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Dos Equis
"Mr. Ford," the voice at the other end of the phone said. It was soft, vaguely sibilant; there was something about the pronunciation that nagged at Ford. "I'm calling to give you a bit of advice," the voice continued.
"Advice?" Ford asked. "About what?"
"Your upcoming trip."
"I'm ... uh ... I'm not going anywhere."
"You will," the caller said. "And you'll need allies. I suggest you listen."
"Ok," Ford said, irritated. "So where am I going? And who the hell is this?"
"It's enough that you know me as The Druid."
"The Druid, huh?"
"That's right."
"Listen you crackpot," Ford replied, firmly. "You do know that by calling directly into the station switchboard your call has been traced, right?"
"I do, Mr. Ford," The Druid said. "And you'll find that it's not so easy to trace an unregistered cell phone; and it's doubly so when the call originates from another country."
"You're trying my patience. How do you know me?"
"Let's just say you have a guardian angel with some VERY deep pockets."
"Ok, I'm done listening. I'm going to hang up now," Ford said.
"Please don't. Listen to me, Mr. Ford. Don't judge by appearances, and do not underestimate your allies."
"Thank you, Obi Won. Anything else?" Ford asked, in a placating manner.
"Yes. Remember these names: Chouinard, Ishida, and Camus. They're working with ICBC."
"Right," Ford replied. "That makes perfect sense to me. Anything else?"
"Yeah," The Druid chuckled. "Commander Proton's nemesis, the Squid, is going to be brought back to life by Archimedes Nale in the next episode of 'Darren Hammer,' but that's a freebie."
"Goodbye, Mr. Druid," Ford said. With that, he hung the phone.
As he sat at his desk, absently scribbling on a notepad and considering The Druid's words, Jake came in.
"Chris," he said, approaching Ford's desk. "I got good news and bad news. The good news is I got a whole crapload of stuff about this pipeline business."
"Groovy," Ford said, taking the thick manila envelope. "Wanna give me a rundown?"
"Most of that stuff's from AlaskaGasPipe.Org," Jake said. "Seems BP, Phillips, and a couple other companies are looking to build a pipeline from Alaska through British Columbia, and back into the states. They put in a proposal two months ago, the same day their competitor, Octan, put in a proposal for their own pipeline. Pundits have Octan winning with the EPA. Jonas Sanders, that's the Jonas Sanders, of Sanders & Portmund, San Francisco, is handling Octan's investor relations."
"That's nice of him."
"Not really. He's a major investor in Octan. He also sits on their Board of Trustees. He went public three days ago saying they were confident they would get EPA support."
"Hmm," Ford hummed, scratching his chin. "So, either Octan found out Doh was voting for BP and they offed him, or it was the other way around. Or, that protestor woman didn't care who Doh voted for and decided to snuff him just for voting. I wish we had Doh's report."
"Speaking of the greenie woman," Jake said. "She's in holding room three."
"Thanks, Jake," Ford said.
"Don't thank me yet," Jake said. "There's more. She's not the killer."
"How do you know?"
"That's the bad news. Lambert's in the parking lot with a guy who confessed to offing Doh."
"Aw shit."
No sooner had Ford risen from his desk than, across the hall, the side door to the parking lot opened. Lambert, his back to Ford, was waving to a crowd of reporters. His arm was firmly around the shoulder of a much smaller man. The man's hands were handcuffed behind his back.
"Just one last question," Lambert said to the crowd. Ford didn't have to see his face to know that he was smiling his quarterback's smile.
"James Norwalk, Chronicle. Do you expect Mr. Billson's status as a Canadian citizen to affect his trial? Will he be extradited?"
"That's entirely up to the courts," Lambert said. "My job was just to bring him in so that justice can be served. Ok, folks," he said, raising his hand. "That's all for now. You'll get the official statement later."
"Christopher!" Lambert said, turning around and finding himself face to face with Ford. "I want you to meet Myron Billson. Myron just confessed to murdering John Doh. Seems the protestors weren't too happy with Doh for supporting BP over Octan. Right Myron?"
