Lives Laid Away

by Stephen Mack Jones

  “Speculation is that there is a small, highly effective rogue operation within certain ICE units responsible for human trafficking,” O’Donnell said. “Sex trafficking, work enslavement, even selling some disappeared detainees back to coyotes as drug mules.”

  Lady B returned with a large plate pyramided with all manner of colorful donuts and small cakes. She sat the plate in the middle of the table, then went back to standing by the kitchen door.

  “So,” I said. “Everybody sitting around this table is involved in a rogue operation investigating the rumor of a rogue operation.” No one said anything. “Why read me in?”

  Elena said, “I think Izzy might have been caught up in whatever this is.”

  “Izzy?” Foley said.

  “The young woman who jumped from the bridge last week,” O’Donnell said. Then she cut her piercing blue eyes at me. “And we’re not quite rogue, August. But we’re out on the raggedy edge while a small, authorized group of FBI and DEA directors wear the armor of distance and deniability.”

  “Is Phillips part of that group?” I said. Phillips, director of the FBI’s Detroit Field Office, was O’Donnell’s boss.

  O’Donnell stared hard at me for a moment before saying, “No.”

  “Puts you in a helluva squeeze, doesn’t it?” I said.

  O’Donnell said nothing.

  “You’ve rebuilt a nice bit of community, August,” Father Grabowski said. “People love and respect what you’ve done and continue to do in Mexicantown.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “You want me to back off ICE when they come scurrying around looking to stitch-up little girls and grandmas.”

  “You’re a grenade, August,” O’Donnell said. “A very observant, very dangerous grenade. And if you go off like I’ve seen, you could set this whole operation back months. These guys would just metastasize somewhere else and we’d be left picking your shrapnel out of our asses.”

  “You’re asking me to turn a blind eye to one disastrous wrong so you have a chance at maybe correcting a fed family fuck up?” I said. “Is that about right?”

  “Listen,” Foley said. “I’ve been DEA for close to twenty years. These ICE guys? They’re like me. Former military. Mustered out with honorable discharges and just want to make a difference. They’re not bad guys. They’re just doing their jobs the best they know how according to the law. Keeping America safe isn’t some buzzword bullshit to these guys; it’s an everyday, boots-on-the-ground duty that they embrace. You think I wanna be here potentially ratting out people I work with? If it were up to me I’d tell all of you to go to hell—no offense, Father and Lady B.”

  “None taken,” Father Grabowski said.

  Lady B simply stood silent.

  “I serve at the pleasure of my director,” Foley continued. “I’ll do what it takes to root out the few bad apples. No more, no less.”

  “Is a guy named Henshaw under your command?” I said.

  “Yeah,” Foley said. “Sergeant Corey Henshaw. Good man. A little gung-ho, but a good man to have on your six. What about him?”

  “He’s an asshole,” I said. “When you’re in Mexicantown, keep a short leash on him. You don’t and I can guarantee you it’ll take a Henry Ford Hospital trauma team to pry my foot from his ass. He harassed a neighbor of mine—nice lady who’s been a citizen longer than he’s been wearing long pants—and fucked up a friend’s eye.”

  Then I looked at Lady B and said, “So what’s your take on all this menudo?”

  With arms folded across her ample chest, Lady B laughed. “I’m just Switzerland where the world comes to parley, baby. I will say this much, Young Snow: If’n yo daddy was sittin’ there he wouldn’t hesitate, equivocate or fluctuate. He’d be sayin’ ‘Who,’ ‘What,’ ‘When,’ ‘Where,’ ‘Why,’ and ‘I know how.’”

  And there it was again; me, hung on that golden hook of my father’s immutable reputation. Not necessarily a bad thing since my father was the best of the best. Not necessarily a good thing since I had my own goddamn name and life.

  After an hour and a half of strident back-and-forth, the parley ended with no agreements or consensus: Foley held his cards close to the vest, defending his “mission” for the DEA while maintaining his cover as a dutiful ICE cop. Elena protested the tactics and legality of both and challenged him to give everyone an idea of what his end-game looked like. Father Grabowski raged against the moral, ethical and spiritual impact those missions were having on real people, real families. And O’Donnell tried in vain to play peacemaker and overall mission specialist.

