The door sealed behind her with a heavy thump. Gustavo Acuña Cárdenas—El Capataz, the Foreman—stood before her on a worn grass mat, his hands open at his sides as if to show her he wasn’t armed. An embroidered brown suit jacket, tan piping. Cowboy angles, gold-and-black untucked Versace button-down, designer jeans with a straight-edge crease broken in places, like a man back from a night out at the dancehall.
“Buenos días,” he said. “¿O tardes ya?”
“No, it’s morning—mañana, Señor Acuña,” she said.
“Llámame Gustavo, por favor,” he said. He pointed behind her. “Cierra la puerta.”
She looked at him, unsure what the word meant.
“Lock it,” he said.
She nodded and popped the bolt in place and he thanked her. It was cold in here too. She resisted a shiver, took stock of the room. His musty musk. A floor lamp with a naked bulb that burned too bright to look at. A 1950s metal desk against the wall, a faux leather office chair and a newer mesh-back one. Filing cabinets, a cot, a cooler, and a rather large television. A greasy paper sack, a sixer of empty Jarritos bottles. Through an open door in the back she could see a toilet and sink. And atop a rumpled sleeping bag on the cot lay two semiautomatic pistols. A Taurus 9 mm and a FN Five-Seven, looked like.
“I left them over there,” he said of the guns, “to put you at ease.”
“All right.”
“To say to you I can be trusted. See?”
“Yes, I understand. Thank you.”
He lifted his chin as if to say You’re welcome, of course. He wasn’t handsome, but he wasn’t plain or ugly. His appeal lay in the sense of importance he radiated. Like a beloved mayor or corrupt bureaucrat.
“I’m a bit surprised you had my card all these years.”
“I didn’t. We all put them in the trash.” He made a dramatic pause. “But I got a good memory.” He smiled. His veneers glowed.
“Why’d you memorize it?”
He pulled over the faux leather chair for her and sat on the cot, springs squealing. He asked her if she wanted anything to drink. Don’t take anything from him. She passed. He nodded, and took up with her question.
“First time I got arrested in El Norte, I was muy joven, twenty-one, something. Cops on purpose put me in a cell with a bunch of Los Trece Locos. Me, I’m no Loco, they knew I wasn’t, they knew I knew it. Some bad shit.”
Gustavo held up his fingers. They looked like they’d been broken and glued back together many years ago. He pointed to his left eye socket, which she saw now was out of shape, his nose a bit bulby.
She nodded, letting him know that she understood.
“I broke everything defending myself. I bled like an animal.” He popped out his front dentures and sucked them back in. “Went to the dentist, mmmm, five times? Something like that. Some puto finally kills me someday, they gonna get rich with all the gold out my mouth for sure.”
“That’s terrible. I’m sorry.”
“Eh, American cops are like that. Pero you, you”—pointing at her—“weren’t like that. You gave me my own cell, made sure I got some food.”
“I did?”
“Yeah, it was you. And after you left, even one guard start calling me Mister before they deport my ass. Not saying I was treated like no boss. Just like a man, same as others. But that mattered to me, that these things changed after your visit.” He shrugged. “So I remember you. I make sure I remember your number from your card, ’ey.”
Harbaugh nodded, didn’t say anything. She waited to let him talk. That was the whole point of giving out her card all the time—maybe someday someone would have things to say. Maybe even then she saw it in him. A seed of a notion of a desire to talk.
But now he sighed and stared off.
“You never worked in Mexico before, right?” he finally asked.
“No. California mostly. Virginia, Louisiana, all in the States.”
“Nobody yet touched you.”
“Touched me?”
He laughed. Stopped to look at her—was she serious? foolish?—and then laughed again.
“What’s so funny?”
“I never seen your name. ¿Entiendes? I never heard Diane Harbaugh mentioned. Never found it wrote down. Nobody down here know you.”
Was he actually trying to diminish her? You called me, she wanted to say.
“Mira, I know the books, and there’s names all over,” he said, solemnly. “Many many many names. You got no idea all of them. They keep so much records of things—híjole, ustedes don’t even know.”
She realized what he was on about.
“You mean dirty cops,” she said.
“Dirty anybody. Dirty peónes to dirty presidentes. I’m talking everybody that’s got touched.”
“You don’t know who to trust.”
“These days, everyone been touched. Todos. That’s why you are special.”
“You trusted Mr. Moman.”
“I paid Señor Moman.”
“A pretty penny too.”
“Pretty penny?”
“Twenty-five grand.”
He smiled.
“What?”
