The Eye of the Tigress

by Paul Coggins

  Cash employed a counter-strategy called shut-the-fuck-up. The silence stretched to the two-minute mark before he declared a tie. “Been a long couple of days, gents. I’m going home.” He stood.

  “Sit down,” Graves said.

  Cash remained standing but didn’t leave. He kept his smartass comeback to himself.

  “Where did you go and who did you meet with in Mexico?” Graves asked as if he already knew.

  “You don’t really expect an answer, do you?”

  “I’ve known you long enough,” Graves said, “to never expect you to do the right thing. Besides, we already know where you went and who you saw. We just need to fill in the blanks on what you and La Tigra talked about.”

  No surprise that law enforcement on both sides of the border tracked who entered and left La Tigra’s territory, fully aware that more went in than came out.

  “We talked golf,” Cash said. “I’m considering taking up the sport, and she gave me pointers.”

  Bowers slapped the table with both palms. “You can mouth off to us, wise guy, but you’re not helping your girlfriend.”

  “I haven’t had a girlfriend since the ninth grade,” Cash said, “and I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Whatever you call your sick relationship with Maggie,” Bowers said, “one thing’s for sure. It’s killing her career.”

  Cash’s spine stiffened. “What’s she got to do with any of this?” The silence began to take a toll. “Is she in some kind of trouble?”

  Graves’ granite expression slacked. Not a lot, but enough to signal that the mention of Maggie had hit a nerve with him as well.

  “We can’t comment on personnel matters beyond saying….” Graves glanced at Bowers and clammed up. A slip of the tongue would give the asshole more leverage to oust him from the agency.

  Graves locked eyes with Cash. “If you care about Maggie at all, walk away from her and lose her number. Every second she spends with you, she digs herself a deeper hole at work. You’ll be doing yourself a favor as well. Come nut-cutting season, she’ll choose the Bureau over you every time.”

  Cash started to protest but held his tongue. Not the time or place to push back. Besides, Graves had known her longer and probably better. He was saying what Cash suspected.

  Bowers planted both palms on the table and leaned forward, casting a shadow over Cash. “It’s career suicide for an agent to hang around scum like you. A felon and a shyster. I can’t decide which is worse.”

  Okay, still not the right time or place, but Cash had to push back. Though the agents might be exaggerating Maggie’s peril, he couldn’t run the risk they weren’t. “Ease off, fellas. I’ve got my life back on track.” He pulled the bar card from his wallet and dropped it on the table. “Regained my license and working on a pardon to clear my record.”

  “Once a felon, always a felon,” Bowers said. “Plus, I wasn’t talking about your prior felony, but the one you’re committing now.”

  “Which is?” Cash tried not to sound concerned.

  “Conspiracy to murder a government witness,” Graves said.

  “Who is?” Concern rippled through Cash’s voice.

  Graves dropped a folder onto the table. A stack of blowups slid out. Shots from all directions and angles of Mariposa Benanti, hanging in her cell. Belt wrapped around her neck and tied to a rafter. Eyes bugged out. Bare feet dangling inches above a pool of piss and shit on the floor.

  Cash lowered himself into the chair, not trusting his balance. An endless loop of death shots circled his reeling mind. Images of Mariposa mixed with those of Martin Biddle, until the two merged into a single cross-gender corpse.

  “When was her body discovered?” Cash’s voice cracked.

  Bowers scooped the pictures back into the folder. “About two hours after you left La Tigra’s compound.”

  The jury of one had come back sooner than he expected. The speed of the verdict surprised Cash. The death part didn’t.

  “You can’t really believe I had anything to do with this.”

  Bowers snorted. “Yeah, why would we possibly suspect you of wanting to kill the woman who set you up to take a fall for jury tampering, and later gave the green light to have you snuffed? You have the mother of all motives, and the timeline nails shut your coffin. You visit Mariposa in prison for an F.U. farewell. A couple of days later, you crawl on your belly to La Tigra. Hours after you kiss the ring, Mariposa winds up dead. We can put two and two together.”

  Cash stood nose to nose with Bowers. “Only if you count with your fingers.” He turned to Graves. “How can you be sure Mariposa didn’t commit suicide?”

