[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
my face. I hoped Pauli was right, and it would all be
over soon.
When I went into the living room, he was hunched
over a pad writing down whatever was being said
over the phone. He grunted and nodded and wrote.
He looked up as I sat down on the couch and rested
my feet on the coffee table.
He covered the mouthpiece with a meaty hand
and said, Get your stuff. We re leaving in a few
minutes.
By the time I returned, he was shoving his
revolver into a holster.
Where to? I asked.
Meetin a friend.
You know, Pauli, this secrecy crap is getting old.
Do you have a secret hand signal I should know
about, too?
Yeah, he said, sticking his middle finger toward
me. Now let s get out of here.
He didn t seem to be worried about being
followed as he left the house and headed for our
secret rendezvous. While he tried to control the car
with one hand, he felt around in the pocket of his
jacket and pulled out a piece of paper.
Tossing it at me, he said, Got the info on Pan
American Investments.
That the phone call?
Yeah. I think you ll find it interesting.
Pauli s scribbles were hard to read, but it didn t
take me long to see what he meant. What do you
figure it means? I asked.
Blackmail comes to mind, he answered.
For the McCaffrey girl?
Probably. The way I see it, Bradley must have
had a hand in the girl s death, either accidentally or
on purpose. Don t matter. Anyway, Camarena helped
cover it up, and Bradley s been paying for his silence
ever since.
But Pan American went out of business a long
time ago.
True. Might have been set up just to cover the
college thing. But now Susan is well off enough to pay
Camarena herself. That s probably how Camarena got
into ABP in the first place. Bradley is their tax
attorney, and we know from your ex that they were
her clients when she started working with her.
Suppose Camarena used Bradley to get in with ABP
so he could pull off his illegal scam? He could use his
connection with Escobar to bring them in and make
out like the freakin Frito Bandito.
Do you think Susan knows about the illegals?
Probably, at least covering it up on the books.
Maybe she s not making cash payments to Camarena
anymore, and the covering up part is the payment.
I can t believe anyone would pay blackmail for,
what, twenty-five years.
How long would you pay to keep from going to
prison for life, or worse?
But there s barely even circumstantial evidence
that Susan Bradley might have been involved in the
girl s death.
Girl dies. Then a month later Pan American
Investments, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bradley
and Associates, creates a privately endowed
scholarship for one Felix Camarena. Face it, you said
Camarena wasn t exactly an honor student. You don t
have to be a fuckin genius to think that it was a
payoff for something more serious than plagiarism.
I wish there was something more concrete.
After twenty years, you ain t gonna find a
smokin gun. You ll just have to take what you get
and run with it.
Yeah, but it s a different story. Right now, I want
to nail Camarena for the illegals, Lena s death, and
the attack on Sarita.
I can get you the illegals. Can t guarantee the rest
unless somebody rolls over on Camarena. He
wouldn t have done it himself. He pulled into a
police substation and parked.
This is where the secret meeting is going to take
place? The police department.
I never said it was a secret meeting, he huffed as
he hoisted himself out of the Chrysler.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I FOLLOWED PAULI into the front entrance of the
San Antonio Police Department building. He greeted
the desk officer and swapped a few one-liners with
other officers as we went down a hallway and
stopped outside an interrogation room. He knocked
on the door, which was opened immediately by a
Hispanic man in his mid-thirties, dressed in dirty
jeans and a plaid shirt. His hair was shiny black and
long enough to touch the collar of his shirt. He
grinned when he saw Pauli, and his teeth were
toothpaste commercial white under a thick black
mustache that hid his upper lip. He hugged Pauli, and
after a few seconds of mutual backslapping, we all
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]