‘Miguel Salazar shot Billy. He’s in the passenger seat next to me. He’s dead.’
‘John, where are you?’
‘Off the side of the road up in the Juarez.’
‘Takado is dead?’
She didn’t seem to get it. Marquez stared at a car approaching and reached for the gun. The car passed as Sheryl went on about the Mex Feds, repeating that she had talked to them all day.
‘They picked you up when you crossed the border. They tracked you the whole way. They had officers at the bull ring. Just stay where you are,’ she said. ‘I’ll call you back. I’ve got to talk to Boyer.’
Marquez knew what Boyer, their ASAC, the Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge, would do. He’d kick the decision upstairs to the SAC, Special Agent-in-Charge, Jay Holsten, who ran the LA Field Office, and Marquez could guess Holsten’s reaction.
After hanging up with Sheryl, he worked the seatbelt so Billy’s body wouldn’t slide down anymore. He made sure Billy’s door was locked and then stood outside in the late sunlight looking in at Billy as he waited for her call back. He’d pushed Billy to make the meeting happen. Billy had reservations. Billy worried on the ride over.
‘Holsten does not want you to move the body. That’s an order, John. You’re to wait there. The Mex Feds are on the way.’
‘Tell Boyer and Holsten I’m headed to Tijuana. Ask our agents in Tijuana to drive toward me. I want witnesses when I turn over the car and Billy’s body.’
‘You’re going to make it worse.’
He looked at Billy. Takado just wanted to live his life. He didn’t want to go to jail again. He overplayed his connections with the Salazars and I knew, Marquez thought. I should have seen. I’m sorry, Billy. I’m so sorry.
‘You need to stay where you are.’
Marquez registered that and answered, ‘Tell Holsten that I said it was too dangerous to wait.’
‘John, listen to me, you’ve got to stay there. You can’t move the body. The Mex Feds want you to stay where you are.’
The fuck if he was going to sit here and wait for the guys who’d already burned them once today. He broke the connection and as he pulled back on to the road Billy slid down in the seat. Marquez turned the air conditioner on full and lowered the rear windows halfway.
Billy Takado lived alone. He didn’t have any children. He didn’t have anybody. He was the son of a Japanese father who’d immigrated to the US and a Mexican mother who lived just long enough to see her son do a five-spot for cocaine trafficking. She missed the next bust and Billy cutting a deal with the DEA.
When Marquez came out of the mountains he killed the air conditioner and drove with all of the windows down. The wind carried away the smells. It carried dry mesquite, creosote, and sun-baked desert rock. He kept checking the rear view mirror and up ahead the sky purpled with dusk. He ignored the satellite phone’s ring and kept going until he ran into a Mex Fed roadblock. They pointed their guns and when he resisted handcuffs they got angry.
But they were angry anyway. The big gringo didn’t know what they were up against or what it was to fight the narco trafficantes. Americans only cared about Americans and no one liked the Drug Enforcement Administration with its attitude and agents who couldn’t even speak Spanish and came from a country full of drug users yet complained about drugs.
The Mex Feds locked him in the back of a car, and then went through the Cadillac. In Tijuana they interrogated him until 3:00 in the morning and barred anyone from the Tijuana DEA office from seeing him. Tonight, on principle, he was a suspect caught trying to escape with a body, presumably to dispose of it, presumably because he worked for the Salazar Cartel. The officers who questioned him promised that whether or not he killed Takado he would do prison time in Mexico for moving Takado’s body. That much was a certainty, and when they became confident that his Spanish was fluent they worked another more elaborate theory.
At dawn they let him use a toilet and then a sink to wash Billy’s blood off his arms. They returned his badge and gun, but couldn’t find his Rolex or sunglasses, although the captain in charge promised to get them back to him. The captain carefully copied down an address to mail them to. By mid morning the issue between the DEA and the Mexican Federal Judicial Police was reduced to one of miscommunication, a natural problem of working together under difficult conditions.
That said, the Mex Feds voiced doubt about Agent Marquez’s judgment. Fleeing with Takado’s body suggested a lack of operational capacity. They speculated that Marquez’s general decision making had compromised the undercover operation. It was understood that Marquez was unwelcome now in Mexico as a DEA agent. Additionally, it was agreed that Marquez might need to be questioned again as the Mex Fed investigation progressed. They asked that Agent Sheryl Javits also be reprimanded for accusations she made yesterday and Jay Holsten, head of the LA DEA Field Office, agreed to that, though he wouldn’t think of doing that to her. Nor would he ever send Marquez back to Tijuana. They could bring their questions here.
A Mex Fed captain explained the conditions of release to Marquez. As he finished, the captain added that the Cadillac would get returned after the Mexican Federal Judicial Police concluded their investigation. They drove Marquez to the San Ysidro Puerta and he walked to US Customs with the copies of the 52s because he had never told them how they came into his possession.
Two of his squad, Ramon Green and Brian Hidalgo, were waiting at Customs. Like Marquez they were fully engaged in the drug war and on the drive back to LA Marquez recounted how it went down. After listening, Green and Hidalgo rationalized Billy Takado’s death, guessing that Takado’s nervousness was because he knew the man who delivered the papers to Marquez might be present. Point being, that Billy Takado like many snitches may have tried to play both sides. Marquez didn’t see it that way and said so as they drove north in traffic. This was on a bright clear June morning in 1989, the same day the world watched a student in China face down a tank in Tiananmen Square.
THREE
Marquez’s SAC, Holsten, had the nickname ‘Lockjaw’ for the way he worked his facial muscles when he was angry but restraining himself. Right now, he looked like he was chewing gum as he waited for an answer.
‘Agent Javits relayed the order for you to park and wait for the Mex Feds, but you didn’t do that. You ignored the calls made to you and drove nearly all the way back to Tijuana. Is that correct?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Don’t keep giving me this short answer wounded hero crap, Marquez. You’re feeling sorry for yourself, but what happened is you screwed up and I want to know why.’
Holsten paused.
‘What I should do is suspend you. You gave the Mex Feds a way to paint you into the picture and an excuse not to investigate. They’re telling us they don’t want you in the country again in an undercover capacity, so you tell me how you’ll ever run your squad again if you can’t operate undercover in Mexico. Have you got an answer for that?’
Marquez was quiet a moment, then said, ‘The Mex Feds sent the message yesterday that the Salazar brothers carry more weight with them than we do. They signed off on killing Billy Takado so long as the DEA agent didn’t go down as well.’
‘If the newsflash is there’s corruption in Mexican law enforcement, that doesn’t come close to explaining what happened. Where did they get the personnel forms they handed you? Why did you disobey an order? Do you want to know what the Mex Feds think? They think you didn’t stop and wait because you’re on the Salazars’ payroll and you were driving Takado’s body back to Tijuana so it could be thrown in a vat of acid.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘It’s what they’re saying. They believe you had the Fifty-twos, the personnel forms, with you and nothing was given to you in the bull ring.’