Then, in a deal struck with a federally authorized devil on a case I had no reason or authority to investigate, Skittles was scooped up by the FBI in exchange for my complete disentanglement from the case. Instead of being fitted for a grey jumpsuit and a job slinging hash in a prison cafeteria, Skittles was given a salary, per diem expense account and all the high-end computers and powerful software he could ever want.
Of course, he was also given a “handler” who reminded him in no uncertain terms that an eight-by-ten federal penitentiary cell was just a phone call away.
And that was all on me.
I hadn’t spoken to Skittles in a while.
But between ICE creeping through the neighborhood at night or threatening neighbors during the day, threats to Elena’s safety and the Ambassador Bridge death of Isadora Rosalita del Torres, I figured a little on-the-sly dark net IT help might come in handy.
Skittles had given me the phones as a means of clandestine communications. Each was good for one thirty-second off-the-grid call. After the call, I would remove the SIM card, flush it, break the phone in half and leave the pieces in separate garbage bins.
I gave each burner phone a charge, slipped in the SIM cards, pressed zero-one-one-zero-star-pound on each and waited.
While waiting, I had a bowl of broccoli-bacon-and-sunflower-seed salad with dried cherries and poppy seed dressing (an old Grandma Snow recipe). I looked at the morgue photo of Izzy del Torres again and found myself imagining the gruesome deaths of her assailants brought about by my darkly skilled hands. As the Good Book says, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them” (Deuteronomy 32:35).
Still waiting for any of the burners to ring, I called Bobby Falconi at the Wayne County Coroner’s Office and told him the dead girl’s name.
“Thanks, August,” he said. “Jenji and I, we’re gonna give her a proper funeral. Bury her someplace nice.”
I suggested the cemetery where my parents were buried; lots of old-growth oak, maple and pine trees and well-tended by a friend of mine. I could visit Izzy when I visited my folks, maybe leave her a small bag of cashews or an orange like I left for my mother.
“You’re one of the good guys, Bobby,” I said.
“Somebody has to be or we’re all fucked.”
After twenty minutes none of the burner phones had rung. I checked to see if each was holding a charge and had a dial tone. Good on both counts.
Using my cellphone I called a friend at the FBI’s Detroit office.
“Hey, O’Donnell,” I said brightly. “How’s it hangin’”
A quick, exasperated sigh from FBI Special Agent Megan O’Donnell. “What do you want, August?”
“Well, to begin with, how’s Frank doing at Quantico?”
Frank was a good friend who had selflessly helped me out of a tight situation awhile back. And though I never would have seen it coming—Frank being a simple soul whose life was an open graphic novel and O’Donnell being uniquely O’Donnell—they had been an item for over a year.
Frank was now in Quantico, Virginia, training to be an FBI agent.
“He’s doing better than I thought he would,” O’Donnell said with her characteristically brusque truthfulness. “I thought on psyche evals alone he’d wash out. Teacher friend of mine says he’s top-doggin’ it. Real gung-ho without being a psycho-patriot. Says his physical stamina is off the charts. ’Course I knew that.” Then she said again, “What do you want, August?”
I told her about Isadora Rosalita del Torres. About the ICE patrols in the neighborhood and how my neighbors were being intimidated. And the threats leveled at Elena.
“You looking for links?” O’Donnell said.
“I’m looking for a reason not to take a baseball bat to the SUV these fed thugs cruise around in,” I said. “Anything you can tell me about these patrols and how big a net these yahoos are casting?”
“I have three open cases on my desk right now,” O’Donnell sighed. “Each of ’em requires a bald forensic accountant trying his damnedest not to stare at my tits and a couple computer geeks that smell like boiled onions, kale salads and Cheetos. In other words, yeah—I got a few minutes to make an inquiry for you.”
“Thanks, O’Donnell.”
“And swear to God, August,” O’Donnell said. “No goddamn baseball bats, okay?”
“No promises.”
