Presently, she said: “And you never once took up Garrison on his offer?”
“So I guess this is the part where I tell you everything, huh?”
“I guess. Or you can finish your waffles, I drive you back to your car and the investigation continues.”
“Look, tell you the truth, I did work for him a couple times, in a manner of speaking.”
Puente gave him a nod.
“One time he said he needed some backup. All I had to do was bring my gun and show myself in the parking lot outside Coco’s, down by I-Five north of San Ysidro. Me and this other PA, Macías, we waited outside while he met with these two Mexicans. Serious hard-asses. I think they were AFI or SSP, you know. Federal police.”
“OK.”
Pescatore explained that the meeting in the diner had lasted about half an hour, that they shook hands with the Mexfeds when they left. Garrison had paid him three hundred dollars and forgiven two hundred Pescatore owed him. On the other occasion, Pescatore told her, he escorted a woman who came up from Tijuana without papers. She took a taxi from Tijuana through the lane of a Customs and Border Protection inspector who was close to Garrison. Pescatore met her in San Ysidro, drove her to a high-rise condominium downtown overlooking the Coronado Bay and walked her in as far as the elevator.
“She was early twenties, lots of hair and perfume, flashy-looking. She told me she was from Sinaloa. Garrison made it sound like she was one of his informants’ girlfriend.”
“So there’s Macías, Dillard, you-the PAs that do these ‘jobs’ for Garrison. Then there’s people in other agencies. Here’s some individuals I’m aware of.”
She recited names as if reading from a report. He nodded. Puente continued: “And he has regular off-duty contact with Mexican law enforcement.”
“Mainly Baja State police detectives. And federales. And a couple guys that work for Mexican customs.”
“Any contact with Colonel Astorga, the former chief of the state police?”
“No. But Garrison sure was interested when he got busted. He was the comandante with the two tons and the dead bodies, right? The one who got caught by that secret Diogenes unit?”
“Exactly. How about Mauro Fernández Rochetti, the homicide chief in TJ?”
“I heard Garrison talk to a Mauro on the phone one time.”
“How about a subject named Omar Mendoza? Late thirties-early forties, jailhouse-weightlifter type. Not a cop, he’s a veterano from L.A., talks pocho Spanish. Street name is Buffalo.”
“Nobody like that.”
“I imagine the rich guy you mentioned with regard to the so-called security training is Junior Ruiz Caballero? And don’t tell me you never heard of him.”
Pescatore exhaled deeply.
“Who hasn’t heard of him? Seems like Garrison’s business down there has some connection with the Ruiz Caballeros, yeah. Garrison goes to the fights, he gets freebies in TJ at the clubs and everything. But Isabel, I don’t know. And I don’t wanna know.”
She shook her head impatiently. “I’m afraid that’s going to have to change.”
He stared down at the table, feeling trapped. He knew that the Ruiz Caballero family were heavy hitters, not just in Tijuana but in all of Mexico.
“Who said I was gonna help you in the first place?”
“Nobody. But I know one thing: Yesterday, you spent the whole interview lying and bullshitting. Except for one part when you told the truth. When Shepard asked you about giving money to aliens. That was the real Valentine.”
He looked up at her and then away, embarrassed and moved.
She said: “Deep down, you’re one of the good guys.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it.”
But he cooperated during the next hour, answering dutifully as she inundated him with questions: names, dates, locations, vehicles. Then she shifted to his “assignment,” as she called it, and he told himself, well congratulations, my man. It kinda slipped by, but you’ve been recruited as an official undercover rat for OIG. Proud of yourself?
She instructed him to get closer to Garrison and the others, accept the offers to make money, and get in on the action. He shook his head.
“What?” Puente asked.
“After this whole crazy thing in the Zona Norte, I had pretty much decided to stay the hell away from Garrison.”
“Good. I’d be worried if you told me you felt bad because he’s your idol. This way you’ll stay sharp and watch out for yourself.”
“I feel bad allright. About the whole thing: the IB station, The Patrol, The Line. It chews people up and spits them out.”
Her face softened in a way that intrigued him. “I told you, the Border Patrol is an outfit with a lot of problems.”
“Yeah, I’m burned out. I still respect the agents, though.”
“Respect?”
“Damn right. You deal with the bad guys. But most PAs aren’t like Garrison at all. They work damn hard. People think we’re stone soldiers out there. Nobody has a clue what we feel. The activists are always whining about us thumping somebody. They care so damn much about the aliens. Hell, does anybody care about the aliens more than us? Does anybody spend more time with the aliens, hold their hands, carry their kids? The activists, half the time they’re getting hustled by some thug that convinces them he’s a poor pollo who didn’t deserve a beating.”
Puente pursed her lips. “There may be individuals who actually deserve a beating, as you put it. But it’s illegal. Period.”
“Listen. Say you come up against fifteen guys. Solo. It’s hard for you to imagine, but it happens all the time. Say only two or three want to brawl, the rest are regular peaceful Guanajuato Joes. Those are still bad odds. You gotta hit the biggest meanest one and hit him hard, knock him down. So the others know you’re not a punk bitch. That’s not illegal. And the hoodlums who want to throw hands are the ones making the thump allegations.”
“I’ve investigated excessive-force cases. There were plenty of bona fide victims. Plenty.”
Pescatore tried to slow himself down. He could not remember the last time he had spent so much time talking to someone with such immediate intimacy.
He continued, his voice low. “All I’m saying is, the Border Patrol gets a bad rap. The Mexican government has some nerve saying we’re heavy-handed. Fuck them. They practically kick their people out of the country: Don’t let the door hit you in the ass going north. They abuse them all their lives, all the way up to the border. The minute the aliens cross, the Mexican government’s like: ‘Hey gabacho, you put the handcuffs on that guy too tight! Police brutality! Racism!’ Can you imagine if they replaced us with Mexican cops? They’d be like piranhas. Killing and raping and robbing every night. Considering everything, we are damn humane.”
“How about Garrison?” Puente said. “Explain to me how that guy got to be a supervisor.”
“That’s just weird. They been getting rid of Old Patrol guys like that. But supposedly he’s got a lot of yank with the bosses at the Federal Building. Related to when he was in the military, you know? Some guys think he’s got intel connections.”
“He just plays Mr. Big,” Isabel scoffed. “Don’t you worry about him. What’s the matter, Valentine?”
He paused. “The fact is, us PAs have a code: We look out for each other. Nobody rats. And you just signed me up for rat of the year.”
Puente paid the check. She suggested they take a walk. They followed a promenade out to the corner of the coastal park. They passed a mother with a baby carriage, a couple holding hands on a bench, eyes closed, faces offered blissfully to the sun. Puente and Pescatore found a secluded spot along a wood railing in the shade. They leaned on the rail, staring down at small waves foaming on boulders. Beaches and wooded residential neighborhoods stretched along the shoreline to the north.