  I sat back and drank bourbon.

  At the end of the meeting I pointed to Elena and said to O’Donnell, “You watch this lady’s back and I’ll back whatever play this little cabal agrees on for as long as I can from the bleachers.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, August,” O’Donnell said with the hint of a smile. “Did I say I wanted you in the bleachers on this one?” Whenever O’Donnell smiles I feel a shiver spider-walk up my spine.

  “So, Lady Macbeth,” I said. “Wha’d you have in mind?”

  O’Donnell told me in private exactly how I could be helpful.

  “You’re kidding, right?” I said.

  “I actually thought you’d enjoy my little assignment for you.”

  “Does Frank know how evil and manipulative you can be?”

  “Yes. And yet somehow it doesn’t bother him.”

  After O’Donnell and I talked, I took Father Grabowski aside and said, “Do O’Donnell or Foley know about your little underground railroad?”

  “No,” he said. “I mean, they do, but the network me and a couple other priests, reverends and rabbis have built over the past fifteen years is good. I’ve even got a border patrol contact. I can move or hide twenty people a year and they wouldn’t miss a meal or a day of school.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t get cocky, old man.”

  “So, you’re the only one allowed to get cocky?” He said he’d drive me home but I told him I’d catch a ride with Elena.

  After all.

  Elena and I had a few things to work out, the least of which was the uncomfortable necessity of keeping her involvement in the White Whale Club a secret from her husband, my godfather and best friend.

  The silence was thick between Elena and me as we headed southeast on Michigan Ave.

  Finally, she said, “You cannot tell Tomás, Octavio. Promise me that.”

  “That’s a hard promise to make, Elena. You still carrying?”

  Reluctantly, she said, “Yes.”

  “And if somebody pulls on you, you ready to do the same, only faster?”

  “I—don’t know.”

  “Jesus, Elena,” I said. “Tomás should know—”

  “No, Octavio!” she said. “It would kill him knowing I was still out here doing what I have to do. Especially with the threats. Tomás and I don’t have secrets between us, Octavio. But telling him this? He would tear the world apart to protect me—and I can’t have that. Not right now. Not when people may be in danger of more than being detained or deported.”

  I didn’t say anything for a minute or so, trying to find an acceptable balance between not telling Tomás about his wife’s involvement in a dangerous venture, or telling him and having the venture blow up entirely. Certainly, Elena had been on the front lines of civil rights protests long enough to have had several targets on her back, politically and personally. But this was different. No one had ever threatened her safety before. And she’d never found herself tangled in a web of three government agencies—DEA, ICE and FBI—working one ill-defined case at cross purposes.

  After two minutes, I came to the conclusion there was no acceptable balance.

  There was only a hard choice.

  “You’re my godmother,” I finally said. “I love you like I still love my mother. I won’t tell
Tomás, but secrets find ways of creeping into the light. And when this one finds light, you need to be ready.” I took a breath and said, “If this is gonna work at all, you need to do one thing for me and not doing it is not an option.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That gun in your purse?” I said. “Practice shooting. Tomás says you’re good. You need to get better. The threats to you are real and the only people who’ve got your back are me, Tomás and maybe O’Donnell.”

  “I—I don’t want to hurt anyone—”

  “And I don’t want you dead,” I said curtly. “I’ve already buried my mother. I’m not ready to bury you.”

  It was too early for her to go home; her girls’ nights usually lasted until at least two in the morning. Tomás would not go to bed until she was safely at home. There was no need for her to coordinate a lie with her friends: They knew Elena sometimes met into the late evening hours with attorneys, politicians, residents and business owners. All her friends needed to know was when she was going out so as not to call the house.

  And frankly, the likelihood of Tomás asking what the girls had talked about was slim to none.

  We landed at American Coney Island and sat at a table near a window.

