My start date was in late January of the next year, immediately after the inauguration. The only empty space: a line for my signature.
The remainder of the packet was a near duplicate, except the open position was for something called assistant to the assistant chief, and the application had been filled out with Piper’s information and resume, spiffed up like mine to remove the more blatant felonies. They’d obviously not performed a very thorough psych profile if they expected Piper to be my assistant.
“Yeah, well fuck you, too.” Hawkins ended his call. He took another bite of his burger and then pulled a bulging number ten envelope from his breast pocket. “So what do you think?” He was talking to me now.
“About what?”
“The job, dumbass.”
“I’m not sure what to say.”
Truer words had never departed my lips. This was a big fat juicy plum being offered.
But who was doing the offering and why? Blue Dagger, my former employer, was no longer a functioning entity. And the powers that be at Paynelowe would rather poke at my eyes with toothpicks than arrange a job like this.
“Here’s some moving expenses for the both of you.” He handed me the envelope. “You need more, you let me know.”
“What’s this about?” I peered inside the second package. Two thick stacks of hundred dollar bills bound in bank wrappers, ten grand each.
“You’re a team player,” Hawkins said. “That’s why we’re here.”
“What team are you talking about?”
“The one that’s going to win in November.”
I frowned, not understanding.
“You can go ahead and sign it now.” He smiled. “Then get your girl, Piper, to ink up. And we’ll be good to go.”
“I might take a day or two to think about it, if that’s okay.”
My girl, Piper. Referring to her in that manner was a good way to get disemboweled. And was he talking about Senator McNally, the front-runner? The man whose grandson I had tried to save nearly a decade ago in the storeroom of the strip club?
“Listen to this guy.” Hawkins laughed. “‘Think about it,’ he says. You’re a comedian, you know that?”
“I’m not signing this right now. I want to know what’s going on.”
Patrick Hawkins paused with his burger halfway to his mouth. The atmosphere in the SUV grew chilly. He put the sandwich down and leaned toward the front.
“Agents, let’s give Mister Cantrell some privacy.” He opened his side and got out.
The two Secret Service men exited the vehicle, shut their doors.
The man in the third row shifted his weight, leaned forward. He had reddish blond hair, a fair complexion, and green eyes. He looked like a successful surgeon or investment banker, wearing a Polo shirt, expensive slacks, and a stainless-steel Rolex.
“Señor Cantrell. We have not met.” He stuck out his hand. “My name is Raul Fuentes-Manzanares the third.”
A heavy accent coated his words, at odds with the coloring of his skin and hair. He was most likely a pure-blood descendant of Spanish invaders.
Fuentes was a relatively common name in Mexico and Texas. Fuentes-Manzanares was the surname for a very old and wealthy family from Monterrey, hyphenated sometime back in the 1700s. The Fuentes-Manzanares family had interests on either side of the border, as I recalled. Banking and real estate, mining and manufacturing.
“I’m a consultant with Senator McNally’s campaign,” he said. “My friends call me Diego. The man who just left, Patrick Hawkins, he’s the Senator’s chief of staff.”
I stared at the packet of money in my lap, tried to keep my face impassive. His nickname was the same as the one Lazaro Morales had implied belonged to the man at the very top of the cartel. Could this guy be the el muy grande leader?
“I’m in charge of what we call the border vote,” Diego/Raul said. “The Senator plans to win both Texas and California. First time one party has done that in many years, if ever.”
Nothing made sense. Presidential candidates didn’t associate themselves with cartel leaders, at least not in the United States. Cartel leaders didn’t look like they’d just come from the country club either.
“You and your partner were alone for a short period of time with a man named Lazaro Morales.”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat, voice scratchy. “What of it?”
“Morales was a sociopath and a pathological liar. Nothing he said is to be trusted.”
“We didn’t chitchat very much. The bad stuff hit the fan pretty soon after we got there.”
Diego didn’t speak. He stared at me, nodding slowly as if evaluating my words.
“Are you part of Paynelowe?” I asked.
“Oh my, no. Here is my information.” He chuckled a little, handed me a card. “I do wish you would accept this generous job offer.”
The item contained his name but no title or business, just an office address in La Jolla, a single phone number, and an email address. The faint outline of a golden crucifix had been embossed on one corner. The insignia appeared similar to the crude image stamped on Eva’s money.
“What’s with the crucifix?” My voice croaked a little.
“That’s an old logo from the family business.” Diego shrugged. “My grandfather is very devout.”
“And you have an office in the US?” I rubbed my finger over the lettering on the card.
“We recently relocated. Mexico is very dangerous these days.”
“Yeah. So I’ve heard. Parts of Texas are, too.”
Sweat blossomed on my forehead as the thoughts raced through my mind. The next president of the United States had hired this guy as a consultant.
“You may think you know what that insignia means.” Diego pointed to the card. “You may think you know how things are done on the border.” He patted my shoulder. “But trust me, you don’t.”
I’d spent a large part of my career looking for street thugs, dealers, and pushers operating in the darkness of the netherworld that is the drug trade. And their leaders, the jefes, crude men suddenly awash in wealth.
