ALEX DUARTE LISTENED TO THE PHONE RING AND CHECKED HIS G-Shock wristwatch again. It was an hour later in West Palm Beach, so he was catching Alice at home before seven. He didn't like calling so early, but this was important, and he didn't want to make this call on an official sheriff's office phone line.
On the third ring, he heard her bright voice say, "Hello."
"Alice, it's Alex."
"I knew it was you. No one but my family would call this early, and none of them are up at this hour. How're you?" Before he could answer, she added, "Miss me? You must, to call this early. What time is it there? Five to six?"
"Still dark." Now he felt bad that the main reason he was calling was for a favor from her lab. He thought and said, "Getting ready for work?"
"Yeah, gonna hit the gym after work today. When will you be home?"
"Hard to say."
"Everything okay? You sound like there's a problem."
"We had a setback."
"No one is hurt, are they?"
"Sort of." He paused. She'd raised the question. He charged ahead. "Our informant went missing in Panama, and we think he's dead, but they can't identify the corpse."
"Was he disfigured? What happened?"
"He was murdered, that's clear."
He heard her take a breath. "Is Félix okay?"
"Yeah, he's here in New Orleans with me."
"Why don't they print the body?"
"That's what I asked, but I had another idea."
"What's that?"
"What if they sent his finger to a local police agency in the U.S. who already had his prints on file?"
"Why would they cut off one of his fingers?"
"They're already off."
"Oh, I see." She sounded ill. Then she caught on to the nature of the call. "So you didn't call because you missed me, you called to ask me to print an unattached finger."
"Both."
"Alex Duarte, you're a lousy liar. That's one of the things I like about you. Don't try it now."
He smiled and said, "Could you print the finger and match it to this guy Gastlin who was booked in the Palm Beach County jail?"
"It feels like I do a lot of forensic work for you off the books."
"And I appreciate it."
"How much?"
"A lot."
"How will you show it?"
"Dinner?"
"At least." She added, "How on earth will you get a human finger into the country?"
"Customs worked it out. A DEA guy will deliver it to you sometime tomorrow."
"You were pretty sure I'd do it."
"You're a very helpful person. I didn't see you saying no. We need to know what happened to Gastlin. The next step will be looking for the killer. It won't be easy."
"At least I'm easy."
Duarte didn't know how to respond to that, but he was good at just keeping his mouth shut.
William "Ike" Floyd watched the U-Haul truck from the big bay window of the diner while he ate a stack of pancakes with Cal Lindsey. They had loaded the crate with little problem, and Ike knew he couldn't stay at the rundown hotel. He went ahead and packed up his few clothes and decided he wouldn't turn down the older port worker's offer of breakfast.
Cal asked, "So where's the thing go now?"
Ike looked at him, remembering the words of one of the leaders of another group he used to belong to who said, "Never trust anyone who asks too many questions." The FBI always had people trying to get into the groups. The old leader of the American Nazi Party claimed the federal government hated white people, that's why they'd left the black groups alone. He looked at Cal's simple, long face and didn't think he could be a snitch for the FBI. He had a little experience in the matter and knew you couldn't tell by looking at someone, but it didn't matter right now. He just told the truth.
"Don't know exactly. I'll check for messages later." Ike figured if this guy was a snitch he'd ask about the messages and where he checked.
Instead, Cal said, "President Jessup says you were into some serious shit for us a while back."
Ike had to smile. "Can't talk about it."
"You think this is as big a deal as that shit?"
Ike considered it and said, "Yeah, if it works, it'll be bigger. There's a long way to go and a lot to do until we know for sure."
Cal finished the last bit of his scrambled eggs and wiped his mouth. "I need to check in at the port. The beauty of a union job is someone will always cover for you. I'm off-duty at seven so I can go home and get some rest." He pulled out a pen and wrote a phone number and his name on a napkin. "This is my home number. Call me if you need more help."
"You're a good man, Cal."
"Anything for my country."
