Tequila Sunset (31 page)

“Flip,” Cristina said. “We’ve got to get him together with José again and he’s got to figure out how to get José to say he wants us dead in so many words.”

Robinson shook his head. “I wouldn’t count on that.”

“Why
not
? José’s trusted him this far.”

“The kid is scared, Cris. I could hear it in his voice. He’s already watched somebody get killed. Who’s to say he won’t be the next body?”

Cristina grabbed for her phone. “I’ll talk to him. He listens to
me
.”

“Give him a break! He doesn’t need you talking in his ear right now.”

“He called me.”

“And he heard from me. I say you back off and let him get his head together. He’s risking his ass every time he uses his phone.”

She let go of the receiver and let it fall back into place. “So we do nothing.”

“No, we just take a different approach. We can’t lay it all on the
back of one informant. The first thing we do, we report the threat to Cokley and arrange for some extra patrols near my house and yours. Then we call McPeek and let her know what’s happening. She’ll spread the word to everybody else in the chain. I promise you: everybody’s going to take this seriously.”

“Bob, I live less than a mile from José Martinez’s place. If some-body’s got a target on their back, it’s going to be me,” Cristina said. She checked her watch. “Freddie’s going to be home soon. I should be there.”

“You want me to tell Cokley?” Robinson asked.

“He doesn’t need to hear it from both of us. I’d feel better if I was there at the bus stop.”

“You can’t be there all the time.”

“Just for today. We’ll work something out for after.”

“Meet back here?” Robinson asked.

“Okay. Thanks, Bob.”

“Be careful out there.”

Cristina left the building and by the time she reached her car she was walking fast. The clock was ticking too quickly, though it was only a matter of minutes to drive from Central Regional Command to her home. On the road every stop sign was an imposition and everyone seemed to be driving too slowly.

Ashlee wasn’t answering her phone. Cristina passed Nachita’s, a little meat market and grocery where she and her mother used to shop when Cristina was little. There was relief when she saw the house with Ashlee’s car parked in front of it. Cristina’s tires rubbed the curb when she stopped.

Down at the end of the block she saw a familiar figure. She did not run, but she walked fast until she was close enough to shout, “Hey, Ashlee!”

The girl turned away from the street and waved. When Cristina was closer, she said, “Hello, Ms. Salas. What are you doing here?”

“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” Cristina demanded.

“What? Oh, I must have shut the ringer off. Is everything okay?”

Cristina looked up and down the street. If there were strangers around, she would have seen them. “I thought I’d come by,” Cristina answered, too rapidly. “Make sure everything was all right. Check on Freddie.”

“Here comes his bus now.”

The little yellow bus came up the street and stopped at the corner, red lights flashing. Cristina saw Freddie’s outline moving on the other side of the windows and then he was coming down the steps with his book bag in one hand and a papier-mâché cat painted blue in the other. “Mom,” he said.

“Hey, peanut,” Cristina said and she knelt down to hug him. He accepted this passively. “How are you?”

“Fine,” Freddie said. “Are you home?”

“I’ll be home for a little while, but then I have to go back to work,” Cristina said.

“I want to play Roblox.”

“Okay,” Cristina said.

“Are you sure you’re all right, Ms. Salas?” Ashlee asked. “You look flushed.”

“It’s nothing,” Cristina said. “The weather. It’s hot.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

“Freddie, let’s get inside,” Cristina said and she let Freddie lead the way. She did not stop watching the street.

SIX

T
HOUGH
A
LFREDO WAS BACK ON THE JOB
,
Clayton drove Flip home and the first thing he did was take a shower. He wiped the steam off the mirror and lathered his face for a shave. One cheek was clean when he heard a rap on the bathroom door. His mother was there.

Flip looked from her face to the battered shoebox she held in her hands. It was obvious she had been crying. “What’s wrong, Mamá?” he asked.

“I don’t want to interrupt,” his mother said. “When you’re finished, I want to talk to you.”

“Sure.”

