He stood up and put on his sunglasses. He turned away from me and as he was walking away I said, “Why exactly do you have a hard-on for him? He’s just doing the best he can.”
“He’s dangerous, Thomas. He’s very dangerous. Maybe more than the pieces a dirt you guys are chasing after.” He took a card out from his pocket and laid it on the step in front of me. “If you think of anything, or just want to talk, anytime, day or night, give me a ring.”
He turned and walked away. I picked up the card and looked at it. It was off-white with raised lettering.
I stood up, and went inside the house, taking the card and crumpling it up before throwing it into a trash bin.
CHAPTER 9
I woke up the next day like nothing had happened. I showered and changed and went outside. The sun was just coming up over the mountains and the clouds scattered over the sky like milk that had spilt on a blue surface. I noticed something gleaming out of the corner of my eye. Parked at the curb, facing my house, was a black Chevy Tahoe.
I couldn’t make out the people inside but I could see two figures, one in the driver seat and one in the passenger. The windows were tinted to the point I couldn’t see in and even the windshield was black. I stared for a while, and then walked to my Jeep and headed to the farm.
It was calm inside other than a few phones ringing. I sat at the table they had been playing poker at and closed my eyes, sleep still not having left my body. I checked my watch: 7:16 a.m. My iPhone buzzed.
“Hello?”
“Take your panties off, Baby Boy. We got work to do.”
“I’m at the farm.”
“Nah, meet me at the coffee shop on Helaman. You know the place with the burnt out sign?”
“Yeah, it’ll take me fifteen. Why are we—”
The line was dead.
I drove down to Helaman Boulevard on the outskirts of the city. The place no one goes to unless they’re looking for something they can’t find in any other part of the city. This was where the cartels set up shop; where the white supremacists built meth labs in abandoned warehouses; where people were killed before being taken out to the desert.
I found the coffee shop. It was next to a strip joint. It wasn’t yet eight in the morning but cars were still parked in the strip joint’s parking lot and I wondered if they belonged to customers that were there for the morning show or that had been there all night and hadn’t left yet.
I parked out front and went inside. The floors were linoleum and the lighting was harsh. The booths had orange cushions that looked like they’d been around since the 1950s. Ty sat at the corner booth, reading something on an iPad. I sat across from him but he didn’t say anything.
After about ten minutes without a word I was going crazy. I finally said, “Weird place for a coffee shop.”
“I’m reading,” he said without looking up.
I leaned back in the seat as the waitress came and asked if I wanted anything. I said just a coffee and when it came it was in a glass that had lipstick stains on the rim. I pushed it away and stared at the window. The strip joint was getting busy now and I watched the men going in. Some of them had women on their arms. A lot of men bought hookers for a night and took them to strip clubs as some sort of fantasy.
Ty finally placed the iPad down and looked up. “We’re going after Phillipe today.”
“Who is he?”
“Drug pusher. Big time. He won’t touch a shipment for less than a hundred K. I been after him for two years but he skipped town. I heard last week that he’s here again. For a sister’s wedding. We’re gonna be wedding crashers. You hungry?”
“Um, no. I’m fine.”
“You sure? It’s on me.”
“No, I’m fine thanks.”
“Suit yourself but we’re not makin’ any meal stops till this afternoon.”
We stood and walked out. Ty got into my Jeep and I noticed that he hadn’t driven out here. We pulled away, past the strip club, and Ty directed me through the streets.
We drove across the city into a residential neighborhood that bled into a commercial neighborhood. The buildings were smooth steel and glass, the grounds well maintained, and the roads were clean and free of debris or graffiti. We drove past a few of the buildings out through some fields with the road as the only evidence of civilization, and came to a large Catholic church. We parked out front and Ty checked his sidearm and I did the same. We hopped out.
We walked across the parking lot and I pulled my badge off my belt and put it on the chain around my neck. We got to the door and a large Mexican stopped us. He saw my badge and glanced from one of us to the other.
