I returned to Salsa Girl Salsa early the next morning. Alice Pfeifer was behind her desk, speaking softly into a microphone attached to a headset with one earpiece as she worked her computer. The two women I had seen earlier but not met were each in their own small office and wearing identical headphones. They also were speaking softly while they typed on the keyboards of their computers. I hung around the foyer waiting for someone to take a moment. Only none of them did, each moving from one call to another justlikethat.
Erin entered, using the door that led to her production plant. She was dressed in a lab coat and a hairnet.
God, my inner voice said, she even makes that look good.
“What are you doing here?” Erin asked.
“I know Fridays are important to your company. This is when your saboteur first struck, remember?”
“I remember.”
“I thought I’d hang around to see if I can be of some help.”
“I appreciate your concern, but I’m going to be awfully busy for a few hours, and I‘m afraid you might get in the way.”
“I can watch the entire operation on your office computer.”
“Be my guest, although I don’t know what you think you’ll see.”
“I’m looking for anything out of the ordinary.”
“What’s out of the ordinary in a plant that makes salsa? Do you even know?”
“I’ll take note of what I think is suspicious activity and ask you about it later.”
“There’s not going to be much to see anyway. Most of my staff has Fridays off. The rest of us load the reefers and unload the Texas truck. After that we’re pretty much done for the day, although the office staff will be taking orders for the coming week until three P.M. We increase or decrease production based on demand. The NBA playoffs begin next week, so that will give us a nice uptick in sales. ’Course, it won’t be as big as March Madness. Or the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is the second-highest food-consumption day in the United States, behind only Thanksgiving. People will eat something like eight tons of tortilla chips, not to mention 41 million dollars’ worth of salsa. But okay, All right. I’m happy to see you, McKenzie. I appreciate that you’re looking out for me. There’s coffee and donuts in the break room. Help yourself. I’ll see you later.”
Throughout the entire conversation, Alice kept working the phones and her computer.
* * *
Erin had bought assorted treats from Bignell Bakeries for her employees, and I wondered if it was a daily thing or just Fridays. I grabbed a couple of custard-filled Long Johns and a cup of coffee and retreated to her office. I called up her external cameras first and then her internal cameras. I flicked through them one at a time with one hand while holding my tender arm in its sling against my chest. Salsa Girl had been right; all I could see was people going about their business. They could have been building a nuclear bomb and I doubt I would have known.
By midmorning the reefers appeared. One by one, the refrigerated trucks were loaded with pallets stacked with plastic-wrapped salsa. One by one, they drove off without incident until the finished-goods cooler room was empty except for the salsa that would go out Monday morning on the local trucks. Everyone seemed relaxed, including Salsa Girl. ’Course, she always appeared that way, even when I knew she was agitated beyond words.
Eventually the truck that Erin had sent to Texas on Monday morning returned. I could hear the beep-beep-beep it made as it backed up to the loading dock. Its huge door was opened and Hector Lozano and Tony Cremer began moving boxes of fruit and vegetables from the trailer into the prep room. I remembered the driver’s name was Jerry. I figured there must have been union rules forbidding him from lending a hand, because Hector and Tony didn’t seem to mind at all that he just stood there and watched.
When they were halfway through, Hector stopped unloading and began rummaging through the boxes inside the prep room. His back was to the camera, so I couldn’t see what he was doing—and then he shifted his position and I could: loading various fruits and vegetables into a single carton. When he finished, he put the box on the shelf nearest the door. It looked exactly like the box I had reached for when he slapped my hand earlier in the week.
Tony came in, moving his load to where the other boxes were stacked.
“S’okay?” he asked.
“Somos buenos,” Hector said.
We’re good? my inner voice asked. What does that mean?
Afterward, Hector rejoined Tony, and the two of them finished unloading. Jerry pulled away from the dock and parked the truck near where its bombed-out sister was sitting, still surrounded by yellow tape—POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS.
Back on the loading dock he asked Tony and Hector, “What the hell happened?” Hector explained. His English was a helluva lot better than my Spanish.
