by Bruce Kading
But Hayden thought it possible that Byrd had checked with the Interpol office in France for outstanding warrants when registering Rico as a confidential informant. Perhaps Rico was using a different identity with Byrd. There was nothing to lose, so Nick had left a message for Interpol agent Ken Vogel, formerly with INS, requesting that he verify whether Byrd had done a record check in the past year on Salvador Rico or anybody else.
“I looked into it,” said Vogel. “Byrd sent in a bad set of fingerprints on Salvador Rico several months ago, so we sent them back and asked for another set, but we’ve received nothing so far.”
“My information is that Rico might be from Panama, even though he claims he was born in Puerto Rico,” said Hayden. “I have no idea what his real name might be.”
“We don’t have that many fugitive warrants out of Panama right now. About how old is Rico?”
“Midthirties, I’d say.”
“Hang on a second. Let me see what I can pull up on our database.”
Vogel took a minute to search his computer before coming back on the line. “OK, I’ve got a couple of guys in that age bracket from Panama. Does your guy have any identifying marks or tattoos?”
“He’s got a slightly deformed upper lip,” said Hayden.
There was a brief pause as Vogel reviewed information on his screen. “Well, one of these guys, name of Liriano Solis, has what is referred to as a ‘cut scar’ on his lip, but it doesn’t say if it’s upper or lower.”
“Do you have a photo of Solis?” asked Hayden.
“No photo, sorry. A lot of this stuff from Latin America is incomplete.”
“What’s Solis wanted for in Panama?”
“Murder and armed robbery. Looks like he and his pals knocked off a bank in Panama City about four years ago. Somebody must have gotten killed.”
Hayden’s heart was thumping.
“You still there?” asked Vogel.
“Do you have any details about the bank robbery?”
“No, we’d have to request reports and photos from Panama.”
“I guess it’s still a long shot, but I could use that stuff by next Tuesday. We’ve got a deal planned with Rico for next Thursday.”
“I’ll try to get our contacts in Panama to send it directly to you instead of coming through our office. That’ll save a few days.”
“I appreciate it, Ken. Listen, I have a concern about what Byrd would do if he found out.”
“I’ll keep it quiet,” said Vogel. “Just let me know if you make an arrest.”
Hayden hung up the phone and glanced around the squad room, which was still deserted in the wake of Kane’s outburst. Kane had left too, probably to get coffee in the cafeteria. Hayden felt an impulse to get out of the office to consider the new information alone. He could fill Kane in later about his conversation with Vogel. Nick scratched out a message saying he had something personal to take care of, placed it on Kane’s desk, and made a clean getaway.
Outside it was very humid, and a cloud of copper-colored exhaust fumes hung over the city. Hayden pulled out of the garage and onto the Dan Ryan Expressway, where he was immediately engulfed in a sea of fast-moving traffic: cars, trucks, and buses, all careening down the highway in the late afternoon rush hour. Feeling trapped, Hayden forced his way across two lanes of traffic, evoking honks and gestures of outrage from other drivers for not staying with the pack, and headed down the exit ramp. Relieved to escape the madness, he took a deep breath and drove slowly toward Eighteenth Street.
By the time he turned the corner onto Francis Street, the haze had thinned a bit, and there were traces of blue in the sky. A breeze passed in soft waves through the elm trees on the parkway. It was so serene and quiet that it was hard to believe he was still in the heart of a throbbing metropolis.
Paco was home, and the two of them played catch in the empty lot next to the house. Hayden threw balls high into the air, and Paco deftly snagged nearly all of them. Miguel soon pulled his car up slowly to the curb. As he walked toward them, his face opened into a broad smile.
“What a good surprise, Mr. Hayden,” he said. “You stay for dinner?”
“Thanks, but I don’t have time, Miguel. I need to talk to you.”
“Hijo, go upstairs,” said Miguel to Paco. “Tell your mother I come when I done talking to Mr. Hayden.”
Paco, disappointed, walked slowly away.