  “Her tongue,” Graves said, “or more accurately, the missing one.”

  Cash winced.

  Graves pulled a photo from the deck and placed it on the table. What looked at first glance like a lousy lipstick job turned out to be blood—caked and purplish.

  “Someone cut out her tongue and kept it as a souvenir,” Graves said.

  Cash turned the photo face down but couldn’t unsee the scene. He looked up at Graves. “My money’s on a guard.”

  Neither agent took the bet. Their silence told Cash that he hadn’t been the first to suspect an inside job.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “You won’t believe who waltzed in without an appointment and demands to see you ASAP.” Eva’s voice crackled over the intercom. “The last person on the planet who should show his face here.”

  With a Fifth Circuit brief due tomorrow, Cash had no time for drop-ins or guessing games. Chained to his desk by the filing deadline, he was going more stir crazy by the minute. Not a sit-down lawyer by nature, he suffered in the eighth circle of hell: the rewrite stage.

  He pressed the intercom button. “Just tell me who it is.”

  “You need a break. Get off your ass and come see for yourself.”

  It turned out to be the next-to-last person he would expect to find at his door. The very last would be La Tigra, who couldn’t afford to set foot in the United States.

  Rob “Rocket” Rhoden hovered over Eva at the reception desk. All that separated them were three feet of mahogany and her good taste.

  Rhoden hadn’t bothered to shave or suit up. He wore his trademark aviator sunglasses, flip-flops, faded cutoffs, and a t-shirt that read: My Pen Is Huge.

  Classy.

  A role reversal on the wardrobe front. Sharp-tongued and sharper-dressed, Rhoden practically lived in tailored suits, while Cash usually went casual on non-court days. Today, however, Cash sported a Canali double-breasted silk jacket, Italian-cut and a bargain at two thou.

  Cash interrupted Rhoden’s doomed efforts to wheedle Eva’s cell number. The fool’s gaydar must be on the blink. Then again, even had the blowhard known her sexual preference, he would’ve persisted in making a jackass of himself. In his twisted mind, he could convert any lesbian by the power of his huge pen.

  “Whatever you’re selling,” Cash said to Rhoden, “we’re not buying.”

  “We need to talk privately.” Without waiting for an invitation, Rhoden barged into Cash’s office and took the chair closest to the desk.

  Cash followed him into the office, closed the door, and sat behind the desk. He parted stacks of papers for a clear view of the competitor. “By all means, make yourself at home.” Spoken with all the insincerity he could muster.

  Rhoden scanned walls decorated with framed courtroom sketches and newspaper articles of Cash’s trial wins. Not as impressive as Goldy’s collection but not bad for a twenty-year lawyer, with a timeout of two years for bad behavior.

  “What do I have to do to persuade your hot secretary to have dinner with me?” Rhoden said.

  Cash smiled. “You’re not her type, and she’s not yours.”

  “In what respect?”

  “She has a brain. Look, I’ve got an appellate brief due tomorrow, and I don’t—”

  Rhoden cut him off. “Win your cases, and you don’t have to mess with appeal
s. Now fill me in on your meeting with La Tigra.”

  Cash winced, haunted by his failure to convince La Tigra to spare Mariposa. “You know the ending. Shouldn’t be hard to guess the rest.”

  “What did La Tigra say about me?” An undercurrent of fear crept into Rhoden’s voice.

  Classic Rocket. Convinced that every exchange revolved around him. “Nada,” Cash said. “Hard as this will be for you to wrap your head around, you never came up.”

  “That can’t be right.” Rhoden fidgeted on the hot seat. “Don’t B.S. me.”

  Cash toyed with the idea of jacking with the prick, but the unfinished brief beckoned. “You weren’t a topic of conversation. It was all about Mariposa.”

  “You sure did a bang-up job for her,” Rhoden said.

  Thanks, asshole, I really needed reminding of that.

  Cash had a comeback locked and loaded but didn’t fire it off. Not now. Not with Rhoden on the ropes. Despite the bravado in his voice, the spark had left his eyes.