“That’s fucked up,” Jerry said. “I don’t wanna work no place where I could get blown up.”
Tony and Hector thought that was funny. Tony slapped Jerry’s shoulder.
“Who’s gonna waste a bomb blowing up a guy who sits on his fat ass all day?” he said.
“Better sittin’ than standin’ all day, amigo. Get to see some of the world, too. What do you see all day?”
“La Señorita. Now she has a nice ass.”
“Es perfecto,” Hector said.
The boys joked around some more. Instead of Erin, though, they seemed more impressed with the attributes of Maria Serra, the production manager. Apparently Erin was too skinny for their tastes.
Salsa Girl appeared a few minutes later.
“Gentlemen,” she said. “Are you still here? Go home.”
“Señorita,” Hector said, “Jerry is worried about the bomb.”
“All the more reason for you to get out of here. Listen, I don’t understand what is happening or why any more than you do, but I’ll talk to the police and by Monday maybe I can tell you something more, okay?”
Her employees agreed with Erin’s plan and they all wished each other a pleasant weekend. The three men left. I watched Erin cross from one box on her computer screen to another as she made her way back to her office. Eventually she appeared in the doorway.
“Well, that’s done,” she said. “See or hear anything interesting?”
I flashed on Tony’s and Hector’s opinion of her backside, but kept it to myself.
“Nothing, I’m sorry to say,” I said.
“Sorry to say?”
“I was looking for clues.”
“Get out of my chair.”
I did, sliding past her as she made her way behind her desk. She sat in her chair, clicked the camera boxes off her screen, and pulled up something with a lot of numbers. I sat in the chair in front of the desk.
“I’d offer you a drink,” Erin said, “except as soon as I’m done here, I’m going home to take a nap. I’m just exhausted. I have a date tonight, too.”
“Anyone I know?”
“Ian’s taking me to the Twins game.”
“Ian never takes me to the ballpark.”
“I can’t imagine why not.”
Alice appeared at the door. “Ma’am,” she said.
“Alice, you can’t still be mad at me.”
“I have to go.”
“What?”
“I need to leave. I’m sorry.”
“Alice?”
Alice wasn’t listening. She was down the corridor and gathering up her bag and jacket before Erin could leave her office.
“Alice, what’s wrong?” Erin asked.
By then Alice was out the door and jogging to her car. She drove off in a hurry.
“Family emergency?” I said.
“Her family lives in South Dakota.”
Families in South Dakota have emergencies, my inner voice said.
Only I didn’t believe it.
Erin stepped around Alice’s desk and donned the headset.
“No rest for the wicked,” she said. Into the headset she said, “Salsa Girl Salsa, how may I help you?”
* * *
I drove back to the condo using both hands. My shoulder still ached, but not nearly as much as it had. Besides, you can’t baby yourself. Well, you can, but if you do your hockey-playing pals will make fun of you. I’d rather take the pain.
It was pushing two o’clock. I had just enough time to pop the cap off a bottle of Summit Ale and wonder what I was going to make for lunch when my cell phone rang.
“McKenzie,” Alice Pfeifer said, “I need help.”
“What’s wrong?”
“You can’t tell anyone.”
“Tell anyone what?”
“Can you come to my apartment?”
“Where are you?”
She told me.
“I’m on my way,” I said. Before leaving, I went to the secret room for my SIG Sauer. Time and experience had taught me that when a pretty girl calls out of the blue asking for assistance, you’d best be prepared for anything.
* * *
I wasn’t prepared for this, though. I stepped inside Alice’s apartment after she opened the door and discovered Randy Bignell-Sax sitting on the sofa. The left side of his face was swollen, and he had a gel ice pack not unlike the one I used pressed against it. He was wearing a black sweater over a dark blue shirt; the collar of his shirt and the shoulder of the sweater seemed wet from the condensation off the ice pack.
“Let me guess,” I said. “You ran into a door.”
