James stammered, “B-But we think we may have seen Vic, Rick’s son. And we saw-Skip saw guns.”
Krueger nodded. “Drop it. Don’t tell anyone what you’ve seen and don’t try to see anymore. We’ll take it from here. Mrs. Fuentes here has her life on the line, and so do you. Don’t push it any further, got it?”
James shook his head up and down vigorously.
“Do you have identification?” I wasn’t comfortable with the guy.
“I’m not getting through to you, am I?” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a wallet. He flashed a badge and stared at me, slipping the wallet back into his rear pocket. “This is serious stuff, kid. Don’t fuck with me.”
“How do you know where we were last night?”
“We know. That’s what we do, we get information. We’re the Central Intelligence Agency. Intelligence. Understand?” He stood up and walked toward the door, turning to us for a final word. Or two. “Pretend you never heard of Rick Fuentes. Pretend you don’t know his son Vic. If you continue to involve yourselves, you’re not only putting Vic in danger, you’re putting yourselves in danger.”
“Mr. Krueger,” James finally got some backbone, “Vic is already in danger. If it wasn’t him we saw last night, there’s a good chance he’s dead.”
“Then forget about Vic.” Krueger smiled a disingenuous smile. “Worry about yourselves, because you’re in danger right now. You could walk out the door of this house and never even make it to your cars. Understand?” He turned the corner and we could hear him walking down the hallway. We understood. To some of us, it didn’t make any difference, but all four of us understood.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
“You have the right to remain silent, so shut the fuck up. If you can’t afford an attorney we’ll find the dumbest son of a bitch on earth to represent you.” James flicked his ashes on the cement and drained his second beer. I could have told him it was from Lethal Weapon 4, but I wasn’t in the mood.
“It’s not funny, James. The CIA is involved and apparently we could get in even deeper than we are.”
“Deeper?” James was close to shouting. “Christ, Skip, they were already trying to kill us. How much deeper can we get?”
“Yeah. And are we running for our lives?”
“We should be scared shitless.”
“And we’re not.”
“We’re invincible, amigo. We think about death but we don’t seriously believe it’s going to happen to us.”
“Is that it?”
“I don’t know. I’d like to know what happened to Vic.” He popped number three, and handed me my second.
“Me, too. I’m tired of getting the runaround from everybody.” Especially from Em, although I didn’t want to admit that to James.
“Speaking of runarounds, was Emily giving you the runaround tonight?”
“What?”
“I noticed she wouldn’t talk to you when you spoke, and she pretty much ignored you the rest of the time.”
“Yeah. She thinks I’m immature, have no future, and I’ve got a jerk for a roommate. I’m not husband material. Apparently not father material either.”
“Jesus. I wasn’t serious last night when I said that.”
He was. “ She was. I think she wants to distance herself.”
“From you?”
“Seems to be the plan.”
“Sorry, pard.”
“So do we call Fuentes? Forget about what the CIA guy said?”
James stared into the darkness, waving his cigarette, making a bright orange arc in the air. We were both quiet for a moment.
“We’ve got another party involved here.” He sipped his beer.
“Emily? Jackie?”
“No.”
“Who?”
He smiled. “Angel.”
“And your point is?”
“He’s had pretty good instincts so far, Skip. I say we tell him about our meeting and see what he thinks.”
“I agree.” Angel had probably saved my life twice. Once when he stopped the Cubans at the storage unit, and just last night when he shot out the floodlight at the warehouse. It wasn’t a bad idea to see what his opinion was.
“How about I swing by Gas and Grocery tomorrow on my way to work, and I’ll see if he’s around. I’ll take a break about three. Any chance you can swing by Esther’s?
“I’ll do it. I may not have to worry about a job.”
“Oh, come on, pard. I have a feeling your sales are going to soar.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
I pulled into work about half an hour late, thinking about Em and thinking about what Krueger had said last night. You might not even make it to your cars tonight. Something like that. I thought about all the movies and stories I’d read where somebody puts a bomb in your car, and the minute you turn the key, BOOM! I thought especially of that movie, Casino, starring Joe Pesci where De Niro’s car blows up. I would have checked the engine on my Prism, but I had no idea what to look for. Then I thought about a fatherless kid. And maybe she was right. I was pretty much useless, nothing more than the sperm donor to fertilize the egg.
But when I walked into the office I got a nice surprise. Maybe the job was getting better or I was getting better at the job because another client bought a system. Not only did this guy and his wife buy one, but he wanted a system for his office. I think he was an accountant or something. Sammy was ecstatic.
“Contract was on the fax machine this morning, Skipper. Two more sales. I think someone took our little conversation to heart.”
I cringed. I kept my mouth shut, but I cringed. I didn’t take him seriously, much less to heart. The guy was a flaming asshole and whatever had happened must be pure, dumb luck.
I called Em from the office phone. It saves minutes. She answered like it was a business call, very formal. Then when she heard my voice she got even more cold and distant.
“Em. What do you think?”
“About what?”
I knew the kid issue wasn’t her favorite subject at the moment. “About last night.”
“What about last night?”
I was getting slightly irritated by the attitude. “Were you there? I thought I saw you. I know you didn’t talk to me, but I would swear you were there. Jesus, Em. About the CIA guy and Jackie.”
“What’s there to talk about? If you keep meddling in this thing, Vic is going to be in even more trouble, Jackie could be in trouble, and you and James could be in trouble. You heard him. I thought he was very clear.” Her smug voice came through the receiver loud and clear.
“Listen, I don’t know what I did to piss you off, but I wish you’d lose the attitude.” I started to build up a