We disconnected.
After another hour and the onset of evening neither of the burner phones had rung. I had the very distinct feeling that Skittles had moved on from any association with me. Or the choke hold the FBI had on him left little to no digitally covert wiggle room.
At about seven thirty that muggy evening, the sky turned deep blue with hazy orange streaks running through the horizon. The day’s high of eighty-five hadn’t budged. Even so, I sat on my porch steps, sipping orange and mint iced tea, feeling my skin dampen in thick humidity, looking at the revitalized houses decorating my personal memory lane and wondering in which direction I should move on anything: Izzy del Torres’s death. ICE and the ethnic cleansing of Mexicantown. Or Elena.
For whatever reason, I gave more thought to Izzy del Torres. A young woman I’d met only through a coroner’s photo. A person who, until Elena identified her, had died nameless and degraded. I wracked my brain, searching for a Catholic prayer that spoke specifically to her. All I came up with was “Since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you . . .” from 2 Thessalonians.
Then again, I may have just been meditating on what special and bloody gifts I held in my hands that might help Isadora del Torres be remembered by those who had sinned against her.
Carlos pulled his white Dodge Ram 2500 truck into his narrow driveway across the street and parked.
Neither Catalina nor his son, Manny, were with him.
I quickly surveyed the street for any signs of the feds’ black Chevy Suburban then gestured for Carlos to come over.
“What the hell’s going on, Mr. Snow?”
Carlos—looking weary and confused—sat next to me on the step.
“ICE agents were inquiring about Catalina,” I said. “And Manny.”
“Jesus,” Carlos said. Attempting to hold onto a thread of hope, he said, “Señora Elena’s been looking into citizenship paths for—”
“Right now, my friend,” I said, “there are no paths. Only landmines.”
“Is she—are they safe? My boy? With Father Grabowski?” Carlos said. I might as well have just punched him in the gut. At least that would have left him with a bit of air in his lungs.
“Father Grabowski has been running his undocumented underground for ten years,” I said. “He’s exactly the guy you want your wife and son with right now. Feds get the heebie-jeebies when it comes to squarin’ off with religious organizations. You can thank Thomas Paine, Waco and Ruby Ridge for that. The good father knows when, how and where to move people.”
“He’s so—old,” Carlos said.
“Don’t mistake advanced age with diminished capacity,” I said. “Catalina and Manny are in good hands. You’ll get through this. We’ll all get through this. And all we need is a little faith.”
“Faith is what got us here to America,” Carlos said. “And your faith in me—my wife and son—has helped sustain us.”
“Go home,” I said. “Try to get some rest. If these guys show up and start grilling you, tell ’em Cat and Manny are at Disneyworld and maybe they should hitch a ride on the fuck-you-train to Orlando.”
I watched Carlos, sunken into himself, walk across the street and into his house.
Inside my house, the burner phones remained silent.
I called Jimmy and asked how things were going with Carmela and Sylvia. He’d gotten them carry-out from Forbidden City Restaur
ant near the Wayne State University campus. Neither of them had a “glaucoma” brownie, but they’d emptied a liter bottle of rosé while listening to an old “hippie” vinyl recording of The Who’s Quadrophenia.
“The whole thing?” I said, vaguely familiar with the so-called rock opera.
“The whole. Dang. Thing,” Jimmy said.
Convinced at midnight there was little else I could do, I figured I’d turn in and start fresh in the morning.
“Fresh” on what, I wasn’t quite sure.
Halfway up the stairs I heard a timid knock on my door.
Fairly sure it wasn’t Tatina, Rosario Dawson, Eva Longoria, Viola Davis or Shakira come to help me into my jammies and tuck me in for nighty-noodles, I quickly found my Glock, flipped the safety off, racked one in the chamber and peeked out of the living room window at the timid knocker.
I opened the door.
“Feel like a donut?” Father Grabowski said.
Ten
“Isn’t it way past your bedtime, old man?”