“McKenzie, please,” Alice said. “He’s hurt.”
I didn’t care that Randy was hurt. In fact, it gave me pleasure to see it. But Alice’s voice was filled with anguish that she was working hard to keep to herself.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I don’t know how to say it,” Randy said.
Alice sat by his side and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. He leaned against her. That gesture alone told me a great deal.
“Tell me more,” I said.
Randy tried to reply but didn’t do a very good job of it, just a lot of “what happeneds” and “you sees.”
“Randy was attacked by a drug dealer when he said that he was going to stop working for him,” Alice told me.
“Oh.”
I sat down in a chair opposite the sofa and adjusted my sling. I had the feeling this was going to be a long story.
After settling in, I watched the couple across from me. Alice still had her arm around Randy and he was resting his head against her. I thought “La Princesa Virgen and the Wastrel.” It sounded like one of those movies Harry’s wife watched on the Hallmark Channel. Not that I would know.
“Explain,” I said.
“Where should I start?” Randy said.
“Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
They both stared at me like they had heard the line before but didn’t know where. I could have told them it came from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, impressing them with my literary expertise, only I wasn’t in the mood.
“Just talk,” I said.
“New Mexico,” Randy said. “I guess it all began in New Mexico. Albuquerque. We went down there, Erin and I, to enter Salsa Girl Salsa in a contest. This was a long time ago. Eight years at least. Nine. The Scovie Awards. I guess it’s like the Oscars of the hot sauce world. And we won. First place in the fresh salsa category. Erin thought it would be good publicity for Salsa Girl, and it was. She thought it would open doors for us, and it did. We were contacted that very day by a distributor who wanted to sell Salsa Girl Salsa throughout New Mexico and Texas. The business was on its way because of that. We were able to negotiate a deal with Minnesota Foods because of that. Erin did all the negotiating because I wasn’t very good at it. She represented the company, ran the company, because—I’m not good at anything. Grandfather was right. I’m just a fuckup. I fuck up everything I touch.”
“No, you don’t,” Alice said.
“Yes, I do. Now I’m screwing up your life by involving you in all of this. I’m so sorry, Alice.”
“Don’t worry.”
Part of me was impressed by Alice’s loyalty toward her boyfriend. I wonder when that happened, my inner voice said. The rest was disgusted with Randy’s apparent disloyalty toward Alice. Wasn’t he trying to be all lovey-dovey with Salsa Girl just three days ago?
“How exactly did you fuck up this time?” I said aloud.
“McKenzie,” Alice said.
“I was approached by a man, a Mexican, Colombian, I don’t know, Hispanic,” Randy said. “In Albuquerque. This was five years ago. Erin sent me down there. She said I should make myself useful because—I never really did have much to do with running the company. My name was on the door, but that was all. I went down there—all I had to do was sign some papers for our distributor. We could have sent them through the mail, used FedEx, but looking back I realize now that Erin thought it would please my family to think I was actually involved with running the business even if I wasn’t. Anyway, his name was Alejandro Reyes. He said he had a deal for me. I told him that Erin did all the deals. He said that he and his people didn’t do business with no putas. Puta means—”
“I know what it means.”
“He said he would only deal with me. An hombre inteligente y fuerte.”
Playing to his vanity, my inner voice said.
“Go on,” I said aloud.
“He said he was willing to sell Salsa Girl all the jalapeños, all the other chilies and bell peppers we’d ever need. The price he quoted was half of what we paid in Minnesota. Plus”—Randy looked down and away—“he said there would be a little something extra in it for me. For me personally. All we’d have to do is supply the truck, pick up the fruits and vegetables in Delicias, Mexico, and take them to the Cities. Since we were already sending a truck down there once a week, it didn’t seem like a problem. I took the offer to Erin. She was impressed. My family was impressed, too, when I told them, especially because I kind of embellished the story a little.” Randy smiled, but only for a moment. “Erin agreed to accept the deal. ’Course, she never knew about the kickbacks. Anyway, now what we do, we deliver our salsa to the distributor in Texas, and our driver crosses the border, loads up the fruits and vegetables in Mexico, and brings them here. It’s a good arrangement.”
