“Fuck that.” He was backing away from them, not overtly looking for an escape route, but he definitely didn’t want to be talking to them.
“You run, we’ll haul your ass in,” Noah said. “It’s too fucking hot out here to play this game.” He motioned toward the bar. The back wall was shaded. “Against the wall, Musgrove.”
He was weighing his options.
Noah stepped toward him. “I’m in much better shape than you are, Leo. Wall. Now.”
Leo swore and backed against the wall.
“Turn around.”
He complied.
Noah searched him. Removed a knife and a small gun. Slipped them into his pocket. “Turn around.”
“I’d better get those back,” Leo said. “I’m no longer on probation, I can carry a fucking gun.”
Noah said, “Eight months ago you moved a small group of young women, ten to twelve of them, into the brothel on Seventh Street that was subsequently shut down after an investigative reporter exposed a bunch of cops and politicians using the place. But before that, the whole place came to a halt for three days while these girls were there. Who did you move them for and where did they go?”
Leo stared at Noah like he was asking him to drink cyanide.
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
Lucy handed Noah the thin folder with photos of Marisol and Ana.
Noah showed Leo the de la Rosa sisters. “Seen them?”
Leo didn’t even look at the photo. “No.”
“Look again.”
Leo waved his hand over the photo in dismissal. “Girls like them are a dime a dozen. In and out, working girls. I don’t know who they are, what they do, nothing. Nothing. Got it?”
Definitely protesting too much. Out of fear or because he was protecting someone?
“These girls were taken from Monterrey, Mexico. Which means this falls under border security issues. The fact that ICE and the FBI just captured a dozen Syrians over the last two weeks coming in from Mexico-three of whom are on the terror watch list-means that I can hold you indefinitely if I believe that you’re bringing known terrorists into the States.”
“Those girls are terrorists?” Leo laughed. “Right.”
Noah didn’t smile. “I’m not bluffing, Leo. You brought them across the border, I can make the case that you have knowledge of terrorist movements because of your illegal job as a coyote.”
Leo stared, weighing if Noah was bluffing.
Noah stepped closer. “I don’t like the heat, and you run out here and make me stand in the fucking sun. I don’t work here. I’m from DC headquarters. Which means I have a lot more clout than your average fed. One call, and I’ll bring the wrath of God down on you. I want to know who those girls were for. Who ordered the facility shut down in order to house them. Where they went. No more games.”
He stepped forward. Lucy had never seen Noah be such a hard-ass. But Leo was buying the tough-cop act. Lucy was buying it.
“I talk, I’m dead.”
“Not my concern.”
He glanced at Lucy, then back at Noah. “I really don’t-”
Noah shot Lucy a look and a nod. She hoped she read his silent communication right. She said, “Mr. Musgrove, we know that someone is using women, both illegal immigrants and runaways, as breeders. Forcing them to give birth then taking their babies. We have IDs on most of the players, but one. You give us a name, we walk away and no one knows we spoke.” She was bluffing about the ID’s.
“Everyone will know! Those guys who ran, they’re low-level gangbangers with big fucking mouths.”
“I want this woman,” Lucy said and showed him the photo of the well-dressed woman that Siobhan had taken on Sunday evening. She was the piece of the picture that didn’t fit, and she hadn’t popped up in any criminal database.
Leo knew exactly who she was. By his expression he would rather take his chances with Noah than this woman.
“Okay, look, yeah, I’ve brought a few girls in and out of the country. Legal age. They were never prisoners, always wanting to come to the States. You know how it is. Working girls. It’s not like we grabbed them off the street. They just wanted a better life, you know? Johns who pay better, don’t beat them up. It’s a business, that’s all it is.”
Lucy didn’t believe a word. Unless Siobhan didn’t know these girls at all, and she didn’t believe that, either.
“I just move them. Here to there. No questions asked.”
“Where did you move them eight months ago when they left the brothel?” Noah demanded.
“I can tell you, but that ain’t going to help you. You think they stay in one place long? Hell no. But I tell you, none of those girls were preggers when I saw them. None. And in my business, you don’t want them popping out kids, that’s why you take care of things before, or after, if you know what I mean.”
Noah said, “We know that three months ago, they moved from a place in Laredo to a place outside Freer. Where were they before Laredo?”
It was clear that Leo was surprised they had that intel.
“Hey, I heard they were all laying low.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Just the word.”
“Where did you take them after the brothel closed.”
“That’s not going to help you now.”
“Let me be the judge of that,” Noah said.
“Fuck.”
Noah raised his chin.
“A property southwest of San Antonio. In the middle of bumfuck nowhere, except that there are a bunch of migrants working the trees.”
“A brothel in the middle of nowhere?” Lucy asked. “I don’t think so.”
“Just saying, that’s where I took them. Didn’t say it was no brothel.”
Lucy held up the photo again. “This woman. Name.”
It was clear Leo had hoped she’d forgotten about the photo. He whined, “I don’t know.”
“Then you can sit in jail for three days,” Noah said.
“Fuck that! I did nothing! I don’t know her or the girls.”
“That’s bullshit, Leo.”
Leo ran both hands through his dark, greasy hair. “You’ll never get her on anything.”
“Name!” Noah demanded.
“Jasmine. Jasmine, okay? That’s all I know.”
“Last name.”
“She don’t use a last name. You say Jasmine that’s all, like, you need to know.”
Noah said, “Where is she now?”
“Right. Like I would know that. No one knows, except her bodyguard.” He motioned toward Lucy, so Lucy figured the suit next to Jasmine was her bodyguard. “I’m pretty fucking stunned you got her photo at all. She’s the most paranoid bitch on the planet. Why she doesn’t use a fucking last name. She’s not going to be easy to find. She has a fucking fortune, fall guys right and left. Including cops. For all I know, you work for her and I’m going to be gutted for talking.”
Noah half smiled. “You think I’m on the take?”
Leo shook his head. “Naw. You don’t have that edge. I mean, you have an edge, but it’s not the I’m for sale edge. Believe me, I’d know.”
Astute, for a scumbag, Lucy thought.
Leo continued. “You’ll never get her. You get close, she’ll gut you. Oh God, I’m gonna have to go under. You see what you did to me? Fucking talk to me and you ruin my fucking life.”
Noah handed Leo his business card. “My cell phone is on the back. You get me good intel, I’ll get you out of Del Rio.”
Lucy was about to hand Leo her own card out of habit, but an almost imperceptible shake of Noah’s head had her simply adjusting the folder in her hand.
Leo looked at Noah’s card, then folded it three times and stuffed it way down into his pocket. “You burned me, Armstrong. Give me my gun.”
Noah took the.22 out of his pocket and field-stripped it in short order, then tossed it at Leo’s feet. “The knife isn’t legal.”
“Of course it’s legal!”
“Not in DC, and those are the only laws I know. I’ll leave it at the local FBI office; you can pick it up whenever you want if, like you say, it’s legal.” Noah walked away but kept Leo in his line of sight until they were almost to the car.