The Eye of the Tigress

by Paul Coggins

  “Win some,” Fine said, “lose some.”

  “That wasn’t good enough for Gina. She cooked up a bullshit bank fraud charge against the judge’s wife and threatened to indict her, unless hubby copped to bribery.”

  “So what happened? Did the judge fall on his sword?”

  “He didn’t have to,” Cash said. “The wife hung herself the day before she was to be indicted.”

  “So the bitch’s plan didn’t work,” Fine said.

  “Plan A didn’t, but Plan B worked like a charm. After the judge’s wife killed herself, Gina turned her guns on the daughter, and the judge folded like a cheap tent.”

  Fine’s shoulders slumped, and his chest caved. Beaten before the first punch.

  “Cheer up,” Cash said. “On the plus side, you don’t have a wife or daughter for Gina to threaten.”

  He didn’t bring up the downside. A little pressure from Gina, and Fine would snap like a twig.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Cash resorted to the time-honored strategy called shake-the-tree-and-see-what-falls-out. For good measure, he’d shake two.

  Ladies first.

  Cash sat across the desk from Regina Delgado in the office she had made her own, to the point of replacing the First Assistant’s battle-scarred desk with a larger one. Worked for Cash. More space between them.

  “You know what they say about karma,” he said.

  “That it’s a bitch?”

  He nodded. “Thought you should know what the high muck-a-mucks from D.C. are up to.” He paused to build tension. “They’re playing games with our case.”

  “What kind of games?”

  “Your boss had me swept off the streets and put on her private jet, where the subject of Fine’s case came up. I looked around the plane and noticed you weren’t on board.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Who was?”

  “For your side, only the A.G. and the FBI director. First time I’ve been hustled by Mister and Missus Big.”

  “What exactly did they offer you?”

  “The moon.” More stalling to stoke her paranoia. “Plus the sun and stars.”

  “Were you offered anything on this planet?” Her voice had an edge.

  “A walk for Fine, if I delivered La Tigra.”

  She stiffened in her seat. “In the unlikely event that this turns out to be true, why would you tell me?”

  “Figured I’d save you the time and trouble of prepping for a trial that will never happen.”

  “I still fail to see why it’s in your interest to enlighten me,” she said.

  “I do you a solid. In return, you do one for me. Karma.”

  She looked askance at him. “What are you fishing for?”

  “I need intel on a closed case this office brought against Martin Biddle.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “A nobody who got popped for bank fraud and money laundering. He died in the pen.”

  “What is it you want to know?” she said.

  “Why this office went after only Biddle? Why weren’t others indicted with him?”

  “If it’s a closed case and the defendant is dead, what’s the point?”

  Cash had been asking himself the same question for weeks. He had a ready answer. “The widow deserves to know whether Biddle took his own life or was murdered. If the latter, who had a motive to shut him up permanently? Numbers one through one hundred on my suspect list are the co-conspirators who dodged indictment.”

  “That explains why Missus Biddle cares and maybe why you do as well,” she said, “but why should I?”

  “It’s no secret you’re after the top job at Justice, and so is Jenna Powell. Ambitious U.S. Attorneys like her are always angling for the mother ship in D.C., and Daddy Warbucks has a senator or two in his pocket to grease the skids. The intel I’m seeking could knock your rival right out of the running.”

  ***

  Duane Leroy Lee slouched on the barstool at Spike. While the teens packing the Deep Ellum bar tried to pass for older, Leroy struggled in vain to play younger.

  The undercover agent’s glazed look and boozy breath signaled the lowering of his guard. Time for Cash to make his pitch. He took the stool next to Leroy and ordered two Tecates.

  Leroy nodded in silent thanks for the drink. “I don’t hear from Mister Big Shot Shyster for years and then two visits in two weeks. What do you want now?”

  “Are you playing hard to get,” Cash said, “or are you just too damn lazy to pick up the career case that landed in your lap?”

