by Ted Galdi
“The one with the tattoo, Mexican authorities don’t know who he is?”
“I passed the description to the FBI’s federal-police liaison in Mexico City. No matching records in their criminal database. Which means he’s smart, careful to stay out of jail. Even so, I’m sure some police came across him once or twice on the street and have the potential to ID him. But as you’re probably aware Agent Quick, many officers south of the border fall victim to the financial imbalances in their districts.”
“They take bribes from gangs to keep their mouths shut. Yeah, I get it. What about the DEA? Don’t they have undercover agents embedded in Mexico? Did you see if they had any intel on this guy?”
“I checked. No luck. Los Hombres del Vacio operates out of Tijuana, not a traditional narcotics empire like Juarez, where most DEA resources are concentrated. They’re a newer gang we don’t know much about.”
Letting out a long exhale, Jordana leans against the wall. “What now?”
“Pack a bag. Me and you are going to Mexico.”
“Give me an hour,” she says, heading for the door.
About a minute after she exits, his phone rings. He answers it, “Gabor.”
“Hey. It’s Browing.”
“How’s it going, detective?”
A pause. “To be honest…not great.”
“This case already isn’t going great. You’re calling me to tell me it just got worse? How is that even possible?”
“It’s not about the case. Well, it is. Sort of. Either way, it isn’t good. Felt I owed you a call so you’re aware. I screwed up.”
Clyde starts pacing. “Is that right?”
“More our receptionist. But you can’t really blame her. She was tricked. We both were.”
“A reporter?”
“A brother.”
“Hey, Detective Browing, as a Black man, I’ve got to tell you, that’s not really how you should refer to someone you—”
“No, not brother as in Black guy. A biological brother. Of one of the victims. Danielle Dapino.”
“He tried to trick you? What for?”
“A few minutes ago Kristen, our receptionist, comes to my office swooning over some FBI agent I apparently just met with, asking me what I knew about him. So I tell her there was no FBI agent I just met with. And she describes the guy. And I tell her he was Thomas Dapino, Danielle’s brother. Then she tells me he pretended he was working with you. And here’s the bad part…he asked for a copy of the case file. And she gave it.”
“What’d he want it for?”
“I don’t know.”
Clyde speaks with him for a bit longer, collecting all the details from Thomas’s station visit, then says, “All right. Thanks for telling me. I got it from here.” He ends the call, exits the case room, and sits at his desk.
On his computer he pulls up an FBI web portal connected to every public-records database imaginable and enters “Thomas Dapino” into the search bar. A handful of Americans with that name come back, a few from New York, one around Danielle’s age. Clyde selects that result.
Staring back at him is a driver’s license photo of a young man with brown eyes, olive skin, and a defined jaw. Clyde can tell from the tops of his shoulders he’s in shape, outlines of lean muscle showing through his shirt.
Clyde eyeballs his driver’s license data, then navigates to his public records. The first is an employment history from the New York City Fire Department. He was a firefighter at a ladder company in Queens for seven and a half years. Until he was terminated.
The second record is from the New York State Department of Corrections, its start date a bit after the dismissal date from the fire department. He served two years in Attica maximum-security prison, released last month.
An ex-convict is now in possession of sensitive FBI information. Wanting to find out the reason, Clyde picks up his phone and calls the ladder company in Queens where Thomas worked.
A male voice with a heavy New York accent answers.
“I’m looking for whoever is in charge of the firehouse,” Clyde says. “Is a lieutenant in?”
After a minute or so, a male voice with a heavier New York accent says, “Lieutenant Connors. Who am I speaking to?”
“I’m an FBI agent in San Diego. Sorry to bother you. I was hoping to just ask a couple questions about a firefighter who used to work at your station.”
“Which?”
“Thomas Dapino.”
A moment.
“Lieutenant Connors?”
“I’m still here.”
“Did you supervise Mister Dapino at all?”
