Tequila Sunset (32 page)

“Yes.”

“You’ll inform on your own people when you are asked to, yes?”

“Yes!”

“Do I have to send my friend in here again to make sure? He’ll step on your balls until they break.”

“No, no, I’ll do anything you ask! Please, don’t kill me.”

Matías holstered his weapon. Almost unconsciously he adjusted his tie at his throat. “I’m tired of playing games with you sons of bitches,” he said. “It ends now.”

EIGHT

C
RISTINA LET
F
REDDIE PLAY HIS GAME.
S
HE
returned to work for a few hours, but got nothing done. When she returned, she got him into bed on time, but she wasn’t tired. She tried tranquilizing herself with a beer, sitting on the couch, a cooking program on the television. Every time headlights flashed in the street she tensed up all over again.

Again and again she had caught herself thinking about what she would do if José Martinez’s men struck. Her route to work was straightforward and wouldn’t take anyone watching long to figure out. Freddie’s schedule was absolute and could not be tampered with; any deviation could set him into a tailspin and ruin his entire day. He had to be up at the same time, be put to bed at the same time and all things must happen in a regimental order, even walking to the bus.

She found that she wasn’t concerned for herself. It wasn’t as though she didn’t care if some Azteca soldier found her on the street, but she didn’t think of the eventuality as something that affected her and her alone. If she had to, she could take a bullet. She wasn’t afraid of that. She feared only for Freddie.

If she was gone, Freddie had no one to look out for him. No grandparents, no aunts or uncles. His father might be tracked down, though it would take time. In the meanwhile he would pass into the foster system, one that was completely inadequate for his needs. Cristina was sure everyone would mean well and that they
would try, but it would not be enough. It could never be enough. Freddie needed his mother.

Cristina was on her second bottle and was not soothed. She decided to put the lights out in the front room and stand in the dark, peering out onto the street through the parted curtains, watching for any sign. If they were keeping track of her already then they were better than she gave them credit for. That a bunch of overgrown hard-drinking, hard-partying children could make her so anxious gave her pride a twist. She had to remember that they were kids with guns.

She wasn’t sure how Matías Segura managed it, living on the Juárez side of the border. When McPeek told her that he had been targeted there had been shock, but also a deeper understanding that this was what passed for normal in the city to the south. In America they called it a War on Drugs, but in Mexico it was literally war. How long could they keep it contained on the other side of the fence? It could start with her. With Freddie.

Freddie was deeply asleep when she went to his door, breathing loudly in his small bed. Soon he would outgrow it and need a full-sized mattress. Cristina was losing her little boy. For an instant she saw him in her arms, soaked in blood, and she covered her face reflexively to make the image go away. Things would not end that way.

For a while she sat down beside his bed, letting the big red numbers on his clock slip by. He didn’t stir when she rested a hand on his chest. She could feel his heart beating. Once again, for the thousandth time, she wondered what he could be dreaming about. Was it elevators and Roblox, or did his intensely literal mind finally let go in sleep and take to the skies in fancy?

Cristina felt like she might cry and she retreated from the room, pulling the door just to. In her bedroom she used her phone to call Robinson. He answered right away. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey, yourself. You’re up late.”

“You, too.”

“I can’t sleep. It happens sometimes. What’s your excuse?”

“You know. All of this. Freddie. He doesn’t deserve to be caught up in what’s happening.”

“There’s nothing that says you have to stay there,” Robinson said. “You could get a hotel room for a little while, change things up. You’re practically on José’s doorstep, living where you are. I worry, too.”

“I can’t leave here, Bob. Freddie wouldn’t understand and he needs to have his things.”

“What, then?”

Cristina sat on the edge of her bed and kicked off her shoes. Sleep was no closer than it had been before, but maybe the act of undressing and lying down would make her body react. It was worth a try.

“Cris? What do you want to do?”

“I think we should talk to McPeek about closing this out. The whole thing. We have enough to take down José and I’m sure they’ve got solid enough charges against his
soldados
to reel in a serious catch.”

“You think she’ll go for it?”

“Maybe. If I say we’re going to pull Flip, she might be amenable to the change. Without him they don’t have the warehouse, they don’t have the Juárez killing… it takes a lot off the table.”

Robinson was quiet, and then he said, “You know she’ll just take over from us. She’s got her hooks into Flip as much as we do. And he’ll have to go along because otherwise she’ll have him back at Coffield doing time for everything. He won’t last a stretch inside if anyone guesses what he was up to.”

“I’m running out of options to play,” Cristina said.

“If you want to talk to her, then we’ll talk,” Robinson said. “Maybe she’ll listen up when she hears José’s thinking about green-lighting cops. It would make me pay attention.”

“I don’t know if that will be enough. It’s just talk.”

“José’s cold enough to order one of his own men shot just because he
might
make a deal with the state. He’s cold enough to take out a police officer. For my money, that’s worth a trip to jail.”

“She wants this warehouse deal,” Cristina said.

“We can’t always get what we want. When do you want to see her?”

“Tomorrow,” Cristina said. “Let’s do it tomorrow.”

“All right. In the meantime, get some rest; you’re no good to me fried.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good night.”

NINE

“L
ET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT
,” M
C
P
EEK SAID
.
“You want us to make our move now, when we still have a case to make? That’s what you’re saying, right?”

They sat in McPeek’s office with the door closed and the atmosphere was close. An air vent over Cristina’s head made noise, but nothing seemed to come out. Robinson stood over her with his arms crossed in front of him. McPeek’s desk was in a kind of organized chaos, with photographs and paperwork and folders arranged in some system Cristina could not understand.

“José’s talking about killing cops,” Cristina said. “That’s serious.”

