Buena Rosa Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight
The water running through the street out of the shantytown was only water in the loosest of definitions. Manuel shuddered to think what was in the foul colored fluid which reeked of human waste and chemicals. He tried to find a place where it narrowed enough for him to cross without getting his boots wet, then finally had to trust his limited mobility to minimize the contact his boots would have with the possibly toxic runoff. He ended up getting the toes of both boots contaminated by something that didn’t want to run off, and would probably end up destroying the leather. “Well, going to have to burn these boots now,” he muttered ruefully under his breath.
The shantytown was worse than he had expected. There were more children clogging the doorways to the ramshackle homes than he would have thought possible, most of them thin and sickly. And their mothers saw him coming and glared in his direction, suspicious of his motives. He noticed the occasional square brick courtyard placed in the middle of a cluster of houses, a large water pump always in heavy use. While one child filled a bucket with pump water, one more was struggling to get a full bucket home and another was returning with an empty one.
No running water. A glance overhead showed no electrical lines had been run through the neighborhood either. It was a logical extension that there was no plumbing to speak of either, giving him a better idea of what that might possibly be running down the gutter. Definitely had to burn the boots.
There was a layer of grime and dust on every surface, sediment from the factory, most likely. And while it might not be necessarily poisonous, it certainly wasn’t orange juice. Horrible living conditions for an essentially captive work force, all for a greater profit margin; it was so much like modern feudalism that it made his heart hurt.
No one would talk to him. He had been working the handful of adults who met his eyes for an hour, trying to find out anything about Muriel Cruz, but had gotten nothing but fearful shakes of the head or signs of the cross to protect against the devil. She had been a floor supervisor, so she had to have known people, her name had to be familiar. But it was becoming abundantly clear that no one wanted to talk about what had happened.
Manuel was about to write it off as a wasted trip when he picked up the sound of a car tires on the rough roads of the surrounding neighborhood. Once his ears were aware of the sound, he was able to discern the noise of an engine running quietly. Not a truck, not even the Sheriff’s nice and new SUV. This car was quality sedan quiet. The sound of distant voices carried by the wind reached him from the direction of the engine noise. A male voice, deep, native Mexican accent, and regional as well. He was looking for someone.
Tall, thin, in his thirties, wearing a denim jacket and pants and a western shirt.
Someone was looking for him. And this person had a car that ran quietly. It could only be someone from Pegasus Motors. Looking quickly around, he saw no hiding place that he could get to quickly. And when it came down to it, the locals would easily be able to point out where he went. They were certain to be more afraid of someone from the factory that gave them whatever meager livelihood they had than of a crippled stranger.
Well, he reasoned, he did want to get a look at the factory anyway. Might as well take a guided tour. Unless, of course, the person looking for him had another travel destination in mind, perhaps something off the highway near a burned out foundation.
Just to be safe, he slid a hand into his jacket’s breast pocket and activated the tracking device concealed as a library card. If he went missing for any period of time, at least Snowflake would be able to find the body. Then, since time really wasn’t an issue, and his shoulders were starting to ache after propelling himself all over the uneven ground on the forearm crutches, he leaned against a nearby wall and waited to be discovered.
It didn’t take long to be found, but it wasn’t the driver of the Pegasus car that found him first. A woman in black denim jeans and leather vest waved to him from across the street, urging him to come inside. She was about his age, he figured, maybe a bit older, and her bare arms were heavily decorated with tattoos. Her hair was past her shoulders, but tied back to be out of her way. There was something about her bearing that grabbed Manuel’s attention almost immediately, and it took a few precious seconds for him to figure out what.
She looked him in the eye. No one had beaten her down or made her afraid. And that meant maybe, just maybe, she would talk. He hopped across the narrow street on his crutches, sending jarring pain up into his shoulders and legs, but it was over quickly and he was in the close swelter of one of the tiny homes with the strange woman.
Manuel looked at her a little more closely, inspecting the tattoos and the lines around her eyes. He figured her to be maybe five years his senior. Her hands were calloused, and there was dirt and oil under her fingers. The tattoos were quality ink-work from a cornucopia of artists, which implied that she traveled. “Who are you?”
She pressed a finger to his lips, and peeked around the corner of the doorframe, watching the Pegasus Vigilant sedan roll slowly by. When it was safely out of sight, she removed her finger, looking a little embarrassed to have initiated the contact. “I’m Anita Cruz. I heard from some friends that you were asking questions about my sister. You’re Manuel de la Vega, aren’t you?”
“Whatever I’m paying my publicist, it isn’t enough.”
