The World's Finest Mystery Part 93

"Ruben?"

"Accept."

"Reynaldo?"

"Accept."

"Five to two to accept." Monte said. "I also vote to accept, so it is six to two." Again he held out his hand to Tony. "Welcome to Mara Salva."

From the drive-in, they all went in the three cars back to East Los Angeles to a storefront location with a sign above the door which read: EL SALVADOR RELIEF a.s.sOCIATION.

"We have this as a legal, registered humanitarian organization," Monte explained as he led them all inside. The front room was an office set up with desks, computers, printers, and other equipment to function as a legitimate operation. "Here we print and distribute material to raise money for needy people back home. We raise very little money, of course, but what we do raise is distributed by the churches in poor areas. Our main work, as you have probably guessed, is altogether different."

The group followed Monte to a separate room in the rear, which was furnished with a large meeting table, and its walls covered with area maps of California from the northern limits of Los Angeles county south to the southern city limits of San Diego, and east to the Arizona state line. Other maps, on the opposite side of the room, showed the southwestern United States border areas of California and Arizona, next to maps of Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

"Our business," Monte said simply, "is the exportation of stolen automobiles, which we sell to the twenty percent of the population of El Salvador that can afford to buy them. We then use the proceeds to buy weapons and munitions to stockpile for the next revolution. This is the way it works-"

Using the various maps, Monte explained how subordinate members of Mara Salva were trained to steal medium-size sedans from shopping malls and theater parking lots all over southern California. Luxury automobiles were never taken, no Lincolns or Cadillacs, no fancy sports cars, just moderately valued midline Buicks, Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs, Chryslers, and other dependable makes. Four Mara Salva members would go out in two teams in separate cars. When a suitable vehicle was seen being parked, its make, model, and color would be noted by one of the teams, which would immediately leave and begin to search other lots for a similar make and model. When they found one, they would steal its license plates. Then they would search until they found a third similar car, steal its plates, and replace them with the first set of stolen plates.

"It is tedious, but very confusing to the police," Monte said. The first set of plates is reported stolen, but many times the owner of the second set of stolen plates does not even notice that he now has different plates on his car. So for a period of time, we have a safe set of plates for a matching stolen car- because by then the other team has stolen the original car that was decided on earlier. The theft of the car is easy: one member of the team follows the driver into the mall or wherever, with a cell phone with a line already open to his partner. The partner jacks open the car door, rams the ignition, starts the car, notifies his partner inside, and picks him up at a different entrance while the real owner of the car is still inside.

"And we have rules," Monte emphasized. "We take no cars from older people or women with children. Mostly we look for guys alone, or two younger women shopping together."

The safe plates were put on the stolen car, and it was immediately driven out of California into Mexico the same day.

"There are many places to cross," said Reynaldo. "Tijuana and Mexicali, of course, are the busiest ports of entry from California. Then there are Nogales and Agua Prieta in Arizona. But in addition to those main crossings, there are many smaller ones: little towns like San Luis Rio, Sonoyta, Escabe, Naco. And they all connect to Mexico Route 2, which connects to the Mexican national north-south toll road, Route 15."

"There is never a problem crossing the border," Armando took up the narrative. "U.S. Border patrol guards have no interest in what leaves the U.S., only what comes in. And Mexican border guards let all vehicles in without question."

"Less than two hundred miles south into Mexico," said Monte, "is the city of Hermosillo. It's a nice little city, surrounded by many cotton farms. In this city is a man who has mastered the art of producing counterfeit vehicle identification number plates that are fastened to the top of the dashboard to allow law enforcement officers to immediately identify the automobile's origin and registration. When our people steal the second set of license plates, they also write down the VIN from that car. In Hermosillo, we stop and get a VIN plate with a number that corresponds with the license plate. Then, a hundred and fifty miles farther south, in the town of Los Mochis, is a very talented printer who has duplicate blanks of California certificates of t.i.tle identical to those issued by the department of motor vehicle. In less than an hour, the driver of our car has a certificate of ownership, with no lien, on a car that now has license plates that match the VIN number."

"In short," said Tony, "it is now a car that can be sold."

"Exactly," said Monte. "It is two thousand miles down the length of Mexico to Guatemala, and two hundred more across Guatemala to El Salvador. There we sell the car to a used car dealer. There is no problem finding a buyer; about eighty percent of the late-model cars being driven in El Salvador were stolen in the U.S."

"And the money from the sale?" asked Tony.

