As was her custom, Isabel Puente made an entrance.
“Leo, how are you? I brought you a gift.”
“La cubanamericana has arrived! A gift?”
“For intellectual self-improvement.”
She advanced with lithe, sure-footed strides, grinning playfully. She had her hair pulled back today like a flamenco dancer, bringing out the feline bone structure, the wide-set eyes. She was diminutive, athletically well proportioned, wearing a snug gold turtleneck and matching corduroy pants. The belt holster peeking out of her down vest was empty; U.S. agents were forbidden to carry firearms on Mexican soil. But Méndez suspected that she was packing her second gun, a short-barreled automatic, in one of her knee-high suede boots or the bag over her shoulder.
As always, he found the greeting awkward. With his male counterparts from U.S. law enforcement, who like Puente were mostly Latinos with cross-border liaison duties, Méndez generally exchanged the standard ritualistic abrazo complete with two-handed back slap. That didn’t seem appropriate with Puente. They shook hands over the desk. She leaned forward for a hesitant peck on the cheek, her demure look softening her self-assuredness.
But she recovered quickly, pulling a book from her bag and brandishing it at him.
“Here,” she said. “This is for you. This is about you.”
The book was entitled Manual of the Perfect Latin American Idiot.
“Ay, how thoughtful,” he laughed. “The bible of the neoliberal right, no? They decided the calamities of Latin America are the fault of the left. What a surprise.”
“It’s a classic,” Puente said. Her accent in Spanish retained the sugar-mouthed and staccato rhythms of Cuban South Florida. But she was agile enough to mimic the expressions and drawl of the border. “You’ve got an image problem with my bosses at the task force. They think you’re a Communist anti-American. But an honest Communist anti-American, if there is such a thing.”
“Their worst nightmare, eh? What I want to know is, why do you hang out with me, then?”
Puente plopped into a chair. “Obviously, I must have a weakness for Marxist mamones.”
“Obviously.”
“Leo,” Puente said, a boot heel starting a soft hammer on the floor. “Have you told your obnoxious leftist friends in the Tijuana press about this incident with the Border Patrol agent yet?”
As sharp as she was, Méndez thought, her Cubanness and Americanness impeded her from absorbing the cultural lesson that it was not polite form in Mexico to get right down to business. A few more ritualistic pleasantries were in order. One day he would explain gently that, around here, it was better to circle in on your conversational target than to charge at it.
“Not yet, Isabel,” he said, making a defensive gesture. “I was waiting to talk to you.”
“Good. I hate to disappoint you, but it might work out better if we keep it quiet.”
“That goes against all my patriotic instincts. Who is this character?”
“We are pretty sure it was Agent Valentine Pescatore,” she said. “Ever hear anything about him? He’s on the fringe of Garrison’s group.”
“I would remember a name like that. Another criminal?”
“I don’t know yet.” Isabel Puente gave an uncharacteristic sigh. “We did a preliminary interview today. He’s a street kid, kind of wild, from what I can tell. But not necessarily a thug. I hope if we handle him right, it might be a real opportunity. What did you get?”
Méndez picked up the phone. His secretary tracked down Athos, who had spent the afternoon canvassing the area in the Zona Norte where the U.S. agent had crossed The Line. Athos was eating at Tacos El Gordo.
Méndez pulled his pistol from a drawer and stuck it in his belt. “Let’s go meet them. My treat, of course.”
Puente wrinkled her nose. She was squeamish about street food. “I’ll say this, Leo, you’ve got an honest operation here. No fancy meals for the Diogenes Group.”
“In reality, I’m concerned how it would look to your government. The way things are in your country, inviting a lovely young agent to a nice restaurant could get me accused of sexual harassment, no?”
She appeared to wince; he wondered if he had gone too far. But she grinned and responded: “Saying what you just said could get you accused of sexual harassment.”
Tacos El Gordo was on Avenida Constitución in the nightlife district. A revolving police-style light on the sidewalk stand threw whirls of red across the scene. Neon glowed, music pounded in the curtained doorways of nightclubs. Encircling the taco stand were families with kids bundled against the evening chill, cholos in hooded sweatshirts, uniformed cops. All devouring food or watching the taco man work his magic, his dark artful hands chopping and slicing with controlled violence. Méndez spotted Athos and two officers spreading their feast on the hood of a car.
“Come on,” Méndez said, sweeping open the car door for Puente. “Let’s go hear about the adventures of your Agent Valentine.”
3
VALENTINE PESCATORE SAT in the sun with his back to the wall, drowning his sorrows in a Woptown feast.
He occupied a table on the sidewalk outside his favorite joint on India Street. He had eaten an Italian beef sandwich with hot peppers, a slice of Sicilian pizza and a cannolo, accompanied by three beers. Now he was having his second espresso to counteract the effect of the beers. He needed to stay sharp.
Little Italy was his private refuge in San Diego, fifteen miles from the border and a world away from The Patrol. Compared with his Taylor Street neighborhood in Chicago, it was tiny. The surviving Italians clung to a few blocks of India Street and a church around the corner. Little Italy was a skeleton, a movie-set streetfront. But he liked the Sicilian bakery, the barber- and butcher shops, the mix of old-school eateries and sleek new establishments for the lunch crowd from the downtown office towers. He liked the fact that the owners were Italian but most of the workers behind the counters were Mexican. Despite his Italian last name, he spoke only the language of the workers. He liked the graffiti of the local Mexican-American gang. They called themselves Woptown. They sprayed the name on the white walls and cement stoops of three-story walk-ups that reminded him of home.
One afternoon he had passed a faded storefront on India Street. Glancing through the open door, he had spotted half a dozen old-time ginzos in folding chairs playing cards at a table in a carpeted, otherwise empty room. A handwritten sign taped in the window read S.D. ITALIANAMERICAN CLUB. The scene recalled the social club where his uncles hung out in Chicago.
The next time he went by the place, the shutters were down. The sign was gone. He never saw any of the old-timers again. He began to think that it had been an urban mirage. Or a dream.
He wished the past two days had been a dream. But the bandages on his forehead and his left hand were real. He entertained notions of getting in his car and hitting the interstate. He wondered how long his ten-year-old Impala, formerly property of the Chicago Police Department and complete with spotlight and monster engine, would hold up. Probably not long. The FBI and Office of Inspector General would track him down at some desert gas station and pile on additional charges for running away.
The only bright spot was that he had attained renegade-hero status at Imperial Beach station. Until the Tuesday-night incident, he had been considered a loner who talked funny-in English and Spanish-and hung out with Garrison’s outlaw clique, causing most agents to keep their distance. That changed dramatically after the Pulpo incident. No one said anything out in the open. But he got furtive handshakes and exultant comments from agents such as Galván, who was always trying to set up fellow PAs with a visiting female cousin from Guadalajara.