Félix Baez sat at the end of the long conference table in the administrative office of the Port of New Orleans with his arms folded and his mouth shut. He didn't care for the way Lina Cirillo had acted toward Lázaro Staub. Sure, the colonel was tall and handsome. Félix realized he had a certain charisma and obviously wielded some power back in Panama. But Félix didn't think that was any reason for Lina to hang on his every word and offer to show him around the city.
He thought he had staked his claim on the FBI agent. They had gone out twice for dinner and drinks back in Florida. He had paid both times. Now her full attention seemed to be focused on Staub. Shit.
Even as he thought about Lina, he knew his real source of unease was the fate of Bryon Gastlin. If the body they had found really was Gastlin. He held out hope that some other tubby white man in boat shoes and shorts had been killed and Gastlin was hiding out in Costa Rica. Unlike in the movies, the loss of an informant in real life could be very traumatic. Gastlin was Félix's responsibility. He'd possibly been killed because of something the DEA had had him do. Félix had promised him he'd be safe. Of course the possibility existed that he'd simply been robbed and murdered, or killed as a result of some other crime unrelated to Ortíz. But in all likelihood Félix would never know. The Panamanian cops were overwhelmed with street violence. Gastlin was just another statistic. And he was heavy on Félix's mind.
Lina said to the group, "Well, what now?"
Duarte looked at Félix since it was his agency's pot. Félix said, "Who the hell knows? I guess we pack it up and write off the case."
Staub spoke up, using his broken English for Lina and Duarte's benefit. "I contacted the investigators of the homicides, and they will do all they can to solve Mr. Gastlin's murder."
Félix spit out, "That mean anything?" He didn't want to hear from the Panamanian.
Staub looked at the DEA man with his dark eyes. "It means they will do all they can."
Duarte cut in before anyone was offended and said, "The gun case is closed, that much is for sure, but I can help you clear things up here."
Félix sighed. "We might as well get the pot into evidence. Customs has a facility here." He was glad Duarte was here to keep him from fixating on how he had let down Byron Gastlin.
An hour later, Félix and Duarte were at the container with a couple of customs agents and a step van.
Félix said, "Shit, this don't seem like fun anymore. Ortíz is off the hook, and Gastlin is dead."
Duarte nodded and patted his friend on the shoulder. He had seen plenty of grief in Bosnia from the locals involved in the war and from the military guys caught between the Serbs and Croats. That didn't mean he knew how to comfort anyone, but he was there for his friend if he needed anything. Duarte just had a hard time figuring out what people needed.
Félix stepped up to the container and dug out the keys from the front pocket in his pants.
Duarte said, "Wait a minute."
"What's up?"
"You notice anything odd about the lock?"
Félix looked at the shiny metal padlock. "No."
"The keyhole is facing out."
"So?"
"When you locked it, you had the keyhole in, remember? We didn't worry about it then."
Félix slowly nodded. "Yeah, I guess. What's it mean?"
"I don't know, but let's handle the lock carefully and see if anything is missing before the customs guys walk over."
Félix held the lock with two fingers as he worked the small key. It popped, and he fed it through the door latch.
Duarte picked up a crumpled paper bag from the littered ground and put the lock into the bag. Quickly they stepped inside, the smell of the pot soaking into their clothes and nasal passages. Duarte's eyes watered a little.
The load looked intact. They walked through to the rear of the container.
Félix said, "Looks like it's all here."
Duarte looked at the walls closely and the load of pot. "I think there was a wall here. See, the last two feet of the container has a clean floor and the walls aren't as dingy."
Félix looked closely at the indents in the sides of the container and the floor. "Snap, man, you may be right."
"Someone took out the wall last night."
"But why? How much more scrutiny do you get than bringing in a load of dope? Especially a load that the cops know about. It'd be crazy to hide anything in it."
Duarte shook his head, considering the possibilities. He heard the customs guys walking from their van. "Let's keep this quiet for now."
"Why?"
"Do you know who came in here?"
Félix thought about it, looked quickly at the approaching customs agents and shook his head.
"We got the lock." He stepped to the front of the load and pulled a few old sheets of the manifest off the hanging clipboard. He crumpled them and put them into the bag with the lock to keep it from moving around. "I bet Alice can tell us whose prints are on this thing."
