She was quiet for a moment, her eyes looking into the past, not seeing what was around her.

“There was something about them,” she said quietly. “I instantly wanted to run down and tell him not to go. Three men. There wasn’t anything necessarily remarkable about them. It just . . . it wasn’t right.”

“Can you describe them in any way? Did anything happen?”

“Not really,” she said. “It was up here, looking down. Gary, he’s one of those guys who never met a stranger, you know? He was talking away. All the way into the back of the truck.” This time her smile was angry, angry at her husband for trusting the men who’d killed him. “It was an SUV they got into. Brown.” Her hands balled into fists and she pounded her thighs. “Why didn’t I stop him? Why?”

“You couldn’t have known,” Garza said. “May I ask a leading question?”

“Whatever that is,” said Octavia.

“Did any of the men wear a hat?”

Octavia thought hard. “Yes. A sports team hat. Baseball. I don’t give a shit to follow any of that stuff. Does that help you? Can you catch them?”

Garza took the woman’s hand. “Two of them are already dead themselves. One remains.”

“You find him,” said Octavia, then buried her head in her hands. “My Gary . . .”

“I will find him,” Garza said. “I will.”

CHAPTER 48

Where are you staying now?”

“The Sheraton,” Garza said. She was checking her messages on her phone. “Tomorrow is the big day.”

“I don’t like this feeling,” he said. “The feeling of running out of hours in a day.”

“I’m so exhausted. And keyed up at the same time. I can’t believe I lost a man today. Two.”

Fisk nodded. There was nothing to say to that.

IT WAS NEARLY TEN by the time Fisk and Garza reached the Sheraton. He pulled up outside under the overhang, watching theatergoers trickle in from Times Square. A homeless man stood praying and singing to a streetlight.

She opened her door and extended one leg out, her foot reaching the curb before a valet could arrive. “Did you eat?” she said, without looking back.

“I’ve been dining out of a vending machine pretty exclusively.”

She nodded. “Cop cuisine.”

“Are you offering to buy me dinner?”

“No,” she said, rising from Fisk’s car. “But you can join me if you like.”

THEY FOUND SEATS TOGETHER at a table near the lounge. But when the time came to order, neither one wanted food.

Garza said, “What do you think of a Chilean Malbec?”

“Love it.”

“You didn’t seem like a shot and a beer kind of man.”

“Oh, but I am. Just not tonight.”

The server came and Fisk ordered two glasses. The San Felipe Garza had wanted only came by the bottle. She tried to make him change the wine, but he refused, and the server went away to get a bottle.

Then Fisk felt strange. He hadn’t drunk wine with anyone, never mind an exotically beautiful woman, since he was with Gersten. Suddenly he was moved to keep the conversation about work.

“Tell me about Vargas, your president.”

Garza’s eyebrows lifted and she fiddled with the cocktail napkin the server had left in front of her. “President Vargas is a good man. A courageous man. And I believe the presidency will break him.”

“How?”

“He is still a man of principle.”

“You say ‘still’?”

“I knew him when he was a law professor.”

“Oh,” said Fisk, not sure if he wanted to know more.

“I believe the accord is built on a good foundation. In the past, cooperation between Mexico and the States has focused on equipment, police funding, communications protocols, all sorts of law enforcement tools. Gifts, I call them. As from a parent to a child. Your country saying, ‘Here, play with these, and keep quiet and out of our way.’ I like more guns, more breaching explosives, more trucks, more helicopters, more body armor, better radios. But it is just money. There is no working relationship. No sense of responsibility.”

“As your number one importer of illegal substances.”

“ ‘The giant nose to the north,’ we say. It is just confronting violence with violence. In an illegal market, the natural tendency is toward monopoly, and beyond the rule of law, all that is left is violence. On the other hand, this is also a big fat check for corrupt Mexican military and police to stuff in their pockets. Most federales make less than a worker at McDonald’s. Drug cartels pay no taxes, but more than the equivalent in bribes to mayors, prosecutors, governors, state and federal police. I’m forgetting the army and navy.”

Fisk said, “This accord will cut the purse strings.”

“You have to go after the money. The product is plentiful and cheap. Very cheap until it gets across the border, when the cost of doing business rises and rises. It is the money coming back—often in the same shipping containers the drugs go north in—that needs to be intercepted. The blood flowing back to the heart—that is where the knife blade must go.”

Fisk’s eyebrows shot up at the gory image. Garza winced.

“Sorry,” she said. “What about you?”

“About me? You can look me up on Wikipedia.”

“Yes?” She smiled. “Is it accurate?”

“No.” His turn to smile. “What about you?”

“Am I on Wikipedia?” she asked.

“I don’t know. We could check.”

“Don’t,” she said.

“So?”

She squirmed a little.

“You don’t like talking about yourself. I imagine there’s quite a story in there. How you ended up doing this kind of work,” he said.

Her eyes darkened. She actually looked pained.

“I’m not putting the thumbscrews on you,” he said. “We’re just making conversation. I think.”

She seemed to be trying to maintain her formidable front. But cracks were forming, as though she was getting tired of the strain.

After a moment she said, “Okay. Yes. There is a story.”

Then she clammed up again.

“Waiting.” Fisk let a hint of a smile appear on his lips.

She seemed to be considering whether she wanted to open up to him or not. Before she could make up her mind whether to answer him, the server arrived and showed Garza the label, unscrewed the cork from the bottle of San Felipe, poured a bit, let her taste. She smiled and nodded, and he completed her pour, and Fisk’s. He asked about food, but they demurred. He came with a bowl of glorified Chex mix and left them talking over a hissing candle.

Fisk watched Garza drink. She appreciated the vintage, closing her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, there was the barest gleam showing.

“Your English is very good,” said Fisk, trying to start her off. “Schooling?”

“My father went to graduate school here. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. So he sent me to the American school in Mexico City.”

Fisk took another sip of wine and then set the glass aside so he could focus on her. “It must be hard, though. There can’t be many people like you in the Mexican police.”

“Like me?”

“Female. Incorruptible. At your level.”

She shrugged, tossing that away.

“I get it,” said Fisk. “I’ll stop. I’m not in the habit of talking about myself much either. That counselor I mentioned, the therapist. Like pulling teeth with pliers. Something about it. As though once I start talking about myself, I’ll overindulge and that will be all I talk about.”

“It’s lonely.”

“Therapy?”

“No. The job. For me. You asked.”

“Lonely, yeah.” He nodded. “It’s lonely as hell sometimes.”

“You found someone on the force you could confide in.”

Fisk nodded, trying not to look forlorn. The candlelight, the red wine, the lounge chatter around them.

“I envy that very much,” she said. “I have never found such a person.”

“Never?”

“I’ve dated. A few men in Mexico City over the years. But they were always lawyers, dentists. Once a political functionary—never again.” A brief smile. “Somehow they all seemed like boys—smooth, soft, talky—but when it came right down to it, barely competent to cross a street safely. You can say what you will about the men in my unit, the ones I surround myself with . . . but they are men.”