“When do we get to the drugs part?”
“McKenzie, you have to understand. I never made enough money from Salsa Girl to support myself, to pay for what I need. I’m a Bignell. I can’t live like ordinary people. My family wouldn’t give me anything, though. They cut me off years ago because—because I’m a fuckup.”
That’s already been firmly established. Get on with it.
“They were waiting for me to prove myself, prove myself worthy,” Randy said.
“What happened?” I asked.
Randy moved slightly away from Alice and adjusted his ice pack. That’s when I noticed that Reyes had not only slapped him around, he had used a knife. I crossed the room and sat on the sofa next to him. I pulled the ice pack down to take a closer look. There was a straight cut from the middle of his ear to his cheekbone. The wetness I had thought was caused by the melting ice pack was actually blood.
“Is it bad?” Randy asked. “It took forever to stop bleeding.”
“It isn’t very deep,” I said. “Not deep enough for stitches, anyway. It’s going to leave a mark, though. Think of it as a dueling scar. The chicks dig that.”
Randy smiled weakly. Alice didn’t look like she dug it at all.
“You were telling me what happened,” I said.
“Reyes came to me after we had been doing business for two, three months,” Randy said. “I was in a coffeehouse here in the Cities and I looked up and Reyes was standing there and smiling like he had been expecting to meet me all along. I asked him what he was doing there. He said he had another deal for me. A big deal just between me and him. One not involving the maldita puta.”
“I’m getting real tired of you calling my friend a whore.”
“Not me. It wasn’t me, McKenzie. It was Reyes.”
“What was the deal?”
“That he would, that we would … Reyes said he was moving his operation to the Cities. He said that I already proved I could be relied upon because we had been doing business for three months. I asked what kind of business. He said he was opening up a … he used the word ‘franchise.’”
“Selling what?”
“Heroin.”
I left Randy’s side and returned to the chair. Instead of looking at him, though, I leaned my head against the back of the chair and stared up at the ceiling.
C’mon, McKenzie, my inner voice said. You didn’t buy a ticket for this ride. All you agreed to do was help a friend of a friend keep the glue out of her locks.
“Oh, Randy,” Alice said. “Heroin?”
“When I said I was assaulted by drug dealers earlier, what did you think I was talking about?”
“I don’t know. Marijuana?”
“Look, Alice, I don’t sell it. I don’t. All I do … all I do is what Minnesota Foods does. I take the product from one place and transport it to another. That’s all. I don’t know these people. I don’t associate with them. McKenzie, Reyes said if I didn’t do what he asked, he would tell Erin about the kickbacks I was accepting. I had to do what he said, you see?”
“No, I don’t,” I said. “But go on.”
“The driver, Jerry, he doesn’t know anything about it. Reyes said that way he never looks suspicious when he passes back and forth across the border. The customs people get used to seeing him. The drugs are mixed in with the jalapeños and other stuff. He drives the truck up here. We unload the truck—I don’t. I don’t do it. Hector does. I pay him. And Tony Cremer. I hired Tony because Hector can’t always be there week after week.”
Week after week. Five years’ worth of week after week.
“They unload the truck, sort out the heroin, and put it in a box,” Randy said. “They put the box on the shelf. I take the box and deliver it to wherever Reyes tells me to. A man comes and looks in the box and gives me an envelope. That’s all I do. It’s not like I hurt anybody.”
“I gave you a key to the building,” Alice said. The way she said it, I was sure she now considered herself an accomplice.
“I told you, I’m a partner,” Randy said. “I should have a key.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I couldn’t live on what I get from the company. Honey, it was only temporary, until I could prove to my family that I wasn’t—”
“A fuckup?” I said.
This time Alice didn’t object.
“I didn’t hurt anybody,” Randy said. “It’s just business.”
People have used those words since the beginning of time to justify all manner of bullshit, my inner voice reminded me.
