house. There are windows, but they’re all dark. I go back the other way. One light toward the rear on the first floor. I can’t tell how many apartments there are.
I check to make sure no one is watching from a window or one of the dark porches across the street. I would never hear the end of it from Harry if somebody called the cops and he had to come down and post bail on a peeping and prowling charge.
From what I can see, it looks clear, so I climb the stairs and find the mailbox on the porch. Underneath each slot is a name on a slip of paper slid into a groove, some of them typed, some written in pencil or pen. I take out my house keys. Attached to the key ring is a small light. I press the button on the side of this, and the muted red beam flashes on the names.
APT. A: JOHNSON
APT. B: HERNANDEZ
No initials.
APT. C: ROSAS, JAMES
APT. D: WASHINGTON, LEROY
APT. E: RUIZ, R.
APT. F: MORENO
Again no initials.
APT. G: SALDADO, H.
Using the light and a small notepad from my pocket I make notes with a pencil. Completing this task, I head quickly down the stairs. I retrace my steps to the car, and in less than a minute, I’m parked across the street half a block from the house with the driveway. I park between two other vehicles facing toward the house where I can see the front porch and the apartment underneath.
I check my watch. It is almost ten-thirty. Sarah should be getting home any minute. She has a key. I told her not to wait up. At fifteen, she is a good kid, straight As, and quiet. She is the one person I think about before accepting any cases I suspect might involve risk or before doing foolish things such as I am doing tonight.
I settle in, one eye on the cross traffic a block away. For some reason all of this business seems to approach in the perpendicular direction of the cross street. Why I don’t know, but it keeps the approaching headlights to a minimum so that slumped down in the driver’s seat it’s not likely anyone is going to see me.
I snooze a little, one eye open. Every once in a while as business becomes thick at the intersection, traffic jams up, and a car will turn this way, forcing me to slide down a little deeper into the seat.
I don’t know how long I’ve been dozing, but both eyes are closed when I wake to the sound of tires squealing on pavement. I open my eyes and try to quickly gain my bearings. The street vendors a block down have all disappeared. All I see is the fading glow of taillights from the last car that turned and headed away from me. Within two seconds, they turn on another street and are gone. The intersection is now completely deserted.
I sit, slumped in the front seat, wondering what’s happened. It doesn’t take long before the answer arrives. It comes in the form of a police cruiser trolling slowly through the intersection, its light bar flashing disconcerting strobes. The cops inside use their spot to light up the bushes and the shadows against the house on the corner. They do a slow drive through the intersection and check the front of the house on the opposite corner. They keep moving slowly, and suddenly, as quickly as they arrived, the reflection of colored light is gone.
I continue to watch the intersection for several minutes. Nothing. No action. It appears the cops have scared them off.
Then all of a sudden, vehicle lights round the corner behind me. I slump down deep into the seat so that I am now mostly under the steering wheel, my legs folded at the knees up under the steering column. My head and shoulders are leaning off toward the passenger seat, so I am hunched down below the driver-side window.
The car approaches slowly. I hear its wheel crushing gravel on the pavement outside. Now I can make out the call signals on their police band even with their windows rolled up.
They strafe the three parked cars with the spotlight. Jets of streaking bright white flood through the windows, and suddenly the light bar comes on again. If they catch me lying on the floor, parked a block from Super Narco, they are likely to take every screw out my car looking for drugs. They will take my name off my license whether they find anything or not. Within twenty-four hours I’ll be drawing curious glances from prosecutors and clerks in the courthouse. Judges will be peering into my eyes, looking for that glassy stare. God help me if I show up sleepy in court some morning, like tomorrow.
The patrol car stops next to the vehicle parked behind mine. A door opens. The police band is now loud enough that I can hear the static between calls. Footsteps outside.
He pulls on the door latch of the car behind me. It slips out of his fingers. Locked. He won’t have this problem if he tries mine. It’s too late to lock it. Besides I know he’s looking through the window with a flashlight.
I get a mental image. He pops the door and finds me unconscious under the steering wheel. They have to call for the Jaws of Life to pry me out.
I can tell he is checking carefully now, looking through the windows with a flashlight. A beam moves around through my rear window.
“Jimmie.”
“Yeah. I see him.”
My heart is pounding.
A car door slams with a thud. Suddenly the engine hits on all cylinders. Tires screech next to my ear, just outside the door. In an instant, it’s dark again, quiet. I hold my breath, waiting. It seems like an eternity. Probably fifteen seconds. I ease my head up, like a turtle coming out of its shell. I shimmy up past the steering wheel, wondering how I fit beneath it. The mysteries of adrenaline. My lower back is killing me.
Near the intersection of action I see the patrol car stopped, the light bar sparkling in its disorienting rhythm of red and blue. Spread across the front of the police unit is the kid in the dark-hooded sweatshirt. The hood is now pulled down so that a buzz cut is visible, dark stubble on his scalp.
One of the cops spreads his feet, then speed cuffs the suspect’s hands behind his back. His partner is gingerly going through the guy’s pockets.
The cop doing the search keeps depositing little discoveries on the hood of the car, poking different ones every once in a while with a finger, examining it under the glare of a flashlight like a miner checking for nuggets.
The other cop is down on his haunches now, feeling around the kid’s ankles. Maybe looking for a gun.
Then suddenly, Eureka! I can almost hear him. When he stands up he’s holding a roll of bills from inside the kid’s sock, along with what appears to be some product, some little plastic packets. I can see them glitter in the beam of the spotlight that is now focused on the hood of the patrol car.
Another police car, a backup unit, approaches from the opposite direction. Within seconds there’s a convention of blue standing in the middle of the intersection, light bars flashing.
They continue searching the kid. One of the cops comes up with a shoe in one hand and a sock in the other. He looks in the shoe and flips it on the ground. He starts shaking the sock. Little white packets fall out all over the hood of the car.
His colleague keeps shaking the sock. Things keep falling out. A regular horn of plenty. There are smiles all around from the guys in uniform.
Another patrol car pulls up. I’m starting to get nervous. They may camp here for the night, decide to go on a safari looking for the guy’s friends.
Enough excitement for one night. I check my watch. It is now nearly one in the morning. The house across the street is pitched in darkness all across the front. The glow of the television in the upstairs window is gone. I’m wasting my time. Espinoza is jerking my chain. He’s probably given me the address of one of his coyote caves, a place where he deposits illegals, part of the underground railroad to the promised land.
I watch as the cops put the kid into the backseat of one of the patrol cars. Ten minutes later, it begins to mist again, and the street party breaks up. Light bars extinguished, they head off in different directions. No doubt they figure they’ve chilled the action at the intersection for the night.
I reach for the key and I’m just about to turn the ignition, when I see the silhouette of a figure across the street.
He has stepped out of the shadows near the front door where I couldn’t see him. He leans out, looks to see if the cops are gone. I can see him from the thighs up, as he leans against the solid three-foot-wall of the porch
