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  I was trailing Ramsey by fifteen or twenty feet when Chillo—it was him, I could see the tattoos now in the weak light of a street lamp, crowding the space on his neck and back—ran out of cars and made a break for it across Landsdowne Avenue. The pale skin of his lower back looked like a sheet running into the night. Ramsey settled into the classic shooter’s stance, calling out for him to stop. Chillo twisted his upper body awkwardly as he ran and brought his arm up, trying to get a bead on us. Ramsey’s gun kicked once. Chillo was hit before he’d managed to turn even halfway around. Forward momentum took him two more steps, but it was borrowed time, and he pitched to the ground like he’d been swatted by an invisible bat.

  Ramsey raced up to him, covering him with her pistol while I limped in second. The black Mac-10 he’d used to put holes in all the neighborhood cars was lying inches out of reach. He stretched his arm out for it, his fingers grasping, his legs swimming ineffectually. I kicked it, sending the gun skittering twenty feet away while Ramsey grabbed Chillo’s wrist and pinned it to the other one, ignoring the blood pooling around his legs. He hissed and groaned, eyes bugging out, as she swept both wrists into cuffs.

  “Is it serious?” I asked, huffing and puffing like a steam engine, fighting the urge to lean over and put my hands on my knees. I might be retired, but I didn’t have to look geriatric.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “I thought about taking him center mass, then decided, hell, he’s almost out of bullets, anyway. Let’s shoot him in the leg.”

  “Good Lord,” I said, gulping air. “I like confidence in a woman, but for Christ’s sake, just shoot him.”

  She smiled. “U.S. Marshals always get their man.” She leaned over and patted Chillo—writhing on the blood-stained ground, covered in ink, looking like something out of Dante’s Hell—on the cheek. “Ain’t that right, sweetie?”

  Chapter Thirty

  Twelve hours after the raid, I was at HIDTA’s headquarters. I would’ve given half my pension to have stayed in bed. The office was in Greenbelt, Maryland, not the quickest or easiest drive for someone living in Northern Virginia. And the raid, as thrilling as it was, had given me a twisted ankle and two-dozen itching cuts on the neck and hands from the glass of shattered windows. I was tired and sore and felt like I’d done my part. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to be done. I wanted to make good on plans to hang up a hammock in the backyard and lay in it until July.

  But Bloch needed to move quickly on the case and I guess I didn’t blame him. He and I had cut a lot of corners in our investigation. The smartest thing to do to get the best conviction would be to hurry the case to trial while the raid was still in everyone’s minds and local newspapers were running headlines like Gang Leader Orders Killing of DC Cops. I knew Bloch had gone right to work after the arrest, grilling both Rodriguez and Chillo since they’d been brought in, trying his hardest in the first twenty-four hours to get them to flip and send the other one up the creek. Most crooks with any brains crossed over right away. Others, the hard cases, had to be told what lay in store. It was an education for many of them, since they’d been busted a dozen times at the state and local level and viewed the arraignment and indictment process with derision. They didn’t realize that Federal charges were a whole new animal. Once you explained that they were looking at twenty to life with no chance of parole, though, they sprinted into the light. The problem was getting that through to them.

  Bloch was at his desk, looking down at some papers, his thirty-six-hour day showing in his frown. His eyes were pouched and his five o’clock shadow had just struck six. He looked like death warmed over. Even more, I thought cheerfully, than me. I’d brought two large cups of coffee in a paper bag. I gave him one and his face brightened, then went dim when he saw there wasn’t anything but coffee in it. “No doughnuts?”

  “I told you before, Healthy Marty doesn’t eat doughnuts,” I said. “Sorry.”

  He grumbled something, but cracked open the plastic lid and took a cautious sip anyway.

  “You’re welcome,” I said.

  He read a little more, then sat back and sighed, rubbing his face. “These guys are killing me, Singer.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I have worked them, man. Ten, twelve hours now.”