  “All you need is a yellow felt hat and a green coat,” I said after a while. She resembled the forlorn woman in Edward Hopper’s painting Automat, 1927.

  Elena gave a quick smile. Then she went back to staring into her cup of coffee.

  I ate two Coney dogs, extra chili, cheese and onions.

  And large fries.

  Finishing my second Coney dog, I continued to wrestle with the question of how best to keep a secret from Tomás. The only conclusion I came to was there were no good options.

  While Elena quietly, discreetly prayed the rosary stowed in her purse next to her gun, I listened to the tumult of waiters and cooks laughing, talking and arguing in their native Greek. And I wondered about the dynamic secrets played in even the most loving relationship. Were there secrets my parents held from each other, innocuous or volatile? And though I could swear I’d been sweepingly honest about my life with Tatina, deep down I held a small, black lock box of secrets from her: The ten-year-old boy I’d not seen who took my bullet to his head as it traveled through a Taliban militia leader. Father and son. Killed in an embrace.

  And other bloody intimacies.

  My little black box was the exact dimensions of the distance I kept between myself and anyone I cared about.

  Twelve

  That night and the next two nights I slept downstairs—not much of an inconvenience since I love my forest green leather sofa almost as much as I love Tatina and chili-lime seasoned steak fajitas.

  Early Sunday afternoon, my phone rang.

  It was Tomás.

  “They’ve got her,” he said breathlessly. “The bastards have got Elena.”

  “Who’s got her?”

  “ICE,” Tomás growled. “I’m picking you up in two minutes. Get strapped.”

  From my house, it took us less than three minutes to get to Café Consuela’s.

  Tomás brought his truck to a screeching halt behind a black Chevy Suburban SUV with fed plates. There were at least twenty people huddled around the porch steps, craning their necks and holding up cell phones to capture video.

  Tomás and I pushed our way through the small crowd of mostly young white men and women and shouldered our way up the café’s steps.

  A young, chinless ICE agent held up his hand up in an effort to stop Tomás and me. “Hey, whoa, guys! I can’t let you—”

  Tomás brought a quick right cross to the agent’s jaw. An ugly crunching sound before the agent crumpled to the ground, blood pouring from his mouth. We pushed our way in.

  “Unless you have probable cause, I’d say you pathetic wankers are about three seconds away from a bloody fucking lawsuit!” Mr. Man-Bun himself—Trent T.R. Ogilvy. He was in the face of Mason Foley, the undercover DEA/ICE agent from O’Donnell’s White Whale Club.

  “Sir, our probable cause is the belief that undocumented aliens are working on the premises,” Foley said.

  At a glance, there were four terrified women—Elena and the women of Café Consuela’s—and Trent Ogilvy. They were facing off with the usual overkill of feds; seven ICE agents in a space that could barely hold twelve customers. Each agent was trying his damndest to look imposing in “POLICE ICE” tactical vests. One fat ICE bastard hard-eyeing me had a splotch of guacamole on his vest. I was ready to make him eat his guacamole vest.

  Foley gave me a quick glance, then said, “We’re just making inquiries—”

  “You gagging arseholes haven’t even paid for the lunch you gobbled down!” Ogilvy shouted. “I’d call that theft, ya miserable—”

  One ICE agent tried to put Ogilvy in an arm lock. It didn’t work out well for the agent; Ogilvy flawlessly spun to meet the agent’s efforts, grabbing the agent’s wrist in the process, twirling the agent as if in a ballroom dance and pushing him away. Unwisely, the agent pulled his weapon.

  “Really?” Ogilvy laughed. “Jesus! Guns just solve everything in America, don’t they?”

  In the space of an eye’s blink, Ogilvy swept the agent’s gun from his hands and put the agent squarely in the sight of his own gun. It was a move only highly-trained hand-to-hand-combat experts could achieve without getting themselves—or somebody else—shot.

  Tomás spotted Elena sitting in the single booth of the restaurant. She’d been crying, and was rubbing her upper arm.

  Tomás pushed his way through to her.

  “Did they touch you?” he barked.

