The Janes

by Louisa Luna

  “Yeah?” said Cap. “Why him?”

  “He knows Perez. He knows Mackey. Maybe he got paid on both sides.”

  Cap pulled out of the lot, headed to the corner.

  “You’re thinking Lara’s got an extra residence?” he said.

  “Doesn’t have to be a residence,” said Vega. “Could just be a room.”

  “Yeah, but it’s got to be secluded,” said Cap. “Maybe not a ghost town like Salton, but most citizens would call their local authorities if they saw a bunch of young girls in their underwear being marched into a condo.”

  Vega examined her reflection in the side mirror. The shape of the glass made her sunglasses look as if they were a mask, reminded her of a zoom lens photo of a fly.

  “You’re overestimating most citizens,” she said. “People generally don’t care unless it directly affects them.”

  “Aw, Vega, what about the power of the human spirit?” said Cap, teasing her.

  Vega sighed, annoyed, and said, “I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. I’m saying we shouldn’t wait by the phone.”

  “I don’t disagree. First, breakfast, then we definitely do not wait by the phone,” Cap said. “You want to find a place with better drink options than 7-Eleven, though?”

  “There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts a few blocks away,” said Vega.

  “You can’t get a protein bar there, though,” said Cap, stopping at a light.

  “I’ll find something.”

  “What—a donut?” said Cap, unable to imagine Vega eating such a thing. “Is there a Reno’s somewhere? They have egg sandwiches, and nut bars, and coffee that doesn’t taste like burnt shoes.”

  “Probably,” said Vega, searching on her phone for the nearest Reno’s. “I think you go straight two or three blocks and it’ll be in the mall on the left.”

  She looked up from her phone and lowered her sunglasses, strained to see the street sign on the next block. From the corner of her eye she saw the side mirror darken slightly, thought it was cloud cover until she looked straight on and saw a black Suburban right behind them. The license plate had three 9s in it.

  “This guy’s a little close to you,” she said, pointing to the mirror.

  “He is, right?” said Cap.

  The light turned green, and Cap sped up through the intersection.

  “So what’s the name of the street we’re looking for?”

  Vega turned to answer him, noticed the Suburban had not moved from its spot in front of the crosswalk, cars behind it honking. Then she saw another SUV, also big and black speeding through the cross street of the intersection, right behind Cap’s head, coming straight for them.

  She tried to tell Cap to reverse but didn’t have time before the SUV slammed into the rear half of Cap’s rental, and they began to spin.

  * * *

  —

  Cap planted his foot on the brake, and the car went around two, three, four times. He’d never been in a real accident, gotten rear-ended twice (once in a police cruiser), sideswiped in the Valley Diss parking lot, but never flipped, crashed, or spun. He steered left because the car was spinning to the right but wasn’t thinking about it, couldn’t remember any practical instruction for the circumstances.

  The car slowed in the fifth or sixth rotation, then ran into a phone pole on the right side of the vehicle, the hood, but not very hard because the airbags didn’t pop.

  He heard his own breath coming out of his mouth in bursts, then Vega’s, then noticed her hand was on his leg, nails dug in, and he squeezed it.

  “Okay?” he said.

  Her eyes were alert, her right hand gripping the grab handle above the window.

  “Nothing broken?”

  She shook her head, stunned. They both watched white smoke rise from the hood.

  Then Cap’s door opened, and there was a man with a thick semiautomatic pistol pointed right in Cap’s face.

  “Come on out,” said the man, Latino with Mexican accent, wearing a black T-shirt with a white cross and Japanese characters printed on the front.

  Cap followed orders, didn’t seem to have a lot of wiggle room either way. He got out of the car, his legs wobbly. The man with the gun stood behind Cap and angled it up so the tip of the barrel was at his chin. Cap kept his hands at his sides.

  “You, too,” the man said to Vega.

  Vega scooted over the gearshift into the driver’s seat and then out.

  “You go in front,” said the man.

  The SUV that had been behind them, the one with the 9s, was parked in the middle of the intersection. Cars were stopped, people out, honking, yelling.

  A woman dressed in yoga clothes ran up to them.

  “Are you all right? Oh my God, the same thing happened to my husband last year.”

  “Get in your car,” said the man, and he waved the gun in her direction.

  She screamed and backed away, yelled, “Gun! There’s a gun!”

  Then the man with the gun shot her in the foot, and she collapsed to the ground, screaming. People began to either swarm around her or drop to the pavement to avoid getting shot, and the man with the gun pressed the barrel into Cap’s back.

  “Go,” he said.

  The driver got out of the SUV. He wore suit pants and a white dress shirt and he walked around the front of the vehicle to them and quickly patted down Cap, removed the Sig from his holster, then Vega and took her Springfield. Then he opened the back door of the SUV.

  “Get in,” said the man with the gun.

  Cap and Vega got in.

  * * *

  —

  It was set up like a limo inside with seats facing each other. Cap and Vega sat on the side furthest from the driver. Across from them was a man Cap recognized as the Posada Double. The man with the gun slid into the seat next to his boss, and rapped his knuckles on the ceiling. He kept his pistol pointed in Cap and Vega’s direction.

