Page 62 of Paranoia

CHAPTER 90

I CAUGHT UP to Rob Trilling and Jaime Nantes on the sidewalk near the warehouse. I’d seen the whole incident from half a block away. I couldn’t help saying to Nantes, “I guess you didn’t mind Trilling being a little close to you during your walk.”

“I never seen no one run like that. That cat is fast. I probably could’ve jumped out of the way, but I appreciate him looking out for me.”

I looked at Trilling. “That really was some spectacular shit. I know the Army didn’t teach you to move that fast. That’s natural talent.” As usual, my partner barely acknowledged the compliment. He just smiled and looked up the street toward the warehouse.

I guessed Nantes was so happy with Trilling that he didn’t mind us walking with him the last half block to the building. He slid a key into a sophisticated lock in the warehouse door. Iexpected to see a hot, dusty space with wide-open bays as soon as we stepped inside. Instead, there was a series of rooms with one big common area. The air wasn’t stale, which meant they had a good ventilation system. They probably could even keep this giant place cool in the summer.

Then Nantes called out to someone loudly, in Spanish. His voice carried and echoed through the empty rooms. He spoke too quickly for me to follow a word of it.

I grabbed him by the shoulder, while my other hand, by habit, touched the Glock in its holster at my hip. “Who else is here?”

Trilling was already on alert, his hand pulling out his own gun and his head moving in every direction. There were too many hallways in this place to get a good eyeline.

Terri had warned me about Jaime Nantes. I hadn’t listened.

I kept a grip on Nantes’s shoulder and shook him. “Who the hell did you call out to?”

A voice behind us said, “He was calling out to us.”

When I turned, Trilling was already raising his hands, his Glock 19 dangling by two fingers. I moved my own hands, palms up, away from my body, away from my still-holstered firearm. There were three men holding submachine guns on us. Two on one side of the hallway, one on the other. They weren’t going to get caught in a crossfire.

Nantes jerked away from me. He took a couple of steps and said to his friends, “Call Deason and tell him to come here. We have a present for him.”

CHAPTER 91

THE GANG SAT Trilling and me at a folding table. We were told to put our hands palms down on the table in plain sight. No one said anything else as our firearms were taken away. When I started to ask a question, a big burly guy said, “Shut up. This ain’t court. You don’t get to argue your case.”

So we sat there in silence. I should’ve been scared. Maybe even terrified. Instead, I was more embarrassed than anything else that I’d let a moron like Jaime Nantes trick me into getting captured by drug dealers. I hoped this didn’t get out and spread around the department. I’d never live it down.

I was impressed with Trilling. He kept his cool. I had no idea what he was thinking, but I liked how he kept looking around the room. I knew he was marking exits in his head and searching for weaknesses.

The gang was sharper than I’d expected. Two men stood atopposite corners of the room with their MP5 submachine guns pointed at us.

A little less than an hour into our detention, I heard the door at the front of the warehouse open. Then I heard voices. Some were speaking Spanish and some English.

A group of men, including Antonio Deason, stepped into the room where we were being held. Deason was dressed like he worked on Wall Street. The red power tie against the blue shirt and jacket didn’t fit in with the warehouse decor. He just stood there shaking his head.

He came closer to the table and said, “You guys don’t give up. First you think I’m gonna be dumb enough to talk to you. Then you make a few amateur attempts to follow me. Why?”

The guy who seemed to be in charge put his arm around Nantes’s shoulder. “Jaime here used his head. He got these two assholes to come directly to us. You said you wanted to see how tough we were. How about we kill these two cops as a present for you.”

I felt Trilling tense next to me.

Deason looked annoyed. He shook his head. “I got a much better idea. Me and my boys are going to deal with these two, and no one will ever connect us to their bodies.” He made a show of looking at each man in the room. “But no one can ever say a word about it after today. No one.” He looked around to make sure everyone understood. “If you killed these two, the cops would never stop coming after you. And eventually me. But if I make it look like some kind of accident, or put the blame on someone else, it’s a different story.”

I said, “You’ve had some practice doing things that way.”

Deason glared at me but didn’t say anything. He looked at themen gathered around him and said, “When this is over, you’ll owe me a favor.” Then he glanced at Trilling and added, “Make thattwofavors.”

Someone slapped handcuffs on me and Trilling and led us out to a blue SUV, where we were buckled into seat belts with our hands still cuffed behind us. We sat in the middle row, with Deason’s people positioned in front of and behind us in the SUV. Then Deason jumped into the front passenger seat.

I said, “If you don’t mind, you could just drop me at my office.”

No one in the car thought it was funny.

CHAPTER 92

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