19
Do you know what’s in the truck or don’t you?” my dad asks.
I stomp my feet to shake off the excess water, then open the door to my van, hop inside, and flick off the blue lights. “Not yet.”
“Whoa, whoa—hold on,” my dad says, climbing into the passenger seat. “I saw him take the truck and drive off with—”
“He didn’t take anything.”
Landing with a squish in the passenger seat, my father looks at me, then out at the empty road, then back at me. “No, I saw it—container number 601174-7. I checked the numbers myself. There’s no way you could’ve unloaded it that fast. And when I drove it out, you were following right behi—”
I close my eyes and picture the black numbers on the side of the forty-foot rust-colored container: 601174-7. At three in the morning, in the dark, it’s amazing what you can do with some black electrical tape.
“The numbers. You switched them, didn’t you?” my dad blurts. “That container Ellis just drove off with—”
“Is filled with three thousand pounds of plastic pineapples, courtesy of the controlled delivery sting operations that Customs keeps prepared for just such an occasion.”
Starting the van and noticing the exposed wires that Ellis used to hot-wire underneath, I swing the steering wheel into a U-turn and do my best to ignore the blue pulsing swirls as Timothy’s unmarked car fades behind us. Up above, the purple-and-orange sunrise cracks a hairline fissure through the black sky. The water from my clothes soaks my seat and puddles at my crotch. But as I look in the rearview mirror, it still hasn’t washed off the flecks of Timothy’s blood that’re sprayed across my cheek.
“You think this book—whatever it is—you think maybe there could be something good in it? Y’know, like, maybe we’re finally getting some good luck?” my father asks.
I turn to my dad, who’s eyeing the steering wheel and— Is he studying my hands? He turns away fast, but there’s no mistaking that gleam in his eyes. He’s anxious, but also . . . it’s almost like he’s enjoying himself.
“Lloyd, let me be clear here. There’s nothing good about this. The shipment . . . the shooting . . . everything. It’s rotten, okay? And once something’s rotten, it can never be good again.”
Surprised by my own outburst, I sit there silently, my chest rising and falling far too rapidly. I’m not stupid. I know all the emotional reasons I went chasing after my dad instead of just writing him off after the hospital. I still believe in those reasons. But that doesn’t mean I believe him.
“Cal, I promise you, I have no idea what book Ellis is after, or what’s inside that container.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I shoot back. “We’re about to get our answer.”
20
Here?” my father asks, looking inside the dark doorway. Our clothes were soaked from the water, but he’s still fidgeting with the spare dry T-shirt and jeans I always keep stored in the van. “Y’sure?”
I nod, holding open the door with no doorknob and thankful that the punch-code lock is still so easy to jimmy. Inside the old warehouse, the walls are bare and peeling, while each corner hosts a small hill of crumpled newspapers and garbage. Up high, the few horizontal windows are shattered. And the sign out front carries the spray-painted love note “LO” (a gang-inspired tag that means “Latinos Only” just in case anyone misses the welcome mat).
But as I flick a switch and the fluorescent lights blink to life, they reveal what we’re really after: the navy blue container with black tracking number 601174-7 painted across its back. Beached like a metal whale, it rests its tail against the narrow loading dock that runs along the back of the room.
“You sure it’s safe?” my father asks, racing for the container.
He’s missing the point. The warehouse may be decorated in modern dungeon, but that’s the goal. Hidden under layers of fake corporate names, this place is owned by the U.S. government.
We— They. They own them all around the city: fake warehouses that ICE, Customs, and the FBI can use for whatever sting operations they happen to be running. When Timothy offered to have the container delivered here, I thought he was doing me a favor. All he was really doing—once he presumably got rid of me and my dad—was swiping it for himself.
“So you don’t think Ellis knows this’s here?” my father asks.
“If he did, you really think he’d’ve driven off with a truck full of plastic pineapples? Now c’mon—I figure we’ve got an hour on him. Time to see what’s behind door number two.”
“Y’sure there’s no door number three?” my father moans forty-five minutes later, up to his knees in the rancid smell of slowly melting frozen shrimp.
Back in the day, I’d have half a dozen agents burrow to the center of a four-thousand-pound container, send in the dogs, and empty whatever looked suspicious, all within twenty minutes. I don’t have half a dozen agents. Or dogs. I have my dad, and all my dad has is a gunshot wound and a bad back.
“Y’okay?” I ask, walking backward and dragging yet another fifty-pound carton of shrimp out the back doors of the truck, onto the ledge of the loading dock.
My father nods, nudging the carton with his foot so he doesn’t have to bend over. But the sun is up—it’s nearly seven a.m., and the warm air is baking us in the seafood stench—I can see it reflecting off the sweat on his face.
“Halfway through,” I tell him.
With a sharp kick, he sends the newest box toward the maze of cartons that crowd the left half of the loading area. On a small radio in the corner, he put on the local Paul and Young Ron morning show. Still, my dad’s not laughing. From the hospital to being up all night, he’s had it. But as he turns my way, he suddenly looks oddly . . . proud.
“When’d you start wearing it facing in?” he asks.
“Excuse me?”
“Your watch,” he says, pointing to the inside of my wrist. “You wear it facing in.” He then lifts his arm so his palm and the face of his own watch are aimed at me. “Me, too,” he says. “Funny, huh?”
I look down at my watch, then over at his. Both are cheap. Both are digital. Both have nearly identical thick black bands.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” I insist.
“N-No, I know—I just meant—”
“It’s a stupid coincidence, okay, Lloyd? Now can we drop it and finish unloading the rest of this?”
I squat down and tug another wet box full of shrimp toward my dad. Using his foot like a broom, he sweeps it along and adds it to the pile.
“You’re right,” he says. “We need to focus on what’s important.”
“Okay, now what?”
“Just gimme a sec,” I say, shoving aside the last box and staring into the now completely empty container.
“I don’t think we have a sec,” my dad replies as he turns his wrist and stares down at his watch.
I glance down at my own, ignoring the slight throb of my dog bite. He may be right. Outside, there’s a siren in the distance. This neighborhood hears them all the time. But I can still picture Ellis’s blue lights pulsing in the dark. We don’t have much time.
Of the seventy-six cartons we pulled from the container, all are the same size, same shape, and, from what we can tell, same weight. And as they melt in the Florida heat, each one has a slowly growing puddle beneath it.
“You were hoping one of them wouldn’t be packed with ice?” my dad asks.
“Something like that. Anything to save us from opening and digging through each one.”
“Maybe one of them has a tattooed frozen head in it. Or someone’s brain.”
“A tattooed head?”