“We’ll play again soon, Paco,” said Hayden. “I can see you’re a good player.”
Paco smiled shyly and went inside. Hayden and Miguel settled in on the porch, facing the empty schoolyard across the street.
“You should come more often, Mr. Hayden. You always welcome.”
“I know, Miguel. I appreciate it.”
“You are like hero to Paco. He knows because of you, we no hide. He is old enough that he understand.”
“You deserve credit for that, not me. He ought to know that.”
“Maybe some day he know, but not now. Even Carmen not understand all these things. Is better they not know.”
“I guess you’re right. They’d worry, especially Carmen.”
They sat silently for several moments.
“Is reason you come now?” Miguel finally ventured.
Hayden looked at Miguel seriously. “You don’t have to do it, you know.”
“You mean with Rico?”
Nick nodded. “He won’t hesitate to hurt somebody if he feels threatened. I’m not trying to scare you, but you have a right to know.”
“No, I do this. I know he is person who would kill. He no have respect for life,” said Miguel. “Is sad thing to see—a man lose his soul.”
“It’s not your job to reclaim his soul, Miguel.”
“Maybe the Lord want this.”
Hayden looked at Miguel as if he were naive to believe such a thing.
Miguel smiled. “You not religious man.”
Hayden paused. “Not like you,” he said finally.
“I not worried about this thing we do. I have doubt before, but no more. I have faith it happen as God wish.”
Neither spoke for a few minutes. At the far end of the schoolyard, a few children kicked a ball around, their cheerful voices echoing off the brick walls of the school. Nick felt no more comfortable than when he’d arrived, but could see no way to stop the momentum of the case and Miguel’s role in it. He told Miguel he would be in touch.
* * *
Within minutes of leaving Francis Street, he merged back into the noisy chaos of the city. Hayden drove over to Twenty-Sixth Street to observe the vendors, scribbled notes about their locations, and did the same on Cermak Road. As dusk set in he headed north out of the Pilsen area and stopped at a Chinese restaurant on Division Street. It was a good place for eating alone, as it was never very crowded. Smooth, synthesized music was piped in over the speaker system. American songs he had never liked seemed more innocent and appealing with the singsong intonation of the Chinese singers. The restaurant was staffed by pretty, smiling waitresses who could barely speak English and seemed not to have a care in the world as they glided past the tables with steaming plates of food.
From his table, Hayden watched the Chinese cooks through the open window into the kitchen. He figured that they, too, were probably illegal, having traveled thousands of miles through God knows what sort of horrible conditions, so that they could labor in a blazing hot kitchen for little money. Yet they appeared happy.
His thoughts gradually drifted to a grim reality. He was an INS agent, sitting in a restaurant staffed by illegals, in a city teeming with illegals of every conceivable nationality, looking for a way to extract Miguel, another illegal, from a looming crisis—a crisis he’d personally engineered. He now wished he’d gone along with Kane’s suggestion to pick a few document vendors off the street and declare victory. But he knew his problems extended far beyond the Rico case. If he’d not allowed compulsive curiosity about his father to alter his career path—if he’d been reasonable and les
s emotional, he would likely be practicing law in the comfort of well-furnished offices and courtrooms. It seemed that almost everything in his professional and personal life was out of sync and out of control. He thought of Miguel’s faith in a higher power, which until recently he’d dismissed as wishful thinking. Yet suddenly the idea of a random, godless world was a depressing notion to contemplate.
He finished the fiery kung pao chicken, left fifteen dollars to pay the ten-dollar check, and headed back to the office.
* * *
As Nick had hoped, the office was deserted when he arrived at eight o’clock that evening. There was much to do in preparation for next week’s operation, and it was easier to concentrate without phones ringing and other interruptions. He spread out the photos of street vendors on his desk and sketched out a crude map identifying their locations.
