by Sam Jones
“But if you don’t bring me in, you’re in deep shit, and you might as well get off the streets.”
Maria took a moment.
She knew he was right.
She turned and looked at her lieutenant. Calabrese intertwined her fingers and stared down at a spot on the edge of her desk. “Agent Reese, it would appear that you’re proposing some sort of kamikaze stunt to identify the man in charge of this operation.”
Billy rolled his eyes. “Hey, it’s just a jumping-off point. Not all of my ideas are going to be gold. Gimme a break.”
Calabrese looked at Maria. “I think it’s time you walked away from this, Detective Delgado. There are too many factors at play here. The risk is too high.”
Maria began grinding her teeth.
“And it would seem to me,” Calabrese continued as she looked to the feds, “that the two of you don’t have anything else to work with. Your people and mine are, as Agent Reese so eloquently put it, ‘dead in the water.’”
Ferris took a step forward, a “let’s cut the bullshit” tone and swagger now seeping through. “Lieutenant,” she said, “I don’t think I need to remind you the rules of the game with jurisdiction. Courtesy aside, if I decide to hijack your investigation and commandeer your people, I can do it in the blink of an eye. One of our agents, Andrew Sykes, was tortured and murdered by someone in Rico Castillo’s crew. We want him, and we’re going to find him.”
Calabrese looked up from her desk, a predatory glare in her eye. “FBI or not, Special Agent Ferris, don’t be mistaken in thinking that I won’t challenge your authority the second some hot-shot agent of yours starts tearing up my streets and endangering my people.”
Ferris took a moment. She admired Calabrese’s gusto. It was very similar to her own. In another life—perhaps just another time—they would have probably been the best of friends.
Ferris moved toward the desk. “Can I speak with you in private, Lieutenant?” she asked.
Calabrese took a moment. Looked at Maria. “Can you excuse us, Detective Delgado?”
Maria moved toward the door.
“You too, Billy,” Ferris added without looking at her agent.
Billy made it a point to audibly grunt when he pulled himself off the couch. He followed behind Maria as she moved out into the bullpen and made a beeline to the coffee pot resting in the corner by a water cooler, Maria deliberately moving ahead of Billy and visibly irritated by his presence.
Dizzy perked up as he saw them walk in. “Yo, Reese!” he greeted. “When am I getting out of here, man?”
Billy waved him off. “Shut up, Dizzy.”
Dizzy threw his hands up and slumped down in his chair.
Billy took a quick glance over his shoulder as Ferris closed the door to Calabrese’s office and began speaking in hushed tones; he was wondering what his boss was saying and dying to fast-forward to the end result. “How much is the coffee?” he playfully asked Maria as she grabbed a paper cup off the table sporting the pot.
She said nothing, just poured and drank. Black. No milk, no sugar.
“Come on,” Billy said as he poured himself a pick-me-up. “You can be a little nice to me. Professional courtesy is the new trend.”
Maria threw back her java like it was a shot of hard liquor. “Coming from the asshole that busted in on an investigation unannounced,” she said.
Billy said, “That’s the spirit. Get angry. I get it. I’d be pissed if I were you.”
“Don’t try and empathize with me, buddy. You bureau pricks are a dime a dozen. You think carrying around that shield gives you some kind of license to act like you own the world.”
“Well, take comfort in knowing that most of my brethren aren’t the biggest fans of me either, Detective Delgado. The spite toward me is mutually shared among the agencies.”
Maria moved away from the table, wanting to leave but forced to linger as she tried to read Ferris and her Lieutenant’s lips through the window of the office, eager to know what the next move was going to be and if she’d be able to finish the things she started. The Castillo case was important, yes.
But there were so many more vitals elements at stake for her besides just burning it all to the ground…
Billy followed after Maria but kept a few paces behind to give her some breathing room as she toured the bullpen. “Delgado,” he said. “Delgado…is that Portuguese or Spanish?”
