“Mr. Pescatore,” she said through the half-open window. “Got a minute for me?”
He peered at her. She wore a gray sweater-and-skirt ensemble and her hair was down, rippling black, shoulder length.
“Are you guys surveilling me?” he demanded, glancing around.
“I thought we might go someplace quiet. Continue our conversation.”
“Am I under any obligation to get in this vehicle?”
She hit him with a grin. “None whatsoever.”
She drove with relish, handling the vehicle as if she had training at the wheel. He wondered if she had been in another agency before OIG. Usually the internal affairs investigators put in some years in ICE, the Marshals or someplace before they got into the business of locking up fellow feds.
They rode north in silence on the freeway past SeaWorld, past inland beaches and bridges. San Diego was impossibly beautifuclass="underline" the slender palm trees lining the curve of Mission Bay, the afternoon sun streaking placid waters, the immaculate lawns of hotel resorts. The beauty depressed him. He felt apart from it, rootless, condemned to skim across the surface of the city.
He asked where they were going.
“A place where we can talk,” she said.
A minute later, she said: “What are you exactly, Valentine?”
“What kinda question is that?”
Her smile exposed a slight and appealing overbite. “Ethnically, I mean.”
“Oh. My father was born in Italy, grew up in Argentina and moved to Chicago. His brothers were there. My mother’s family was Mexican.”
“That’s where you got your Spanish.”
“More my father’s side. My mother’s family came a long time ago. To work on the railroads in Chicago. My mom can’t barely speak Spanish, except songs. My neighborhood was Italian, but there were a lotta Mexicans too. And black people.”
“Where did you fit in?”
“Good question.”
“I’ll get this over with, Valentine, so you know the situation.” She sighed, her snub profile intent on the freeway. “You almost convinced me yesterday. I should have known better.”
“About what?”
“My Mexican police contacts have a witness who saw you in the Zona Norte with dogs chasing you. The smuggler says you beat him down after pursuing him into his residence near Calle Internacional. And they found a scrap of green material stuck in the border fence. Don’t bother denying it’s from your uniform, because that can be ascertained conclusively. You must’ve spent a good five minutes in Tijuana. Quite an excursion.”
“So you believe the Mexican police.”
“These particular officers are meticulous and professional investigators.”
“I bet.”
She steered down and around an exit ramp.
“The point is, now you’re in really big trouble. They could assist our investigation. Or they could press charges themselves, in Mexico, for unauthorized entry and assault on that individual. Theoretically, they could request extradition. It would make a big stink.”
He folded his arms. They descended downhill curves, the Pacific shimmering beyond pine trees, and entered La Jolla Village. A short steep grade led into the Cove, a triangular coastal park overlooking rocks and surf and walled by cliffs. She parked in front of a café-restaurant in a historic-looking house set into the base of a cliff.
She looked at him brightly. “Ready?”
“I gotta tell you, I’m not comfortable with this,” he said.
“What?”
“One minute you’re talking about the Mexicans extraditing me, which is the most fucked-up unfair outrageous thing I ever heard, considering all the Mexican criminals we can’t extradite because of the criminals in their government. And then you want to get coffee.”
“Look,” she said, her door half-open. “I’m being up-front. I’m taking a big chance with you.”
“Why?”
“Good question. Come on.”
It was past 3 p.m. and the café was nearly empty, which was probably why she had picked it. Reached by wooden steps, the place was big and homey, a fireplace, pictures of old-time San Diego on the mantel and walls, carved furniture. It was not the kind of place he normally went. But it seemed like a nice spot for a date with Isabel Puente.
They sat in a corner with a view of the ocean. They both ordered coffee, and he ordered waffles with strawberries. Puente looked amused.
“I thought you ate already,” she said.
“So you were surveilling me.” When she rolled her eyes, he added: “I always get hungry when I’m scared to death.”
Her delighted laugh encouraged him somewhat. She asked him if he had done some thinking. He said he was not clear what he was supposed to think about.
“What is it you want, exactly?” he asked.
“Supervisory Agent Arleigh Garrison.”
He was not surprised. But he nonetheless rubbed his face with his hand, his mind shuffling scenarios.
“Oh great,” he said. “You want me to rat him out.”
“I’m thinking you might want to help yourself and help us. And do some good, for a change.”
“I’ve done plenty of good. I got a commendation for catching a stickup man in the canyons. I pulled a little kid from a car wreck. I went one-on-ten with some gangbangers in a damn near riot on the levee. You don’t know what it’s like out there.”
She started to say something, caught herself. She said, “I’m aware of your record.”
“Then don’t talk to me like I’m a lowlife slug.”
“Then don’t talk like one. This isn’t about being a rat. It’s about an investigation.”
“To get Garrison.”
“Unless he’s your friend. Unless you’re scared of him.”
“What happens if I say hell no, then run back and tell him about this?”
Puente’s panther smile turned morose, as if she’d rarely encountered such stupidity. “You’re not going to do that.”
“Glad you know me so good. What’s the proposition?”
“You tell me everything you know about Garrison. And then you gather intelligence for us.”
“And what do I get out of it?”
“You don’t get indicted or fired. Plus compensation. We pay informants.”
“You’re insulting me now.”
“I thought you might say that. Funny thing is, I don’t think you like Garrison that much.”
“Not particularly.”
“Interesting. Why do you run with him and those characters, then?”
“Look, uh, Agent Puente? Isabel? What do I call you?”
She cocked her head playfully. “Whatever you want.”
“Anyway, yeah, I hang out with Garrison some. He’s my boss. He was Special Forces. Real badass. He watches my back out on The Line. I watch his. We go drinking after work. I don’t exactly have a big social circle outside The Patrol. Inside either.”
“You feel loyal. And you like to party with them.”
“I guess.”
“Garrison’s a big spender. He throws extra work at you now and then.”
“Hey, you probably know more about it than I do. That’s the other guys. He has offered did I want to make a little extra cash, though.”
“Doing what?”
“Freelance security for this rich Mexican guy. Garrison teaches him and his bodyguards: shooting, tactical stuff.”
“What rich Mexican guy?”
“He doesn’t name names.”
“You don’t have a clue who it is?”
“Uh-uh.”
His food arrived. Pescatore wolfed down the waffles. He found it hard to believe he was sitting here, the luxuriant blue of the Pacific framed in the window, having a conspiratorial chat with this woman who held his fate in her hands. Isabel Puente never quite relaxed. She crossed and uncrossed her supple brown legs, fiddled with the torn sugar packets, rearranged her hair. Although she concentrated on him, she periodically surveyed the room behind him and the street below. He wondered how old she was. Despite her poise, he guessed she couldn’t be more than thirty, about five years older than him.