“White supremacist?” he said, his voice an octave lower than before. “Fuckin’ skinhead and shit?”
“Something like that.”
“And you’re telling me Deacon is tight with him?”
I nodded.
Wizard thought about that for a moment, then shook his head. “Bullshit.”
“Got someone who says it was happening.”
“Someone you believe?”
I didn’t know who I believed, but at least I had Wizard interested.
“Yeah,” I said.
Wizard fiddled with one of the rings on his fingers, staring hard at it. He looked back at me. “Why you looking for this Pluto dude?”
“Because someone hired me to look for him,” I said, starting to feel claustrophobic. I leaned forward toward Matellion. “Mind if I ask another question?”
The smile came back and the bright white teeth flashed. “Go ahead.”
“Let me start with what I know,” I said. “I know I was hired to find Linc Pluto, who had something to do with some sort of hate group. I know that his older brother was killed, probably by the same group.”
I watched for a reaction, but didn’t get one.
“At the same apartment complex where Deacon used to live, a girl who lives next door to Pluto gets shot. Shortly after that, some of your guys paid me a visit in my neighborhood. So here’s my question.”
Wizard folded his arms across his chest, but didn’t look away.
I leaned forward a little more. “Why did your guys try to take out the girl at the apartment?”
Ollie directed the TEC-9 at my nose, but I didn’t take my eyes off Wizard. After a moment, Wizard reached out and pushed the gun away and back toward Carter.
Carter didn’t seem to notice.
“I don’t do no business with no fuckin’ skinheads, dude,” Wizard said quietly.
“That doesn’t answer my question.” I paused. “Why the girl?”
I knew there was a connection between Linc and Moreno. Rachel, while living next door to Linc, had been shot at a place where Moreno used to live. I learned early in my career that coincidence was for people who liked to ignore the facts.
“I don’t know anything about this girl,” he said finally, shaking his head.
“Then why did your guys come after me?” I asked. “Right after I talked with her?”
“Probably because you were sticking your nose where it shouldn’t be.”
“Probably?” I said, almost laughing. “I’d think the
Wizard’s arms tightened across his chest. “You think that because you’re big and white, I’m just gonna tell you some shit?” He tilted his head. “Even if I did know the answers, what do I get out of all this?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” I said. “But I just wonder how all your friends-and for that matter, your employees-would feel about you if they knew you were doing business with some skinheads.”
Wizard Matellion’s friendliness disappeared completely. He nudged Ollie slightly and for a moment I thought he was telling him to shoot me.
But Ollie just reached up with his free hand and knocked twice on the ceiling.
The car moved to the right and glided to a stop.
“I’ll be in touch,” Wizard said. “Now get out.”
Ollie opened the door and exited first. Carter and I followed him out into the bright sunlight.
Ollie opened up the front passenger door and produced our guns. He laid them on the sidewalk near the front of the car. Then he walked back and climbed into the Excursion
“Braddock?” Matellion said.
I looked back in the SUV.
“Don’t come into my neighborhood again without asking,” he said, his eyes staring out at me like hard spikes. Then he flashed the grin from before. “Because next time, you won’t walk out alive.”
Twenty-nine
“You believe him?” Carter asked, stretching out on one of the plastic resin chairs on my patio.
We had made our way back to Biddly’s after Wizard kicked us out. Moreno and Wesley were gone from their perch in front of the liquor store and, with Wizard’s warning fresh in our heads, we drove back to Mission Beach and settled under the hazy late-day sunshine.
I yanked the caps off two Red Trolley Ales and handed Carter one as I sat down in the chair next to him. “Yes and no.”
He put the bottle to his lips and waited for me to continue.
“I think he knew about the hit down here,” I said, squinting into the orange and yellow hues above the water. “Something like that, no way it happens without his okay. They had two cars with at least four guys. It was organized. That was crap about Moreno and his initiative.”
Carter nodded. “It’s a smart play on his part. He may have known who we were, but he doesn’t know if we’re tied to cops or feeding somebody info on him. He admitted nothing, basically.”
“I think he knew about Rachel, too,” I said, watching two bicyclists cruise by on the boardwalk, the bike tires sounding like zippers on the pavement. “He may not have known why, but I think he knew it happened.”
“Why did they go after her?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, frustrated that I hadn’t been able to come up with an answer for that. “Maybe they thought she told me something.”
“Nah, man, that doesn’t make sense. You’d just talked to her. How could they have put that together so quickly?”
He was right. I was starting to think that I had the reasoning backward. I’d been operating under the idea that Rachel had been shot because I’d talked to her. But it was beginning to look more like I’d been attacked at the SandDune because I’d witnessed her shooting by coincidence.
I drank from the beer and then set it on the table between us. “I don’t think he was lying about Moreno and Linc, though.”
“You mean that he didn’t know they had something going?”
“I think he knew something was happening. Would seem reasonable that he lets Moreno buy from whomever. But I don’t think he knew exactly who Moreno was dealing with. You see his reaction? It was the only time he stumbled. And he was pissed.”
He nodded. “Yeah, he didn’t seem too happy about having an association with the California coalition of white sheets. And if that’s what was going on-Moreno buying from Pluto-Matellion is not gonna like how that looks, even if Moreno didn’t know that Pluto was a hater. In which case, you may have just ended Deacon Moreno’s life.”
I nodded, not really feeling one way or another about that possibility. I found it hard to drum up sympathy for someone who had been an active participant in trying to end my life. If he wanted to work for Wizard Matellion, he would have to live with the consequences.
I remembered the scene outside the liquor store. “What was that shit with you and Wesley?”
A slow grin emerged on Carter’s lips as he pulled the bottle away from his mouth. “About a year ago, I was doing some recovery work for a guy in Tucson.”
“Recovery work?”
“Finding a guy who owed my guy some money,” he said, waving the bottle in the air. “You don’t wanna know. I go down to Ensenada to find this guy and the guy that hired me says another dude’s meeting me there, in case I need some help.” He smirked. “I was polite and didn’t tell him that wouldn’t be necessary.”
“Big of you.”
“Very. Guess who my help was.”
“Wesley?”