“If people are stupid enough to use drugs…” Randy said.
I would have gotten up and punched him in the mouth, but I didn’t have the energy. Besides, my shoulder was starting to throb.
“I’m just a middleman,” Randy said.
“Sure,” I said.
“Look, I’m doing the right thing now, okay? I’m trying to quit.”
“Except Reyes won’t let you. Will he?”
“No. I told him what happened. He doesn’t care.”
“What happened?” It was about the thirtieth time I had asked that question, though I was less concerned than I was earlier. Now I was just curious.
“I found out that Erin was trying to sell the company,” Randy said.
He glanced at Alice. Alice had removed her arm from around his shoulder and was now looking away. I had a feeling she was in the midst of reevaluating her current situation.
“I told Reyes,” Randy said. “Partly he was afraid if Central Valley International sent productivity experts to study the operation, they might learn what we were doing. Mostly, though, he was afraid CVI would move the entire operation out of the state, or insist Salsa Girl use their suppliers, and he would need to find another way to move his product across the border and up to the Cities. He said we should damage the company enough to kill the deal without putting it out of business. That’s why I poured the glue in the locks, why I dropped the rat pellets on Erin’s desk. I could have done worse, McKenzie. Much worse. All I wanted to do was make her think about what she was doing. When that didn’t work—”
“You bombed the truck,” I said.
“That was Reyes’s idea. He’s the one who gave me the dynamite. I timed it so—McKenzie, no one was supposed to be hurt. I’m sorry you were hurt.”
“Yeah, me, too. I take it you didn’t know you were being filmed at the time.”
“No.” Randy glanced at Alice again. “I didn’t know about the cameras.”
Alice left the sofa and began pacing.
“I’m glad,” she said. “I’m glad I didn’t tell you. This has got to stop.”
“Alice…”
“You said you loved me.”
“I do love you. I love you with all my heart.”
“How can you do these things and still love me?”
“Please.”
“Erin is my friend. She’s more than a friend. She’s—McKenzie, you need to believe me. I didn’t know what Randy was doing. I would have told someone if I had known.”
An innocent bystander blinded by love, my inner voice said. Her eyes wide open now.
“Randy, tell me about Erin,” I said. “What happened at the meeting yesterday?”
“She told me and my grandfather she had film that showed me putting the bomb in the truck. Erin doesn’t know about the heroin. She thought I was just trying to kill the deal with CVI, that I was working with my grandfather to bring down the market value of the company and force her to sell it to us instead. She said we were idiots because if we really did want to buy Salsa Girl all we had to do was make a fair offer. My grandfather said she was crazy. Erin said crazy or not, she was going to keep the film to herself as long as we left her alone. Grandfather said he would not submit to blackmail. Erin said he was right, she was way out of line. She brought out her cell phone and asked if she should call the police or if he wanted to do it. My grandfather was—”
“Yeah, I saw how your grandfather was.”
“Erin also said that if she ever saw me anywhere near Salsa Girl again she’d make sure I spent the next twenty years in prison. But that was just because she was angry. After she has time to think about it—I know things about her. I know plenty.”
What do you know? my inner voice asked.
“Anyway, I didn’t tell them the truth because I figured the truth was much worse than what Erin and my grandfather thought I did,” Randy said. “I was right. When we went home to Cambridge that day, my grandfather was more upset that I got caught than with what I did. He kept saying there were smarter ways to take over a company than using bombs. He blamed my parents for not teaching me better.”
Probably there’s something in Scripture explaining how it should be done, my inner voice said.
Alice moved against the wall as far away from Randy as she could get and still be in the same room with him. I thought of her ultrastrict mother, the one who didn’t want her daughter to drink. I wondered what she would think of all this.
