“Keep moving,” Weecho said to Juna. 

God bless her, she did. 

They could see there was no choice but to go straight into the store. The door was unlocked, thanks for small favors (or maybe not), Weecho holding it open for Juna, hearing the SUV crunch to a stop behind them. 

They stepped inside and looked around, just another pair of customers, just happened to be the only ones here. Weecho heard the car door slam, tried to look fascinated by the cages of birds and tanks of tropical fish that took up just about all the space. Any other time he likely would have been. He moved behind a glass tank that had small alligators in it, bent down to see through to the front door. 

Saw the door open and Soul Patch come in. 

The man didn’t have his shades on now, had pale eyes, chilly, reminding Weecho of his father’s, like the old man’s would get when he’d lose it, take something out on you. Soul Patch swept his own eyes around the store, held them on a pen over in a corner where Juna was making a fuss over a litter of puppies. 

“Can I help you?” he said, like help was the last thing he had in mind. 

Bless her again, she didn’t miss a beat. “I’m looking for work.” 

“We’re not hiring.” 

“You would if you knew how good I was with animals.” Showing it with the pups, them making happy sounds, licking her hand. “And you need somebody in front here.” 

He kept his hard look. “Our animals are different.” 

“I can see that.” She glanced at a tank with a pair of dinosaur-looking iguanas in it. “I’ve been around wild ones all my life, snakes, gators…” 

A baloney merchant, Weecho thinking. Join the family. 

Or maybe she really had been around them. 

Soul Patch stood there nodding.  

Then whipped his eyes to Weecho. 

“Who’re you?” 

“I’m with her.” What else could he say? 

Soul Patch stared at him – like this wasn’t the first time he’d seen this kid, trying to place where else. Weecho still had his shades on – Ray-Bans don’t fail me now. 

“Where you from?” 

“New York.” 

“I mean family.” 

“Cuba. Manzanillo.” 

He’d shaved off the mustache he’d been wearing at the crash, like he’d promised his mother. Glad not to have it for Soul Patch to clue on.   

Soul Patch squinted at him – spic punk probably doing this white chick – then turned his eyes back to Juna. “And you?” 

 “I’m a swamp girl,” she said. “Atchafalaya. Biggest in the country.” 

Weecho could see Soul Patch liked that, even if he didn’t totally believe her. 

The man waited, like he was trying to make up his mind. 

Then nodded. “Come in back.” 

He turned toward a door in the rear of the store, wasn’t looking when Juna grabbed a handful of puppy treats from a bowl by the pen and shoved them in her pocket. She turned and gave Weecho a straight face, the two following Soul Patch through the back door. 

                                                #          #          # 

The door opened into a big storage area. Soul Patch led the way across the concrete floor, past stacked bags of dog food and shelves of pet supplies. He jerked his thumb toward some burlap bags full of something.  

“Think you can lift one of those?” he said to Juna. 

“What’s in them?” 

“Fish tank gravel.” 

She gave them a look. “No problem.” 

Weecho thinking she didn’t believe any more than he did that fish tank gravel was all that was in them. 

“Emer?” 

Somebody calling from across the wide floor, Weecho putting the name Emer together with Soul Patch, later would learn his last name was Lynch. 

Lynch stopped and looked toward the voice. “What?”    

Two men were standing by a freight door opened to the canal, sun coming through the clouds out there, glinting off the docked Donzi. On the floor next to one of the men – a scruffy oldster in camouflage gear – a big bird with talons was perched inside a cage.     

“We got a problem,” the second man said. He had on a baseball cap and Weecho could see it was the driver of the 18-wheeler that had cut off the Mercedes. Weecho tugged his headband down to his shades, shifted around behind Juna.  

Emer Lynch walked over to the two men. “What problem?” 

“Price,” the truck guy, Victor Crotty, said. “Mr. Teddy Shongut here says we owe him two grand.” 

