Nothing but Trouble (12 page)

Usher removed his reading glasses. “No, they signed on as actors, which means they do what the director tells them to do. If they don’t like it, I’ve got stuntmen who can do the job just as well for a lot less money. In fact, Corry McKowen, my stunt coordinator, rode the pro circuit for five years. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind getting a costarring credit on his resume.”

“Corry was a lightweight on the circuit.”

“Maybe so, but he’s no lightweight as a stuntman. Tell me now if you want to pull your cowboys off the film. Believe me, it’s no big deal to replace actors who walk before shooting starts.”

“I didn’t say that,” Johnny said, his brow creased with worry.

Usher held back a smile. Jordan might know a lot about rodeoing, but he didn’t know squat about moviemaking. “Then work with me, Johnny. This could be the best damn Western fight scene in a film since John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara brawled with the homesteaders in McLintock! over forty years ago.”

“That was a good movie,” Johnny said grudgingly.

“Let’s write the scenes together so that your boys get to show off their stuff in front of the cameras,” Usher said.

Johnny nodded and edged his chair close to the table.

The apartment Kerney was to share with Johnny had two small bedrooms separated by a bath, a galley kitchen with an adjacent dining nook, and a living room furnished with a couch, one easy chair, a couple of end tables with lamps, and a wall-mounted television set. The groundskeeper who had been watering the lawn when Kerney arrived had told him the building had originally been used to provide temporary housing for visiting company employees and executives from the home office.

Johnny wasn’t around, so Kerney dumped his travel bag in one of the bedrooms and went to the mercantile store to grab some dinner. A large motor home parked by the entrance had a sign painted on it that read:

WESTERN SCENE CATERERS PURVEYORS OF FINE FOOD TO THE FILM INDUSTRY

Inside the store, rows of cafeteria tables and chairs had been set up, and a buffet meal was available at a serving table filled with warming trays of food, drink urns, dinnerware, and utensils. Kerney chose the vegetarian entree and joined two men at one of the tables, who introduced themselves as Buzzy and Gus.

In their early fifties, both men had an easy style about them that made Kerney feel comfortable and welcome. Over dinner he learned a good bit about the complexities of photographing a motion picture.

Gus, the key grip, explained that his job was to set up diffusion screens and large shades to modify light for the cameras, operate camera dollies and cranes, and mount cameras on vehicles and airplanes. Buzzy, the gaffer, supervised the lighting for each scene and ran the crew responsible for setting up the lamps and generating the power.

Kerney asked them if Usher’s decision to change the ending of the screenplay was common practice.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” Gus said with chuckle. “Any good director puts his own stamp on a film. There will be dialogue rewrites, camera-angle changes, scenes that get dropped, altered, or added-the list goes on and on.”

“We’ll have most of it sorted out at a final production meeting once we’ve visited all the locations,” Buzzy said. “That’s when we’ll know basically what stays and what goes.”

“Don’t the producers have a say?” Kerney asked.

“Not creatively,” Gus replied. “Charlie Zwick will have his hands full dealing with production delays, weather changes, sick or ill-tempered actors, continuity problems, staying within the budget-you name it.”

“Fortunately, Charlie and Malcolm have worked together before,” Buzzy said, “so it should go smoothly.”

After dinner with Gus and Buzzy, Kerney took a stroll through the empty, silent streets of Playas, past rows of dark, vacant houses. As daylight faded, streetlights in the dormant town flickered on, casting eerie shadows through an occasional dead tree. It felt almost otherworldly, as though some invisible catastrophe had annihilated the population of the town, leaving behind the houses as a mute testimony to the disaster.

He turned the corner on a residential street near a shuttered building that had once served as the town library, and caught sight of a roadrunner scooting around the rear end of a Motor Transportation Division patrol car parked in front of an occupied house.

Part of the New Mexico Department of Public Safety, the MTD primarily enforced federal and state safety statutes of commercial motor vehicles, including hazardous-material and drug-interdiction inspections. Although its officers had full police powers, most of the agency’s resources were allocated to traffic safety, commercial vehicle over-the-road compliance, and drug trafficking.

