by Carmen Amato
Perez stared at her without blinking.
“This kid,” Emilia went on. “The only one with the balls enough to come get his revenge, try to steal some more Ora Ciega, whatever. He knew about the ship, knew when it docked in Acapulco. When he showed up, Bonilla killed him to protect the network. But Bonilla panicked and called some temp cell number you’d given him.”
“Lucky guesses.” Perez flashed her an unmistakable look of . . . of . . . respect.
Madre de Dios, he thought she was a good detective! Anger surged and Emilia fought it down; she had to work with his mood, not against it, convince him she was impressed. “How long did it take you to chop up the bodies?”
Perez grinned; they shared a secret. “Los Martillos wanted to send a message to stay out of Gallo Pinto.”
Bile surged into her throat. Emilia was sure she was going to throw up. “Did you film it? Post it online for the Salva Diablo to see?”
His face tightened; she’d crossed a line and the moment of confidence had passed. “I think you told Obregon your theory about Ora Ciega being smuggled aboard a cruise ship,” he rasped. “Implicated a couple of senior cops. Customs officials, too.”
“You must not know Obregon,” Emilia swallowed hard and tried to sound scornful. “With that much information he’d move in, take it all, and not leave anything for anyone else. No one with half a brain tells him anything.”
“And you have half a brain?”
“If I was going to peddle Ora Ciega,” Emilia began. Her knees were shaking and she could barely hear her own voice over the pounding of her heart. “I’d cut Bonilla out of the chain. He’s nervous and arrogant. A bad combination.”
“Bonilla owns the ship.”
“Bonilla used to own the ship. Burned himself out of the network when he killed the kid and was too lazy to get rid of the body the same night. We can’t use him any more.”
“So now it’s ‘we’?”
Emilia felt like a gambler, throwing dice when she didn’t even know the rules of the game. She could only feel the rush as the wheel spun and hear the faint slap of cards that someone else was dealing. “Why bother to move the Ora Ciega out of Acapulco at all? Laws in El Norte are loosening up. Pretty soon your buyers are going to get it all home-grown. Your profit margin is going to fall but the risk of getting it over the border won’t. Pretty soon the risk won’t be worth the money and every peso Bonilla takes for using that ship is another peso out of your pocket.”
“What do you know about such things, Detective Cruz?” Perez mocked her.
“Maybe I’ve been looking for the right opportunity.” Emilia pulled her eyes down, suddenly afraid he’d seen through her lie, only to notice the sales tag of the dress dangling by her waist. The dress cost 8000 pesos. She held out the tag so he could see. “I need cash,” she said.
“I hear you’re running with a rich crowd,” Perez said. “Namely, the manager of the Palacio Réal.”
“Who doesn’t like drunks in his bar,” Emilia said.
“So I heard,” Perez said.
“Did you hear me say I need cash?”
Pablo’s eyes were assessing now. “I heard. But not enough.”
“Ora Ciega is special,” Emilia asserted. “The spring break crowd will be expecting something they can’t get at home. Why throw away a cut on Bonilla and his cruise ship?”
His head twitched yet again and his fingers fluttered. “What can you deliver? A sales network?”
“Maybe, but I’m not sharing it with the messenger boy. Or any of the other flunkies who’ve been following me around.” She threw down her last card, not sure it was enough to take the game. “I’ll deal with the top. Or not at all.”
“Only with el jefe?” Perez seemed amused.
“Don’t make me waste any more time, Perez,” Emilia said, as if she’d been the one to initiate the conversation.
Perez’s fingers fluttered by his side. “I like your style, Cruz,” he said. “Fine. I’ll set up a meet.”
Emilia knew she’d played it well but she wasn’t going to take another step without Silvio. She crossed her arms to conceal her trembling. “I’m bringing in my partner. He’s part of it or no deal.”
The man smiled nastily. “Sure, bring the kid. About time he learned how to be a real cop.”
No. “I didn’t mean him--.”
“I did,” Perez said. His eyes slid over her body again. “Buy the dress. If things work out you can wear it when we celebrate.”