"Damn, that girl is going to expect a lot from you now."
"She deserves a lot."
They stepped out of the way as the customs agents started to unload the marijuana bales.
William "Ike" Floyd sat in a Starbucks, chatting with a woman about his age, maybe a little older. He had a coffee or whatever the fucking place called a regular coffee, and the woman, whose name was Faith, had one of the fancier kinds with whipped cream that was the size of a 7-Eleven Big Gulp.
"You from New Orleans originally?" He smiled and looked right at her. He thought that most men probably found her attractive with her blond hair and pretty smile, but she didn't do anything for him. His main interest was in her computer.
Faith said, "I'm from Houma, but I'm here today because of a job interview. That's how come I got my computer with me. I'm checking my e-mail to see if anyone tries to contact me about other job interviews while I'm in New Orleans."
He smiled and took a sip of his coffee. "What do you do?"
"Mostly secretary work, but I can work computers good, too. The jobs haven't come back so much since Katrina."
Ike nodded, knowing that women liked to talk about themselves.
"Where are you from?" asked Faith.
"Omaha. I'm just here on business."
"What business you in?"
He hesitated. "I'm in shipping. We got a load that came through the port." He ran a hand across the computer. "In fact, is there any way I could check my e-mail really quick on your laptop?"
She paused, her green eyes running over his face and chest. "Yeah, I guess. This wireless Internet is a little slow."
"It's just a Yahoo account."
She nodded and slid the small Sony Viao across the little round table to him. In his button-down shirt and casual jeans, he knew he looked respectable, but add in the story about a decent job and he felt that this woman really might be attracted to him. He could understand for a moment what men saw in women. Not just the emasculating, nagging, overbearing women like his mom, who'd virtually left him parentless at sixteen when she ran off with a nigger musician from Chicago. He felt his blood pressure rise.
"You okay?" asked Faith, placing a hand on his arm.
Ike looked at her. "Yeah, why?"
"You just blushed really red in the face."
He looked down, embarrassed she'd seen what the memory of his mom could do to him.
"It's all right. In fact, it's kinda cute. I don't see men blush much anymore."
He liked this woman's voice. Then he remembered the computer and what he needed to do. He started navigating to his Yahoo account and, just like before, brought up saved drafts. He saw a new one among them and opened it.
It was short and direct. "Meet me at five today at the far end of Alamonaster Boulevard Bridge next to I-10. I have made arrangements for someone to accept the package in Houston. It will be a couple of days. O."
He closed the e-mail as Faith said, "When are you going to Houston?"
He snapped his face to hers. "Why'd you read that over my shoulder? You think I can't handle my own e-mail?"
"No, that's not it. I didn't mean to pry. I was just making conversation."
"Dammit. I just used your computer. Didn't give you permission to pry." He stood up.
"Wait. Why are you so angry? I didn't mean nothin' by it."
He decided this was as good a time as any to head out the door. He'd been lucky and had crammed the big U-Haul truck into two empty slots in the rear of the trendy coffeehouse. He'd have to make sure he knew how to find the Alamonaster Bridge and figure out where to meet Ortíz. He was glad he'd finally see this guy face-to-face. His size and conditioning would impress the Panamanian. And he needed some more cash. This beaner sure sounded like he had plenty of cash.
He was out the door and turning the corner when he heard Faith call out to him.
"Wait, don't be mad."
He turned and she surprised him by running straight to him and placing her small hands on his arms. She leaned in close, brushing her breasts against him.
He softened a little. "Don't sweat it. I'm just not used to worrying about other people." She followed him as he turned and slowly walked toward the truck in the empty rear lot.
"What're you hauling? Is that your truck?" She pointed at the U-Haul.
Suddenly he realized she knew too much about him. What if she figured out who he was and what he was doing after she watched the news in a few days? He might have to be on the run, but there was a chance he could pull this off without being identified. The obvious problem was that she'd be a loose end.
He looked at her delicate face as she turned her haunting green eyes up to him.