Ice Woman Assignment (4 page)

“Your people on the street can't get anything?”

“All right. Customs has any number of people on the street, all Hispanics, all trained undercover agents. These guys are pros, but they get nothing but the run-around. Ditto CIA people in Colombia. Same for the FBI guys in Texas. We're stumped. It was my bright idea to bring you two in, but I'm really grasping at straws.”

“What's Texas got to do with it?” Felicity asked, refilling everyone's coffee cup from a thermal pot.

“Customs reports connect the Escorpionistas with Gold Heart Shipping,” Morgan said, holding up a sheet of paper.

“You're kidding. The international mercy organization?” Felicity asked.

“The same,” Barton said, tasting the hot coffee and sighing with pleasure. “They've got a ship that regularly goes from Corpus Christi down to Colombia with powdered milk, clothing and books.”

“Their own shipping line?” Claudette asked. “A smuggler's dream.”

You'd think so, but we've gone over that boat with a fine tooth comb and haven't found a thing,” Barton said. “I think it's a red herring.”

“So, if Morgan and I can make contact with one of the drug dealers…”

“Just one step up, darling,” Barton said, reaching to grab her wrist, pulling her down onto the couch next to him. “Not the street dealer, but the next guy up. That would do it.”

“I've got an idea that might work,” Felicity said, nuzzling Barton and brushing her hair back. “But first, Morgan and I have to go shopping.”

A flashing neon sign over the club's door said “El Noches,” the night. Morgan and Felicity stood across the street with a man who did not look like he belonged in that neighborhood. And yet most passersby averted their eyes, not looking at him. Paul was not as tall or as broad as Morgan, but something about him made even the toughest men want to pretend he just wasn't there. They certainly didn't want to attract his attention.

“I could come in with you,” Paul said to his two bosses. “Backup isn't really backup at this distance.”

“Sorry Paul,” Felicity said. “In this place you practically define sore thumb. Have you seen another Anglo pass through those doors?”

He nodded, an island of chilling calm. “I take your point ma'am. My role is to cover your backs if you are pursued coming out of that door.”

“Good man,” Felicity said, heading across the street. Morgan paused for a moment to rest a hand on Paul's shoulder.

“The only person on earth I trust more than you is going into that bar with me. You know that, right?”

“And I would never betray that trust,” Paul said with a straight face. Morgan smiled and followed his partner across the street.

Once inside El Noches Morgan went straight to the bar to check his look. The face in the bar room mirror did not look much like Morgan Stark. Oh, it was his face, but with
reddish hair above it. Contact lenses made his normally light brown eyes almost black. And he had a silly little scar on his chin. He wore leather from head to toe. His shoes and pants were black. His deep red jacket had obscure symbols on its back. And there was the earring in his right ear.

It was a dark, crowded room, clogged with cigarette smoke. Everyone inside was Cuban, or Puerto Rican, or Mexican or from points further south. Music, loud and bass heavy, never stopped. The bar ran the length of one wall. The opposite half of the club held a dance floor, ringed with small tables. A row of booths stood against the front wall. Only three other doors were visible, two beside the bar marked as rest rooms, and one beyond the dance floor. Morgan looked around, folded his arms and leaned back against a wall, reflecting on the two tense conversations that had led him to this spot.

First was his talk with Felicity three nights ago in her apartment bathroom. While he tried on his new outfit, she rubbed a dye on her exposed arms, gradually tanning her normally pale skin. Her hair was already straightened and dyed black. While she squirmed into a tight red mini dress and four inch spiked heels Morgan averted his eyes. There was no physical modesty between them. He just felt it was the polite thing to do.

“You know, that warning we got was potentially lethal,” Morgan said. “I mean, these people are serious.”

“Are you scared?” Felicity asked, popping in brown contact lenses.

“Not the point, Red,” he said, pulling on his custom-made shoulder holster. “There's no point in taking stupid chances. They know who we are and where we are. Maybe we should just leave this one alone. If the CIA, the DEA, and the FBI can't handle it, could be it just can't be handled.”