“I agree, which is why I don’t want to see José go down on any charges that aren’t going to keep him in prison for a very long time. If you’re concerned about your safety, I’ll arrange for protection. You can be relocated.”

“She won’t move,” Robinson said.

“Why not?” McPeek asked.

“It’s complicated,” Cristina said.

“Uncomplicate it for me.”

Cristina looked to Robinson. He said, “We’re concerned about our informant, Felipe Morales, too.”

“Flip’s turning in good evidence, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then he’s not a major concern. You said he got José to admit,
on tape, that he’s going to use Flip’s workplace as a destination for drug shipments, didn’t you?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Anything else he does at this point is just icing on the cake. He doesn’t have to stick his neck out. Tell him to let things progress naturally, not to force it.”

“I want to pull him,” Cristina said.

McPeek looked at her hard. “That’s not going to happen.”

“You said yourself that he’s just dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s now.”

“Those things have to be done. The more we get from him, the better the case. You ought to know that better than anyone. What’s going on here?”

Robinson pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “We’re both nervous about safety moving forward. This whole thing is close to the finish and we don’t want bullets to start flying. Especially at us or the people working for us.”

“It’s taken care of,” McPeek said. She pulled a piece of notepaper from a pad. “Give me your addresses and I’ll have someone watching your homes 24/7.”

“And Flip?” Cristina asked. “Who’s watching out for him?”

“Flip’s taking big chances, but that’s what’s going to keep him out of prison,” McPeek said. “Now, are you going to give me those addresses or not?”

“Fine.”

McPeek took down their information and then picked up the phone. “I’m going to arrange this right now,” she said.

She talked on the phone for ten minutes while Cristina and Robinson could only watch. Cristina thought she might have felt a breath of air come from above, or it might have been her imagination. If the door was open it would be easier to breathe. Cristina felt tight across the chest.
Freddie
, she thought. Now someone would be watching him, but she did not stop worrying.

When she was done on the phone, McPeek said, “I hope that’s good enough. You want me to have armed agents stationed in your house, Detective Salas?”

“No,” Cristina said and she flushed. Whether from embarrassment or anger, she didn’t know.

“Detective Robinson, are you satisfied?”

“I guess so.”

McPeek steepled her fingers. “In the next few weeks we’re going to roll up José Martinez’s operation. I got word this morning that there’s been a major break on the Mexican side. This is going to be big. The only thing everyone has to do is keep calm and stay the course. There will be enough credit for all of us to share. You brought us Flip and that’s going to count for a lot, especially when he testifies. Now I don’t want to be rude, but what else do you need from me?”

“Nothing,” Cristina said and she stood up.

“And if you’re concerned about Flip, don’t be. José doesn’t suspect a thing or he wouldn’t open his mouth so wide when Flip’s around. Flip’s going to make it out of this okay.”

Robinson opened the door. “Thanks for your time, Agent McPeek.”

“I’m always available.”

Cristina said her good-byes and let Robinson escort her from the building. They walked down a sun-washed sidewalk toward the parking lot. Robinson had a ball cap on. Cristina put on sunglasses. Summer in El Paso was punishing. “I guess that’s it, then,” she said.

“What else did you expect? I told you—”

“Yeah, you told me.”

“Cris, you know I’ll always stick by you when you’re right.”

Cristina smiled a half-smile and put out a hand for Robinson to shake. “Do you think I’m right about this?”

“I think you have cause to worry. And now things are being done.”

“I want to talk to Flip,” Cristina said.

“What about?”

“About keeping his head down.”

“I think he knows that already.”

“But he doesn’t know how close we are. I want him up to speed so he can make the right decisions. He’s putting it all out there for us. We owe him the truth.”

“We can’t have him crawl up into his shell,” Robinson said. “Not right now. You heard McPeek. The better he does for us, the better he does for himself.”

“Is it a crime to worry if a good kid gets himself killed?” Cristina asked.

“‘Good kid’? Are we talking about the same Flip?”

“You looked over his records, you know what he went inside for. He’s not like the rest of them. He’s in over his head.”

“Funny how that seems to happen to him.”

“Now what are you trying to say?”

They reached the car. When Cristina opened the door, a wave of invisible fire came out. She took down the cardboard shield on the dashboard and tossed it in the back seat. The air conditioning could not come soon enough.

Robinson buckled in. “I’m saying it’s not worth it to get too attached to this guy. He’s got a job to do, the same as us. It’s not our fault he ended up where he is.”

“Then why would I feel responsible if he ended up dead?”

TEN

T
HEY LET HIM OUT AND
V
ÍCTOR
B
ARRIOS WENT
back to his
hermanos
. Matías gave him a long lead, but he did not let Víctor out of his sight. He had Paco arrange for a tail everywhere Víctor went and listening devices were put in Víctor’s apartment. The only thing Víctor would not do was wear a wire, and Matías did not press the issue; he was doing enough for them already.

Over eight days Víctor gave Matías and Paco and the other agents a tour of Julio Guerra’s operation, one stash house at a time. Photographs were taken and teams were set to watching. By the end of those eight days, Matías had thirty men involved. Some nights Matías did not go home because he was with the men shadowing Víctor. His beard had started to grow out.

On this night Matías watched over Víctor from the back seat of a powerful black SUV, a hundred meters from the entrance of a club called
El Sombrero Rojo
. Paco sat next to him and they took turns looking through the high-powered lens of a digital camera as cars and people came and went at the entrance.

“I would give anything to be in there right now,” Matías said.

“What do you think you’d see?” Paco asked. From the beginning he’d been pulled into the same warped schedule and he was no longer crisp in his jacket and tie. The driver idled the engine for a little while each hour to run the air conditioning and get the stickiness off the men inside the SUV, but now the engine was quiet and the air was stale.

“I don’t know,” Matías replied. “But it has to be better than sitting out here with you.”