“I musta lost consciousness,” he concluded, “ ’cause next thing I knew the helicopter was there, everybody was around me. The fellas used a towel to stop the bleeding and took me to the hospital.”
They didn’t buy it. Shepard opened fire. Pescatore kept his answers short and polite.
“Mr. Pescatore, how did you injure your hand?” Puente asked without warning.
“I’m not sure. We were wrestling around and there was rocks and glass on the ground. That’s probably when I cut it.”
“Interesting. The medical report indicates it’s a gash or gouge consistent with the hand injuries the aliens get climbing over the fence.”
She did not have an accent. But there was something about her consonants, a musical echo of Spanish in her crisp English. The wide-spaced eyes locked in on him like searchlights.
“I didn’t go over the fence. He went under.”
“And you went after him across The Line,” Shepard said, shaking his head at such colossal folly. “Otherwise why did the agents take so long to find you? There are eyewitness statements that you were seen in traffic on Calle Internacional.”
“If somebody said that, they musta been drunk,” Pescatore said. Puente’s eyes enlarged. Bingo, homes, Pescatore said to himself, that’s the only witness they got. “Listen, no offense and everything, but are you guys saying I’m suspected of a crime, or breaking the rules, or what? Is there a complaint or allegation here?”
“If you crossed that line, you know it’s a crime and a violation of the rules and about the worst thing a Border Patrol agent could do except kill somebody,” Shepard said.
“Except I didn’t do it. Sir.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m not crazy. If a PA even puts a toe on that line, he’s fried. Diplomatic protests, investigations, media gone apeshit.”
“Is it true you give out money to the aliens on a recurring basis? Especially the women?” Shepard asked.
Pescatore felt truly frightened for the first time. After a moment, he told himself: They’re not gonna indict you for that, get a grip. He was about to deny it with every breath in his body when he registered the surprise on the woman’s face. Her mask had slipped. Shepard had apparently developed this information on his own. It apparently had a positive impact on Puente. Pescatore wanted very much to see that look on her face again.
He took a breath, aware that he was slouching. “How you figure that? It’s not especially the women. Kids too. Families.”
“So you admit it.”
“Hey man, it’s my money, right? I don’t got any mouths to feed except me.”
“You realize giving money to women you’ve apprehended creates a problem of appearances out there? Like you expect something in return?” Shepard spoke with melodramatic disgust. “Don’t play stupid, son.”
Pescatore did not need to exaggerate his indignation for Puente’s benefit.
“Listen up, Jack.” He leaned forward, a finger leveled at Shepard. “Don’t you dare accuse me of messing with women prisoners. I’m a gentleman out there. Ask anybody.”
As Shepard was about to escalate the confrontation with some finger-pointing of his own, Puente interrupted.
“We’ll concede regarding your charitable intentions, Mr. Pescatore.” Fleeting smile. “Let me ask you about something else. Under what circumstances did you leave the hotel security job you had in Chicago before you entered on duty with The Patrol?”
First the money, now Chicago. Pescatore glanced at his watch, hoping to conceal his panic. Even if they had started investigating him a minute after he crossed back into San Diego, it was hard to believe they could have come up with all this stuff already. They had been at it for a while, digging into his past. This was about more than chasing Pulpo into the Zona Norte.
She repeated the question with a severity that made him wonder if her earlier surprise had been an act.
Dry-mouthed, he answered: “I resigned from that hotel because I decided to apply to The Patrol and I got accepted and that was the end of it.”
“Interesting. My information indicates that you got fired because you were involved with a ring of doormen and bellhops who were thieves. You got caught riding at three in the morning in a Lincoln Continental that was supposed to be in the hotel parking garage.”
“The Patrol looked into my previous jobs and everything,” he protested. “They did the background check. Everything was fine.”
“That’s no defense,” she said. “The Border Patrol has hired too many people too fast. The background investigations are sloppy. People who got fired from law enforcement slip through. People with criminal records slip through.”
“I don’t have a criminal record, ma’am.”
“Because your uncle is a lieutenant with the Chicago Police and he interceded for you. And then he had the nerve to recommend you to The Patrol.”
“That’s not the way it was.”
“But you did get arrested. You did get fired.”
She was acquiring a street snarl. Pescatore tried a counterattack.
“I told the cops then and I’m telling you now, I was investigating those guys who were stealing at the hotel. It was undercover. Like a sting.”
“Stop wasting my time,” Puente snapped.
“What do you want me to say?”
“Start with the truth about last night,” Shepard piped up.
“I told you the truth.”
“Another thing,” Puente said. “Did you intentionally alter your name when you entered on duty? Why were you known as Valen-tín in Chicago when your Border Patrol paperwork consistently refers to you as Valen-tine?”
“Hey, don’t put that jacket on me,” Pescatore exclaimed, eager to play legitimate victim. “My correct given name is Valentín. It was The Patrol’s foul-up. At the academy they kept calling me Valentine, my paperwork kept coming back Valentine. I complained, but they never changed it.”