“Relax, Morgan. Nobody going to spot us. It's a simple undercover deal. We'll make a buy, track the seller, and save the U.S. government a bundle. You know they'll never do it alone.” She turned her back to him.

“Felicity…” Morgan began, zipping her mini dress.

“Felicity? Oh my. This must be serious.”

Morgan took a deep breath, trying to swallow his frustration. “Look, it's a dumb idea. Pulling one local distributor off the street is just going to piss these people off. One lesson I learned as a merc was, never do your enemy a minor injury. Just tell me why you want to do this job so bad. To please Chuck?”

When Felicity turned to face him she was a different woman. She had a hint of dark hair on her forearms and her eyebrows were darkened. She was suddenly Mexican.

“Do I have to say it? All right! I need the rush, okay?”

Felicity stepped over to the bathroom door. She smiled at Barton who was waiting in the living room, then pushed the door closed. She turned back toward Morgan, pointing a finger at him.

“You know, pal, we do a lot together, but we're not Siamese twins,” Felicity began, her Irish brogue becoming more pronounced as she went. “You take off maybe a couple of weeks every three months or so. On business, you say, sure and it's true, but I know where you're going when you go. You're out getting your fix.”

“What?”

“Come on, Morgan,” Felicity said, moving closer until only inches separated their faces. “You're leading big game hunts, or flying surveys, doing movie stunt work or `advising' in some little country's local troubles. Why?”

“I…I like to keep my hand in.”

“Call it what it is, boyo,” she snapped. “You need the rush. And that's fine. Whatever you do, it always ends up helping somebody. And, near as I can figure, you can do all
that stuff legally. When you go out of the States you even get the approval of the U.S. government. But what about me? I can't just go out and nick a painting or pull a jewel heist.”

She turned and started pacing, talking as much to herself as Morgan. “You don't know how I sit in that office, and ideas come. Sweet little cons, or spectacular robberies I'll never pull. Don't you see, Morgan? I need to get loose once in a while, just like you.”

Morgan had come away from that conversation with a chill. He thought it bad business, starting a caper for the wrong reasons. Still, she was his partner and in the end he had agreed. That was how he ended up in the Barrio, a part of town he knew little about. The bar, on the other hand, felt familiar. He had sat in a dozen just like it when he and Harlem were much younger. Still, the late seventies seemed a lifetime away.

He hung over the bar and ordered Bacardi dark. Across the room, Felicity flashed her long, shapely gymnast's legs while talking with a smiling Chicano, undoubtedly in perfect Spanish. Three stools down the bar, a tall Mexican in a yellow silk shirt and gold chains everywhere watched Morgan too closely. A scar ran down the side of his face, just missing his right eye. Morgan looked back, just long enough to make it clear he noticed, and then knocked back his drink. He hoped he passed the silent test.

Yellow Shirt could be the reason for things being the way they were that night, as they had tried to explain to Barton three days back.

When Felicity bounced down the three stairs into her sunken living room Morgan only nodded but Barton stood up. He looked at this tall, tanned girl with new respect. The hair, the eye color, the bright red nails, it all fit. She even held her mouth differently.

“If I didn't know it was you, I might not recognize you,” Barton said, as Felicity twirled. “The dress and the shoes are perfect, too. And… your face is different. Are your cheekbones higher?”

“Very observant,” Felicity said. “Wax pads over my top gums. They're small but the effect is pretty good, I think. Es muy bueno, si?” She spoke, not merely with a good accent, but an authentic Mexican accent.

“Do you really think you can make contact?”

“They're wanting to sell,” Felicity said. “I'm wanting to buy. I know how to make the approach. Yeah, I'm thinking I can. And with Morgan for backup, I'm not in any real danger.”

“When you go out tonight, I'll alert a couple of the local agents to watch out for you,” Barton said, grabbing her waist.

“No thanks, Chuck. No backup. In fact, I'd like you to take a little vacation to Corpus Christi. I think we can trace the drugs back there.”

“Darling, I've got to watch out for you,” Barton said, leaning in for a kiss. “I care too much to let you just step onto the bull's-eye like that.”

