Nonetheless, reasonable or not, Méndez had a problem with the Border Patrol. And the young Border Patrol agent clearly had a problem with Méndez and his men, if not Mexicans in general.
By the time Puente had served the beverages, there was an interruption: a pizza delivery. Puente bustled around putting the deep-dish pizza, a plate and utensils in front of Pescatore.
“Valentine was hungry,” Puente explained. “He’s had quite a night.”
Pescatore gave her a smile so affectionate and sheepish that Méndez found it endearing in spite of himself. He looked back and forth between the agent and Puente, wondering if personal factors might be complicating Puente’s relationship with her informant. When she had first recruited him, she had told Méndez that it was a calculated risk. As the weeks went by, though, she had sounded unusually enthusiastic about the kid.
Pescatore gestured at the Mexicans to join him; they shook their heads. After he had consumed a slice of pizza, Puente broke the silence with a gentle “So…”
“OK,” Pescatore said to Méndez, wiping his mouth carefully with a napkin. “First I gotta say I’m doing this under protest. It’s messed up: I didn’t even tell my own bosses how it really went down. And now I’m gonna tell you guys. But Agent Puente says I gotta help you out. And what Agent Puente says, goes.”
Méndez nodded. Pescatore explained that, an hour before the shoot-out, Garrison told Pescatore that the Colonel would cross the border at the beach. The plan was for the agents to give the Colonel safe passage past the Patrol checkpoint in Orange County. Just before the rendezvous, Garrison received a phone call, changed plans and sent Pescatore and another agent to meet the Colonel at the fence.
“Right then I knew some evil shit was gonna happen,” Pescatore said, head down, grimacing. “But I went ahead and walked right into the kill zone. Least I had my gun out.”
Pescatore described the gunfight in detail, reliving it, his eyes and nostrils flaring. He was unsophisticated but not stupid, Méndez concluded. The agent had an agile mind; ideas and images spilled out of him. Méndez felt a pang of empathy. He understood Pescatore’s stare of frozen ferocity. It was awe at his survival. Awe that he could sit here eating pizza and describe the first time he had killed a man as if recalling how he had hit a home run.
Méndez’s first and only gunfight had taken place in Playas de Tijuana when he was still human rights commissioner. A skull-faced drug addict in a ragged poncho had confronted him outside his house as he got out of his car: a death mask materializing out of the night behind a.38. They struggled. The assailant stumbled. Méndez broke away, ducked around behind the car and drew his own gun. They traded fire across the hood. Méndez killed him, emerging unscathed probably because the gunman had a headful of heroin. The police called it an attempted robbery. But Méndez believed that someone had sent the hapless attacker to eliminate him, or at least scare him. They succeeded in the latter.
Méndez noticed that Pescatore was talking more to Puente than to her visitors. Her cheek was propped on her hand, black hair cascading to the marble tabletop. Her eyes were locked on the agent.
Now we are getting somewhere, Méndez thought. This U.S. angle was powerful new ammunition against Mauro Fernández Rochetti and the Ruiz Caballeros. Things were moving fast. Araceli would be elated.
Most of the kid’s story sounds true, Méndez thought. But he had his doubts about certain aspects. Pescatore’s depiction of himself as a dupe seemed convenient and exculpatory. This was no time to give anyone, much less a Border Patrol agent, the benefit of the doubt.
“Listen, let me say I appreciate the fact that you are telling us this now, just after it has happened,” Méndez told Pescatore. “I am happy you were not hurt. I do not want to sound macabre and congratulate you, this is not appropriate. But obviously you are a professional or you would not be alive.”
Pescatore tried to restrain a grin.
“One thing, if I may,” Méndez said softly, sipping coffee. “I am thinking the Mauro mentioned by Garrison was the homicide comandante. Was it your impression when Garrison said this name Mauro on the phone that he spoke to him or about him?”
Pescatore retreated into his head-against-the-wall pose.