In fact, after one halfhearted attempt to correct the mistake, he had decided not to draw attention to himself. His unwanted rechristening was somehow appropriate. He became a Border Patrol agent; he became Valentine.
Puente nodded. Pescatore suspected she had tossed him an easy one to change the pace, soften him up. He steeled himself for another barrage. But she put a hand on Shepard’s arm.
“Wait,” she told Pescatore. She and Shephard got up and left.
Ten minutes later, she came back into the room alone. The angry-interrogator mode had been replaced by a disconcerting calm. She leaned forward over the table and raised her head, accentuating the swell of the rounded breasts against the turtleneck. Her voice was low.
“Listen carefully, Mr. Pescatore. You’re currently under investigation for the allegation regarding last night. You’re under investigation for lying about your work history. And we’re looking at other activities as well.”
“Like what?”
“You know what. Now’s the time to start thinking like an adult about resolving your problems. For the moment you are under investigation. We will be in touch.”
She got up and went out, leaving an invisible trail of cinnamon behind her.
That evening, Garrison had visited him at home. Pescatore lived in a one-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a stucco house in Pacific Beach, an area populated by students, surfers and aging Anglos. Pescatore lay on the couch with an ice pack on his head listening to an old George Benson disc. His gun was on a chair nearby. There wasn’t much in the apartment beyond the couch, the stereo, the television and a bed. He had four posters: the Chicago Bulls, the Chicago Bears, Bruce Springsteen and Oscar De La Hoya. The Chicago wall calendar in the kitchenette was open to a photo of the lakefront frosted over into an ice field.
Pescatore lay in the dark when the music ended. He could not see the Pacific from his apartment, but he could hear the soothing mumble of surf. He was thinking about how his arrest in Chicago had triggered a chain of events that culminated in his arrival at the Border
Patrol academy in New Mexico. The Patrol was hungry for Spanish-speakers, and his uncle’s recommendation helped. You just ran out of favors, his uncle had declared. Disgrace me again and I’ll break your head. The best thing about the Border Patrol is that it will get you the hell out of town.
Garrison’s heavy footsteps drummed up the outdoor staircase to his apartment. The supervisor came in loud and hearty, carrying an open beer can. He said he was only going to stay a minute. Somebody was waiting in the car, they were going to the fights. But he made himself at home. He turned on lights. He wandered around, biceps and triceps bulging in a cutoff football jersey, his high forehead furrowed. He grilled Pescatore about the visit to the Federal Building.
Pescatore stayed on the couch. He did not mention the signs of an ominously in-depth investigation.
“So they asked about me?” Garrison said.
“Yeah,” Pescatore improvised. “They wanted to know if I ever saw you thump on somebody.”
“And?”
“I said I’ve never seen any PA thump on anybody.”
“Good. What else?”
“Mainly they kept browbeating me about did I cross The Line, you know.”
After another round of questions, Garrison seemed satisfied. Pescatore tried to nudge along his departure. “Goin’ to the fights in TJ, huh?”
“Affirmative. Multiglobo Arena. Next time come down with us. Great seats, buddy. You did some boxing back home, right?”
“Little bit.”
Garrison started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Pescatore demanded.
“I was thinking about you whaling on Pulpo. Relax, Valentine. You’re not the first PA ever stepped over The Line and got away with it.”
“I’m not?”
“Hell no. But you probably did set a record for distance, I’ll tell ya that, buddy. Pulpo got a little shock when you dropped in, didn’t he?”
Pescatore sat up, grinning lopsidedly through his dread.
“Oh man. I put the fear a God in him forever.”
Garrison whooped and swigged beer. “Crazy fucking Valentine. You got potential.”
All kinds of potential, Pescatore thought now as he paid for his lunch in Little Italy. Potential to end up fired, in the joint, maybe dead if Garrison gets the idea in his head that I might rat him out.
Pescatore walked down India Street, head down, hands in pockets. He rounded a corner. A Mazda sports car pulled alongside him, low and black. Isabel Puente was at the wheel.
“Mr. Pescatore,” she said through the half-open window. “Got a minute for me?”
He peered at her. She wore a gray sweater-and-skirt ensemble and her hair was down, rippling black, shoulder length.
“Are you guys surveilling me?” he demanded, glancing around.
“I thought we might go someplace quiet. Continue our conversation.”
“Am I under any obligation to get in this vehicle?”
She hit him with a grin. “None whatsoever.”
She drove with relish, handling the vehicle as if she had training at the wheel. He wondered if she had been in another agency before OIG. Usually the internal affairs investigators put in some years in ICE, the Marshals or someplace before they got into the business of locking up fellow feds.
They rode north in silence on the freeway past SeaWorld, past inland beaches and bridges. San Diego was impossibly beautiful: the slender palm trees lining the curve of Mission Bay, the afternoon sun streaking placid waters, the immaculate lawns of hotel resorts. The beauty depressed him. He felt apart from it, rootless, condemned to skim across the surface of the city.
He asked where they were going.
“A place where we can talk,” she said.
A minute later, she said: “What are you exactly, Valentine?”