"A percentage is brought back here to run the organization. The rest is used to buy automatic weapons and munitions in Honduras, smuggle them back into El Salvador, and stockpile them in various places throughout the country."

Tony paced the length of the room, then turned to face the group. "Do you honestly think that by stealing cars and buying weapons that you can overthrow a government? That you can take over a country?"

They all exchanged looks and Monte shrugged. "Why not? It is a very small country: only one hundred sixty miles long and ninety miles wide. Right now the military has about twenty-three thousand soldiers. By the year 2000, there will be six million people in the country- and nearly five million of them will be living at the very edge of poverty." He smiled a cold smile. "If we can arm fifty thousand peasants, senor, believe me, we can take the country."

"But how will you reach that many people? You are so few."

"When Fidel Castro started, there were only three: himself, his brother Raul, and the woman, Celia Sanchez. We, like they, are only the nucleus, Antonio. Besides the people in this room, we have more than fifty other members in southern California. And we have members in all fourteen districts of El Salvador, and their number is increasing all the time. We know that the church will stand behind us, the students will join us, and the unions will support us once we are in power. This is not a daydream, amigo; this is an obtainable goal- and we are dedicating our lives to it." Monte walked over and stood before Tony. "Now that you know everything about us, I must ask you two questions. Can you help us? And will you help us?"

Tony's eyes swept the room. Everyone was looking at him, the six men, the two women: their collective gaze was fixed on him like an unseen laser, their presence as a group seeming to charge the little meeting room with energy and intensity. He looked at Tela, at her stark eyes, behind which he knew lay a fierceness and a strength unlike he had ever seen in a woman. If anyone in that room could kill him without a second thought, it was Tela. She who still did not trust him- no matter that she had surrendered her lissome body to him.

Tony knew that he had to speak, that he had to commit, or he would not leave the room alive.

"Yes," he said simply to Monte, to them all, "I can help you." His eyes shifted to Tela. "And I will."

Tela's eyes told him that his words only strengthened her distrust.

Immediately following the group meeting, Monte and Tony had a private conversation in a small office Monte had in the rear of the big room, an office that until recently had belonged to Frank Barillas. The new leader of Mara Salva and its newest member talked for nearly an hour, and then Tony came out and asked Tela to come with him back to her apartment so that he could pick up his suitcase.

In the car, Tela asked, "You are leaving?"

"Yes."

"Where are you going?"

"Monte will tell you," Tony said. "He is meeting with all of you this afternoon and then he and I will be leaving together tonight. We will be gone for about two weeks."

"And you won't tell me where?"

He shook his head. "It is up to Monte to tell you and the others what he wants you to know."

In the pa.s.senger seat. Tela stared straight ahead, wary and suspicious. "I don't like this."

"There don't appear to be too many things that you do like," Tony replied quietly, without malice.

"Just what does that mean?" she demanded.

"It means that you seem to be mistrustful and skeptical of everything most of the time. You never seem to be happy."

"You say that to me after last night? And this morning?"

"That was not happiness, Tela. That was pa.s.sion. Even after this morning, you voted against me. And you have been unhappy all day."

"I am the way I am," she declared doggedly.

They said nothing more to each other for the rest of the drive.

At her apartment, Tela watched silently as Tony gathered his previous day's clothes and put things back in his shave kit. He opened his suitcase on the bed in her tiny bedroom. For the first time, he noticed a small, framed photograph of a girl about twelve, with a slight, pleasant smile.

"You were a pretty child," he said. "Not so unhappy then, I guess."

"That is not me," she told him. "That was my little sister, Felia."

Tony felt a tightening in his stomach. He stopped packing. "Was?"

Tela looked away. "She is dead. At least, I a.s.sume as much. One night the Sombra Negra came to our home looking for my father. He was up in the mountains with the Farabundo guerillas. So one of them said take his wife instead, and tell him he can come claim her at our headquarters. But another one said no, take one of the daughters, it will make him surrender faster. Then the leader said- I remember his words exactly- 'Take the younger one. That will make him respond very quickly, because he knows how much we like these very young ones'. So they took her."

Tela's eyes had moistened and a single tear streaked her cheek and spread out over the pockmark. Tony put an arm around her and sat with her on the bed as she finished her story.

"My mother and I went at once to the guerilla contact in our village to get word to my father. Two days later, he came down and surrendered. My mother left me with a neighbor and went to the headquarters to see him. The Sombra accused my mother of trying to smuggle a gun in to him. They shot them both."

"And your sister?"

