Court in Brownsville, Texas.” Waxman pointed again to the article Abatangelo was holding, the one with the picture of Facio standing before a courthouse. “It was for trafficking- weapons, primarily, the drug charges were quashed. Facio served twenty-three months in Huntsville, was released, and then vanished underground again.”
Waxman’s tone was almost reverential. There was a newfound purpose about him. Abatangelo found this troubling.
“Wax,” he said. “It’s gonna be dark soon.”
“I’m almost finished,” Waxman insisted. “Come the 1990’s, Facio apparently saw the wisdom of plying his trade in the private sector. The Iron Curtain fell; Castro was isolated. During a return visit to Mexico City he paid calls on several
Abatangelo thought about this for a moment. “What you’re saying is, he plays both sides.”
“The rumor,” Waxman said, “is that Facio is responsible for putting Rolando Moreira together with a major trafficker from Sinaloa. A man named Marco Carasco.”
“A rumor,” Abatangelo said. “This article, the one about the kidnapping, it appeared…?”
“In one of the opposition newspapers from Guerrero.”
“Aha,” Abatangelo said. “What’s that, a Mexican rad rag?”
Waxman bristled. “You put Facio in the picture with Moreira and Marco Carasco, you have the prospects for everything we heard from our friend there on the couch. Stolen goods? Trafficking, kidnapping, murder? I don’t find it a stretch. Not now. I’ll be honest, at first I hadn’t the least faith he would say anything worthwhile, or even coherent. But these people are real. If he knows half what he claims to know, he is a very valuable man.”
Abatangelo eyed Waxman with mild dismay. In a cautioning tone, he said, “You were at the table with me, Wax. You got to watch him work. It was like he was tooling through his mind on roller skates. And it’s not much of a mind.”
“I believe he’s telling the truth.”
“There’s no future in the truth, Wax, not on that plane. Let’s not save the world today, all right? Think small, walk tall.”
Waxman reddened. “We have to get corroboration. Of course. I don’t mean to imply otherwise.”
Abatangelo shook his head. “No time.”
“I intend to make time,” Waxman responded. “I also intend to treat our friend with a little more respect. It’s time we stopped assuming the only way to get him to cooperate is to scare him. You’ll probably laugh if I say we might appeal to his conscience.”
Abatangelo laughed.
“He could use a friend.”
“I’m friendly,” Abatangelo said.
“Aleris is willing to track down other witnesses- ”
“To what- something that happened years ago at the ass end of Mexico? That’s not my fight, Wax. Her kind can’t blame me or my politics. I don’t vote, remember? I’m a felon.” He returned his glance to Frank. “It’s not that I’m unsympathetic. It’s just my focus here is a little narrower.”
Waxman removed his glasses and wiped the lenses with his shirttail. “Excuse my saying so, but given the circumstances of your friend’s abduction- the methods, to use your term- I find this little fit of cynicism less than compelling.”
Abatangelo turned and in one short movement grabbed Waxman’s shoulders, lifted him onto the balls of his feet and pinned him to the wall. He pushed his face close, hissing through his teeth. “Don’t lecture me about her. What happened to her. What to do about her or how to feel about it.”
Waxman stared back blinking. He licked his lips. Abatangelo released his hold and turned away. Waxman gathered his breath, fumbled with his glasses and put them back on. “Forgive me,” he said. “I shouldn’t sermonize. What I said about your friend was improper. I know she means a great deal to you.”
Abatangelo winced at the change of tone. Turning around again, he found himself regarded with immense, pitying eyes. He felt indulged. He felt as though an appeal were being made to his conscience.
Chapter 20
Saturday traffic offered little resistance as they headed up the Eastshore Freeway. Waxman sat alone in front, driving the Dart. Abatangelo sat in back with Frank. It seemed best not to make him sit back there alone, like a prize, or a prisoner. Abatangelo urged him to talk, thinking that training Frank’s mind on actual events might keep his more extreme imaginings at bay. Frank obliged, telling again the story of the past few weeks, confirming details. The effort came off like a sort of dreary chant. Abatangelo couldn’t resist the impression that this was the last time Frank expected to say these things.
In time they turned onto the Delta Highway, heading toward the flood plain beyond Martinez. They reached the Pacheco turnoff and Frank told Waxman to leave the highway and head north through the low hills toward the river.
“There’s a turn up here,” Waxman shortly announced from the front. “Which way do I go?”
Frank told him to bear right. They rounded a corner above which a refinery complex crowned a grassless bluff and then the marina came into view. Nearly three dozen boats buffeted a hatchwork of low sagging docks: weathered houseboats fouled with rubbish, listing barks, fishing smacks. Mainsails rattled in the late-day wind. The stench of brackish water mingled with that of rotting food and turpentine.
“This must be where the iconoclasts dock,” Abatangelo offered. A stenciled sign nailed to a fence post read, WELCOME TO THE IRISH PENNANT- THOSE FOUND IN SKIFFS NEAR THE DOCKS AT NIGHT ARE LIKELY TO BE FOUND IN THEM COME MORNING.
Garbage seethed out of brimming Dumpsters. A dog wearing a bandana collar barked from a paintless foredeck as the car eased past, joined by other dogs as yet unseen. A toddler in knee-soiled pajamas, holding a metal cup, stared, reaching behind one-handed to scratch. An inverted kayak rested on sawhorses amid a clutter of paint cans and tangled sail; two shirtless longhairs were stripping the hull with putty knives, sharing a bottle of peach schnapps as they worked. One of them spat into his paint shavings as the car went by.
When the marina lane came back around, a long brick wall standing chest-high ran parallel to the gravel for a hundred yards or more. Only the water stood opposite. A lone oak tree rose from the grass to the west. Abatangelo told Waxman to pull to the side.
“You can walk?” Waxman queried, turning back to Frank.
Frank didn’t respond. He was staring out at the low wall which bore two fresh scrawlings in white paint.
Waxman followed Frank’s glance, adjusted his glasses, and read along. With forced humor, he quipped, “Proof at last. The Devil does quote scripture. And pop culture.”
“It wasn’t here before,” Frank said. He scoured the distance in every direction, the marina, the waving tall grass, the gravel road arcing back toward the refinery.
Abatangelo said, “Looks like your friends intend to proceed.”
“That’s not all they intend,” Frank answered, flinching as he read the white words over and over. Woe to the betrayer.