He skirted the clothing rack by the dressing rooms and made his way to the front of the store. He slowed as he passed Mercedes. Emilia held her breath but he didn’t speak to the dancer before leaving the store.
Emilia darted into her own dressing room through the half-closed curtain. Her gun was still in the shoulder holster dangling from the hook. She slumped onto the chair in relief.
“You wouldn’t believe it,” Mercedes exclaimed, suddenly poking her head around the curtain. “The clerk has four daughters and they all want to take dance lessons. They’d had some with a studio on the other side of the bay but the teacher got sick and stopped teaching. I gave her my card, told her all about the classes.”
“That’s great.” Emilia couldn’t tell her it was all a setup. No one was going to call. The dancer’s card simply meant that Perez would have yet more information to hold over Emilia’s head.
“The dress looks great,” Mercedes said, stepping into the booth. “Are you going to get it?”
Emilia shook her head. “There’s nowhere to hide my gun in this dress.”
☼
Twenty minutes later, as Emilia was telling Mercedes she had to get back to the office, her phone chimed with a text message. “Tonight. 2:00 am. Construction entrance Torre Metropolitano.”
Chapter 30
Emilia pulled the Suburban to the curb, prayed he was home, and dialed the number. Silvio picked up on the second ring.
“We need to talk,” Emilia said. “Something’s happened.”
Silvio swore. “Is this what I think it is?”
“Maybe,” Emilia hedged.
“I already told you, Cruz,” Silvio said. “I’m done with this case.”
Emilia looked around. She’d been to Silvio’s house before. It was in one of the poorest neighborhoods, where kids ran barefoot in the streets, stray dogs rooted in garbage, and someone died in a shootout every other day. But he’d lived there since his youth as an up-and-coming boxer and twice a week his wife Isabel gathered up all the homeless kids and gave them a free meal. A room in the house was set aside for Silvio’s illegal bookie business. He’d started it years ago when he’d been temporarily suspended during the inquiry into the shooting death of his partner Garcia. Emilia knew that the income from being a bookie fed the kids.
“I’m parked outside,” she said. “Either you open the gate to let me in or I start telling everybody who passes by that Franco has been rigging his numbers.”
The connection died in her ear. A minute later a slab of corrugated metal opened and Emilia drove the Suburban into the drive. The gate clanged shut behind her.
Silvio yanked open her door. “You better have a real good explanation, Cruz.”
“Listen,” Emilia said.
Thirty minutes later Silvio passed an agitated hand over his crew cut. “This stinks real bad.”
“I know,” Emilia said quietly.
“Fuck. Fuck.”
Emilia was sitting at the plain pine table that apparently served as both desk and meeting space. Half of it was covered with papers and old accounting ledgers. She propped her elbows on the table and let her head fall into her hands.
“Rayos, Cruz,” Silvio swore. “Don’t go bawling now.”
Emilia heard his footsteps cross the room, open the door, and go out. She wondered if there would ever come a time when pretending to be on the take wouldn’t work. First Bonilla, now Perez. Every cop in Mexico was always presumed to be corrupt.
Silvio came back
in. He opened two bottles of beer by snapping the caps off against the edge of the table.
Emilia lifted her head and Silvio shoved a bottle at her. He sat down in front of the ledgers and found paper and a pen.
“Okay.” Silvio got ready to write. “Perez was worried that you’d told Obregon who was responsible for bringing Ora Ciega into Acapulco.”
“But I don’t know who is responsible.”
“Does Perez realize that you don’t know?”
Emilia thought again about the strange conversation in the store. “No. I just said I wouldn’t negotiate with the messenger boy. Meaning him, the pendejo.”
Silvio pointed the pen at her. “If Perez was in charge, he would have said so. By not saying so, he confirmed that someone more senior is in charge.”
Emilia closed her eyes and answered his questions. They’d done this hundreds of times with witnesses and suspects. Made them go over their story again and again, trying to find some forgotten detail or angle, ferret out something hidden in the back of the mind. She forced herself not to look at her watch, even as she felt the minutes tick away.
