The Eye of the Tigress

by Paul Coggins

  Cash resisted asking why she hadn’t. Figured she was about to tell him anyway.

  “I received word from your government, by way of my government, that you had an important message for me.”

  “Right.” Cash found himself sweating more than the characters on screen. “Before we get down to business, have you heard the expression: don’t shoot the messenger?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good,” he said. “Because I have a very limited role here. I’m only a delivery boy.”

  “I am all ears.” She smiled. “Is that not also one of your expressions?”

  He took a deep breath and dived in. “The United States government is willing to throw you a lifeline.”

  He caught her reaction, slight as it was. The faintest of lines bracketed her eyes and the corners of her mouth.

  She recovered quickly. “Not what I expected to hear from you. I thought you had come to report on Mister Fine’s case.”

  “The feds don’t care about him,” Cash said. “It’s you they want to save.”

  “That assumes I need saving.”

  “According to the FBI, Los Lobos and the Mexican government are teaming up to take you out.”

  If that was news to her, she didn’t let on. An arson on screen lit up her face, illuminating the worry lines.

  “Do you believe everything the FBI tells you?” Asked as if she already knew the answer.

  “The better question is whether I believe anything the FBI tells me.”

  She turned to face him. “Then why would you believe this?”

  “Way above my pay grade to know whether the Bureau is shooting straight here. Even if the intel turns out to be true, I’ll be damned if I know why they’d lift a finger to rescue you. All I can say is that the message comes straight from the FBI director and the Attorney General. So if we’re being lied to, at least it’s by liars in high places.”

  “Your government leaders have a history of deception.”

  “I wouldn’t limit that charge to my government.”

  She nodded. “What exactly is the offer?”

  Cash laid out the details, opening and closing with the feds’ claim that the deal was her best and only shot at survival.

  Her eyes returned to the screen. She clicked a remote, freezing the film on a close-up of Matty, right after she had informed Ned that her temperature ran a couple of degrees high.

  “That is my favorite line in the movie,” she said, “because mine does as well.”

  “I’d wager that your blood pressure is running a little high also,” he said.

  “If the choice is between living in a box for the rest of my life or waging war on Los Lobos, what makes you think I would choose the former?”

  “The feds believe you will do anything to protect your daughter.”

  Her eyes flashed, and her fingernails dug into the armrests. “Are you threatening my daughter now?”

  Cash sweat bullets. Bringing up the kid had tripped a land mine. He had to defuse it or die trying. “Remember, I’m just the messenger here.”

  The one you shouldn’t kill.

  She loosened her death grip on the armrests. “Tell your friends in the government that mijita is protected by the best security money can buy.”

  “They aren’t my friends, but they’re willing to do whatever it takes to protect you and your daughter.”

  “Do you trust them?” It came off as accusatory.

  An inner voice warned Cash to wrap it up. His job was done. The lines delivered in the farce, or tragedy, or whatever it was.

  He blew past his better judgment. “It’s one thing to go to war against a rival cartel. Something entirely different to take up arms against your own government. The former is self-defense. The latter, treason.”

  “Governments come,” she said, “and governments go. Even yours.”

  “Amen to that.” Another silent warning urged him to stop now, so of course he continued. “But cartels come and go too. Perhaps the time has come for you to retire. You’ve had a long run on top and amassed more wealth than a person could spend in a hundred lifetimes.”

  She fast-forwarded the film to the final shot of Matty basking in the sun on a tropical beach. To reach the end frame, she had to scroll past a scene of Ned the lawyer behind bars. Took Cash back to his two years at Club Fed.

  “As a little girl, I loved the beach. Not so much for the water. I was never a strong swimmer. For me, it was all about the sand. The grit and warmth of it.”

  “Living like a prisoner inside a compound in the mountains,” he said, “isn’t exactly a day at the beach.”

  “Neither is serving a life sentence in Supermax.”

  “Who said anything about Supermax?”