“What kinda question is that?”
Her smile exposed a slight and appealing overbite. “Ethnically, I mean.”
“Oh. My father was born in Italy, grew up in Argentina and moved to Chicago. His brothers were there. My mother’s family was Mexican.”
“That’s where you got your Spanish.”
“More my father’s side. My mother’s family came a long time ago. To work on the railroads in Chicago. My mom can’t barely speak Spanish, except songs. My neighborhood was Italian, but there were a lotta Mexicans too. And black people.”
“Where did you fit in?”
“Good question.”
“I’ll get this over with, Valentine, so you know the situation.” She sighed, her snub profile intent on the freeway. “You almost convinced me yesterday. I should have known better.”
“About what?”
“My Mexican police contacts have a witness who saw you in the Zona Norte with dogs chasing you. The smuggler says you beat him down after pursuing him into his residence near Calle Internacional. And they found a scrap of green material stuck in the border fence. Don’t bother denying it’s from your uniform, because that can be ascertained conclusively. You must’ve spent a good five minutes in Tijuana. Quite an excursion.”
“So you believe the Mexican police.”
“These particular officers are meticulous and professional investigators.”
“I bet.”
She steered down and around an exit ramp.
“The point is, now you’re in really big trouble. They could assist our investigation. Or they could press charges themselves, in Mexico, for unauthorized entry and assault on that individual. Theoretically, they could request extradition. It would make a big stink.”
He folded his arms. They descended downhill curves, the Pacific shimmering beyond pine trees, and entered La Jolla Village. A short steep grade led into the Cove, a triangular coastal park overlooking rocks and surf and walled by cliffs. She parked in front of a café-restaurant in a historic-looking house set into the base of a cliff.
She looked at him brightly. “Ready?”
“I gotta tell you, I’m not comfortable with this,” he said.
“What?”
“One minute you’re talking about the Mexicans extraditing me, which is the most fucked-up unfair outrageous thing I ever heard, considering all the Mexican criminals we can’t extradite because of the criminals in their government. And then you want to get coffee.”
“Look,” she said, her door half-open. “I’m being up-front. I’m taking a big chance with you.”
“Why?”
“Good question. Come on.”
It was past 3 p.m. and the café was nearly empty, which was probably why she had picked it. Reached by wooden steps, the place was big and homey, a fireplace, pictures of old-time San Diego on the mantel and walls, carved furniture. It was not the kind of place he normally went. But it seemed like a nice spot for a date with Isabel Puente.
They sat in a corner with a view of the ocean. They both ordered coffee, and he ordered waffles with strawberries. Puente looked amused.
“I thought you ate already,” she said.
“So you were surveilling me.” When she rolled her eyes, he added: “I always get hungry when I’m scared to death.”
Her delighted laugh encouraged him somewhat. She asked him if he had done some thinking. He said he was not clear what he was supposed to think about.
“What is it you want, exactly?” he asked.
“Supervisory Agent Arleigh Garrison.”
He was not surprised. But he nonetheless rubbed his face with his hand, his mind shuffling scenarios.
“Oh great,” he said. “You want me to rat him out.”
“I’m thinking you might want to help yourself and help us. And do some good, for a change.”
“I’ve done plenty of good. I got a commendation for catching a stickup man in the canyons. I pulled a little kid from a car wreck. I went one-on-ten with some gangbangers in a damn near riot on the levee. You don’t know what it’s like out there.”
She started to say something, caught herself. She said, “I’m aware of your record.”
“Then don’t talk to me like I’m a lowlife slug.”
“Then don’t talk like one. This isn’t about being a rat. It’s about an investigation.”
“To get Garrison.”
“Unless he’s your friend. Unless you’re scared of him.”
“What happens if I say hell no, then run back and tell him about this?”
Puente’s panther smile turned morose, as if she’d rarely encountered such stupidity. “You’re not going to do that.”
“Glad you know me so good. What’s the proposition?”
“You tell me everything you know about Garrison. And then you gather intelligence for us.”
“And what do I get out of it?”
“You don’t get indicted or fired. Plus compensation. We pay informants.”
“You’re insulting me now.”
“I thought you might say that. Funny thing is, I don’t think you like Garrison that much.”
“Not particularly.”
“Interesting. Why do you run with him and those characters, then?”
“Look, uh, Agent Puente? Isabel? What do I call you?”
She cocked her head playfully. “Whatever you want.”
“Anyway, yeah, I hang out with Garrison some. He’s my boss. He was Special Forces. Real badass. He watches my back out on The Line. I watch his. We go drinking after work. I don’t exactly have a big social circle outside The Patrol. Inside either.”
“You feel loyal. And you like to party with them.”
“I guess.”
“Garrison’s a big spender. He throws extra work at you now and then.”
“Hey, you probably know more about it than I do. That’s the other guys. He has offered did I want to make a little extra cash, though.”
“Doing what?”
“Freelance security for this rich Mexican guy. Garrison teaches him and his bodyguards: shooting, tactical stuff.”
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