The Eye of the Tigress

by Paul Coggins

  Maggie’s presence at the airport tripped Cash’s internal alarm. Adding Graves to the mix triggered an all-out warning.

  With Maggie frozen on the spot, Graves approached Cash and gripped his arm. “We need to talk.” Tall, black, and gray at the temples, Graves had that whole voice-of-god thing going. A deep, rolling timbre that would’ve cowed 99 percent of the population into complying without question.

  Cash fell into the one percent: The Great Uncowed. “Some other time, Graves. I have a flight to catch.”

  “You’ll make the flight,” Graves said, “unless you come to your senses after hearing us out.”

  The agents took Cash to a windowless conference room with barely enough space for three chairs and a metal table. A calendar courtesy of American Airlines clung to the wall. It featured a photo of Southfork Ranch, along with the wrong month and the wrong year.

  Only Maggie sat. Graves and Cash retreated to opposite corners, like boxers between rounds.

  “Do you have anything you want to tell us about your travel plans?” Graves had a way of turning a question into a command.

  “No.” Cash waited several seconds before heading toward the door.

  “Sit down.” Graves also had a habit of making a command sound like it came from on high.

  Cash looked at Maggie. She nodded. He sat.

  “If you’re determined to go to Sinaloa and get yourself killed,” Graves said, “no sweat off my balls. You were never one of my favorite people.”

  Classic understatement by the hard-ass.

  “And here I thought we’d buried the hatchet,” Cash said.

  “You thought wrong,” Graves said. “You were a pain-in-the-ass prosecutor before you went to the dark side and became a total prick. I put up with you when I had to. Now I don’t.”

  Graves and Cash had a history of butting heads. Graves’ job as general counsel cast him as the referee between agents eager for a quick indictment and prosecutors who held out for more evidence.

  While at the DOJ, Cash followed a cardinal rule: get all the evidence up front. The agents played by their own set of rules. No indictment, no stat. No stats, no stripes.

  In a past life, standoffs between Cash and an FBI agent had led to closed door meetings with Graves that usually ended in angry words and occasionally in threats to go over the other’s head.

  Once or twice, they had come close to blows, but Cash had always held back, hinky about hitting someone old enough to be his father. That, and pretty sure the granite tough Graves could knock him into next week.

  “I don’t give a shit what happens to you,” Graves said, “but for some inexplicable reason, my partner does.” He cocked his head toward Maggie.

  “I’m not exactly sure why I do.” Maggie’s words exploded with a rush of pent-up anger. “Since you didn’t bother telling me where you were going…or why.”

  All of which underscored something that had been gnawing at Cash since encountering the agents at the airport. How did the feds know about his trip to Mexico? He hadn’t told anyone, other than Rhoden.

  Not Maggie. Certainly not Goldberg or Eva, both of whom would’ve blown a gasket.

  “Bad enough that Agent Burns wastes her time on scum like you,” Graves said. “Puts her in a terrible light with the brass. But if she sticks by someone who carries water for the cartel, she’ll be dead to us.”

  “Not that Cash gives a shit about my career.” Maggie’s well of anger ran deep.

  Whoa there, girl.

  Granted, it wouldn’t break Cash’s heart if she bailed from the Bureau. In a move to the private sector, maybe the stick would slip from her ass. Still, he had never asked her to turn in her badge. Never even broached the subject with her.

  Not yet anyway. Still waiting for the right time.

  “I don’t tell you everything I’m doing,” Cash said to her, “like you don’t tell me all that you’re up to. Case in point, care to enlighten me on how you discovered my travel plans?” Maggie looked to Graves. Without a word, without the twitch of a muscle, he ordered her to leave Cash’s question dangling.

  “I didn’t think so,” Cash said.

  Not that the feds’ ambush at the airport was a complete mystery. They must’ve picked up chatter about his trip to Mexico on a wire. The question dogging Cash was whether he was the target of the tap, or collateral damage.

