CASEY WOKE AND BLINKED AT THE BLINDING SUN.
"You drove all night?" she asked Jose.
He gave her half a smile. "Like a stakeout. How 'bout we stop for some doughnuts?"
Casey's phone chirped. She opened it.
"Seventeen messages," she said, studying the numbers of the calls that had come in as she retrieved the messages. She listened to the first three before snapping it shut.
"Everyone wants an interview," she said. "You save some teenage mother and her baby from being beaten by Dad, the drug dealer; no one cares about that. But if you're a mentally ill woman lawyer going after a US senator and Susan Lucci played you in a crap movie? Do you even like Susan Lucci?"
"I see you more as Lucille Ball.''
"And you as Desi?"
"She was just the first redhead I could think of. I don't know who'd play me, maybe George Clooney.''
"Poor Lifetime can't afford George. I think you'll have to be happy with Lorenzo Lamas.''
"Fantastic,'' Jose said.
After a minute, Jose looked her way and said, "I waited outside your apartment, thinking of how to tell you the truth about all this bullshit. Then I fell asleep."
She thought about what that meant, then said, "The 'shrink' I saw was a friend of a friend, during the divorce. He gave me some Xanax to help me sleep, of which I took about three."
Jose nodded. "Ah, the media."
"Can we get some coffee?" Casey said, yawning. "And, yes, doughnuts. Doughnuts would be good.''
Jose pointed to a foam cup with a plastic lid in the cup holder between them.
"Still hot," he said. "You were sleeping too good. They didn't have doughnuts. I checked."
"Where are we?" she asked, peeling off the lid and sipping the coffee.
He nodded up ahead. Casey saw the lines of traffic, mostly trucks, and the booths filled with agents.
"My guy's on the midnight shift," he said, turning left and crossing the lane of oncoming traffic, pulling into the parking lot of the drab brick government building with its flagpoles for the United States and the State of Texas. "They got him on a desk right now, working on some unmanned-aircraft thing. Usually he's out on a four-wheeler."
Jose pulled into a space and flipped open his cell phone to let his friend know they'd arrived. A couple of minutes later, a man with bronze skin and a brush-broom mustache walked their way wearing the dark blue uniform of a border agent. Jose got out of the Mercedes and greeted him with a hug before the agent climbed into the backseat and reached forward to shake hands with Casey.
"Tony Chehenga," he said.
"Can I buy you breakfast?" Jose asked, starting the Mercedes.
"Dinner for me," Tony said. "Sure. There's a Perkins one exit up."
Jose pulled out of the lot and headed back up the highway.
"So what's all the mystery?" Tony asked.
"I thought they might be listening to your calls," Jose said.
"Not our government," Tony said, sitting back in his seat. "We respect your privacy. So, what is it you need?"
"Let's get you something to eat," Jose said.
"That bad, huh?"
"We've seen worse," Jose said.
"That's no comfort, Jose," Tony said.
Tony asked Casey how she got mixed up with Jose and she told him.
"I had a partner killed by these Mexican bangers from M-13," Tony said. "He was visiting his ex-wife and kids up in Dallas. Jose worked the case, that's how we met, but we've done a few favors for each other over the years."
Casey suspected there was a story behind the favors, but they pulled into the Perkins and she didn't ask.
Tony ordered steak and eggs, then handed the menu to their waitress. "Okay, I don't have to actually have the food in my stomach. What's up?"
"We need to stop a truck from going into Mexico," Jose said.
"No problem," Tony said, flipping his cup and accepting some coffee from a waitress with a toothy smile. "I'll call President Calderon."
"Or at least know when it went in and where it's going."
Tony looked at the flag on the shoulder of his uniform and said, "You got me confused with a Mexican border agent."
"Don't you know those guys?" Casey asked.
"Last time one of our guys crossed the line to ask if they wanted to put together a softball team to play us, they arrested him. We're not real close."
"Really? Arrested him?" Casey said.
Tony nodded. "Really. They had to go halfway up the ladder to get it worked out. I could get what you need, though. I just have to go through channels. We have a Mexican liaison. I know they've got cameras, same system as us, so you could run the plates and it'll come right up. It'll cost you some cash, though. Nothing happens over there without grease."
Jose glanced at Casey and said, "We don't have a plate number."
Tony tapped the tines of his fork against the spoon, looking from one of them to the other as if waiting for the punch line, before he sighed and said, "I could get you some DVDs, I guess. You'll have to watch them yourself, though."
"We'd be looking for them right away," Jose said, checking his watch. "The truck we want could've come through here any time since, I don't know, two a.m. if they were making time. Or it might come through any time now if the driver stopped, which I doubt."
"Maybe you should sit out there on the road and watch until I know I can get a copy of it," Tony said.
"I guess we'll have to," Jose said.
"I was kidding. What happens if you see it?"
"I ask for another favor," Jose said.
"And I'm going to find what in this truck?" Tony asked.
"Let's talk about that if we get to that point," Jose said. "How long would it take you to stop it if we see it heading into the border?"
"A phone call," Tony said. "Providing it's as urgent as you're making out."
"If we found the truck on the video, could you have them pull the destination?" Casey asked. "Would they have that?"
"For the right price, they'd give you a limousine ride there,'' Tony said. "Todo es para la venta, they say. Everything is for sale."
"Even women and children," Casey said under her breath.