“I called Reyes this morning,” Randy said. “I couldn’t leave Cambridge last night, so I called him this morning and arranged a meeting. I told him what happened. I told him that he couldn’t use Salsa Girl to ship his drugs anymore. I told him that I was out, too. I should have told him over the phone, because he said I was out when he said I was out. He said he was going to keep using Salsa Girl and he didn’t care if Erin knew about it or not—that was my problem. He had his men do this to me.” Randy pointed at his cheek. “He did it to prove that he was serious. Now I don’t know what to do.” He looked across the room at Alice. “I don’t know what I’m going to tell my mother.”
Alice shook her head as if she didn’t know either.
“I have a more important question,” I said. “What are you going to tell the police?”
“No,” Alice said. “No police. We can’t.”
“Alice, I think we’re way past protecting your boyfriend.”
“It’s not about Randy.”
“You don’t mean that,” Randy said.
“What he did was awful, but the police? McKenzie, if we go to the police, Erin will lose everything.”
“Think it through,” I said. “It’s heroin.”
“Erin would lose the deal with CVI. Minnesota Foods would cut her loose. All the stores—who would stock her salsa if this got out? That her company was involved in drugs? She’d be back to working farmers markets in a week. She’d be all the way back to where she’d started. And the others—what about all the others? Her employees? People who have been with her for years? They’d be out of work. Some of them, it would be hard for them to get new jobs. We can’t let that happen. Can we? McKenzie, you said you wanted to help her. This isn’t helping.”
“To hell with Erin,” Randy said. “What about me? They’ll want revenge. Reyes will come after me. He’ll come after my family. My mother.”
“Don’t play that card,” I said. “You didn’t care about your family before, did you? You expect me to believe you care about them now? Besides, your family has all the resources in the world. They can surround themselves with an army out there in Cambridge. They’ll be fine.”
“But then they’d have to know what I did. You know my grandfather. They’ll disown me.”
“Do you honestly think I care? This is all on you, man.”
“Erin. What about Erin? Alice is right. If this gets out, Salsa Girl is finished. And not just the company. Erin, too. You don’t know these people, McKenzie. Revenge is part of their business plan.”
Don’t listen to him, my inner voice said. He’s just using the threat to Erin to protect his own ass.
Except there is a threat to Erin, and it’s very real, I told myself. Erin is your friend. You can’t just allow her life to be shattered like this.
What are you going to do, McKenzie? You’re the one who had better think this through.
“How do you communicate with Reyes?” I said.
“Cell phone,” Randy said. “I never actually see him. Well, I saw him today, but that was the first time since he moved up here.”
Meaning there’s no direct evidence linking Randy to Reyes or Reyes to the heroin, I told myself. Just Randy’s word. That’ll mean next to nothing in court.
So what?
“Give me the number,” I said.
“I can do better than that.”
Randy handed me a classic burn phone, one of those prepaid flip-phones available at Target for $19.99 that you can use and then dump along with the phone number when it becomes too risky to use. I had about a dozen of them in my secret room.
No, no, no, McKenzie. Don’t you dare. This is way bigger than Salsa Girl, and you know it. Bobby told you about the heroin epidemic in the Cities. Now we know where it’s coming from. If you want to call someone, call him. Imagine how happy he’ll be.
Alice crossed the room to where I was sitting. She knelt next to the chair and took my hand in both of hers.
“Can you help her?” she asked. “Help Erin? And Randy, too.” She turned her head to look at him. He seemed so damned pathetic sitting on the sofa. “Usually he’s very caring.”
“I know some people,” I said.
Hell yes, you know some people. Bobby in Major Crimes. Harry in the FBI. Chad in the ATF. You know agents who work for the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. And cops in the Minneapolis Police Department. You know the assistant U.S. attorney, for God’s sake. Call them.
“When are you supposed to deliver the heroin?” I asked.
“Tuesday, as usual,” Randy said.
“Why Tuesday? Why not tonight? Why not sometime over the weekend?”
“I don’t know. That’s just the way Reyes does things.”
“That gives us some time, at least.”
To do what?
“Just so you know,” I said. “Whatever happens, there will be no more deliveries. None. You are officially out of the drug trafficking business. If you contact these people in any way, shape, or form from this moment forward, I’ll send you over. Do you know what I mean by that?”
