by Tim Baker
62
Paredes
Thanks to Fuentes’ tip-off about the tunnel and the meth factory, and the resultant exposure of the DEA’s liaison in Tijuana, Charlie Addsen had been transferred to Washington. It was a promotion, but for Addsen it was also a Great Escape. Charlie missed the climate, but it was a small price to pay for a safe desk job, good schools and a big enough raise in salary to afford them.
In San Diego he wasn’t remembered as a hero; more as a selfish colleague who sold out the cause to become just another DC bureaucrat. But in El Lobo he had the kind of pull Head Office always has with the smaller branches. They complained behind his back; insulted him. Resented his interference. But they did what he told them to do, not because he was, after all, a much-decorated, distinguished former field agent, but because he was their last resort. El Lobo’s budget had just come under attack. Again. And Addsen pulled purse strings in the allocation office. So they did the favor for Addsen, knowing – expecting – he would do one for them.
Of course the El Lobo authorities weren’t crazy about the idea of letting Fuentes see Paredes. Addsen’s statement that he was an honest Mexican cop looking for a lead on a big murder case didn’t cut it for any of them – but there were three things in Fuentes’ favor. He was so new to Ciudad Real that nobody knew anything about him. He had reservations about Byrd, who was under secret surveillance, suspected of corruption. And most significantly of all, he had just saved a US citizen from death by torture.
The War on Drugs was as black and white as the newspaper headlines it generated. But the terrain the war was fought on was another color entirely and El Lobo DEA knew how to do gray. They gave Fuentes thirty minutes in an interview room. He knew they’d be behind the two-way mirror, recording everything that was said, which was fine with him. They’d be listening, not understanding. His conversation with Paredes would be all about nuance, not narcos.
By the time Fuentes arrived, Paredes was already on seventy-two hours but his lawyer had asked for a continuance so he was still being held in county jail. The transfer to a federal facility would have killed any hopes of a visit.
Fuentes had played it fast and smart after the two wounded gunmen from the ranch showed up toe-tagged at the morgue. It would have been easy enough to let them both bleed out. Hell, it might even have been unintentional, although accidental wasn’t Valdez’s style. Fuentes knew what was going down. Valdez wasn’t tying up loose strings, he was snipping them off. He and Gomez had saved Gloria Delgado at the hospital once, but they’d get her in the end. The real question was who was next: Gloria or him. He had to figure a way to get her out. And that’s when he thought of Mary-Ellen González.
Gloria and Mary-Ellen were similar in age, weight and height. Their eye and hair color matched. If you worked on it, you probably could have passed them off as cousins, if not quite sisters. But an unconscious woman with facial abrasions riding an ambulance gurney back into her own country, accompanied by a pouched US passport attached to a hospital clipboard and with only an IV stand as NOK, blurred scrutiny. Sympathy was always the best disguise. No one was going to look too closely. They probably wouldn’t even realize till after Gloria regained consciousness. If she regained consciousness. Fuentes even had an immigration lawyer standing by to request emergency asylum, just in case they went for a knee-jerk deportation when they did find out. Nothing would save his career, but Fuentes was going to do everything possible to save Gloria’s life. And destroy the lives of the people who were trying to kill her.
Paredes knew Mary-Ellen. That could be problematic later. But Fuentes had no choice. He had to play up the fact he was her big savior if he were to win the confidence of a man he didn’t trust. If he could make Paredes feel obliged to him, he might not even need Gloria.
*
Paredes is good. Paredes holds himself together tight. He is contained. Skeptical. Professional. They understand each other. They communicate silently. His eyes tell stories. They say: I know the DEA’s behind there, listening, so let’s keep this all in code. They say: I was set up and I think you know it. They say: I might be guilty of other things but not this. ‘Do I need my attorney?’ – strictly smokescreen.
Fuentes shakes his head. ‘I just want an informal chat.’
‘Nothing’s admissible then, right?’ he asks, already knowing the answer. Fuentes nods. Paredes smiles. His eyes say words that Fuentes understands. Tijuana. Cartel war. Cover-up. His eyes say they are both fucked.