  “They standing tall for each other?”

  He shot me a look. “That’s funny. Gang loyalty? Death before dishonor? Not here. They’re both flipping so fast that I can’t keep up.”

  “That’s great. What’s the problem?”

  “They’re both saying, in their own special way, that, yeah, they killed these cops. I mean, they don’t come out and say they did them. Chillo says Rodriguez is a criminal mastermind and he was just following orders. Rodriguez is saying Chillo is a psychopath killer, put him away for the good of humanity.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Problem is, neither one is copping to all of the murders.”

  “Which ones are mysteries for them?”

  “Clay Johnson,” he said, “and Isaac Okonjo.”

  “The same one, essentially.”

  “Yep.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “What are they saying?”

  “That they don’t know who the hell we’re talking about. It took me eight hours to get them to spill more than their name. Once I started outlining the charges, spinning some bull about a bargain, playing them against each other, then all of a sudden the names make sense. ‘Oh, yes, that was one of them. Yes, I remember.’”

  “All of them except Johnson and Okonjo,” I said.

  “It’s like I named two dead presidents. They don’t have a freaking clue. Chillo was so confused he thought I was talking about two informants. It took me half an hour to get him to understand that I was charging him with their murders.”

  “No denial, no shift of blame to our boy Felix?”

  “Denial, sure. Once he realized he was going to the block for them. But, before that, I could tell he didn’t know what I was talking about. It was that magic minute, you know, before they come up with a story. When their eyes look all over the place, trying to find something you’ll believe in. With these two names, Chillo just stared back at me.”

  I put my hands behind my head and laced my fingers together. “Is it possible Rodriguez just used somebody else? Maybe he figured he couldn’t trust Chillo all the way and farmed it out to some up-and-comer in the mara?”

  “Maybe, but he seemed as lost as Chillo. He covered up better. He’s used to talking his way out of these things. But I got the same thousand-yard stare when I asked him about Johnson.”

  “How's that affect the case?”

  Bloch made a face, gave a half shrug. “I’m still going to hang Johnson and Okonjo on them. Rodriguez for conspiracy, Chillo for pulling the trigger. I don’t care if they won’t admit to them or can’t get their story straight.”

  “And if it’s not them?”

  “I won’t lose any sleep over it,” he said. “They can rot for all I care.”

  “No, I mean, if they didn’t do it, who did?”

  He waved a hand. “Look, it bothers me, but one thing at a time. We have to put these two away just on general principles. Aside from the murders we know they did, they could probably be on the hook for twenty more. When the dust settles, we’ll make the case airtight.”

  “Why do you need me, then?”

  “Your buddy Rhee came through again. Said he had a good relationship with Rodriguez’s girlfriend, Maria. We were going to have to let her and the other girls go, they’re little fish anyway, but she doesn’t know that. He talked to her, hinted around that this was a clean sweep, that I was going to lower the boom on her and her friends as much as Chillo and the boys.”

  “And if she didn’t want to end up in prison and her baby go up for adoption…”

  “That she’d talk to us,” Bloch finished. “Makes you feel great to be a cop, doesn’t it?”

  “You want me to talk to her,” I said, figuring out where he was go
ing. “New face, new chance for her.”

  “Yep.”

  “Am I good cop or bad?”

  “Good. I’ve already had a crack at her and she thinks I’m a complete asshole.”

  “No comment,” I said.

  “You go in there, get on her side. See if you can pry anything out of her to link them up with Johnson or Okonjo.”

  “Not that I want to shirk my duty, but why me? Why not call Rhee, send him in there?”

  “You’re the one that scared up the evidence in the first place. You know the timeline. Maybe if she lets something slip, you’ll pick up on it when I wouldn’t.”

  “I can’t find something that isn’t there, Bloch,” I said.

