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“Nothing but a brick fucking wall,” I mutter to Nicolo on the phone as I stand outside a strip club on the outskirts of Dallas, where I just met an informant. Someone we trust and use occasionally because of her ties to various groups.
People like her are best kept to the occasional or necessary business. A drink at the bar where she works, take in a little tit and ass on display, and words flow.
But too often, wells dry up.
“How are things in Arizona?”
“Smooth seas. We’ll be home soon.” Behind his words, I hear the longing for his woman, and while I’ve never been in that position, at least not in recent years and not to that extent, I understand it.
We shoot the shit as I idly watch who comes and goes. Places like this always have a stream of customers, but there’s no one I recognize, no tell-tale ink on display.
“Gotta go,” Nicolo says. “Be careful.”
“Where’s the fucking fun in that?”
I hang up, head to my car, and pull out of the lot, this time pointing the vehicle toward the prison. It’s earlier than I like, but I’ve arranged to see another inmate on De Luca’s payroll as well as Fallon.
Not ideal, but it’s the best I can come up with.
One thing’s clear from my chats with people today and with the last informant—the pattern.
Everywhere girls have gone missing, there’s been El Cabeza or their affiliates, and Lowlanders around.
Even when they’re not areas they operate in.
As for the Smith Group? I don’t ask, just listen, and if they are there, no one knows or, more likely, no one’s talking.
The teacher network is clear, like a cloudless sky, when I know to look for it. There is no pattern and numbers are low in many places. But it seems to be within a certain radius of the border that I can tell.
There’s a chance it’s countrywide, but I don’t think so. This seems to be as big as an operation can be without calling attention. If I didn’t know, if the whole thing that started with Avah hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t even see it. None of us would.
But it is what it is, a cog.
To a bigger, darker thing, I’m betting. A thing that sees this stretch of the border as important. But I don’t know what. Something that hangs there, just out of my sight. I could go to Leo now, and chances are it would be a crackdown with pieces scattering to the wind.
Or it could get it all and stomp it dead.
I don’t know.
To see the impact on De Luca, it’s best to wait, learn more, and feel out all the dark corners for hidden parts.
Time as they like to fucking say, will tell.
“Just worried about her, is all.” Fallon leans back, face blank, devoid of emotion. “Nothing more to tell. You got it all last time.”
I mirror him. “Got squat.”
“You shouldn’t be here, you know this.”
I eye my friend. “De Luca business begs to differ. And what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t say hello after official business is done?”
“Fuck . . .” He shakes his head. “Karlee? She okay?”
“Your sister is a fucking handful, but nothing I can’t handle. She mentioned a man and a woman.”
He goes still. I pick up on it, but I’m not sure anyone else would.
“Asking her about you.”
