“That’s all right. Go ahead.”
Hondo dialed a number and as it rang, he turned to me, “Figured I’d call Hunter and get her to translate for us. You want to talk to her?”
I shook my head, “Uh-uh. She’s still mad at me.”
Hondo’s attention returned to the phone and he said, “Hey Hunter, It’s Hondo. How you doing?” He listened for a few seconds and said, “Yeah, doing fine. Hey, Ronny’s right here and he says Hi-” Hondo pulled the phone away from his ear, then put it back, “You bet. I’ll be sure and tell him. Exactly, yes.” He listened, then said, “I need to ask a favor. We are up in the mountains and ran into a couple of undocumented aliens, and they’re young women, yes women, and we need to ask them some questions. They don’t speak English and I thought you could translate for us.” More listening, then, “Yes, I know you’re working, but this is sort of like your business, after all you’re the Border Patrol, right? The Border Patrol’s for the whole United States, right, and California is part of that, right?” Hondo smiled and I knew Hunter Kincaid was laughing on the other end of the line. Hondo said, “Okay, I’ll hand it to one of them, hold on.” He walked to the woman who appeared the least nervous and showed her how to hold the phone. Hondo told Hunter, “I’m passing you over. Go ahead.”
The small woman listened and nodded four or five times, never saying a word, then she suddenly jerked the phone away from her ear and looked at it wide-eyed. She put it back and said, “Si senorita official, voy a hablar!” The woman listened for a bit, then rattled off Spanish like a machine gun, using her free hand to emphasize the conversation as if Hunter could see as well as hear her.
She gave the phone to Hondo who listened, then said to Hunter, “We want to know about the bicycle they have. How they got it, when they got it, did they see anyone with it or nearby, did they hear anything that sounded like someone in trouble.” Hondo handed the phone back to the woman, who listened, then talked for a long time, pointing at the sky and the ground and the other women who wore a dirty bandage on her ear and then back at the mountains.
She gave the phone back to Hondo, who listened for a while and said, “Okay, thanks a lot. We’re going to call the Sheriff’s office, let them know the women are here. The main thing is, they have a fire up here and everything’s as dry as tinder. If the Santa Anas start blowing it’ll burn all of these people to cinders and turn half the houses in Malibu to charcoal sticks. It’s way too dangerous to let them stay. I have to tell you, though, I’d almost rather not do it.” Hondo listened some more, then said, “Yeah, the case is a little funny, got some Hollywood people in it, so you could tag along and meet some movie stars.”
I felt the hair raise up on my neck. What was he doing?
Hondo said, “Okay, we’ll see you then. Adios.” He handed the cell to Mickey and said to us, “Hunter said the women are from Durango, the city. They’ve been here for about two weeks. They were smuggled into the country by a coyote, an alien smuggler, a mean man who hid them near the highway. There were three others, but the – and I’m telling you what Hunter said they said – the beautiful man found them and brought them here. Three days ago, he came back while the two of them were out setting snares and he took the other three with him. They said he left a note in Spanish saying he would be back soon, but he hasn’t returned. Hunter said she asked them what they had planned to do in the United States, and the woman said the coyote lied to them to get them across the border and then told them they would be forced to work as strippers and prostitutes.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
Hondo said, “I know. Neither did Hunter. She’s worried about them, said it
sounds like a ring she worked in Florida that forced the women into prostitution and working at strip clubs. It’s something we’ll need to tell the Sheriff’s office when we call.”
Mickey said, “I don’t see any food. What were they eating?”
“They were down to living on rabbits and a few tortillas until the miracle happened three days ago, the same day the other three women left with, we assume, Landman.”
“Miracle?” Mickey said.
“That’s what they called it. The woman said they were sitting around that evening talking about what to do when the bike fell from the sky and landed on Modesta’s head. They considered it a miracle because now one of them can ride down to the edges of the communities and get food from dumpsters and bring it back.”
I said, “It dropped from the sky?”
“Hunter said she quizzed her pretty close on that, and the woman said it absolutely came down on them from the air, that God in heaven must have seen their need and provided for them.”
I thought about it for a minute as I checked the area. I looked at the location of the fire ring, then at the draw where we had entered, and tried to imagine where the biking trail was in relation to us. Hondo must have been reading my mind because he said, “I think the trail’s pretty close to that ridge up there.” He pointed to a higher outcrop that jutted at the top of a bluff on the hillside.
I said, “A strong guy could toss a bike off of there.”
“I don’t know. It’s a long way out from there to the fire.”
“Yeah, but I bet you could do it.”
Hondo looked at it. “I could tell better from up there, but yeah, maybe.”
In clothes, Hondo doesn’t look muscular. In fact, he looks almost thin, even though he weighs about two-oh-five. But he’s strong the way Bruce Lee was strong. I once watched Hondo pull a practical joke on a friend of ours where he took the friend’s Volkswagen bug and put it in the bed of a nearby pickup truck.
He nudged me with his elbow. “Want to know what else Hunter said?”
“No, I do not.”
He grinned, “She said she’s got a vacation scheduled with no place to go, so I thought she might want to come visit, and she said she’d plan on coming out.”
I closed my eyes, “Tell me you didn’t.”
“It’ll be like old times.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”