The Death Box(36)

“I read the background,” Rayles said, the sturdy chin bobbing. “All the ID’d bodies are Honduran and I expect the pattern will hold.”

“How deep is Home Sec’s interest in trafficking?” I asked. “After no threat to the Homeland is detected.”

Rayles cleared his throat. “We’re interested in the routes used by the traffickers. This time it’s a bunch of peasants trying to slip in, next time it’s a team of bin Ladenites with a tank of ricin.”

Robert Pinker, Rayles’s adjutant – a thirtyish guy with solid neck and shoulders and green eyes that followed his boss’s every move – nodded like a good employee, then bent to study the column. I figured Pinker’d heard all this before.

“Really think you’ll find a route?” I asked.

“We’ll rattle cages in Honduras. After time goes by people down there will wonder where family members are and break their silence.”

I shot a glance at Morningstar. She was leaning back, but her full attention was on Rayles.

“Time goes by?” I said.

“Right now all these bodies –” Rayles nodded to the column – “are no-names. If the traffickers discover we’re on the case, they’ll change whatever happened here. A lot of times they know we’re coming, so by the time we get there, they’ve moved on. It’s frustrating.”

Pinker’s phone buzzed and he jogged to the pit wall to take the call. I watched as he made quick notes on a pad before slipping the phone back into his jacket and making subtle eye contact with Rayles, who excused himself. The pair went to the edge of the pit to discuss the notes. I realized Pinker carried Rayles’s phone for him, the Major obviously too important to answer his own messages.

As Rayles huddled with Pinker, I considered what he’d said about staying ahead of illegal activities. Few enterprises are as Darwinian as a profitable criminal one. If one lineage to profit is impeded, the organization evolves to circumvent the impediment. If a tunnel beneath the border is discovered via sensitive microphones that detect the sound of shovels, the next tunnel is burrowed near a building site, the construction noise masking the shoveling.

But it bothered me that Rayles’s first instinct was providing reasons why he might not succeed, and not the ways he would. Back in Mobile, Harry and I started with the idea that we would prevail, and when reality got in the way, we ignored it or beat it into a means more amenable to our ends.

But I was no longer in Mobile. And Harry Nautilus was no longer by my side.

Rayles rejoined us with Pinker a perfect two steps behind. “I guess that’s it for you folks,” Rayles said, checking his watch. “I’ll pass the files over to a team of our people and they can get started.”

I handed him my new business card, the first I’d handed out. “Call me anytime, Major Rayles. Day or night.”

He looked at me like I’d started speaking Abyssinian. “Whatever for?”

“I can spare time to sit in on meetings. Toss out an idea or—”

His hand rose to cut me off. “You worked this case when it was thought the work of a deranged mind, which put it in your jurisdiction. What I see are illegals who slipped in under the radar, which puts it in mine. I thank you for your concern, Detective Ryder, but I doubt we’ll need your help.”





19





Madame Cho straightened her silk sheath – bright orange, embroidered with Chinese dragons, one side slit to mid-thigh – and crossed her legs as she sat on the tall stool in the anteroom of the Taste of Heaven Massage Parlor. It was her newest parlor and best location yet, just off Interstate 95, where men could see the tall sign from the highway and exit at the next interchange for some special relaxation. The room was dimly lit, perfumed with jasmine incense, and decorated with sedate paintings of pagodas and framed Chinese calligraphy, all bought on sale at Pier One. The man who supplied the towels once asked what the symbols said.

“How I fucking supposed to know?” Madame Cho had yawned. “You think maybe I’m Confucius or something?”

Cho pulled her calculator and began tallying the previous day’s receipts. A national gathering of appliance dealers was in town, men mostly, with money to burn on food and drink and pleasures of the flesh. Madame Cho had several of her girls passing out handbills near the convention center and hotels. She also paid hotel employees to recommend her establishments, and nighttime business had been good.

She heard the swinging doors to the rear of the parlor, looking up to see Leroy Hotchkins, the bouncer. Hotchkins was nearing fifty, an ex-Arena Football player in earnest recovery from crack addiction. He was big and black and when a customer was too drunk or didn’t finish in the allotted time and got riled about paying more, his appearance usually chilled the situation.