by Paul Coggins
“Sure.”
“There’s something I held back from you then.” She stared at the table. “When I got booked into the Dallas County Jail, I demanded to be locked up in the women’s wing. The guards refused and decided to teach me a lesson. They stripped me to my panties and bra and paraded me up and down the men’s cellblocks. To this day, I can still hear the whistles and catcalls. Still wake up in a cold sweat over that night.”
“Were you raped?”
She shook her head. “Humiliated and scared shitless, but not raped. When the guards tired of teasing the caged men, they tossed me into my own cell, naked. Threatened to send in gangbangers to keep me company.” She shuddered. “Suicide seemed like the only option, and I came close to ending it all. No one entered my cell that night, but the thought of suicide stayed with me for months.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Brandi saved me. She was always there for me until….” She didn’t spell it out. Didn’t have to.
“Like I was there for Marty,” Cash said, “until my release. Then he had no one. If we dig up the truth, I fear it won’t comfort Bettina, but make things worse.”
“You tell me,” Tina said. “Your mother either left you or was taken from you. If it turns out she left of her own accord, are you better off not knowing?”
Cash had been asking himself the same question for thirty-five years.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Bam.
The knock on the front door jolted Cash.
Bam. Bam.
He froze at the kitchen table, midway through the first paragraph of an online article with the all-caps headline: CARTEL WAR ESCALATES. Another day, another round of bombs rocked the border, leaving body parts piled high on both sides. The casualty count for the week ran deep into four digits.
Bad news from the border fed Cash’s fear over who or what loomed on the other side of the door. A harbinger that more blood would soon flow closer to home.
His home. His blood.
The knocking stopped, allowing Cash to catch his breath. Today’s unexpected visitor came on the deadline to betray La Tigra or become a blip on the rising body count, a drop in a raging red river.
Then again, maybe the visit was expected. Los Lobos hadn’t specified the hour of his execution. Was checkout time at noon? Did he have until sundown? Midnight?
Whoever waited at the door might hold the answer, along with an automatic weapon.
The extended silence gave Cash hope. Maybe it had been a salesman. Or someone with the wrong address.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
His peace of mind shattered, Cash clung to another thin reed of hope. Surely Los Lobos would be a no-knock cartel. The barbarians would barge in without warning. Show no mercy. Offer no chance to talk his way out of the fix. Refuse even to wait for his last words.
The banging on the door grew louder. Cash quelled an instinct to bolt through the back door and flee down the alley. If Los Lobos had come for him, he’d never make it to the fence.
Besides, it could be the cavalry to the rescue. If so, he bet with himself that DEA would be his salvation.
He voted Dani Tanaka the girl most likely to score a late inning save. She played the game a step faster than the competition. The drug agency would likely tap her to do its dirty work. She had enough clout in the hierarchy to be taken seriously by Cash but remained sufficiently subordinate to be sacrificed if necessary.
Cash peered through the peephole and got his first surprise of the morning. He lost the private bet. Right gender but wrong government agency.
Maggie Burns of the FBI fidgeted on the porch. She looked paler than usual.
He pulled her into the house and locked the door behind them. “Stay away from the windows. I’m expecting company.”
She patted the Glock in her shoulder-holster, probably meant to reassure him. It didn’t.
“What company?” she said.
“Bad company.”
They faced each other in the foyer for what seemed an eternity. He struggled for an ice breaker. Every time he buried her in the past, she popped into the present and scrambled his future.
She filled the void. “I hear you had a stormy meeting with my boss at Quantico.”
No long overdue kiss. No “I missed you, darling.” Not even a greeting. Right down to business.
“I’ve missed you too.” Said with heavy doses of pain and sarcasm. He stepped forward to hug her.
She leaned back, out of reach.
He got the message the second time around. Strictly a business meeting. No touchy feely.
Maggie’s outfit reinforced the ground rules. She wore the standard blue blazer, starched white blouse, blue skirt, black pumps. All regulation cut and color.
Her eyes warned him not to bring up their history. Cash made another bet with himself—double or nothing. The Bureau was recording their conversation. Only way to explain the stick up Maggie’s ass.
Cash should’ve been pissed and called her out on the covert taping, but he let it slide. She must be down to her last shot to come in from the cold—literally and figuratively.
He played ball, for her sake. “Agent Burns, what brings you back to Dallas?”
“I came to deliver the best and final offer your client will get from the government.”
Cash noted the omission. She hadn’t mentioned the client’s name. More evidence a tape was rolling. A recording that might surface later.
Or not.
“I’ve been dealing with the A.G. and the FBI director on this,” he said. “Are they too busy to give me a call?”
“I don’t know anything about that.” She delivered the line without an ounce of conviction, nowhere close to selling it.
Cash still didn’t call bullshit. She was simply a go-between, a convenient fall girl, if the need arose. One bad headline away from shipment to a shithole that would make her nostalgic for Bismarck. The cockroaches in power would keep their prints off any deal this dicey and dangerous.
He moved the bargaining session to the kitchen, where he poured her a cup of coffee the way she liked it. Black with one Splenda.
“Okay,” he said, “I’ll bite. What’s behind door number one?”