  They sped away, and Cap watched the chaos out the window pass by: the crowd around the woman who’d been shot, people screaming, cars stopped at every angle in the intersection. Cap twisted his body around so he could watch it, but then they were gone, down another street.

  “Mr. Caplan,” said the Posada Double congenially. “I don’t say this often, but you looked a bit better in the hospital.”

  He was as well dressed as yesterday, wore a gray suit with a white shirt unbuttoned at the top, no tie. Cap put him in his fifties, though his hair was solid black and full.

  “You are Miss Vega,” he said to her. “You are prettier than you look on TV.”

  Vega moved her eyes from him to the man with the gun, to the back of the driver’s head.

  “You look a lot different than you do on TV, Mr. Posada,” she said. “Almost like a whole other person.”

  The Double chuckled.

  “I apologize for the accident. You understand, I need some information from you, and I find that people are more willing to speak to me if I catch them off guard,” said the Double.

  He leaned back in his seat and smiled at them, but his eyes remained static—it was like only his mouth was committed but the rest of his face wasn’t on board yet.

  “Did you find out who killed the two girls?” he said to Vega.

  “I think so,” she answered. “But this isn’t a charity operation. I’ll give you the name if you tell me yours first.”

  The Double laughed once, then held up his hands as if he were playing cops and robbers with a child.

  “Okay, Miss Vega, okay. I give up. My name is Javier.”

  “What about a last name?” said Vega.

  “Not yet,” he said, shaking a finger at her. “Nothing for free. Now you tell me who killed the two girls.”

  Vega paused, calculating her words.

  “I’m fairly certain it’s
a guy named Rafa. He’s in police custody.”

  “And do you have a last name for him?” said Javier.

  “No, but I can find out.”

  “Good,” said Javier. “No last names for anyone then. And you say you are fairly certain?”

  “Yes.”

  Javier nodded, brushed an invisible speck of dust off his pant leg.

  “My boss would very much like to know. I know there are ten girls in total, but we are only interested in four of them. The two who were killed were my partner’s property, you understand. So we would like to find out who has damaged his property,” he said to Vega.

  Cap stared at the gun. Though this wasn’t the first time he’d had one aimed at him, it was hard to look away. He reminded himself to breathe, felt the sweat pasting his shirt to his back. He watched Vega out of the corner of his eye. She was still, her hands resting on her legs, fingers gently curled. If she was scared for her life, she did a good impression of someone who was not.

  “I don’t know where Mr. Mackey is right now. I think he has decided to play a game with me,” said Javier, waving his hand in the air. “All he had to do was keep six girls alive and contained. I’m not sure what he thinks he will win by losing them and keeping my money. I have friends at Immigration and at the border police, also some politicians, but they can’t help me with my problem.”

  He leaned forward and folded his hands, rested his elbows on his knees.

  “So yes, I would appreciate it if you found him and the four girls who belong to my partner. And if you can confirm the man who killed the other two girls, that would be nice as well,” he added, as if he were reading his desired dishes off a menu. “Now that you are both out of the hospital, I think this will not be a problem for you.”

  “You seemed to want us out of town pretty bad yesterday,” said Cap, wiping his palms on his pants. “Now you want us to stay.”

  This made Javier thoughtful. He gazed out the window, almost wistful.

  “I asked Mr. Mackey if I could see you. The doctor was still with Miss Vega, but I preferred to talk to you in any case, because I thought I might be able to persuade you better than I could her.”

  “Why’d you think that?” said Vega, her throat dry and hot. “You never met either of us.”

  Now Javier laughed, his face brightening in an effortless good-natured way.

  “Because Mr. Caplan is the one with the daughter. Near Philadelphia. People who have children are more easily persuaded to do things they might not otherwise do. And I thought he would be able to persuade you at a later time, Miss Vega.”

  Cap knew rationally Javier might be bluffing, but the mention of Nell, even in the abstract, was enough to enrage him.

  “You might want to tell me who you are next time, instead of pretending to be a cop. So at least I know who’s threatening my family,” Cap said, leaning forward.

  The man with the gun leaned forward as well, kept his aiming arm steady.

  “It’s the message that was important, Mr. Caplan, not the method of delivery,” said Javier. “But next time I will do that,” he added, happy to take the advice.

  “Now that we have the message, we’re done here, right?” said Vega. “How do we get in touch with you?”

  “You can call me,” said Javier, still smiling. “My phone has very good global service. I could be in France, and you could still call me.” He turned to the man with the gun and said, “Memo—give them a card.”

  Memo kept aiming the gun at Cap and reached into an elastic-rimmed pouch on the door. He removed a white card and handed it to Cap. All it said was JAVIER, and then an international number beneath it.

  “So you can do these things for me and my partner quickly?” said Javier. “Mr. Mackey has been disappointing for us.”

  “Let’s just say we can’t,” said Cap. “Not that we won’t. If we can’t, what then?”

  Javier’s lips became a straight line.

  “I don’t expect that to happen,” he said. “I have the greatest confidence in you both.”

  “That’s a real shot in the arm,” said Cap. He asked again, slower: “But what if we can’t?”