Lynch frowned. “I thought we said five-hundred.” 

“That’s marsh-hawk price,” Shongut said. “Peregrine here’s a lot more bird.” 

“So the lot-more-bird price is two-thousand?” 

“You could get twice, three times that.” 

Lynch shook his head, looked down at the floor. “We had a deal, Teddy.” 

“For different goods.” Shongut starting to look uneasy. 

Lynch looked up, squinted toward some shelves that had antlers and tusks arranged on them. On a workbench under the horns was a large glass tank. 

“C’mere,” Lynch said. “I want to show you something.” 

He took hold of Shongut’s elbow and jerked him toward the tank. Called to Juna and Weecho over his shoulder. “You, too. I want you to see this.” 

He stopped Shongut in front of the glass tank. Victor Crotty went over and stood behind them. 

Weecho could see through a little space between Shongut and Lynch that the tank was full of snakes. Tongues flicking, slithering around. 

“These are moccasins,” Lynch said. “Come in from Georgia. Lady in Bushwick’s doing a voodoo thing. Take a look.” 

“Emer…” Shongut tried to pull away. 

Lynch grabbed the back of Shongut’s neck. Crotty stepped up and pinned Shongut’s arms. Together they shoved the man’s head at the open top of the tank. 

Weecho glanced at Juna. No expression. 

Shongut was squirming, trying to break loose. Lynch and Crotty kept his face held just above the hissing snakes. 

“Now suppose instead of moccasins,” Lynch said, “my man had sent up some corals, or fer-de-lances. Harder to come by, better grade poison. Now I could try and up the price on the voodoo lady, but she might think I was jerking her beads. And I might lose her business after that. Might even get some whammy put on me. You see what I’m saying?” 

“Emer, Jesus…,” Shongut stammered. 

“You see what I’m saying?” Lynch yelled. 

“Yes!” 

“Good.” 

They let Shongut go. The man stumbled back from the tank and dropped to one knee, shaking. Lynch pulled out a roll of bills and peeled off five hundreds. Let them float to the floor next to Shongut. 

“Clean yourself up, Teddy,” Lynch said. “Your pants got a little fragrant there.” 

Shongut picked up the bills and stuffed them in his camos, the group watching the humiliated poacher stumble to the freight door and disappear outside. Lynch turned back to Juna and Weecho. “Where were we?” 

Juna held his eyes, cool as could be. “I was asking about work.” 

Her standing there, no sweat, impressing him, Weecho could see. 

“Doing what?” Lynch said. 

“Whatever needs doing.” 

Lynch thought about that, looked her up and down. “You got family?” 

“None to speak of.” 

He nodded, stroking his soul patch. A phone started ringing in a little office behind him. “Stay here,” he said, and went in to take the call. 

On his way he passed by a dog that was chained to a ring by the office door. A big, tough-looking Rottweiler bitch, mother of the puppies by the look of her swollen breasts. Juna went over to her and the dog started growling, protecting the door – stopped when Juna slipped her one of the treats she’d taken from the puppy supply. 

She slipped the dog another treat and right away they were friends, hugs and kisses both ways. 

Lynch came back out after talking on the phone and did a double-take. Stood there and stared at Juna and the dog. 

Weecho, though, was looking past him – through the office’s open door to Lynch’s desk. Sitting on it was a laptop that Lynch had poked keys on and nodded at during the call. 

Dried blood on the cover. 

The laptop Lynch took from the crash. 

                                                #          #          # 

Half an hour later they were back on the sandy road walking to the A train, Weecho not looking all that thrilled they’d gotten a foot in Lynch’s door. Mainly because it was Juna’s foot. 

“You start tomorrow?” 

“You heard him,” Juna said. 

“That doesn’t mean you have to do it.” 

“You’re the one said something big’s going on.”

 “It is big. You’re not.” Him sounding like his mother. 