“I think he was talking to Mauro,” Pescatore said.
“Why?”
“When the shooters were gone and Garrison finally came down to the beach to help with Dillard, I went off. I screamed at him, I told him he was a chickenshit asshole, almost got me killed. Garrison just shook his head and said: ‘Fucking Mauro, what a mess, fucking Mauro,’ like that.”
“I see. What did Mauro tell him on the phone?”
Pescatore enunciated as if he were speaking to a simpleton. “I just said. I don’t know. Garrison didn’t tell me.”
“I’m sorry. What do you think Mauro told him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where did the Colonel intend to go? Los Angeles, perhaps?”
Pescatore took a bite of pizza and slurped Coke with a straw. He mumbled: “No idea.”
You are hiding something, you little punk, Méndez thought with mounting irritation. All the English, combined with the late hour, was giving him a headache.
“I suppose something confuses me,” Méndez said. “What you have just told us is not what you tell the investigators a few hours ago, is this correct? You, eh, told them something different, did you not?”
“Well yeah. I wasn’t gonna rat out Garrison right there, for Christ’s sake. We said we saw these guys coming across and they drew down on us. I figured Isabel was gonna help me straighten things out later.”
Pushing a tangle of hair back on top of her head, Isabel Puente said: “I think we’re getting off track, Leo. Valentine went with Garrison’s story because otherwise he could have compromised my investigation and himself. He made a judgment call in a difficult situation.”
Méndez felt bad for Puente, who seemed to think he was leaning too hard on the kid. But Méndez also found her protectiveness annoying and naive. He suspected the agent was working both sides. If that were the case, Méndez wanted Pescatore to know he was not fooling him.
“I understand, Isabel,” Méndez said. Then he stuck in the knife. “I just want to be clear that this young man is recounting to us the complete truth.”
Pescatore’s voice got throatier. “The fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Méndez swiveled his angular profile from Puente to the agent. “I want to assure that, because of the confusion and emotion, or because you wish to protect the investigation, or yourself, or someone, that nothing has been left out.”
“Now ain’t that a bitch,” Pescatore raged. “I just got finished shooting some Mexican cop who blew a PA’s head off right in front of me. I didn’t particularly like Dillard, but he was a United States Border Patrol agent. And he didn’t deserve to get his head blown off by some scumbag Mexican cop. And-”
“I think you should-”
“Now I got another Mexican cop sitting-”
“Make yourself a favor and calm-”
“Sitting here, in U.S. territory, I might add, cross-examining me. Practically calling me a liar to my face. Well you listen up you-”
“Alright!” Puente glared at them. “Nobody’s calling you a liar, Valentine. I’m sure Leo didn’t mean to insult you.”
“In fact, you insult me,” Méndez told Pescatore. “You are too young and uninformed to comprehend, but my men are in more danger from ‘Mexican cops’ than you are.”
“We about done with this guy?” Pescatore asked Puente, scowling.
Puente spread her hands soothingly at Pescatore and Méndez. Athos slowly mangled his cap on the table, probably imagining that he was throttling Pescatore. Porthos eyed the pizza.
“Let’s everybody take a deep breath,” Puente ordered. “Anybody want more Coke, coffee, water? Abelardo, do you want some pizza? Sure? Leo, could you and I step into the living room a minute?”
Méndez rose, feeling suddenly like he was about to get a scolding. Isabel Puente slid nimbly past Porthos’s oxlike bulk and went into the living room, her jaws clenched.
As Méndez followed, he heard Pescatore whisper to Porthos: “Hey big fella, for real. Go ahead, take a slice, I’m not gonna eat the whole thing by myself. Ándale, con confianza.”
It could have been genuine or sarcastic. Either way, it showed a hard-edged composure. Perhaps the agent’s tirade had been more controlled than it appeared. And Pescatore’s Spanish was better than Méndez had expected.
This kid is hard to read, Méndez thought. I wonder if he’ll last long enough for me to figure him out.