  Cash headed toward the door. “Sorry to run, but I have a plane to catch.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Cash didn’t make it outside Culiacán Airport before four of La Tigra’s goons intercepted him. Three looked like extras from a bad narco movie, sporting black attire, a ton of bling, and expressions that ran the gamut from bored to bored stiff.

  The fourth and shortest member of the welcoming crew wore a LeBron jersey. Cash was surprised they came in extra-small. They being both the jersey and its owner.

  He recognized Number Twenty-Three from his past visit to Sinaloa. The one he’d sworn would be his last trip south of the border.

  Another vow broken.

  Cash extended his hand, but Twenty-Three didn’t shake. Nor speak. Instead, he frisked Cash, lifting a wallet and cell phone before rummaging through his overnight bag.

  They led Cash to a black Escalade parked in a tow away zone. An airport security officer leaned against the Cadillac. Didn’t write a ticket or order the men to move the vehicle. Just stood guard until Twenty-Three slipped him a bill.

  The goons shoved Cash onto the backseat and lowered a black bag over his head. The bag was still wet from the last victim’s drool. Or tears.

  A drawstring on the bag tightened around Cash’s neck. “Is this really necessary?” His tone stayed steady. His ticker, not so much.

  “Only if you plan on using your return ticket.” Delivered as if Twenty-Three had used the line before.

  La Tigra’s men didn’t bother tying Cash’s hands. Given the circumstances, there was no need to.

  The Escalade gunned away from the curb, pinning Cash against the seat. It weaved wildly through airport traffic. Horns blared. Curses flew to and from the SUV. Everything was puta this and puta that. The horns and vocal cords finally took a breather, but only after the vehicle broke free of congestion and sailed onto a smooth surface.

  Cash lost track of time and direction. Ordinarily he could’ve used the radio to calibrate the distance traveled. Allot roughly three minutes a song and estimate an average speed of seventy-five miles an hour. The hitch today, everything on the station’s playlist blended into a nonstop pounding that scrambled Cash’s senses.

  His migraine reached stage three before the vehicle veered off the highway and started climbing. As the roads turned rougher, the SUV shuddered through the shifting of gears.

  Queasy from inhaling the stench inside the bag, Cash feared the onset of a panic attack. His heart raced ahead of the radio’s pulsating beat.

  Riding blind, Cash figured there had to be a thousand places to bury a body along the stretch of nowhere and almost as many reasons to dispose of his. Not that the flunkies needed a reason. If La Tigra ordered his execution, done.

  Cash caught a break that nipped his welling panic. The radio crackled with static before going silent. His heartbeat slowed.

  The climb steepened, which came as no surprise. La Tigra had built her fortress into the side of a mountain. Only one way in and one way out. Except for her, of course, since she usually traveled by helicopter.

  Cash had gleaned most of the intel from a PBS documentary on the new wave of female cartel bosses. La Tigra had been the featured czarina on a segment titled The Eye of The Tigress.

  On the ascent, the SUV stopped twice for brief conversations in Spanish between the driver and an outside party. Cash picked up the words gringo abogado in both exchanges. Each time the driver made it sound like a bad thing.

  The stops had to be checkpoints, clearing traffic to and from the compound. The PBS documentary had warned that armed guards, sensors, attack dogs, and drones
policed the perimeter of La Tigra’s property and that she had a mean territorial streak.

  On the third stop, the bag remained in place as Cash was pulled from the Escalade and dragged across a lawn that smelled freshly cut. The goons let go, and Cash dropped to his knees.

  He picked up the scent of perfume. A familiar fragrance. Same thousand-dollar-an-ounce brand favored by Mariposa, back when she and her late husband had F.U. money.

  He turned toward the scent. “La Tigra?”

  Silence.

  He stood, expecting to go down again. “You didn’t have to send your men to rough me up. It was my idea to come here.”

  “They were not there to rough you up.” Definitely La Tigra’s voice. “But to protect you.”

  “They had a funny way of showing it.”

  “Unfortunately, mine is not the only organization in Mexico. Sadly, not even the only one in Sinaloa. Not yet anyway. If my competitors learn that you are working for me, they will try to take you out.”

