“Because I didn’t want anything to do with any shit she and Juan were into. That’s the truth.”
It sounded like truth, but you never really know. The drug dog was out of the vehicle and getting ready when we walked back around front. Two of the officers started toward us as Vasco talked to me in a fast, low voice.
“You know about the case I talked on. It was supposed to be fucking sealed forever, so it’s bullshit, you know, but that was it for me. I haven’t gone anywhere near drugs since. When cartel soldiers come to my bar and tell me I have to sell, I quit and find another bartending job. I don’t move coke. I don’t know what Juan does now. I know he wanted that driver job real bad, and Rosamar slept with the dude that owns the company so he could get it. Omar, Homer, whatever his name is, she did him at a party at his house.”
“How do you know that?”
“Juan told me.”
“Did you know he was making coke deliveries in the Hullabaloo van?”
He shook his head and explained. “He doesn’t talk to me. He knows I’m out and never coming back.”
“Did he know you testified?”
“He knows. He also knows I protected him. I’m not lying, you find any drugs in there, it’s not me. It’s him and his fucking made-up sister.”
“What are we going to find in your room?”
“A gun.”
“Why?”
“In case they ever come for me.”
“No drugs.”
“None.”
“Nothing you were holding for Juan.”
“Nada.”
“Where did he run to?”
“Got to be Mexico. He worked for a coyote. He knows some bad dudes, and they’ll get him back across the other way.”
“Why did he come home first?”
“You were right on before. ID, money, like you were saying that night.”
“Are you sure the drug dog isn’t going to find anything in your bedroom?”
“Not unless they plant it.”
“That won’t happen. Okay, if it’s a gun only, we’ll float along together awhile longer, but if it looks like you’re holding back and have lied again, then you go down with the ship.”
“Get the dog there.”
The coke dog scented cocaine in Juan’s room and was all over it when the mattress was flipped and a zippered slit found in the middle of it. When it was unzipped, there was no coke, but there was a cell phone. The phone got bagged and I took it with me. The pouch in the mattress had held cocaine at some point. The dog made that clear. Maybe it had once held money and a different ID as well.
The coke dog ran through the rest of the house. There was residue in the bathroom nearest Menderes’s room but nothing in Vasco’s room or anywhere else. Vasco’s gun, wherever it was hidden, wasn’t found and I let that be. When it was over, I told Vasco to get in my car and that I’d talk with the vice officers who were ready to take him in and question him. I briefed them on what Vasco had told me, and then, with Vasco in my car, drove to Rosamar Largo’s house.
“That red Mustang is her car,” he said. “And everything I told you is true.”
“Don’t leave Vegas.”
Minutes after dropping him back at his house, I was on the phone with Venuti telling him what we found.
“How do you want to do this?” I asked. “Do you want another agent to take it from here?”
“Do you have any kind of rapport with this Enrique Vasco?”
“Not really, but he is talking to me. This Rosamar Largo I haven’t met or had any contact with.”
He was quiet, then asked, “What do you think, Grale?”
“She knows Vasco. I have the Vasco connection, and that’ll carry weight with her. I think I’ll stick with the Menderes search another day, maybe two, but no more than that. I’ll brief whoever you put on it.”
“I agree with that. Call her. Talk to her, set up a meeting, but don’t meet with her yourself. I’ll send agents. Where are you now?”
“I dropped Vasco at his house and headed back to hers.”
“Why go back there when you can call from where you are?”
“I want to see how she handles it.”
“I’m not following you.”
“She could panic. She could take off.”
“Okay, but you don’t intercept her.”
“That’s fine.”
I eased over down the street from Rosamar Largo’s house and called her cell phone. When she answered, I identified myself. Moments later, her front door opened.
“I’m looking for your brother, Juan,” I said.
“I am too. I’m looking everywhere for him.”
“We need to meet with you.”
“Okay, let’s do it.”
She came out the front door carrying her purse and rolling a carry-on bag while telling me, “I’m out shopping, but I’m about to get in my car and drive home. If they want to talk to me, they can come to my house. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
“There’ll be two agents,” I said.
She was Anglo-Hispanic, dark-haired, and no doubt once striking-looking. I told her the agents would call first.