"She was never seen or heard from again. The Sombra were notorious for taking very young girls. Some of the stories that came out later about what they did to them were- were- Tela broke into sobs and Tony held her tightly with both arms as her thin body wracked and shuddered against him for long minutes until she had cried as much grief and anguish out of herself as she could at that moment. Then she slowly came out of the convulsion, catching her breath, swallowing hard, and mopping her eyes with Kleenex. Pulling slightly away from him, she said, "I'm sorry. I got your shirt all wrinkled."

"It's nothing." He pushed her hair back off her forehead, and touched her cheeks and patted her arms. "How did you get out of Salvador?"

"The neighbors took me to the guerillas and they took me across the Guatemala border to a refugee camp. Some nuns that had been working there were going back to the states. They took me with them. Immigration held me in Los Angeles for a few days while the church applied for me to be given asylum. Then the church sent me to live with a Salvadoran couple who took in refugee children. Francisco lived next door. After school, I would go to the mailbox for him. I stayed there until I was old enough to work. I was a counter girl at Taco Bell for a while, then Francisco recruited me for Mara Salva."

Tony gave her a final hug and rose. "I understand now why you aren't more trusting. I'm sorry for what I said earlier." He finished packing his suitcase and closed it. She followed him as he walked to the living room door with it.

"Tony, please, I want you to tell me where you are taking Monte."

"I am taking him on a business trip. It has to do with improving the efficiency and profitability of the Mara Salva operation. There is nothing for you to worry about."

"I can't help worrying," she a.s.serted. "With Francisco dead, Monte is the only one qualified to lead Mara Salva. If you are an agent and-"

"Please, Tela, don't start with that again," he said impatiently.

"But you could be an agent," she said, wringing her hands, "and if Monte never came back, it would ruin us-"

Tony kissed her lightly on the lips. "Don't worry about Monte; he'll be all right. I promise you. I have to go now. I'll see you soon."

It was only after Tony was gone that Tela realized that the only a.s.surance he had given her was that Monte would be all right. He had not once said that he wasn't an agent. As a matter of fact, it suddenly dawned on her, he had never said he wasn't an agent.

Tony stayed gone for ten days. Then one morning just after three o'clock he showed up back at Tela's apartment, suitcase in hand, clothes wrinkled, needing a shave, looking very, very tired.

"Where is Monte?" Tela demanded first thing as she let him in.

"I missed you too, Tela mia," he said wryly.

"Tony, where is he? Tell me!"

"Lower your voice. He's in San Salvador."

Tela turned as pale as a Latina can turn. San Salvador was the capital of El Salvador, stronghold of the wealthy landowners, the military, and the presidente.

"Why?" she asked urgently. "Why is he there?"

"Because that is where he is needed most at the moment."

"You promised he would come back!"

"I promised he would be all right," Tony pointed out. He went into the bedroom, set his suitcase in a corner, and began undressing. "I'm worn out, Tela," he said. "I need a hot shower and a few hours sleep. I want you to contact all the captains and arrange a meeting for ten o'clock this morning. I will explain everything then."

"You have no authority to call a meeting," she bristled. "Only Monte can call a meeting."

"I speak for Monte," he said, handing her a folded sheet of paper. It read: 'To all captains- Obey Antonio Marcala's instructions as you would my own.' It was signed, 'Monte Copan.'

The note only made Tela seethe. "Why should I believe this? It could be a forgery, just like the letter from Francisco!"

"Tela, Tela, Tela," he said tolerantly, "what am I to do with you? It is said that we all have a cross to bear; you must be mine." He looked at her as she paced agitatedly around in bikini panties and a tank top in which she had been sleeping. "I could become very upset with you if you weren't so cute in your underwear."

As she glared irately at him, Tony finished undressing, stepped into the shower, and turned on the water. Tela watched him stand with his head bent under the spray, arms braced against the wall, his usually groomed face haggard, the muscular, toned body she remembered from their lovemaking now lax with fatigue. He's thrashed, she thought, really whipped. Quickly she stripped her bed and from a dresser drawer took fresh sheets and spread them in place, turning them back neatly, invitingly. She put fresh cases on the pillows and fluffed one up for him. She lighted a fat, scented candle on the nightstand and turned out all the lights in the apartment. And she turned on her little bedside radio and tuned it to the softest music she could find. Then she sat cross legged on the bed and waited for him.

When Tony came out of the bathroom, still drying himself with one of her multicolored towels, he saw what she had prepared for him and smiled a tired but pleased smile.

"Maybe," he said, "you are not my cross to bear, after all. Maybe you are an angel sent to care for me. What do you think?"