“I'm sorry, Chuck,” Felicity said, pulling away from him after the slightest lip contact. “It's nothing personal. I just can't work with the CIA. Too noisy.”

“What?” Barton raised an eyebrow, then turned to Morgan as if he needed an interpreter.

“In terms you'll understand, she means your signature,” Morgan said, staring at the blackness beyond the all glass wall. “You boys are just as bad as the FBI and the DEA. You're all big machines and you move like tanks. You know how you spot a tank in the field?”

“Sure,” Barton said with a nod. “By its signature.”

“Right. It ain't just the noise. It's the heat. The radiation the optics give off. The dust raised. The radio bleed. The
exhaust smell. The tracks it leaves. When a machine that big is on the move, there are just too many signs.”

“Yeah? What about the Escorpionistas?” Barton asked, a little harsher than he intended. “Anaconda's machine is big, but it sure don't make much noise.”

“Sure it does,” Felicity said. “You just can't hear it.”

For three consecutive nights, Morgan and Felicity had followed the tracks. It was a trail of young men with too much money and not enough time. It was overdressed boys who always stayed high. There was no way they could afford that, unless they were dealing. The most reliable sign was the fear in someone's eyes when anybody raised the subject of the Escorpionistas. Fear of a rumor got one reaction. The fear of a terror known got quite another.

The trail had started in the “V” between the Pomona and Santa Ana Freeways, not five miles from City Hall, the Civic Center and Little Tokyo. Here, at the edge of East Los Angeles, the city suddenly turned Spanish. With Morgan driving Felicity's black Corvette they moved through the night from bar to small store front to bar. As they went, the music, mostly driving salsa rhythms, became less and less flavored with hip-hop. They moved about, being seen and asking just enough questions. Felicity was sure that if they stayed visible and moved slowly, the right person would find them.

They had not noticed the small man with big front teeth who slid into a phone booth as soon as they left the first bar.

Now, in the most recent hot, dark, crowded night spot with continuous music, Felicity sensed she was getting close. Out there, the Barrio moved out from Los Angeles proper into an area of Los Angeles County that did not really belong to any city or town. The Barrio, “the neighborhood”, with almost two million Chicanos, was its
own city with its own rules.

Five minutes before Morgan and Felicity arrived at El Noches the small man with big teeth walked in. He stood on tiptoe to get the bartender's attention. When the barman leaned forward, the small man said “Prepare the back room.”

Felicity's companion in the booth was gaunt and dry, with short cropped hair and a thin mustache. One heavy gold chain looped under his lapels, hanging down to the edge of his sternum. He had a wide smile, and chain smoked some short regular cigarettes.

“Carlina, you say? You come here from New York?” he asked, looking directly into her cleavage.

“That's right, Rico,” Felicity said, leaning just a bit farther forward. “New York. You know a man named Felix Rojas? About five foot six, wears his hair long in the back, drives a white El Dorado?”

Rico snickered and shook his head. “Still driving that Caddy? Yeah, I know Rojas. He never mentioned you, though.”

“That's lucky for him,” Felicity said with a smile. “But you can check me out with him. He wasn't sure you were the man for me to talk to, but I try, eh?”

“So tell me, beautiful Carlina, why you want to muscle in on my business?”

“Muscle in?” Felicity sat back, looked hurt, and sipped her wine. “You misunderstand Rico. Think about the East Coast, eh? Boston is still the hub in the north and the Guineas own that, still pushing doogee. Horse breeds unhappy customers.”

“Doogee? Only people in the Big Apple call it that,” Rico said, laughing a hard laugh.

“Yeah, well that's the North,” Felicity continued. “To the south it's Miami, still working the reefer and, of course,
coke. You have to go to war to get into that business. Me, I figure I'll open up the ice market in The City. In a couple years, I could maybe double your volume. I got the money, and I got distribution set up and waiting.” She leaned forward once more, stroking Rico's hairy hand and offering him a generous view of her tangible assets.

“You know, chiquita, we might be able to do business, if you're in touch with the streets.”

“What you mean?” Felicity asked, moving her hand up his arm a bit.