“You?” I shrug, exhausted from my bout of self-expression. “How should I know? Why don’t you tell me?”
“Don’t you know already?”
“I can guess.”
“Well if you don’t know, and you haven’t asked, then why don’t you stop making assumptions? And while you’re at it, you can stop with the little digs you’re always making, because I’ve had it up to here and the last thing I need on top of everything else is your constant annoying buzz in my ear. All right?”
“Sure thing.”
Now I’m the one who needs to hit something. As much as I’d like to, at least with words, all the lines that come to mind are variations on the same bitter theme: it’s your fault I’m here in the first place. And why is it her fault? Because given the choice, I decided to spend the afternoon with her rather than do my job. What can I say? It made sense at the time.
But I can already hear her retort – how is that my fault? – and of course she’d be right. Not only that, but in making the argument I’d reveal something more pathetic about myself than my half-baked views on God and the universe.
My loneliness.
“That’s all you have to say?” she asks.
I nod. “That’s it. Or do you want me to apologize? I’m sorry for goading you. Won’t let it happen again.”
“Are you mocking me?”
“I’m just trying not to annoy you.”
“Well,” she says, “you could sure use the practice.”
The drunk girl at the Paragon comes back to me, the one with the glittering eyelids. Marta said she had bruises all over, like she’d been slapped around. But I didn’t do that, did I? The truth is, I can’t remember exactly what I did, or most of what I said. It was like someone else was doing it through me. I don’t know what happened. Like one of our notorious inner-city witnesses, I didn’t see nothing.
My first glimpse of James Fontaine inspires some hope. He looks ready to crack. The Harris County Sheriff ’s Department team, a bunch of armed linebackers with shaved heads and mirrored sunglasses, nudges his black BMW X3 to the curb near the intersection of West Little York and Antoine, maybe a mile away from the Northwest Freeway. Our car is near the back of the convoy, tagging behind the surveillance truck.
They drag him out of the driver’s seat, bend him over the hood, then do a quick search of the vehicle, going straight for the back compartment, where they find a vinyl flight bag with a Puma logo, right where they knew it would be. A squat surveillance officer in baggy jeans records everything with a handheld video camera.
We thread our way through the flashing lights, coming alongside the X3. When he sees us, one of the deputies hands the bag to Cavallo, who’s just pulled on a pair of gloves. She plops it on the hood across from Fontaine, slowly fingering the zipper.
James Fontaine is a lanky black kid of about seventeen, handsome in a boyish way, wearing a G-Unit polo that’s actually been pressed – the creases are still visible down the length of the sleeves. He looks about as thug as a clean-cut suburbanite whose knowledge of the street comes mainly from the media can. Now that he’s in custody, he makes no pretense to being a hard man. His eyes alternate between watching Cavallo unzip the bag and clamping tight in prayer, like he’s trying to make the contents miraculously disappear.
Watching him sweat, a thought occurs to me. If he’s just made a buy, then he had no idea he was under surveillance, which means he hasn’t intentionally been avoiding the secret location where he’s stashed Hannah Mayhew. The odds that this kid has her locked up somewhere are thin to none. But maybe he knows something that can help. Cavallo peers inside the bag. “Wow, James. I guess you just re-upped, huh? You must have quite a little operation going.”
I lean over for a look. Inside, a one-pound brick of what I’m guessing is Mexican schwag. Not the finest herb, but given the quantity there’s going to be no trouble calling this possession with intent to distribute.
I lean over the hood to get him eye level. “Partner, you just stepped in it.”
“That’s not mine,” he says halfheartedly.
“So your fingerprints aren’t going to be all over it?” I point to the cameraman, who waves at Fontaine. “This gentleman here with the camera has been watching your every move. That means we’ve got every step of the process, from the time you picked up the bag and put it in your hatchback to right now.”
He drops his head and starts sniffling. When he lifts it, sure enough there are tears streaking his cheeks. “Aw, come on, man,” he says, begging with his eyes. “You gotta be kidding me. It’s just weed, that’s all it is. It’s like, what, a misdemeanor, right? You don’t gotta call out the swat team and everything on account of something like this.”
Cavallo dumps the brick onto the hood. “We’re talking about a pound here, James, not a gram. That’s possession with intent. You divide this up into ounces and hand it out to your little dealin’ friends, is that it?”
“Look at that brown brick weed,” I say, nudging the plastic-wrapped packages. “I wouldn’t make brownies out of that. It’s a shame to go down for such low-quality product.”
The insult dries his tears a little. He’s about to protest when one of the Sheriff ’s Department men takes his arm. “Come on, G-Unit. Let’s read you your rights.”
They Mirandize the kid, then put him in the back of a cruiser to sweat. Once he’s stowed away, we all gather for an impromptu powwow around the BMW’s hood, everybody looking to Cavallo for direction.
“This isn’t about building a case,” she says. “The clock is ticking, and if that boy knows anything we need to get it out of him fast. If that means he walks on the drug charge, are any of us going to lose sleep over that?”
Headshaking all around. If there are any qualms in the group, they go unexpressed. Cavallo notices the surveillance guy’s camera.
“That thing’s not on, is it?” she asks.
Everybody laughs.
“Okay, so let’s get him into an interview room and see what happens.”
As the team packs up, I wander over to the unit where Fontaine sits. He leans his shoulder against the rolled-down window, sipping air through an inch-wide gap in the glass.
“You all right back there?”
“It’s pretty hot.”
“Yeah,” I say. “It’ll only get worse.”
The Northwest interview room is surprisingly spacious and well appointed. The table has all four legs, the chairs match, and the stains on the floor look dry and non-toxic. There’s even cold air blowing from the registers overhead. Fontaine slumps forward, his head resting on the table. We observe from the room next door, where the video feed is channeled onto a monitor. Lieutenant Mosser sits just to the side, where she can study the image closely, while Villanueva stands in the back corner, arms folded, signaling his unwillingness to get in the way.
“He’s not sleeping, is he?” Wanda asks.
Cavallo leans closer. “Sounds like he’s crying.”
There’s an old saw about the interview room: Whoever sleeps while he’s waiting for the detectives is obviously guilty; only the innocent are plagued by fears. I don’t put much stock in that kind of thing. Leave people in a bare room for long enough and they’ll do all kinds of strange things.
“What do you think this kid can give us?” I ask.
Wanda studies me a moment. “That’s what you’re going to find out, Roland. You think you can handle that?”
“Never mind him,” Cavallo says, taking my arm. “Come on.”
When we pop open the interview room door, Fontaine gives us an apprehensive smile. Cavallo takes the seat across from him, and I sit on the corner, cheating my chair over a bit so that I’m technically on his side. He isn’t sure which one of us to face, so he splits the difference.
We begin with small talk, Cavallo asking about his nice car, what his parents do for a living, how he likes school and what he thinks about his classes. His recent suspension for drug possession is glossed over – only happy or neutral topics for now. Hannah Mayhew isn’t mentioned. His answers are tentative at first, but the more questions she pitches across the plate, the more he loosens up and enjoys hitting them. This isn’t so bad, he’s probably thinking. He might just get through this.