  Cash had seen the look before, mostly among lifers in prison. “I’m confused. Are you troubled or relieved that your name didn’t come up in my visit with La Tigra?”

  “Both.” Rhoden slumped, like a boxer too weak to answer the bell.

  Against Cash’s better judgment, he felt sorry for his nemesis. Well, sorry enough that he took a shot at lifting his spirits. Not too much, merely nudging the needle from suicidal to scared shitless, where it belonged.

  “We’d both be better off if La Tigra never knew our names,” Cash said.

  “Too late for that.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe a new lawyer will come along, and she’ll forget all about the two of us.”

  “La Tigra forgets nothing,” Rhoden said.

  Cash couldn’t argue with that. He saw a different side of Rhoden. An almost human one. More vulnerable than vulture. “It’s not like you to wallow in self-doubt.”

  And even less like you to show it to me.

  Rhoden stood and walked slowly to the window. The third-floor office had a panoramic view of the outdoor parking lot behind the federal courthouse. He faced the lot as he spoke. “That fucking ingrate Toby Fine is threatening to dump me. He’s pissed that I haven’t killed his case.”

  Cash perked up. Wow. The hearing in Judge Ferguson’s court must’ve gone completely off the rails. The needle had swung back to suicidal.

  “Hey,” Cash said, “I’ve been fired by more clients than I can count. More often than not, the basket cases came crawling back in the wet ass hour.”

  Rhoden turned toward Cash. “I couldn’t give a flying fuck about Fine. Far as I’m concerned, that perv can burn in hell or Houston, whichever’s hotter. What’s got me spooked is whether La Tigra told him to shit-can me.”

  Cash got it. If La Tigra had lost confidence in Rhoden, that means she doesn’t need him anymore. If she doesn’t need him….

  Cash leaned back in the chair. He’d go only so far to bolster the competition. “Surely you don’t expect me to return to Mexico to plead for you.”

  “Hell no,” Rhoden said, “not after what happened to Mariposa.”

  Again, thanks for bringing that up, asshole.

  “Then I’m not clear on why you’re here.” Cash’s tone took a hard turn. “What do you want from me?”

  “La Tigra must’ve said something about her plans for me.”

  Cash replayed in his mind the meeting in Mexico. What was said and what was left unsaid.

  On the said part, something came back to him. “Okay, she did mention you once. She asked why I was there on Mariposa’s behalf and not you.”

  “What’d you say?” Rhoden’s voice got shrill.

  “I didn’t say anything. Just gave her a ‘get real’ look. She knows the score. Mariposa did too.”

  Rhoden fell into a silent funk. Broke out of it by muttering to himself. Didn’t take a lip reader to know he wasn’t praying. Cursing the fates perhaps, but not praying.

  Cash let him stew for a minute before saying, “Time for you to shove off. I have something to finish and then someplace to be.”

  “So you’re too busy to help a brother of the bar?”

  Oh, so now we’re brothers.

  “Not sure what you expect me to do.”

  “For one thing, keep your eyes and ears open,” Rhoden said. “If someone has the knives out for me, I need to know.”

  Be quicker to list those who don’t.

  “You’re being paranoid,” Cash said. “If La Tigra has a beef with you, you’ll know it.”

  Rhoden shuddered. “My dog got killed yesterday.” His voice shook.

  So that’s what spooked him into coming.

  “Look,” Cash said, “dogs get run over all the time.”

  “How often do dogs hang themselves?”

  Cash rocked forward in the chair. The news of another hanging reminded him of unfinished business. This was the third suspicious death connected to Rhoden, the “Typhoid Mary” of trial lawyers. First, Martin Biddle. Next, Mariposa Benanti. Now, the dog.

  “I’ve got to finish this brief,” Cash said, “but then we have to talk about a client of yours, one who also died at the end of a rope.”

  “Mariposa?”

  Cash shook his head. “The other one. Martin Biddle.”

  Rhoden went pale. “I’ve got nothing to say about that punk.” He fled, as if chased by a ghost. So unnerved was the narcissist that he left without laying another line on Eva.

