Richie slid the six-pack toward her. “Take ’em all,” he said. His eyes moved defensively to mine. “I no longer feel like drinking.”
I walked over to Alberto at the front desk and borrowed the key to the business office.
As I did, Cassie arrived. She is the fourth member of our team, and was, until last year, my partner on PAR. She was dressed in a black pencil skirt and a white blouse that contrasted with her dark skin.
I considered the events of the last seventy-two hours. How we’d lost track of a quarter-million-dollar gun shipment. Then found our C.I. dead, but not at the hands of the people most likely to kill him.
“C’mon.” I motioned to the team. “Let’s talk in private.”
We held any conversation until we were assembled in the hotel’s business office and I’d closed the door. Along the north wall was an overstuffed couch and a marble coffee counter. Cassie sat on a barstool near the cappuccino machine and fired it up.
“Gardner,” she said, swiping her dark hair out of her eyes. “You look crashy. How ’bout some liquid ingenuity?”
I made eye contact with her and nodded. Then glanced at the rest of the group. The problem on our hands was difficult to solve, but easy to understand. There were two shipments of guns. One we hadlost track of: we had to make sure those didn’t end up in the wrong hands. The other, which was still on order, was even more dangerous: unmarked weapons for the express purpose of killing cops.
Say something positive.
“What’s the latest on Pecos?” I asked.
“We’re starting to build a timeline,” Richie said.
We didn’t have time for a timeline.
“And?”
“The first few days,” Cassie said. “Meaning seventy-two hours out from his death… Freddie went off.”
Cassie Pardo is only five foot three but is a dynamo of energy. She also uses the slang of a twenty-year-old. “Out all night Thursday and Friday,” she said. “Saturday, a dayger.”
Adayger, I’d previously found out, was slang for a daytime rager.
“He partied?”
“We got him in two places in Hambis,” Shooter said. “Bought rounds for the house with fresh cash.”
“ATM cash,” Cassie clarified. “But no answers so far on who killed him. Richie’s focusing on his last twenty-four hours.”
“What about a new C.I.?” I looked at Cassie. “You emailed two hours ago. Said you wanted to talk through something live?”
“I do,” she said, looking around and smiling. “Wedo,” she clarified. “And we think it slays.”
Slayis big with Cassie. Sometimes she uses it as a noun. Or a verb. Even a direct address. She has texted me the words,Hey, Slay. Which, as the most statistically productive agent in the Miami office, I accept as a compliment and respond to.
“Let’s hear it,” I said.
“Travis Wells.” Cassie hit the button to stop the cappuccinomachine from pouring. “He’s one of Sandoval’s guys. Travels back and forth from Florida to Georgia. He’s also a two-striker, Gardner. Under Florida’s 10-20-Life Law, his next pull is life in prison.”
“So how do we turn him?” I asked.
“That’s the thing,” Richie jumped in. “We’ve got nothing on Wells. From what we understand, he doesn’t transport weapons or cash, either.”
Cassie took a carafe of milk from a mini-fridge and placed the steam wand into it.
“He just drives from Georgia to Florida,” Shooter said. “Checks in on the operation for Sandoval.”
“I’m not following,” I said.
“Travis has a cousin named Matt.” Cassie pulled the wand from the milk, poured the thickened cream atop the coffee, and placed it in front of me. “He lives in Portolare, four miles from the hotel where we’ve been staying in Hambis. The two of them get shit-faced twice a month when Travis is down here. Like CEO of the bar, you know? Total throwdown. Richie witnessed it two weeks ago.”