He hurried through the rest of his work and dried his face with a clean towel. After he dressed in new clothes he went looking for his mother. She was in the living room, the shoebox balanced on her knees. As he came in, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Come on in, Felipe,” she said.

“Why are you crying, Mamá?” Flip asked.

“Sit here. Next to me.”

Flip sat. His mother wrapped one small arm around his shoulder and found it hard to do. Flip’s eyes fell on the shoebox, which was plain and brown with no brand name on it.

“Flip, I want you to know that I love your father. I have always loved him and I won’t stop ever. Do you believe me?”

“Yes.”

“Alfredo asked me to marry him. Yesterday, after you left. Here is the ring.”

Flip didn’t know how he’d managed to miss the ring. It was a pretty gold one with a diamond that was not small. Flip wondered just how much Alfredo had saved to buy it. “That’s great, Mamá,” he said. “I’m really glad for you.”

“I went into the closet and found some of your father’s things. I thought maybe you might want to have them.”

She presented him with the box and for a moment Flip wasn’t sure if he was meant to open it now or wait. His mother didn’t look away, so he took off the top. The first thing he saw was a tie.

There was a watch that wound by hand, its crystal cloudy and cuff links and a few photographs of Flip as a child, and of his mother and his father together when she was much younger. Flip noticed for the first time how much alike he and his father looked. Perhaps it only took time.

Most of the things were worthless. A clip to go with the tie. Some papers for a car his mother didn’t own anymore. At the bottom was a folding knife with a carved handle. The image was of a deer with a full rack of antlers standing on a hillock with a stream flowing beside it. Flip found the deer mesmerizing and he forgot everything else when he lifted the knife from the box. He opened the blade. It was as long as his middle finger.

“Your father used to whittle with that,” Flip’s mother said.

“He whittled?”

“He was always a country boy.”

Flip slipped the knife into his front pocket. “Thank you,” he said.

“I’m sorry there’s not more.”

“It’s plenty.”

Flip’s mother hugged him again and kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll make something for you to eat,” she said.

“Okay.”

She left him with the box. Flip took it to his room and sorted out the things he wanted from the things he didn’t. The photographs went on top of his chest of drawers. Maybe he would buy frames for them. The tie was ugly, but he decided to keep it. The same with the cufflinks and tie clip. The rest he put in the trash can. He would throw it out later, when his mother wouldn’t see.

An engine rumbled on the street. Flip looked out his window and saw Alfredo parking in front of the house. All at once the warm feeling he’d had drained away and he was cold. His skin prickled as if he was standing in the open door of the refrigerator.

He got to the front door before Alfredo had a chance to ring the bell. Alfredo stopped short when he saw Flip.

“I’m here for your mother,” Alfredo said.

“I know.”

“I don’t have nothing to say to you.”

“I got something I need to say to you.”

“Say it out here, then. I don’t want Silvia to hear.”

Flip moved out onto the front step and to his credit Alfredo did not retreat. There may have been the slightest of twitches in the man’s cheek, but he did not show fear. When Flip looked into his eyes, he found only anger. Flip did not blame him.

“You want me to meet with your boss again?” Alfredo asked.

“No. You don’t have to see him again.”

“Then what?”

Flip gave Alfredo the offer just as José told him to. When he got to the payment, Alfredo made a face as if he was going to spit in Flip’s eye. He didn’t, and when Flip was done he was very quiet. “So?” Flip asked.

“When is this going to happen?”

“I don’t know. Soon.”

“Then you don’t need to talk to me anymore.”

“I guess not.”

“You still going to work?”

“For now.”

“Until you can make better money dealing drugs,” Alfredo said.

Flip dropped his gaze. “I’ll tell Mamá you’re here.”

“Thank you,” Alfredo said, and it sounded like a curse.

SEVEN

M
ATÍAS WAITED IN THE HALLWAY WITH
Galvan while Sosa did his work. It seemed they were always together, the three of them, in the damp hallway outside the interview rooms, and always under the same circumstances. Someday, Matías thought, he would have to invite them for lunch. Anything to get them out in the clean daylight, away from the smell of concrete, urine and blood.