  “Career case, my ass. More like career killer.” Leroy went from pissed to piteous in two syllables flat. “I told the SAC about your lead, and he split a gut laughing at the mention of your name. Said if I was fool enough to fall for your bullshit, he had a bridge to sell me.”

  “Let me talk to your boss,” Cash said. “I’ll turn him around.”

  “I’m not near drunk enough to go along with your suicide pact.”

  “Then we’d best get to work on your alcohol intake.” Cash lifted his mug. “Bartender, another round for my friend and me.”

  “It’s against my religion to turn down a Tecate.” Leroy slid his empty mug to the bartender. “But if anyone asks, we’re not friends.”

  ***

  A stone’s throw separated DEA’s glass-and-steel complex in northwest Dallas and FBI’s taller, more imposing headquarters. Leave it to the Bureau to one-up the competition.

  The idea behind building the structures side by side had been to break down barriers between the notoriously territorial bureaucracies. Encourage cooperation. Foster teamwork. It must’ve seemed like a good idea at the time.

  Today, not so much. Not to Cash anyway. In light of his plan to play off one agency against the other, it gave him the willies to know that the FBI could watch him enter and leave DEA’s den.

  Cash surrendered his phone and passed through two levels of security at DEA headquarters: a metal detector followed by a rougher than necessary pat-down. Leroy took him to a windowless conference room on the top floor.

  The two waited in silence ten minutes before Special Agent in Charge Victor Valdez entered the room. Even with lifts and a pompadour, the SAC struggled to hit five-eight. He had the build and black hair of a twenty-five-year-old. The body was solid, but salt-and-pepper stubble copped to a dye job.

  With twelve seats at the table, Cash had expected an entourage to accompany the chief, but he came alone. The SAC squeezed a grip exerciser ten pumps with the right hand, then with the left. Ten right, ten left. Over and over.

  Cash rose from the table and held out his hand for what seemed an eternity. Valdez gave him a bone-crunching shake.

  “McCahill, you’ve got five minutes.” The SAC sounded distracted and disinterested.

  Leroy looked as if he was about to lose his lunch. Could be a hangover from last night’s drinks. Or a sense of dread over the prospect of an imminent reaming from the boss.

  Five minutes, no problem. Judges had given Cash less time to close. If only he knew where to begin. After burning the first minute in false starts, he opened in the middle. “I represent a defendant named Toby Fine, who—”

  Valdez cut him off. “Not our case, not our problem.” He squeezed the exerciser faster and harder.

  “Not your problem,” Cash said, “but could be your passport to D.C.”

  The SAC’s fake yawn didn’t fool Cash. Valdez was nibbling on the baited hook. Twice passed over for the Deputy Administrator’s job, he had one last bite at the big time.

  “If you want to plead your guy,” Valdez said, “deal with the prosecutor. I don’t poach cases, and I don’t have time for your games.” He pushed back from the table.

  Cash spooled the story back to the beginning. “Fine works for La Tigra.”

  Valdez froze in a crouch, halfway between sitting and standing.

  “He reports directly to her,” Cash said, “and I would hardly call it poaching on your part, when the Bureau has cut you boys
out of the biggest cartel case in a generation.”

  The SAC eased back into the chair. “Two minutes left on the clock.”

  “I never would’ve represented a lowlife like Fine, except La Tigra called in a chit. She’s not someone you turn down.”

  “If you want absolution for representing scum,” Valdez said, “try a priest.”

  “Absolution is off the table. I’d settle for discharging my ethical duties to Fine and La Tigra and getting the hell out of the drug world.” Cash nodded toward the field agent. “Leroy here can vouch that I draw the line at representing druggies and pimps.”

  Leroy snickered. “Yeah, he’s much more comfortable with con men and whores.”

  Cash couldn’t argue with that.

  “So you’re saddled with a client who should burn in hell,” Valdez said. “I still don’t see why I should give a damn about you or your client.”

  “All roads lead to La Tigra,” Cash said, “but Fine is the expressway to her.”

  With his free hand, Valdez stroked his chin. “What makes you think he would turn on her?”

