We arrived on the balcony and inhaled the fresh ocean air. The sun was about an hour from setting and the red orange glow on the horizon was beautiful. We leaned our elbows on the brick ledge. Marco took a sip of his tequila and stared off into the distance.
“Business has been down, Corbin. We need you. I have a lot of product moving to the area soon. Which is good timing because the new college students arrive next month and they’re going to need their fix. And in the last couple of years, we’ve lost market share without you pushing our brand on campus. I need you to do what you do best.”
I squinted and looked out on the ocean. Do what you do best. I repeated those words over again in my head.
I took another sip of La Suicida. Both of us knew exactly what he meant. I was the king of dealing to the students on college campuses. I’d always been able to win them over and become their number one source.
Sometimes, it got to me though. If you follow the money chain, drug violence in Mexico was fueled by college kids and young twenty-somethings paying prices for cocaine.
Not that it mattered anymore. I was on the Fed’s side now. I had to play this right. I shifted my gaze from the horizon to Marco. “What did you have in mind?”
“We’ve got a big shipment coming in next week. I want to get you back on the college campuses. Set up shop again, like you did in the old days.”
“I’m twenty-nine now, I don’t exactly fit right in with the college freshmen anymore,” I said.
“You’re a young twenty-nine. Especially with the new haircut. And I’m not asking you to blend in exactly—I’m just asking you to make connections.”
I hesitated, slowly playing my hand. Marco was doing exactly what I needed—bringing me back into his trust circle. I couldn’t be too eager though, or it would arouse suspicion. “Marco, you know I’m tainted goods now. I’m lucky I made it out of prison. Sure—we’re friends, and I’d love to help you. I just don’t know if it’s too soon for me to get back into the business.”
He nodded. “I can certainly understand your hesitation. But once you’ve moved this shipment, we’ll bring in someone new. Someone younger you can train as an apprentice. But right now we need you. The business needs you.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “The family needs you.”
Would you send your family to jail for twenty years during the prime of their life? I wanted to say.
Instead I paused to think, sipping my tequila. “This is some good shit. You know what—fuck it. I’m in.”
“That’s my Cabrón Corbin!” He tightened his grip on my shoulder.
“So what’s the total product we’re moving?”
“Four-hundred pounds. Eighty-five percent pure.”
I did some quick math in my head. “Jesus, Marco. That’s over fifteen million dollars street value.”
“So you’ll do it. You’ll absolutely do it?” He sounded like the devil, the tone of his voice bordering between a question and a statement. He stuck his hand out for a shake.
This was the big moment. The grand finale. I had to drop this so natural. Everything was riding on Marco’s lack of suspicion at my request to meet the drug lord at the top of the food chain.
An indication of desperation could be met with death.
“I’ll do it under one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“Luis Reyes. I want to meet him.”
Marco set his drink down, retracting his handshake. “Why would you need to meet him? We supply the product, you move it. It’s simple.”
“I know I’ve always been the dealer. But you are asking me, right after I get out of prison, to take a huge risk that could have me right back behind bars.”
Marco lifted his chin. “I’ll think about it. In the meantime. This is for you.”
He held up a black briefcase and set it on the concrete fence where I leaned on my arms.
“Here is your advance for the work,” he said as he popped the thing open. The money smell hit me and I eyed the rolls of hundreds.
“Just some ‘get back on your feet money,’ now that you’re out. And a symbol of trust. After we were in Folsom together for a year, I know I can trust you. And you should know the same. Just do me a favor and be discreet with your spending for a little while. We don’t need to draw any unnecessary attention.”
He stared at my face, gauging my reaction. I smiled. “You’re a good man Marco.”
“So you’ll do it?” he asked hopefully.
“Get me a face to face with Luis,” I said, “and I’m in.”
Marco frowned. “I don’t understand why this is such a big deal to you.”