“I brought Tommy up right out of the Academy.”
“What was he like?”
“The best firefighter I’d ever seen. Once watched him go into a burning house by himself, move a five-hundred-pound beam off a mother and her two small kids, and carry the three of them out alive.”
“Huh.”
“Get this, did the whole thing with a broken arm.”
“What about his attitude? Was he ever a disciplinary problem?”
“He joked around a lot. Was really good at voices, you know, impressions. Would take turns doing the guys when we were hanging around the firehouse. Definitely a ball buster. But in a…good-spirited way. Never broke the rules.”
“How did a kid like that end up in a maximum-security prison?”
Clyde makes out a groan on the other line. “I was just his boss. I’m no shrink.”
“Anything could help. It may be relevant to my case. The murder of his sister.”
“Word of that got back to Queens. Terrible. Sweet girl, years ago she worked at the diner where I get my bagel every morning. Would always scribble little notes on the paper to-go bags with marker, like ‘Stay warm’ if it were snowing, that sort of thing. Anyway, Tommy was looking to take on more responsibility in the department. Wanted to keep fighting fires, but also get into the crime fighting side of things.”
“Like a fire investigator?”
“You’re familiar. At night he was studying for his certification.”
“The FBI works with them on a lot of bomb-related incidents.”
“Well, Tommy would’ve been a hell of a good one if you ask me. He isn’t just physical, but smart. The sort of mind that’s always turning, always questioning. That’s what got him into trouble. There was a big fire in town. He didn’t buy the official story of how it started. Felt it was arson. Let’s just say he looked into it himself…a little too closely.”
“What happened?”
“I wasn’t there. Wouldn’t be right for me to just pass you a rumor.” A pause. “How is any of this relevant to his sister’s murder?”
“He just showed up at a police station in San Diego and lied his way into getting a copy of the confidential case file. If he does something stupid like sell it to the press, it could jeopardize my entire investigation.”
Clyde hears a noise through the phone that might be a chuckle.
“Is that funny?” Clyde asks. “You think he might leak it?”
“Oh no. Like I said, I’ve known the kid for years. And I doubt he wanted it for financial reasons.”
“Why did he then?”
Clyde hears that chuckle-like noise again.
“Good luck with your case,” the lieutenant says. “I’ve got to get back to work.” He hangs up.
Eight
Tommy treads a sidewalk in Zona Norte, Tijuana’s red-light district, the main territory of Los Hombres del Vacio according to the Los Angeles Herald. Though San Diego is close by, Tijuana seems a different world, the cities’ sights and sounds nothing alike.
Many of the storefront doorways along the sidewalk lack signs, others sealed with metal rollup gates scribbled in indecipherable graffiti. Street vendors with carts pitch products in Spanish to Latin pedestrians and broken English to White ones. Prostitutes in skimpy outfits huddle in almost every alleyway.
Tommy’s been roaming the city, acclimating himse
lf, gathering ideas for a plan. He calls Josh.
“Sup?” Josh says.
“I need a favor.”
“What?”
“Mail me my passport.”
“You have a passport?”
“Don’t act so damn surprised. Figured if I ever made enough money for that trip to Italy I always wanted to do, I could go.”
“You know you’re allowed to travel anywhere in the US without a passport?”
“I know that dumbass. I’m not in the US.”
“Say what?”
“I’m in Mexico. They didn’t check my documents on the way in, but Border Patrol definitely will when I try to get back to America.”
“You decided to take a vacation to Mexico after your sister’s funeral?”
“I’m not on vacation.”
“Well, I don’t see a business reason for a maintenance man from Queens to be in Mexico. So what’re you doing?”
“The passport’s in the closet of my apartment. In a bin on the shelf with my old baseball cards. Hang in front of my building, wait for one of the neighbors to come or go, and slip inside. I have a spare key under my mat. Go in, grab it, overnight it.”
“I’m not sending you shit until you tell me what you’re doing in Mexico, T.”
