by Louisa Luna
“Hey, you leaving?” said Corey, somewhat disappointed.
“Not yet,” said Vega, walking around the barrel table.
Corey’s eyes were webby with red lines. He looked at her, intrigued.
“What’s up?” he said, laughing, confused.
“Who’d you offer Logan’s car to?”
It took Corey a full second to register what she’d said. She watched the dusty tires turn in his head, and then he shook his head quickly.
“What.”
“Logan’s car,” said Vega again, estimating the distance between them to be about a foot. “He owed you money. You said you’d forget it if he could get you a car for a day. For a friend. Who’s the friend?”
Vega said it all in one breath and watched Corey’s face flip to anger, shock. He scrambled to stand.
“Sit down,” said Vega, holding her empty hand out to stop him.
“Who the fuck are you, for real?” he said, still standing, arms tense. “You’re not a fuckin’ teacher.”
“Think for a second,” Vega said. “Things can happen very quickly in these situations.”
Corey listened to her, thought about it. She could tell he was trying to think through his chances. He was watching her, studying the lines of her body, though not lewdly.
You dumb mutt, she thought. You’re gonna make a move.
“Your reflexes are shot,” said Vega plainly. She would have to spell it out for him. “You take a run at me, I will break your nose here,” she said evenly, pointing to the heel of her left hand. Then she continued, pointing to her right elbow: “And I will dislocate your jaw here. If you’d like to see how that’s going to work out, then give it a try.”
Corey widened his stride as if he’d been pushed gently off his spot, but Vega could tell he was not totally convinced.
“Why don’t you look out the front window for a second?” she said.
He looked at her quizzically.
“Go on. Tell me what you see.”
Corey rushed to the window. Vega quickly removed her phone, texted one word to Cap: “Wave.”
“See that guy in the car across the street? He can hear everything we’re saying.”
Corey whipped his head around. Vega shook her phone and set it on the barrel table.
“There’s a mike in here. Anything happens to me, he’s gonna come in here and bring what he has in the trunk.”
“What’s in the trunk?” said Corey.
“You want to find out, make a move,” said Vega, tapping her chest. “One more time, Corey. Sit. Down.”
Corey came back to where she stood and sat, landing on the couch with a sigh.
“You cops?” he said, sounding defeated.
“No,” she said. “But we know some. They would love to meet you.”
“What do you want?” he said slowly.
“Who’s the friend you needed a car for?”
Corey rubbed his eyes. He was wrestling with telling her something, she knew. Shaking his head remorsefully.
“I can’t tell you that.”
He looked up and caught Vega’s gaze. She seemed very serious.
“Look—” he continued. “Whatever you could do to me, whatever’s in the trunk, it’s fucking nothing compared to what these guys and their people will do to me.”
“Really?” she said, perching on the edge of the barrel table. “I can’t wait to meet them.”
Corey continued shaking his head. Vega had no way of knowing if what he said was true, or if he believed it, but she wasn’t too concerned about it.
All the time in the world was an unfamiliar concept to her; every case, every day was composed of a few minutes stacked and multiplied, reminded her of the way cable and cell companies split time into bundles. Spindly bundles of seconds, weighted sacks of hours. She glanced at her phone now while Corey took some deep, stoned breaths and knew it would be a few minutes of this back-and-forth before she got a name, which was just fine.
* * *
—
Cap looked at the time. It had been about forty minutes, but she had texted, and also instructed him to wave to the guy at the window, who’d looked confused and squinty. He began to text: “Still okay?” but before he could send, she emerged from the front door, her hair wilder than before, eyes on everything. She took long strides across the street, reaching her hands behind her head to tie her hair back.
She got into the car and slammed the door.
“Everything’s fine,” she said before he had chance to speak. “Do you have any of that coffee left?”
“No,” said Cap. “What happened?”
Vega didn’t respond, buckled her belt and started the car, tore out of the spot a little quick. She made a lazy wide turn at the corner.
“Everything’s fine,” she said again.
“Okay,” Cap said slowly. “So what do we know?”
“Devin Lara,” said Vega. “Corey got some pressure by a guy named Devin Lara, a bigger dealer apparently—cocaine, heroin, meth, pills. He also has a financial services business as a cover. And he strong-armed Corey, said all he needed was a car for a couple of days and it would be returned. Corey didn’t want to give up his own car; Logan owed him money, so Corey said he’d forgive the debt if he got him a car.”
“So is Lara a murderer and a child trafficker, or just a dealer.”
Vega stopped at a light and pulled at her bottom lip. She focused on something in the distance.
“Corey didn’t think so. But he thinks Lara knows some guys, some of his connections from Mexico. Corey seemed to think these guys may have a lot of resources.”
She turned her head abruptly then, to something she saw out the window.
“You think we need to have a more substantial talk with Otero and the DEA guys now?” Cap asked.
“We have to tell him and McTiernan to pick up Corey. He says he’d rather go to jail for a while than wait for whatever Lara’s guys might do. Maybe he can make a deal, who knows.”
She muttered that last phrase, and Cap noticed something was different about her. He couldn’t put a finger on it. She kept touching her lips, biting them at the corners, and she sat forward on the seat as if something were about to happen. Preoccupied.