  Javier nodded in Memo’s direction, and Memo knocked on the ceiling once more.

  “I will have to keep looking, then, for new people who make me feel confident,” said Javier, seeming a little downtrodden.

  This made Cap furious. The initial shock from the crash had worn off a bit, but the adrenaline was still rushing in his blood, making him blind angry. He wanted to rip the card in half and shove it down Javier’s throat.

  “Is that the best you can do,” Cap said, leaning forward. “Aren’t you going to threaten our loved ones or describe how you’re going to cut us into pieces if we don’t do exactly what you say?”

  Javier laughed, surprised.

  “You watch too much Netflix, Mr. Caplan,” he said. “Amazon Prime,” he added, as an afterthought, still chuckling. “Real narcos will not warn you. They’ll just kill you. Burn up your wife’s body parts while they are still on her living body—is that more like it?”

  Cap didn’t answer, though that was more like it.

  Then the driver pulled the car over, and Memo got out.

  “This has been very nice,” said Javier, genuine. “Speak with you soon, then.”

  The door on Vega’s side opened, Memo standing aside, holding the top of the door.

  Vega stepped out, and Cap after her. They were next to a chain-link fence, a field of blond grass on the other side. Across the street was a Best Buy, a big parking lot. Not many cars parked, no people.

  Memo got back in, and the car sped off. It stopped about a hundred feet away from where Cap and Vega stood; the passenger door opened, and Memo leaned out and placed the Sig and the Springfield on the sidewalk.

  Cap and Vega walked, then jogged to their guns and picked them up. They didn’t speak for a minute.

  Cap felt like hugging her, wasn’t sure if it would be more for her or for himself, just wanted to feel her skin and hair and heartbeat. But she was distant at the moment, thinking, all the neural pathways firing.

  He knew better than to interrupt that with any display of emotion, so he just said, “I thought we were dead twice already today.”

  “Yeah,” said Vega, distracted. “And it’s only ten thirty.”

  21

  otero hurried to the curb when the cab pulled up in front of the station. Vega and Cap had not said much to each other on the ride over, Vega busy texting Otero the details, and both of them coasting down from the shock of the accident.

  “You’re okay,” Otero said as they got out of the cab, more of a confirmation than a question.

  “It appears that way,” said Cap.

  “As soon as I read all your texts, I put it together,” he said to Vega, then held up his phone for them to see. “This is the guy, right?”

  Cap and Vega looked at the screen as they walked into the station waiting room. It was a photo of Javier from the news. He was in a group, behind another man with sunglasses, all of them in suits.

  “That’s him,” said Cap. “Javier, formerly Deputy Chief Posada.”

  “It’s Javier Castán,” said Otero, pushing open the door to the giant main room with the wraparound window. “El Desratizador is what he goes by or El D. It means rat exterminator,” he said to Cap.

  “Who is he?” asked Vega, noticing the room was much emptier than the first time she’d been there.

  “He’s Perro Perez’s number two,” said Otero, leading them to his desk in the back. “He made news last year for killing one of Montalvo’s informants. Cut out the eyes and put them in the mouth,” Otero rattled off like well-known lore. “I’m actually pretty surprised you’re both alive.”

  “Us, too,” said Cap. “His guy shot a woman on the street, in the intersect
ion.”

  “I’m aware,” said Otero, sitting at his desk, nodding to the front of the room. “That’s where half my people are.”

  “Is she okay?” asked Cap. “She was a bystander.”

  “I don’t know the status but she’s at County receiving treatment,” said Otero. “Javier Castán doesn’t have any use for bystanders. And he told you outright he doesn’t know where Mackey is?”

  “That’s right,” said Vega, sitting in a chair opposite him. “I think it went like this: Montalvo told his guys to send their kids away, that Perez was coming for them, so they sent them here.

  “Perez, somehow, figures it out and hooks up with Mackey, who hires Davis to set up the Salton house. They intercept six girls, and Mackey sends them to the Salton house. Davis fills out the blank spaces with six other girls. Not sure where he gets them but clearly he has a little business on the side, offers to loan some to Joe Guerra, for example, to work in his club, et cetera.”

  Vega tapped her fingernail on the edge of Otero’s desk.

  “Rafa kills two of the Montalvo girls, Maricel Villareal and Dulce Díaz. Dulce’s body is dumped in Dylan Duffy’s car through arrangement with his son, probably by Rafa, according to the Can Man’s description, and then Rafa drops Maricel’s body in a ditch.” Vega paused then looked to Otero and continued: “Mackey brings you in to run the case on his terms and then us to make it look good for Boyce, thinking we’ll spin our wheels for a couple of weeks and maybe that will be enough time for him to figure out how to tell Javier two of his girls got killed on his watch. We find the house way too quickly, though, and now he panics.”

  “Thinks Javier Castán won’t take the news well that not only are the two girls dead, the whole cover of the Salton house is blown, because of you two,” said Otero.

  “Luckily he thinks he has you pinned,” said Vega.

  “Lucky thing,” said Otero.

  “So how far’s Mackey think he’s gonna get?” said Cap, amused.

  “He’s operating from a different place,” said Otero. “He has this affect. Tough to put my finger on it.”