She laughed, a quick throaty chuckle that put him immediately at ease. “I talked to Flip earlier. He told me all about you. Says you’re working on a book.”
“I might be. I am very sorry to hear about your sister.”
A shadow passed in front of Anita’s eyes for a moment and then was gone. “Thank you. I suppose that’s why you’re here in Buena Rosa?”
“In a round about way. The police have arrested my cousin, and I don’t think she did it.”
“No, I don’t think she did either.”
Manuel studied her carefully. No, she didn’t believe the police had the wrong person. But there was more to it. She had been in town for longer than him, and as the victim’s sister, had probably found the locals a little more open in discussing what was going on in Buena Rosa. “Do you know who killed your sister?”
Anita’s voice was so low as to be almost inaudible. Her eyes were fixed on the doorway, in the direction of the Pegasus Vigilant that had so recently passed by. “No. Nothing I can prove.”
Lowering his tone to put her at ease, Manuel still made his voice clear enough that she couldn’t ignore it. “I don’t want proof. I just want to know what you think.”
She was silent for a long time, not changing position. Finally, she turned her eyes back to his, and they blazed in the shade of the hut. “Angels.”
“Like with wings?”
She sighed, and a slight smile of frustration appeared at the corner of her mouth. “You haven’t been here long enough to know the name, I guess. Michael Angels. He’s the plant manager for the Pegasus Motors factory.”
It clicked. Aldovar had mentioned the very name earlier that morning, on the ride to the jail. He had given the police department their vehicles. He had his own private security force, and he seemed to remember Aldovar make a seemingly random comment about improved response time to his hacienda. Michael Angel made an excellent suspect.
And if Manuel’s cousin was causing problems, trying to unionize workers, arranging it so she took the fall for the murder was a coup. But one thing didn’t quite fit. “Wait. Why would Michael Angels kill your sister?”
Anita looked lost for an answer. That was what Manuel was afraid of. When in doubt, blame the rich white guy for all your problems. In so many ways, it was the right thing to do, but without proof, without even a motive, it was useless. Still, Angels did have someone out looking for him, so maybe it wasn’t entirely groundless accusation. Maybe Anita’s instincts were good, and Manuel just needed to connect the pieces.
When in doubt, he figured, suspect everybody then try to trace them back to the crime. And if he wanted to trace Michael Angels back to the crime, he would have to actually meet him.
“Thanks for the information. I need to go talk to the guy in the car now.”
She grabbed Manuel’s elbow as he tried to exit the shack. “You don’t want to do that. If he thinks you are a threat to him, there is no telling what he could do to you.”
“I can’t solve your sister’s murder from inside this shack.”
Finally, Anita let go of his elbow, a trace of nervousness still in her eyes. “Well, at least its you they’re looking for this time.”
He smiled as he headed back out into the sun. It seemed that it was always him they were looking for. Strange how that worked out.
It didn’t take Manuel long to find the gold colored sedan prowling slowly through the streets of the shantytown. He walked in its general direction, apparently unconcerned. As it pulled up alongside, he got his first good look at the driver. It was the creepy Pegasus employee from breakfast, the one Manuel would always think of as a gay lawyer from now on thanks to Snowflake. He struggled for a name, and remembered it to be Contralles just as the window rolled down.
“Mr. de la Vega. If you would be so kind as to get in, my employer would like to speak with you.”
“Why Mr. Contralles, I would be delighted to speak to Mr. Angels. Shall I sit in the back seat?” He reached for the back door and then saw heavy pistol in the driver’s hand, leveled threateningly in his direction.
“I would prefer that you sit in the front where I can be a better host.”
Ah, where you can shoot me if I burp out of turn, you mean, Manuel thought. He kept his game smile on and moved around to the passenger side. The door was open when he got there, and he slid into the leather bucket seat and fastened the belt. “Very nice car.”
“The Pegasus Vigilant ES. Mr. Angels spares no expense.”
“Of course he doesn’t have to pay for them.”
Mr. Contralles smiled. “Of course.” The smile chilled the blood in Manuel’s body, and he felt the sudden wish that he had used the restroom before he left home. He elected to say nothing else for the rest of the trip to the factory.
At the junction where Mr. Contralles turned in to the factory gate, Manuel noticed that the road continued on up into the hills, vanishing around a bend. Unlike the roads in Buena Rosa, this one was well maintained and relatively new. It could only go to Perseus Glen, he reasoned. It was not comforting to know that to get to the management housing, he would have to ride within fifteen feet of the heavily monitored front gate. If he used the road, that is, he suddenly corrected himself.
