A waiter approaches and asks Frankie if he wants a drink. The man is no dummy and politely declines. He doesn’t intend to stay long and is going to do very little talking or interacting with anyone so that he becomes forgettable.
When the waiter leaves, Ladd doesn’t mince words, keeping to Orellana’s native Spanish so there is no misunderstanding. “I need to know where Mejia is and what he’s been up to since you and I last met.”
“I don’t want to get involved,” Orellana says, keeping his attention solely on Ladd and not sparing me a glance.
“You’re full of shit, Frankie.” Ladd leans to the side and slides the leather satchel that contains fifty thousand dollars out just a bit for him to see. “You want the money, or you wouldn’t be here.”
Orellana looks around the restaurant, seeming ill at ease.
“There’s no one here to recognize you,” Ladd points out, bringing Frankie’s attention back to him. “This is a quick in-and-out deal. You give me what I need, I hand this over to you, and we never see each other again. Mejia never knows we spoke.”
The man wants his money, and while I’m sure he’s worried about crossing Mejia, he probably thinks the risk of getting outed for his duplicity is low. It only takes him ten minutes, but he spills everything about Mejia, including where he’s currently located as well as gossip that’s filtered down through the Vecindario 18 gang. Apparently, Mejia is seeking justice for his son’s murder during a raid on his weapons compound by a rival gang.
Ladd doesn’t miss a beat over what is clearly erroneous information. Mejia knows damn well it wasn’t a rival gang if he’s in league with Gayla Newman.
When Ladd has all the info he needs, he hands over the satchel, and Orellana slithers out of the restaurant without a backward glance.
I pick up my wine and take a sip. When I set it down, I look across the table at Ladd. “So, does he really not know about our involvement in the death of Diego Mejia? If he’s wrong about that, he could be wrong about the other information he fed us.”
Ladd shakes his head, not in the negative, but in that frustrated way that says there’s no way to tell. “It’s a possibility his intel is bad all the way around. It’s also a possibility he’s fucking with us. That he knows Mejia has a hit out, and he’s not willing to throw him completely under the bus. Or…”
He trails off, leaving an ominous silence, but I know exactly where his mind is going. I finish the thought for him. “Or this is a trap. Orellana let Mejia know we’re here and asking for information, he fed us exactly what Mejia wants us to know, and now he’s going to be waiting for us when we show up.”
Ladd’s expression darkens with shared worry.
“It’s a definite possibility,” I murmur thoughtfully, knowing our goals haven’t changed. We have to be more prepared for the contingency that Mejia will be waiting for us, but we still have to proceed.
The waiter reappears, wants to know if we’re ready to order. We’ve already perused the menu, so I order a pork dish with sauteed chard and herbed polenta, while Ladd orders lamb. It’s low on Salvadorian fusion, but this restaurant caters to tourists who may not like the regional cuisine. Which sucks… because I love this country’s food. My favorites include pupusas served with sour cabbage salad, pasteles filled with spicy chicken and vegetables, and sopa de pescado—or Good Friday soup—filled with seafood, tomatoes, green peppers, and lots of cumin, my favorite spice.
As soon as we’re alone, Ladd attempts conversation. We haven’t had a chance to talk seriously about anything other than the mission, and we have an entire meal before us. “What have you been doing over the last few years?”
He means since I last tracked him down but didn’t approach.
“What I always wanted,” I reply, my tone a little too bright and confident. “You know me… all about the adventure and adrenaline. Making this career my bitch.”
“That career,” Ladd corrects me somberly. “Not your career anymore.”
He’s not saying it to be unkind but to remind me I’m no longer CIA. Even if I loved every bit of time I spent with the Company, they abandoned me, and I’m not a part of it now, nor will I ever be again.
I deflate, unable to paint any type of rosy picture for him or even myself. “I worked hard,” I say, a truthful answer to his question. “I worked a lot. Never took vacations except for mandated time off in between missions, visited my parents when I could, and that’s pretty much it.”
“Sounds lonely,” he surmises.
And yeah… that’s pity in his voice.
I swallow past the shame, because that loneliness was of my own making. “It was.”