THEY SPENT THE FIRST PART OF THE AFTERnoon in a training seminar on gang violence that was utterly boring and completely irrelevant. There was not an officer in the conference hall that hadn’t learned the same things from working the street as the expert speakers put on their PowerPoint slides. It had been all Cristina could do to keep from falling asleep. Robinson nudged her when her head began to nod.
When they returned to the squad room their desks were laden with reports, the fruits of several shifts’ worth of uniform patrols and 911 calls. If the uniforms deemed it “gang related,” it went to the gang unit for a follow-up. Most of it was nothing, sometimes it was something, all of it was tedious.
Cristina was glad when her phone rang. “Salas,” she said.
“Cristina, it’s Jamie McPeek.”
“Hello, Agent McPeek.”
Robinson looked up from his work.
“I’m calling everyone who should know to tell them: Matías Segura was almost hit last night.”
“Hit? What happened?”
“There aren’t a lot of details right now. He was out and a truckload of shooters tried to kill him on the street. His wife was with him.”
“Are they thinking it’s the Aztecas?”
“It would make sense.”
“She’s fine. They’re both fine. They were lucky.”
“Thanks for keeping me in the loop.”
“Not a problem. Is there anything more on the Esperanza case?”
“He’s out on bail. Probably already back in business.”
“In Mexico he’d be dead on the side of the road by now.”
“Let’s be glad this isn’t Mexico.”
Cristina hung up the phone. She turned to her computer and called up the file on Emilio Esperanza. His picture flashed on the screen. Even in his mug shot he was smirking.
“You going to tell me what that was all about?” Robinson asked.
“That Mexican cop, the one I told you about? The Aztecas tried to kill him last night.”
“No shit. What’s that have to do with Esperanza?”
Cristina shook her head. “Nothing.”
“You worried he’ll put a green light out on you?”
“You think he’d do that?”
“I don’t know,” Robinson said. “Anything’s possible. You live right in the middle of Azteca territory, you busted his balls in interrogation.”
“You’re not making me feel any better.”
“Sorry. Just thinking out loud.”
Cristina scrolled through Esperanza’s record trying to will something new to appear, but it was all the same things. There was not even something she could pull him in on and sweat him for.
The judge set the bail too low. In the courtroom at Esperanza’s arraignment there had been a half dozen or more rangy, tattooed young men watching the proceedings. Any one of them could have substituted for Esperanza; they were the same person, essentially, and in the end they were all interchangeable. That’s why the gangs never went away no matter how many went into the system: there were all the identical soldiers ready to pick up where the fallen ones left off.
She thought of Matías Segura. They had only met for a little while, but she thought she could understand him. How many Emilio Esperanzas had crossed his path in the years he had been working? How many José Martinezes? In Mexico it was worse than the worst day in El Paso. At least Cristina and Robinson did not have to deal with bodies lying in the streets, or in back alleys with their heads and arms hacked off. They did not have to live with the knowledge that Los Aztecas owned the city and they were just living in it.
Cristina called home. “Hi, Ashlee, it’s me,” she said. “Can I talk to Freddie?”
Freddie came on. “Hello?” he said.
“Hi, Freddie, it’s Mom.”
“Hi.”
“How was your day at school?”
“I didn’t have a good day.”
“No? What happened?”
“I can’t know,” Freddie said.
“You can’t know? Why not?”
“I said I can’t know.”
“Well, I’m not mad. Are you being good for Ashlee?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’ll be home in time for you to go to bed.”
“I’m going to play Roblox now.”
“You do that, peanut. I love you.”
“Bye.”
When she put down the phone she wanted to be home so she could hold Freddie and squeeze him tightly until he told her that was enough, just like she wanted to be home to make a real dinner for him and spend time with him. And maybe if she did those things she wouldn’t be afraid for him anymore, sitting at his computer in a little house in the Segundo Barrio, not knowing anything about what went on beyond those walls.
“Freddie good?” Robinson asked.
“Yeah.”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing. Whenever somebody takes a shot at a cop, I get nerves. And you’re not helping.”
“What did I do?”
“Emilio Esperanza isn’t going to his capo to put a green light on an El Paso cop. Even he wouldn’t be that stupid. You’ve got me thinking Freddie’s going to be an orphan by the time he’s eleven.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know it bothered you so much.”
Cristina cleared Esperanza’s record from her computer screen. She didn’t want to look at his face anymore. It was bad enough that she was still thinking about it and the way he looked when the judge announced his bail. He knew right then he was going to walk, and if the inclination struck him, he could take one step across the border and just disappear into Juárez. Los Aztecas would take care of him; he was their family.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” Cristina said.
“I’ll go with you.”
“All this paperwork’s going to be here tomorrow.”
“Then it can wait. I’ll walk you to your car, make sure nobody tries to take you out.”
“Thanks, Bob.”
“Don’t mention it.”