Farther on Kerney passed another occupied house with a Hidalgo County sheriff’s squad car parked outside. He was on the tail end of his walk, heading down the hill in the direction of the town center, when his cell phone rang.

“I’ve got information on that license plate,” Flavio Sapian said after Kerney answered. “The vehicle is registered to Jerome Mendoza.”

“Tell me about Mr. Mendoza,” Kerney said.

“It’s interesting stuff. Mendoza is an MTD officer assigned to the Lordsburg Port of Entry. Single, age twenty-eight, he’s got a home address listed in Playas.”

“I just passed by his house,” Kerney said. “What’s his connection to the smelter?”

“Unknown. I’m going to call his supervisor after we hang up.”

“I suggest you hold off on that,” Kerney said. “If Mendoza is involved in any wrongdoing, you’d be giving him a heads-up.”

“Why wait?” Sapian asked. “As it stands, I have no evidence that proves a crime was committed, nor can I actually put Mendoza at the scene of the accident.”

“I understand that,” Kerney said. “But for now you might want to treat him as a person of interest, until you have a few more facts.”

“Such as?”

“The victim’s identity, for starters,” Kerney said. “What if it turns up that Mendoza knew the victim? You’d look pretty foolish if you didn’t have that information before approaching him. When will you know something?”

“Tomorrow,” Sapian replied.

“That’s soon enough,” Kerney said. “If he’s clean, it leaves his reputation intact, and if he’s dirty, well, that’s a whole different matter.”

“I hear you, Chief,” Sapian said. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

Back at the apartment Johnny was nowhere to be found. Grateful for the solitude, Kerney read several chapters in the first volume of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s planned autobiographical trilogy before rolling into bed. He wondered what kind of story Marquez might fashion about the town of Playas. Surely it would be filled myth and magic, enriched with intrigue and imagined dreams.

He was almost asleep when he heard someone pounding on the apartment door. Thinking it was Johnny, Kerney opened up, and two men in suits flashed U.S. Customs agent shields and invited themselves inside.

“You’re Kevin Kerney, right?” an agent with a hook nose asked as he closed the door behind him. He was fortyish, dark skinned, and spoke with a slight Spanish accent.

Kerney nodded. The man’s partner, a blond-headed, blue-eyed, baby-faced man, made a quick inspection of the apartment and returned to the living room.

“He’s alone,” the man said.

Barefoot, wearing only shorts and a T-shirt, Kerney held up his hand to stop any further questioning. “If you know my name, you probably also know I’m a cop. Let me put some clothes on, and then we can talk.”

Hook Nose nodded and said, “We’ll watch, if you don’t mind.”

“Come along,” Kerney said, “if that kind of thing turns you on.”

In the bedroom Kerney fished his badge case and police credentials out of the pocket of his jeans and tossed them to Hook Nose before dressing. He looked them over as Kerney pulled on jeans and a shirt. Back in the living room Kerney asked to see some identification. Hook Nose was Supervising Special Agent Domingo Fidel. His partner was Special Agent Ray Bratton.

“Okay,” Kerney said. “Tell me what this is all about.”

“The man you found on Highway Eighty-one was an undercover officer,” Fidel said, “who’d spent the last six months infiltrating an illegal-immigrant smuggling ring operating in this area. He was on his first solo run across the border from Mexico with ten aliens who’d paid two thousand dollars each to be brought across.”

“He looked like a Mexican teenager to me,” Kerney said. “Was he a fresh young recruit right out of your academy?” Many officers were assigned to undercover duty immediately after completing their training in order to reduce the risk of having their cover blown.

“Exactly,” Fidel said. “He was supposed to bring his cargo up to a remote ranch road west of Antelope Wells and then walk them to a place where a vehicle would be waiting for him with instructions on his final destination. We couldn’t stake it out because he didn’t get the route information until just before he left.”

“He’d made six previous runs,” Bratton said, “with the coyote who heads up the operation. Each time the crossing took place at a different location.”

“On those earlier runs he was sent back to Mexico after the crossings,” Fidel added, “while the coyote finished the transport alone.”

“So you don’t know the final destination,” Kerney said.