"I don't know what I am with you," she said unguardedly. "The only thing I am sure of with you is that I am very confused."

Tony dried his hair a little, tossed the towel back into the bathroom, and stretched out on his stomach on the bed. "I am so tired, Tela- so very tired-"

Immediately he was asleep, soundly, deeply. Tela looked over at the suitcase he had set in the corner. She should probably search it, she thought, for some clue to what was going on, to who he really was, what he really was. But she decided not to. For tonight she did not want to know anything except that he was there and that he needed her.

Tela pulled a sheet up to his shoulders, slipped under it, and blew out the candle. She lay up against him very closely so that if he awoke he would know she was there.

Tela arranged the meeting with the captains as Tony had asked her to do, and at ten o'clock they were all gathered in the back room of the El Salvador Relief a.s.sociation offices. Tony's letter of authority from Monte was pa.s.sed around for all of them to read.

"There's something very odd about this," Perico said bluntly. "I don't like this one little bit, Amelia." He asked Monte's wife, "Is this truly Monte's handwriting?"

Amelia glanced at Tela, then Tony, and shrugged nervously. "It looks like Monte's writing."

"I think we have to accept it as such," said Benito, "unless we can prove that it is not."

"I agree," Reynaldo said. "How do you feel about it, Tela?"

Tela shook her head. "I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm not sure of anything."

Tony stood up at the head of the table. "Let me tell you what Monte and I have been doing for the past ten days. Perhaps that will do away with some of your worry. There is a term in business called 'reengineering.' It means to reorganize and restructure a business operation so that it functions more efficiently and more effectively, and ultimately more profitably. That is what Monte and I have started doing for Mara Salva."

Tony walked along one wall where there were various maps. "From now on," he said, "we will discontinue concentrating our automobile procurement exclusively in southern California. That is far too risky and at some point will create an obvious pattern that both local and federal law enforcement will begin to track. Instead, we will expand our operation into the metro areas of Phoenix, Albuquerque, and El Paso. Armando, you will be in charge of California and Arizona; Benito, you will have New Mexico and Texas.

"We have purchased small auto body repair and painting shops in each of the three cities I mentioned, as well as in San Diego. There will be no more license plate switching from cars of the same make, model, and color; the risk of getting caught at that is too high- and, again, it begins to create a pattern. Instead, we will simply bring the cars that we select to the nearest shop that we own, and they will be painted the same day. We will have a list of colors of cars that are not to be taken; these are the colors we will then paint them.

"As soon as the cars are dry, they will be driven immediately to Tucson, Arizona. In transit, they will still carry the original plates they had on them. Highway patrols do not check plate numbers unless the color of the car matches the color reported stolen. Ours will no longer match.

"Once in Tucson, the cars will be taken to a newly formed company called Ari-Mex Auto Exporting Company. This is a legitimate firm owned by a parent company called Salvadoran-American. Incorporated, a Delaware corporation formed through the mail last week. Ruben, you will run Ari-Mex. The firm will legitimately purchase automobiles for export to Mexico; the cars that we acquire other than by purchase will be merged with the legitimate purchases. Two auto transport trucks, each with a capacity of eight cars, have been purchased for this exporting. Monte will select eight Mara Salva members to be sent to long-haul highway truck drivers school to learn to operate these trucks.

"From Tucson, the cars will be transported into Mexico at the Nogales port of entry. We will have legitimate certificates of t.i.tle for the purchased vehicles: counterfeit COTs for the others will have come up by courier from the printer in Hermosillo, whose business is now called Salvo Printing, and is a subsidiary of Salvadoran-American, Inc., and he is a member of our board of directors- as, incidentally, all of you will also in time become.

"After entering Mexico at Nogales, the auto transport trucks, which will leave on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sat.u.r.days of each week, will drive one thousand miles south along the Mexican limited-access toll highway, Route 15, to the Pacific seaport of Mazatlan. There they will be loaded onto freighters belonging to the Lago Shipping Company, in which SA. Inc., now owns a sixty percent share. Reynaldo, you will become general manager of Lago Shipping's office and berths in Mazatlan.

"From Mazatlan, the vehicles will go by sea approximately fourteen hundred nautical miles south to the Salvadoran port of Puerto Cutuco. There, they will be off-loaded and driven individually to either Santa Ana in the north, San Miguel in the south, or the suburbs of the capital, Nueva San Salvador. Reynaldo, you will have an a.s.sistant who will be in charge of Lago Shipping's new offices and berths in Puerto Cutuco.