“Ana, Ana,” murmured Kestrel. “When will you learn not to open doors?”
Ana looked at him wildly. She started to speak, but could not. She wanted to be comforted, but
the only man who could comfort her was the very man who had frightened her.
“Murderer.”
“You’re very American, Ana Oshiga, American and Christian. You would have left Refugio in
agony and called it the will of God.” Kestrel went to a long counter and began opening drawers.
He moved quickly, collecting the items he needed. “Bring my uniform,” he said without turning
around. “Quickly. And get two pails from the flower shop.”
Ana watched Kestrel, carrying a handful of makeup, approach the corpse.
She fled back into the flower shop.
When she returned with the two buckets and uniform, Refugio’s corpse was naked on the
embalming table.
“Bolt the door.”
Ana turned and fumbled with the bolt.
“They’re leaving,” she said hesitantly. “The Rincons. They’ve taken the flower trucks and the
hearses and all but one car.”
“Good.”
Kestrel dressed the corpse. The uniform was too small. He opened up the back of the clothes
with a scalpel. When he tucked the split cloth beneath the body, the rents in the back were
invisible.
The corpse now wore the clothes of a Nisei and the face of an Indio. Kestrel sewed shut the
mouth and powdered and rouged the dead skin. He had a certain skill with cosmetics, but the
eyes defeated him. Short of surgery, Kestrel knew of no way to fake an epicanthic fold.
“Like this,” said Ana.
She took the dark pencil with hands that trembled. A few deft strokes increased the slant of each
eye and suggested a fold on each eyelid. Like the uniform, the eyes would now pass a cursory
inspection.
“Good,” said Kestrel. Then, hearing the harshness of his own voice he added, “Thank you.”
Ana looked at Kestrel’s eyes, then looked away quickly. “I was wrong,” she whispered. “I’m a
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coward. I’m glad he’s dead and I don’t have to hear him moan and see him – but I wouldn’t have
killed – I couldn’t – I – “ She began sobbing.
“Hush. It’s almost over.”
Kestrel touched the tears at the corner of her eyes, then turned back to what must be done. He
went to the coffin room, selected the lightest coffin he could find and dragged it into the
embalming room.
He pulled the coffin onto a gurney, then heaved Refugio’s corpse into it, arranged the body, and
wheeled the coffin back into the storage room. He nailed the lid down.
“Bring some makeup for me,” Kestrel called over his shoulder. He put one piece of
foil-wrapped U-235 in each bucket. “I’ll have to be an Indio until we get to Manzanar.”
The garage was dark and damp, as though the sun never penetrated the interior. In the midst of
the gloom was a black Chevrolet sedan. Kestrel opened its trunk and placed a bucket along one
side.
He brought the second pail and wedged it as far away from the first as the trunk allowed. He
waited, squinting into the dark hole of the truck. No blue haze shimmered into life. It was a
crude gauge of safety, but it was the only one he had.
The heavy trunk lid slammed shut with a thick, final sound. Kestrel went to the door that opened
into the alley and peered out. No one was in sight. If there were any watchers, they had been
drawn off by the Rincón exodus.
As Kestrel opened the garage’s big double doors, Ana ran in from the front of the funeral
home, carrying two suitcases. She sat on the right side of the car, waiting for Kestrel. He slid
into the driver’s side and started the engine.
In the sunlight flooding through the open garage door, Ana looked pale, thin-lipped, distraught.
“Cry now, Ana. It will help.”
Ana gave Kestrel a look that he could not read.
“And you, Kestrel. When will you cry?”
Kestrel drove the car out of the garage without answering. Ana did not ask the question again.
Nor did she cry.
San Francisco
27 Hours 38 Minutes After Trinity
Vanessa paced the room, her body tense, her eyes brilliant with suppressed emotion. Hecht sat
very quietly, his hands clenched around the cold weight of the gun and ammunition he had
purchased. He watched Vanessa’s luminous beauty with more fear than admiration.
“Comrade,” said Hecht hesitantly, again holding out the brown paper bag, “the gun.”
Vanessa gave Hecht a single, savage glance. She had watched flower trucks and funeral cars leave
their respective shops. She had watched, and been helpless. She needed fifteen men. All she had
was Slaven and a nitwit with pretensions to international communism.
At the moment, Slaven was chasing one of four dusty black funeral cars. The flower store and
funeral home might or might not be a trap, might or might not be baited with something
significant. She must know, and she must depend on Hecht to find out.