“You’re not on the guest list,” he said in Spanish.
“This puts us on the guest list,” Ty said, pointing to his badge.
The bouncer stepped aside but didn’t open the door.
We went inside and saw that they were setting up for the wedding. A placard was up with a description of the couple and the time of the wedding. It was set to take place in two hours. We walked around toward the front where some of the bridesmaids were standing and an older woman in a tight dress was telling them where to stand and how to walk out when the music starts playing.
“Phillipe?” Ty shouted, holding up his badge.
The women didn’t say anything and then the older one excused them. They scattered. She turned to us when they were gone, her arms folded against her cleavage as she stared us down.
“What do you want here?” she said.
“I need to give the best man a few words of encouragement,” Ty said. “Where is he?”
“He’s not here yet. This is a holy place.”
Ty got right up to her and said, “Los Zetas found a church group on the outskirts of Mexico City. Young kids, ten to fourteen years old. They raped them for seven hours before beatin’ them and leavin’ them to die. Nuns and priests were tryin’ to protect them and they got beat too. You hear about that?”
She was quiet a moment. “Yes.”
“Then don’t spit that bullshit about ‘holy places.’ There are no holy places. Now tell me where Phillipe is and maybe this wedding can actually happen.”
“I’ll tell you if you make me a promise: no matter what, you will let them get married. If he has to go to jail or if his brother or sister has to, you will take them after but you will let them get married.”
Ty nodded. “All right, I promise.”
She looked to me and then back to Ty. “He’s outside in the back.”
Ty moved and I followed. We went through a door on the side of the pulpit and down a long hallway toward back offices. An exit up ahead revealed a parking lot outside and we took it. Several men sat on suped-up cars and trucks, smoking joints and sipping Coronas. They didn’t notice us at first, not until Ty shouted, “Hola, amigos.”
Joints were thrown on the ground in lightning fast movements and the men hopped off the cars and straightened up.
“Keep your mouth shut and follow my lead,” Ty whispered to me as we got close to the men. “Phillipe,” he said, his arms wide like he was welcoming an old friend, “where you been?”
A man standing by the passenger side of an El Camino ran his hand over his bald head and cussed under his breath. “Yo how you doin’, Ty? You been good?”
“I been good. Not as good as your brother. How you doin’, Pedro? I like the Rolex, amigo.”
A man near the driver side nodded and mumbled something in Spanish.
“Yo,” Phillipe said, “I been meanin’ to get with you, holmes. I got some shit, man. You won’t believe it. Good shit.”
“Yeah?” Ty said, stepping close to him. “What kinda shit?”
“Yo lemme get through this wedding, holmes. Then me and you, Ty, we’ll sit down, aight?”
“Yeah? And you promise you’re not gonna skip town again, huh? Go on down across the border and chill with your hoochies on the beach?”
“Nah, man. It wasn’t like that. Yo I was gonna call you.”<
br />
Ty started laughing. He laughed so hard he bent over and put his hands on his knees. When he was through he stood up and rubbed his eye. “You are one funny Mexican, Phillipe. But I’m on a timeline so I gotta get through this quick. Why don’t we go inside and talk about it?”
“Yeah, yeah, aight.”
Ty held up his arm to get Phillipe to go ahead of him. Phillipe took a step forward like he was going to follow through with it and then slammed his fist into Ty’s face. It didn’t even faze him.
Phillipe took off and Ty jumped at him like a cat, tackling him at the legs. Phillipe hit the ground hard and Ty climbed up his back as I pulled out my weapon and held it to the other men to keep them in place.
Ty bashed his elbow into the back of Phillipe’s head, causing his face to hit the pavement. He pulled out his cuffs and threw them on his wrists, lifting him up by his elbows. He twisted hard to the right, slamming Phillipe’s head into the passenger side window of the El Camino.
“Yo,” Phillipe’s brother shouted as he came around the car.
“Get back!” I said, my weapon up at his face.