I was in the front passenger’s seat of Father Grabowski’s rusting 2003 Ford Windstar van, holding on for dear life as he raced north on I-75. We were heading for the Lodge South exchange leading into the city.
“The devil doesn’t sleep, so why should I?” he said. The interior of the van smelled like Catholic mass incense and old man. “Besides. I got a spastic colon. Wakes me up at all hours.”
“I take it we’re not really going for donuts,” I said. “In which case I will be sorely disappointed.”
“Actually,” Father Grabowski said, nodding enthusiastically, “we are.”
“Are Catalina and Manny okay?”
Father Grabowski sighed. “For now. They’re both pretty upset and scared. Who could blame them? But they understand.”
“Where’d you stow ’em?”
Grabowski shot me a glance. I assume a big yellow-toothed grin had formed somewhere beneath his thick entanglement of white beard.
“If I told you,” he said. “I’d have to give you Last Rites, then kill you.”
LaBelle’s Soul Hole Donut Shop is on Michigan Avenue in an area that was among the first to show signs of revitalized life in Detroit. Near where the old and venerated Tiger Stadium once stood on Michigan Avenue and Trumbull and along this stretch of pot-holed four-lane road, you’ll find such nationally recognized restaurants as Slows Bar Bq and Mercury Burger & Bar. Even the looming perpetual shame of the decaying former train station which had been closed for decades can’t take the shine off these diamonds. (Ford Motor Company recently bought the decrepit station, giving some Detroiters cautious hope of sustainable city rebirth.)
Presidents, prime ministers, princes and princesses from around the world had photos taken with the five-foot-nothing, round-bodied Lady B, grinning broadly while holding “Put Yo Mouth on It!®” T-shirts or wearing Soul Hole logo baseball caps. You could also buy coffee mugs, aprons and refrigerator magnets to commemorate your trip to the Soul Hole.
Father Grabowski parked on 14th Street near the Michigan Avenue intersection and we walked to the front door, which was locked. The inside of the donut shop was dark, save for the softly lit length of pastry display case. Far in the back was a faint rectangle of light outlining the door to the kitchen.
Father Grabowski pulled a phone from his brown frock and dialed a number. He listened for a moment before saying, “Yeah. Me.”
“Do I wanna know where you keep your phone in that thing?” I said after he disconnected.
The kitchen door at the back opened and light spilled into the store front. A couple of harsh overhead lights flickered on, revealing a round, chocolate-brown woman wearing crisp chef’s whites and a hip-slung holster filled with a Smith and Wesson Model 629 .44 that was about as long as she was tall. Walking toward us, waving and grinning, the proprietor of the Soul Hole, Ernestine “Lady B” LaBelle, unlocked the door and before I could say anything, clutched my face with two strong hands and brought me in for a kiss.
“Well, if it ain’t the Snow boy,” she said, releasing me from the cheek-hold and opening the door wide. As soon as Father Grabowski and I were in, she closed and locked the door. “You’re late, Father,” she said, waddling ahead of us toward the back kitchen. “Parley don’t start till everybody be here.”
“‘Parley’?” I said.
“Yeah, well I had to get young blood here,” Father Grabowski replied to Lady B..
“Ain’t nobody gonna be none too happy you brought Young Snow in,” she said. “Supposed to be just the core group in parley. This could add a whole new dimension of ugly.”
“What the hell’s going on here?” I said, only to be ignored once again.
“I don’t care,” Grabowski said. “He lives there. They don’t.”
“Suit yourself.” Lady B flicked off the overhead store lights. Before opening the door to the kitchen, she stopped and looked up at me. “Don’t mean nothin’ ’bout you, baby,” she said. “Just don’t like no surprises. Like the song say, Jack of Diamonds is a hard card to play. And tonight, baby, you the Jack of Diamonds.” She opened the kitchen door and made a grand gesture toward three people seated at a round table.
Very little these days surprises me or throws me off guard.