My heart surged a little bit. “I worked for him for six years. I was his best dealer. I ended up in jail for activities related to his business. I think it’s only right.”
Marco took a deep breath. “I’ll get that meeting with Luis. Give me some time.” We clinked glasses and finished the last of our drinks.
On the way downstairs, the topic of conversation turned to women. I told him all about Alexa. Marco asked me every possible question about her, like some kind of lady-killer guru. Creepy bastard.
“Dixie, let’s go,” Marco said. He turned to me. “We’re having a poker match tonight at Cooney’s Pub by the beach. Let’s go. Starts in an hour.”
“Right now?” I balked at the idea, thinking of the plans I’d made with Eva.
“Something the matter?” Marco asked, seeing my hesitation.
“Hell no. Of course I’ll come. You ready to lose some money?” Dixie led the way out the door, and I paused. “Be right there.”
In the bathroom, I fired off a text to Eva. I was sure she’d understand me having to cancel our little date tonight. She probably didn’t care. Like she said, we were just a silly one-night stand.
Nothing more would happen between us.
9
Eva
After one hell of a day, I needed something that I had not indulged in since I was in Tijuana: a drink. After a much needed nap, I met up with Amanda at a bar on the marina downtown. We nabbed a table next to the open window looking out at the water on the other side of the street.
“So let me get this straight,” Amanda said, after taking a big sip of her margarita. “Fuckboy from Tijuana—aka the hottie who pretended to be your boyfriend—is an undercover agent.”
I peeled at the label of my Corona, my eyes unfocused. “He’s not an agent, he’s an ex-convict. But with how closed off the Reyes circle is, we needed an ‘in,’ so we had to use him.”
It was possible that I shouldn’t have been telling Amanda classified information. But she was in my circle of trust, and I always liked to keep her informed on my whereabouts. Besides, as a lawyer, she knew the rules of confidentiality.
“Does your boss—does Ned know?” she asked, we were still grappling with what to call my boss now that we were broken up.
I took a deep breath and stopped my nervous label peeling to return Amanda’s gaze across the bar table. “Ned doesn’t know anything. For now at least.”
“Only Dr. Eva Napleton would get herself into a situation like this.” Amanda’s lips slowly curved upward in a devilish smile.
“Uh-oh. I see the lawyer wheels turning.”
“Caught in the act. But hear me out. Why would you want to keep it under wraps? If you slept with him, that means you have a sort of power over him. Like how James Bond always slept with the enemy and got insider information.” She leaned forward, clearly excited about her James Bond reference.
“I see the logic…sort of. But I’m not sure this is the same thing as a James Bond movie. And I doubt that I have any power over him. I mean, he canceled our plans this evening. Well, to be fair, he begged me to hang out, then I gave in, and then he ditched me.”
I couldn’t help but feel my heart sink just a little knowing I wouldn’t get a chance to see him tonight outside of work hours. Sure, Eva was too much of a rule-follower to hook up with him again.
But A
lexa just might seduce him one more time--just for fun.
“What a dick!” Amanda blurted.
“I know. Very big dick.”
Amanda sighed. “Well on the plus side you are proving our hotness vs. asshole theory. I mean, not that it’s good that hot guys are assholes. But at least we are right about something. And by the way, I have to ask …how was he?”
I chuckled at the theory Amanda and I had come up with when we were undergrads at San Diego State. We wanted to do our senior thesis on the correlation between guys who were attractive and how big of assholes they were—something important that needed proving in our twenty-one year old minds. Unfortunately our advisors didn’t see the worldly importance of our thesis, and we had to branch off into pursuits in our perspective fields of law and forensic psychology that were more mainstream academically. Still, it was a running joke that we had going, and so far the theory had largely stood up to all of the men we met.
Amanda’s phone buzzed and she picked it up. “Speaking of hot guys.”
She showed me the message, smiling proudly.
Hey Bambi, this is Casey. I know you’re studying abroad right now in Asia, so here’s your weekly shirtless selfie.