“You asked for a beach, and we found you one.” She pulled out her iPhone and showed him a shot of a stretch of sand.
“Where is this?”
She pocketed the phone. “A stone’s throw from San Juan, Puerto Rico. The Bureau of Prisons recently built a camp for female inmates outside the city.”
“Can you actually see the ocean from the camp?”
She hesitated too long to lie. “You can smell it, and we can arrange a work detail for your client that involves keeping the beach pristine.” She reached out her hand to shake. “Do we have a deal?”
He extended his hand but stopped short of hers. “We’re so close that I can smell a deal, but I still don’t see one.”
She took a deep breath and resumed the negotiations. “What if we were to—”
A knock on the door startled Cash. Maggie drew her Glock.
Cash calmed down first. “Hold that thought, while I see what’s behind door number two.”
***
Cash whisked Dani Tanaka off the porch and into the kitchen. After he introduced her to Maggie, the temperature in the room fell ten degrees. Having one armed agent in the house made him feel safer. Two armed agents, less safe.
He handicapped which agent would come out on top in a brawl. Maggie had the edge in reach, but Tanaka looked as if she could take more punches. He decided it would be a bloody draw.
And a monster draw on pay-per-view.
“Can we talk in private?” Dani said to Cash.
“You got something to hide?” Maggie’s tone ratcheted up the tension.
The women squared off jaw to jaw. Or more like jaw to breast, given Maggie’s height advantage.
Cash stepped between them and immediately regretted putting his body at risk. “Now
hold on a hot second, Maggie. You made the Bureau’s bid in private. It wouldn’t be fair to deny Dani the same opportunity.”
He snapped his fingers. “Hey, I’ve got a solution. We give Maggie a choice. She can stay for DEA’s pitch, if we disclose FBI’s offer to Dani. Or Maggie can take her leave now, and both agencies shield their bids from the competition.”
He turned to Maggie. “What’s it going to be? Do you stay or go?”
Maggie looked flummoxed. The Bureau must not have prepped her for this. She opted to stay, so Cash shared with Dani the bid to beat.
Dani’s smile hinted that she had the upper hand. “If your client is tempted by the Bureau’s offer, ask her one question. How long can she tread water? I give it six months before the next hurricane barrels into PR.”
“Big talk,” Maggie said, “for someone who hasn’t put an offer on the table.”
Dani dropped a brochure on the table. Cash scooped it up. Studied it front and back, before looking at Dani. “Cuba?”
She nodded.
Cash’s heart raced, but he kept a poker face. DEA had come through on the country of choice. “Where in Cuba?”
“Guantanamo Bay.”
Maggie laughed. Cash slumped. His disappointment gave way to anger. “Do you really expect me to send my client to a living hell with terrorists, who have nothing to lose?”
“Of course not,” Dani said. “She would have her own place on the beach and enjoy paradise under the fulltime protection of the United States Navy.”
Cash stroked his chin. The presence of military muscle cut both ways. Might keep the cartels at bay but would definitely cramp La Tigra’s style.
Another knock on the door prompted both agents to pull their pistols. Cash settled them down. “Maybe the third time’s the charm.”
***
Eva remained on the porch. She came to deliver a message and balked at joining Maggie and Dani in the house.
“Two’s company,” she said, “three’s a crowd, and four’s more than you can handle on your best day. And this isn’t your best day.”
Just as well that Eva stayed put. For Cash, a day that had dawned with news of a tragedy threatened to turn into a French farce.
“There’s been another killing here,” she said. “Another trans woman.”
“Does Tina know the vic?”
Eva winced.
It was all the answer Cash needed. “Sorry, but I don’t have time today to comfort Tina or browbeat the cops into finding the serial killer. Those are your jobs now.” He looked over his shoulder to make sure his guests weren’t killing each other. “You could’ve called and saved yourself a trip.”
“We have a meeting downtown in thirty minutes,” Eva said. “I came to pick you up and make sure you got there on time.”
“A meeting with whom?”
“The devil in the flesh.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Cash and Eva met with not the devil himself but his advocate.
Cash stared hard at Stewart Powell. Casual Friday be damned, the founding partner of Powell, Ingram & Gardner sported a two-thousand-dollar Canali suit. As befits the state bar president, a heavyweight bundler for GOP candidates up and down the ballot, and the father of the U.S. Attorney in Dallas.
The suit was charcoal gray, matching his eyes, hair, and ethics. Gray was definitely his color.
More dangerous than meeting a lion of the bar like Powell on a neutral site was doing so on his turf. Everything in the corner office on the top floor of Dallas’ tallest building reinforced the power imbalance at play.
Attesting to the occupant’s clout were rows of framed photos of him with every living president, plus the dearly departed Reagan and Bush I and minus Obama and Biden. A picture of his daughter Jenna at her swearing-in as the U.S. Attorney dominated the rosewood desk.
Powell stood behind the desk to greet the visitors but made no move to shake hands. “Eva, so good to see you again.”
She snickered. The bullshit was silent.
“How about me?” Cash said. “You excited to see me too?”