“You okay, Vega?” he said.
“Huh?” she said, then glanced at him. “Yeah, I’m just hungry. Mind if we stop at that Jack in the Box?”
She had already put the blinker on to turn in to the drive-thru.
“No prob,” said Cap.
They didn’t have Jack in the Boxes on the East Coast, but Cap knew it was fast food. Burgers and fries and shakes. He had never seen Vega eat anything like that. He had rarely seen her eat at all and when she did it was purely utilitarian, and junk never seemed to make the cut. Then he watched her eyes, squinting to focus on what was directly in front of her, and noticed for the first time the woody smell coming off her clothes and hair.
“Vega!” he said loudly.
She didn’t exactly jump but turned to him suddenly, like he had pinched her.
“What?”
“You’re stoned,” he said, then chuckled.
Vega stared at the car in front of her in the drive-thru line.
“Shit, I am.”
She rubbed her eyes, while Cap laughed. He wanted to take a picture of her and post it on the Internet.
“I just need something to eat and drink, and I’ll be fine,” she said.
“Yeah, you will.”
“Do you want anything?” she asked.
“Just coffee,” he said, his laughter subsiding. “So we should call Otero, right?”
“Um, I guess,” said Vega, pulling up to the menu. “To tell him about Corey. I think we hold back on Lara, see if the Bastard can find him. They have really changed t
he menu. I used to eat here twice a week in high school.”
Cap glanced at the menu, the images of the glowing food.
“Wait, you want to find Lara, me and you?”
“Yeah,” said Vega, still turned away from him, examining her options.
“These are the guys from Mexico. Like Mexican cartel guys,” said Cap again, trying to make it sink in.
“Yeah,” said Vega, annoyed. Then she leaned out the window and said to the box: “Large curly fries and four Dasanis.” She turned to Cap quickly and said, “You sure you don’t want a Dasani?”
“I’m sure.”
“And one large black coffee.”
Vega pulled the car ahead and tapped the wheel with her fingers. Something caught her eye through the windshield. Cap followed her gaze and saw a seagull bobbing up and down in the breeze.
“As I was saying, maybe we want to call in some bigger artillery if we’re dealing with Mexican gangsters. Or any gangsters, really.”
He couldn’t tell if she was listening. She took her hands off the wheel and inched the car forward by easing off the brake bit by bit. She bit both lips so they disappeared between her teeth. Cap was no longer sure he was tickled by Stoned Vega. He kind of missed Shit-Together Vega.
“Vega, you hearing me?”
She didn’t respond but appeared thoughtful. The car in front of them pulled out of the drive-thru line and to the street. Vega pulled up to the window, took her bags from the cashier, and paid.
“Yeah, I hear you,” she said, still pensive. She pulled into a space in the lot and turned the engine off.
She handed Cap his coffee and then opened a bottle of water and drank most of it in one gulp. Then she started in on the curly fries, eating one long spring that resembled a Slinky.
“You should have one of these,” she said to Cap, holding them out to him.
Cap took a crispy circle and popped it in his mouth.
“They’re good,” he confirmed.
Vega continued to eat silently, rapidly.
Finally she spoke: “Lara’s not necessarily bunked up with a gang of narcos. He’s just another domino in the line, like Corey. We can handle him, when the Bastard finds him, me and you.”
She set the fries down in the cup holder and finished the bottle of water, tossed the empty into the paper bag with the rest of the bottles. Then she opened another and took a more moderate sip.
“You get a number? Why don’t we call him, pretend we want a hookup?”
Vega swallowed and said, “Corey said we can’t just text this guy. Said he doesn’t work that way, only has clients he personally finds and approves.”
“Any particular reason you don’t want to bring in Otero on Lara yet?” asked Cap.
Vega kept popping fries into her mouth, staring straight ahead, but Cap knew she was listening. She wasn’t that gone. She ate fairly daintily for someone who was high, Cap thought. He’d been around a lot of stoned kids as a cop; even he and Jules used to smoke now and again when she’d get joints as thank-yous from certain students, and he was used to druggy eating being a massacre—chicken wings, barbecue chips, Halloween-size bags of candy bars. But for Vega, it was methodical; she seemed to grow more and more pensive as she ate, as if each bite honed her focus even more.
“We’re not telling Otero everything, remember?” she said. “His detective, McTiernan, is tied up with LoSanto and the cash. That’s where we need him right now.”
“Okay,” said Cap, sensing there was more. “That the only reason?”
“No,” she said. “I’d like to know exactly where Otero lands, how much information gets from him to Boyce. What’s his stake? What’s Boyce’s? Are they the same?”
“Good questions,” said Cap.
Vega stuffed a napkin into the fry cup and finished the second bottle of water, slipped it in the bag. They sat for a few minutes, the only sound Vega’s short fingernails tapping out an email. Then her phone buzzed with a call.
“The Bastard?” asked Cap.
Vega shook her head, examining the screen and mouthing the numbers to herself. She swiped and answered it. Cap watched her face for changes and saw her eyes travel back and forth across a line in the distance, then stop dead and stick hard right in the center.
