“Quiet and sneaky is fine if you’re
thinking like a thief. Thieves find
entrances, but grifters? Uh-uh. We
make them.” - Leverage
The faint smell of rotten eggs hung in the air. It was the smell
of money coming from the El Paso natural gas refinery tower-
ing above the horizon. Roberta wrinkled her nose at the aro-
ma. “Three years and I still don’t have enough.” She touched the
button to roll up the windows against the smell. Instead she
opened her mouth and breathed in the pleasant, dry air. May
was the last month before the desert became a furnace blasting
air hotter than the surface of the sun.
Run-down neighborhoods of the lower valley flashed by
Roberta’s open window. She jerked the steering wheel and
made a quick right into the Carolina Senior Residential Home.
A worn-brick wall separated the parking lot from two rows
of one-room apartments facing the driveway leading into the
Home. Roberta slowed her car and crawled past the building
marked “Office” on her left. She gave a hand signal to the el-
derly man staring at her from behind a large picture window.
The old man, his face swallowed up by dark-rimmed glasses,
dismissed her with a wave.
It was lunchtime at the Home. The elderly—in various
stages of infirmity—hobbled across the driveway with the help
of walkers, canes, or the arm of a loved one. Roberta tapped the
steering wheel. “I never, ever want to get that old.” The elderly
parading past her, resigned to their fate, never looked up from
the all-consuming task of getting from point A to point B.
At the end of the driveway, a man leaned out of the last
apartment and lifted his hand. A full head of dull, black hair
made him stand out from the crowd. Roberta knew Chewy
wasn’t excited to see her. It might have something to do with
her being the boss’s daughter. Or maybe he didn’t care. There
was no sparkle in his features. He never mentioned family or
dreams or plans.
“Come on.” Roberta willed the last old woman to hurry
across the driveway. Time is money and her life, her real life,
couldn’t begin until she had enough. Roberta hoped Chewy
would give her the job she needed. The job that would solidify
the plan bouncing around in her head. The job that would set
her free.
When she entered the bedroom-slash-living room, Chewy
handed her a cell phone, his voice animated. “There’s a big ship-
ment coming across and we need new stash houses. The plan is
to work with a car dealership. Details are on the phone.”
She’d worked with him for three years, and this was the first
time he seemed on edge. “Something special about this job?”
Chewy moved between her and the door. “Not for you.”
Roberta cringed. He wouldn’t dare touch her because of
who she was, but losing a pound of flesh would be better than
what was coming next.
***
Roberta tapped her fingers against her thigh. Her restless fin-
gers the only sign the bars of her private cage were closing in
on her. She should have known. Should have planned. Roberta
balled up her fists so hard her knuckles cracked. How the hell
could she have planned for a double-crossing, back-stabbing,
dull-witted, stinking maintenance man to have a clue to what
she pulled off—correction—almost pulled off two years ago?
“Relax,” she chanted to herself. There’s nothing to do but
move forward. There was no way Chewy was getting a cut
of this action. She knocked a second time, and the door flew
open.
A man with a slight build and boyish face posed in front of
her. “You must be Roberta! Let me look at you.”
Roberta smiled and turned side to side. Her plan was going
to require a lot of acting. Good thing she minored in theater at
the University. An actor is basically a professional liar, and with
her line of work, it was more useful than her major in account-
ing.
She held up the phone and wiggled it back and forth. “And
you’re Jesus?”
“The one and only.” Jesus shepherded Roberta into his tiny
apartment. “This job is going to be easy peasy. It might even be
fun.” While Jesus droned on about the details, Roberta noticed
his eyes. They were shiny, alert and expressive like her father’s
eyes.
For two years, Roberta skimmed money off the top of her
father’s business. Matteo Guerra was a high-level leader of the
Juarez Cartel. She was proud, like only a child can be, of getting
one over on a parent, until her father asked to meet at an
abandoned house on the outskirts of Juarez, Mexico. Roberta
watched in horror as her father broke random bones of a man
tied to a chair. Her father’s shiny, expressive eyes letting Rober-
ta know this was the only time he would let another person pay
for his daughter’s mistakes. The broken man’s screams of inno-
cence still echoed in her ears.
“Are you okay?” Jesus asked.
Roberta blinked the memory away. “Fine.” Everything
would work out; she just had to keep moving forward.
“Here’s the list of dealerships. You’ve got to pick a mark.”
“There isn’t someone already on the inside?”
“Not this time, honey. People are jumpy lately with all the
trouble in Juarez. They want new faces.”
With the list of dealerships safely in her purse, Roberta no-
ticed the apartment for the first time. It was immaculate. The
place smelled good, like fresh-cut limes. “You have a nice place
here.”
“Thanks. Can I get you something to drink?”
“Sure. Tea would be great.”
The apartment was so small Jesus crossed to the kitchen
in a handful of steps. The refrigerator opened and closed. Ice
clinked into glasses while he spoke, “This is our first time work-
ing together. You’re the boss man’s daughter so do I need to
handle you with care, las burlas se vuelven veras?”
Roberta’s eyebrows rose. Straight-forward talk was refresh-
ing to hear. “You’re not going to offend me. I’m sure my father
thinks I can handle myself. Have you worked with Chewy be-
fore?”
“Eh! He’s a bit dull, isn’t he? I just know him from shuffling
contacts back and forth. How did he get that job?”
“No idea.” And she had no idea how someone so outwardly
dull found out about her skimming money from the Guerro
family business.
Jesus returned with two glasses and set them down on the
ornate coffee table. It gleamed like it was dusted several times a
day. “Father? Not daddy, papa, papi. You two aren’t that close?”
The cold sweet tea clung to the back of her throat. “Cada
gallo canta en su muladar.”
Jesus perched like a bird on the other side of the couch and
let out a peal of laughter. He fixed her with those glittering
eyes. “Right, to each his own. I can only guess what he must be
like to deal with on a daily basis. My family wasn’t very support-
ive. It does free you up to do whatever you damn well please.
Takes the pressure off, really.”
Roberta’s face puckered unsure how to respond. She felt
plenty of pressure and not at all free.
“So what’s your plan?”
“Mande?” Roberta swallowed hard. “What?”
“Oh, come on: no one does this for a living. There’s always
an escape plan.”
Tension froze Roberta for a second.
“Relax,” Jesus giggled like a teenager. “I have a plan. I work
at the fancy cafe downtown. All these suits—lawyers, govern-
ment types—eat, drink and tip well. Then I have a night job
working at the club downtown. Pull down a couple more of
these jobs and then . . . .” He swooped his arm out in front of
him. “Brazil. Live and let live.”
Roberta’s eyes clouded over. Her father had forced her into
this particularly crappy corner, but that didn’t mean she
couldn’t change. A world was out there that had nothing to do
with drugs. “I’d go to Argentina. Learn to tango.”
Jesus gave a slight squeal. “That sounds good too. If I had
more time, I’d fix you a caipirinha. Heaven in a glass. We’re go-
ing to get along I can tell. I hate to rush you off, but I have to
get ready for my day job.”
“No problem.” Roberta’s face warmed with a determined
smile. She didn’t need to wait for the right job to come along.
She needed to make this job the right one.
Jesus showed Roberta to the door and winked. “I hope the
salesman’s handsome.”
Roberta assured Jesus, “He’ll be perfect.”
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