  She had obviously done homework on the federal prison system. Cash took that as a good sign.

  “Even if the Bureau wanted to send you there,” he said, “we’d never jump at the first offer. I’ve been on both sides of the bargaining table, and I can promise you one thing. When the stakes get high enough, everything is negotiable.”

  “Can you find me a place in the sun?”

  “I think so. Two governments want you out of business, and they want it badly enough to deal through me. A person with your firepower can hang up her spurs the hard way or the easy way.”

  “But can you guarantee that I will not end up in prison and that my daughter will be safe?”

  “There are no guarantees in my business,” he said.

  “There are in mine.”

  Cash let the threat slide. Not the first time he’d heard that line from a client who could carry through on it. “Have I ever let you down?”

  “The jury is still out on that,” she said. “But what happens if the FBI will not offer something my daughter and I can live with?”

  “We bring in a new bidder.”

  As the film credits scrolled, Cash rose to leave. She grabbed his arm. “I have a message for you to take back. Only two words.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Cash returned to the States with two messages from La Tigra, each of two words. The first was to the Justice Department: keep talking.

  The second, to Toby Fine: stop talking.

  A flock of feds boarded the G-Jet at Love Field Airport in Dallas. Eight stiffs from the Bureau flanked FBI Director Danfield and General Washington and whisked Cash into the SCIF at the back of the plane.

  Danfield wasted no time on small talk. “Did she take the deal?”

  “La Tigra didn’t get where she is by accepting first offers,” Cash said.

  Danfield turned to the A.G. “I told you we were wasting our time with this slimeball.”

  Cash stood. “That’s Mister Slimeball to you.” He walked toward the exit. Two agents blocked his path. Even if he could manage to slip through them, reinforcements waited outside the door.

  Cash turned to Washington. “Look, you asked me to deliver a message, and I did. Shuttle diplomacy is not my thing, so find yourself another gofer. I have a trial to prepare for.”

  Washington motioned for Cash to return to the table. Against his better judgment, he did.

  “Did you explain to your client that time is running out for her?” Washington looked beat. Her coiffed hair, expertly layered on their last visit, had collapsed into limp strands.

  According to media reports, time wasn’t on her side either. With the president’s poll numbers tanking, he had made noises about purging the cabinet, starting with Washington.

  “La Tigra knows the score,” Cash said, “and she’s not suicidal. We’ll stay at the bargaining table, at least long enough to see if you come up with an arrangement she can live with. If you don’t, she has the firepower to fuck up business on both sides of the border for years to come.”

  “Did she tell you what she would accept?” Washington said.

  Cash rubbed his chin. “La Tigra loves long walks on the beach, and her favorite color is white, as in sparkling white sand.”

/>   Danfield rocketed to his feet. “I don’t give a flying fuck what her favorite color is.” His southern accent flared, along with his temper. “It had damn well better be orange, because that’s what she’ll wear for the rest of her life.”

  The A.G. tugged on Danfield’s sleeve until he sat. She turned to Cash. “What do you suggest our next step should be?”

  “Offer her one of our states with beaches, preferably one we could lose without hurting the bottom line. How about South Carolina?” No accident that Cash picked Danfield’s home state.

  Danfield’s face went red. He started to speak, but Washington stared him down.

  “Do you have a suggestion that wouldn’t cost my party nine electoral votes?” she said.

  “Think tropical,” Cash said.

  “And you, asshole.” The FBI director couldn’t hold his tongue any longer. “What do you hope to gain out of this?”

  For a nanosecond, Cash considered giving a straight answer. Truth be told, he’d settle for resuming his old life. No drug work. No cartel cases. No death threats. Eva and Goldy back in the fold.

  The nanosecond passed.

  “If I pull this off without a shot being fired,” Cash said, “I deserve nothing less than the Nobel Peace Prize.”

  ***

  For a packed restaurant at noon, Tei-An was eerily quiet. Patrons spoke softly or not at all.