  Cash started to protest that he wasn’t working for her. He owed her a single case. One and done. The deal he had cut under duress, to save his skin.

  He held his tongue. Might be safe to lie to himself about his future, but not to her.

  “Can I remove the bag?” he said.

  “Not yet.”

  Thwack!

  The sound sent a shiver through Cash. He tensed for a blow that never came. Relieved not to have cried out. Shocked that no one else had.

  Thwack!

  Cash processed the distinctive sound. Figured out the type of club at hand.

  Thwack!

  The bag came off. Temporarily blinded by the sun, Cash blinked the scene into focus. La Tigra on the backswing, silver-shafted driver in hand, eyes fixed on a golf ball. Her follow through sent the ball flying two hundred yards down the fairway.

  Scores of golf balls littered the driving range. To the right of the range, stretched an eighteen-hole golf course, replete with sand traps and water hazards. To the left, stood a white mansion with an orange tile roof. An infinity pool overlooked the vineyards.

  A caddie teed up a fresh ball, as white as La Tigra’s shorts and knit shirt. Her mocha complexion seemed a shade darker than he remembered. She had the lean, smooth legs of a dancer.

  First time Cash had seen her bare legs. He could spend hours exploring every inch of them. Even manage to get lost between them for a night or two.

  On her next drive, a slice sent the ball into the rough. She tossed the club to the caddie and turned to Cash. “Do you play?”

  He shook his head. “I subscribe to Mark Twain’s theory that golf is a good walk spoiled.”

  “A pity,” she said, “because Nancy Ochoa designed my private course.”

  The name didn’t mean anything to Cash. He kept that to himself.

  The caddie handed her a putter. “I thought the golf course was where you lawyers found your clients,” she said.

  He followed her to a practice putting green, adjacent to and roughly the size of the helipad. “There are two kinds of lawyers,” he said. “The underwhelming majority who hustle clients at golf courses and the few of us who don’t have to.”

  She putted on the green for about ten minutes. Cash followed the caddie’s advice and remained still and silent while she stroked from different directions and distances, sinking more than she missed.

  After nailing a twenty-footer, she gave the club to the caddie and sent him away. She led Cash to a poolside table, where a maid in a white uniform poured each a glass of red wine.

  “Hope you know more about wine than you do about golf,” she said, “because I have found there are two kinds of men. Those who enjoy wine and those who do not enjoy life.”

  He savored the aroma before taking a sip. “A nice cab but not your best vintage. Aged two, maybe three years in an oak barrel. Is that a hint of black cherry?” He didn’t expect an answer and didn’t get one. “Tastes a tad thin, for what should be a full-bodied blend. Probably means there was too much rain during the harvest season.”

  She nodded. “From my Napa vineyard. And yes, we had more rain than normal three years ago.”

  She raised her glass for a toast. “To lawyers who win cases.”

  Clink.

  “To clients with deep pockets,” he said.

  She didn’t drink to his toast. “I hope you did not come all this way to beg to be paid for a service you promised to perform for free. I let you live. That should be worth something.”

  “I’m definitely not here to renegotiate our deal.” The thought had crossed his mind that she might offer to fork over a little something. If not full freight, maybe a small token of her appreciation. Guess not. “I came to plead for the life of another.”

  “Who is the lucky client?”

  “The unlucky non-client is Mariposa.”

  La Tigra’s dark eyes narrowed. The tiny scar on her upper lip hid behind a frown. “Rhoden said you might raise this subject with me, but I had my doubts. After all, she was willing to throw you to the wolves.” She took a sip. “Or in your case, to the tiger. You must have a short memory.”

  “Or a forgiving heart,” he said.

  “Perhaps she holds something over your head.”

  La Tigra hadn’t risen to the top of the drug world by being dumb. Nor by believing in the inherent goodness of men.

  “Regardless of my motive for coming,” Cash said, “I can assure you that Mariposa has made peace with doing life. She’s willing to plead guilty to the full indictment. No deal. No cooperation. Live out her remaining days behind bars.”