  “The question,” Cash said, “is whether he would turn with her.”

  “You lost me,” the SAC said.

  “I’m offering you a two-for-the-price-of-one special. A package deal for La Tigra and Fine. Be a helluva bargain for you guys.”

  Valdez uncorked a full-throated laugh. “A deal for La Tigra! The only deal I’d offer that bitch is to let her choose the method of her execution.”

  Cash stood. “Then I’m sorry to have wasted your time. FYI, the Bureau beat your offer.”

  The SAC stopped pumping the grip.

  Now it was Cash’s turn to squeeze.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  DEA chief Victor Valdez whisked Cash to the El Paso Intelligence Center, EPIC for short, proving two things in the process. The Bureau wasn’t the only agency with a jet, and Valdez shared Cash’s paranoia about meeting next door to FBI headquarters.

  Cash went along for the ride, hoping to find a maverick with the balls to bid against the Bureau. EPIC seemed as good a place to start as any. He entered a packed conference room, where the suits outnumbered street agents four to one.

  Not a good sign.

  With fifteen agents in the room and only twelve chairs at the table, a mad game of musical chairs broke out. The lone female in the room, an exotic beauty, captured Cash’s attention and the first seat at the table. The others went fast, with the losers banished to chairs against a wall.

  In jeans, a Dallas Mavericks t-shirt, and scuffed boots, Duane Leroy Lee drifted to the chair nearest the door and faded into the woodwork. Nearly out of sight. Definitely out of the loop. As far from Cash as possible.

  Cash couldn’t allow such injustice to stand. “Lady and gentlemen, our first order of business is to make room at the table for the lead agent in the biggest cartel case of your careers. For those who haven’t had the privilege of meeting the man of the moment, allow me to introduce Duane Leroy Lee. Close friends like me call him Leroy. You may address him as Special Agent Lee.”

  Lee’s face flushed red. Sweat beaded his temples. “I’m fine right here.” He didn’t sound fine, his voice more gravelly than normal. “And to set the record straight, McCahill and I are not friends.”

  “Nonsense,” Cash said. “I need my right-hand man at my right hand.”

  Cash elbowed his neighbor, a suit with a unibrow. The nudge jolted him to his feet.

  Unibrow looked to an African-American with the wingspan of an NBA power forward and a graying goatee. The silent appeal for help told Cash who swung the biggest dick in the room.

  Goatee shrugged, and Unibrow ceded his place at the table. Leroy trudged over, as if he were walking the last mile. After taking the hot seat, he whispered to Cash, “Thanks for nothing.”

  “De nada,” Cash whispered before addressing the group. “Since this is my first dance with DEA brass in a decade, what say we start with a round of introductions?”

  “What say we don’t,” Goatee said, confirming Cash’s read of the pecking order in the room. “All you need to know is that I’m John Price, and I’m in charge here.” His rolling thunder voice kept the clash of egos in check.

  “And you are?” Cash said.

  “The person in charge here.” Price’s tone went from no nonsense to kickass. “You may be accustomed to running roughshod in the courtroom, McCahill, but that don’t cut ice with me.”

  “I don’t take over all courtrooms. Just those where the judges let me get away with it.” Caveat aside, Cash gave the agency a gold star for doing its homework on him.

  “Let’s get this straight,” Price said. “If we decide to open a file based on your intel, Lee will not be the lead agent. Instead, Supervisory Special Agent Tanaka will run point.”

  “Who’s he?” Cash said.

  “He is a she.” The voice came from the lone female, who sat to Price’s left. “I’m Dani Tanaka, and I drew the short straw. I’ll be your minder.”

  Since Cash had entered the room, his eyes had rarely strayed far or long from Tanaka. The agency really had dug into his background. Playing on his weakness for women in general and Asian-Americans in particular. She would be lucky to reach five-two and a hundred pounds, but she still packed a punch. Hitting him below the belt.