Maria took another sip of her coffee, attention still honed in on her lieutenant as she said, “How about you make yourself a nice tall glass of shut the fu—”
“Crissakes,” Billy cut it. “You want to ease up a bit?”
Maria took another swig. “No.”
A few seconds passed. Billy swirled his coffee inside the cup to kill the time. He then looked up into Calabrese’s office and took notice of her demeanor from a distance and saw that her rigid posture and overall prickliness was starting to subside as Ferris spoke to her, something in her words clearly appealing to Calabrese and causing her to look at things in a more positive light.
Work that charm…
“Admit it,” Billy said to Maria. “You’re into the idea of turning me in to the bad guys.”
“Definitely.”
“Why? Am I getting to you? ’Cause believe me, it’s not the first time I’ve had complaints leveled against me. I was goddamn intolerable in grade school. Did you like school? What was your favorite subject?”
“My God…”
“Tell you what, I’ll give you one free smack to my face. Take it. You’ve earned it. I’m tough to deal with, so consider this as me making amends.”
Dizzy, listening in from several feet away leaned in toward Maria and chimed in with his two cents: “Annoying as hell, right?”
“Shut up, Dizzy,” Billy and Maria said in unison.
The door to Calabrese’s office opened. Ferris stood there and motioned for Billy and Maria to come back inside with a tilt of her head. They tossed their cups and walked back into the office, Ferris closing the door behind them. “Here’s the deal,” Calabrese said. “We are no longer taking part in this investigation.”
Maria drew a deep breath.
Calabrese sensed her disapproval and held up a finger. “But,” she said, “and this is entirely up to you, Detective—if you wish to go to work for the FBI for the remainder of the operation, you will be deputized under OCDETF and compensated for your time.”
Maria alternated her gaze between Ferris and her lieutenant.
Deciding…
Billy knew full well that Ferris had greased the wheels with the Vice lieutenant with promises of a federal-level IOU. If Billy knew one thing, it was that everyone had a soft spot, everyone had a weakness, and everyone had a price tag—and Ferris was damn good at locating those pressure points and applying the squeeze.
I wonder what she sold her?
I’ll find out later.
“It’s your decision, Detective Delgado,” Calabrese said. “I’m well aware of the investment you have in this investigation, so I’m letting you call the shots on this one.”
Maria looked to Ferris. “And the FBI takes credit when we take down whoever this mystery boss is? Correct?”
Ferris said nothing, but the confirmation was in her stare.
Maria took a moment. Hands in pockets. Options being carefully considered. “No deal,” she said.
Ferris was shocked, as was Billy. “Why’s that?” she asked.
“You want the guy responsible for the death of your agent?” Maria said. “You can have him, when and if we find him. But the big fish, this mystery boss that’s heading up Castillo’s operation? He’s ours. The second we find him and build our case against him, we take the credit for the bust. The FBI wants justice for its people, and you should damn well have it. But the guy pulling the strings is ours, when and if we find him. FBI just gets a shout out.”
Maria turned to Billy, confident and poised. “That’s the deal,” she said, “and I suggest you take it. I’m your onl
y in at this point. Your op is compromised, and unless you want to throw a new agent into the mix and start from the ground up, I’m your only hope.”
Billy leaned against a wall, his cock-of-the-walk bullshit on the backburner as Maria decided his fate.
He looked at Ferris and flexed his eyebrows.
She’s right.
Ferris let a few seconds tick by before voicing her approval. “Okay,” she said.
“And if we keep going,” Maria said, “the only option we have to work with is to turn Agent Reese over to Hector Fuentes as promised. But no more backups. No more meetings. No more discussion. No other elements at play but him and me. We don’t need someone tipping us off. Otherwise, my cover is completely blown, and we’ll have no way of getting to Hector or his boss.”
“Risky,” Ferris said.
“Every element of this job is.”
“And how do you plan on keeping Reese from being thrown into the fire when you turn him over?”