Paredes opens his mouth and tells the story that is meant to be overheard. He’s a good talker. He fell in love with Mary-Ellen when he first rousted her in a disco, for doing a line at the bar. He was bored and in need of distraction. But when she looked up at him? Lightning bolts. And who could blame him? Of course he never made the arrest. He kept her off the records – then and later. He did her favors. She was worth saving. She became his lover. She became his snitch.
Mary-Ellen was half chamaquita, half gringa, half Colombiana, and two hundred percent party girl. Her specialty was high-volume short runs. Fifteen kilo minimums, twenty-five max – so she could kick up a fuss about being ripped off over excess baggage charges. ‘It costs more than the fucking ticket, you crooks!’ got her noticed, which was what she wanted. Not that she would have gone unnoticed anyway, traveling in cut-off shorts and tube tops one size too small. She’d check in early, go to the lounge, get pretty drunk and pretty loud, which was, let’s face it, pretty normal for her, and then buy up big in duty-free.
More drinks on the flight, some suggestive chit-chat; team up with some unlikely escort. Customs were more likely to focus on a straight suit accompanying her than on Mary-Ellen. Reverse psychology, plus a little touch of nasty envy.
She was usually staggering by the time she went through customs, and it wasn’t just because of her six-inch heels. And if they stopped her, which was quite often – not because they suspected her but because they just wanted to have some fun – she’d fuss around for her ID and receipts and ‘accidentally’ drop her duty-free and then start crying over the broken bottles of Cristal and Chanel No. 5 until one of the customs officers made a joke about spilt milk, and this was the moment when she really got to act, and part of it wasn’t even acting because she was half thinking, What if they wise up to me today? And that thought led to the only possible answer: twenty years to life, and the tears came so naturally that sometimes it almost awed her and she wondered: Is this what they do – the method actors?
She had tried this routine in over twelve different airports and the customs officers were always embarrassed, or apologetic, or thought it was all some big joke and laughed about the dumb drunk bimbo and although every one of them mocked her, truth be told none of them would have said no if she had asked them to take her home.
That then was her secret; that and always having shitty luggage, because if they see you coming with your Louis Vuitton or your Briggs & fucking Riley they’re going to know you have more money than you know what to do with and the attitude of sick entitlement that always comes with it. And they’re going to search until they find the luxury item you’re trying to smuggle in without paying duty.
So it was always shitty luggage, saturated with coffee, because the dogs couldn’t smell the cocaine if there was enough coffee spread around. Was it true? Who knows, but it always worked for her.
And all the time, she was snitching for Paredes.
So yes, professionally it worked out very nicely, but personally? He tried to put off the break-up for as long as he could, but it was just too obvious. She was loca; as in high-octane, high-maintenance crazy. He cut the ropes. He had to. She was surprisingly relaxed about it. He had expected some big scene, but in their hearts they knew it was for the best. They still fucked occasionally but it was really business masquerading as pleasure; a professional courtesy extended by both sides. Paredes never accepted a peso from her. Ever. But she paid him in info like no informant ever had. Prime details. She kept him up to speed in th
e confusing, rapidly changing universe of los narcos. She gave him the skinny on the insane new head of the Ciudad Real cartel. El Santo was loco, but he was also no moron. It was thanks to Mary-Ellen that Paredes was able to half-turn his right-hand man, El Feo.
El Feo had lost the plot. He had gone over to the dark side, making secret moves with El Chapo, with Tijuana, with El Chayo. Even with Los Zetas, for Christ’s sake. Fast eyes flicker to the two-way mirror. With a crooked DEA agent named Byrd. El Feo is in way over his head. His days are numbered, but El Feo is so stupid he will never realize that.
Paredes worked El Feo hard and fast, because he knew the End Days before an execution foretold are always a time of revelation. It’s like morphine to a terminal patient. It isn’t the promise of The End that is the allure, but the promise of an end to pain. It is an instant of glorious appeasement; a moment of denial and euphoria. It loosens doubt and with it, mouths. The false sense of immunity that it bestows breeds complacency. Paredes wanted to suck all the info out of El Feo before he was finally taken out to the desert, before his body was lost to the dunes and the ravenous crows.
