"Tell him to shove it."
"I need this sleazy job!" she said. "I'm trying to get some nice clean insurance frauds to work on, but right now I need this client."
"It gets expensive sitting at a bar," he said.
"I'll pay for the drinks."
"Do they go against my fee?"
"No," she sighed. "You'll actually get paid to slosh down the booze."
"I think I can handle that." Then he looked at the notepaper and said, "The car's registered to Blanca Soltero. Lives in Indio."
"That's Clive Devon's maid," Breda said. "The girl must be her daughter. Shit!"
"He might have something going with the maid's daughter."
"No, that doesn't work," Breda said. "Not with the sperm bank business."
"Look, he lied to his wife about meeting the girl, didn't he? There's something happening between them."
"No wonder nobody wants these crappy domestic cases," Breda said. "Meet me at my office in thirty minutes. I'm gonna see if the Plymouth's still at the Devon house."
Twenty minutes later, Breda was on foot again, peeking over the wall at Clive Devon's pool. She had to retreat to her car when the dog started barking. The girl and her car were gone, but she'd have to return for her dog, Breda surmised.
When she got back to her office she was surprised to see someone in the waiting room with Lynn Cutter, who was slumped in a chair, looking gloomier than usual.
Lynn opened one eye and said to her, "Help's arrived, and he's very helpful. Actually, he's the kind a cop that'd do a Heimlich maneuver on your pet, even if the pet was a parakeet. He always means well, this young man."
"Hi, Miss Burrows!" Nelson Hareem said, sticking out his hand and grinning like Bugs Bunny. "I think we're getting a little closer to the drug smuggler!"
Chapter 9
By four o'clock that afternoon they'd been presented with a Nelson Hareem scenario that made Breda's neck hair do the lambada. Not because she thought it was remotely plausible, but because it proved that Lynn Cutter was right: The kid was a banana.
"You think the guy's what?" Lynn asked, after Nelson had announced his hypothesis.
"An Arab terrorist," Nelson repeated calmly, with that agreeable smile. "It's very possible."
"It's very possible," Lynn said to her.
"I hear him," Breda said. "You mean the guy's not a drug smuggler? The kind that comes into this valley in a private plane because his flight bag's full of dope and panics when he's taking a pee and suddenly sees a cop in uniform? He just couldn't be that kind of ordinary scumbag crook?" "No."
"Why, Nelson?" Breda asked. "Not that it makes any real difference in my life. But why? I'm curious."
"The coins in the mouth were the first tipoff," Nelson said. "The old Indian at the reservation said it proves he's a man a the desert."
"I see. He couldn't be a man of the Mexican desert?"
"At first I thought so, till Lynn found this." Nelson handed a dime-sized coin to Breda. "It's Spanish. Diez pesetas. See the profile of King Juan Carlos? I figure the guy flew to Mexico on Iberia Airlines by way of Spain. I figure he's from Algeria, maybe Morocco. That's right near Spain."
"I know. I saw Casablanca," Breda said.
"But that's only part of it. There was the thing he said to the pilot when they talked to the mechanic at the hangar."
"I thought he only spoke Spanish."
"But he pointed to the map on the wall, and he said something the mechanic thought was in Spanish. And he laughed. Well, jist look at your map a this valley. Know what's one of the closest places to that airport?"
"What?"
"Mecca! He saw Mecca and made a joke about bein near a holy place. I mean, it fits!"
Lynn and Breda looked at one another, and Breda slipped into a little grin of derision, saying, "Then it wasn't Spanish he spoke?"
"Mighta been," said Nelson. "Or it mighta been Arabic. He probably speaks two or three languages."
"Nelson," Lynn said, "they got a Coke machine downstairs. I'll buy if you go get em. My left knee's so swollen it's grotesque. The other's even worse. You wouldn't know it from Marlon Brando."
"Sure, regular Coke?"
"Regular," Lynn said.
"Diet," Breda said.
"My treat," said Nelson, and dashed out the door.
"See?" Lynn said when they were alone. "He has cosmic reasons for doing what he does."
"He's real cute," Breda said. "I feel like taking him to the zoo or maybe buying him some Gummi Bears, but he's a nutter, all right. Wacko. No telling what's bubbling in his brain."