“You’ll tell the police on me.”
“I might do it anyway. If I can’t figure out a way to get Erin and you out of this mess by Tuesday when Reyes expects his drugs, we’ll be forced to contact the cops to protect you, protect Erin from them. You’ll have to tell them your story and let them take it from there. Do you understand?”
“I understand, but no. I won’t do that.”
“Won’t do what?”
“Tell them about—I don’t want to go to jail.”
“Well, then we’ll just show them the film of you planting the bomb in Erin’s truck. That’s a federal crime, by the way. There’s no parole for federal crimes. Erin was right. You could get a twenty-year jolt in prison, not jail, and you’ll serve every damned day, so how ’bout it? Do you want to cooperate or not?”
“Please…”
“It’s time for you to grow up, Randy. It’s time for you to man up.” I pointed at Alice, who was watching her boyfriend with a mixture of encouragement and hope. “Be the person she needs you to be.”
Randy thought about it for a moment. “I’ll try,” he said. He was smiling at Alice when he said it. I wasn’t sure she believed him. I knew I didn’t. ’Course, the real question was whether he believed himself.
“Give me your key,” I said.
“What?”
“Your key to the Salsa Girl building. I need it.”
Randy stood. He fished his keys out of his pocket and took one of them off the chain. He gave it to me.
“McKenzie?” Alice’s voice was low and calm. For a moment, she reminded me of her boss. “Do you have a plan?”
I tossed the key into the air and caught it.
“First do no harm,” I said.
* * *
I excused myself from the apartment. Alice followed me outside to where my Mustang was parked. She hugged herself against the April chill.
“This is all my fault,” Alice said.
“None of this is your fault.”
“McKenzie, do you need to tell Erin about this?”
“About Randy? Yes, I think so.”
“Do you need to tell her about me? About what I did?”
“What did you do, sweetie?”
“I lied to her. Erin asked me not to tell anyone about Central Valley International, and I promised her I wouldn’t, but I did. I told Randy.”
“Why did you tell Randy?”
“Because we … we started seeing each other just before Thanksgiving. We kept it a secret; Randy said that Erin might not like it. He’s older than I am and charming. He wasn’t like the person in my apartment. I had never met the person in my apartment until today. He cared about me, too. McKenzie, he did. I told you, I started to tell you about my prom, about the night after my prom. McKenzie, there hadn’t been anyone else between him and Randy. I was never confident enough to be with anyone else. My mother—I don’t want to blame my mother. I blame me. But McKenzie, Erin … I never meant to hurt Erin. She’s the best friend I’ve ever had. More than a friend. She taught me … I would never have had the nerve to be with Randy if it wasn’t for Erin. Please don’t tell her.”
“I won’t, but I think eventually you will. You’re not the kind of girl who can carry something like this around with her. Sooner or later you’ll blurt it out because that’s the way you’re wired.”
“No, I won’t. I’d be too afraid.”
“You’re a good person, Alice.” I gestured at the apartment building. “Don’t let that jerk turn you into something you’re not.”
“I don’t know what to do, McKenzie. Tell me what to do.”
Kick him to the curb, my inner voice said.
“All I know is that the guy up in your apartment has nothing to give you, and he’ll squander whatever you give to him.”
I unlocked my car door and slipped inside. I rolled down the window. Alice continued to stand there, staring at her apartment building.
“For whatever it’s worth,” I said, “I’m on your side. I’d bet quite a bit that Salsa Girl is, too.”
Alice nodded her head as if she believed me.
* * *
I left Alice standing in the parking lot of her apartment building. My intention was to find Erin, either at Salsa Girl or at her home in Prospect Park. I didn’t think the kind of bad news I had was something that should be delivered over a cell phone. When I reached the intersection, though, I hesitated.
Did I really want to disturb her nap? Did I really want to ruin her date with Ian?
You’re kidding, right? my inner voice answered.
Besides, what was I going to tell her?
The truth.
