Blood Test

“For the enterprise to be successful you’ll need a place close to the Mexican border and a good cover. Your new partners suggest one of the small agricultural towns south of San Diego. La Vista. They know of an old monastery for sale just outside the town limits. Secluded and quiet. They’ve been considering it for a while but need a way of keeping the locals from prying. You look at a map and something flashes. The bullet didn’t destroy the old memory. Back into the files. How am I doing so far?”

“Keep talking.” His palm was wet and green from compressing the torn grass into a ball.

“You do a little research and find out that Emma Swope never did get another lawyer. Her visit to you had been a single burst of initiative in an otherwise timid existence. She reverted to type, swallowed the secret and lived with it. Gave birth to a beautiful little red-headed daughter who’s now grown up into a wild young teenager. Lover Boy’s still around, too, busy enforcing the law. But he’s no longer a deputy. He’s the head honcho. The man everyone looks up to. So powerful he sets the emotional tone of the town. With him in your pocket you’ll have a free ride.”

All traces of serenity had passed from the long bearded face. He touched his beard and stained it green, tasted grass and spat.

“Sleazy little people with their stinking little intrigues,” he snarled. “Laboring under the delusion that there’s some meaning to their lives.”

“You sent him a copy of the file, invited him to Beverly Hills for a chat, half-expecting him to ignore you or tell you to go to hell. What’s the worst that would have happened? A minor scandal? Early pension? But he was there the next day, wasn’t he?”

Matthias laughed out loud. It wasn’t a pleasant sound.

“Bright and early,” he said, nodding, “in that ridiculous cowboy costume. Trying to look macho but quaking in his boots — the fool.”

He reveled cruelly in the memory.

“You knew, right away,” I continued, “that you’d touched on something vital. Of course, it wasn’t until the following summer, when the girl worked for you, that you figured it out, but you didn’t have to understand the fear to capitalize on it.”

“He was a yokel,” said Matthias. “A sucker for a bluff.”

“That summer,” I said, “must have been an interesting one. Your brand-new social structure threatened by a sixteen-year-old girl.”

“She was a little nympho,” he said contemptuously. “Had a thing for older men. Went after them like a vacuum cleaner. I heard rumors from the time she got here. One day I discovered her blowing a sixty year old in the pantry. Pulled her off and called Houten. The way they looked at each other tipped me off as to why the file had turned him to jelly. He’d been screwing his own daughter without knowing it. I knew then that his balls were in my pocket. Forever. From that point on I pressed him into service.”

“Must have come in handy.”

“Exceedingly,” he grinned. “Before elections, when the Border Patrol came down hard, he’d go into Mexico and pick up the cargo for us. Nothing like a personal police escort.”

“It’s a hell of nice setup,” I said. “Well worth preserving. If I were you I’d view the hundred and fifty as a bargain.”

He shifted his weight. I took the opportunity to recross my legs. One foot had fallen asleep and I shook it gently to restore circulation.

“All I’ve heard up to this point is pure supposition,” he said coolly. “Nothing worth trading for.”

“There’s more. Let’s talk about Dr. August Valcroix. A refugee from the sixties and a devotee of situational ethics. I’m not sure how the two of you got together but he’d probably been dealing up in Canada and knew some of your partners. He became one of your salesmen, handling the hospital trade. What better cover for it than a bona fide M.D.?

“The way I see it, he could have gotten hold of the stuff in two ways. Sometimes he came down here to collect, under the guise of attending a seminar. When that was inconvenient, you sent it up to him. Which is what Graffius and Delilah were doing in L.A. the day they visited the Swopes. A courtesy call after a dope transfer. They had nothing to do with the Swopes’ reluctance to treat Woody or the abduction, despite Melendez-Lynch’s suspicions.

“Valcroix wasn’t much of a human being but he knew how to listen to patients and get them to open up. He used that talent to seduce and — sometimes — to heal. He developed a good rapport with Emma Swope — he’s the only one who described her as other than a nonentity, as being strong. Because he knew something about her no one else did.

“The diagnosis of cancer in a child can throw a family off-kilter, disrupt old patterns of behavior. I’ve seen it happen plenty of times. For the Swopes, the stress was crushing; it turned Garland into a pompous jester and caused Emma to sit and brood about the past. No doubt Valcroix caught her at a particularly vulnerable moment. She got in touch with her guilt and spilled out her confession because he seemed like such a compassionate fellow.