"Um, yeah," Myron said. He was shaky and scared, like he was expecting someone to blow his kneecaps off at any moment. "BP is a bad company. Not like Octan. Octan loves the enver... envory... uh, nature. Trees and stuff. Little birdies."
"Well," Lambert smiled. "Looks like your case is closed, Christopher."
"You can kiss my ass," Ford said. He walked past him and stormed down the hallway to the bathroom.
The silence was a welcomed return; Ford was glad he had the place to himself. Once in front of the urinal, however, he found his mind more focused on Lambert than on the task at hand. As he was fuming, he heard the door open, then close again. After a second, he thought he heard the door lock, but decided that he couldn't possibly have heard that. Or, at least, he hoped he didn't hear that.
A pair of black wingtips, topped with black socks and ash-gray slacks, was visible under the wall separating the door from the rest of the men's room. Pretending not to notice, Ford walked over to the sink and washed his hands. He splashed a bit of cold water onto his face then ran his wet hands back through his hair.
When he looked up again, he saw an older gentleman standing next to him at the sink. The man was wearing a bad tweed jacket over a pair of cheap Dockers imitations. The maroon tie running the length of his button-up shirt was knit. The overall affect was that the man looked like Robert Stack trying to play a college professor.
"Detective Ford," the man said, smiling.
"Do I know you?" Ford asked.
"No, you don't," came the reply. "And I know you by reputation only. Kurtz left you a nice scar, didn't he?"
"Yes," Ford said. As irritated as he was at the comment, he couldn't keep his hand from sliding up and touching his cheek. He made a motion to walk toward the door, but the man kept talking.
"I was hoping I might have a moment of your time," he said.
"In the bathroom?" Ford asked.
"Well, Mr. Lambert has things jumping out there. It's quite noisy."
"Ok," Ford said, unsure. "What would you like to talk about?"
"John Doh," the man replied. "Lambert's got the wrong man."
"You know, I had my doubts about Arnold Horshack out there being the killer," Ford said. It happened occasionally that Lambert arrested the wrong man. It had never happened that Lambert had arrested the wrong man with a full confession. "You now have my full attention."
"The man Lambert has in custody is a Canadian national who flew into San Francisco a couple hours ago. He wasn't even in the country when Doh was killed."
"Right," Ford said. "I take it you can prove that?"
"He flew in under an alias," Ford was told. "But it was easy enough to get an airport surveillance film of him."
"Right. And you are?" Ford asked.
"My name is Hess. Jonathon Hess. I'm an agent with NAFTAPOL," the last part was accented with a showy display of Hess' ID card and badge.
"NAFTAPOL?" Ford said, trying not to laugh.
"Yes," Hess said, deadpan. "It's a trade-law enforcement agency with agents from Canada, Mexico, and the United States, although it answers to no specific government."
"Of course it is," Ford said. "What do you do, try to keep Americans from smuggling porn and cigarettes into Canada?"
"Among other things," Hess replied, unfazed. "Although with the internet, porn's not such a big deal. Lately it's been mostly corporate trade violations. Well, that and we handle most North American international fugitives."
"Really?"
"Oh yes," Hess said. "Any fugitive who uses a bus, airplane, or car to cross North American international borders is in violation of the NAFTA 'Fair Use' agreement and is subject to arrest by NAFTAPOL agents."
"So," Ford said, trying to feed the conversation along. "What does NAFTAPOL want with me?"
"We intercepted the tape you sent to the FBI," Hess said. He pulled a small mailing box out of his jacket. Ford's handwriting scrawled the FBI address on its face. Ford himself had handed that box to a police courier not fifteen hours ago. "This is the man you're looking for," Hess said, tapping the box with the index finger of the hand holding it.
"The guy who dove off the roof?"
"He didn't dive," Hess said. "You can trust me on that."
"So who is he?"
