by Paul Coggins
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
John Price led his entourage from the EPIC conference room, leaving behind only Supervisory Special Agent Dani Tanaka, Special Agent Duane Leroy Lee, and Cash.
Tanaka stood at one end of the table, a remote control console in one hand and a laser pointer in the other. Leroy and Cash sat across the table from her.
“Agent Lee,” Tanaka said, “dim the lights.”
Leroy jumped on command. “Hey, if you two would like to be alone….”
“Excellent idea,” Cash said. “Cue the soft music on your way out.”
She ignored Cash and spoke to Leroy. “You wanted to be on the team, so you stay and suffer with me.”
Leroy lowered the lights and his voice. “Never said I wanted to be on the team.”
“Well then,” she said, “you can thank your buddy for signing you onto this suicide mission.”
Cash hoped she was talking about career suicide. Hard to tell from her end-of-days tone.
Leroy returned to the table and sat two seats away from Cash. “Again, he’s not my buddy.”
Tanaka pressed the console, and a projection screen descended behind her. Another button brought down blinds over the windows. The dark room turned darker.
She passed across the screen, like a shadow. “McCahill, they say you’re a quick study.”
“I’ll cop to that.”
“You’d better be,” she said, “because you’ve blundered into cartel hell, without a clue as to who or what you’re dealing with. So get ready for a crash course on the drug world. Everything you need to know to have any chance of getting out of this alive. Welcome to Los Lobos 101.”
“Will there be a test at the end of class?” A long silence warned Cash that his crack hadn’t broken any ice. No surprise there. A fella could freeze a margarita next to Tanaka’s heart.
He tried a different tack. “Look, though I don’t represent dopers as a matter of principle, I follow the news. I don’t need a lecture to know Los Lobos are badasses.”
“It’s one thing to know up here.” Her forefinger tapped her temple. “Another to know where it counts.” She patted her heart. “We have a three-week saturation course for new agents that barely scratches the surface.”
“We don’t have three weeks,” Cash said.
“Understood. We also have a three-day compressed course for desk jockeys.”
“I doubt we have three days.”
“Last and least,” she said, “there’s a three-hour executive summary, but then you’re not an executive.”
“Can we cut the shit and get down to the business of negotiating the fine points of La Tigra’s future plans?” Cash feigned impatience. “I need to know whether my client should stock up on Stinger missiles or sunscreen.”
“I know you can be glib,” she said. “What I don’t know is whether you can be serious.”
He took a sober tone. “If you need me to sign some C.Y.A. form to protect the agency from liability, in case I get hurt or killed, I’ll do it. Anything to escape the dreaded death by PowerPoint.”
“If we’re going to work together,” she said, “you have to do less talking and more listening. For a change try not to act like an asshole attorney.”
“Asshole attorney is redundant,” Leroy said.
She smiled for the first time in Cash’s presence. Maybe for the first time ever.
“The flaw in all our courses,” she said, “is that to make it through any of them, you have to numb yourself to the violence. The longer the presentation, the more you have to shut down inside. In the end, that defeats the whole purpose.”
“Does that mean I’m getting a pass on the coursework?” Cash said.
“Not a complete pass.” She pressed the console, and a grainy image appeared on the screen. A frozen shot of a young girl on her knees, gagged and stripped to her panties. Whip marks crisscrossed her breasts, belly, and thighs. With her hands bound behind her back and her ankles lashed together, she would’ve fallen on her face, but for the noose running from her neck to a ceiling beam.
Another click of the console brought the torture scene to life. The girl’s muffled screams and guttural sounds were piercing. Her tears proved contagious.
The action took place in a nondescript living room. The girl knelt on a plastic sheet that protected a beige carpet from her tears, sweat, and blood. A telenovela played on a big-screen TV behind her, the sound turned low but not off.
Tanaka froze the film and aimed the laser at the TV. “That particular episode of La Reina del Sur aired about six weeks ago. Helped us pin down the date Sofia got snatched on her way to school.”
