She could only make it as far as the elevator bank before she began sobbing.
Fucking fuck. So stupid. So weak. Blowing up like that.
She paced down the blurry hall to the bathroom, banged into a stall, and sat down.
You daffy bitch.
The quiet emptiness of the bathroom, the building, made her bawl the more. She wasn’t threatening him. She fucking wasn’t. She was trying to explain why he could trust her. All her life she just wanted to be where she mattered, where her choices carried weight. And Dufresne was pushing her out now, she could feel it, that deep lonesome, that pit that made her restless to be in the action, to be at the center of something, anything, just use me, make me useful, and the only answer is the quiet and nothing and nothing means nothing—
“Agent Harbaugh?” came a voice outside the stall, hard off the tile. “Are you in there?” The voice softer now.
Harbaugh spun some toilet paper into her hand and wiped her face and nose.
Get it together, woman.
“Yeah. Yes. Who’s asking?”
“I’m sorry, I saw you go in and was waiting, but well, after a little while I came in and . . .”
“Hon. Out with it.”
“There’s a call.”
“No. Not now.”
“It’s just that he keeps calling back over and over.”
“Hold on.”
She looked at the snotty paper in her hand and she shuddered out the last of her urgent angry lonesome tragic sadness—put that shit in a box!—and stood and straightened herself and stepped out. A woman in a long pencil skirt was just inside the doorway, halted mid-departure. Strawberry hair. An awkward sympathy, a sympathetic awkwardness, something, whatever.
“Get in here,” Harbaugh said.
“He’s on the landline, actually.”
“He keeps calling over and over, you said, get in here.”
The woman stepped inside, and Harbaugh went to the sinks. The woman stood behind her and watched Harbaugh in the mirror as she scrubbed her face, tied up her hair. Harbaugh looked her in the eye the whole time.
“What’s your name?”
“Cynthia.”
“Want some advice?”
The woman looked at the door and then back at Harbaugh. Kind of a rube, this one. Citizen of NorCal?
“I feel like I should?”
“Stay at the track,” Harbaugh said.
“I’m sorry?”
“It’s a nice day. The horses are ready to run. Get a beer and bet the ponies, Cindy.”
“Cynthia.”
Harbaugh nodded. “So who is it?” she asked.
“Huh?” Forget NorCal, probably Nevada. You could see tumbleweeds in the thought bubble over her head.
“On the phone, hon.”
“Oh! A Mr. Travis? From Mexico? Says he’ll only talk to Agent Diane Harbaugh.”
“Right. Mr. Travis,” Harbaugh said wryly, wiping her eyes again. She adjusted her T-shirt, which was bunched up on her shoulder. She had a look at herself. Her flushed face, her blue eyes gone puffy.
“You like this T-shirt?” she asked. Cynthia wore a cardigan against the air conditioning, small pearl earrings, and a nice thin watch. She looked relieved, even pleased, to have an answer to this question.
“Oh, I do,” she said. “I love Jane’s Addiction.”
Tumbleweeds, trailers, whiskey Cokes. Reno. A hundred dollars says she’s pure uncut Reno.
She didn’t want to see Dufresne again or anyone from the team, so she took the call at the duty desk. Two desks with a shitty view southeast of downtown. Helicopters hovering. News and PD both. She figured she’d take the call and then . . . well, what? Something. Could take your own advice and go bet the ponies. Could fly somewhere. Throw a dart at a map.
But—and the thought came suddenly—who would she go with?
Her father dust and ashes set loose by her one summer day five years ago on Mount Elbert. Her mother with maybe not even six months sobriety this time. Camping out in her guest room wouldn’t help her stave off the jones for vikes and vodka. Her stepfather, fuck that. It’d been at least a decade. Her exes, double-fuck that. Thinking about any of them made her want to laugh.
Meaning, you got nobody.
Which’s nothing new.
So pick up the phone. Do the thing, you bad bitch you—
“Hello,” she said. “Mr. Travis?”
“Is this Agent Harbaugh?”
“Yes.”
“Diane Harbaugh?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know me,” he said.
No shit.
“No, I don’t.”
