When Mac answered, I said, “We gotta meet at Joe’s Tavern soon.”
She laughed. “I’m free tonight, Parnell, if you’re not just blowing smoke up my ass.”
“Sadly, I’m in the smoke-blowing business right now.” I told her what I needed, and she told me Temporary Protected Status was under the control of DHS—the Department of Homeland Security. But she promised to see what she could do. We promised to meet soon for whiskeys at Joe’s Tavern and hung up.
After that, I called ColdShip, who still hadn’t come through. My dream was to get video of Damn Fox and Street Cred somewhere, anywhere near the train where we’d found Noah. The footage would give me leverage to lean on them when we brought them in. But when the receptionist answered and I gave my name, she told me the manager was out for the day. Ditto for the head of security.
These guys were starting to seriously piss me off.
I pulled up North Platte’s newspaper, the North Platte Telegraph. The Telegraph had two articles about the company. One announced the opening of the facility three years earlier. Then, two years ago, ColdShip had been raided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The ICE raid had revealed that the company employed undocumented immigrants and treated them poorly on a host of fronts, including providing an unsafe work environment. Penalties and criminal prosecution would be forthcoming. An immigration attorney was mentioned, John Yaeger. I entered a search for ColdShip and immigrants along with other search combinations.
But I couldn’t find any follow-up.
I tilted back in my chair, planted my feet against my desk, and stared at the ceiling.
Companies couldn’t be held liable by ICE if they’d done their best to verify employees’ work authorizations. In fact, checking an employee’s documentation too rigorously could result in discrimination charges. Employers had to walk a fine line.
But if, after the raid, ColdShip still knowingly relied on undocumented workers—cheap, willing, available—they would be highly motivated to keep any video recordings out of the hands of the authorities. My guess was that the cameras worked perfectly well. ColdShip would want to keep an eye on their employees, make sure they weren’t taking too many cigarette breaks or skimming merchandise.
But they wouldn’t want proof of who, exactly, was smoking those cigarettes.
I dropped my feet with a frown. Whatever ColdShip might be up to, I couldn’t see how undocumented workers played into Noah’s murder.
I checked the time. With half an hour to go, I generated a list of the vehicles owned by everyone in Noah’s circle. Markey and Rivero. Todd Asher. Riley Lynch. A pickup, two sedans, and a BMW. No cargo vans. Then I ran a background check on Riley Lynch. Six months earlier, he’d been fined for possession of a Class IV substance. Rohypnol, the date-rape drug.
If you hadn’t finessed your seduction skills, there was always Rohypnol as a fallback.
I pulled up a search engine on the computer and typed in Superior Gentlemen. Nothing. Then I entered Denver pickup artists. A website popped up advertising seminars from the previous summer—classes that promised to teach men “the game.”
The instructor’s name was Baron Casanova, an obvious pseudonym. I shot an email to the address listed on the seminar site. Maybe Noah had been a student. But within seconds the email bounced back with a notice that the address was no longer valid.
I widened my search. PUAs appeared to be one of several groups that were considered part of the “manosphere.” There were men’s-rights activists, men who advocated celibacy, and guys who figured the world would be better off without women. There were men who said you should never masturbate and others who were miserably celibate because they couldn’t get a date. These celibates divided the rest of the world into Chads—men who could easily attract women—and Stacys—desirable women who slept with the Chads.
The celibates hated Chads and Stacys. They also hated pickup artists because those men—like Chads—got women.
Plenty of anger to go around.
PUAs and celibates did agree on one thing—women were props, not people. Resources to be allocated. Dating wasn’t about creating a relationship.
It was a power trip.
Again, I thought of the tattoo on Noah’s arm. The one placing men over women. Maybe Noah had inverted the normal order by supporting feminist causes. That could be seen as a betrayal.
I glanced up as Bandoni came in. He looked better. Either the errand had done him some good or he had actually taken a nap. I flagged him down. When he stopped at my desk, I filled him in on what I’d spent the last half hour learning.
“Good work on Lynch,” he said. But then he frowned. “But ColdShip? I sent off the warrant request to the North Platte PD. I thought we were waiting on that.”
“I figured we’d want those recordings as soon as possible.”
“You have them?”
“It hasn’t yet—”
He leaned in and lowered his voice. “All you did was give those guys a heads-up that we want to take a look at their operations.”
Clyde lifted his head, alert to the edge in Bandoni’s voice.
I thought of the articles I’d just read in the newspaper, and my heart sank. All I cared about was a couple of stowaways, not whether ColdShip was hiring undocumented workers.
Around us, the room had gone quiet. Everyone appeared to be raptly attentive to their computers or the paperwork on their desk. But even though Bandoni had lowered his voice, they knew I’d done something to screw the pooch. My cheeks burned.
Bandoni crooked a finger. “Let’s go get a Coke.”
Meaning he’d chew my ass in private. I signaled Clyde to stay and followed Bandoni through the maze of desks and out into the hallway.
“We still don’t have the warrant,” I pointed out. It sounded defensive. Almost worse than making a mistake was not admitting it. “But it was my bad.”
“This ain’t a fucking game we’re playing.”
“I know. But be honest, Bandoni.” It sounded like a