  Cash honored the ambience. “She knows.” His hushed tone amplified the threat.

  Toby Fine froze, sushi suspended inches from his mouth. He put down the chopsticks and proceeded to do what he did best. Lie. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “La Tigra knows you’re playing footsy with Los Lobos.”

  “I would never—”

  Cash cut him off. “Oh, I know. You would never betray her. At least not until someone offered a sweeter deal.”

  The client feigned silent outrage. His act needed work.

  “Personally, I don’t give a shit whether you remain on La Tigra’s team or defect to the bad guys. Make that, the badder guys. Hell, I wouldn’t care whether you survive the day, but for the effect it has on my schedule.”

  Cash took a piece of sashimi from Fine’s bento box and nibbled around the edges. He winced. “Never developed a taste for the raw stuff.”

  “You’re my lawyer, and you owe me—”

  Cash cut him off again. “I owe you my duty of loyalty for as long as you’re alive, which in your case might be a matter of minutes.”

  Cash washed the taste from his mouth with sake. “Ordinarily you’d owe me a hefty fee in return. However, since you’re a freebie, I’m in that rarest of situations where losing you as a client would actually boost my bottom line.”

  “It can’t be good for business,” Fine said, “to lose a case or a client.”

  “Except that here if the client were to go first, I no longer have to worry about losing the case.”

  Fine leaned in to whisper. “You’ve got me all wrong.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I’m not talking to Los Lobos,” Fine said. “They’re talking to me.”

  Cash’s spine stiffened. “And what are they saying?”

  “The same question they have for everyone. Which do you want: gold or lead?”

  Cash remained silent.

  Fine went on. “Translation, get rich with them or sleep with the worms.”

  “Yeah,” Cash said, “I got it the first time.” Another sip of sake. “You may have a third option.”

  “I’m not working with the feds.” His voice rose above a whisper.

  “Not asking you to,” Cash said. “The feds could care less about you.”

  “Is that supposed to cheer me up?”

  “It should, because if I can negotiate the terms of La Tigra’s retirement, the prosecutors might let you drift away in her wake.”

  Fine uncorked a one-note laugh. “There’s no way Los Lobos will let her live. Or me either, unless I play ball with them.”

  Cash shook his head. “I came here to deliver a message from La Tigra. Stop talking. To Los Lobos. To the feds. To anyone.”

  “Funny, because I came here to deliver a message from Los Lobos to you. Gold or lead?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Cash talked his way into the apartment Maggie had vacated by feigning an interest in renting it. He suffered a tinge of regret over lying to gain entry and a ton of regret over viewing the space.

  “Great choice.” The henna-haired landlady made a nonstop sales pitch during the tour. “Best unit in the whole complex.”

  He nodded to everything she said, devastated by the reality that Maggie had gone for good. The Bureau had lifted a page from Hoover’s playbook and exiled her to North Dakota, the Siberia of the States.

  Goodbye frozen margaritas. Hello frozen tundra.

  She hadn’t blamed Cash for her exile, at least not expressly. Then again, she didn’t have to. He lost the blame game by default.

  He should’ve seen the transfer coming from months away. If life had taught him anything, it was that women didn’t stay.

  Not even mothers.

  He second-guessed the decision to visit Maggie’s old haunt. Nothing in the world is more depressing than an empty apartment.

  Well, almost nothing. He thought of the cell he’d shared with Big Black and Martin Biddle, reminding him that things had been worse. It also reminded him of unfinished business at Seagoville.

  There was unfinished business here as well. He hadn’t needed a site visit to accept the loss, but he clung to a hope that Maggie had left behind a memento. A poster on the wall, a knickknack in a closet, a book on a shelf. Anything to remind him of her.

  Of them.

  The smell of chili permeated the place, stirring memories of Maggie’s one-two punch in the kitchen. Enchiladas for dinner and migas in the morning. She followed the cardinal rule of cooking: Hatch chile improves everything.

