George decided he needed to have Horace Ellison and Lou Billingham come down to La Paz with him. One of them was Mulligan Shoibli, and since James Murphy had Alejandro Rocha tied to a chair, tied to a chair and talking, he thought they might be able to figure out which one of them it was. The other could offer support if things got ugly—when things got ugly.
He walked to Horace Ellison’s office first, and knocked on the door.
“What is it?”
* * *
They were in the parking lot when Lou Billingham said, “I’ll catch up with you guys in a minute. I need to call my wife, let her know I’ll be late.”
“Make it quick,” Ellison said.
“I will.”
George and Ellison continued to the car, George getting in behind the wheel and Ellison slipping into the shotgun seat.
* * *
James was sitting alone in the main room of the church. Normal and Bogart had found perches from which to shoot. Bogart on the roof of the primary school just across Durango. Normal on the roof of El Niño’s Pizza just across Hidalgo. Both of them had a good view of the church’s back door. Gael was standing outside smoking a cigarette. Coop was in the office keeping an eye on Rocha.
James didn’t like the situation he was in at all.
Based on George Rankin’s reaction when he mentioned Shoibli, the man had heard of him, and he might be able to help figure out just who the son of a bitch was, but if he did, he’d also arrest the fucker, which would put him out of James’s reach. He didn’t want the son of a bitch in prison. He wanted him dead.
One of the cell phones in James’s pocket began to ring. He pulled it out. It was Rocha’s burner, which meant it was Mulligan Shoibli calling.
James’s heart thudded in his chest. The phone in his hand was ringing, and if Rocha had been telling the truth, the man responsible for Layla’s death was on the other end of the line. James exhaled a long, trembling sigh, and then thumbed the green button.
He put the phone to his ear and said, “Hello?”
But the person on the other end of the line didn’t say anything.
“Answer me, motherfucker.”
The call ended.
James pulled the phone away from his ear. He stared at it for a long moment and thought about returning the call, but he knew Mulligan Shoibli wouldn’t pick up, so he slipped the phone back into his pocket. He’d wait until George Rankin got here. It was the only thing to do. He only hoped that, if they figured this thing out, he had the chance to kill the motherfucker before he was put back into prison himself—or had to run to avoid prison.
* * *
George sat behind the wheel and watched as, across the parking lot, Lou Billingham slid his cell phone back into his pocket and made his way to the car. He slipped into the backseat, apologized, and fasted his seat belt.
George started the car and backed out of the parking spot.
While he drove toward La Paz, he thought more about the evidence he had. It was clear to him that Mulligan Shoibli was in this car, but he still didn’t know for sure whether Billingham or Ellison was the man behind all of this.
The evidence against Ellison was circumstantial. The social security number Shoibli had used belonged to a man Ellison had spent months investigating. The address Shoibli had used was a bar in Chicago only a quarter mile from the DEA offices out of which Ellison had worked for five years before being transferred to El Paso.
But though these facts might seem to implicate Ellison, they almost did the opposite in George’s mind. A man running a drug cartel from the shadows would be careful to ensure there was no paper trial connecting him to his false identity, and even if he’d created that identity thinking no one would seriously investigate it, once Ellison knew it was being investigated, he could have worked to keep this information out of George’s hands.
Of course, there was also the question of arrogance. A man who’d been getting away with what Shoibli had been getting away with for years might start to believe he was smarter than everybody else, and a man who thought he was smarter than everybody else often made stupid mistakes, sure that nobody would see through his cleverness.
On the other hand, Lou Billingham had visited the holding cells without signing in at the front desk. The time stamp on the footage indicated that he’d made this visit only half an hour before Francis Waters hanged himself. The question was what Lou Billingham had said to the man during their conversation.
It was entirely possible that, knowing it might eventually come out that a DEA man was behind this cartel, Billingham had created Mulligan Shoibli in order to point at Ellison. The evidence was entirely circumstantial, but a grand jury might also find it compelling.
It made sense in a way. Not only would Ellison take the fall for another man’s crimes, but Billingham would then move up to become chief of intelligence, putting him in an even better position to control things in Mexico.
They reached the border about a half hour before sunset, but George had a feeling the day was only getting started.