“Okay,” Silvio said finally. “Your lunch with Obregon brought this to a head. Which says that el jefe is a cop, not Customs, and a little afraid of Obregon. But he’s senior enough to co-opt Customs and use his clout to get that body out of the morgue.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Emilia said. “El jefe could be Chief Salazar, could be somebody else. Whoever it is, we keep playing the same game I started this afternoon. Pretend I’m ready to make some extra money and I can promise a network to handle their Ora Ciega. Make more money for them than using Bonilla and the cruise ship route to El Norte. Find out who is at the top and take it all to Espinosa. Not like I can exactly report it up the police chain.”
“How good of a liar do you think you are, Cruz?” Silvio asked heavily.
“As good as I need to be,” Emilia answered, impatience finally getting the better of her. “This is a sting. The biggest takedown we’ve ever done. Just once, do you think you could be a little positive? Tell me I did the right thing?”
Silvio swung his head and gave her a look of pure incredulity. “You never should have set this up without talking to me.”
“You weren’t there,” Emilia snapped. “And the last time we talked you gave the distinct impression of being a giant fucking pendejo.”
“Rayos,” Silvio swore but it was more at himself than at her. “Don’t go. Don’t fucking go.”
“If Flores and I don’t make the meeting, we’re both dead. Perez will figure a double cross or a badly played bluff.” Emilia counted off liabilities on her fingers, one by one. “They know where I live during the week. About the hotel on weekends. Know how to find my mother. Kurt. My best friend. Flores. You.”
Silvio threw down his pen. “Fuck.”
“I’m going to make the meet.” Emilia’s chest was tight.
They stared at each other across the table. Silvio’s face was grimmer than usual. He broke eye contact first.
“We’ll wire you up,” he said finally. “I’ll stay right behind you, ready to move in if it goes bad.”
We. He’d said ‘we.’ Emilia felt relief dance in her bones even as she glanced at her watch. The minutes were streaking by as if she was in a fast-moving time warp. “They’ll be watching for me to have a shadow.”
“The Torre Metropolitano, right?” Silvio picked up his cell phone which had been next to a pile of betting slips. He thumbed through the contact list as Emilia watched. “You remember the abarrotes shop behind the place? We talked to the owner? First he complained when vehicles blocked off the side street when they were putting up the construction barriers. Second time he said the workmen were stealing from the store.”
Emilia nodded. It had been a 30 minute exchange nearly six months ago but Silvio had it right at his fingertips. “I remember. Asian guy. Sold noodle cups and clamshell souvenirs.”
“Well, he’s going to be open late tonight.”
Emilia played out scenarios in her head as Silvio made the call. In all of them, el jefe turned out to be Chief Salazar, who either killed both her and Flores or arrested them on trumped up charges of peddling drugs, which would be conveniently found in her car. The trial would be a sham and she’d be murdered in prison. Or even better; Perez had snipers in the construction cranes and shot both her and Flores as soon as they got out of the car.
Five minutes later Silvio had set up his outpost in the convenience store. Emilia finished her beer and shoved the worst-case images out of her mind.
“Now we just need the wire,” Silvio said. “Loyola’s never going to approve the equipment. You don’t have anything stashed in your car by any chance?”
“No.” Emilia set her empty bottle on the table and looked around the room. At some point someone—likely Silvio’s wife—had painted the walls yellow and put up some heavy cotton curtains. The wooden chairs around the table were cheap and solid, but the backs were carved into the shape of sunflowers. Silvio looked comfortable there and Emilia knew that, under different circumstances, this was a cheerful spot to watch television, drink beer, trade jokes.
Emilia watched Silvio as he scribbled some more notes. Once upon a time she’d mistrusted him. Certainly had never wanted to partner with him. Silvio was cranky, brusque, even brutal on occasion. But mostly he was a tough cop, a survivor of worse situations than this. Together, they had resources.
