Old Poison (16 page)

I took slow, relaxing breaths, trying to
keep my mind clear of the fear that had started me trembling and
threatened to overpower my thought process. I chanted my own
personal litany: “
Emotion floods the intellect, emotion floods
the intellect
.”

I had to focus on something that would keep
my mind working. Mentally, I began writing a report, trying to
think of all the details, addresses and numbers, names and
descriptions, but my mind kept drifting back to the fear of being
in tiny closed places. Then my breath would come short and shallow
and I would start to tremble again.

A door slammed and the engine noise altered.
That was a diesel I was hearing, and my little home was attached to
it. I leaped up and pulled down a couple boxes from the wall with
the tiny holes. Now I realized what they were. My friend Barbara,
who is a U.S. Custom’s inspector, told me that sometimes they drill
holes through the metal walls of the containers or “cans” as she
calls them, in order to check for false walls. Sometimes the drill
comes out with white powder on the bit.

Climbing the boxes like steps, I made my way
up to where I could see out through the holes. The truck and
trailer were parked in the boatyard. No point yelling for help
here. They would learn I was awake and knock me out again. Judging
by the shadows around the junk in the yard, it was just after noon.
Well, now I knew what it was that was to arrive at noon. This was
one time I found little joy in satisfying my curiosity.

I was hyperventilating. Had to focus. The
boxes behind the cargo net. What’s in them? I unhooked the net and
began lifting the lids on the file boxes and searching through the
papers. At first I was hopeful because they were all Morpho files,
but as I rifled through box after box it became apparent that there
was no smoking gun here. These were all ordinary personnel files:
hires, fires, medical claims, et cetera. It seemed totally weird to
find them here, but at the time I couldn’t concentrate well enough
to even hazard a guess as to why these papers were here.

Gears shifted. As the truck began to move, I
left the files and returned to my window seat on the boxes. Peering
out the tiny portholes, I watched for recognizable landmarks and
tried to keep some sense of direction. When I recognized the route,
the fear seemed to start in the pit of my stomach and seep like a
drug through my body, paralyzing both physical movement and mental
reason. By the time we reached the shipping dock, I was in full
panic, unable to think of anything but the scene I had watched the
day before. The cranes had loaded the containers aboard, not only
filling the hold, but stacking them row upon row on deck. All I
could think about was the fact that I would be entombed, buried
with containers on top, bottom, and all sides.

Would there be air? How long would the ship
be at sea? How sick would I get? Since earliest memory I have been
claustrophobic. Hell, I almost panic pulling a turtleneck sweater
over my head. How could I stand being buried alive? All the
supplies that my captors had so thoughtfully left for my journey
would mean nothing. When the crane slammed down container after
container on top of me, I would simply go mad.

As the truck came to a stop, I curled into a
fetal position on the top row of boxes and lay so still I barely
breathed. Part of my brain was numb and the part that worked
drifted in strange directions, making no attempt to deal with my
current situation. The word “nimwat” took shape in my thoughts, and
I tried to remember what it meant. Oh yes, it was the creature in
the
Martian Diary
that got frightened and curled up in a
ball, just as Antia had done. I giggled insanely as I considered
the irony: Antia terrified of open space, me terrified of closed
space. Antia survived because they blindfolded her so she couldn’t
see the vastness. Some member of my internal board who hadn’t
totally lost her wits reached out and switched off the lantern.

At the same moment there was a loud metal on
metal sound. The container I was in rose and lurched, tossing me
and several boxes to the floor. Sitting on the floor among the
fallen boxes, I saw a large patch of light coming from the wall
where the boxes had been. Hope revived my paralyzed brain and I
began tearing madly at the rest of the boxes.

There was a long gash in the metal wall of
the container, crescent shaped, running more than a foot down the
side of the wall. At the bottom was a hole about the size of my
fist. I kicked at the opening but found that despite the gash, the
wall was quite substantial. Peering out of the hole, I could see
the metal legs of the crane, a huge stack of containers, and people
walking around the dock.