Fidel shook his head. “Or who the coyote is working with on this side of the border.”

“We think they’re using someplace in the Bootheel as a holding area for the illegals,” Bratton said, “before moving them on to Tucson, Phoenix, and L.A.”

“Playas?” Kerney asked.

“No way,” Fidel said. “We’ve had people from Homeland Security through this town a dozen times, posing as part of the team that put together the purchase agreement to buy it for use as an antiterrorist training center. The people who live here are clean as a whistle.”

“What kind of vehicle would be used to move the human cargo on this side of the border?” Kerney asked.

Bratton sank down on the couch and leaned forward. “It was always changed on each run. That’s why what you saw could be important.”

“You obviously know what I saw,” Kerney said, “or you wouldn’t be here.”

“But where you saw the vehicle the second time could be important,” Fidel said.

“The panel van at the smelter may or may not be the same vehicle,” Kerney replied.

“But it was similar enough to catch your interest,” Bratton said, “and it’s owned by a state Motor Transportation officer, who just happens to moonlight on his days off as a security guard at the smelter.”

“You did a background check on Mendoza?” Kerney inquired.

“On everybody who lives in Playas,” Fidel replied. “All fifty-six of them. Mendoza enlisted in the army at eighteen and served as a truck driver. After discharge he got a job as a long-haul driver for an outfit in El Paso. Three years ago he joined the Motor Transportation Division as a recruit and went through the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy. He was assigned to Lordsburg upon graduation and has been there ever since.”

“Do you think he’s your man?” Kerney asked.

Fidel eased himself down on the arm of the couch. “Unknown, but consider this: The smelter is a sprawling, huge plant, off limits to outsiders. It’s run by a skeleton crew of ten employees who are just there to basically maintain it and deal with environmental cleanup issues. Can you think of a better place to warehouse illegals? There must be a dozen places in that smelter where you could hide people for a short time with no one the wiser.”

“That makes sense,” Kerney said, “but back up for a minute. Your undercover officer saw six different vehicles on his runs with the coyote. Didn’t he get license-plate and vehicle information to you?”

“The plates were stolen from trucks in the States,” Bratton replied, “and the vehicles were abandoned in Phoenix and L.A. All of them had been originally registered in Mexico under fictitious company names.”

“Okay,” Kerney said. “Now that I know all this, tell me why you’re really here.”

“Tomorrow Officer Sapian will call and tell you the body couldn’t be identified. Because there is no probable cause that a crime has been committed, we’d like you to suggest that he close the case as an accidental death.”

“That’s easy enough to do,” Kerney said. “What else?”

“Bratton here is going to join the film crew as an apprentice employee vetted by a theatrical stage employees’ union. He’ll be a gofer for the set decorator, or something like that. You’ll be his contact. What he tells you, you’ll pass on to me.”

“What purpose does putting Bratton undercover serve?”

“We’re after a network here, Kerney,” Fidel answered. “One that has been way too successful at not getting caught. The coyote on the Mexican side is a former corrupt cop. Mendoza is a cop. There may be other officers involved that we don’t know about. Maybe some Border Patrol officers are on the pad, looking the other way. Or some of the good citizens of Playas could be supplementing their incomes. I lost a nice young kid who was doing his job, and now it’s personal. Somebody blew his cover, and I want the son of a bitch who did it, and the other son of a bitch who killed him.”

“And Mendoza?” Kerney asked.

“He’s under surveillance twenty-four/seven starting now,” Bratton said, “as are some of our own people.”

Kerney walked to the door and opened it. “Did you roust me because you thought I might be a dirty cop involved in this scheme?”

“Think of it as a reality check,” Fidel replied.

“It’s your show.”

“You’ll do it?” Fidel asked, as he and Bratton stepped outside.

“Yeah, I’ll help,” Kerney said, “in spite of your bad manners.”

Johnny Jordan and Malcolm Usher didn’t finish working on the new scenes until after midnight. It was all good stuff, and Johnny had to admit to himself that the changes totally outdid the rodeo in terms of high-octane action. He watched as Usher sent the new material by e-mail to the screenwriter in California so some fresh dialogue could be worked up.