Boston—Friday, late in the day
Chelsea had forgotten she had a date with Flores until he texted her that afternoon, asking what kind of food she liked.
Japanese, she answered, taken off guard.
Sushi or hibachi?
Neither.
But that wasn’t a good answer.
Sushi, of course. I don’t like to hang out with people who throw food and knives around.
Flores met her at Sushi Z, a trendy place not far from downtown that served all-you-can-eat plates of sushi for twenty-eight bucks a pop. The menu consisted of two pieces of paper, on which you marked what you wanted; the one caveat was that you had to finish all you ordered, or be charged for it. Flores ordered a pair of dragon rolls and spiced crab sushi; Chelsea, not impressed by the frenetic pace of the waitresses, ordered tuna sashimi.
The warm sake Flores recommended was good, and very easy going down—too easy, thought Chelsea after her first few sips, and she resolved to go more slowly.
She wasn’t sure about Flores. He wasn’t the sort of guy she had gone out with before. She couldn’t decide whether the fact that he worked for the FBI made him more or less interesting.
He was white, but that wasn’t necessarily a big hang-up; she’d gone out with white guys before. And her father was white—though anyone seeing her just automatically checked the black box.
They talked about movies and then their food, light chatter without commitment or pressure. She was feeling good—partly a function of the sake—until their plates were cleared.
“So what’s the daughter like?” asked Flores out of the blue.
“Daughter?”
“Tolevi. You met his daughter, right?”
“The ATM guy?”
“Yeah. I heard you made friends with her.”
“How’d you hear that?”
“Just heard it.”
Chelsea refilled her sake cup without commenting.
“You know, if you guys are still working on that, we could possibly trade information,” said Flores.
“How so?”
“I don’t know. It might be useful. If you talk to the daughter, maybe she can tell us about her father. What he’s up to.”
Oh, so he’s pumping me for information. This isn’t a date.
She felt both relief and disappointment—mild disappointment. This was business, not romance.
Trade information. But what?
“Do you know how the scam worked?” he asked.
“Do you?”
“We haven’t been able to find the key,” he confessed. “The code—there’s nothing there.”
“Your boss told my boss to drop everything,” said Chelsea.
“My boss says a lot of things. That doesn’t mean you and I can’t work on it.”
Chelsea finished her sake. “I don’t know.”
“Well, think about it.” Flores looked up as the waiter approached with the check. “I got it,” he said, holding out his hand.
Jenkins was just leaving the task force headquarters when Flores called him on his cell phone.
“How did it go?” he asked Flores.
“She didn’t really say much about the girl.”
“Nothing? They totally dropped it?”
“She only said you told her boss to back off. That was pretty much all I could get out of her.”
“Keep at it.”
“This isn’t really the kind of thing I’m comfortable with.”
“I know Massina. He’s not going to drop this. If one of his people is talking to the girl, they’re definitely working on it.”
“You’re the boss.”
“That’s right.”