Turning on the lantern again, I grabbed a
couple cans of beans and began pounding on the wall and yelling out
the hole. I screamed until I was hoarse but no one seemed to hear
me. One guy walked right past the crane, and though I pounded and
yelled as loudly as I could, he kept right on going without ever
looking up. The noise from the ships, the cranes, and other
machinery on the dock drowned out my yells.

Despite the setback, I was now determined to
keep my wits. If they couldn’t hear me, I would have to make them
see me, and I would have to do it fast. The crane, which had been
stationary for several moments, was now turning. I could see the
dark hull of the ship and the waiting gantry crane at the other end
of the dock. This mobile crane would carry the container to the
gantry crane and the gantry would lift it up and move it out over
the ship, then settle it down into place. If they got me that far,
I would be signed on for the whole cruise.

I tore boxes open, looking for something to
signal with. I shoved a small can of fruit juice through the hole
and watched it hit the asphalt unnoticed. Two more, same results. I
took one of the porta-potty bags and poked it partway through the
hole, attached a second, then a third and fourth. A longshoreman
with a clipboard was checking containers, but she wasn’t seeing my
signal. Color! After pulling off my windbreaker with its sea-green
and bright yellow colors, I attached it by a sleeve to my signal
and shoved it through the hole. The woman with the clipboard
finished her scribbling and looked away. In desperation I tied
three more bags to my signal so it dangled down from the container
like a great kite tail.

As the crane rolled slowly past the
longshoreman’s position, I was watching out the gash in the wall,
pounding with my bean cans and yelling. The kite tail floated past,
almost touching her head. Her mouth fell open and she did a classic
double-take. She signaled the operator to bring the crane to a
stop, and then walked over to take a closer look. From directly
beneath the container she could hear my yells for help, and I could
hear her welcome words.

“Hold on, I’ll have the door open in a
minute.”

* * * * *

The crane set my container down gently on
the dock, and the longshoreman broke the seal and opened the doors.
I must have looked a sight because her facial expression changed
from concerned to shocked, and her first words were, “I’ll call
Customs, and they can get you to a doctor.”

“Please, wait. I don’t need a doctor right
now. When you call Customs, please, ask for Barbara Donald. Tell
her that Diana Hunter needs to talk with her.”

She looked doubtful.

“I’m an investigator, but I have no ID on
me, and she knows me personally. It will save a lot of time if you
can get hold of her.”

“I’ll try, but I can’t guarantee she’ll be
available. It might take a while. You sure you don’t need a
doctor?”

“No, I’m okay.” I would have liked to
continue browsing through the file boxes, but the longshoreman
locked up the container doors and escorted me to the office, where
one of her coworkers kept an eye on me. While I waited for Barbara
to be located and dispatched, I tried to make sense of what I had
seen in the container and what had happened to me. Despite the
brevity of my search, I had made one interesting discovery. All
those personnel records were from the office in Paso Nuevo. That
was the plant where Evelyn Lilac had staged her protest against
Blue Morpho and their experimental fuel. Why were they in a cargo
container that was used to smuggle people out of the country? Given
time I might be able to find some answer, maybe a mysterious
illness caused by the experimental process, or maybe the silencing
of insider whistle blowers. Now I wouldn’t have the opportunity to
find out.

In less than an hour a uniformed customs
inspector entered the office, but it was not Barbara Donald.
Instead it was a grim-faced young man determined to maintain that
attitude of control that law enforcement professionals like to call
presence
. He whipped out a notepad and began asking
questions.

“Look, I’m sorry, but please call Barbara
Donald and tell her Diana Hunter is here. She is the only one I
will talk to.”

Another blue uniform came through the door,
and a familiar voice said, “Hello, Diana.”

I looked up to see Barbara with a confused
look on her face. I smiled at the young man and said, “Boy, you
guys really work fast, thanks.” He almost smiled before he caught
himself.

Barbara smiled. “Scott, I’d like you to meet
Diana Hunter, private investigator. Diana, this is Scott Johns.”
She examined my various wounds and bruises and shook her head. “We
better have a doctor look at you. What the heck got hold of your
neck?”

