by Sam Hawken
“Did they hurt you bad?” Graciela asked.
“No, I said it was nothing. Alfredo is the one that got hurt. Because of me.”
“How because of you?”
He would have kept it all from her, but Flip did not want to tell another lie. The story began with José’s first questions about the warehouse and followed through to José’s confrontation with Alfredo and the trip to Juárez. The other trip to Juárez. Flip would not tell her about Emilio, not ever.
“I didn’t do it right,” Flip said. “If I helped talk Alfredo into it, he’d be okay now.”
“Baby, that’s not your fault. José is the one who scared Alfredo off. What were you supposed to do? Hold him down? You did what José told you.”
“I guess.”
“No ‘I guess’! You did what he said, even when it was your mamá’s boyfriend. José should never have asked you to do that. It’s not right, messing with family.”
The feeling of Graciela close to him didn’t bother Flip so much anymore. He pulled her closer to him, as if he could absorb her energy and make himself stronger. Flip found he didn’t want her body, but just her presence. That was novel, and he tried to understand it.
“What are you going to do now?” Graciela asked.
“I don’t know. Whatever José tells me to.”
“Just like that?”
“How else should I be?”
“You got to tell him you won’t go against your own.”
“José won’t listen.”
“Maybe not, but you got to try.”
Flip kissed Graciela on the forehead. “I’ll think about it.”
“Think about it hard.”
“I’ll think about it hard.”
They sat together for a while, just being, and Flip found he liked this, too. It was easy to imagine, together like this, that they were in their own home. Again Flip wasn’t sure where the thought came from. It didn’t displease him.
PART FOUR
ONE
AFTER THE ATTACK, FLIP WAS ACUTELY AWARE of anything that happened on his street. Clayton gave him rides to and from work while Alfredo recovered, and always Flip watched for another carload of Indians following them. There never was.
Flip’s mother split her time between Alfredo’s place and her own, so Flip was alone more often than not. Some nights he called Graciela over and they made love on his small bed or watched television. Occasionally she would have him over to her apartment and would make them dinner in the tiny kitchen. She was not a very good cook.
They came for him in the middle of the third week, trailing behind Clayton’s SUV and parking one house away when he dropped Flip off. The car came cruising up slowly after Clayton was gone and Detective Salas opened her window and waved him over. “Get in,” she said. He obeyed.
“What’s happening?” Flip asked, because in the pit of his stomach he knew that some change was taking place and that it was beyond his control.
“You’re meeting someone new,” Detective Salas said.
“Who?”
“Her name is McPeek. She’s with the FBI.”
Flip felt cold. “FBI?”
“She’s working with us on bringing José down,” Detective Robinson said.
“What does she want to see me for?”
“It’s just a meeting. Nothing to worry about.”
Detective Robinson drove them to a motel off I-10. Flip looked around when they got out of the car, but if anyone was watching, he didn’t see them. On the second floor they knocked at a door at the end of the row. Someone on the inside let them in.
“Special Agent McPeek,” Detective Salas said, “this is Felipe Morales.”
Flip thought Agent McPeek was very pretty, even in her suit, but her looks weren’t important. The woman had an open briefcase on one of two queen-sized beds and there were photographs spread around. She offered her hand for Flip to shake. She had a firm grip. “Felipe,” she said.
“Call me Flip.”
“Okay, Flip. Have a seat. Right there on the bed. Good.”
Detective Salas and Detective Robinson remained standing. Flip wondered if they would sit down, but they looked as uncomfortable being there as he was. He was curious what their relationship to Agent McPeek was. Was she like José was to him?
McPeek sat on the other bed next to the photographs. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Flip,” she said. “You’re giving Detectives Salas and Robinson good information. That’s very helpful. Thank you.”
“Sure,” Flip said.
“Flip, I don’t know if you realize this, but you’re in the middle of a pretty high-stakes game. We’re out to get José Martinez and his whole crew.”
“Does that include me?”
“It can, but the detectives tell me you’re too valuable to waste. I happen to agree, otherwise we wouldn’t be talking right now.”
“What can I do?”
McPeek smiled. Flip wasn’t sure if it was for real. “For starters, you can keep doing what you’re doing: informing on local Aztecas and telling us when big deals go down.”
“I don’t know anything about big deals.”
“That’s not what I heard. I heard that you’re in the middle of one of those big deals. It involves your work and some trucks headed up from Mexico.”
Flip looked toward Salas and Robinson. They were stony-faced. “José doesn’t tell me everything.”
“He told you enough. He showed you where the trucks are coming from, even which trucks to watch out for. And I hear he trusts you with other things: like when someone has a green light put on them.” McPeek picked up one of the photos and showed it to Flip. The man in the picture was all but unrecognizable. “Do you know who this is?”
Flip nodded.
“Who is it?”
“Emilio.”
“Emilio Esperanza?”
“Yeah.”
“José personally ordered a green light on Esperanza?”
“Yeah, he did.”
“And he ordered your boss beaten, too,” McPeek said. It was not a question.