This was not a place for small talk, so Matías and Galvan stood silently, each staring at the door to the first interview room, willing it open. Matías hoped he would not have to send in Galvan at all, that Sosa would be able to apply the pressure he needed to make things happen.

A few minutes later, the door opened and Sosa came out. He was sweating heavily and there were large circles of dark wetness under his arms. He patted his forehead with his tie. When the door fell shut behind him, he said, “It’s done.”

“Thank you, my friend,” Matías said.

He went in. Víctor Barrios was stripped to the waist and his heavily tattooed chest was blotched with purplish, fresh bruises. The man sagged in his chair and might have been dead except for a slow, barely visible rise and fall of his shoulders. Víctor didn’t even react when the door closed again.

Matías had no notebooks this time, no files. None of the things with which he would make theater for the
entrevistado
. He had lost
track of the number of men he had broken in here, or had broken for him. The number of confessions must have topped a hundred. Matías could have played his role tonight, but he didn’t have the patience for it.

“Wake up,” he said. “I know you’re not unconscious.”

Víctor stirred. He cracked an eye and regarded Matías suspiciously. “What do you want?” he asked.

“Your life,” Matías said. “I’m going to have you killed tonight.”

The man opened both eyes now and a visible shudder passed through his body, though the shackles that held him to the table kept him from falling from his chair. “You wouldn’t,” he said.

Matías stood across from Víctor. The odor of urine hit him again and he realized there was a pool of it coming from underneath the table, starting at Víctor’s feet. He wrinkled his nose and tried to breathe through it. “The record of your arrest has already been destroyed,” Matías said. “No one knows you’re here except myself and two other officers. The guards won’t remember you after a couple of hours. It will be as if you never existed.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“That’s not important. What is important is you cooperating with me in every way you can. If I’m satisfied, then you live. If not, then you disappear. One more body on the pile in Juárez. Except I’ll do one better than you Aztecas: I’ll let you keep your arms and legs on. The head will have to go.”

“I don’t know how I can help you. The other one, he wouldn’t answer anything. I asked him why and he kept on…”

“You think you’re being treated badly,” Matías said.

Víctor kept his silence. At least he had learned that much.

“Tell me now why you have been meeting with Gonzalo Flores.”

“Gonzalo Flores?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know him,” Matías said. “If you lie to me—”

“No! I know him. He’s the manager of a shipping depot. He deals with fresh produce trucks.”

“Fresh produce trucks headed where?”

“To the United States.”

“And what does Julio Guerra want with them?”

Víctor shrank into his chair.

Matías stepped forward and slammed his hand on the table. “
What does Julio Guerra want with them?
”

“It’s not Guerra! It’s an American. José Martinez.”

“I’m not interested in him, I’m interested in Guerra!”

“Guerra’s trading drugs for guns with José Martinez!”

“Drugs from where?”

“I’ll tell you exactly where! I’ll tell you anything you want to know!”

Matías eased back from the table and let his voice relax. “You’re going to do better than that. You’re going to take police to the places where the drugs are stored and point them out. You’re going to tell us when those drugs are going to be shipped through Gonzalo Flores’ depot. And you’re going to be
happy
about doing it.”

“Please…”

“Spare me. I had some of you Azteca
cabrones
try to kill me and my wife. If you think I’m going to sit back and take that kind of treatment, you’re out of your mind.”

“I had nothing to do with that. I don’t even know who you are!”

“And you’re not going to find out! If you hear my name, it’s because I whispered it to you before blowing your goddamned brains out.”

Víctor began to cry, great tears rolling down his face. His hair was mussed, standing straight up in places, and his body was streaked with perspiration. Matías thought the puddle of piss grew larger.

“Shut up! Shut up or I’ll kill you right here, right now!” Matías
said. He drew his pistol and held it at his side so that Víctor could see it.

“
¡Por favor, no!
”

“You will do what you’ve been asked to do, yes?”