El Feo thought Paredes was a crooked cop. Why wouldn’t he? There are enough of them on both sides to line the border, shoulder badge to shoulder badge. Someone set Paredes up. It wasn’t Mary-Ellen. She would never ever have done it. And El Feo is too dumb. El Santo? Tijuana? Who knows? He is innocent. His lawyer will prove it.
A flicker in Paredes’ eyes. Of divulgence. Focus, the eyes say. Nothing else matters but what he is about to say next. Paredes has a great lawyer. Yale. The best. Ever heard of that Yanqui club, Skull and Bones? That’s him. Juvenile, but it works. They force you to do some secret initiation shit, but after that, you’re locked into the system for good. Law partner, judge. Supreme Court. His lawyer’s got leverage. Contacts everywhere. Keep him in mind. You never know, Fuentes might need him one day. His eyes harden. The interview is over. ‘How did Gomez take the news?’
‘Hard.’
Paredes gives a what-the-fuck shrug, like a non-smoker offered a cigarette before his execution. ‘He’ll get over it. Is the asshole still fucking my ex?’ His dirty smile covers the information in his eyes. Marina is the key. ‘Have him send me a photo of her. It gets lonely in here.’
Fuentes gives him a contrived look of disgust, making sure he is facing the two-way mirror so they can all see his reaction. His mother taught art at high school. He remembers her advice to her students: if you want to see a flaw in a portrait, hold your drawing up to a mirror. Fuentes gazes out at a familiar composition: two Mexicans surrounded by iron bars, being judged by hidden gringos who have no idea what has just gone down. His work is balanced. Coherent; its structure possesses a certain integrity. It will stand up to scrutiny. He turns to rap on the door, but the lock is already slotting open.
‘What did you want from him anyway?’
‘Confirmation.’
The DEA agent shakes his head, pitying Fuentes’ naivety. ‘He’s as guilty as hell. And he’ll roll for a deal.’
‘What are you going to do about Byrd?’
‘We’ve already pulled him. As soon as he mentioned Byrd, we had to yank him. They should be reading him his rights about now.’
‘The car with Texas plates. It was following him.’ Actually, it was following Fuentes. ‘Yours?’
‘That’s need-to-know.’ Operational code for go fuck yourself.
Fuentes had ridden in with the ambulance. They dropped him at the border. He thought he caught a glimpse of Byrd, in the back of an unmarked car with Texas plates, crossing the other way. Yin and Yang. Give and Take. Gloria for Mary-Ellen. Byrd for Paredes. Blood for money. For a moment he is overwhelmed with emotion. Not sorrow; regret. Paredes isn’t just good. He is exceptional. He solved the case on his own. That’s why he was set up. They knew he knew. Mary-Ellen was nothing more than a mere brush fire; a burning-off to prevent a major conflagration. A convenient means to a sinister end. And that end is the silencing of Paredes.
They will kill Paredes as soon as he is transferred out. No one will even think twice. A corrupt cop inside. A lucky break for any one of a hundred inmates. He knows he is dead, so he has transferred his knowledge. Paredes had not sought Fuentes out, but he recognized him as soon as he stepped into the interrogation room. A cop smart enough to have talked his way in. A seeker of truth. Maybe even an honest one.
Fuentes walks back home across a smear of stagnant water passing for a river, feeling eyes on him from both sides of the border. Shadows hover on his peripheral vision. Not those of stalkers but that of a massive, encroaching vacuum. An absence of light. Of oxygen. Of space and time. The hourglass is filling. Whole dunes are tumbling down upon him. Suffocating him. Only the narrow neck is left. A few last gasps and then … Extinction. He sees the future clearly. Paredes today. Fuentes tomorrow. He can hear the whispering sands around his shoulders, hushing him, easing him gently but firmly towards the inevitable Silence.
63
Pilar
The dog that Byrd hit the night before lies swollen and stiff in the ossifying sun. A bus roars by, its blast forcing the flies milling around the corpse’s eyes to break from their host for a startled instant, before regrouping and swarming back again.