“We’ll need to figure out a plan. We will. And no one else. The people I’m working for are very smart and very thorough. The risk we’re running on this is extremely high, but it’s a risk we’re taking nonetheless.”
Ferris motioned out toward Dizzy in the bullpen. “And your buddy out there?”
Billy and Maria glanced at him, Dizzy drumming his fingers on the desk and puttering his lips from the boredom.
“I vote to cut him loose,” Billy said. “The weasel held up his end. He’ll probably be dead by week’s end anyway. No point in wasting time on the paperwork.”
Maria looked to her lieutenant, silent approvals being exchanged.
Billy glanced around the room. “Okay,” he said. “So, does this mean you’re in, Detective Delgado?”
Ferris leered at him.
Maria took a few more seconds before giving her answer. “I’m in,” she said, eyeballing Billy in a way like she was warning him.
Billy grinned, pointing his finger at her as he said, “I knew I liked you.”
Maria, Calabrese, and Ferris all sighed in unison before they went about coordinating their next move.
10
NINE FIFTY-TWO P.M.
Billy and Maria were at the safe house in Layton. Ferris cleared her for duty through the proper channels, Lieutenant Calabrese gave her a last-minute pep talk, and Dizzy Alvaro was cut loose and back on the streets within the hour.
Before heading out of the OCB office, Maria made a call to her crew in Castillo’s operation and said that she was getting close to Billy—or “Eddie Price,” as he was known in her circle. She told them that “Price” was covering his ass pretty well, and it would take her a few more hours to find a window of opportunity to grab him. One of her people asked if she needed any help. “When I’m ready, yeah,” she told them, “but not just yet. I don’t want to spook Price. So far he hasn’t gotten wise that I’m tailing him. I’m going to wait until he’s alone, and then I’ll grab the little pendejo. Be ready when I call you.”
It was dark by the time they made it back to Layton, both of them having taken separate cars to get to the location, a fact that Maria relished.
She did not want to be stuck with Billy longer than she needed to be.
They cleared the safe house, both of them working surprisingly well and in rhythm with one another as they double-checked that the place was clear for the sake of their sanity. After clearing the kitchen, Billy put his Colt down on the wooden countertop and began filling up water in the coffee pot, stained from repeated use.
“How strong do you like it?”
Maria holstered her Beretta and held up a hand. “I’m good.”
Billy poured a couple of more scoops than usual. He needed the extra kick.
Maria wandered over to the screen door, fixated on the moon glimmering along crashing waves outside as night began to settle over the tranquil tropical backdrop of the Florida Keys. She unhitched the screen door and pulled it open, the cool ocean breeze immediately chilling her bronzed skin as saltwater traces in the air pleasantly cleared her senses.
She leaned against the doorframe, relaxed and at ease, if only for a moment. “Not bad for a shoddy little shack near the water,” she said.
Billy glanced out at the waves as he closed the cover to the coffee pot and pressed the brew button.
“That it is…”
They moved outside, both of them keeping a few feet of distance from one another. Up until this point, neither of them had realized just how deprived they had been of physical intimacy for the past few months. As much as a person could get irritated at a fellow human being, if they were locked in a room with them one on one with months of sexual repression backed up in their system—the little problems and grievances all seemed terribly insignificant.
“So,” Billy said after a few minutes had passed, “what’s the play, Delgado?”
Maria continued moving toward the water as she laid it all out: “In a few hours, I’ll call my people and tell them I’ve got you cornered. Not here, though, obviously. We’ll need to go to a new location.”
“Where are you thinking?”
“There’s this run-down motel in Little Havana. We book a room there under your alias, Eddie Prince. Then I make the call to my guys and tell them to head over there, that you’re all alone and exposed. Then we bust in on you and take you at gunpoint. You’ll have to struggle, though, to make it look real.”
“I can do that. I’ll just wiggle a lot.”
