Mortal Prey

a man who might have been a year or two older, but was obviously his brother. Raul Mejia looked at his sons and said, “Asombrado?”
    “Astonished. Amazed,” Anthony said. His English was as good as his brother’s. They sounded Californian.
    “More than surprised,” Mejia said. He sighed. “I wish she had the baby. This is the real assassination. A baby from my son and a woman like this. This would be a baby.”
    Malone jumped in: “As we understand it, you have had enemies in business, but can find no sign that these enemies made the attack on your son and Rinker. With the St. Louis connection, it seems now that the attack was aimed at Rinker and your son was killed accidentally. Does this change your…your… feeling toward Rinker?”
    The old man shrugged. “Of course. But. I can also understand this attachment. Paulo was a good boy, but wild. Crazy, sometimes. This woman, Clara Rinker, there must have been a fire between them. She must also have this craziness somewhere inside. I could feel it myself when I spoke to her. So. I am angry that she did not tell us, but I understand why she did not. Now…what is to be done?”
    “You could help us catch her,” Mallard said. “You have commercial connections everywhere in Mexico. She needs money and shelter, and she will go places that the police may not see.”
    “We would also like to know from you…this man who was murdered at the airfield—what is his connection with these criminals in St. Louis? He is a Mafia?”
    “He has connections with St. Louis organized crime,” Mallard said.
    “You think some Italians from St. Louis came to Cancún and shot my boy,” Mejia said. “By mistake.”
    “Not so many Italians anymore, but that’s basically what we think, yes,” Mallard agreed.
    “You will tell us their names?”
    Now Mallard showed a little nervousness. “We can’t do that. But as the investigation progresses, I’m sure you will…learn a few of them. We wouldn’t want you to take, ummm, any active role in the, ummm, investigation.”
    “But, perhaps, through my family commercial connections—I have connections with hotels, motels, friends in the States…perhaps I could find information for you. If I had the names.”
    “We really can’t bring in civilians.”
    “He’s afraid you would send gunmen to St. Louis to kill the names,” Lucas said to Mejia. “He might not mind if they did that, if it would help catch Rinker. But he couldn’t tell you the names, because that might turn out to be technically criminal and he would be purged.”
    “That’s not exactly accurate,” Mallard said irritably.
    “Besides, you don’t need him to tell you,” Lucas said, still talking to Mejia. “Watch your computer. The FBI leaks like crazy and the names will appear. If Rinker starts shooting, there will be lists in the newspapers. In your search engine, put in ‘organized crime,’ ‘St. Louis,’ and the word ‘shot.’”
    “Goddamnit, Lucas,” Mallard said.
    Mejia looked at Lucas for a long five seconds, then turned to Mallard. “So, then, from me, you need clues to Clara Rinker.”
    Mallard nodded. “Yes.”
    Mejia nodded back. “We will look. If you will give us a telephone number, we will call when we find anything.”
    Mallard took a card from his pocket, scribbled a number on it, and handed it over. Mejia glanced at it and held it out to Anthony, who, like his brother, was leaning against the library table. “That’s my secure cell phone,” Mallard said. “I sleep with it. You can call me twenty-four hours a day.”
    “You’re not married,” Mejia said.
    “Not anymore,” Mallard said. “The job was more interesting.”
     
    THEY TALKED FOR another ten minutes, but not much came of it. Mejia and his sons gave them impressions of Rinker. She was a happy woman, they said, and had made Paulo happy. Although she said she was younger than Paulo, they thought she might have been a couple of years older. Would they have married? Perhaps.
    Mejia seemed to lack any real information about the crime, which wasn’t surprising, since the FBI and the Mexican National Police had the same problem. As they left, Lucas and Mejia talked a few minutes about library shelves, and how to prevent unsightly sagging, and the arrangement of books, which the old man called an enjoyable but impossible task. On the way out of Mérida, Malone said, “Nice old man. For a ganglord.”
    Martin’s eyes flashed up to the rearview mirror to