The morning after Vincent returned to Chicago, Paulie and Caldwell sit in their cubicle and discuss the weekend’s events.
“I ran the plate,” says Caldwell. “The car belongs to some corporation in L.A. We’re running that information as we speak, though I’m not too hopeful. Also, I didn’t get the information on the driver yet, but have some of the LAPD checking to see if the truck has any traffic violations. Maybe that will give us some more leads.”
“Andrews! Caldwell!”
Baranson’s unmistakable booming voice cascades over the office. Over the tops of the cubicles, they see him, followed by two other agents, making a beeline toward them. A few seconds later, he’s at the entrance to their cubicle.
“I spoke with Anton. Just to be very clear, you do not have authority to speak to the informant. I don’t want to hear anymore crap about this from either of you. If I want you to gain access, I’ll let you know.” He turns to the agents who are with him, “Now, where were we?”
The trio walk away while Paulie and Tania absorb Baranson’s words.
“What do you think that’s about?” Paulie asks.
“I really don’t know. Maybe there’s a leak? Maybe he’s protecting the informant?”
Paulie looks over to her, leans back, rubs his eyes.
“Anyway, I’ll write up a progress report for Baranson about what we found this weekend.” Then she leans in, and in a quieter voice, says, “How are we going to explain Vincent, Paul?”
“Hold on, let’s go for a walk.”
Once outside on Wilshire, Paulie continues.
“We’re not saying a word about Vincent. There is no reason to, and it will only muddy the waters. We will simply state that we got a lead and followed through on it.”
“Excuse me? Who put you in charge?”
Paulie lets out an exasperated sigh.
“Look, right now we need to tread cautiously,” Paulie says. “I know we spoke about it before, but I can’t shake the question: Why would Baranson put two green agents, two rookies, on this case in the first place? I mean, Baranson himself basically admitted that we were not experienced enough when he gave us this assignment. And why have Agent Boswhite mentor us? Anton isn’t even in our section.”
“Well, we did solve those other cases pretty quick,” replies Caldwell.
“Yes, but those were pretty much routine, and we were permitted to go to the SEC, remember? Why aren’t we authorized to involve other agencies in this case? Or get audio surveillance set up, for that matter? There’s another thing: When we gave our status report, he seemed to disapprove of our lack of progress—but I can’t shake the thought that he wasn’t really bothered, maybe even pleased.”
“Paul, there’s no way of verifying that.”
“I don’t know what to say. My gut instinct is telling me I’m right about Baranson. And that means we don’t say anything about Vincent’s participation.”
“You’re starting to concern me. This goes completely against protocol.”
“I know. So, here is what I suggest: We put this all together in a fashion to present to the U.S. Attorney, which means we’ll still need more information. At that stage, we bring in Boswhite. Agreed?”
“Okay, go on.”
“Only after we speak to Boswhite, do we go to Baranson.”
“I can live with that,” Caldwell says. “We’ll need Boswhite’s say so, but also his experience to make sure we put together an air-tight case. He’ll know what to do, and I feel like we can rely on him.”
“I agree,” says Paulie. “Okay, let’s go through our checklist once more. We have the Mexican driver, we have the owner of the truck, and we have the Mexican vendor. We need to subpoena records to trace the cash flow. If Vincent’s theory is correct, Mendoza is simply rotating the stock and paying the vendor for stock that he has transferred to another store as if he sold all of it. And the receiving store is stocking the goods as if they got it from the vendor. Then the cycle continues.”
Caldwell nods in agreement to all of this. “I wonder if we should go to Mexico,” she offers.
“Let’s ask Boswhite when we meet with him. First, let’s get everything we can in L.A.”
They continue their tails of targets. About a week later, the man in the straw hat lets his guard down, and they track him to an apartment in East L.A. where he’s living with a girlfriend, Carla Guzman, who works at one of the Mendoza-owned stores. They tentatively identify him as Juan Lopez-Martinez and that he works for a canning company that operates out of Sinaloa. It’s not such a stretch to imagine that he’s involved with the Cartel.
“We need to tie this all down before we approach him,” Caldwell suggests. “That is, if we ever do.”
“We need the paper trail,” Paulie agrees. “Specifically, the invoices and receipts between the canning company and Mendoza’s supermarkets.”
“Yes,” says Caldwell. “But also consider how many stores Mendoza operates. This operation might run into hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. Someone inside the stores must oversee the accounts. Do you think it’s Mendoza himself?”
“Whoever it is, it’s someone smart and someone we want to identify.”
“Yes,” Tania says, “but to do that, we’ll need more manpower. We’re fooling ourselves if we think we can tie this up on our own. I think now is the time to tell the bosses what we’ve uncovered.”
Paulie stares up at the ceiling tiles and starts to count them. “You’re right. I think it’s time we go to Boswhite.”