“Are you—what you call it? ‘Shaking me down’?” He tugged at his sport coat, popped the sleeves.
She sat up straight, noticed right away what her own body was unconsciously telling her: she needed leverage. A foothold. It ached, in a way. And she’d fucked up, mentioning the money, putting him in the position to give and take.
So flip it. Find out what he wants. Grant him a wish, so you have something to take away.
“I’m not shaking you down. Only you can tell me why I’m here now, Señor Acuña.”
“That is three questions.”
“Is it,” she said, a touch of tough bitch in it.
“Por qué you. Por qué here. Por qué now.” He counted these off on his broken fingers. “You? Because you give me your card. And you’re not in the books.” He folded down his ring finger. “Here? Because in this box”—he folded down his middle finger—“nobody can fuck me up.”
“So why now?”
He regarded his index finger aloft and then tapped his temple with it.
“Because what’s in here.”
He smiled.
Those front teeth were stunningly white. Enamels like tiny tile. His nails, long crescents, almost delicate. He might have been broken, but he’d been put back together, groomed and perfected. He looked as though he hadn’t a need in the world.
“I got a big secret,” he finally said. “Enorme.”
Don’t ask. You don’t give a shit. Let him know you’ve heard this a million times before. And you don’t want a secret. You expect a pipeline of secrets.
She crossed her hands on her lap.
“About the Cartel del Golfo,” she said, flatly.
“Claro. That’s why you came right away, no?”
He was still smiling. Joy in this sense of leverage. You came right away, you came running. Not in the books. A nobody. An errand girl. Calm down. Choose your words and level the playing field. Find out what he wants . . . and then withhold it.
“What can I give you for this?” she asked, slightly emphasizing “give,” the gift, her gift to him.
“A lot. Big help from you is what I want. Enorme.”
Good. He needs something enorme. Wait for it.
She held up her palms as though to ask what.
“First, I got to get a new face so no one knows me. I mean no one. Even God on his throne shouldn’t recognize me when I sneak into heaven. No me identificaría.”
She nodded as if to say This is nothing, no problem, I’m made of favors.
“What else?”
“I want a full American life. Social security, ID, retirement, what they call it? The golden parachute. I leave with very little. I could not arouse suspicion.”
“I understand. What else?” she asked.
“I need this deal on paper.”
Bingo. A guarantee, a promise. She leaned forward, doubt fixed in her expression.
“Hmm,” she said, thinkingly. A way of saying That could be tricky. “What else?”
“Not gonna be in no Supermax the rest my life. I don’t leave this room without that paper in my hand.” He held out a palm, tapped a finger on it.
She sighed, shook her head.
“Señor Acuña. You didn’t expect me to bring some kind of legal agreements to this meeting?”
“You know who I am, sí?”
He wanted a face, money, a deal. It was time to put him in debt for these things.
“I know you’re a member of the Cartel del Golfo,” she said. “And I came right away like you asked. Alone like you asked. It would’ve taken days, a week, to get approval for a sit like this. But to meet you, in this way, in the time frame you asked me to . . . I had to ignore protocols. But I decided to make a good faith effort and come right away. By myself, like you asked.”
He searched her face for deceit. She let him. Because there was none. In fact, she had already given him so much. Just coming. Being able to come.
“Like you were saying, I’m not in the books,” she said. “This visit is off the books.”
He grinned again, this time sadly.
“Everything ends up in books, mi querida.”
She stood. He appeared small, smaller somehow than a few moments ago.
“But if I knew what this was all about, then I could begin—”
“You would be in as much danger as me.”
“Danger?”
“I am the only one who knows,” he said.
She looked closely at his face, his stubble, his jet-black hair. Those bloodshot eyes. He was harboring something big. Or many things. Operational things. Hideouts. Laundering methods. But also something that ate at him, his conscience. Something he needed to get away from, if his haggard expression was to be believed. Something hounding him.
“You’re on the run,” she said.
“It won’t be long.”
“What won’t?”
“Before they all come.”
“Who? The cartel?”
“Everyone wants what I know,” he said. “Everyone.”
She suddenly felt like she did in Michigan, like she was being watched from the trees.
Why?
His TILLER file.
Whoever looked at it would see who accessed it, would see one name—
Diane Harbaugh.
Whoever had created it three days before—
That’s who’s watching from the trees.
“Get the paper. Take me to America. Then I will give you everything.”
She closed the heavy door behind her and then heard the thick and immediate click of the bolt as Gustavo locked himself in. She locked it and pocketed the key. Her every instinct was to take flight.
But there was really no choice. She’d have to get that paper.