“See?” She beamed. “I do still have it. The bartender definitely was gay. And can I please respond to him?”
I laughed. I’d forbidden Amanda from talking to Casey after we got back from Tijuana, as much as she wanted to see him. So she made up a story about studying abroad in Asia for an unspecified amount of time.
“Fine,” I relented. “
“Yes! I’m going to see what he’s up to tonight.”
She shot him a quick text, then continued. “Alright, alright so we got a little off topic. You never answered my question about Tijuana, by the way,” Amanda said, raising an eyebrow. “How was it? For real. You haven’t been straight with me about that night. I can tell.”
“You know I usually don’t kiss and tell.”
“Oh please. You haven’t had anything to tell lately. Or did you keep a secret from me?”
I clenched up, thinking about the last, and only secret I kept from Amanda: that I cheated on Ned. I was so ashamed after the fact, I couldn’t bear to tell a soul. The night it happened I was so drunk and out of it, and Ned had been so distant for so many months that I was loving the attraction I got from that man many moons ago. In my heart I knew my indiscretion was more likely a symptom of a bad relationship than it was a cause of us breaking up, but the fact that I had done such a thing still ate away at my conscience regularly. I knew I should probably have told Amanda of all people, but I just couldn’t.
In this instance however, I deemed it a good idea to share with her the gloriousness of kissing Corbin Young. In fact, I didn’t know how we had avoided talking about this four weeks after the fact.
“Fine. Now you know I’m not one to make comparisons. But,” I leaned across the table and whispered, cupping my mouth with both hands. “It was the best. Sex. Ever. For once in my life, I felt almost…”
“Totally alive?” Amanda said with a perk in her voice. I didn’t recall ever seeing Amanda quite on the edge of her seat like she was right now. “I’m getting excited for you, vicariously, if you can’t tell.”
“I was going to say, ‘loved.’ But when I say it out loud, it sounds funny. It was like...he was inside my soul. You ever feel that? Although I know you can’t love someone from a one night stand,” I said.
“Maybe you do, for a moment,” Amanda said philosophically.
“Can you call what you have love, if it’s only for one moment? Isn’t that just lust?” I tried to reason.
Amanda’s phone buzzed again, killing the air around the seriousness of my question. She eagerly grabbed it.
“Oh my gosh, he’s coming here. You wanna get some weed? He sells it.”
“Amanda! I’m a—” I lowered my voice. “I work for the DEA. I can’t be out buying weed from street dealers.”
“Of course you can. Come on, this is California. Weed’s practically more legal than alcohol. Plus, if you get caught just say you were doing some undercover research. It’s the perfect cover story.”
I hesitated. Amanda touched my hand with hers.
“Eva. I have a two thousand page discovery document to read this week. Two thousand. I need some weed to read. Now that is a heck of a rhyme, don’t you think?”
She smiled like a six year old who wanted her parent to buy her candy at the grocery store.
I relented. “Fine. So is he just going to come by? Or where do we meet him?”
Amanda looked at her phone. “He says that we can grab an eighth from his contact in the back bar here, and he’ll be here a little later. Here, follow me.” We grabbed our drinks and walked past the crowded bar toward the back. In the past hour or so the local college students had started to fill the place up.
We walked down a hallway until we reached a steel blue door. A large, bearded Hispanic man with his arms crossed stood as still as a statue next to the door, his eyes on us.
“Hi there,” Amanda said to him with a smile.
“Can I help you?” the man replied without uncrossing his arms.
“Yeah. I’m looking for Casey’s contact. Casey sent me,” Amanda said.
“Yeah, okay. Casey sent me, too,” the man said without smiling. “That’s what everyone says, lady.”
She pulled out her phone with the texts from Casey and showed them to the bouncer. He examined them closely, even pulling up the number attached to the name to make sure she hadn’t just typed ‘Casey’ on any old number in her phone. After a minute he seemed satisfied, turned, and knocked twice on the door. “Hey, Jefe. You got visitors.”