She hit the play button. Smack talk in Spanish gave evidence of three or four males in the room, all off-screen. Cash picked up enough of the trash talk to realize they were playing cards and high on something. The banter drowned out the telenovela but not the girl’s stifled pleas.
Nothing would drown that out. Ever.
The camera zoomed in on the teen’s tear-streaked face. Her eyes were wild with terror. Drool stringed from the corners of her mouth. Snot flowed from her flaring nostrils.
The camera slid down her quaking body from head to toe. A sheen of sweat on her skin made the whip marks stand out.
Tanaka stopped the action again. Cash prayed it was for the last time. He had seen enough to know how it would end.
“How old do you think she is?” Tanaka said.
Neither man rushed to respond. Cash took a stab. “Sixteen.”
“She’s fifteen,” she said. “Was fifteen.”
“Who is she?” Cash started to correct the tense but didn’t.
“The daughter of the Veracruz police chief, Hector Flores. A cop’s cop who couldn’t be bought.” She spoke softly.
“Let’s hope Hector gets revenge on the animals who did this to his daughter.”
“It won’t be in this life,” she said. “Hector witnessed this in real time. Los Lobos forced him to watch the rape, torture, and death of his daughter. The butchers then did the same to his wife, before killing him slowly. It took three days to erase the family, all save one.”
“How do you know the video is real and not a fake snuff film? How did you get it?”
“The easy way,” she said. “Los Lobos posted it online, as a message to law enforcement on both sides of the border.”
Cash stood on shaky legs. He felt the need to say something bold, but no words came out.
“Sit down,” she said. “The show’s not over.”
Cash lowered to the chair, still at a loss for words.
She pressed play. A beanpole moved behind the girl. He wasn’t much larger than she was. Couldn’t weigh more than a buck thirty. His face stayed outside the shot.
An off-screen companion handed beanpole a machete. He gripped the weapon with both hands, like a baseball bat, and took several practice swings before stepping up to the prisoner.
Her pleas hit a new pitch. She jerked and twisted, as far as the ropes allowed. It wasn’t far enough.
Cash turned away from the screen and closed his eyes. Tried but failed to shut his ears to the sickening swoosh, followed by a thud.
No screams now. Just laughter and more smack talk from the players. The card game resumed.
“It’s over, “Tanaka said. “You can look now.”
Cash forced himself to turn back to the screen, frozen on the blood-splattered face of a grinning kid, licking the blade of a bloody machete.
The close-up of the executioner gave Cash another shock. He had conjured an image of a hardened, scar-faced thug. Not a skinny punk with acne and an Adam’s apple the size of a golf ball.
“How old do you think he is?” she said.
Cash would’ve guessed fifteen, but his vocal cords locked down. Leroy too remained silent.
“Fourteen,” she said. “His name is Julio, and he’s Sofia’s younger brother, Hector’s only son. Meet the new face of Los Lobos.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Famine or feast, Cash’s world turned on a dime. As in, brother, can you spare one?
His rollercoaster career whipsawed between highs and lows, with far more dips lately. This week sank to an all-time nadir, and the prospects worsened by the hour. A single appointment kept Friday from being a lost day.
The meeting scheduled for ten would give Toby Fine and Cash a start at crafting a defense. Crafting a defense was how Cash put it. The government would call it concocting one.
Before Fine showed, three women visited Cash, not together but separately. A rule of nature dictated that trouble came in threes, like the Fates. Or the witches in Macbeth.
The trio of visitors sparked Cash’s full gamut of emotions, from desire to despair. Like contestants in a game of fuck, marry, and kill. The women didn’t necessarily come in that order. Nor necessarily out of that order.
At nine sharp, Tina Campos ambushed Cash in the lobby. She carried a cardboard tray, with coffees wedged into the four corners and a pyramid of scones in the center.