“Sure, sport, as excited as you are to see me.” Skilled a liar as Powell was, he couldn’t fake even a smidgen of warmth for his daughter’s ex-fiancé and worst mistake.
“Much as I’d love to chat about the good old days,” Cash said, “I don’t have time today. If you have business with us, spit it out. If not, do you validate parking?”
“Don’t be in such a hurry to piss away your last chance to put your lives back on track,” Powell said.
Eva’s eyes flashed. “Who said our lives are off track?”
Powell laughed. Stopped abruptly. “Oh, you were being serious. Hmmm, where do I start?” He looked from Eva to Cash and back again. “Ladies first. You had a job at one of the most prestigious and lucrative law firms in the world. We have paralegals who make more than junior partners at Brand X shops.”
Powell shook his head slowly. “And you threw it away to work for this pillar of the profession.” He nailed sarcasm like a pro. “A lawyer who has been convicted, disbarred, and disgraced.”
“Hey,” she said, “don’t forget that I also proudly work side by side with Gary Goldberg.”
“A has-been with one foot in bankruptcy court,” Powell said, “and the other in the grave.”
“Goldy and Cash are the top criminal defense lawyers in Dallas,” she said. “They actually go to trial. You should try it sometime.”
Powell picked up a document on his desk and thumbed through it. “We haven’t filled your job, Eva.”
“Meaning?” Cash said.
“She can have it back.” Powell looked up from the document and into her eyes.
“I’ll pass,” Eva said.
“You haven’t heard the rest of the offer.” Powell drummed his fingers on the desk. Stopped. “With a nice raise and a five-year, no-cut contract.”
“Make it ten years,” Cash said, “and whatever raise you have in mind, double it.”
Eva elbowed Cash harder than necessary to shut him up. “You can make it a hundred years,” she said, “and it won’t move the needle. I’m never coming back here.”
“Give me the contract,” Cash said. “Eva and I will review it and get back to you.” He stood and reached for the document.
She intercepted the pages and ripped them up. “I’m sticking with you and Goldy.”
Cash bit his lower lip. Not the time or place to remind her that the cartel would dictate his future, assuming he had one, and that Goldy was hanging on by sheer cussedness.
“That wasn’t your contract that you tore up,” Powell said to Eva.
Cash reassembled the document on the desk and skimmed over the boilerplate, focusing on two key provisions. First, the compensation clause offered Bettina Biddle twenty-five thousand dollars a month for ten years. It described the payments as “a gesture of goodwill for the benefit of the widow and children who, like Longhorn Investments, have been victimized by Martin Biddle’s fraud.”
So much more civilized than calling it what it was: hush money.
The quid pro quo lurked in a non-disparagement clause. In return for the stipend, neither Bettina nor her heirs, assigns, agents, attorneys, so on and so forth would bad mouth the company, its officers, directors, employees, agents, and attorneys. A violation resulted in the forfeiture of future payments and a clawback of funds already disbursed.
In short: no gag, no green.
If executed, the contract would abort the investigation into Marty’s death, while bailing out Bettina, financially if not emotionally. The ten-year payout silenced the widow until the statute of limitations ran.
“As Bettina’s attorney,” Powell said, “you have an ethical obligation to relay this very generous offer to her.”
“I don’t need an ethics lesson from a lawyer who crawled in bed with Rhoden.” Cash leaned back in the chair. “Besides, three million dollars doesn’t come close to making reparations to Bettina for sacrificing h
er husband to save your biggest client.”
Powell’s jaw tensed. He pulled copies of two contracts from a drawer and slid them to Cash. “The offers to Bettina and Eva expire in forty-eight hours. We look forward to bringing both ladies back into the fold.”
Cash didn’t push back on the tight time frame. Odds were he’d expire sooner.
He and Eva didn’t say a word until they were alone in the elevator. “Are you going to see Bettina now?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Want me to come along?”
“No.”
“Are you going to recommend that she take the deal?”
“I don’t know.”
The elevator reached the ground floor. “Shit,” Cash said.
“What’s wrong?”
“Forgot to get my parking ticket validated.”
***
Cash ambushed Bettina in the carpool lane of Doctor Michael Hinojosa Elementary School, slipping onto the shotgun seat of her SUV. In the wake of Marty’s death, she had downgraded from an Escalade to a Ford Explorer and from Hockaday to a public grade school.
She caught her breath. “You scared the holy shit out of me.”
“A friendly reminder to keep your doors locked at all times.”
The SUV lurched forward, its progress to the pickup point measured in car-lengths. With a couple of minutes to make his pitch outside the twins’ presence, Cash went straight to the bottom line. “Longhorn Investments will pay you twenty-five thousand dollars a month for ten years.”
She stiffened. “For what?”
“Dropping the investigation into Marty’s death and keeping your mouth shut.”
“Tell them to fuck themselves,” she said.
The next three car-lengths rolled by in silence. “Sleep on the offer and call me in the morning.”
“My answer won’t change.”
“The only reason I ask you to consider the deal,” Cash said, “is for the sake of your little girls.”
“They’re the reason my answer won’t change.”
The twins in sight, he bailed from the SUV, leaving the contract on the seat.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