Inside the bus, Pilar stands halfway up the back, addressing the female workers. This is how she and Ventura have spent the last three hours. Preaching on buses. Pilar’s smart enough to know that she couldn’t get a job in another maquiladora so quickly, and it wouldn’t be any use anyway if she did. With the strike tomorrow, the time for reason is over. It is now time for emotion, for stark and violent agitation. Ventura has followed her patiently, lending quiet support. She would never admit it, but Pilar is glad to have another woman, however untested, by her side.
Especially after last night.
Most of the female workers on the bus listen blankly, but a few whisper sarcastically at the back. Pilar is used to bored or puzzled expressions but these sour faces tell her she’s going to have to excel to get the reaction she wants: the glorious ability to focus on the possibilities of a better future, and not stay blinded in a crushing present.
Ventura sits in a seat across from Pilar, shooting discreetly, not really listening to what is being said, her professionalism isolating her within its own concerns of fast shots, focus and framing. ‘… So if we all stick together, they’ll have to listen to us.’
A worker, whose name badge on her company tunic says Lucía, gives a mocking laugh of disbelief. ‘I’ve been working here for over twenty years and let me tell you, in Ciudad Real nobody sticks together.’
Ventura shifts her camera towards Lucía, not because of what she’s said but instinctually, because of what she feels in the air – dissent. But Lucía feels something too: unwelcome attention. She slaps with lightning speed at the camera, almost knocking it out of Ventura’s hands. ‘Get that out of my face, bitch!’
Ventura cries out in shock more than protest. She snaps the lens cover closed fast. ‘I’m trying to help.’
Help is a concept like hope and freedom; never to be mentioned to people who’ve been denied it. ‘Look at them.’ Lucía points to Ventura, then Pilar, her hand trembling with rage. ‘Who the fuck are these bitches?’ She turns to the other passengers, who have fallen silent as a jury. ‘Has anyone seen them before?’ The women shake their heads, confirming what they already knew, psyching themselves up for the inevitable riposte. Pilar watches what’s happening, alarmed and alert. She’s attended too many meetings not to recognize these signs: the mass resentment swelling dangerously into something physical – something which demands release. Except that normally she’s the instigator of such wrath – not its target. ‘Why are they taking our photos? Who are they working for?’
Pilar holds her hands up in a soothing gesture that manages to hush the women. It’s like a magus calming the waves. She’s a professional; a master speaker adept at putting her audience at ease – or at least diverting their seethin
g resentment to a target of her choice. ‘Please, amigas, there’s nothing wrong. We’re just—’
‘Who are you?’ Lucía roars. ‘Police? Company spies?’ Most of the passengers are standing, already screaming insults at Pilar and Ventura, or shouting to each other, trying to figure out what the hell is going on. The bus driver turns impatiently, telling the chicas to shut up, but no one pays him any mind. They’re riveted on their twin targets. On their hate. ‘This is the way those bastards work. Taking our photos and then firing us.’
‘Amigas, please, stay calm.’
‘And let you steal our jobs? You lying bitch!’
A dark wave explodes inside the bus, hands striking Pilar; cruel fingers damaged by factory work tugging at her hair. Two women try to wrench Ventura’s Leica from her hands. She bends down, gathering it to her body, guarding it like a parent sheltering a child, fists hammering hard on her back, nails scratching at her face, searching for her eyes.
The bus brakes hard, some of the women falling to the floor with the sudden lurch, the driver standing in his seat. ‘Listen to me! We don’t move again until you stop this fucking scene.’
Eyes turn and stare at him, unnerving him with their intensity; their fury at yet another man in uniform threatening them. Lucía’s voice is a sharp stick, prodding for weaknesses. ‘Don’t talk that way to us, cabrón, or we’ll cut your fucking balls off.’ Both menace and fear fume in the uneasy silence that follows. She points to Pilar. ‘Get these bitches off the bus before I kill them.’ Hands grab Ventura, hauling her to her feet, still trying to yank the camera from her. She defends it, her hunched body tugged down the aisle by her hair. Someone lands a hard kick against her ass as she passes, jeers and insults raining like spit upon her as she endures the gauntlet, each bus seat another Station of the Cross.