“Send them in,” said a deep voice with a hint of a Spanish accent.
We bopped in with swagger, feeling good from our drinks. The room was dimly lit, and I could just make out the figures of four men sitting around a poker table through a cloud of cigarette and cigar smoke. Something seemed off. My DEA instincts kicked in. Instinctively I looked for all of the possible exits out of the room. There was the main door behind us, but other than that the place was enclosed like a 1930s speakeasy.
A Hispanic looking man rose from the table and addressed us. I swallowed hard, as I recognized a man who I have only seen in ‘most wanted’ reports: Marco Reyes.
10
Eva
“Finally,” Marco addressed us from across the room. “The whores are here. Come in girls. Shit, they didn’t say they were sending a blonde over, but I’ll take it.”
Marco put his cards down on the table, picked up a handgun, and began to walk toward us blowing out a cloud of cigar smoke. He looked as if like he’d been drinking for hours and couldn’t walk in a straight line if he had to.
I felt my heart begin to race.
Amanda didn’t know the details of Marco’s ruthless background, but even she froze up when she saw his gun, her shoulders tensed. Clearly this was not going to be the easy weed pick-up that we were expecting. I cleared my throat to speak. “Whores? I’m sorry. You must have us confused with someone else.”
“Don’t play coy with me,” he boomed. “We don’t hire prostitutes to fucking play games with me all night. We hire them to party.”
Marco had deep set eyes and a scar on the right side of his forehead that made him look like a gangster out of a Scorsese mobster flick. I’d seen his ugly face in countless photos taken by various undercover agents, but never in the flesh. Marco didn’t surface much in public. He wasn’t at the tippy top of the agency's list of people to capture, but he was pretty high up there, a few dozen spots behind his brother. The reason we hadn’t gone after him as hard as Luis was that we figured if we were to nab Marco, Luis could easily find a replacement for him. And whoever that replacement was could be much more violent than Marco, who had a reputation as a man of simple vices: booze and women.
"Hired girls? I’m not sure what you’re talking about. We're just here to see Casey
.” I held onto my smile like a poker face in spite of the pit that had formed in my stomach as Marco waved the gun around.
“We just want to buy some weed.” Amanda added. “I’m friends with Casey and—”
"Casey,” Marco paused, and stared us down with his dark brown eyes. He spoke grammatically perfect English with a slight hint of a Spanish speaking accent. “is not here. And I’ve never seen you two in my life. So I'm going to need to see some fucking I.D. Or else you will be our whores for the night.”
I staved off a shudder. "I.D.? Why do you need to see our I.D.? It’s not like we need to be twenty-one to buy weed," I gave Marco a confused-girl baby-face.
He brushed my hair behind my ears with the nozzle of the gun and burst out in a hearty laugh. It was a little awkward, but we managed a chuckle as well—albeit a forced one.
“Did you hear that, boys?” Marco said, turning to the dark corner of the room where the poker game is. “We have a comedian on our hands here. She thinks I’m carding her because she’s underage.” The men hooted and hollered, shouting at us in a combination of English and Spanish.
I was one step from panic mode. I did my best to channel my inner Alexa.
“You see mi amor, you’ve stumbled into the lion’s den, and I do not know who you are,” Marco narrowed his eyes, stared at me and then at Amanda. “Our dumbfuck doorman Pablo should not have let you in here. For all we know, you could be undercover cops. ‘Friends of Casey looking for weed?’” Marco makes air quotes. “That seems like a fucking made up excuse to me. How the fuck should I know who you are? Casey hasn’t told me anything. So that is why I need to see some fucking I.D. Please do not make me ask you again.”
I did my best not to tremble. The minute I were to hand over my I.D., Dr. Eva Napleton would come up on a Google search with connections to the DEA. At that point, I would be about as good as dead.
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