  “I know. Just give it a shot. If you come up empty, we’re no worse off than we were before. Even if you strike out, I brought both Chillo and Rodriguez in, stewing in one of the other rooms. If Maria coughs something juicy up, I’ll show it to them and try to get them to crack.”

  “The Illustrated Man’s over his gunshot wound?”

  “Not really.”

  “Harsh,” I said.

  “Fuck him. That’s what wheelchairs are for.”

  “You’re an evil man, Bloch,” I said.

  He glanced at me, looking tired. “We’re talking about a serial killer and his boss. Evil’s a relative term.”

  I had a few minutes before I went onstage, so we took our time finishing our coffee, going over the raid like it was a battle in the distant past, reliving the moments and moves and decisions in the slow motion judgment that memory gives us. He laughed when I told him how Ramsey had actually patted Chillo’s cheek like he was a third-grader who hadn’t flushed the toilet. We grimaced when we thought more about the collateral damage the gangbanger could’ve caused swinging the Mac-10 around like it was a fire hose, spraying shots into the cars and apartments. We finished about the same time and tossed our cups into the wastebasket.

  He checked his watch. “I’ll give you ten to get your thoughts together. Come grab me when you’re ready.”

  I found an empty desk and jotted down some notes. It had been a while since I’d grilled someone, but it wasn’t rocket science. Every time, it came down to the two questions at the heart of the process: What did you want to know and what were they trying to hide?

  I found Bloch before the ten minutes were up and he led me down to the interrogation room.

  The dark-haired girl I remembered from the night of the raid was sitting on one side of a Formica table. She no longer had on makeup—even smeared makeup—and her hair was pulled back into a bun. Tight skinny jeans forced a roll of fat off her hips that a tight, purple stretch top helped highlight rather than hide. Her arms were on the table in front of her, her hands clasped. Her head snapped up when I came in, her eyes a little frightened, a little defiant.

  I went through the preamble, telling her who I was and how I was involved in the case.

  “I remember you,” she said, her voice soft. “You covered me with a sheet.”

  I nodded. “At least, not after we knew you weren’t going to shoot one of us.”

  “I never shot nobody.”

  “I know you haven’t, Maria,” I said. “The problem is, your baby’s daddy has. Or he ordered it done.”

  “That other man said he gonna send my baby to adoption,” she said, her face screwing up, tears threatening to spill.

  “Los Asesinos is responsible for a lot of deaths, Maria. If you knew about some of them, it makes you guilty, too.”

  “But I didn’t kill nobody,” she said. On cue, the tears welled up and slipped down her cheeks.

  “You don’t have to pull the trigger to go to jail,” I said, quiet but firm. “Sometimes knowing is enough. And you knew some things, didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t know nothing,” she said.

  “Maria. You were around Felix all the time. You’re a smart girl. His baby’s mother. He probably trusted you, counted on you for advice sometimes, right?”

  It was her turn to shrug. Her head went down and the tears fell in her lap.

  “The thing is, Maria, we need help. We know the MLA and Chillo killed a lot of people, but we don’t know the whole story. Now, we can’t make any promises, but you help us, and we’ll do our best to help you. We know you and your baby aren’t guilty of anything. But a judge might not see it that way. Help us and we can tell the judge how much we needed your information. Things go better for people who help us.”

  She was quiet, crying in little hiccupy-jerks. I waited her out, keeping what I hoped was a kind, neutral expression on my face, though inside I felt like a creep. There was nothing quite like holding a mother’s love for her baby over her head to make you feel like a class-A shit. I kept the pictures of the mutilated bodies Bloch had shown me on the first day fresh in my mind. It helped a little.

  Finally, she sniffed and rubbed her nose. “What you want to know?”

  I tried not to sigh in relief. “There was a police officer named Danny Garcia who dealt with MLA undercover.”

  She was quiet for a moment, then nodded. Her face was blotchy. “Felix said that the Chicano had robbed him several times, but he didn’t know it was him at first.”

  “Had robbed him? How?”

