Shades of Gray (5 page)

Danny calmed himself with the certainty that if Hinestroza knew all the facts he would already be dead. Hinestroza wouldn’t have wasted time making small talk. His only call would have been the one that ended with Danny’s death.

THE sun’s golden rays shone through high, white clouds, light turning amber on Miller’s face as it filtered down through the burnt-orange leaves above his head. The breeze was brisk but not cold. Two men sitting on a park bench wouldn’t look odd; there were dozens of people walking dogs on the paths, bicyclists streaming by in a rush of air.

Miller saw Danny approaching from a distance, his easy stride unmistakable, unhindered by his injury. He moved gracefully, no hitch in his steps. Miller suffered a moment of envy as he realized that 30 | Brooke McKinley

Danny was a man comfortable in his own skin, at home inside his body in a way that Miller had never experienced.

“Hey,” Danny said, voice raspy, as he took a seat on the bench.

“You’re late,” Miller responded in greeting.

Danny grinned as he fished cigarettes out of his pocket. “I did that just to piss you off.” He held the pack out to Miller. “Want one?”

“Sure.”

Danny passed Miller a cigarette and his lighter, the metal warm from his fingers.

“Hinestroza called me.”

Miller snapped the lighter closed and handed it back to Danny.

“What’d he say?”

“He knew about me being pulled over.”

“Shit.”

“But for right now I think that’s all he knows.” Danny rested his elbows on the back of the bench and stretched his legs out, crossing them at the ankles.

“You sure?”

“No,” Danny admitted.

Miller sighed. “Shit.”

“You already said that.”

“I thought it bore repeating.”

Danny laughed, eyes twinkling like a kid who’d caught his parents cussing and realized they were human after all. Miller jerked his head away, studying a pair of joggers coming around the bend.

“How does Hinestroza run the drugs up here?” Miller asked, clearing his throat.

Danny ran his tongue over his top teeth, took a deep breath. “Just jump right into it, don’t you? Not even going to buy me dinner first?”

“Stop fucking around,” Miller said, too sharply. He thought he might actually be blushing. He didn’t know what the hell was wrong Shades of Gray | 31

with him. He’d done this dance with informants a hundred times, but today Danny was leading, dancing steps Miller had never learned.

“I don’t know any specifics about how he gets the drugs from Colombia to Mexico. He keeps that part of the operation separate.” Miller nodded. That made sense. Hinestroza was too smart to give someone intimate knowledge of his entire smuggling operation.

“Once the drugs are in Mexico City, he has a rotating group of about thirty people who drive them into Texas.”

“How does he get the cocaine across the border?”

“In the gas tanks.”

“Not terribly innovative.”

“No,” Danny agreed. “But effective. Most border patrol agents are too lazy to get a mechanic to come take apart the gas tank. And if they do and the drugs are confiscated, the quantities are small enough that it’s not going to put a huge dent in the profits. Hinestroza makes sure no car carries more than a hundred pounds of cocaine.”

“The gas tank,” Miller mused. He’d expected something grander from Hinestroza, but he had to admit the simplicity worked—in large quantities and for a long time.

“You seem surprised.”

Miller shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Why? You see a lot of drugs come up in more elaborate ways?”

“Oh, yeah.” Miller took a drag off his cigarette, debating whether to tell Danny more. Idle conversation served no purpose in the investigation. “We had a case last year where they made bathtubs and toilets out of cocaine and shipped them in eighteen-wheelers.” Danny coughed out a lungful of smoke. “No shit? How the fuck did they manage that?”

“Mixed the cocaine with fiberglass.”

“What?” Danny laughed. “Wasn’t it hard to separate?”

“That was the problem. They couldn’t get all of the fiberglass out, 32 | Brooke McKinley

so there were a lot of unhappy customers with noses even bloodier than usual.”

Danny’s mouth curled up in disgust. “Jesus.”

“Probably would have put a dent in your habit, huh?” Miller asked, his voice mild.

“I don’t do drugs.”

“Right,” Miller scoffed.

“I don’t do drugs,” Danny repeated with more force. “I never have.”

Miller looked at him, watching for signs of deception. But Danny maintained eye contact, not fidgeting, not breathing hard. He was telling the truth; Miller would have staked his reputation on it.

