She ordered a very pricey baby shrimp ceviche with fiery horseradish sauce and a light American beer. The cocktail menu was extremely tempting, especially now that the president was safely ensconced for the evening, but as a single woman seated among high-energy chatter it seemed to her that a martini glass would be seen by others as an invitation to chat. She leaned over her phone instead, the technological refuge of the shy and not-to-be-bothered, though that did not deter two separate approaches by men, one offering to buy her another drink—when she was but two sips into her first, and last, beer—and another clumsily complimenting her on her hair. “I saw you from across the room and just had to come over to tell you that,” he gushed, expecting something more than a polite thank-you.
Five minutes, read Virgilio’s text.
She cycled through news reports about the beheaded bodies, knowing she would learn nothing new but needing to pursue the matter nonetheless. She was copied on an e-mail from President Vargas’s staff, a memo detailing the official response to the incident, should anyone in the administration be asked about it. The preferred response was essentially to defer all questions to the local NYPD authorities, which was the opposite of what Garza was trying to do.
A tap on her shoulder and she turned and it was not Virgilio but yet another potential suitor, asking about her food. Garza, tired and cranky by this time, dead-eyed him until he backed away. Not to say that she preferred the more peacocklike machismo of the Mexican male, but the American gambit of slinking into a conversation left her cold.
She glanced around the bar, glowering, hoping to send a message to any other potential interrupters that she was not there to be picked up. In doing so, she noticed a handful of women who, to her practiced cop’s eye, clearly were there to be picked up. Glamorously attired ladies of the evening, young women with clinging dresses, pouty lips, and low-dangling necklaces forming bejeweled arrows pointing right to their cleavage.
Prostitutes. Drawn to the hotel by the promise of United Nations Week, or a nightly occurrence, she did not know. Though she strongly believed that a few of the men talking to them believed themselves succeeding wildly with these women, and had no idea there was going to be a gift request once they repaired back to their room.
Into this scene came Virgilio, walking quickly, compact and muscular. “I was in the lounge looking for you,” he explained, when she asked what took him so long. He plucked the last shrimp off her plate. “We got nothing yet.”
Garza raised her eyebrows. She showed him her phone. “You couldn’t have called with that news? I would be asleep by now.”
“Nothing definitive, Comandante. But we did receive word of three men missing. They are illegals, of course. All three are landscapers, and there is a corner in Bushwick where they congregate every morning, hoping to be picked up by the trucks that head for the towns north of the city, where the lawns and shrubs are tended like a movie star’s eyebrows. Nothing has been reported to the police for obvious reasons, but the men are four days gone and are unreachable by telephone.”
They spoke quietly and confidentially, not to be overheard. “Any link to illegal activity?”
“A sensitive subject, as you can imagine. I only spoke to one direct relative. She said no, but that is far from proof.”
Garza puzzled over this. “Killing innocents—if they are—is not at all outside Chuparosa’s method of operation. But why fellow Mexicans here in the States? Except to draw attention to himself, and to the Mexican contingent.”
“Taunting, perhaps. Announcing himself does seem counterintuitive, but the Hummingbird is half a madman, in my opinion. Highly unpredictable. Part of what makes him so dangerous.”
“Next move?”
“I am returning early in the morning to the street corner to try to learn what kind of vehicle might have picked up these three men. Though I fear the trail may have gone cold. I want to offer them money, I believe that is the fastest way.”
Garza smiled. “That is why we meet in person. I have almost no American currency. You called Jefe?”
“I did. No answer. I need to be there at the crack of dawn.”
“I will pass along your request and the funds will be brought to you.”
“Have them find me. I’m not going to sleep tonight. I’m going to have dinner with a cousin. I have too much energy burning inside me now, too much anger. The American press’s news coverage of the killings . . . it’s a smear. It disgusts me. I am going to find the man who did this and restore our national honor.” Virgilio remembered who he was talking to. “I will save a piece for you, of course, Comandante.”
“We will get him together,” she said.
Garza nodded and Virgilio left. She returned to what was left of her food and signaled for the bill.
She would remember later that she did not watch Virgilio leave. He was one of the most competent, capable men she knew. She thought nothing of him heading off for the night.
CHAPTER 26
Brendan Teixeira, to be quite frank, was not happy about the meeting. It seemed hinky. Wrong.
Brendan’s family had been selling fish at the Fulton Fish Market since the 1920s. Almost a century. The family joke was when a Teixeira died, you packed him in ice and put him in a cardboard box.
The Teixeiras’ specialty was shellfish: oysters, clams, scallops, and mussels. There was a time when it was just Wellfleets, Blue Points, quahogs, littlenecks, the usual domestic varieties. But the Teixeiras had managed to stay ahead of the curve, flying in fresh varieties from all over the globe: spiny oysters, abalone, sea urchins, nerites. Your Asians wanted all the weirdest stuff possible. And high-end restaurants were always looking for something distinctive, something that not every other restaurant in New York had. Variety and novelty.
So you had to stay on your toes, always looking for opportunities.
Two days earlier Brendan had gotten a call from a guy who said he had a special treat he wanted to show him. A Mexican guy, said he’d be in New York for one day only with a fresh catch of almeja negras, a rare clam from Mexico.
Here was the thing: Brendan’s dickhead uncle Raphael kept telling him he was going to give him more responsibility with the business. But it seemed like when the crunch time came, Uncle Raphael just wanted Brendan to be a gofer, driving one of the delivery vans around the city. Using Brendan as a glorified intern. Finding a new variety of clam, something the company could potentially sell for big bucks to select high-end restaurants in Manhattan, that might get Uncle Raphael to see that Brendan was good for more than just driving.
“Here is the situation,” the man had said, his accent thick, though not hard to understand. “I represent a fishing cooperative of Yucatec Mayan fishermen. They got a special monopoly on this particular location based on Mexican law respecting Native Peoples. I’m bringing in half a pound of oysters by air, packed in dry ice. Four hours from the docks in Ciudad del Carmen, seven hours from the ocean. At this point in time, I’ll be straight up with you, I have no permits, no paperwork, no nothing. Okay? I’m not gonna sell them to you, we not gonna do any sort of transaction that could make problems for you with Customs, Department of Fish and Wildlife, none of those guys. We meet in a parking lot over in Hunts Point, you taste the merchandise. You like the freshness, the firmness, the consistency . . . we gonna work out all the permits, the importation, make it legal going forward. You don’t like the merchandise? You don’t like the price? Hey, no hard feelings, my friend. That is how confident I am. Everything starts and ends with the fish, I know you agree. If I don’t deliver a great product, we have nothing to talk about, am I right?”