“What, you gonna shoot me, pig? I ain’t done nothin’. We just out here chillin’ and you come up here bustin’ up hermano on my weddin’ day.”
“Get back, now.”
“Or what? What you gonna do?”
He stepped right up to me and I placed the muzzle of my gun against his forehead. He held out his arms, daring me to do something. I glanced around to the other men. Ty was standing there, holding Phillipe; he didn’t say anything. I lowered the gun.
“That’s what I thought, pig,” Phillipe’s brother said.
I swung in an arch with my weapon and the handle crashed into his jaw, knocking him cold as he flew into the car and then to the ground. He was snoring before he was even on his back.
Ty laughed.
“Look at you. Putting down the leather like a pro.” He glanced around to the other men. “Come on, let’s get outta here.”
We got back in the Jeep and Ty hogtied Phillipe in the backseat. Everyone from inside ran out, and the older woman we had spoken with came up to us.
“You promised me,” she said.
“I don’t keep promises to whores.” He hit the side of my Jeep after he got in, indicating it was time to go.
I pulled out and we got onto the freeway, heading back to the farm.
CHAPTER 10
We brought Phillipe into the farm and took him to SIS’s man cave, the room adjacent to the one the boys had been playing poker in. It was a couple of chairs, a table, and a camera up on the wall. Ty unhooked the wire sticking out of the camera and pushed Phillipe down onto one of the chairs.
I sat in the corner as Ty sat across from him.
“You know,” Ty said, “I wasn’t all too happy when I heard you jumped the border. Your memory probably ain’t too good from all that mota you been smokin’. But I remember you gettin’ busted with a bunch a guns and dope and me lettin’ you go in exchange for information. See I let you go, and I didn’t get my information.” Ty looked to me. “What we call that, Baby Boy?”
“Breach of contract.”
“Breach of motherfuckin’ contract.”
“Yo,” Phillipe said, “it wasn’t like that, Ty. I didn’t have a choice.”
“Why?”
He looked away, staring off into space. “It ain’t like it was no more. They don’t come after you. They go after your family, your friends, your pets, man. They killed Chico’s dog, yo. Over some bullshit. Then they got Chico. They cut off his balls and put ‘em in his mouth. He died like that, man.”
Ty nodded. “I know it’s crazy. But you gave me your word. Without that, how can I ever trust you again, Phillipe?”
Phillipe was fidgeting and picking at his nails. “What you wanna know?”
“Who put out the hit?”
“I don’t know, man.”
“Phillipe.”
“I don’t know, I ain’t playin’. I thought it was Remy, man. But when I asked around they said it wasn’t him.”
“It wasn’t him?” Ty said. “Are you sure?”
“That’s what everybody’s sayin’. They said someone got out the word that it was him but it wasn’t.”
Ty nodded, staying quiet a few moments. “What else?”
“Whatchyu mean what else? There ain’t nothin’ else.”
Ty stood up and came around the table. He was quiet a long time and then whispered, “What else?”
Phillipe swallowed. “There…there ain’t nothin’ else, Ty. That’s all I got.”
Ty nodded. “Don’t think you’ll be makin’ that wedding.”
We walked out and stood outside. Ty grabbed a uniformed officer and told him to keep watch on Phillipe.
“What was that about?” I said.
“Some unfinished business.” Ty took out his cell phone and dialed a number. “Yeah,” he said, “Phillipe’s down at the farm. I want everythin’ he’s got. Get it from him.” He hung up and turned to me. “Let’s go. There’s some people we gotta meet.”
We drove to the outskirts of town, this time on the south side, and turned down a dirt road. Up about two miles, through empty desert, was a trailer park. We got to the entrance, and though there was a shack set up out front for security, no one was there. I drove in and parked next to the first double-wide.
Ty jumped out.
I followed him down the dirt path that separated the trailers. There was no road and no signs, no mailboxes even. Just trailers and mobile homes set up in long rows. We walked for what seemed like a long time and the heat started getting to me. It was burning my neck and it was so dry out, dirt drifting into my lungs with every breath, that I couldn’t breathe.