This achieved both.
“Before you shit yourself or shoot somebody, sit down, shut up and listen,” FBI Special Agent Megan O’Donnell said.
“You want some coffee, baby?” Lady B said, gently touching my arm.
“How ’bout three-fingers of that Two James Bourbon you keep in your locker,” I said, my mind spinning as I stared at O’Donnell. Sitting next to O’Donnell was a middle-aged man with a chiseled jaw and white crew cut. He was wearing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement uniform.
But the biggest surprise sat on the ICE guy’s right.
“Elena?” I heard myself say.
“Hi, Octavio,” she said. “I didn’t want you involved. But with Izzy and now Carlos’s wife and son . . .”
I sat next to Elena and she took my hand in hers and squeezed.
“You mustn’t tell Tomás about this. He thinks I’m with my girlfriends.”
“Frankly, I wouldn’t know what the hell to tell him,” I said.
Lady B splashed bourbon into two coffee mugs. I took one and Father Grabowski took the other. She offered bourbon to the ICE agent and O’Donnell. Both waved it off, but O’Donnell said, “You have any honey crullers left, Lady B? And coffee?”
“Sure, baby,” Lady B said. To the ICE agent she said, “How ’bout you, sugah?”
The agent simply shook his head and stared at me.
“August,” Father Grabowski said, raising his mug of bourbon.
“Father,” I said gently knocking my mug to his. Looking at O’Donnell and the ICE agent, I said, “To what do I owe the pleasure of meeting with the Village People Tribute Band at goddamn midnight?”
Eleven
I downed my last bit of coffee mug bourbon and indicated to Lady B I could use more. She obliged. Father Grabowski gently laid a hand on my forearm—the forearm that was helping bourbon reach my mouth—and quietly said, “Easy, August.”
“Padre, we left the land of ‘easy’ five minutes ago. We’re in the Knockma Woods at the Gates of Guinee right now.” I cut a look to the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent with the white crew cut. “Especially with ICE Agent Crew Cut over there.”
“His name is Captain Mason Foley,” O’Donnell said. “He’s deep cover DEA.”
“How many federal agents does it take to change a light bulb?” I said. “Forty-three thousand, but one of them’s got to believe in light first.”
Foley cut me a look that might have eviscerated a lesser man.
“Listen, August,” O’Donnell said, “it might be helpful if you tucked your ego back into your skivvie
s for five minutes.”
I tucked and O’Donnell talked.
“Most federal agencies have their ‘white whales,’” she began, “Stories, myths and legends behind an investigation that become bigger, stranger and more convoluted than the actual investigation. Most white whales are just bullshit; a secret dossier here, a high-level Deep Throat there. Filler that gives an investigation a more colorful, dramatic narrative.”
O’Donnell took a moment to assess each of us at the table. Her eyes stopped at me.
“ICE operations in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois currently have their own white whale and it is this,” she continued. “Six months ago, a total of one hundred eighty-three detentions and arrests were made across the three states. One hundred sixty-seven of those people were actually documented, deported or released.”
“And the sixteen?” I said.
“ICE records of detentions and arrests have always been loosey-goosey,” Foley said. “Strong on the enforcement side, weak on the administrative side. From an administrative viewpoint, the truth is whatever ICE says it is.”
“In other words,” O’Donnell said, “we don’t know what happened to fifteen of those people.”
“And the sixteenth?”
“Raúl Lopez,” O’Donnell said. “Picked up in a Chicago sweep five months ago. Three months ago, in March, a body was discovered in the Sonoran Desert with two kilos of cocaine. Body fit Lopez’s description but we didn’t have any DNA or dental records on him, so . . .”
“Maybe he just got in with the wrong crowd back in Mexico,” I said.
“He wasn’t deported,” Foley said. “He was detained, but got lost in the shuffle either by design or screw up. I’d like very much to know which so the problem can be addressed.”
Lives Laid Away Page 5