  “He said the Chicano had known about many drug deals and had robbed them and shot some of the mara.”

  “Why didn’t he do something about Garcia before this?”

  She shrugged. “He didn’t know. He thought the Chicano was just a buyer.”

  “So, how did he find out that Garcia was doing the raids?”

  “He asked for Chillo to come in from San Antonio and help,” she said. “Chillo help him come up with a fake deal, you know? They told a bunch of people.”

  “Garcia was one of them?”

  She nodded.

  “Then what happened?”

  “Felix told me that the Chicano showed up like always, but Chillo spotted some friends that had come along with him. That’s when they know that they were going to try and rob them.”

  I felt my scalp tingle. “Who were the friends, Maria?”

  She shrugged. “He never found out. Felix grabbed the Chicano, and tried to stop the other two, but they got away. Felix was very mad. He wanted all three, bad.”

  “Two of them got away?”

  “Yes.”

  “Black? White? Young or old?’

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Chillo shot at them, but they got away.”

  “So his friends left him, but Chillo didn’t know who they were?”

  She shook her head.

  “But they had Garcia.”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice small.

  “And they made him pay for robbing the mara.”

  She didn’t answer. I heard my own heartbeat drum in my ears.

  “Maria?”

  “Yes,” she said, sadly. “It take a long time.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “That was a fucking waste of time,” Bloch said in disgust, sitting down with a grunt.

  I raised my head from the case file I’d been reading. It wasn’t my favorite thing to do—really—but Bloch had left me on my own while he’d spent the last ninety minutes trying to hammer away at first Felix Rodriguez, then a wheelchair-bound Chillo, showing them the tape of Maria’s talk with me, trying to get them to say something, anything, more than they’d already let go.

  “No dice?”

  “Opposite effect,” he said, tossing a pen onto the desk. It skittered off the edge and across the floor. “They both clammed up tighter than before.”

  I looked at him for a second, putting it together. “They think they can get to her and it’ll solve all their problems.”

  He nodded. “I told them I’ve got the gun, some dope we found in the apartment, other testimony. Doesn’t matter. They both think they can have her killed and the case falls apart.”

  “You putting her in protection?”

  He nodded. “For whatever
good that’ll do. These kids are dumb.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He sighed, scrubbing his face with his hands. “We’ve done it before. They talk to us, give us some intel we can use, so we send them to a safe house in Ohio or Wisconsin or upstate New York to keep them alive. A week goes by, they get bored, and they grab a bus back to DC. They figure their homies will understand they didn’t mean to talk, they didn’t say anything important, right? Next thing you know, we’re fishing them out of the Potomac or some hiker finds what’s left of them on the bike path to Mount Vernon.”

  “It wasn’t time wasted,” I said. “You can get her to testify. Maybe she’ll open up a little if you keep working on her.”

  He ran his hands through his hair. “I know. This just seemed really airtight, you know? Get either Rodriguez or Chillo to serve up the other guy on a plate and we’re done.”

  We were both quiet for a minute. Then I said, “Bloch, I don’t want to upset your apple cart. But we’ve still got a problem—”

  “I know, I know,” he said, sour. “Johnson and Okonjo. You know I don’t have any more info than I did two hours ago.”

  “Not true,” I said. “Maria said Rodriguez and Chillo knew there were two friends helping Garcia. The moonlighters. We thought there was someone helping Danny, but we didn’t know for sure before.”

  He opened his mouth as if to say something, then shut it, thinking. After a moment, his fingers started to drum lightly on the desk. I kept going.

  “So, we’ve got a few possibilities. First, Maria was kept in the dark. Maybe Felix didn’t tell her everything. Maybe he knew all about Johnson and had Chillo take him out.”

  “What about Okonjo?”

  “We already know it was probably a mistake,” I said. “Chillo mistook Okonjo for Johnson. He shoots him, realizes he screwed up, and leaves him.”