Illegal (28 page)

Rutledge knew there were plenty of women who took to the indoor work at the Hot Springs Gentleman's Club. Some gave rub-and-tugs. Some sucked and fucked a select group of lobbyists and legislators who drove down from Sacramento. If you sensed a woman was trouble, you could ship her to the Midwest to pick sugar beets. Or throw her in the back of a truck and drop her off in Tijuana. Once in a great while, you'd come across some pain-in-the-ass who wouldn't let it go. Rutledge remembered a Honduran girl, a blow-job artist who worked at the club for six months before deciding she'd been coerced. She'd come after him with a carving knife. Her carcass ended up fertilizing a cornfield.

"Damn stupid of me," Rutledge confessed. "All the willing
panocha
around here, and I gotta rassle me some."

"Aw, shit, Sim. Like your daddy used to say, what's done's done, and what ain't ain't."

Sometimes, Rutledge thought, Zaga admired Jeremiah Rutledge more than he did. Jeremiah had been many things. Philosopher. Philanderer. Poker player. And one vicious S.O.B. when riled or drunk, which was six days out of seven, Sundays being reserved for Church, followed by humping a couple migrant girls. In some ways, Rutledge thought, maybe the peach didn't fall too damn far from the tree.

"Forget about letting the woman see her kid," Rutledge said. "Especially with a lawyer involved. Last thing I need now is some rape charge."

"I hear you, Sim."

"I don't suppose that idiot Chitwood got the lawyer's name."

"Got his card. J. Atticus Payne. Office in Van Nuys."

Rutledge thought a second. "I met a lady cop named Payne down in L.A. She's with that asshole Cullen Quinn."

"Small fucking world."

"Tell Javier to get everything he can on the lawyer."

"I dunno. Javier's been taking that chief-of-police shit real serious lately. Not into personal favors."

"Just tell him it's for me. I need a full background check and risk assessment."

Zaga chuckled over the phone.

"What now, Z?"

" 'Risk assessment.' I was just thinking, if it was your daddy talking to mine, he woulda said, 'Amancio, git your shovel and dig a hole in Levee Five. Ah got some varmint to bury.' "

"Times change." Rutledge echoed his lawyer's words without completely believing them. "Soon as you can, let me know what Javier finds out. And Z . . ."

"Yeah, Sim?"

"You keep your daddy's shovel handy, okay?"

Sharon exited the Parker Center. The 1950's glass shoe box was named after the former police chief best remembered for running a department long on corruption and short on civil liberties. On the other hand, Chief William H. Parker did a fine job making sure the
Dragnet
scripts polished the L.A.P.D.'s image.

Leaving the cop shop on the Los Angeles Street side, Sharon avoided looking at
The Family Group,
an angular bronze sculpture depicting a man, woman, and son. A reminder of her lost life, the artwork as subtle as an arrow to the heart.

A strange thought then. If Jimmy didn't find Tino's mother, if the boy was left without a parent, did her ex think he could keep him like some stray cat? And something else. Did he think that Tino was the key to recreating the family, to getting back together with her?

She could picture Jimmy saying it.

To Jimmy, there was still an "us." Something else he hadn't come to grips with.

Sharon had walked a block when she heard, "Detective Payne!"

She turned to find Rigney on her heels, jabbing at her with an index finger. She hated finger jabbers. Rigney wore a regulation wrinkled brown suit with a mismatched tie.

"You hear about your ex?" Rigney's tone as nasty as a rabbit punch. "The feds picked up his Lexus coming from Tijuana with eighty kilos of coke."

"So why don't you go down there and check it out?"

Rigney hawked up a wet laugh. "Why would I do that? We both know it's bullshit."

She stopped at the Temple Street intersection, waiting for the
Don't Walk
to change.

Rigney moved closer and whispered, "Payne dumped the Lexus in Mexico, and it ended up with some
narcotraficante
."

"I wouldn't know."

"Really? How was lunch today?"

Sharon tried to read the look on his face but couldn't get past the smirk.