“Okay,” Miller said, willing to concede the point and move on.

“How does Hinestroza get the cocaine out of Texas?” Danny pulled one foot up onto the bench and rested a wrist across his jean-clad knee. “That’s where I come in. Once there’s a large enough stash of cocaine in Texas, I go down and collect it. A white guy driving a U-haul doesn’t get noticed the way a Mexican guy does.” Danny smiled without humor. “Hinestroza knows how to use racism to his advantage.”

“Isn’t Hinestroza worried about losing the cocaine if you’re pulled over?”

“I suppose in theory he is. But I don’t get pulled over. I stay right at the speed limit, use my turn signal, don’t make crazy lane changes. I dress the part of an average guy, take this out,” Danny fiddled with the diamond stud in his ear, “cover the tattoos.” He flashed Miller a devilish grin. “I can be pretty charming, too, when I want to be. I never have any trouble.”

“But if you did get caught, you’d be going away for a very long time.”

“That’s a risk Hinestroza is willing to take,” Danny noted dryly.

“What happens once you get here?”

Shades of Gray | 33

“I distribute the cocaine to various dealers. Some stay in this area.

Others run it to points east and north. We stay out of the western market.”

“Why?”

“Turf wars, mainly. Hinestroza works east of the Mississippi.”

“So you don’t sell directly?”

“No. I bring the drugs up, distribute them, keep the various dealers in line, do whatever else needs doing, but I don’t sell on the street.”

Miller wasn’t sure why that fact pleased him, why knowing that Danny didn’t peddle drugs on grammar school playgrounds filled him with a sense of relief. He acknowledged to himself it was a stupid distinction. Danny was only one step up that particular drug chain.

“I need the names of the dealers who buy cocaine from you.” Danny didn’t answer.

“Danny….”

“I thought you wanted Hinestroza.”

“We do. But we have to know who else is involved in the operation.”

“Why? So you can trap them the same way you trapped me?

Follow them around until they jaywalk or litter and then offer them the same shitty deal you gave me?”

“Keep your voice down!”

“I’m not giving you the names.”

Miller had to have the names. It wasn’t a negotiable point. But this was only the first of many times he and Danny would talk. They’d go over and over this information until they both wanted to bang their heads against a wall. He could wait.

“Fine,” he said. “You don’t have to tell me today. But what about Amanda? Is she in on the smuggling operation?” Danny stiffened next to him, throwing his cigarette down and 34 | Brooke McKinley

grinding it under his heel. “We’re not talking about Amanda. She’s not part of this.”

Miller’s radar went up at Danny’s choice of words. “You mean she’s not part of the drug business or you’re not willing to talk about her part in it?”

“Take your pick,” Danny retorted. “She’s fucking off limits.”

“Danny, if she’s involved—”

“She stays out of it,” Danny demanded. “I swear to God, I’ll walk, right now, if you can’t promise me that.”

“Why are you so protective of her?”

“She was my wife. Even if it didn’t work out, that counts for something.” Danny sighed. “Look, this is off the record, okay?” Miller nodded. Now wasn’t the time to mention that as far as he was concerned nothing was off the record if it got him closer to Hinestroza.

“Any involvement Amanda has in this, it’s because of me. She shouldn’t have to suffer because she married the wrong guy.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t force her to participate, did you?”

“No,” Danny acknowledged. “Nobody forces Amanda to do much of anything. But I don’t want her dragged into this.” As a novice, Miller had assumed criminals were different in all ways from the average law-abiding citizen. But over time he had come to realize that drug dealers, murderers, and gang leaders all had people they loved, people they would do almost anything to protect, the same way the successful business man or suburban mom next door looked after their own. Involvement in the criminal world didn’t necessarily erase those basic emotions of loyalty and love. It sometimes made Miller uneasy, the knowledge that in fundamental ways men like Danny were more similar to him than they were different. For Miller, life worked better when the lines didn’t blur.

“What happened between you and her?” he asked.

Danny gave him a thoughtful look, cupping his hand to light Shades of Gray | 35

another cigarette. “I’m not the man she thought I was,” he said, choosing his words with care.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Are you talking about the drugs?”