Vanessa made a sound of disgust.
“Have I done something wrong?” asked Hecht, looking away from Vanessa’s fierce blue eyes.
“You were born,” said Vanessa, but she said it in Russian because she still had a use for Hecht.
She took the paper bag from him and examined its contents. At least he had managed to buy the
right size ammunition. The gun itself was used, dirty, and still had a pawnshop number dangling
from its trigger guard. She checked the weapon skillfully, then shrugged. It might fire a few more
rounds before it fell apart.
Vanessa loaded the gun, put the hammer in the safe position and returned the weapon to Hecht.
He handled it awkwardly.
“Get used to it,” she said.
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Hecht looked up, startled. “I thought it was for you!”
“I have one.”
She returned to the window, hoping to see Slaven with an unwilling Mexican in tow. There was
one thing she had to know, a question only a Rincón would answer: which vehicle contained
Refugio and two lumps of U-235? She would pay well for that information.
Abruptly, she turned back to Hecht. “Go see if the stores are locked. Try the front first, then the
back. If the funeral home is open, come back here immediately.”
“What about this?” asked Hecht, holding up the pawnshop pistol.
“Shoot yourself,” suggested Vanessa in Russian.
Sonoma County
28 Hours 2 Minutes After Trinity
The black Ford flashed between rows of grapevines falling away from both sides of the country
road. Riley dozed in the front seat.
“Heads up,” warned Finn. He turned off onto a dirt farm-road.
The Salerno Brothers winery was a mile off the highway. There were scattered outbuildings and
two large old barns with steep roofs supported by thick fieldstone walls.
Seven Mexican field hands, braceros, stood in the front yard, shaded by a large sycamore. Finn
glanced their way as he got out of the car. A restlessness in their manner caught his eye. One of
the men said something in Spanish. The others laughed.
Deputy Branscomb met Finn and Riley in the doorway of the winery. A large pocket watch
gleamed in his rough-knuckled hand.
“Fifty-nine minutes and a few odd seconds. Not bad at all, for amateurs.” Branscomb slipped
the watch back into the slash pocket of his worn green uniform pants. “Back here,” he said,
leading them into the cool interior of the winery.
The sweet-sharp smell of green wine filled the building. Twenty-foot-high redwood holding
tanks lined the aisle, their round sides girdled by steel hoops and wooden pipes black with age
and moisture.
Three men waited at the rear of the building. Two were obviously brothers, perhaps twins. Their
khaki work clothes, graying hair, tanned faces and hipshot stance were alike. The third man was
the sheriff, tall and just beginning to go to fat. He looked like a shrewd, hard, country politician.
“They’re yours, Riley,” said Finn, his voice too low for anyone else to hear. “Give them your
best Boy Scout two-step while I look around.”
“Nuts to you,” whispered Riley. He smiled and held out his credentials for the waiting men.
Finn slid off without a word.
“Can’t quite understand what interests the FBI about a two-cent breaking-and-entering clear out
here in the boondocks,” drawled Branscomb. “All that’s missing is a case of wine and some lead
foil, bright red. The wine was raw and the lead wasn’t worth much.”
Sheriff Brown chuckled. “Must have been Mexicans. They’re the only ones dumb enough to steal
green wine.”
Riley grinned companionably. “Well, Sheriff Brown, I’d like to tell you all I know, I really would,
but,” he paused and lowered his voice, “it’s related to national security.”
“That a fact?” said Sheriff Brown, lighting a cigaret.
Finn walked aimlessly until no one was looking in his direction, then headed for a small room lit
by two naked bulbs hanging from frayed black wires. A short conveyor belt dominated the
room. At one end of the line were empty, long-necked bottles. Pipes ran from a vat to the
bottling machinery. Corks waited in metal claws.
The smell of raw wine was overpowering. At the other end of the conveyor belt several bottles
had been smashed on the floor. Glass glittered up from pools of wine darker than blood.
Broken glass crackled beneath Finn’s boots.
In the deep shadows behind the conveyor belt, Finn sat on his heels, examining the bottling
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machine and the floor. He could just make out the shape of a footprint where someone had
stepped in a puddle of wine and then onto the dry concrete floor. He struck a match and
examined the stain. The print was striated, as though cut from the tread of a worn tire. Probably
a left shoe, for the outside of the heel was worn down the left side.
It was a familiar print in Calexico’s dusty streets; huaraches, poor man’s sandals with soles cut
from old tires, cheap and nearly indestructible.
