Free Ken Kuhlken_Hickey Family Mystery 01 by The Loud Adios

the LAPD. In six months the business sank.
    Hickey sighed, gazed at Islas Coronados far out to sea, which looked so close you could swim there. It was just past dawn, and the ocean beamed more golden than the sun. The light stung his eyes—he’d gotten only three hours sleep before the drunks came crashing into the barracks and he’d snapped awake. He needed food and coffee. Then he’d go down alone—the kid would just make trouble—and find out where the hell they took her. Tijuana wasn’t so big. And while he was in the neighborhood, tonight he’d go see Luz.
    The bus arrived and Hickey climbed on. At Horton Plaza he bought a pastry and transferred. In San Ysidro he chugged two cups of thick Mexican coffee. He changed, in the office shack, from his uniform to the gray suit. Then he filled his pipe and lit up, dialed the phone.
    Sent from one number to the next three times, he finally reached Al Smythe—another ex-LA cop. When Hickey knew him, he was on the take from bootleggers. Now he was an Army lieutenant in ordnance, at the supply depot on the pier at the foot of Broadway. In charge of disbursing small weapons and vehicles.
    Hickey said, “Al, this one’ll give you a laugh. See, I misplaced a Jeep down in TJ.”
    When Smythe finished chortling, he said, “That’ll cost you two hundred.”
    Hickey promised it tomorrow, then hung up, took paper from a drawer and wrote, “Lefty, If I’m not back for duty, sign me in and cover for me. Promise Boyle twenty dollars and he won’t snitch. Do it good and I’ll take the fall for losing the Jeep. Or else you better pack for New Guinea.”
    He folded the note, taped it to Lefty’s locker, and stepped outside.
    Beyond the sloughs lay a Swedish-flagged merchant ship carrying troops; soldiers hanging over the rails. It was probably bound for the Solomons. The ship Clifford ought to be on. You could almost see the soldiers’ eyes through the sparkling air.
    Already, before 9 a.m. , the line of trucks had backed up near the bridge waiting to haul Mexican produce to the Navy ships. A cloud of seagulls hovered, cawing, diving at the open trucks. Hickey stepped across the three traffic lanes, turned south through the Mexican entrance gate, saluted the Mexican guard. Then he walked in tire tracks, where the mud had already caked dry, to beneath the river bridge where the red-and-pink limo waited.
    Tito lay sprawled in back asleep. Hickey rapped on the window. The cabbie sprang up, gazed around and rubbed his eye. He put on his sunglasses and straightened his bright red Hawaiian shirt. Finally he rolled down the window. “I been working hard boss, making me tired.” He rummaged through papers on the floor, came up with a stack of flyers. girls! cocktails! beer! la rosa blanca! club de paris! —In the middle was a grainy, dark picture of Wendy Rose.
    “I been asking around. Don’t look like she’s anymore in TJ. Maybe they take her down to Ensenada or over the mountains, but we can find her. Soon as you give me one hundred dollars.” He eyed Hickey for a second. “Okay, sixty.”
    “Twenty.”
    “Hey, you don’t get no other cabbies, just me. El Mofeto tells them already, don’t talk with you, don’t take you nowhere. So they don’t. Nobody else can be that crazy. But I don’t go crazy for twenty dollars.” Hickey slipped him forty.
    On the drive he worried about Clifford. Last night he’d told the kid they should meet this morning at ten by the tuna boats. The way Clifford looked, ragged and looney, the Shore Patrol could nab him for suspicion. Or he might run amok, shooting pimps on Broadway, out of twisted revenge. He might go looking for Wendy on his own. Hickey had taken the kid’s gun away. But there were a million guns in San Diego.
    He told the cabbie to stop at the telephone office. He went in and called Leo, reached him in bed, asked him to meet Clifford at ten and keep an eye on him.
    “Only if you quit giving my number to jerks,” Leo growled.