“As your number one importer of illegal substances.”
“ ‘The giant nose to the north,’ we say. It is just confronting violence with violence. In an illegal market, the natural tendency is toward monopoly, and beyond the rule of law, all that is left is violence. On the other hand, this is also a big fat check for corrupt Mexican military and police to stuff in their pockets. Most federales make less than a worker at McDonald’s. Drug cartels pay no taxes, but more than the equivalent in bribes to mayors, prosecutors, governors, state and federal police. I’m forgetting the army and navy.”
Fisk said, “This accord will cut the purse strings.”
“You have to go after the money. The product is plentiful and cheap. Very cheap until it gets across the border, when the cost of doing business rises and rises. It is the money coming back—often in the same shipping containers the drugs go north in—that needs to be intercepted. The blood flowing back to the heart—that is where the knife blade must go.”
Fisk’s eyebrows shot up at the gory image. Garza winced.
“Sorry,” she said. “What about you?”
“About me? You can look me up on Wikipedia.”
“Yes?” She smiled. “Is it accurate?”
“No.” His turn to smile. “What about you?”
“Am I on Wikipedia?” she asked.
“I don’t know. We could check.”
“Don’t,” she said.
“So?”
She squirmed a little.
“You don’t like talking about yourself. I imagine there’s quite a story in there. How you ended up doing this kind of work,” he said.
Her eyes darkened. She actually looked pained.
“I’m not putting the thumbscrews on you,” he said. “We’re just making conversation. I think.”
She seemed to be trying to maintain her formidable front. But cracks were forming, as though she was getting tired of the strain.
After a moment she said, “Okay. Yes. There is a story.”
Then she clammed up again.
“Waiting.” Fisk let a hint of a smile appear on his lips.
She seemed to be considering whether she wanted to open up to him or not. Before she could make up her mind whether to answer him, the server arrived and showed Garza the label, unscrewed the cork from the bottle of San Felipe, poured a bit, let her taste. She smiled and nodded, and he completed her pour, and Fisk’s. He asked about food, but they demurred. He came with a bowl of glorified Chex mix and left them talking over a hissing candle.
Fisk watched Garza drink. She appreciated the vintage, closing her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, there was the barest gleam showing.
“Your English is very good,” said Fisk, trying to start her off. “Schooling?”
“My father went to graduate school here. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. So he sent me to the American school in Mexico City.”
Fisk took another sip of wine and then set the glass aside so he could focus on her. “It must be hard, though. There can’t be many people like you in the Mexican police.”
“Like me?”
“Female. Incorruptible. At your level.”
She shrugged, tossing that away.
“I get it,” said Fisk. “I’ll stop. I’m not in the habit of talking about myself much either. That counselor I mentioned, the therapist. Like pulling teeth with pliers. Something about it. As though once I start talking about myself, I’ll overindulge and that will be all I talk about.”
“It’s lonely.”
“Therapy?”
“No. The job. For me. You asked.”
“Lonely, yeah.” He nodded. “It’s lonely as hell sometimes.”
“You found someone on the force you could confide in.”
Fisk nodded, trying not to look forlorn. The candlelight, the red wine, the lounge chatter around them.
“I envy that very much,” she said. “I have never found such a person.”
“Never?”
“I’ve dated. A few men in Mexico City over the years. But they were always lawyers, dentists. Once a political functionary—never again.” A brief smile. “Somehow they all seemed like boys—smooth, soft, talky—but when it came right down to it, barely competent to cross a street safely. You can say what you will about the men in my unit, the ones I surround myself with . . . but they are men.”
“None for you?” he said.
She shook her head strenuously. “I cannot. It is hard enough maintaining my position. To do that would weaken me irreparably. Once they see me as anything other than their boss, I will lose command. That is my trap.”
“Trap? That sounds harsh.”
“I may look like a born cop, but . . .” She shook her head, her hair shifting around the sides of her face. “When I was at university, I was going to be an artist. Until I realized I had no talent. I shouldn’t say that. There was talent. But there was no talent. I had a bit of a crisis. Who am I? Why am I here? Difficult questions, even at that ridiculously young age.”
“True,” he said.
“I switched to law. I finished my degree, all the while knowing that I would never be happy as a lawyer. But I had gone too far down the road by that time. I worked briefly in the Justice Ministry. One day I went out with the Policía Federal on a raid. The first time I went out, I thought: This is it! I quit my job that day and signed up for the police academy.”
“Really?” said Fisk. Her story seemed to take some abrupt turns. “How was that?”
“Honestly? Awful. It wasn’t being a woman that was the worst. You are operating under a misconception there. There are actually quite a few women in the PF.”
“Then what was it?”
“In the United States, you maintain the fiction that there are no class divisions in your country. But in Mexico, there’s no fiction, no papering over the fact that some people are rich and some are dirt poor. Working people are very happy to hate the rich down there. My father is an affluent man. I suppose you could even call him rich. He was in the electronics assembly business. Owned a couple of maquiladora factories up by the border. Circuit boards for refrigerators and toasters and things like that. Eventually he sold out to a big Korean company.” For a moment she looked sad. “We are not close. He’s getting on in years now, but he’s on his second marriage. Has a couple of young kids. His wife is younger than me. We speak . . . but only occasionally.
“Anyway, to return to my story—the other girls in the Policía Federal, they all hated me. Constant hazing. One time they held me down at night and beat me up a little and shaved my head. That sort of thing. I got my revenge by beating them at everything. I shot straighter, I trained harder, I studied more diligently. And once I was out of the academy and on duty, I was the first one into every room, the first one to grab a perpetrator, the first into the line of fire. I was like a tiger.” She looked grimly at the bottles on the other side of the bar. “I progressed very quickly through the ranks. But I never let my guard down. Not with anyone. Not ever.”
Fisk studied her carefully. He couldn’t quite figure it out—but it seemed to him that some facts had gone AWOL here. There was some part of the story that she wasn’t telling him. It was the interrogator in him. He wanted to push, but could not.
“Eventually they started calling me the Ice Queen. They don’t say it to my face, of course. At first it was an insult. But I think that over time they have come to have a certain fondness for me. I hope so, anyway.” Her eyes were hooded. “It’s so hard to maintain your integrity in Mexico. The corruption among the police is unimaginable. But men have a hunger for purity, for goodness. It preys on their souls to take money, to do things for evil men. So I think—I hope—that they are able to look at her, their Ice Queen, and say, ‘If she can do it, if she can remain pure . . . then so can I.’ ”
“Her,” Fisk said. “You referred to yourself as ‘her.’ ”