“I didn’t know about that.”
“But it was him.”
“It had to be.”
“Flip, I’d like to show you some more pictures and if you can, I’d like you to tell me who they are. Can you do that for me?”
“Sure.”
McPeek took up the photographs one by one and held them for Flip to see. Some were local Indians, guys whose names he’d picked up from parties and the club. Some he didn’t know. McPeek said it was all right that he didn’t. “I don’t expect you to know the Mexican side of the operation.”
Whenever Flip gave McPeek a name, she used a Sharpie to make a note on the back of the picture. Flip guessed it was half an hour before she was done showing him photos. She gathered them up and stacked them neatly into a folder. The folder went into her briefcase.
“That was very helpful, Flip,” McPeek said.
Flip now recognized the tone she used: it was the way a teacher would talk to little kids, only it was a grown woman talking to a grown man. He decided then that he didn’t like McPeek. Detective Salas and Detective Robinson didn’t seem to, either.
“Do you think José will approach your boss again?” McPeek asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe. Now that he knows Alfredo’s scared.”
McPeek nodded. “Flip, I’d like you to step things up a little bit. The detectives tell me you have access to José. I’d like you to use it. And I’d also like you to wear a wire.”
“A wire?”
“Yes. If José’s willing to talk to you about what he’s doing with those trucks, I want to get it recorded. You’d wear a wire and a digital device that stores everything. It’s smaller than a pack of cigarettes. The wire is very light.”
“I haven’t seen José in weeks.”
“But he’s going to come to you eventually.”
“I guess.”
“This would be a big help to us, Fli
p. You record José, you record any Azteca you have contact with. All the information you can provide is valuable. And if you testify—”
“I already told Detective Salas I won’t testify.”
“Flip, you don’t have a choice. You’re at least an accessory to one murder we know of and you’re right on the inside of a conspiracy to smuggle drugs into the United States. If you don’t work for us – and I mean work for us – that means you go down with the rest of them when the time comes. The time for cutting deals is now.”
Flip looked to Detective Salas. “I tried to tell you,” she said.
“If I testify, what about my family, my girl?” Flip demanded. His heartbeat picked up.
“We can offer protection if it becomes necessary,” McPeek replied.
“José already had Alfredo beat all to shit,” Flip said. “What’s he going to do to me?”
“Better you be on the outside under our care than on the inside with the people you turned on,” McPeek said.
Flip’s hands were shaking. He made fists of them. “You don’t understand.”
“I’ve done plenty of these cases,” McPeek said. “Believe me, I understand. And the detectives understand. We all understand. Do you understand that we have no choice? We have to use you. There is nobody else.”
Flip gripped his hands until the knuckles bled white. “Okay.”
McPeek let out a sigh, as if she had been holding her breath. “Good. The detectives will be in touch with you. They’ll provide you with the wire and how to use it. In the meantime, get as close to José Martinez as you can. Anything you hear, no matter how trivial, you pass it on.”
“Okay,” Flip said lifelessly.
“Don’t be afraid, Flip. We’re going to be right behind you.”
TWO
MATÍAS RECEIVED A CALL FROM JAMIE McPeek that lasted almost an hour. He took extensive notes, drawing circles around names and connecting them with arrows and lines. Large blocks of the flowchart were missing: the Mexican parts. Paco was doing what he could to fill them in, but the rest was up to Matías.
“They’re going to move soon,” McPeek told him.
“Weeks? Months?”
“Once they get the warehouse manager roped in, it’ll just be a matter of time before they’re ready to start shipping. ATF’s already tracked three separate shipments of weapons from Texas into Mexico. I’ll have all the serial numbers and information faxed to you. You’ll have them by tomorrow.”
“Good-bye, Jamie.”
“Adiós, Matías.”
Matías hung up the phone and looked over his notes again. They were lucky on the American side to have a voice on the inside of José Martinez’s operation. No member of Los Aztecas was lining up to give information to the police in Ciudad Juárez, though Matías would have paid dearly for the source.
Paco looked up from his desk. “Good news?” he asked.
“There’ll be some faxes coming in from Agent McPeek. About guns the Aztecas are taking in.”
“I don’t like it when they let guns across the border,” Paco said. “It’s too dangerous. We might not get them all.”
“Try not to think about it,” Matías said. He stretched and looked at his watch. It was time to be gone from here. “Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Oh, I put a dedicated team on Víctor Barrios,” Paco said.
“And?”
“Nothing so far. If he goes to the depot, we’ll know right away.”
“What about José’s contact there?”
“Oh, yes! I have that. One second. Here it is: Gonzalo Flores.”
“Do we know anything about him yet?”
“The depot is locally owned, so we can’t get his work records without alerting the whole place to what we’re up to. I made an official request for his financial records as soon as we got the name. They tell me it’ll take forty-eight hours.”
“All right.”