“You’re the cartel.” I shook my head. “And the banker for the cartel. It’s a perfect model of corruption.”
“My family does not condone the narcotraffickers.” Diego wagged a finger sideways. “But the business of being in business is a very fluid situation sometimes.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“We are most interested in legitimate economic opportunities which foster growth between our countries. With growth comes understanding.”
Milo had warned me about the people above the jefes, the bosses of the bosses. The Diegos. Turns out he was right.
“What if, in terms of commerce, the border just went away?” Diego smiled. “Think of the growth potential then.”
I nodded, understanding. “More growth means more taxes.”
“And the taxes can be used for all sorts of socially responsible programs.” Diego arched an eyebrow. “Like health care or education.”
“Socially responsible” had become the new buzzword for the Senator’s campaign, a hard shift to the center from his right-leaning roots. He’d become a true moderate, appealing to both wings of the political chicken. And he’d sold out to pay for it all, sold his soul to a fair-skinned man wearing a navy blue Polo shirt.
“The Senator means well. A truly good man,” Diego said. “He shouldn’t be bothered with any of this. Certainly not anything that monster Lazaro Morales might have told you.”
“He doesn’t know what you are?” I tried not to sound incredulous. “What you represent?”
“What am I?” Diego held out his hands, palms up. “Just a simple businessman, yes?”
I racked my brain for an answer, something that would make sense. The dark leather of the SUV’s interior became overpowering, claustrophobic.
“Sign the papers, take the money,” Diego said. “You’ve suffered greatly. You deserve it.”
�
��Why are you telling me this?” I stared at the documents in my lap.
“Because I can.” He smiled.
I didn’t say anything.
“You would put the pieces together eventually.” He checked his watch. “Hawkins decided this way was the best.”
I began to shake, a deep rage brewing inside me.
“I wanted to handle this in a different fashion, of course.” He chuckled. “But I was overruled.”
I reached for the door handle.
“You hold a lot of sway over certain people,” he said. “But remember, that won’t last. So sign the papers sooner rather than later.”
I understood then. The job would save me. No one, not even Diego Manzanares, would take out a high-ranking official at Homeland Security. It seemed that somebody was looking out for me.
“Do we have a deal, Mister Cantrell?”
I hesitated for a moment. Then I nodded and got out.
- CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE -
The small motorcade prepared for its journey away from Milo Miller’s safe house.
I stood on the front lawn, the employment applications and envelope of cash in my hand. The conversation with Diego Manzanares didn’t seem real; it had all happened so fast.
Dockers Dude and the Secret Service agents got into their Suburban while Patrick Hawkins, McNally’s chief of staff, stood outside, one foot on the curb, a fingertip pressed to his Bluetooth as he talked on his cell phone.
He looked at me. I looked back, feeling tense and jittery like a cattle prod was headed my way. He reached for the door then turned around. He walked toward me.
“No, sir. I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Hawkins stared into my eyes, obviously speaking on his cell about me, not to me. “Not a good idea at all.”
I waited, not sure what my next move should be. Run inside and get the Glock? And then what? Kill a wealthy Mexican from a prominent family because of a stupid logo on his business card?
“Are you sure?” Hawkins rubbed his eyes. “Okay, you’re the boss.” He ended the call.
“Where did this money come from?” I held up the envelope of cash.
“Somebody else wants to talk to you.” Hawkins pointed to the lead Suburban. “This is the time to act like you’ve got some brains. Don’t start making accusations or running your mouth.”
Call me dense—I’ve been referred to as much worse—but up until this point, I hadn’t really thought about who was in the first Suburban. The Secret Service should have been a major clue, but I was physically and mentally spent after the past week, and the old brain cells weren’t working at full capacity.
The rear door on the first vehicle opened, and Senator Stephen McNally emerged. He walked across the lawn with a pair of agents trailing behind him. He moved with a slight limp, a result of the Viet Cong bullet that tore into his thigh in 1971.
I stood a little straighter, held my head erect.
The Senator wore black cowboy boots polished to a mirrored gloss, a tan summer-weight suit, and a dark blue shirt open at the collar.
The boots added another couple of inches to his lanky six-foot-two frame, and the handsome but angular face that often seemed harsh in the unforgiving eye of a TV camera was softer in real life. The long, thin nose the cartoonists loved to exaggerate was less prominent. His skin was unblemished except for light crow’s-feet, a minor miracle for an avid outdoorsman in his sixties.
The hair was the same as it appeared on television: thick and wavy, as brown as mahogany, tinged with gray only at the temples. His signature look, a few errant strands that fell in front of his eyes, giving him a boyish charm, was in full effect.
“Jonathan Cantrell.” He held out his hand. “So nice to meet you.”
“And you too, Senator.” I stuck the envelope of cash and applications under my left arm, grasped his hand.
“I trust you’re well.” He stroked his chin, stared intently at my face. “The border’s rough country these days.”
His gaze was hard to describe.
Every ounce of energy he possessed had been distilled into his blue eyes. When he turned his attention your way, he made you feel like you were the most important person on the planet. Every word you spoke would matter. Every thought you expressed would be weighed and considered.