We got to a white trailer with orange trim. Ty went up to the door and knocked. Nothing happened.
“Nobody’s home,” I said.
“They’re home. They’re sightin’ us right now. They got shooters in the trailer across the street.”
I looked over and didn’t see anything. There were two blacked-out windows but I couldn’t make out any holes for rifles to stick out of.
After half a minute we heard a lock slide open and the door swung back. A man with a gray tank-top and denim shorts stood at the door, his blond hair coming down in strands to his shoulders, the top of his head nearly bald.
“Ty, man,” he said. “How you been, brother?”
“Good,” Ty said, pushing past him and going inside. I followed.
The interior was cluttered and the furniture could’ve been taken from any 1970s porn set. Three men were seated lazily on couches and half-empty beer bottles covered a coffee table. Ty sat down on one of the couches. I stood next to him.
“So what you need, brother?” the blond man said.
“Don’t bullshit me, Ham.”
“Hey, just makin’ small talk, nothin’ to get upset about.”
Ham went to one of three side tables and twisted it to the side. It glided over the floor like the bottom had been oiled and underneath was a door that he flipped open. He reached inside and came up with a brown paper bag. He handed the bag to Ty who opened it up, looked, and then rolled it closed and placed it next to him on the couch.
“You were late,” Ty said, “three months in a row.”
“Times are tough, ya know. People ain’t buyin’ like they used to. And all them unemployed truckers and shit, they been watchin’ Breakin’ Bad and think they can cook and they sellin’ their shit cheap.”
“That sounds like excuses, Ham. My bosses don’t like excuses. I don’t like excuses.”
The two men stared at each other but didn’t say anything. The other men in the room didn’t move or talk. They didn’t even look at Ty.
“I can’t put the shit up at Wal-Mart. If there ain’t people buyin’ one day, there ain’t people buyin’.”
Ty stood up. “When there isn’t a market, you create one.”
“How?”
&
nbsp; “Free samples. Give ‘em out to everyone you can.” He looked to me. “Come on.”
We left the trailer and I didn’t speak until we had left the trailer park.
“Tell me that wasn’t what it looked like.”
“We’re goin’ to Egg Works on Sahara.”
“Ty, tell me that wasn’t what it looked like.”
“It wasn’t what it looked like. Now take us to fuckin’ Egg Works. Pretty please. With sugar on top.”
CHAPTER 11
Egg Works was in a strip mall and when we went inside it was packed with people shoving greasy breakfasts into their faces. We passed the line and went to a table in the corner where two men were eating omelets with toast. Ty pointed to a seat and I sat down across from them as he did the same.
Both men had their suit coats slung over the backs of their chairs. The one on the left was tall with a pockmarked face, wearing a white button-up shirt and red tie. He didn’t look familiar. But the one on the right I knew. He was Dave DeLaurie, the chief of the Special Prosecutions Section of the district attorney’s office. He was a prosecutor known for high-profile wins, defending the mayor at one point over a bribery and fraudulent transfer case. It was rumored he was going to be the next district attorney and he looked like it; his face evenly tanned and his blond hair pampered and styled.
“Who’s this?” Dave asked.
“He’s with me. Tommy Boyd, fresh outta the mall.”
Dave watched me a moment and said, “You look familiar.”
“He was in the papers,” Ty said. “Stood his ground while two, now deceased, bangers shot him up with Uzis.”
Dave nodded. “I read that. Good work. I think no one in their right mind would get shot for thirty grand a year, but good work anyway.”
“I brought you a present,” Ty said. He took out the brown paper bag and handed it to the man on the left who took it and placed it in a leather satchel that was lying on the floor next to the table.
“You hungry?” Dave said.
“Nah,” Ty said.
“How’s Seneca?”
“She’s good. Baby hungry. I can’t watch a game without her comin’ out the bedroom in somethin’ skimpy and tryin’ to tempt me.”
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