“What’s the occasion?” The unscheduled visit took Cash by surprise, as did Tina’s wardrobe. She favored obscenely short dresses that barely cleared her hips, even for business meetings.
Given her profession, especially for business meetings.
Today, however, she wore a conservative black dress that brushed her knees. Her heels were high but not to fuck-me extremes. A light touch on the makeup shaved years from her face.
“Can’t I bring breakfast to my favorite lawyer?” she said.
“You mean your only lawyer. Don’t tell me you got busted again.” His tone suggested that was exactly what he expected to hear.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, counselor.” She sounded hurt, but then she was an actor, of sorts. “This time I’m here to bail you out, and I came bearing gifts.” She handed the tray to him. “From the look of you, I arrived in the nick of time. You’re losing weight.”
Good eye. Lately he hadn’t been eating all that well, and the same went for sleeping. He was below one-sixty and still dropping. Living in the crosshairs of one, maybe two cartels plus one, maybe two governments had that effect on him.
He placed the tray on a table and took a scone and a latte. “I’ll be sure to deduct this from your legal bill.” He immediately regretted bringing up her debt, but in his defense, handling the Fine case pro bono had wrecked the bottom line.
No payments for the month but lots of expenses had left his accounts drier than Dallas in August. Tough to fend off one, maybe two cartels plus one, maybe two governments on maxed out credit cards.
Tina followed him into his private office and sat. “About my outstanding bill, I have a proposal for you.”
He flashed a not again look. Not that he wasn’t tempted. While he kept an active roster of prostitutes as clients, he was client to none. That was one line he hadn’t crossed, not knowingly anyway.
She countered with an eye roll. “Get your dirty little mind out of the gutter.” She looked around the room. Her frown signaled that it had failed inspection. “Without Eva to run things, you’re floundering.”
“I wouldn’t say floundering.” Granted, it was true. He just wouldn’t say it.
“How about I work off my debt by being your new girl Friday?”
He was at a loss for words and not simply because he had never considered the possibility that Tina would give up the streets for an office job. Even more jarring, he had never faced the hard reality that Eva might be gone for good.
Much as he needed help, he hadn’t steeled himself to hire Eva’s replacement. That would make the separation feel more like a divorce.
Or a death.
“No one will ever take Eva’s place,” she said. “I realize that. But I can type, handle calls, juggle your calendar, and try to keep the business afloat until she comes back.”
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t ask,” she said. “I volunteered.”
He stalled by scarfing down a scone and chasing it with a latte. His mind erected a hundred hurdles, starting and ending with the most obvious. “If you knew how cash-strapped I was.”
“That’s the beauty of hiring me,” she said. “My debt will take an eternity to work off.”
He gave in, unsure whether he’d been convinced by her logic, worn down by her doggedness, doomed by his desperation, or all of the above. “I won’t let you work for free. I’ll pay you what I can, and you reduce the debt as you’re able. So when can you start?”
She snapped off a crisp salute. “Private First Class Tina Campos, reporting for duty, sir.”
Minutes later, she buzzed Cash to announce the second surprise visitor of the morning, Paula Marshall. Though pressed for time, he took the meeting, because he had a score to settle with her. Saddling Martin Biddle with a snake like Rhoden was inexplicable and unforgivable, and he had to know her motive for doing so.
Tina ushered Paula into the office and left her alone with Cash. Slumped in a chair, she looked haggard, as if the tens of thousands of billable hours had finally taken a toll. She wore jeans, a t-shirt, flip-flops, and no makeup.
It was as if Paula and Tina had swapped wardrobes. Another touch of weirdness in a day off to a strange start.
“Are you okay?” he said.
No response from her, other than a shrug.
“Is something wrong?”
Silence. This must be serious. He’d never known Paula to be short on smack talk.
“Is Eva all right?”
“She’s gone, and I can’t find her.” The floodgates opened, and she broke down.