Not a bad trait for a politician to have.
In spite of myself, I began to warm to the man. He had a completely different background and temperament, but he reminded me just a little of Lazaro Morales, the charismatic drug dealer who Eva had shot in Marfa. I thought about mentioning our mutual connection, the stripper and the Senator’s presumably now-dead grandson, the baby with the burned legs. Somehow, that didn’t seem appropriate at the moment.
“I understand that some of my people are going to offer you a job,” he said. “My hope is that you take it. We need folks like you in Washington. Honest, hardworking Americans.”
The money and papers under my arm felt hot all of a sudden.
“Sir, do you know anything about a firm called Paynelowe Industries?” I decided on a direct approach.
“Who?” He frowned, genuinely puzzled.
Hawkins sighed loudly, rolled his eyes.
“They’re a private military corporation,” I said. “They supply contract law enforcement officers.”
“Oh, yeah.” McNally nodded. “Pretty small outfit. Based in Alexandria, as I recall.”
Hawkins hovered nearby. He caught the Senator’s eye, tapped his watch.
“Paynelowe is a tiny weed.” McNally shrugged. “In a very large lawn.”
I squeezed the packet of money and papers under my arm, holding on to them like a life preserver and hoping they’d disappear at the same time. I looked back at the second Suburban, wanting to ask the Senator about his consultant for the border vote.
But I didn’t. I knew then that nothing I could say or do would stop the inevitable alliance between the dark and the light. This was the way of politics and the affairs of men when money was involved.
Preachers and little children saw things as black and white. In the real world, there was nothing but a misty bell curve of gray.
I may have been a cynic, but this realization made me sad and tired.
“We need to leave,” the Senator said. “I have to be at a funeral in a couple of hours.”
I nodded.
“I do have a small gift for you though, a token.” He handed me a plain white index card. “Think about that job offer.”
I looked at the card. Several lines of handwritten text: an address in a shabby Dallas suburb and a name, Imogene Boyd.
“Imogene Boyd,” I said. “Who is that?”
The only Imogene I knew was Sinclair’s cousin, the woman Piper had “hired” to find her mother.
“She has some information which might be of interest to your friend Piper.”
“Wow.” I tried not to sound overly impressed even though I was.
He smiled and pulled another item from his pocket. “Enough of that,” he said. “Let’s talk about your move to DC.”
“What about it?” I paused. “Hypothetically speaking.”
“Another thing to consider if you relocated to DC.” He held up the item he’d pulled from his pocket, a picture. “You’d get to see the boy.”
The image showed a child, maybe ten years old. He was Caucasian but stood between two Latino girls in their early teens. The boy was wearing a white shirt and a red-striped tie, his hair slicked back. The girls, obviously twins, wore matching pink shirts.
“You’ve met him before, when he was an infant,” the Senator said. “That’s my grandson.”
The child with the burned legs who’d disappeared from his drunken mother’s car. I tried to get my head around the news.
“Did you think I was going to let that addict, that whore, raise my own flesh and blood?” The Senator returned the picture to his pocket.
“He’s alive.” I blinked several times. “Y-y-you found him.”
&n
bsp; “I took him, is what I did.” The Senator smiled but the expression wasn’t warm. “He lives with a family in Virginia, has a happy life now. Those are his adoptive sisters. Believe it or not, they had a rougher early childhood than he did.”
“I’m glad to know he’s alive.” My voice choked. “T-thanks for telling me.”
“You tried to do the right thing for the child all those years ago.” The Senator put his arm around my shoulders. “You tried to do the right thing for my family.”
“He was a just a baby,” I said. “It was a horrible situation.”
“As his grandfather, I want to thank you personally.” The Senator put his lips close to my ear. His voice was husky with emotion. “For that, I owe you a debt which can never be repaid.”
Then I understood. I was alive because I had tried to save a powerful man’s offspring years before. I would stay safe if I took the job in DC, completed the deal. I realized then the Senator most likely didn’t know who or what Diego represented. Or maybe he did but didn’t want to acknowledge it, even to himself.
In any event, he was genuinely trying to help me, the unseemly details regarding his campaign having been seen to by Diego Manzanares and the pear-shaped man standing a few feet away.
“Sir, we need to get going.” Hawkins moved closer.
“My friend that died, the funeral today.” The Senator removed his arm from around my shoulders. “I bet you knew him.”
I stared at the man who would be the leader of the free world.
“We grew up together. He was a retired Dallas police officer named Sinclair.” The Senator buttoned his coat. “Not exactly prudent for me to be associated with him right now, but I am very loyal to my friends, even in death.”
I nodded. Clutched the application papers and money tighter.
“Remember that, Jon.” The Senator brushed back his hair. “Loyalty is important.”
Then he strode to the lead Suburban, slid in the rear seat. Hawkins cocked his finger at me like it was a pistol and told me to FedEx the signed applications to the campaign office the next day.
I held up a hand, asked him to wait just a moment. Everyone else was in the Suburbans, even the Secret Service agents.
The Contractors Page 37