8
cap could not believe the cleanliness of the san diego County Medical Examiner’s office. The county ME’s facilities in Pennsylvania, and every one he’d seen on the East Coast, had not been significantly altered since the 1960s—massive brick structures with cattle-killing fluorescent lights and gray walls inside. This office was all bright yellow and glass, the main walkway leading from the waiting room wide with a picture window along one wall. It overlooked an office park, but Cap was still impressed at how open it was, how at ease it made him feel in a building full of dead bodies.
They were being led by a security guard to meet an ME named Mia, who’d called Vega to say she had something to show her.
The guard stopped in front of swinging doors that gleamed silver in the natural light. He rapped on one with his knuckles.
“Come in,” sang a youthful voice.
The guard pushed the door open.
“Your guests, Mia,” he called.
Cap wasn’t sure where to look first. There was a body under a sheet on an examination table—he could see the ghostly outlines. There was a sink by the head, also a long sink across the wall opposite where they had just entered.
A plus-size young woman stood at the long sink, where the water was running. She glanced over her shoulder, her smile big and toothy, tinted goggles over her eyes.
“Thanks, Sam. Hiya, Alice!” she said, cheery.
A truly odd job for someone so bubbly, thought Cap. But then, maybe it made sense. Maybe after sawing human bones and sifting through their gummy organs it was best to be perky, optimistic, to go home and have a cocktail and stream Netflix.
Vega smiled that little smile of acknowledgment she had. It was tiny in the mouth area but big and warm around the eyes.
“This is Max Caplan,” she said to Mia.
Mia waved her wet fingers and turned off the sink. Cap nodded politely.
“So,” said Mia, snapping two paper towels out of a dispenser. “I just wanna wait for my brain guy before we get started, if that’s cool with you.”
“That’s fine,” said Vega.
Cap watched for signs of squeamishness in her face but saw none so far. His own stomach was fine at the moment, but he knew that even though he’d seen plenty of bodies and parts of bodies as a cop, it could still get to him, not because it made him feel philosophical, just a pure biological reaction, didn’t matter if you saw it every day or not. It got to everyone sooner or later, even the toughest bulldog cops who’d seen it all ended up puking in a morgue at some point. The only people it bounced off of were doctors, MEs, paramedics, RNs, because seeing bodies every day for them was like chalkboards and shiny red apples for schoolteachers.
He could smell a lot of formalin and cleaning products. He couldn’t smell the blood yet, but he eyed a tray of tools next to the body on the right, and on that tray was a buzz saw. He knew exactly what that was for too.
Mia dropped the paper towels in a flip-top garbage can and stood next to the body with the tray of tools.
“So,” she said. “Are you guys like a couple or what?”
Cap laughed, not particularly nervously, mostly out of being charmed by Mia’s guileless attitude. He glanced at Vega, who appeared neither nervous nor charmed.
“No, he’s my partner,” she said plainly. It was like she was saying, These items here on my feet, they’re shoes.
“Life partner?” teased Mia, raising her goggles.
“Business partner,” said Vega.
“Okay, whatever you say,” said Mia, singsong again.
&
nbsp; Cap could not believe Vega was actually allowing herself to be teased, by someone she’d just met no less.
Then the swinging doors burst open, and a guy in blue scrubs with a gray rubber wolf mask came through, howling. Cap found himself jumping a little, his hand twitching in the direction of the Sig under his arm.
The masked figure stopped short after a moment.
“Goddammit, Witton,” said Mia. “I told you I was gonna have people here.”
The guy pulled off the mask.
“Shit, sorry,” he said.
He was a skinny Asian guy with a buzz cut, the scrubs baggy on him.
“You’re such a freak, dude,” said Mia, putting on a fresh pair of gloves. “This is Alice Vega, who I told you about. And this is her business partner, Max.”
“Hey, hi,” said the wolf-boy, and he shook their hands. “I’m sorry about this,” he said, waving the mask. “It’s like a joke me and her have.” He shoved the mask into his pants pocket, the snout sticking out.
“This is Witton Ng. He’s on staff at County and he’s our neuro specialist when we need him. He’s a lot more mature than he looks,” said Mia, somewhat affectionately.
Witton nodded shyly and walked past Cap and Vega, muttered, “Excuse me.” He washed his hands quickly in the long sink and dried them, pulled on a pair of gloves.
“So remember the mark on Jane One?” Mia said to Vega. “Weird shape on the temple?”
Vega nodded.
Mia and Witton walked to the top of the exam table, near the head, and Mia gestured for Cap and Vega to follow them. They stood on either side of the table, at about where the hips were.
“We think that the mark,” said Mia slowly, “wasn’t from blunt trauma. We think it’s a burn.”
“Hard to tell,” added Witton. “They can look virtually the same.”
“He was here for another thing and he saw this and said— Tell them what you said,” Mia urged Witton.
“I said it looks like an ECT burn, but a pretty extreme case since the skin’s scarred over.”
“ECT?” asked Vega.
“Like, electroshock, right?” said Cap.
“Right,” said Witton.