Finn dropped the match. It fell into the puddle of wine, hissed briefly and died. Shadows
returned to hide the thief s footprint. Finn went back to the main room. He saw that Riley had
his notebook out and was writing quickly.
“Mr. Salerno,” said Finn.
Both brothers looked up.
“Do you use braceros?”
“Yes,” said one brother.
“All our men are Mexican nationals,” said the other. “Except for Franco Rincón, the foreman.
He was born in California.”
Finn recognized the name Rincón, and felt the first surge of victory heat his blood. “Get your
braceros in here. Start with that bunch under the tree out front.”
“You’ll want the foreman, too,” said one brother as the other left to round up the braceros. “He
translates for us. None of the field workers speaks English.”
“You want to question them?” Riley asked Finn.
“You get the first round. Play it nice and easy and dumb. If they step in it, I’ll take over.”
Salerno returned with eight Mexicans in tow. Their easy flippancy was gone. The winery was dim
after the bright morning outside. Squinting, the men tried to see why they had been dragged
back to the scene of the previous night’s crime.
Riley flipped through his notebook as though looking for the right questions to ask. “Do any of
you speak English?”
A man shrugged. “I do.”
Finn looked at the man narrowly. He was compact, muscular, and had a lazy yet aggressive air
about him. He was wearing boots.
“Your name?” said Riley.
“Rincón. Franco Rincón.”
“Translate for me, please.” Despite Riley’s smile, it was more of a demand than a request.
Franco shrugged again. “Si. I will talk for you.”
“Ask them if they saw or heard anything last night. Tell them that it is a matter of great
importance.”
As Franco spoke, Finn watched carefully, studying the Mexicans. Franco was at ease in his
position of command. He was accustomed to leading men rather than working in fields. The
men were lined up in a loose, informal row, like guerrilla soldiers. Four of them wore huaraches.
None of them seemed particularly interested in what Franco was saying. He turned back to
Riley. “They know nothing.”
“Tell them there’s a reward,” said Riley. “A hundred – no, a thousand dollars.”
Franco translated.
The men made sounds of both greed and awe. One man in particular was impressed.
“That’s five times what we were paid!” he said in Spanish.
“Shut your hole, Griego!” warned Franco in the same language.
Finn stepped up to Franco and began speaking in rapid, hard Spanish.
“Why should he keep a closed mouth?” Finn demanded. “What was he paid so little for? He
looks tired. Maybe he was up all night, no? Maybe he is hung over from drinking the green wine
he stole here.”
Franco looked at Finn’s eyes, then looked away. Finn moved quickly to intersect Franco’s gaze,
but he did not touch the Mexican. Not yet.
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“You, Franco. I’m speaking to you,” said Finn. “Tell me what that little man is keeping inside his
closed hole.”
“Nothing,” said Franco, trying not to give way before the man with the soft Spanish words and
hard gringo eyes.
‘‘Are you a little boy that you can’t speak for yourself? Finn demanded of Griego.
Griego looked into Finn’s unforgiving eyes, then glanced nervously at Franco.
“Don’t look to him,” said Finn. “Franco says close your hole, but it is not Franco who will feel
my fists and boots break his balls. It is you who will feel that, unless you talk to me.”
“Shut up, Griego!” Franco shouted. “His threats are only air. This isn’t Mexico. He’s not
permitted to hurt you.”
Smiling, Finn said in English, “I was hoping you’d bring that up, pendejo.”
As Finn turned, his hand swept down to his boot and came back up holding a knife.
“There’s this little clock in my head,” he said casually. “Tick tick tick tick.” The knife moved
back and forth like the arm of a metronome. “Seconds going by. Tick. Tick. Nothing’s quite as
dead as yesterday, amigo. Would you like to talk about last night or be sent back to yesterday?”
“Now just a minute, mister,” said one of the Salerno brothers. “Franco’s a good foreman. You
can’t threaten him like this.”
“Freddy,” said Sheriff Brown, taking the brother by the arm, “you and Bob have been
promising me a taste of the thirty-nine crop. Now is as good a time as any, and better than
most.”
Sheriff Brown took the Salerno brothers and led them out of the barn.
Branscomb looked at Finn, who ignored him. The deputy turned to Riley, who hitched his
shoulders in a don’t-look-at-me shrug. Finn watched Franco. Franco watched the knife blade
flicking from side to side, marking off seconds. Riley realized that he himself was silently