It was now dark outside. As he looked out the window, he could see the lit-up offices in the other federal building across the street. Most of the building was unlit, but cubicles of light would snap on and off as the cleaning crew moved from one office to another. From this distance the workers were indistinct, though he could make out their powder-blue uniforms. They, too, were probably illegals, he concluded, just like the cooks at the Chinese restaurant. Wherever he went, even to government buildings, there seemed to be no escape. He tried to ignore them, recalling one of McCloud’s dictums: “Looking at the big picture will drive you crazy. Just think about the case you’re working on.” He’d found that approach useful early in his career, but he now wondered why the hell he shouldn’t think about the big picture.
Hayden sorted through the photographs, picking out the ones to be given to agents on the day of the operation. He pulled the desk lamp closer and was using a magnifying glass to make out the blurred face of one of the vendors, when he heard the murmur of voices and the scuffle of shoes in the hallway.
“A la derecha . . . in that door,” said a deep male voice. The handcuffed prisoners shuffled in through the door at the far end of the room. There were six brown-skinned men, looking tired and disoriented, wearing heavily soiled work clothing. From across the room Hayden could smell the grease and sweat. He guessed they had been working on an assembly line in a manufacturing plant.
Phil Denton, a tall, businesslike agent wearing a wrinkled gray suit without a tie, entered the room behind the men. As always, he sported a toupee that looked like a flattened Brillo pad. A good-natured sort, Denton took a lot of heat for the toupee, but he didn’t seem to care.
“You guys sit down there. Siéntese alli,” he said, pointing at the metal radiator that ran along the wall. Slowly, awkwardly, the men sat down, the stainless steel cuffs clinking noisily.
Four women came next, also handcuffed together. Three of them were very young, probably teenagers, and looked at Hayden shyly. They too had been sweating, and their hair had become matted and stiff as it dried in the night air. One woman, much older than the others, looked woozily at the floor with half-closed eyes. The women sat on the radiator next to the men and were followed into the room by another agent, Henry De Rosa, a short, stocky man with dark features who rarely spoke and seemed to believe that his job was to act as Denton’s chauffeur and valet. He stood silently at the doorway.
“I saw your light on up here, Nick,” said Denton. “We picked ’em up out in Joliet about an hour ago. We could use something to eat before getting ’em to jail for the night.”
“Want me to watch ’em for ya?” asked Hayden.
“Yeah, if you don’t mind. We’ll run across the street and bring something back,” said Denton.
As Denton and De Rosa left the room, Hayden thought it fortunate the prisoners were cuffed and tired. They weren’t going anywhere, so he could return to his work. But moments later a soft voice called out in Spanish.
“Excuse me, sir. Could she have some water?” It was the young man sitting closest to the older woman, who was now swaying slowly back and forth.
“They’ll be back in a few minutes,” said Hayden in Spanish. “They’ll give you water.” Nick was about to go back to his work when he looked at the older woman more closely. Her eyes were closed, her mouth slack and partly open. Her swaying stopped, and she leaned heavily against the young woman next to her. She appeared close to fainting.
Perhaps it was the quiet intimacy of the office at night. There was none of the usual office noise and activity that created an invisible barrier. Hayden studied the whole group, one by one. On the surface, they appeared no different from any of the thousands that had come before. Yet they were different now.
Hayden picked up the cup of lukewarm coffee from his desk and walked over to them.
“You’re all from Mexico?” he asked, looking at the man who had called out.
“Yes, Mexico,” said the young man with a smile that revealed several missing teeth. The outer edges of his two front teeth were lined with thin bands of gold. “When they took us, we had no break for four hours, and it was very hot in the factory. They let us go to the bathroom before we left, but we had nothing to eat or drink.”
The older woman seemed unaware that Hayden was standing in front of her. He knelt down and held her left shoulder to steady her. Her eyes came partly open, and she said something in slurred words that he couldn’t understand.
“Here, drink some of this,” said Hayden, lifting the cup of coffee to the woman’s mouth. She took a sip, then eagerly took hold of the cup with both hands and tilted it to drain the remaining coffee. It seemed to revive her a bit, and she looked up gratefully at Hayden.