  La Tigra leaned forward. Her magnetism pulled Cash closer. The intoxicating perfume overwhelmed the aroma of the wine.

  “Are you willing to bet your life that she can do the time without breaking?” she said.

  Cash hesitated.

  La Tigra smiled. “I didn’t think so.”

  “Yes, I’ll bet my life that she will not turn on you.”

  “You understand that you would literally be staking your life on that.”

  Cash nodded.

  La Tigra leaned back. “I will take the matter under advisement. Is that not what your judges always say in the movies?”

  “Yes, that’s what they say.”

  When they don’t have the balls to say no to my face.

  The maid returned with a full bottle, but Cash put his hand over the glass. “Thanks, but no more wine for me.”

  The maid nodded and put down the bottle. She sprinkled a line of white powder and lay a small straw on Cash’s plate.

  “Again,” Cash said, “thanks, but those days are behind me.”

  “You cannot afford to insult my product,” La Tigra said, “or me.”

  “You can’t afford to have a lawyer who’s too fucked up.”

  “Nor do I want one who is too clean.”

  “Hey, if it’s clean you’re worried about, I can provide plenty of affidavits from judges, prosecutors, and agents, who will swear that I’m anything but.”

  Her stare hardened, warning Cash that he was down to his final appeal. “This is a test, right? You don’t really expect me to do a line.”

  “Only if you plan to use your return ticket.”

  Cash picked up the straw but hesitated. He had run out of stalls. He lowered the straw to the powder and his nose to the straw. Balked again.

  “What are you thinking?” she said.

  “I was wondering how a woman like you survives in a man’s world.”

  “The same way a man like you survives in a woman’s world.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Desperate to drain the snake after a bumpy flight, Cash hurried off the plane at DFW Airport. FBI agents grabbed him at the gate and hustled him to the windowless conference room where he had been hot-boxed two days ago.

  They passed three restrooms on the way to the interrogation site. Cruel but usual punishment. In exchange for a piss stop, Cash would’ve copped to the assassinations of MLK, JFK
, and Lincoln.

  Seated at a metal desk, Cash stared at FBI general counsel Bill Graves, who looked as if he hadn’t cracked a smile in the past forty-eight hours.

  Or ever.

  No Maggie today to improve the scenery and perhaps soften the blows. Instead, Supervisory Special Agent Stanley Bowers loomed in a corner. The Bureau always hunted in pairs and never allowed itself to be outnumbered. Bowers would play the role of straight man to Graves’ ramrod straight man.

  A pale, pudgy C.P.A. and J.D., Bowers had lobbied for years to make “Stan the Man” his affectionate nickname with the troops. It never stuck. Not the nickname. Nor any affection.

  Bowers had earned a rep as a bureaucratic infighter, positioned to inherit the post of general counsel upon Graves’ retirement in two years. Perhaps sooner if he could nudge Graves out the door early.

  G.C. was only the first rung of the ladder. Bowers made no secret of his plan to become the Special Agent in Charge of North Texas within five years. Next stop, the mother ship in D.C.

  Cash pushed away from the table and stood. “This game is getting old.”

  Graves shoved him back down. “Much as you may not enjoy spending time with us, it makes me sick to breathe the same air as you. So let’s cut the shit and get this over with.”

  Bowers placed two pages and a pen on the table. Cash skimmed the headings of the documents. No need to read further. He knew both by heart. The longer one, an advice of rights form. The shorter, a waiver of counsel.

  Must be an intelligence test. To see if I’ve completely lost mine.

  Cash shoved the pages away. “You’re delusional if you think I’ll sign either.”

  No response.

  “Am I a subject or target of an investigation?”

  More silence.

  “If so, what’s the alleged crime?”

  Cash knew the tricks of the interrogation trade, the silent game being the oldest and most effective tool for breaking a holdout. Nine out of ten people suffered from a compulsion to fill a pause in a conversation, and agents preyed on that weakness.