Danny shifted on the bench, shoving his cigarettes back into his pocket. “I have to get going. I have a meeting with one of the dealers. I can’t miss it or it will throw up red flags.” But Miller wasn’t quite done yet. “How did you get involved with Hinestroza anyway? How does he recruit people?”

“That,” Danny said with a grim smile, “is a story for another day.” He started to rise, his feet setting free the loamy scent of freshly turned earth. The smell brought to Miller’s mind his childhood days: running free on the farm, the late-setting sun, his mother hollering him home for bed, dirt warm and loose under his feet.

“I’m from western Kansas too,” he blurted out.
Where the hell did
that come from? Next you’ll be giving him your address and social
security number.

“Yeah?” Danny sat back down, raising an eyebrow. “Where?”

“Fowler, in Meade County.”

“Atwood,” Danny responded. “Up north.”

“Yeah,” Miller said with a small smile. “I know.” Danny shook his head. “Keep forgetting you’re my own personal stalker.” He glanced at Miller. “Did your parents have a farm or were you a townie?”

“Farm. Nothing huge. Wheat and soybeans, mainly.”

“My dad quit farming about the time I started kindergarten.

Couldn’t make a living at it anymore. He got a job in town, but we kept the house and a few acres. I always wished we’d sold the whole thing and moved.” Danny scuffed his boot against the edge of the sidewalk.

“Giving up his land made my dad even meaner than before.” A harried woman walked past pushing two screaming kids in a stroller, the boy in front turning around to pop his brother in the face 36 | Brooke McKinley

with a sippy cup.

“You miss it?” Miller asked when the stillness returned.

Danny shrugged. “I couldn’t wait to get out of Atwood and I think I’m a city boy at heart. I like how fast everything moves, how not everybody knows your business. But I miss the quiet sometimes. And the way the air smelled.” He looked away. “But I left for a reason and that reason is still alive and living in the house where I grew up. Even if I wanted to, going back is not an option.” He shredded a dark red leaf between his long fingers. “What about you?”

“I miss the—” Miller made a rolling motion with his hand,

“space, I guess. The way the sky always seemed so big and yet it felt almost like you could touch it if you reached high enough.” He shrugged, embarrassed to have said so much. “You know?”

“Yeah,” Danny said, voice low. “I know.”

Miller’s gaze snapped to Danny’s. They looked at one another without speaking, two men longing for an idealized home, instinctively recognizing the loneliness at their centers. Danny’s eyes came to life, darkening as desire swam to the surface, moving past suspicion, cutting ahead of anger. Miller tried to take in a breath and found he couldn’t.

His insides felt hot and smoky, like he’d swallowed the lit end of his cigarette and was choking on the flame.

What the fuck?
Miller wrenched his eyes away, heart beating its way into his throat. He had heard all the rumors about Danny—that he was gay, that he was bisexual, that he liked men but only while in prison, that he liked women but only when drunk out of his mind. But yesterday, when he’d finally met Danny face to face, he had put the gay rumors to rest. Danny didn’t fit his perception of a gay man. He was too tough, too cocky, too much like a regular guy. He didn’t prance or preen. But Miller couldn’t mistake that look in Danny’s eyes.

No mistaking what that look did to you, either.
But Miller severed that thought on his mental chopping block, locked it in a box labeled DO NOT OPEN in letters three feet high, and threw away the key.

“Gotta run,” Danny said, standing again.

Shades of Gray | 37

“Wait.” Miller turned and picked up Danny’s leather jacket from the far side of the bench. He thrust it in Danny’s direction, not daring to meet his eyes. “Here.”

“Oh, hey, thanks. How’d you know I needed this?” Danny pulled the jacket on over his red shirt, the leather matching his raven-wing hair.

Miller wished Danny would just go and leave him in peace, take those all-seeing eyes and walk away. “I searched your car and found it.

Thought you could use it in this weather.”

“Speaking of my car, am I going to get it back anytime soon?”

“You can pick it up at the impound lot. The one downtown.”

“Okay.” Danny didn’t move, his black combat boots planted on the leaf-littered path.

Miller forced himself to look up. “I’ll be in touch,” he said, concentrating on a spot in the middle of Danny’s forehead.

Danny smiled. “I’ll be waiting.” He turned and sauntered away, leaving Miller alone in the cool sunlight.