Ricci sat watching the inconstant tower lights through the haze. “Could be that’s my own choice,” he said.
Lathrop shook his head.
“There are newspaper stories about an incident at that chemical factory outside Manhattan, and UpLink security being involved, and how the Feds are crying foul because they didn’t get invited to the party,” he said. “Knowing you called the party, it’s easy to dope out the rest.”
Ricci still hadn’t turned from the windshield.
“Tell me what you want,” he said.
“I heard you the first time in that parking lot,” Lathrop said.
“Then get to it,” Ricci said.
Lathrop nodded.
“In a minute,” he said. “First we need to finish up with New York.”
Ricci didn’t say anything.
“I tipped you about the Dragonfly laser,” Lathrop said. “I know what was supposed to go down at the plant. There wouldn’t be an available grave plot in the city today if it was up to the people who want your head on a pole, and they’d have swallowed that a lot easier than you doing what you did. It’s all about control for them, and they hate losing their hold on it to a guy like you.”
“Good that you’re so sure,” Ricci said.
“Don’t let yourself believe anything else,” Lathrop said. “I’d love to hear them talk about it behind closed doors. Seriously, Ricci. I would love it.”
They were both quiet for a while as the mist and drizzle began intensifying to a steadier rainfall against the windshield. Lathrop leaned back in his seat and drank some coffee.
“Quick story about an acquaintance of mine,” he said. “Special agent, counter drugs, deep cover. Doesn’t matter which agency and I probably couldn’t remember it to tell you. But what I do remember is he wasn’t interested in the rule book. Didn’t follow the rule book. Too many other guys did and it got them killed or burned. Because the players on the other side were smarter and meaner and knew how to turn the rules against them.”
He paused, sipped.
Ricci kept staring out toward the glints of distant light on the electrical towers.
“This guy any good?” he said.
“From what I know he got the job done,” Lathrop said, and shrugged. “If he rubbed his bosses wrong, they left him alone. The main thing for them was he delivered for a long time. And that meant they could stay posed for the television cameras behind piles of seized dope and guns.” Lathrop fell silent a moment. “Doesn’t matter who the bosses are, it’s the same. They don’t have to get their hands dirty. They don’t deal with the snarling dogs. They never get bullet holes in their foreheads, or have their dead bodies dumped in weed fields with their privates stuffed down their throats. From where they sit in their pressed suits and white shirts, everything’s risk free, and that’s exactly how they want it to stay. Gives them a chance to act like winners every once in a while without ever taking the hurt when they lose.”
“Tell me the rest about your friend.”
“Acquaintance,” Lathrop said. “Like the two of us.”
Ricci grunted but didn’t comment.
“I hear a federal judge took exception to him giving a Big Willie drug dealer rough treatment, made some noise about looking into how he’d handled some other investigations,” Lathrop said. “His bosses started to worry about what might turn up, wanted the problem taken care of before stories started leaking to the press, and cut him loose. Erased his name from their employee records, wiped out every mention of him in their case files.”
“Just like that?”
Lathrop snapped his fingers.
“Got it,” he said.
Ricci grunted. “Where’d that leave him?” he said.
Lathrop shrugged.
“Far as who or what?” he said. “He didn’t go away, he was going down. There were some things about his tactics that would have gotten the kind of publicity nobody up the line appreciates. Things he did that wouldn’t jibe with what your ordinary citizen hears is right and good at his Sunday morning church sermons.”
“And how about after he went away?” Ricci said. “He keep on playing by his own rules?”
Lathrop shook his head.
“My guess is this guy would tell you that’d be too simple,” he said. “He would have stepped off the board. Made up his own game, shoved its rule book in his back pocket, and left everybody else guessing. Their guesses get too close to suit his interests, I could see how he’d change the game on them. Or maybe even play a bunch of different games on different boards. All at the same time just to keep things jumping.”
Ricci looked around at Lathrop.
“This one of them?” he said.
Lathrop shrugged again and said nothing more for a long while.
“Remember the night we first crossed paths?” he said finally. “The Quiros and Salazar clans mixing it up in Balboa Park. Enrique and Lucio getting popped. You after information I’d got on Enrique Quiros.”
Ricci kept looking into his face. “You’re the person who brought me there,” he said. “Always figured it was the same thing for them, but that maybe they didn’t know it.”
Again Lathrop’s veiled expression showed neither confirmation nor denial.
“Lucio was an old school handler, used muscle and guts to keep his syndicate together,” he said. “When he died, it was over for them. But Enrique’s style was different. He had the personality of a pocket calculator, ran his business like any other corporation. His branch got clipped, the power just shifted over to another office. Juan Quiros, one of Enrique’s cousins, took charge, pretty much oversees operations from out in Modesto these days. Without Salazar’s competition, the Quiros bunch marked their territory all up and down the coast.”
“And?”
“There’s a girl, Marissa Vasquez,” Lathrop said. “She’s twenty years old, a college student. Sort of kid every father would want for a daughter. Her dad happens to be Esteban Vasquez, ever hear of him?”
“No.”
“He’s Enrique and Lucio rolled into one… the badges would call him an up-and-comer and they’d be wrong. Been on the scene for years giving cash subs to pot growers across the Rio Grande, uses his construction companies in Frisco as laundering fronts for his return on investments. Until lately, Vasquez kept his trade away from his own neighborhood, but that’s changed, maybe because he saw some openings after Balboa Park. Ecstasy, meth, smack — Vasquez has couriers moving stuff right through Quiros turf.” Lathrop flicked his eyes up to Ricci’s. “Quiros had Marissa kidnapped to get him to back off.”
Ricci held his gaze.
“Haven’t heard anything about that, either,” he said.
Lathrop nodded.
“You wouldn’t have,” he said. “Guys like Esteban try to avoid bringing their troubles to the cops.”
“So he came to you,” Ricci said.
“Right.”
“And you came to me.”
“Right.”
“Why?”
Their eyes remained locked. Lathrop raised his coffee cup and drank from it very slowly.
“Esteban Vasquez wants me to find his daughter,” he said. “I want your help.”
Ricci sat there, his face very still.
“I don’t do favors for drug dealers,” he said.
“We’d be in it for ourselves,” Lathrop said. “Working freelance.”
“Whatever word you use, my answer won’t change,” Ricci said. “It was my kid, I’d find a different place to run my business.”
Lathrop shook his head. “You aren’t Vasquez. If he gives in to the competition, it’ll make him look weak. They’ll devour him wherever he tries to migrate.”