I knew nothing about the investigation of Antonio Suárez in the late summer of 1979. The story had pretty much died down as far as I knew; so I was surprised to get a strange and urgent call about Suárez a year and half after the publication of the story.

The man on the phone sounded like a guy who knew his Raymond Chandler and who subscribed to Soldier of Fortune  magazine; the kind of guy who might weigh 300 pounds, smoke cigars, and talk out of the side of his mouth. He was calling from Los Angeles, or so he said, and he claimed to represent a group of wealthy southern California conservationists with the money to "provide extraordinary solutions to extraordinary problems."

"The slaughterhouse," he said, "it's located on a pretty remote stretch of beach, isn't it? You give us the layout, we could be in and out of there in 20 minutes. We'd be in Mexico 10, 12 hours, tops."

"You're not...are you suggest­ing some sort of, uh, paramilitary operation?"

"I'm suggesting that we talk to these bastards in the only language they understand."

"Well, you know, I'm not really sure that, uh"—this lunatic was talking about bombing Mexico!—"we'd be able to, uh, do much good, uh, that way!"

There was a pause while the man seemed to consider his options. "All right," he said finally, "you tell me. How do we stop this guy Suárez?"

I wish I could say I pegged him immediately, but it was only after he hung up that it occurred to me that the guy was neither a militant environmental­ist nor a flaming nutcase. He sounded more like a very clever professional investigator. "O.K.," he kept saying, "if that won't work, how do we get Suárez?"

If indeed the man was an investiga­tor of some sort, then he was pumping me for any nasty information I might have on Suárez. The most prolific turtle butcher in the world must have been a very worried man.