  “Tomás,” Elena said. “It’s okay, mi amor. Everything is—”

  He turned and shouted, “Which one of you piece of shit motherfuckers put his hands on my wife!”

  “Sir, I’m gonna have to—”

  That was as far as a fourth agent got before Tomás landed a solid right to the agent’s chin.

  Elena screamed.

  The Café Consuela women—Martiza, Louisa, Nina and Dani—screamed.

  Two agents descended on Tomás, managing to pin him against the wall.

  Another agent pointed his weapon at me.

  The name “Henshaw” was on his black-and-grey shirt.

  “Go ahead,” Henshaw spat. “Do something, fucker.”

  After contemplating taking his gun away from him and beating him senseless with it, I smiled and said, “Since when do you guys need justification to shoot?”

  Then I turned, placed my hands behind my back and waited for either a bullet or handcuffs.

  Tomás and I were stripped of our weapons, handcuffed and, along with a handcuffed Ogilvy, were thrown into the back of the black Chevy Tahoe SUV. Tomás was swearing bloody revenge on whoever had touched his wife. As the agents dragged us down the steps, I told Elena to call my lawyer, David G. Baker, and let him know the situation.

  Apparently in an effort to stop the agents from entering the kitchen of Café Consuela’s, Elena and Trent Ogilvy had blocked the door. One of Foley’s agents got a little enthusiastic, grabbing Elena by her upper arm and yanking her away from the kitchen.

  Ogilvy reciprocated with a punch to the agent’s kidney.

  “Looks like you heroes bought yourselves muchos problemas today,” Henshaw said, climbing into the SUV behind the steering wheel and grinning back at us.

  “Listen,” I said. “If you’re planning on driving us out to Lovers’ Leap and making us blow that tiny pink pecker of yours, fine. But I need me some ChapStick—somethin’.”

  Ogilvy nearly doubled over laughing.

  It’s a well-documented fact throughout history that some morons of the male persuasion can be lit up quickly when their sexuality is called into question.

  Henshaw was one of those morons.

  Pulling his we
apon, turning and pointing the black barrel at me he said, “Oh, you’re just a little smart-assed faggot, aren’t you?” He pushed the barrel of his weapon closer to my nose. “You wanna suck on something? Huh? Do ya?”

  “Henshaw!”

  Standing at the open passenger’s side door was Foley.

  “Stand down,” he said.

  “Yes, sir!” Henshaw said, suddenly adhering to the strictest of military obedience. He quickly holstered his sidearm and turned to face the front of the vehicle.

  Foley stared at the three of us for a very long time, “You broke one of my agents’ jaws,” Foley said to Tomás.

  “And one of you pendejo motherfuckers put his hands on my wife,” Tomás said. He was breathing like a bull teased by the matador’s cape and tormented by the horseman’s picador. “I don’t care who you think you are or what kind of badge you pulled out of a cereal box. You lay hands on my wife, I lay hands on you.”

  Foley nodded that he understood this type of urban quid pro quo.

  The Café Consuela women, led by Elena, pushed their way out of the café and down the steps. A couple of agents tried as best as they could to restrain them.

  “Tomás!”

  “I’m okay, baby!” Tomás shouted in Spanish. “Just go home! I’ll call you! It’s okay!”

  “You gentlemen realize I’m obligated to take you into custody,” Foley said. He cut his ice-blue eyes to Tomás. “You because of the aforementioned breaking of a federal agent’s jaw. You—” he turned to me, “—because I’d like to know what compels a once good cop to become some sort of neighborhood vigilante.”

  “You were a policeman?” Ogilvy said to me.

  “Once upon a time,” I said.

  “And now?”

  “I flip houses.”

  “Oh.”

  “And you?” Foley continued as he stared at Ogilvy. “You took one of my officers’ weapons and turned it on him before surrendering it. And frankly, I just don’t like limeys.”

  Before we drove off, I noticed Tomás had his head oddly cocked. He was staring at Henshaw in the rearview mirror with one eye squinting and the other eye wide open.