"Or perhaps you are waiting for someone?"
I looked up sharply.
"I am waiting for no one," I said. "I've told you I'm waiting only to see that my friend is freed from the frame-up."
He sat down and smiled again. "Well, if you are anxious to leave," he said, "I think perhaps a little trip to Acapulco would be good for your health. Would you like to go to Acapulco?"
"I would like to see Angel Cortillo out of jail," I repeated. "Just how long do you intend to hold him?"
"Well, let us say you go to Acapulco and you meet a certain person and make a certain deal with him and things work out the way I hope they will, then perhaps we can resolve the case involving your friend Cortillo."
"And how long does this charade go on?" I asked.
He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, it is not our custom to hold people in jail indefinitely. Let us say you do this little service for us in Acapulco and then you return here. We will keep your room for you. Once you have returned you will be free to retire from the business you have recently chosen to be in."
"And Angel Cortillo?"
"Cortillo will be released from prison, the case involving the murder of your girl will be reopened, and the killer apprehended, charged and convicted."
He said it with utter sincerity, and I looked at him incredulously. His hypocrisy was almost beyond belief. I wondered whom he would select for his next frame-up victim.
"Will that be satisfactory?" he asked.
"If you keep your word," I said.
He looked surly for a moment. "I keep my word. Now I will give you the details of what you are to do. And let me say that if all goes well in Acapulco, our relationship can come to a final end."
It will come to an end when I put a bullet between your eyes, I said to myself.
"I am sure that will be satisfactory," I said aloud. "And now, what about Acapulco?"
"Yes, about Acapulco. There is a man there I want you to see, a man named Dr. Constantine. Sandor Constantine. Dr. Constantine is, in a sense, a competitor of mine."
"A competitor? What sort of a competitor?" I asked.
"Perhaps I should explain," Captain Morales said. "You've been away from North America for some time, and it's possible you are not completely aware of the current situation. Importing drugs into the United States, and by drugs I am not referring to marijuana, has become an extremely lucrative business. It has also become a highly competitive business. A business involving a supplier and a marketplace. Suppliers, unfortunately, are plentiful. Good, reliable markets, however, are sometimes difficult to find. Once found, they are highly treasured. Now, this Dr. Constantine is a supplier, and a very large supplier, which means that he has a very reliable and steady market for his product. I am anxious to learn exactly what that market is."
"And just how do I fit in with your efforts to seek this knowledge?"
Captain Morales gave me his silky and somewhat wolfish smile.
"Let us say, Senor Johns, that if you were to make a deal with this Dr. Constantine to act as his mule and smuggle his product across the border, you might be in a position to find out who is receiving it at the other end of the line."
"And just what makes you think that this Dr. Constantine would be interested in hiring me in that capacity? He probably has enough runners as it is."
Captain Morales shook his head. "I can see that you are not up to the minute as to what goes on. Mules, reliable mules with intelligence, are difficult to come by."
"Are you telling me, captain, that you think this Dr. Constantine, whom you say is a competitor, would be interested in your recommendation of me as a mule in his services?"
"Certainly not. As a matter of fact, my recommendation would probably get you killed."
"Great," I said. "So is that why you want me to see him?"
The captain was not amused.
"I want you to see him because I think he will give you a job. I told you, mules are hard to find."
"And he'd give me a job just like that."
"Not just like that. You see, whereas I cannot recommend you, you will come well recommended."
"And just how would I go about that?"
"I happen to know that when you took the marijuana across the border you went to San Francisco and you sold it to a man named O'Farrell. You see, I make it my business to know this sort of thing. Now, at one time or another, I have had certain dealings with our mutual friend in San Francisco. I also know that O'Farrell handles other things, as well as marijuana. He handles hard narcotics.
"You have had dealings with O'Farrell, and he knows that you are reliable and that you will deliver what you tell him you will deliver, when you say you will deliver it. If you mention O'Farrell's name to Dr. Constantine, I am sure that O'Farrell would recommend you, and you may rest assured that Dr. Constantine knows who O'Farrell is. It is more than possible that he is one of O'Farrell's suppliers."
"O'Farrell also happens to know of my contact with you, Captain Morales," I said.
"Your contact with me, Senor Johns, merely involved my recommending a source of supply. To all intents and purposes it ended there. You were not working for me, and we had no business relationship."
"All right," I said. "You want me to look up this Dr. Constantine, to use O'Farrell as a reference. And how exactly am I to explain that I know who Dr. Constantine is and what he does?"
"As I say, you have been out of the country for a long time. Dr. Constantine is a man of mystery, but the mystery is limited. There is no mystery about what he does. Anyone in drug traffic is aware of his name and of his significance. You would have heard of him sooner or later. He is a legend in the underworld of several continents, and there's hardly a newspaper man in the country who doesn't know about him. If you were anxious to get into the business it would only be natural that you would look him up. And, as I say, with O'Farrell's recommendation you will probably have no difficulty in making a deal."
"All right, captain, assume you are right. I go to Acapulco and I meet this Dr. Constantine and I make a deal with him. He hires me. And then what?"
"You make one trip across the border. I want to know two things. I want to know where you make your delivery and to whom you make your delivery."
"But not when?" I asked skeptically.
Again he gave me that thin smile. He was way ahead of me.