The gate security didn’t even make the Mr. Contralles roll down the window. In the dust kicked up when the car rolled to a stop, Manuel thought he saw the smallest sliver of a red laser light dance across the front window, near the dashboard. Bar code identification on all fleet vehicles, he figured. Handy. And it was something he might be able to exploit in the future. The razor-wire topped twelve-foot gate rolled open, and they were through, heading towards the office portion of Pegasus Motors.
It wasn’t until they were through the fence that Manuel realized there were two buildings on the site. The bulky, utilitarian factory building had no fence around it, and the sparse parking lot had only a handful of old, dusty cars and trucks. Then there was the administrative building, a three-story structure of bronze colored glass and steel, with decorative exposed I-beams. Completely surrounded by high security fence, the small administrative parking lot had only about a dozen cars. The building itself connected to the factory with an enclosed glass bridge at the third floor level.
There was no pretense of separate but equal here. There was no need for those illusions. There was a deliberate effort put into the design of this facility of separating “Us” from “Them.” No wonder everyone in the shantytown hated the gringos.
The space Mr. Contralles pulled into was the second closest to the door, clearly marking his rank in the hierarchy at the factory. The sign above the space showed it as “Reserved for Director of Personnel.” In the old days the job title would have been something different, Manuel had no doubt. Head bull, or chief leg-breaker, or union-buster, they all meant the same thing. Mr. Contralles was the in charge of handling malcontent employees.
And that made him a very dangerous man indeed.
They got out of the car at the same time, and Mr. Contralles didn’t even pretend to point the gun in Manuel’s direction. For his part, Manuel didn’t pretend that he was going to sprint for the twelve-foot tall security fence and vault over it. It was a relationship that seemed to work for both of them.
Then the bastard Contralles bypassed a perfectly good elevator and made Manuel go up two flights of stairs, aware that just because the gone was not visible didn’t mean that it wasn’t still there. The “Director of Personnel” made it onto the short list of people Gato Loco intended to visit before this trip was finished.
Sweating and shaking, Manuel finally made it to the heavy door of the executive suite. Made from treated pine, it was exquisitely carved around the border with what Manuel could only describe as rodeo symbols.
Mr. Contralles paused at the door long enough for Manuel to catch up, then rapped hard against it twice with his knuckles. “Come in,” crackled a concealed intercom. Without another word, Manuel’s kidnapper pushed the door open.
The spacious office was decorated in early buckaroo, complete with branding irons mounted on the walls and a saddled, stuffed white horse near the windows. Michael Angel was in his fifties, with dark hair turning handsomely to steel gray along the temples. He was not a tall man, nor physically remarkable in any way, but his hair looked great. Manuel couldn’t help but wonder if it was real, then wondered why someone would get fake gray hair and decided it had to be natural. Dressed in a tan suit with a bolo tie featuring a circle of polished elk horn as the cinch, he looked every bit the cowboy.
Manuel wondered if Michael Angel remembered the Alamo, and if so, if he looked to it as a rallying cry or an object lesson. When he spoke, however, he a hint of New England accent that even years of living somewhere else had been unable to completely eradicate. “So, you’re the little killer’s cousin, is that right?”
Manuel looked over his shoulder at Mr. Contralles, and then in mock surprise back at Michael Angel. “Oh! I’m sorry! I didn’t realize you were talking to me.” He was rewarded with a smile that had all the warmth of Rekyevik in winter.
The executive cowboy indicated one of the leather chairs before the desk, both of which were upholstered in the black and white hide of a Holstein cow. “Have a seat Mr. de la Vega. Can I offer you a drink?”
After the stairs, both sounded good, but the risk of being drugged or poisoned was not far from his mind. He worked his way over to one of the chairs and arranged himself in it, finding it more comfortable than he would have imagined. “Nothing to drink for me, thank you. It’s still a little early in the day.”
Mr. Angel held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Well, that’s your prerogative, I suppose. I imagine you wonder why I had Dexter go out and track you down.”
Manuel took Dexter to mean Mr. Contralles. A sideways glance at the broad shouldered “Director of Personnel” showed a trace of discomfort over the use of his first name, confirming Manuel’s suspicions. Dexter Contralles. Good...one more name to research.
Settling in behind his large desk, Mr. Angel looked every bit the congenial host. He leaned back and put the heels of his so-shiny leather boots up on the desk and regarded Manuel warmly. “Listen, I understand that you might be concerned about your cousin. Hell, I would be too, so believe me, I feel what you might be going through. But if I’ve learned anything in my career, it’s that you have to give the police space to so their job. If you get underfoot, it just makes them angry, and then accidents happen. You don’t want accidents to happen, do you?”