“A bull mastiff, but how about I tell you on
the way to White’s Boatyard? The guys who tried to send me on this
all-expense paid cruise are living there. Not only can you charge
them with trying to Shanghai me, but you can get one up on an
arrogant, chauvinist FBI agent in Arizona who has a murder case he
can’t solve.”

She managed to maintain what might have been
interpreted as a thin smile while she eyeballed me and considered
my request. “Sounds like you need to talk with the police.”

“By the time we finish talking, these guys
could be on their way back to Venezuela. I think I was their last
task here. They are probably also here illegally, so you could get
them on that charge too. FBI and INS points.”

A knowing look passed between Barbara and
Scott, and Barbara asked, “These guys were Venezuelans?”

“Yes, why?”

“Describe them.”

“Both about five foot eight, maybe a hundred
and forty pounds, swarthy, dark haired, one had hair down past his
ears and a beard, the other one had short hair and was clean
shaven. Why?”

“You better come with us, Diana.” With no
further explanation, she loaded Scott and me into a car and drove
around the harbor to the LAPD building on B Street. Having known
and worked with Barbara for several years, I just kept my mouth
shut and waited to see what official little surprise she had for
me. In the quiet of the car I put my head back and closed my eyes.
As current reality displaced the fear and adrenaline of the last
twenty hours, I began to tremble and realized I should not have
been so macho about seeing a doctor.

Inside the LAPD station Barbara spoke
briefly to a sergeant. Then we waited. Her only explanation was
that they were setting up a lineup. In a few minutes I was ushered
into a darkened room. Through the one-way glass I saw five guys
standing in a row. To my amazement there stood my two Venezolano
captors. For the second time in an hour, I looked at Barbara and
Scott and said, “Boy, you guys really do work fast.”

Barbara gave me a self-satisfied smile and
said, “That’s what Sergeant Lewis said too.”

After making the ID I waited outside with
Barbara. “How did you do that? You must have had those guys before
I got to the dock.”

“When your call came in, we were here
turning them over to the LAPD for temporary detainment until a
number of things could be checked out. They had driven into the
dock area at high speed, just ahead of a CHP car and tried to get
aboard that ship before the chippie could grab them. He was faster
than they were. Customs got called in to go aboard and check with
the captain to verify their claims that they were members of his
crew. He said they were, but couldn’t produce the paperwork to
prove it. In the meantime the CHP had determined that the car they
were driving was an Avis rental registered to a woman.”

“Was the woman who rented it named Clara
Shimmerhorn?”

She first looked surprised, then as she
processed it, suspicious. “Yes, Diana. Someone you know,
perhaps?”

“We’re, ah, acquainted, but I really
wouldn’t like to try to explain that to the LAPD right now, if we
can avoid it.”

She looked at me for several seconds,
evaluation ending in disapproval. “If you were legitimately working
undercover, the alias shouldn’t be hard to explain, should it?”

“Okay, message understood.”

My headache was coming back and I was
exhausted. “Barbara, do you have anything for a headache?”

She took a close look at me and her “officer
in charge” expression dissolved into one of friendship. “Will you
give us a formal statement on these guys?”

“Of course.”

“Wait here a minute and I’ll see if I can
set it up for later in the day. You do look like hell.”

“Thanks! The bull mastiff doesn’t look too
hot either.

* * * * *

I didn’t want to talk until I’d had time to
organize my thoughts, so on the way to Barbara’s I put my head back
and pretended to go to sleep. It didn’t take a lot of
pretending.

It had always been my policy to turn over
criminal information to the proper authorities so they could do
their jobs of arrest and prosecution. That left me to do the type
of work I do best, and earned me the respect and cooperation of the
authorities I dealt with. In this case, however, I had done
everything wrong from the get-go. Top of the list was the fact that
I hadn’t reported the bike trail incident to Special Agent Camas.
He was going to want my license for that one. Now, how was I going
to give the police information to charge the Venezolanos and
connect them to Evelyn’s murder without getting myself in more
trouble? Which truth to admit to, and which lie to stick to? Ah,
what a tangled web we weave . . .