“Incredible,” Méndez said. “And your prisoner?”
“Pulpo. A hoodlum and smuggler. Apparently he is the one the gabacho was chasing.”
Pulpo looked up at the sound of his name, feral and alert. He caught sight of Méndez and became animated.
“Listen, Licenciado, with all respect, this is a clear case of a violation of human rights,” Pulpo drawled, his chiseled shoulders and arms straining against the cuffs. “That American is a madman. He almost killed me in front of my family. An international incident! And now these gentlemen, with all respect, are abusing my rights as well. I am the victim, not-”
Athos turned his head to give him a look, teeth gritted, and Pulpo shut up fast.
“Very good, Athos,” Méndez said. “We should call Isabel Puente in San Diego right away. Let’s continue this at headquarters.”
A few minutes later, the three vehicles arrived at the headquarters of the Diogenes Group, a compound on a bluff at the base of Colonia Libertad with a view of the San Ysidro border crossing. Sentries with AK-47s and sunglasses stepped back as an iron gate slid open. The compound was a former safe house that had been confiscated from a drug trafficker. It contained a drab two-story house, garage and a storage building. A Mexican flag flew in the courtyard.
Méndez led the way into the box-shaped storage building, which had been converted into a command center, squad room and lockup. At thirty-nine, Méndez had gray tufts in his hair, angular features that tightened into a melancholy grimace. When he wore glasses, he looked professorial. When he wore contact lenses, like today, his face hardened. He was thin and tended to coil forward when he walked. He had a lupine profile. His attire was typical of Tijuana cops, reporters, academics and public officials all the way up to the governor: brown leather jacket, blue button-down shirt, and jeans.
Opening the door for Méndez, Athos told him the unit had raided a safe house in Otay Mesa overnight and captured a Chinese smuggler with a group of non-Mexican migrants waiting to cross.
“Eighteen Chinese, five Brazilians, two Ecuadorans,” Athos said. “And we caught a state policeman who worked with the smugglers.”
“Wonderful. Another battle with the state police in the making.”
“We found some interpreters at the Chinese place near Sanborns,” Athos said. “We are talking separately to the policeman and to the Chinese smuggler. A heavyweight gangster from the looks of him.”
The squad room, where the unit held roll calls and meetings, was noisy and busy. Interpreters and plainclothes officers in black fatigue jackets, armed with legal pads, clustered around captured migrants. The migrants sat in chairs with arm-desks that made them look like disheveled college students. The prisoners regarded their questioners in a daze, as if watching another reel in a nightmare. The migrants’ clothes were frayed and soiled. Most of the Chinese had short, shapelessly cut hair. The Mexican officers rose or saluted Méndez as he passed.
“Did you get them something to eat?” Méndez asked. The migrants had clearly realized he was in charge; he attempted a reassuring smile in their direction.
“Chinese food.”
“Good. Call the priests at the Scalabrini shelter, see if they can house these people until someone decides what to do with them. They have probably spent months cooped up in one miserable safe house or another. Is this batch from Fujian too? Headed for New York?”
“Nobody’s saying much, but they definitely came through South America. Like the last group, and the one before them.”
A hallway led past two small interrogation rooms. In the first, the Chinese smuggler sat with his hands cuffed in back. The interpreter sat opposite him, a slender Chinese youth in a waiter’s white shirt and black pants. His nervous smile suggested he would have much preferred to be waiting tables. No doubt his immigration status was also problematic. Méndez imagined the look on his face when Athos had marched into the Chinese restaurant frequented by the officers of the Diogenes Group and recruited him as an interpreter.
“This is Mr. Chen, Licenciado,” Athos said with sarcastic formality, nodding at the prisoner. “He kept saying he wanted to talk to the boss. Mr. Chen, this is the boss.”
Looking elaborately bored, Chen swiveled his head toward them. He had a tapered torso under a burgundy sweater that was torn along one sleeve, exposing a snake tattoo. There were bruises on his forehead. His hair was spiked and gelled and he had hipster sideburns. A city-hardened version of the country boys in the next room.
Athos said that the smuggler had resisted arrest, putting on a martial-arts display. There was a note of grudging admiration in Athos’s voice. “He was throwing fancy kicks, using his elbows, spinning. The muchachos say it took five minutes to subdue him.”
Méndez slid into the chair next to the interpreter, who looked increasingly unenthusiastic. Méndez thanked the interpreter for his help. He examined the passport on the table. It identified the smuggler as Tomas Chen, thirty-four, naturalized citizen of Paraguay, born in Fuzhou, China, and residing in the Paraguayan city of Ciudad del Este. The passport contained entry and exit stamps from Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Cuba and Mexico, as well as Asian and European nations. Méndez turned the pages one at a time, making it clear he was in no hurry.
“I am Leobardo Méndez, the chief of this unit,” he said, looking up at last. “I understand you wanted to talk to me, Mr. Chen.”
The interpreter winced as he listened to the response. “He say he glad you finally here. Best thing you can do is let him go. He say this can all be take care of right now.”
“Explain that he was arrested under suspicion of smuggling immigrants, criminal association, and weapons possession. Serious federal crimes.”
The smuggler spat out sentences.
“He say this can be take care of with money.”
“No.”
The smuggler leaned forward, sneering. He gestured with his head toward the front of the house as he spoke.
“He say he the boss here. If I give word, all those people in other room will rise up and attack you, he said.”
“In Mexico it’s considered rude to threaten someone when you are their guest,” Méndez said, looking directly at Chen. “You supposedly lived in Paraguay for three years, no? You must speak some Spanish. What do you do in those far-off latitudes?”
The interpreter listened, blushed, and looked down. “He say… he pay fifty thousand dollar to you. The money comes here in a hour if you say yes.”
“Tell him to stop insulting us. Tell him he’s lucky this is a modern police unit. Otherwise we would treat him to a traditional Mexican interrogation.”
The interpreter gave Méndez a beseeching look. The smuggler spoke dismissively to Méndez in words he more or less understood. “Yo no quiero falar mais con você. Você no sabe que esto es demasiado grande p’ra você.”
Athos detached himself from the wall, squinting. “What is that gibberish, Brazilian?”
“It’s half Spanish, half Portuguese: Portuñol,” Méndez said. “Border language, but a border far from this one. Mr. Chen, do you have a statement to make? Too bad, I’d love to hear about these exotic places you’ve been to. Alright, you are being charged with the crimes I mentioned. And also assaulting police officers and resisting authority.”
“Você no comprende con quien esta metiendo,” the smuggler said in a chiding tone. More or less: You don’t understand who you are messing with.