be sold. That’s what bajadores do, and they’ve heard stories about the bajadores.”
“What does that mean, sold? Like slaves?”
“No, more like ransomed. I think he meant ransomed. They kidnap people, and try to get ransom.”
“Where are they taking us?”
She spoke more Spanish, and translated as the man answered.
“A house, a camp, a barn. He doesn’t know. We might even be kept in this truck. He’s worried because he has no money to pay. He gave all his money to the coyote.”
The truck lurched as it rolled over brush and dropped off up-thrust rocks. Five minutes ago, Jack had been freezing. Now, trapped with thirty frightened people in the black belly of the truck, he was sweating, and thought he might throw up.
Krista traded more Spanish, then switched to English.
“They’ll want to know who we are. Don’t tell them, baby. Lie. We can’t tell them who you are.”
“Maybe they’ll let us go.”
“Just don’t. You can’t.”
“I can pay them.”
“Don’t. Promise me, Jack. Don’t even try.”
Jack put his arms around her, and held on as they bounced slowly across the desert. A few minutes later, they were on a road, and the truck picked up speed. Jack checked the time on his digital watch. Fifteen minutes later, the road became paved. Twenty-two minutes after they reached pavement, the truck slowed, backed up, then stopped. A drive this short meant they were still in the desert.
The lock was removed, and the door rose with a ratcheting clatter, filling the truck with grim red shadows. Jack checked the time. 2:55 A.M. The people ahead of them started to move.
Krista’s whisper drifted over her shoulder.
“Don’t tell them who you are.”
Jack and Krista followed the others into a world the color of blood.
Elvis Cole: six days after they were taken
7
Six minutes after Nita Morales drove away with her fears on that warm morning, I got into my car, phoned the Information operator, and asked if they had a listing for Jack Berman in Brentwood, California.
“No, sir. Nothing in Brentwood for a Jack Berman.”
“How about Westwood, West Hollywood, or Santa Monica?”
The communities surrounding Brentwood.
“No, sir. No Jacks there, either, nor anywhere in Los Angeles. We have several Johns, a Jason, a Jarrod, a Jonah, a lot of Jameses-”
“How many Bermans altogether?”
“Fifty or sixty, at least.”
“Okay. Thanks for checking.”
I killed the call, then dialed a police officer I know named Carol Starkey. Starkey works as an LAPD homicide detective in Hollywood, and likes me enough to do the occasional favor.
First thing she said was, “Weren’t you going to cook dinner for me? I’m waiting.”
“Soon. Can you pull a DMV registration for me?”
“That’s what you said last time. I think you’re scared we’ll have sex.”
Starkey is like that.
“Can you pull the DMV or not?”
I heard some background sounds, and she lowered her voice.
“I’m at a murder up in the Birds. The paparazzi and helicopters are all over us.”
The Birds was an exclusive neighborhood above the Sunset Strip where the streets were called Mockingbird, Nightingale, Blue Jay, and other bird names. The Birds was known for spectacular views and more celebrities per square inch than Beverly Hills.
She said, “Will it keep till the end of the day?”
“If it has to. I’m looking for the registered owner and an address.”
“Jesus, Cole, it has to. I’m working a murder here, for Christ’s sake. What’s the damned tag?”
I gave her Berman’s tag, and let her get back to her crime. Mary Sue made it sound like Berman had his own place, but he might still live with his parents, who might be among the fifty or sixty Bermans listed by Information. The Mustang’s registration should cut through the guesswork, and give me his or their names and address. If not, I could and would call my way through the fifty or sixty other Bermans, asking if anyone knew Jack.
The last person I phoned was Krista Morales. I didn’t expect her to answer, but you never know. I looked up her number in the things her mother had given me, and dialed. Her voice mail answered immediately, which told me either the phone was turned off or she was talking to someone else.
Her recorded voice said, “Hey, this is Kris. I’ll get back soon. Have a great day.”
I suddenly understood what Nita had told me. Krista had no accent. She sounded nothing like the girl who had phoned her mother, speaking a mix of Spanish and heavily accented English. It was as if she was playing a role, but playing it sincerely. She did not sound as if she was joking or trying to chisel five hundred bucks with a bad joke of a scam. I hung up, called her back, and left a message.
“This is Elvis Cole. I’m coming to find you.”
It was ten minutes after ten that morning when I put away my phone, found a gas station, then climbed back onto the I-10 and made the two-hour drive to Palm Springs. Driving seemed better than making sixty cold calls or waiting around all day for Starkey to clear a crime scene.
I drove east across the heart of Los Angeles, through the San Gabriel Valley, and across the Inland Empire into the desert. It was a nice drive that day. The early spring air was cool with a light haze that left the sky more blue than not.
Just past the casinos in Cabazon, the I-10 Freeway breaks to the south, veering toward the Salton Sea before curving north again to cross America. I left the 10 before it veered, and dropped south into Palm Springs, where you find streets named after dead celebrities like Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, and Dinah Shore. North of the freeway was a different world, where celebrities rarely ventured. The people who staffed the resorts and golf courses and restaurants south of the freeway lived in the low-slung housing to the north. The way Nita Morales described Jack Berman, I expected him to live on the north side, but the GPS in my phone led south to a very nice mid-century modern home on a manicured street midway between two country clubs and a golf resort.
Berman’s house was a gray post-and-beam with a white rock roof, an attached carport, and towering king palms. Two royal palms peeked over his roof from the backyard, and an enormous jelly palm stood sentry by the front door, braced by two date palms set in white rocks. Pretty much every house on the block sported the same palm landscape. They didn’t call the place Palm Springs for nothing.
The carport was empty and the house appeared deserted. I parked in the drive, but walked back to the street to check the mailbox. It was stuffed with ads and flyers and a thick deck of junk mail. Everything was addressed to “resident,” but whoever resided here hadn’t checked the mail in more than a few days. I left it, and went to the front door. The note Nita Morales left was wedged under the doormat exactly where she had left it, unread and undisturbed. I glanced at it, put it back under the mat, and rang the bell even though no one would answer.