Cash’s mind reeled. If Eva was missing, he had a prime suspect in mind and a new number one priority.
Paula pulled herself together, more or less. “I’ve been trying to get hold of her for two days. She hasn’t returned my calls or texts.” Her voice was raw, as if she’d had a rough night. Probably a string of them.
No mystery now why she had come. In the wake of Eva’s disappearance, the iron lady of the law had shattered like glass.
Cash didn’t confront Paula about Biddle. Not the time for it. Not while Eva was AWOL.
“I’m sure she’s fine. Probably off licking her wounds from your latest lovers’ spat.” His voice, more confident than his gut. “At the courthouse, you said Eva was on the verge of leaving your firm. I take it she did.”
“When I told you that, I didn’t realize she’d also leave me.” She broke down again.
Though Cash had a client on the way, he let her cry in peace. Get it out of her system, for now.
“I thought she might come here.” More waterworks drowned out her next words. “Or at least reach out to you.”
“I wish,” he said.
“We have to find her.”
Wow. Had to be hard for Paula to draft him for the hunt. He weighed how much of the truth he could afford to share with her. Not much, he decided. “I’m on it. Now go back to your place and wait. Odds are she’ll come back to you soon.”
“If she doesn’t,” Paula said, “I’m counting on you to find her.” She rose shakily. “You and I have never been close. We’re not even friends really, but here’s some free advice. The no-friends-and-no-family plan is a shitty way to go through life.”
She had him there.
No sooner had Paula left than Regina Delgado strode into the office and looked around, acting like she owned the place. Given the federal forfeiture statutes, that outcome wasn’t farfetched.
She came dressed for war, peace, and everything in between. Royal blue suit, cream-colored blouse, blood red scarf, and black heels. She had gone heavy on the makeup. Maroon lipstick. Eyebrows freshly plucked. Bold blush. She looked more like an actor playing a lawyer than the real thing.
Cash didn’t delude himself into thinking her extra touches were for his benefit. Dollars to donuts, she had a date with the TV cameras later.
He made a point of greeting her as Gina. “To what do I owe the hon
or of a rare visit by a high-ranking DOJ official? You feds usually makes me schlep to your office, under the mistaken belief it gives you a tactical advantage.”
Her smile looked forced. “I can glean a lot from a lawyer’s office.” She looked around again. “For example, yours screams S-O-S.”
“And here I was going for V-I-P.”
She laughed. “Only if that stands for Vain and Insane Prick.”
“Can I get that on tape?” he said. “I might need an insanity defense someday.”
“Maybe sooner than you think.” She helped herself to a scone and sat. “Last week the Attorney General threw lifelines to La Tigra, Fine, and last and definitely least, you. Why haven’t we heard back?”
“I need more time. Fact is, I’m meeting with Fine this morning. He should arrive any minute now, and I’d rather he not see you here. Might give him the wrong idea about our relationship.”
She took a bite of the scone and put it down. That counted as breakfast in her book. “Fine is a tick on the tail of the dog. You need to sell the deal to La Tigra, not waste time on the help.”
“Fine’s the one facing trial this month,” Cash said.
“Whose fault is that?” She rose. “Don’t sweat the small stuff. I can get an extension for Fine, but La Tigra is already living on borrowed time.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Judge Ferguson will grant a continuance on Fine’s trial date.” She sounded confident. “But if you don’t deliver La Tigra to us by next Friday, it’s officially hunting season south of the border, and she’s the fox.”
Delgado took a latte on the way out, leaving Cash to stew over his next play.
Suddenly Fuck, Marry, Kill wasn’t the only game in town.
Three women had darkened his door this morning, but two who hadn’t occupied his mind: Eva and La Tigra. Tough to save a damsel in distress from one, maybe two cartels, plus one, maybe two governments.
Much less, save two damsels.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“I had absolutely no idea that anyone under the age of eighteen advertised on my website.” Fine’s defiant tone dared Cash to challenge him.