A pause. “Screw it. I came here to kill the man who shot Danielle. Happy?”
“Christ. I knew you were up to something.”
“I’ll give you an address in Tijuana. Whatever it costs I’ll Venmo—”
“Do you realize this is a horrible idea but you made the choice to do it anyway? Or do you actually think this is a straight-up good idea, like mixing peanut butter with jelly? With you, sometimes I really don’t know.”
“I don’t need a lecture. Just mail the damn thing.”
“The feds are on Danielle’s case. Let them take care of this.”
Tommy kicks a metal gate over a doorway, a thud radiating across the sidewalk, a couple people staring. “I’m not trusting this to the feds,” he yells into the phone. “They don’t know my sister. They’re just logging hours for a paycheck.”
“A little cynical, no?”
“No. People don’t give a crap about anyone but themselves, their families, and a few close friends.”
“Who are you even looking for? You know the person who shot Danielle?”
“I know he’s from here. And I’m about to find out his name.”
“How?”
“Hookers.”
“As in hookers, hookers?”
“As in hookers, hookers.”
“As in Dangerous Delusions, a new one-man play starring Thomas Dapino.”
“Soliciting prostitution is legal in Tijuana, but that doesn’t mean the girls still don’t have handlers to find them clients and protect them from muggings, rough johns, whatever else. The guy who killed Danielle belongs to the gang that runs every vice in town. Drugs, gambling, prostitution. Tijuana’s hookers must regularly spend time around these men, a good chance one will know the guy I’m after.”
“Wait. Did you say gang?”
“Relax. I’m not going to question any gangster directly. I can get all I need from a prostitute.”
“Approaching a hooker instead isn’t much safer, homie. If this gang runs all prostitution like you said, they’d banish a working girl who crossed them, probably do a lot worse. Any hooker’s loyalty is with them. If you say one wrong thing and she senses you’re after her employer, she’s going to clam up around you, but tell someone about you. And if that happens, she’s the last chick you’ll ever have sex with because you probably won’t have balls after.”
“I’m not having sex with her. I just need to talk. Are you mailing me my passport or what?”
“Not unless you bounce from Mexico as soon as you get it. And skip this whole…I don’t know what you’d even call it. Cracking a multiple homicide isn’t a one-person job. The feds have bodies, systems, software. Promise me you’ll leave this to them and I’ll roll to your apartment right now.”
“I can’t make that promise. I can do this without the feds.”
“Emotions are running high. Understandable. When you chill out and come to your senses, call me back and I’ll send the passport. I love you, buddy.”
“Love you too.”
Tommy hangs up. He leans against the gate he kicked, folds his arms, and thinks. He’ll solve the passport problem later. The moment he questions a prostitute, he’ll no longer be an anonymous American tourist in the eyes of this city. Instead a man pressing down on its underworld. He must dedicate all his mental energy to staying alive.
He stops at a food cart for a burrito, savoring every bite as this may be his last meal. If things go wrong, sneaking around in the dark would be easier than the light. He’ll approach a prostitute once the sun begins setting.
Nine
A reddish sunset wraps Tijuana as Tommy steps into an alley with three hookers, knee-length white socks riding their toned legs toward short plaid skirts.
“Evening,” he says to the trio. “I’m looking for a date. And I’m looking for the whole package. Quality conversation included. Call me sappy. So…anybody speak good English?”
“I know English pretty okay,” the one with dyed-blond hair says.
“And I know who I’m spending the next hour with.” He holds out his arm. “A bilingual beauty.”
She giggles, interlocking her arm with his. “You’re funny, mister.”
He hands her five twenties he took out of an ATM, his checking account now the lowest its ever been. “This work?”
She nods and slips the cash in her purse. “I have room we can use.”
She leads him around the corner to a building. The security guard, a three-hundred-pounder with hair gel in his goatee, smiles at her and says, “Hola Gabby.”
