“I called my aunt Lucy,” he said.
“You called a relative when you were arrested?”
“I wasn’t arrested,” he said. “Aunt Lucy came out of a meeting where they were debating a bill,” he said. “Actually, I felt sorry for the policeman. Aunt Lucy can take the hat off a man at ten paces with her language, and she’s not ashamed to go before the cameras with it. Fascinating lady.”
“Is she in politics or something?” she asked.
“Sort of,” he replied. “She’s the deputy director of the FBI and she’s married to the vice president.”
She just stared at him. “One of the dictators in South America has a son who’s married to a former FBI agent and her father is head of the CIA. I know her. She’s originally from Jacobsville, Texas. Down the road apiece.”
“You have some interesting contacts,” he replied. He cocked his head and smiled at her.
“One day I’ll have to tell you about the rest of mine. One wrestles alligators in Florida.”
She shivered. “I could never do that. I was almost eaten by one once when I was about three years old. We were on a holiday in Florida. Dad found a woman to flirt with, and he wasn’t watching me. There was a canal out behind the house of the people we were staying with. I wandered too close to the canal and came within a hair’s breadth of being eaten by an alligator.”
“Who saved you?”
“The husband and Mom’s best friend,” she said and smiled. “He was a mercenary in years past. I think he probably could have picked the alligator up and tossed it in the back of a pickup truck. As it was, they taped his mouth and relocated him. He wasn’t really a bad alligator—he was just hungry.”
“You have some interesting acquaintances.”
“Unique people,” she replied. “Very unique. They come in and out of my life because they’re always on the move. One of them is delta squad. He was my mother’s first beau, but she married my dad instead. I’m sure he could still tell some stories.But I know men who’ve been in combat don’t do that so I’ve never asked. But he got drunk one time and told me. I never told Mom. She’d have been in the bathroom throwing up.”
“In our professions,” he said, “we get accustomed to seeing bad things and we learn to deal with it. But then we carry it on our backs like heavy loads that we can never get off.”
“We all have things in our past that hurt us.” She started to tell him about Eduardo Duarte’s little boy, but that seemed like privileged information, and she didn’t think he’d want her to share it with the sheriff.
“Thanks for taking care of my ID while I’m gone,” she said. Her expression lightened. “If you need an identifying mark, if I mess up and you have to find my body somewhere, I have a tattoo of a dragon on my left ankle inside. Green dragon that breathes fire and has wings and legs like a griffin.” She laughed. “I like fantasy things, especially dragons.”
“Dragons have always been my favorite,” he said. “They should come up with some design in a laboratory somewhere, and they can make one by using lizard DNA and bird DNA and combining them and getting a lizard that flies. But it would have to be little and cute and not dangerous to people. It would sell out overnight.”
“I’d buy one,” she laughed.
“You be careful in Mexico,” he said as she started out the door. “What you do is no picnic.”
“You know, I think you burn out on undercover work. There’s so much stress involved. I don’t sleep half the time. I’m always nervous about being discovered or messing up by leaving something where I shouldn’t.”
“All of us in law enforcement do that,” he said. “When I was a very young man, I was a policeman in Dade County, Florida. It was great for a young man. Beautiful girls, beautiful scenery. The salary didn’t really matter. I loved the job.”
“You never get rich in this business,” she laughed. “I don’t care about money. I care about helping people. I’m not into the avenging business, but I do want the people who killed that mother and her two children in Dallas brought to justice, and I hope they put him in front of a judge who will not turn him loose the same day to go back and do it over again.”
“Don’t get me started,” Marlowe replied, and his face hardened. “Liberal judges have brought this country to its knees. No accountability, no responsibility, everybody just does what they please. It will end badly.”
“Probably so,” she replied. She smiled sadly. “I just hope mine doesn’t end badly. Mumble a prayer for me if you don’t mind. This is a really big deal. They’re moving a huge shipment. I’ve been told that they might mix something new into it, something horrible and potent.” She sighed. “You know, I have a theory about addicts—alcohol, drugs, whatever. I think there are people who are emotionally fragile. They aren’t equipped to deal with life on a daily basis, so they escape, but the escape becomes a permanent escape eventually. It never ends well.”
“Write a book,” he said. “I’ll buy it.”
“Maybe I’ll do that. Well, I’ll be on my way. My ride is waiting outside.”
“Use that burner phone if you get the chance,” he said, “when you find out any new details, but don’t take chances. You won’t get a second chance, and you will get killed.”
“This isn’t my first time on the merry-go-round,” she replied. “I’m not the best, but I’m good and I don’t take any risks that I don’t have to. I’ve seen gunshot wounds. I don’t want one.”
He laughed. “I know what you mean. Every time it rains, my shoulder goes out. Shrapnel,” he added. “Souvenir of a faraway place.”
She almost added that he probably had souvenirs in his brain that were ten times worse than the shrapnel.