"Are you thinking I merely plan to hijack the stuff once you've taken it across the border?" he asked. "Hardly. To begin with, on your first trip, I seriously doubt if he will trust you with anything of great value. He will try you out first with a small parcel. No, I'm not interested in stealing a relatively insignificant amount of narcotics. I'm interested in discovering his market. I want to find out to whom he is selling. As I told you, there are many suppliers, but only a very few really large buyers. He deals with the largest."
I thought it over for a few moments and then I shook my head.
"I don't like it," I said. "I told you in the beginning I was not interested in becoming involved in hard drugs."
"You are involved," Captain Morales said. "But aside from that, you are interested in something else. You're interested in seeing that your friend Angel Cortillo is not convicted on a murder charge. And let me assure you, he can be and he will be."
"Unless I am willing to play along with you?"
"Unless you are willing to play along."
Captain Morales stood up. "I want your decision, Senor Johns, and I want it right now. We might just as well settle this one way or the other. Time is running out. And so is my patience. I will remind you that I am an officer of the law and I have my duties to perform. And believe me, I am prepared to perform them."
"You are prepared to see an innocent man convicted," I said, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice.
"If you care to put it that way."
"All right, captain," I said. "You give me no option. Let us talk a little more about Mr. Constantine."
Captain Morales resumed his seat.
When he was again ready to leave, I spoke as he got to the door. I said, "It would seem to me that with your organization you'd have no difficulty…"
He shook his head. "We need you because you are a very clever man, Senor Johns. A clever man and a cautious man. And we can trust you. We can trust you completely. We know that you have a great deal at stake here. And we can't afford to take chances on anybody that we do not trust completely."
"I wish I could trust you as completely, captain," I said.
Again his face flushed and he frowned. "It is not necessary that you trust me," he said. "Just do as you are instructed."
Before he left he again took out the five hundred dollars from his wallet and tossed it on the table.
And then he was gone.
***
An hour and a half later, I was one of five passengers on a twin-engine, charter plane winging across the gulf of California and heading south on the first lap of the 1,400 mile air trip to Mexico City. Two of my fellow passengers got off at Durango where we made a stop to take on additional fuel, and there was an hour and a half delay before we were again airborne.
The unexpected delay caused me to miss my connections at the airport outside of Mexico City, and I was forced to hold over for four hours until the next flight took off.
I'd managed to pick up a few hours sleep on the trip south and was feeling fairly rested. The bar at the airport was closed, but a coffee shop was open, and I stopped at a newsstand before going in and ordering some ham and eggs and coffee. I had found a three-day-old Los Angeles newspaper and I looked it over as I waited for the food to arrive. Most of the news was stale, and I probably would have missed the item altogether had I not been killing time.
It was a small story lost in the second news section, and I probably wouldn't have bothered to go beyond the headline had I been able to find anything else beside the newspaper to read. The headline read: BANDIT KILLED DURING HOLDUP OF AGED COUPLE. The story was datelined San Luis Obispo.
***
One man was shot and killed and two others made their escape just before noon yesterday on Route 5 near the intersection of Wheeler's Ridge, when the three attempted to hijack an elderly couple and were interrupted by two FBI agents who were in a passing car.
Dr. Philip Hutchinson, 73 years old, a retired college professor, and his wife Bertha, 69, were on their way from Los Angeles to San Francisco yesterday morning when their Buick station wagon was forced off the road by three men in a pickup truck.
The driver of the pickup truck, carrying a sawed-off shotgun, and his two companions ordered Dr. Hutchinson and his wife out of the car. Dr. Hutchinson stepped to the ground and was explaining that his wife, an invalid, was unable to walk, when an automobile carrying two FBI agents, Gordon Martinson and James O'Connell, of the Los Angeles office came upon the scene.
Seeing the guns in the hands of the three men, O'Connell, who was driving, jammed on his brakes and pulled over behind the station wagon, which had been forced into a ditch at the side of the road. As he did, the bandit with the sawed-off shotgun fired several rounds, the shots penetrating the radiator and windshield of the car being driven by the FBI agents. Martinson leaped to the ground and returned the fire, killing the bandit with the shotgun.
Both Martinson and O'Connell took shelter behind their car as the other two bandits opened fire. Miraculously, in the exchange neither Dr. Hutchinson nor his wife were struck. O'Connell's gun was shot out of his hand, injuring him slightly, and the two bandits were able to make their escape in the pickup truck.
A certain element of mystery surrounds the incident, as Dr. Hutchinson's car has been impounded by the FBI. Both Dr. Hutchinson and his wife were taken to a local hospital, suffering from shock.
FBI officials questioned by a reporter from this newspaper refused to say how they happened to be at the scene at the time, and further mystery has been added as a result of Dr.
Hutchinson and his wife having been placed under guard at the hospital. All attempts to communicate with them have been without success, and the FBI office merely says that a statement will be released later on.
The identity of the dead man is not known at this time. Dr. Hutchinson and his wife had been touring in Mexico and were on their way to San Francisco to visit a daughter and grandchildren at the time of the attack.
***
I didn't eat the ham and eggs after all. I had suddenly lost my appetite. I realized what a close call they'd had, and I knew that had anything happened to them, I would have held myself responsible.
I had known, of course, that an effort would be made to retrieve the package I had secreted in their car, but it never occurred to me that the method would be so crude and violent.
I was tempted at that moment to give up the whole thing. What had started out only those few short weeks ago as my plan to make a little fast money bringing marijuana into the States, had already resulted in the death of one girl, the beating of Angel Cortillo and his framed-up murder charge. And now this-
I was beginning to wonder who the next victim would be.