  Cash could’ve spared Rhoden the effort. If there’s one thing he had learned from life, it was this: you can run from a ghost, but you can’t outrun one.

  ***

  The gold-plated casket dominated a strippers’ stage surrounded on three sides by floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Endless reflections made it look as if gold bars stretched to infinity.

  The open casket invited a viewing of the deceased, but Cash couldn’t summon the will to walk twenty feet for a last look. Perhaps a last kiss.

  Mariposa’s memorial service presented Cash with a string of firsts. For starters, he’d never heard Rick James’ “Super Freak” played at a funeral before. And at the request of the deceased.

  Second, the venue was certainly unique. Past references to services performed at the gentlemen’s club carried an entirely different meaning.

  However, it was fitting to send off Mariposa at Metamorphosis in North Dallas—the crown jewel of a chain of high-end strip clubs that had cornered the market for prime flesh in the southwest. The chain had been a multibillion-dollar enterprise run by the Benantis during their lifetime and now by whoever La Tigra had tapped to take over.

  Selecting six strippers in black G-strings and stiletto heels to serve as pallbearers seemed a tad over the top, but Cash had never enjoyed a funeral quite so much, down to the three-minute eulogy delivered by the club D.J., in the form of another song on Mariposa’s request list. “Dust in the Wind” kicked off the deceased’s setlist.

  Cash attributed the sparse turnout to the presence of feds—undercover and uninvited. He made out a dozen FBI and DEA agents, who were trying too hard to blend in. The off-the-rack suits a size too small gave them away. That and the fact they were the only ones in the club not drinking.

  Another reason for the spotty attendance—the feds had collared most of the Benanti crew. Word spread on the street that the underlings were willing to roll over in return for reduced sentences. Bad news for wannabe snitches. With both Benantis dead and the higher-ups out of reach, they found themselves locked up and shit out of luck.

  FBI Agent Maggie Burns joined Cash at his table. Finally, a fed who looked like she belonged here, ready to command center stage. Though she wore a conservative black dress, he couldn’t shake an image of her in a G-string. After all, he had seen her in less.

  He picked up an open bottle of Korbel Brut, but she placed her hand over her glass. On duty and carrying, she wasn’t about to violate the regs. Not in front of so many witnesses anyway. Especially with
the snake Stanley Bowers in the house.

  “What are you doing here?” Cash said.

  Her eyes swept the room. “You never know who’ll show up at an occasion like this.”

  “You don’t really expect La Tigra to be here, do you?”

  Her eyes settled on him. “You tell me.”

  “Okay, she’s not here. She won’t ever be here. She didn’t get where she is by being stupid or careless.”

  Maggie surveyed the room again, slower this time. “Know who else isn’t here?”

  “You tell me,” he said.

  “The Rocket.”

  “Puh-leeze,” Cash said, “don’t humor that showboat by using the nickname he gave himself.”

  “Thought he’d have the decency to attend his client’s funeral.”

  “Not unless he could bill the time.”

  As the last strains of Kansas’ ode to oblivion faded, the pallbearers strutted from the stage. The tallest of the troop stopped at Cash’s table and said, “Any chance you two are game for a three-way?”

  Maggie signaled for her to keep walking and turned to Cash. “Don’t even think about it.”

  Too late.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “A businessman has to spend money to make money.” Goldberg pounded his desk. The liver spots on his hand seemed to have spread overnight.

  Cash braced for bad news on the financial front. Not the first time the fool had floated his cockamamie theory of economics, which boiled down to a time-tested recipe for disaster: for every dollar taken in, piss away two. The trade imbalance explained how the top criminal defense lawyer of his day—a magnet in his prime for seven-figure retainers—now teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.

  Hence, the title of Skyler Patterson’s hit job in last Sunday’s Dallas Morning News: “How the Bantam Rooster of the Courthouse Plucked Himself.”

  “So I sprang for a full-page ad in the Dallas Business Journal,” Goldberg said, “showing the world that we’re back and badass as ever.”

  Cash groaned. Skyler’s piece must’ve spooked the old man into a dumbass move doomed to backfire. His motive for the expenditure was as thin and transparent as the comb over that failed to hide his growing bald spot.