"California Club, right?" he said. "Your TV star fiancé is a member."

"Wow. You've been playing detective again."

"I got a waiter who puts Quinn at table nineteen, dining with a tall woman with reddish-brown hair. The woman used the private phone booth in the dining room. Want to take a wild guess who called the club from some diner at 12:38 p.m.?"

"I'm impressed, Rigney. Maybe someday you'll pass the sergeant's exam."

"Where's he headed?"

The light changed, and she headed up Temple toward City Hall. "Who?"

"Royal Fucking Payne! You're helping him, and we both know it."

"If you can prove that, take it to Internal Affairs."

"I'll take it to the D.A. I'll throw the going-away party when they ship you to Chowchilla."

"You know what I think, Rigney? I think you're taking a lot of heat because you ran a sting that got a judge killed. The more blame you can shift to Jimmy, the better off you are. And as long as you can't find him, why not pick on me?"

"Bullshit. Payne's dirty and you're protecting him."

The Criminal Court Building loomed ahead.

"Where the hell you going?" he demanded.

"Back off, Rigney."

She moved at a brisk pace. Her legs were longer than Rigney's, and he hustled to keep up.

"You going to court?" he asked.

"No."

"Then, what—"

"I'm going to church, okay? Our Lady of the Angels."

"Why? You catch another priest diddling an altar boy?"

She wheeled and faced him head-on. "My maiden name's Lacy. The Lacys of County Clare. I missed Mass this morning. I've got six brothers who could each beat the shit out of you, and I could, too."

She turned and swept past the Hall of Records, toward the downtown cathedral. She was so angry it took another moment to realize that she had jabbed her own finger at Rigney, denting his polyester tie.

The welcome sign on the outskirts of town informed travelers that the burg of Rutledge had 17,068 souls and that "healthy soil makes for healthy people." The sign didn't say if the undocumented migrants were as healthy as the 17,068 regular folks.

The town's streets were wide, the sidewalks in good repair. Several businesses flew American flags. On the main drag, prosaically named "Artichoke Avenue," there was a barbershop with a rotating red-and-white pole and, next door, Hilda's Ice Cream Shoppe. Two towheaded boys tore along the street on bicycles, fishing poles lodged on their shoulders. To Payne, it all seemed like a backlot designed by Walt Disney and painted by Norman Rockwell.

The town square had a leafy park with towering white oaks and a bandstand fit for John Philip Sousa. There was a vintage merry-go-round with hand-carved horses, and organ music.

Payne hated merry-go-rounds. As a toddler, he once fell off his rocking horse. After that, all merry-go-round horses looked like monsters with giant teeth. The final scene of
Strangers on a Train
didn't help that phobia one bit.

"They named the town after this dude?" Tino asked.

"After one of his ancestors, but he's poured lots of money into the place."

They drove past the Rutledge Free Library, the Rutledge Town Swimming Pool, and the Rutledge Senior Citizens Center, all with signs in both English and Spanish.

"How much money this guy got?" Tino asked.

"You know who Carlos Slim is?"

"
Claro.
Richest man south of the border."

"Rutledge is to the San Joaquin Valley what Slim is to Mexico."

Tino whistled.

The businesses downtown were mostly wood-framed buildings with awnings shading the sidewalk and front doors propped open. There was one movie theater, the Rialto, with one screen. If you wanted to catch a film in this town, you'd better like
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

One structure stood out. A two-story redbrick building on Peach Street with barred windows and a camera mounted above a heavy metal door. A brass plate read:

Rutledge Ranch and Farms, Inc.

Jimmy parked the Mustang, reached in his pocket, and gave Tino a twenty-dollar bill. "Go get a hot fudge sundae and wait for me here."

"C'mon, Himmy. We go in together with the baseball bat. It's the
valiente
way."

"Just do what I say, okay?"

Tino pouted but headed toward Hilda's Ice Cream Shoppe. Payne approached the front door and stood there a moment, gathering his thoughts. He planned a straightforward approach. No trial lawyer tricks. No reason not to tell the truth. And no baseball bats. A boy and his mother got separated. We think she's here. Please help us get them together. Who could object to that?