Matías stood up and put on his jacket. It was home to another microwaved meal eaten in front of the television set and then a night spent sleeping alone. Elvira hadn’t come back from her sister’s and talking seemed to do no good. Matías didn’t know how long she could stay away from her firm and keep her job.
He left Paco behind and took the elevator down to the basement level. It was nighttime when he drove onto the street, though the guards around the building were no less vigilant. He took the long way home, watching the few brave pedestrians that ventured onto the streets after dark, ghosting buses from the maquiladoras that trundled through the city on the way to rundown neighborhoods and colonias alike.
His key stuck in the lock of the inner door of the vestibule at his apartment building, but some wrangling got it to turn and he was inside and up the stairs. The apartment itself was as dark and neglected as it had been when he left. Dishes had begun to accumulate in the sink and something unpleasant was rotting in the kitchen trash.
It took a half-hour to wash the dishes and the garbage went into the chute. Matías found he was ravenous and consumed two microwaved meals instead of one, electing to eat them out of their plastic trays rather than dirty the dishes all over again. There was a recorded fútbol match on the television and though he was a fan of neither team, he watched the whole thing.
He noted the time and thought about going to sleep, but he wasn’t ready yet. Unbidden, his phone was in his hand and he was speed-dialing. Elvira answered right away.
“Good evening, my love,” Matías said, and he muted the television.
“It’s late, Matías.”
“Were you sleeping?”
“No.”
“Then there’s no harm in me calling.”
“What do you want, Matías?”
“I want you to come home.”
There was the murmur of a sigh from Elvira’s end, and then she said, “I don’t know. I still haven’t made up my mind.”
Matías flicked through voiceless channels as he talked. Finding nothing, he snapped off the television. “If you won’t come home, then at least talk to me when I call. I miss the sound of your voice.”
“I miss yours.”
“You can hear it all the time if you come home.”
“Don’t keep pushing.”
“I will. I will until you give this up and come back to where you belong.”
“My sister says I could get legal work in Monterrey. We could move here.”
“And what would I do?” Matías asked.
“You could do private security.”
Matías thought about everything that had happened, everything that was going to happen. The depot. The trucks. He shook his head, though Elvira couldn’t see. “I’d be no good at it.”
“Won’t you think about it?”
“All right, I’ll think about it.”
“Thank you.”
“Now tell me about your day. Don’t leave anything out.”
“Won’t you be bored?”
“I’ll never be bored with you.”
THREE
ALFREDO CAME TO FLIP’S MOTHER’S HOUSE for a quiet celebration of the Fourth of July. Graciela was there to make four and they cooked hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill and set off fireworks in the back yard. The entire time Alfredo didn’t say a word to Flip, nor would he look in Flip’s direction.
Flip thought his mother must have seen what was happening, but she said nothing and neither did he. After a long, uncomfortable quiet where both men drank beers nearly side by side without speaking, Flip finally made his excuses and left with Graciela.
She took him to her apartment and they made quiet love on her mattress on the floor. Afterward they lay together with the sheet pulled over them as the air conditioner in the window rumbled away. Flip thought he heard something dripping inside.
“Party at José’s tonight,” Graciela said.
“I guess we have to go,” Flip said.
“Have you talked to José since… you know, since?”
“No.”
There had been no calls, no visits, no sign of any Indian. Some days coming home from work Flip almost felt like the storm had passed him over and he was still whole. The wire and recorder the detectives gave him was in his pocket. He had put it there that morning, perhaps unconsciously knowing that he would need it.
“What will you say to him? Will you tell him to leave Alfredo alone?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said you would think about it.”
“I have thought about it, and I don’t know.”
Quiet, and in the silence the sound of water. The air conditioner was definitely leaking. Flip wished he knew how to fix stuff like that. He liked to do things for Graciela, the way a guy should do for his girl. Like Alfredo did for his mother.
“Flip, I have to tell you something,” Graciela said after a while.
“What?”
“I’m pregnant.”
Flip started and looked at Graciela where she was settled against his body. “What did you say?” he asked, though he knew.
Graciela sat up and pulled the sheets around her to cover her breasts. “Don’t be mad! I promise I didn’t do it on purpose!”
“How can you be pregnant?”
“Well, you haven’t used nothing all the times we’ve been together.”
“I thought you were taking the pill or something!”
“No, I wasn’t. Oh, now you’re mad.”
Flip’s head whirled. He climbed up off the mattress and took two uneven steps to the couch before sitting down heavily. The couch was scratchy against his bare skin. “Are you sure?” he asked.
“I’ve missed a couple of times now, so I took one of those home pregnancy test things. It was positive,” Graciela said. Her face was screwed up and she looked as though she was about to cry. Flip felt the urge to go to her.
“I don’t believe it,” Flip said.
“Do you hate me?”
“No, I don’t hate you! Just give me a minute to think, okay?”
Flip had too many thoughts clamoring for attention at once. He flashed on Alfredo and his mother and the men at work and even his PO, Mr. Rubio. What would they say about this? What would they do? And there was José in the middle of it and he was laughing at Flip for being a fool.