Emilia squared her shoulders. She wasn’t some defenseless, cringing girl waiting to be slaughtered or framed. She was going to get to the top of the pyramid, find those responsible for the slaughter at Gallo Pinto, Yolanda Lata’s overdose, and the murder of Irma Gonzalez.
“Bet there’s some confiscated equipment in lockup,” she said.
“The evidence locker?” Silvio asked.
“That’s right.”
“Your cousin runs the place,” Silvio said thoughtfully. “You think he’d do it?”
“The famous Sergeant Cruz?” Emilia said as she dug out her cell phone and dialed her cousin’s number. “He’s family.”
“Can you trust him?”
Emilia smiled.
“Takes a thief to catch a thief,” she said and then Alvaro came on the line.
☼
The last few hours had been a whirlwind. Emilia knew she should be tired, but she was pumped to the gills with adrenaline and nervous energy.
The evidence locker had been a surveillance shopper’s paradise and Alvaro had supplied them with an even better rig than they would have gotten from the police tech team. It was confiscated cartel goods, of course, a digital dream of two-way audio with a 10 mile radius. Alvaro had asked no questions, simply met Emilia at the evidence locker, listened to her requirements, and fiddled with his database before disappearing into the caged area and returning with a steel case full of equipment. Emilia let Silvio tape the tiny microphone and battery pack to her chest right there, trying not to wonder who’d been the last person to use the equipment or how many people had died as a result.
Flores had met them at a small restaurant near the beach at Playa Tamarindo that had an enclosed parking lot. Emilia knew he’d been puzzled at her instructions to take a taxi. He’d recoiled as he’d walked into the restaurant and saw Silvio with her.
As Silvio wolfed down a plate of fish tacos and bayos refritos, Emilia told Flores about the conversation with Perez and the meeting at the Torre Metropolitano.
Flores’s mouth formed a perfect O and the color drained out of his skin. He swallowed hard. “Of course I’m coming,” he said. “I’m a cop. I’m your partner.”
Together with Silvio, she outlined the plan, such as it was, to Flores. Silvio would be in the abarrotes store in the side street in back of the construction site. He’d be able to listen in. Emilia tried the earpiece that would let her hear Silvio and decided not to wear it. She’d have to let her hair down to cover her ear and Perez would recognize that she wasn’t wearing her
usual ponytail.
Once they met el jefe, Emilia and Flores would agree to set up an Ora Ciega distribution network catering to the norteamericano college crowd. The selling points would be Emilia’s street contacts and Flores’s college friends. With the wire capturing the conversation, Emilia would get them to implicate themselves by talking about the killing field at Gallo Pinto and the murder of the Salva Diablo gang member aboard the Pacific Grandeur.
It was all fake, Emilia stressed to Flores. Playacting. She wasn’t really going to sell Ora Ciega but would have to negotiate a bit before agreeing to el jefe’s terms in order to appear genuine. Once the meeting was over, they’d drive a few maneuvers to make sure they weren’t being followed and meet back at Silvio’s house.
Tomorrow, they’d turn the information over to Espinosa and the federales.
Silvio left first in order to park his car a few blocks from the Torre Metropolitano and walk over to the abarrotes store. He’d case the area as he went, then call with whatever information he’d picked up. Emilia and Flores would head out after that, do a little recon themselves before pulling into the construction lot.
Once in the store, Silvio would be able to cross the street and be inside the construction site in less than a minute. Of course, anything could happen in less than a minute but she felt good knowing that he’d be listening in. They’d tested the wire and loaded new batteries. The mike and her ability to lie were her best weapons tonight.
“We don’t have any other options, do we?” Flores asked.
It was the calm before the storm. They were sitting in the Suburban, in the restaurant parking lot. Emilia had watched Silvio head out after tipping the parking attendant extravagantly. He played their presence as a love triangle: husband catches wife with younger lover. Silvio thought it was funny, Flores seemed confused, and Emilia didn’t care. The story made their actions plausible, including why she and Flores were sitting and talking in the car.