“So they’re Democrats and Republicans.”
Deco looked like he tasted something sour. “You won’t be joking if you keep messing in this. Landman crossed their path, started sniffing around, and now no one can find him.”
“Is he alive?”
“Lots of people still hunting for him. They don’t hunt for dead people.”
“Who is ‘They’?”
Deco looked at me, “How do you make a living?”
“The mark of a true professional is to look like they’re not doing anything.”
“Well, you’ve got that down.” He glanced out the window, then turned back and said, “Organized crime. That’s who ‘They’ is.”
“All organized crime?”
Deco sighed, “In LA. Mexican Mafia, Russians, those guys.”
“What did Landman do to stir them up?”
“He was nosing around and found something.”
I took a long shot, “Did it have to do with something in the shoebox you took?”
The skin around Deco’s eyes grew white and for a moment, I thought he might have a stroke. “You can’t know that!”
I crossed my arms on my chest and said, “I’m the Karnak of Investigators. I see all, I hear all.”
He was agitated now, “This is no game, Baca. That information could get us both killed.”
“What was in the box?”
“I can’t tell you.” Even as Martinez said it, I could see him considering the idea. This guy carried a load on his shoulders and was feeling all alone.
I took one of my cards and wrote my home phone and cell phone numbers on it. I had to hold it out to him until my shoulder burned before he finally took it. “You call me when you want to talk. Ask Pretty Boy, I can be trusted.”
He left with the card, but not before looking out the window at the parking lot for a good minute. I put my feet up on the desk and chewed on a pencil. This was starting to get like a fifties spy movie, all Thems and Theys and vague threats and furtive characters. Not me though, I wasn’t a furtive character. I was the guy who figured out everything. I just didn’t know when that part would start.
**
Hondo showed up at five PM with some limes, a saltshaker, and a six pack of Tecate in the cans. He opened two cans and took out his SOG knife to cut a lime into quarter wedges. I started to speak but he said, “Get one down, then we’ll talk.”
We squeezed the lime wedges into and onto the can openings, then sprinkled it with salt. I hadn’t drunk Tecate in a while and it was cold and crisp, with the mixtures of salt and lime juice combining with each swallow.
We finished our cans and Hondo made us two more before he talked.
Hondo said, “Ever hear of Sakhalin?”
“Yeah, it’s an island off the coast of Russia. I think it’s a military base, something like that.”
“Uh-huh. The one that shot down a loaded Japanese passenger jet that got over their air space.”
“That happened a good while back.”
“Yeah, before the USSR collapsed.”
“And?”