Nick stepped into the hallway and went to the drinking fountain to fill the empty coffee cup with water. When he returned he gave the cup to the woman and she drank it eagerly, some spilling down her chin and onto the floor. She handed the cup back to Hayden and glanced at the water on the floor.
“I sorry,” she said, and dropped to the floor on her knees. She wiped the wet tiles with the shirtsleeve of her unshackled hand and smiled weakly.
“That’s OK,” said Hayden. “Don’t worry about it.”
Hayden made several trips to the hallway drinking fountain and was filling the cup again when he heard the elevator bell and the low voices of Denton and De Rosa. When Denton turned the corner, he saw Hayden at the fountain and was instantly concerned about his untended prisoners.
“What’s going on, Nick?” he asked. The two were carrying white bags, and the aroma of hamburgers and fries filled the hallway.
“They’re all a little dehydrated,” he said. Denton and De Rosa walked around him into the squad room but offered no comment.
When Hayden returned, the two agents were sitting at a desk, munching away silently. Hayden brought the cup of water to the last Mexican in line, a middle-aged man who sat looking at the agents, his face weathered and sad. The agents watched Hayden curiously as he handed the cup to the man, and an awkward silence enveloped the room. Hayden knew what Denton and De Rosa were thinking. He’d intervened in something that, according to accepted protocol, was none of his business. He thought of Denton as a good professional, not remarkable in any way, but a solid, reliable agent. He was neither overly aggressive nor too soft. If Denton had been aware of the woman’s condition, he too would have provided assistance. Yet he no doubt found Nick’s concern and involvement excessive. It took so little to arouse suspicion.
“They won’t give them anything to eat at the jail until morning, but water will help a little,” said Hayden. There was a silent pause as Denton and De Rosa looked at Hayden and kept eating. “One of the women here almost passed out after you guys left.”
Denton grunted disgustedly at what he took as implied criticism. “The women always want special attention,” he said. “They play games.”
Hayden let the remark pass. He’d said exactly the same thing himself when dealing with women detainees. He returned to his desk with an empty cup and tried to go back to work but couldn’t keep his eyes off the Mexicans, who now seemed as interested
in Hayden as he was in them. They could feel the unspoken tension between Hayden and the other agents. Finally, Denton and De Rosa finished eating and rose from their chairs.
“OK, let’s go,” said Denton. The Mexicans stood up, their handcuffs clinking together, and began trudging toward the door. It reminded Hayden of his recurring dream of faceless people in the desert. But unlike the dream, he could see these people clearly, their eyes, their expressions—each a distinct, individual presence. He felt a subtle shift, as though a ray of penetrating sunlight had awakened something deep inside him.
As they staggered out, the older woman looked back at Hayden, smiled feebly, and gave a short wave of her hand. Hayden nodded and lifted a hand in response. As the Mexicans disappeared out the door, Denton and De Rosa both glanced curiously back at Hayden. He listened to them make their way down the hallway and into the elevator.
Alone again, Hayden peered out the window at the cubicles of light and the blue-clad figures methodically going about their work.
15
A large envelope covered with bright yellow Panamanian stamps was on Hayden’s desk when he arrived on Tuesday morning. He removed the contents: a report on the bank robbery, a two-page rap sheet, and mug shots of Liriano Solis.
Hayden had seen Rico only once during surveillance from at least thirty yards away, but Kane had taken photos of him. Nick spread them out on the desk, along with a copy of Rico’s driver’s license, which had a blurry photo.
There was no question: the rounded features, thick eyebrows, and small, flat eyes. Especially telling was the curvature of the upper lip. He wasn’t surprised. It made perfect sense that Rico would have a criminal past, though confirming it certainly raised the stakes.
He flipped back to the rap sheet and found that Solis had been arrested for numerous petty thefts, armed robbery, and burglary. The final entry was the most serious—the warrant for murder that Vogel had mentioned in connection with the bank robbery. Hayden knew, however, that if anybody had been killed during a robbery, all those participating would be charged with murder, regardless of who pulled the trigger.