  Though Cash had been set to take a my-way-or-the-FBI-way stand on the Leroy-for-leader ticket, the brief exchange with Tanaka gave him pause. He came up with a compromise. “Price, you may be accustomed to intimidating your underlings, but I don’t take orders from anyone not wearing a black robe. Hell, half the time I don’t listen to judges.” He let the lesson sink in. “Tanaka’s on the team, but only if we’re clear that Leroy is my point person.”

  Leroy cursed under his breath. “Thanks for digging me a deeper hole,” he whispered.

  “Anything for a friend,” Cash whispered back.

  “Lee can hang on,” Price said. The for now was silent.

  Because Price caved on Leroy so quickly, Cash second-guessed himself over whether he could’ve driven a harder bargain. Then again, adding Tanaka to the lineup had its advantages. And not just the skin-deep ones.

  She had the vibe of a woman who got shit done. If Cash could sell her on a deal for La Tigra, then….

  Price punctured his balloon. “Don’t get too far down the road with talk of a team, until I hear what you bring to the table.”

  “I can convince La Tigra that it’s time to retire.” Cash paused for pushback. None came, so he went on. “The question for you is whether she steps aside peacefully or goes out guns blazing, leaving hundreds, maybe thousands of bodies piled up on both sides of the border.”

  “This is total bullshit,” Price said. “La Tigra’s no fool. No one retires peacefully in her business, and she knows it.”

  “Your sister agency begs to differ,” Cash said.

  Price looked puzzled. “Sister agency?”

  “The FBI,” Cash said, “though perhaps it’s more accurate to call it your big brother.”

  “The Bureau doesn’t know shit about Mexican cartels.” Price practically spat out the words.

  “They know enough to back the winner in a cartel war that’s about to go to DEFCON One,” Cash said.

  Price snorted. “There are no winners in a cartel war. Only those who lose today and the rest who’ll lose tomorrow.”

  “Once again,” Cash said, “the FBI director and the Attorney General beg to differ. The rising body count of the cartel war threatens the ruling parties there and here. The bloodbath has to end, which means a clear victor and an out-of-business loser. La Tigra gone. Los Lobos rule.”

  Price looked like his head was about to explode. “That’s insane. Los Lobos are animals.”

  Cash shrugged. “To the powers that be, all cartels look gray in the night.”

  “All cartels are bad,” Price said, “but not all are equally bad.”

  “The same could be said for your options.” C
ash poured himself a glass of water and drank. “All bad but not equally so. You can sit back and let the FBI have its way with La Tigra. Or you can compete for her affection.”

  Price pounded the table. “Your client’s the one with shitty options. She can stay put until Los Lobos carve her into tiny pieces. Or surrender to us and spend the rest of her life behind bars.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of her kicking back on a tropical island. Wasting away in Margaritaville. Out of sight. Out of the drug trade. And out of your hair.”

  “And what would we get in return for sending a mass murderer on a permanent vacation in paradise?” Price said.

  “The thanks of two grateful nations for saving countless lives,” Cash said.

  Price grunted.

  Cash upped the ante. “Plus all the intel in La Tigra’s pretty little head.”

  Price stroked his goatee. “I’m listening.”

  “Including a depressingly long list of politicians and law enforcement officials in both countries on her payroll.”

  Dani wrote a note and slid it to Price. He read the note and looked at Cash. “What about La Tigra’s daughter? What do you propose we do with her?”

  Bringing up the daughter proved the agency hadn’t come to the meeting cold, at least Tanaka hadn’t. Cash figured her to be a step ahead of everyone in the room, including him.

  “You keep her safe,” Cash said, “and with the mother.”

  “What if Marisol doesn’t want to go with her mother?” Tanaka asked as if she already knew the answer.

  “Knowing La Tigra as I do,” Cash said, “I doubt the daughter has a choice.”

  Price stood, signaling a wrap to the meeting. “Yeah, we wouldn’t want a mother to vanish without the child having a clue as to her whereabouts…without the kid knowing what happened to her.” His tone carried not an ounce of concern for the mother or the child.

  Damn, the assholes really had done their homework on Cash.