“I’m not calling at random. So I’d appreciate it if you didn’t hang up on me again.”
“This is the first we’ve spoken.”
“Yeah, but I’ve been disconnected more times—”
“Sir, I’m on the line. I’m here now.”
Christ.
“Right,” he said, clearing his throat. “So this gentleman came by my office, and he asked me to call you. Well, more like demanded.”
“What gentleman?”
“Now, that I don’t know exactly. He will not say his name. I’ve tried to get it over and over.”
“Okay, that’s a little strange.”
She took a pen from a cup of them and slid a notepad in front of her. Flipped to a blank page.
“What I think, too. But he is sitting right here across from me, still shaking his head no.”
“Okay, fine. Can I talk to him then?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but he won’t take the phone.”
She scoffed. What the hell am I supposed to do, dude?
“Okay, well, what are we doing here?”
“I’m calling from Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico. He says . . .” She could hear him muffling the phone, then bringing it back. “Says, ‘El Capataz necesita su ayuda. Está listo.’ That make sense, or you need me to translate?”
El Capataz. The Foreman. She didn’t need a translator. But it didn’t make sense either.
“No, I got it.”
“Ma’am? What he’s asking is, do you remember him?”
“Hold on, Mr. Travis,” she said.
She pressed the space bar on the woman’s computer and the LCD display lit up, but of course she wasn’t logged in.
“I’ve been on hold for a good while already—”
“I’ll stay on the line. I just need a second. All right?”
“Okay, but hurry.”
Rather than risk disconnecting him with the hold button, she set the phone down on the desk. She got up and looked down the hall. She found Cynthia standing in front of the open refrigerator, sniffing and discarding old takeout.
“Cindy? Cynthia. Do you have access to TILLER?”
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“Come here.”
They were a few moments logging Cynthia out of her machine, logging Harbaugh in, opening the TILLER database. Cynthia bent over the keyboard, Harbaugh sitting on the desk, her hand over the receiver.
“Type in ‘El Capataz.’”
“In the Known Aliases field?”
“Yep.”
“Didn’t sound like a given name.”
“Nope,” Harbaugh said, and then picked up the phone. “Mr. Travis?”
“I’m here.”
“Just another second, okay?”
She watched the database load. Several names. Nothing familiar.
“He wants you to come down here,” Travis said.
“I’m sorry?”
“He wants to meet face-to-face.”
“In Tampa— Where again?”
“Tampico. Tamaulipas, Mexico.”
She covered the receiver.
“Cross-reference Tampico, Mexico,” she said to Cynthia, then into the receiver, “Tamaulipas?”
“Yes. Tomorrow.”
At that she laughed outright. No way she was going to fly down to Mexico off of some random call. She couldn’t.
“Call me back at this number with your flight information, and I’ll get a car,” Travis said.
Or could you?
“Hold on now. There’s a protocol for this sort of thing.” Loads of protocol. Approvals. Dufresne would have to—
Cynthia turned the monitor around for her to see. No names.
“And I’m not empowered to simply meet with, well, who? And I don’t even know what this is regarding.”
“Hang on,” Travis said. He was holding the phone away. She heard some muffled talk. “He says you gave him your card. He says you should remember him.”
“What’s his actual name, Mr. Travis?”
Cynthia looked at her, hands over the keys, ready to type in whatever Harbaugh heard.
“He says to come alone. Tomorrow. I have to go.”
“I need to know who he is.”
“Please just call me back with that flight info,” Travis said, “and I’ll take care of the rest. I’m being told to hang up now.”
“Wait!”
The line went dead.
“Hung up?” Cynthia asked.
Harbaugh looked out the window at the helicopters at their stationary positions in the sky, motionless save for their blurred rotors. At the end of the chase.
“What do you want to do?” Cynthia asked.
She thought about going to the airport, the idea of it, of getting on a plane, of leaving for Tampico, of leaving for anywhere. The traffic. How long things take.
She couldn’t remember meeting the guy. But meet, they did. She set the phone back in its cradle and stood.
“Let’s pull some files,” she said, setting the phone back in the cradle. “I’m feeling lucky.”