“Once we take you, I call Hector. After that it’s out my hands. I have no idea where he’ll want to meet for the exchange, so we can’t scope out the location beforehand.”
“We’ll work with what we’ve got.”
She stopped and turned, crossing her arms and looking for Billy to chime in. “And once we’re in front of Hector,” she said, “then what?”
“We turn the tables.”
Maria squinted. “‘Turn the tables’?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you plan on doing that?”
Billy thought about it. “We’ll improvise.”
The notion made Maria feel slightly nauseous.
Silence once again settled over the scene.
Maria kicked off her shoes and moved toward the shore, Billy staying behind as he remained purposefully fixated on nothing. “You have no idea why this guy wants me?” he shouted to Maria over the churning tides. “This new boss? Mr. Mystery Guest?”
“No,” she said. “All I know is he wants you. That’s all anyone up top has told me, aside from him being Cuban.”
Billy exhaled. “Maybe I pissed him off. I’m on a shit list with a few Cuban players I rubbed the wrong way not that long ago. I just can’t think of who or why.”
“Long list of potential grudge holders, yeah?”
“Very long.”
“Ever considered the fact that might be because you tend to rub a lot of people the wrong way?”
“I don’t need to consider it—I know I rub everyone the wrong way. That’s what makes narrowing down the suspects so difficult.”
“Maybe you should rethink the way you interact with people.”
“Right. Because everyone’s holding up Maria Delgado as the Flavor of the Month.”
“We’re not here to be friends, Billy. We’re here to do a job.”
“Then I’d appreciate it if you’d cool on the snarkiness. It’s starting to come off a little personal.”
Maria’s feet hit the water, and she felt a pleasant tingle run up her spine from the chill. She tilted her head upward, eyes closed, running a free hand through her hair, and for a brief second wondered how she had come to be living the life that she did. “You really screwed things up,” she said to Billy, easing up, less spiteful and more dissatisfied. “You know that, right?”
Billy looked down at the sand and kicked it around, already having well recapped and tallied his missteps and mistakes in the past few hours. Despite it being shoved in his face every fifteen minu
tes, he knew that Maria was right. “Yeah,” he said. “I know…”
He didn’t say the words exactly, but Maria knew the guy was sorry. She could feel the sincerity in his tone.
She turned her head and looked at Billy through her peripherals.
“As soon as you’re in a room with my people, you’re going to be bound and gagged and beaten up. Hell, they might just kill you. You understand that, right?”
Billy shrugged. “I’ve been in tougher spots before.”
Maria huffed. She wasn’t amused or playing into his “adrenaline junkie” attitude. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Billy,” she said. “Odds catch up.”
Billy looked out at the water. He focused on the jagged line that was the moon’s reflection on the water—a dagger pointed straight in his direction. “Well,” he said to Maria, “I guess it’s a good thing you’re on my team now, huh?”
They connected stares, but quickly broke off once they realized they were being cordial. This wasn’t the time to be casual. This wasn’t the time to make friends.
They were on the clock.
“Let’s pull the trigger on this in two hours,” Billy said, switching back to business. “I’m going to catch a few z’s first before we start it up. Screw the coffee. Wake me up in an hour, yeah?”
“Will do,” Maria replied as she turned back and faced the water.
Billy headed toward the house. After a few paces, he stopped and turned back. “Oh,” he said, “and please don’t bind and gag me until I’m up and ready, yeah? As tempting as I know that may be…”
A thumbs-up from Maria. “You got it.”
“Thanks…”
Maria turned around. “Reese?”
Billy stopped and looked over his shoulder.
“Mind if I take your coffee?” she asked him.
Billy returned the thumbs-up. “I’ll leave a cup on the counter.”
He walked back into the house, poured Maria a cup of Joe, and crashed on the tattered sofa, wide awake despite his best intentions. As Billy tried his best to sleep, Maria sat on the beach, running her fingers through the sand and allowing herself a solid hour of free time and solitude, something that she hadn’t experienced in well over a year.