“Good. Then I won’t show up on the radar. And I’m bigger than the other half of this outfit.” Her sounding like his mother. “We’ll never have a better shot at that laptop.” 

She could see from his expression he was surprised she’d noticed it.  

“I was watching from up in the factory when he took it from the crash,” she said. “It’s gotta mean something.” 

There’s people’s blood on it, of course it means something. Weecho edgy that it wasn’t him instead of her going in there, this place with its voodoo snakes. But knowing even if he did get himself in, in two seconds he’d get found out. 

“How’d you know she’d be there?” he said. 

“Who?” 

“Your new best friend, the bitch. That’s what sold him.” 

“The puppies are weaning. The mother had to be around somewhere. And a guy like him’ll have a dog like that.” 

“Yeah, but how did you know?” 

“A woman just does.” 

Yeah, right. He let it go, kept walking. 

Then thought of something. Glanced back over his shoulder at Petoria.  

“Wait here,” he said. 

“Where you going?” 

He stepped into some tall reeds by the side of the road where nobody could see him. Shrugged off his backpack and took out his camera, his backup to the one he’d tossed into the dumpster. He pointed it through the reeds at the building, that Donzi just visible in back. The blue Nissan SUV was still parked in front of the window that had Petoria painted on it. He framed the lens to get everything in. Click! 

Took two more, put the camera back and slung the pack over his shoulder. 

“What are you doing?” Juna calling from over the other side of the reeds. 

“I gotta pee, just a second.” 

He unzipped and aimed away from the wind. 

A woman’s voice spoke quietly behind him. “So now you found him…” 

Weecho snapped his head around, saw Nina Galleon standing back in the reeds, the mutilated ghost of her. 

“… and your lady’s in.” Nina nodded toward the road. “She’s got some hot little moves for herself.”  

“She better,” Weecho said. 

“You’re right. Because he’s one step ahead. Always.” 

They exchanged stares. 

Juna called out: “Weecho?” 

Nina glanced at Weecho’s fly. “Finish your business. And watch your back with your fast-talking friend there.” 

Before Weecho could say more, a gust blew Nina away. 

He walked out of the reeds, Juna watching him zip his fly. “Who were you talking to?”

 “Just thinking that shop is perfect,” he said. 

Juna gave him a look, glanced at the reeds. “For what?” 

“Anything he wants to bring in here. Like those bullshit feed sacks, could hold anything from anywhere. Or run in illegals. Offload them offshore, come in on that fastboat.” 

The two of them started walking again. Weecho nodded toward the elevated train platform ahead. “They get off the boat, step onto a train, an hour they’re midtown.” 

“Why’d he mess with that container then? Kill people?” 

“Competition maybe. Maybe sending a message. And for goddamn sure he wanted that laptop.” 

But what was Nina Galleon doing there? And who were the guys in the windbreakers took her away afterward? Her and the Arab? 

They climbed the steps to the A train platform. While they were waiting, looking out over the bay, watching a jumbo jet lifting out of JFK, Juna’s eyes went to the street below. 

 “There’s that guy.” 

“Who?” 

“Teddy whatever.” 

Down on the street, Teddy Shongut, the scruffy poacher in camos, was about to step through the door to a bar. 

“I can’t believe he’d just take that shit.” 

 “Maybe he won’t,” Weecho said. 

                                                #          #          # 

 A technician in a white lab coat walked down a hallway busy with cops. In his latex-gloved hand was a camera, the Canon that Weecho tossed into the dumpster. 

The man entered an office suite that had Deputy Commissioner Vincent Burke lettered on the door. 

In the reception alcove, Burke’s assistant looked up from her desk, nodded toward Burke’s open office door. “Go on in.” 

The technician stepped through, Burke looking up from his desk. “Am I going to like this?” 

The technician held up the camera. “There’s a couple prints from our patrol guy on it. The rest have to be the owner’s.” 

“You run them?” 

“Not one hit. We tried all the bases.” 

“Shit.”