"His name is Kentaro Ishida," Hess said. "He may be ex-Yak, but we're not sure. He's been involved in some illegal imports, you know, guns, drugs, bootlegged Metallica T-shirts; but we haven't been able to make anything stick yet. If we can bring him back to the states on a murder charge, we can hold him while we gather evidence for trade violations, and that's where the courts will really nail him. Of course, the big deal here is that Ishida and his buddies operate out of Maple Ridge; it's a city not too far from Vancouver."
"Right. I caught the tail end of the Blazers versus Boise game," Ford said. "Total slaughter."
"But, now you see the trouble here," Hess nodded. "And you also see why we didn't want the CIA involved in this."
"Because a Canadian crime outfit knocking off people in San Francisco could cause an international incident."
"Exactly. And we've got enough trouble with the Canadians after that nonsense with the US embassy in Ottawa."
"I haven't heard about that," Ford said. "What happened?"
"Let's just say that some technology was used that violated more than the NAFTA agreements," Hess replied. "But, for the record, Americans aren't the only trouble-makers. The Canadians have some thugs too."
"Like Jaromir Jagr."
"No, no, Jagr's papers say he's Czech, but only Galactic Customs knows where he's really from. I was actually thinking about Scott Stevens."
"So why tell me all of this? Why not just take the fact that this Kentaro fellow is in San Francisco and go back to your shady headquarters?"
"It's not as simple as that. First of all, Kentaro isn't in San Francisco anymore. He was on a plane back to BC less than an hour after the deal with Doh. Secondly, NAFTAPOL isn't what you would call a large organization. We prefer to use local agents whenever possible, saves on personnel costs. We want you to work out of San Francisco for us."
"You mean leave the SFPD."
"No," Hess replied. It came out more curtly than he had intended and he was quick to correct the tone of his voice. "I mean that we want you only when needed. You're involved in this case, we would like you to be the American NAFTAPOL agent assigned to it."
"American?" Ford said, furrowing his brow. "You mean there will be Canadian agents working on it as well?"
"Of course," Hess said. "The Canadians trust us with their criminals even less than they trust us to make a good beer. Your contact is Special Agent Jack Parker. He's with NAFTAPOL through the CSIS."
"This Kentaro fellow," Ford interrupted. "He works with a couple guys named Chouinard and Camus?"
"Yes," Hess replied. "How did you know that?"
"Let's just say I got an anonymous tip. Their organization is called ICBC?"
"No. They call themselves Chimera," Hess said, then seemed to grow meditative. "But, if Chimera is working with ICBC things could be a lot worse than we originally thought. And it means the Canadians are withholding information from us."
"Ok," Ford said, making his way toward the door. "I gave you all the information I have, that's all I can do from this end. Now it's up to the Canadian agents to reign Kentaro in and ship him to San Fran, right?"
"Not so fast, Detective," Hess said. "I meant it when I said we want you to be our American representative at the arrest."
"No."
"Please?"
"No. I'm not going to Canada."
"Ok, Detective. I won't beg you."
"Beg me."
"Please?"
"Can Jake come?"
"Of course."
"All right, I'll go."
"Excellent," Hess said. "The tickets are already made out. Your flight leaves at 6 tonight. Special Agent Parker will meet you at your hotel tomorrow morning."
"That's not a lot of time to pack." Ford mused.
"You're a NAFTAPOL agent now," Hess smiled. "I'm sure you can find some ... er ... textiles ... that need to be confiscated. You know, to verify their authenticity."
"NAFTAPOL can do that?"
"Absolutely. Any import is fair game."
"Excellent," said Ford. "What about beer?"
"Only imports," Hess said.
"That's cool."
"And only Canadian and Mexican imports."
"Ooh," Ford wrinkled his nose. "I wouldn't confiscate a Mexican beer to feed to my garden slugs."
"Hi Lorna, It's Chris. I should have remembered you wouldn't be home. I'm guessing that you're still at work, so I'll make this message brief. I'mgoingtoCanadafortwodaysseeyouwhenIgethomeloveyoubye."
Golly!
Myron in San Francisco? The Druid giving anonymous tip calls? Ford with the power to confiscate illegal porn? It's all insane!
Our story continues in
Black Gold/Blue Moon, Chapter 8
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