  The aroma dogged him from room to room on the treasure hunt. The landlady rattled on about the apartment. Her litany of half-truths negotiated a narrow path, falling north of puffery but south of fraud.

  He found no sign. No hidden keepsake. Maggie had vanished without a goodbye note.

  Just like his mother.

  ***

  Fine and Cash sat across from each other at a round table in a conference room at the law firm. Three stacks of paper loomed between them.

  Fine looked up from the page in his hands. “Is there a woman in the courthouse you haven’t fucked?”

  Cash did a double take. The question had come out of nowhere. He smelled a stall. “Keep reading.”

  “This is boring me to tears,” Fine said.

  “Read through your tears.”

  “Lawyers have to sift through shit like this,” Fine said, “but not real people with real lives.”

  Granted, there was a lot of dreck to wade through. Cash had printed the client’s email exchanges. Not all of them, of course. That would take a lifetime to review.

  By using search terms, the date range set out in the indictment, and a list of key players, Cash had whittled the universe of documents down to the subset most likely to contain relevant exchanges between Fine and his unindicted co-conspirators.

  Even the subset, however, had produced a paper tower half as tall as Cash. By day three of the document review, he and Fine had subdivided the tower into three stacks: a tall one of pages yet to be read, a shorter stack of those reviewed and discarded as irrelevant, and a small collection of hot documents.

  Hot docs were either very good or very bad for their case. At the outset of the review, Cash had laid down for Fine the prime directive: show me the good ones at any time but the baddies immediately.

  Fine rose and headed toward the door. Cash called his bluff. “You walk away from the table, and so do I.”

  “You can’t do that. You have to stay here and prepare my defense.”

  “Here’s the great thing about being the lawyer an
d not the client. If the jury hands down a guilty verdict, you’re shipped off to prison on the spot, while I go home and pour myself a stiff drink.”

  “Do you make all your clients suffer through shit work like this?” Fine took whining to a new level.

  “Only the cut-rate ones. As a no pay client, you owe me a ton of sweat equity.”

  Fine trudged back to the table. “You never answered my question.”

  “Which one?” Asked as if Cash had forgotten.

  “Is there a woman in the courthouse you haven’t screwed?”

  Cash stroked his chin, as if pondering. He meant the gesture as a joke. Wasn’t sure it came off as one.

  “What about the spitfire from D.C.? You tap that?”

  Cash recoiled. “What would give you that idea?”

  “Sparks flew between you two in court last week. Makes me think there’s a backstory I need to hear.”

  “Gina and I have a past,” Cash said, “but it’s got nothing to do with sex.”

  Cash tried to drop the subject, but Fine wouldn’t let go. “Fess up, McCahill.”

  Cash sighed. “Well, I guess you deserve to know who you’re up against.”

  “Let me guess.” Fine sounded glum. “You’re about to deliver the bad news that she’s never lost a case.”

  “I can’t say that, but she has won several that should’ve gone the other way.” Cash owed the client the whole truth, or at least more of it. He went on. “Gina will lie, cheat, and steal to win a case. I’m telling you that, and I’m her friend.”

  “And that makes her different from other prosecutors how?”

  “Fact is, most prosecutors are pretty decent folks,” Cash said. “Remember the old saying that in our system, it’s better for ninety-nine guilty people to go free than for one innocent person to be convicted?”

  Fine nodded.

  “Gina flips that on its head. In her world it’s better for ninety-nine innocent people to be convicted than for one guilty person to walk.”

  “Is this something you’ve heard about her,” Fine said, “or something you’ve seen?”

  “Oh, I know it firsthand. Back in my days at DOJ, the Deputy A.G. sent Gina and me to El Paso on a task force to take down a crooked county judge. At the outset, the sledding was tough because our target had the witnesses by the short hairs. We couldn’t get anyone to roll on him.”