I’ll need to tell her everything eventually, but why now? Besides, as a wise man once said, don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions.
Call the cops, call Bobby Dunston—how’s that for a solution?
Erin might choose that answer, too, I decided. But Alice was right; it could ruin everything she’d worked for. Besides, I had an idea that would keep her out of it. If it worked, great. If not, it would be on me and not her.
Are you sure about this?
I turned right.
* * *
I drove to Salsa Girl Salsa and parked on Pelham Boulevard where I knew the cameras couldn’t spot me. It was well past three in the afternoon, and the parking lot was empty. I sat watching the place for ten minutes anyway.
Eventually I popped the trunk and got out of the Mustang. Inside the trunk was a hoodie with the logo of the Minnesota Wild hockey team. I removed my sling, put on the hoodie, and pulled the hood up over my head. I walked a big circle around the building so the cameras wouldn’t see me until I approached the loading dock. I knew Randy’s key worked on the door next to the loading dock because I had seen him use it earlier in the week. I kept my head low so the cameras would record my figure but not my face.
I unlocked the door and stepped inside. I knew the inside cameras could now see me, so I kept my head down as I made my way to the prep room. Just inside the prep room was a shelf. On the shelf was the box that Hector Lozano had placed there. I picked it up. It was heavier than I had expected, and pain shot through my shoulder. I pretended it didn’t hurt.
I retraced my steps as I carried the box out of Salsa Girl, again keeping my head down. I stepped onto the loading dock and took the stairs to the parking lot.
Now what, I asked myself. I didn’t want the drugs found on me any more than I wanted them found in Salsa Girl. The bombed-out truck was sitting in the corner of the parking lot, yellow police tape still surrounding it.
Why not, I decided. I carried the box to the truck. I knew the cameras were now filming my back. I ducked beneath the yellow crime scene tape and moved to the wreck. I set the box down and opened it. The heroin was in the bottom of the box beneath the jalapeños, bell peppers, and tomatoes. It was sealed inside four reusable, resealable plastic bags. I bounced one in my hand and guessed its weight at a couple of pounds. Make that a kilogram since, unlike America, Mexico was on the metric system. A key equaled a thousand grams of heroin with a street value of approximately fifteen to twenty dollars a gram depending on how it was cut. The content of the bags was white, not brown or black, which meant the heroin was high grade. I was sure it went for top dollar. Multiplying four kilograms by $20, I estimated the shipment was worth approximately $80,000. That’s $80,000 a week, every week. Four million a year plus change. Twenty million bucks’ worth of heroin sold on the streets of the Twin Cities since Randy started five years ago. Unless … I wondered if, like Salsa Girl’s, Reyes’s shipments increased or decreased according to demand. People who don’t use drugs call marijuana dope. People who smoke grass call heroin dope. How much dope did America use on Super Bowl Sunday, I wondered.
I returned the heroin to the box, repacked the vegetables, and sealed it. I shoved the box behind the burned-out tire and stood back. You couldn’t see it unless you were looking for it, and I doubted the truck would be moved anytime soon; both the feds and cops were reluctant to disturb even old crime scenes.
I left the wreck and moved in a straight line until I knew I was outside the range of the cameras. I pulled down the hoodie and pulled out Randy’s burn phone. There was only one number attached to it. I clicked on the number and pressed CALL.
A man answered. He spoke in a vaguely Hispanic accent. “What?” he said.
“Let me speak to Alejandro Reyes.”
He hesitated, probably realizing that I wasn’t Randy.
“Who?” he said. “You sure you got the right number?”
“I don’t have time for this. Tell your boss that Nick Dyson called. Tell him that I just jacked his heroin shipment.”
“You did what?”
“Four keys separated into baggies. Tell him I’ll call later to ask what he wants me to do with it.”
“Wait.”
I ended the call and deactivated the phone. On the way to the condominium I nearly stopped the car on the Franklin Avenue Bridge and tossed the cell into the Mississippi River but decided, Where’s the fun in that?