Manuel hated him already. It takes a special kind of bastard to have absolutely no regard for a person’s intelligence, to just sell a flat out lie and expect someone to believe it. He set his jaw, and keeping his voice level, prepared for Dex to open up a can of pain on him. “Seems to me that an accident might have already happened.”
“Well, it might seem that way. But justice is a peculiar thing. The police here, they may not know much, but they know how to take care of business. I truly am sorry that your cousin got into trouble in Buena Rosa. And if she’s innocent I’m sure she will be exonerated. But going around my town, stirring up painful memories among the locals, well, I can’t have that.”
Manuel looked over at Dex. The big man was still looking distractedly out the windows, as though he wasn’t paying attention to the conversation, but the thin smile beneath his mustache said more than enough. “So, it would be in my best interest to just be quiet. I think that’s what you are telling me to do?”
“I am asking you politely...I am being polite, aren’t I Dexter?”
“You are the very picture of civility, sir.”
“Thank you. I’m asking you politely to not rock the boat. The police did their job. In record time, might I add. Now it’s time to let the justice system do its job.”
Manuel nodded. He had expected to be threatened off. It was a common tactic of people in power with something to hide. He couldn’t be sure if the executive was himself responsible for Muriel Cruz’s death or merely an accomplice after the fact. It was possible that this one death was merely a thread that threatened to unravel something much bigger, something Pegasus Motors couldn’t afford to have revealed. Whatever the case, Michael Angel was guilty of something. It fell to Manuel to find out what.
Manuel pushed himself up out of the chair with a visible sign of effort. “Well, Mr. Angel, I’m glad you found me in time to set me straight. I could have made a fool of myself otherwise. You know how passionate and unreasonable us Mexicans can get.” He took the two steps to the desk and held out his hand for a thank you shake as a sign of good will. If he played intimidated and lame, only part of which was true, they might not see him as a threat. How much damage could a crippled detective out of his element do in a town that Michael Angel clearly felt he owned?
Michael seemed to come to the conclusions that Manuel had wanted him too. He stood, and with an “aw, shucks” grin, took the detective’s hand and shook it firmly.
The vision knocked the feet out from under Manuel.
Those hands, those old, manicured hands. Manuel felt them on his own and suddenly his hand was a neck, soft and frail. The fingers dug in, molding the flesh and muscle like wet clay. His breath raged like a fire in his lungs, and still it would not end. Before him, Michael Angel seemed to strobe through a variety of outfits, some suits, some pajamas. And the background shifted just as quickly, from desert to mountain to rice papered walls.
Michael Angel had killed before. He had killed often. And more to the point, he had killed dispassionately, which made him dangerous. But the most disturbing thing was that Manuel was confident that Michael hadn’t killed Muriel. There were no ligature marks on the dead girl’s neck. She hadn’t been strangled. And Manuel might not be a criminal profiler, but one thing he was certain of was that serial killers, of which he felt Michael Angel qualified, rarely if ever broke pattern. No strangulation, no fit.
There was more than one murderer in Buena Rosa.
The room swam back into view, and Manuel found himself looking at the ceiling, with Mr. Contralles looking down on him curiously. It was rare that a vision hit him with such strength, enough to make him totally lose his composure, and he had no quick excuse to offer his hosts. Pulling himself up by the desk, enough that he could get his forearm crutches under him, required a little effort. He was not surprised that neither Dex nor Michael had helped him up. “Sorry about that. Got strangely light headed all of a sudden. I probably shouldn’t have walked up all those stairs on an empty stomach.”
The two Pegasus executives shared a look as Manuel got his feet back under him, and he wasn’t sure what that look said. But it made Manuel more than a bit nervous. He turned towards the door, sensing that the interview was over, and began making his way out towards the elevators. Mr. Contralles caught up quickly, then moved ahead to open the doors, a cold efficiency in his manner and voice. “I’ll take you back to town.”
“Great. It would be a long walk otherwise. But we take the elevator down.”
The heavy carved door of the office closed behind them. Manuel suspected that he would be walking through them again before his business in Buena Rosa was done.
Once on the elevator, Dexter Contralles took a strategic position near the control panel, and Manuel was suddenly pretty sure he understood the look that had passed between Michael Angel and his Director of Personnel. When Dexter reached for the 9mm pistol at the small of his back, Manuel was certain of it. They were going to kill him.