‘It’s not the Salazars he’s afraid of. He said he was working on his plane when this all got started and he got an unexpected and what he described as a spooky visit. I showed him a sketch I carry.’
Marquez took a long pull of beer and debated coming clean with her about what he’d done in Tijuana to Miguel Salazar. But that would make a problem for her. It wasn’t fair, though it was strange to carry around something you knew was going to end your career. He put the beer down, got up and fished out a folded piece of paper from his jacket, then sat down next to Sheryl.
‘What’s that?’ she asked.
‘A sketch.’ He unfolded it and showed her Stoval’s face. ‘That’s who Weaver ID’ed.’
‘Where did you get that?’
‘Kerry Anderson.’
‘And you’re carrying it around. What’s happening to you?’
‘Something inside snapped,’ he said and smiled and she couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.
They talked about the bust now, ran the highlights over a second beer and turned the TV back on. A late night newscast covered the bust and showed the almond orchards, the Sherpa, delivery trucks, the storage buildings and house as the announcer quoted Holsten calling it a major blow to the Salazar Cartel.
‘I’ll be there when Rayman gets sentenced,’ Sheryl said. She began to wind down. She turned the TV off and looked at Marquez. She could read his face. She could read the quiet. She knew he was thinking about Osiers but she wanted him to put his arms around her in this motel in the middle of nowhere.
They finished the beer. They needed to be out of here before dawn. They needed to be at E.J. Jones amp; Sons before the owner got there and unlocked the doors tomorrow morning, and she saw John was fading. The moment was fading. She knew he’d spent a lot of adrenaline today. Only John could have come up with the plane idea. She saw he needed to sleep but said, ‘I’m going down to my room to grab the warrant. I want to check it again. I’ll be right back.’
‘Take my room key. It’s on top of the TV.’
She scooped it up. She went down to her room and stared at herself in the mirror, looked for the answer there before retrieving the warrant. She didn’t really need to look at it. It was all there. They were set for tomorrow. When she went back to John’s room and let herself in, he was lying on his back on the bed with his eyes closed.
‘Hey, you didn’t go to sleep on me, did you?’
‘No, I’m here.’
But he was groggy. He’d be asleep in minutes. She shut the door softly and leaned over him, search warrant still in her hand, her heart fluttering. She watched his chest rise and fall, watched him fall asleep and knew she should leave and go to her room. She knew that absolutely. She knew that was the right thing to do, but threw the second lock on the door instead, took her jeans off, got on the bed, and sat cross-legged, looking at his face, her thighs cool in the night air, John’s face still and statue like. He made her think of her mother telling her in her cryptic way that if she made a career in law enforcement there wouldn’t be opportunity for her. She might never have a family was what her mother was saying, and Sheryl had shaken that off. She lived in a different world than her mother. She’d been sure of that, and now she was thirty-four and single and her mother was dead.
She could wake him. She could touch him, arouse him, and get on top of him. Instead, she watched him sleep. She knew what the rules for agents were. She didn’t even have her pager with her. Her gun was back in the room. She knew all the rules for agents and yet she wrapped the bedspread over them and laid down alongside him and smiled as he stirred, rolled on his side and wrapped an arm around her. She undid his shirt, her fingers working quietly, slowly. She put her face against his warm skin and smelled him and closed her eyes.
She didn’t want to be anywhere else. A couple of tears leaked out from under her eyelids and she moved her hand up very slowly and touched the skin wet with tears. She didn’t want them to wake him. She pressed her hand on his chest. She felt his heart beating. She felt more tears wet the back of her hand and was afraid it was all coming apart now and what should happen with her and John never would. There had been a moment and the moment was sliding by. John was going somewhere else. He blamed himself for Billy Takado getting killed. It was the sketch of Stoval he was carrying. John was on a different road now. She could feel it and pressed her face softly against his chest. She closed her eyes again and tried to make it different, feeling the warmth of his skin and listening to his heart.
SEVENTEEN
The next morning at the warehouse of the distributor, E.J. Jones amp; Sons, they found employees milling around out front waiting for the owner to arrive and unlock as he did every day. His name was Jim Jones, like the Kool-Aid preacher, and he pulled up in a black Porsche Roadster and sat a long time in the car looking at their DEA jackets. Marquez left him alone and let him adjust to their presence in his own way. Jones was white-haired, well-groomed and acted stunned that the DEA was here. As his employees watched, he made a good run at being indignant.
‘Big mistake,’ he told Marquez and pointed a finger. ‘My father started this business thirty-five years ago and everyone here knows that what we do is distribute for Mexican manufacturers. They bring it to the border and we contract with US trucking firms to get their products where they need to go. You’re wasting more taxpayer money this morning. It’s no surprise we’re losing the war on drugs.’
‘We’re going to search your building, sir.’
Jones unlocked and said, ‘I’ll be in my office.’
‘I’d rather you wait here for the moment.’
‘I’ve got calls to make, but I guess you wouldn’t know anything about running a business.’
‘No, but I’ve wrecked a few. Just stick out here with us for an hour or so.’
Marquez left him with Sheryl and walked row after row of the shelving with shrink-wrapped product on pallets. The air was cool and smelled of concrete and the diesel the forklifts used. Above them, the metal roof creaked and groaned as the day heated. They searched and found nothing. At mid morning, after they knew it wasn’t going to come easy, if at all, Hidalgo drove into Calexico and picked up coffee and a box of donuts. Then they all met in the middle of the building.
‘Maybe I got it all wrong,’ Marquez said, ‘but I really don’t feel like apologizing to this guy yet.’ He picked up one of the extra coffees and looked around at the squad. ‘Let’s go take another look at that room in back where they box product.’
The room held packing machinery and they’d looked it all over earlier, but not opened anything. Marquez put his coffee down and used a knife to cut into a pallet of folded cardboard boxes. He folded back the heavy protective paper, cut the bands, and pried one loose so he could read the label.
‘Here we go,’ he said, and worked one of the folded boxes fully loose. He held it up and showed the KZ Nuts emblem. ‘They package and load here.’
No one responded because the owner had already told them KZ grew and shipped more than almonds. Some of the nuts were grown in Mexico, so no big deal. They were bound to have boxes. Still, the squad came over for a look and Green knocked over Marquez’s coffee.
‘Sorry.’
Marquez watched the coffee drain slowly under the pallet, thinking he really wanted that coffee. Then he heard dripping. The coffee had spilled on a concrete slab, so what was dripping? He got down and looked under the pallet. Couldn’t see that well, got up, walked over to a forklift, drove it back and lifted the pallet away, exposing a hinged steel lid, roughly three feet by three feet. He parked the forklift, walked back and then heard a sound below, a man coughing and voices. Marquez motioned everyone back, grabbed the handle and lifted the trap door.
A man wearing a backpack stood on a metal rung blinking at the light and smiling. Beneath him was another man and Marquez said, ‘ Hola,’ and waved them up. One after another, ten came out with their loads of cocaine. They separated them, busted them, got statements and arrested the owner pending charges.