On the sidewalk, a newspaper rack held both the
Rutledge Gazette
and
La Opiñion
.The
Gazette
headline fretted over the ongoing drought. Plastered on the Spanish paper's front page was a satellite photo of a hurricane moving toward the Yucatan.

There was a keypad at the front door and a button for visitors to announce themselves. Payne pushed, said his name, and a buzzer welcomed him inside.

"May I help you?" The woman at the reception desk smiled at Payne in a businesslike way. She was in her twenties and wearing a short-sleeve cotton dress splashed with big sunflowers.

"I hope so, ma'am. I surely do." Putting a bit of country into his voice. Not intentionally. It just seemed to come out in this farming town. He told Ms. Sunflowers that he was trying to locate a Rutledge employee whose son was looking for her.

"Could I see some identification?" she asked, pleasantly.

He handed over his driver's license, and she made a notation on a clean white pad.

"Been a while since I was carded," he said. "My first six-pack at Trader Joe's, as I recall."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Payne. But we've had numerous threats against Mr. Rutledge. He's quite outspoken, as you probably know."

"I like what he says. He's a good man." Slathering butter on the toast.

"One moment, please." She picked up her phone, pushed a button, and said, "Louise. I wonder if you could help me up front."

Payne hoped that wasn't code for "Send out the Doberman pinschers."

In a moment, a woman came through an interior door, marched up to Payne, and introduced herself as Louise Antrim.
Mrs.
Louise Antrim, in case Payne had any salacious thoughts. About fifty, trim, in a beige business suit, gray-streaked hair bunned on top of her head. A pair of eyeglasses dangled from her neck on a beaded chain. Her eyes were alert and frosty blue.

Payne repeated his request. Missing mother. Son desperate to find her. He filled in the name, "Marisol Perez."

Mrs. Antrim gave him a sad smile. "I'm sorry, Mr. Payne, but it would be an invasion of privacy for the company to either confirm or deny that Ms. Perez is an employee here."

"But I'm trying to put a family back together."

"Do you have a signed statement from Ms. Perez authorizing our releasing the information?"

"If I had a statement, Ms. Perez wouldn't be missing."

"But if she's missing, how could she be working here?"

"I'll be happy to ask her when you take me to her."

"Do you have any documentation, Mr. Payne? Her Social Security number. A green card."

"Don't think so."

"An H-2 visa. Is she a guest worker?"

"She's undocumented."

"Well then, of course she couldn't be working here."

"Are you shitting—? I'm sorry. Are you kidding me? Your boss practically boasts about hiring undocumented migrants."

"Mr. Rutledge has strong feelings about reforming our immigration laws. But I assure you, as the head of Human Resources, we employ only documented workers."

Sounding like a tape recording.

"Mrs. Antrim, I'm just asking for a little compassion."

"Mr. Payne, as a lawyer, surely you know that we cannot—"

"I didn't say I was a lawyer."

"Didn't you?" Her cheeks colored just a bit, like the blush on a ripe peach. "Well, you seem so lawyerlike."

"Funny. Judges never think so."

"I guess I just assumed you were representing the Perez boy."

"No, you didn't. You
knew
I was coming."

At Hilda's Ice Cream Shoppe, Tino bought five cups of icy drinks. Coffee, tea, root beer. With the cups balanced in a cardboard tray, he hurried back and circled the Rutledge building, looking for a way to get inside.

Tino found nothing but barred windows and locked doors. Behind the building, a tiled patio. Round tables with umbrellas, workers in casual clothes. Smoking, talking, drinking coffee.

He walked purposely toward the rear door, holding the tray in both hands.

He used a few words of Spanglish to ask if anyone would get the door for him.
Americanos
always wanted to show they were smart enough to understand anything a stupid Mexican might say.

A young woman, whose face glowed pink in the baking heat, took a drag on her cigarette, squashed it under her open-toed sandal, and gave Tino a big, friendly smile. She punched a code in a keypad and opened the door.