“Taking one upstairs, Coco,” she tells him, pushing open the door.
They enter a strip club. Tommy’s escort, apparently named Gabby, walks him past a performer in a trashy-nurse costume jutting her boobs toward men seated at the stage, then takes him up a two-story staircase to red-curtain-covered private cubicles.
She struts into one, inside a twin mattress with a mirror above it. “Get comfortable,” she says. Tommy sits on the bed. “For a hundred, usually you get just BJ. But you cute. So you can put it anywhere but my ass.” She wriggles out of her crop top, unhooks her bra, and begins unbuttoning his jeans.
He lays his hands atop hers, stopping her. “How about you just dance for a little?”
She shrugs, then sways her hips, way behind pace of the techno track playing.
“I was in this part of Tijuana last spring for a bachelor party,” he says. “Was insane. We were mixing it up with this local dude. Was hoping to sync with him again. Maybe you’d know him. Like twenty-five. Shaved dome. Has a really intense tattoo. A boa constrictor going around his neck. About five eight, one seventy.”
She stops dancing. “What about him?”
“You know him?”
“Why?”
“I want to buy something from him.”
The song changes to a heavy-metal track with Spanish lyrics.
“I met him once,” she says. “Like two months ago. He come into club while I dance. Spend lots of money. But not very nice to the girls. What you want to buy from a guy like that?”
“I’ll be honest with you. He sold me and my friends some banging coke last time we were in TJ. If I knew his name I could try to look him up on social media and message him, see if he could hook me up again.”
She taps her nose. “Plenty people you get good coke from in Tijuana. No need him, silly.”
“I hear you. But his stuff was bonkers. You met him, you must at least know his first name, right?”
“I worked all night. No sleep.” She yawns. “Too tired to remember name I hear two months ago. But my friend here will know. First name, last too. You really want, I will ask right now. One minute. Okay?”
“Yes, de
finitely. Thank you.”
She walks out of the cubicle.
That was easier than he figured. All he needs to do now is relax for a minute until a pretty naked woman delivers him the gangster’s name.
A minute passes.
Then two.
Then five.
She comes back. With her is a jacked guy wearing a half-zipped leather jacket with no shirt underneath. He looks mad. She looks scared.
She tells Tommy, “My friend Raul is manager of club. He know man you ask about. When I go to his office to see what man name was, Raul said he wanted speak to you.” When she mentioned she was asking her friend for the info, Tommy assumed it was a stripper.
Not Raul.
If this guy manages a club with dancers doubling as prostitutes, chances are he isn’t so much her friend but her pimp. A gold chain with a clown-face medallion hangs from his neck, the symbol associated with Mexican gangs as Tommy learned from his stint in Attica. He must be in Los Hombres del Vacio.
“You American?” the pimp asks.
“I am,” Tommy says with a smile. “Hoping to lock down some good blow like most of the other Americans here.”
“Blow, huh? Gabby says you bought some from my buddy last time you were here. That accurate?”
“Best shit I ever had. Straight up. Got any on you?”
“So my buddy’s seen you? He’d recognize you?”
Tommy’s heart gallops. “Absolutely.”
The pimp takes his cellphone from his jacket pocket and snaps a photo of Tommy’s face. He clicks a few buttons. “Just sent him your pic. We’ll see if he knows you.”
The text reply will expose Tommy as a liar, then to gang payback. He can’t just stand here waiting for that fate.
So he yanks the mirror off the wall and smashes it over the pimp’s head. The hooker shrieks as he crumbles to the floor among broken glass.
“Puta,” the pimp screams, blood pouring down his forehead.
Tommy runs out of the cubicle onto the stairs. The bartender on the first floor lifts a shotgun from under the sink. Cocks it.
“Shit,” Tommy says to himself, retreating back to the balcony.
To his left the pimp is hurrying toward him. To his right is a dead end. His only option is an unmarked door.