He leaned back in the sofa and shook his head. “It went bad. Cartel guys told us that we’d be clear to do the deal. But as soon as everything got laid out, there were sirens and cops everywhere. They got all of us, even some of the mule guys the cartel sent.”

“But they told you you’d be clear?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Said they had it covered. I don’t know how, but they told us they had it covered.”

“How? Like with a cop?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Who else could’ve offered protection? And not like the cartel doesn’t have cops on the payroll, right?”

I looked at Lasko. He nodded in agreement.

“But I don’t know for sure who offered that,” Dailey said. “Like I said. They set it up. But what they didn’t know was they had a DEA guy inside.”

“Inside the cartel?”

Dailey nodded. “Yep. They had some deep cover guy who blew the whole thing up. I’ve always assumed that whoever the cartel paid to clear the area didn’t know about the undercover dude. Because when everything went crazy, it wasn’t local cops. It was feds. All feds.”

That was pretty interesting. I wasn’t sure if it helped me at all, but the story was interesting.

“Wow,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “Wow. It wasn’t good.”

“So everybody went down?” Lasko asked.

Dailey nodded. “More or less. Some guys took smaller hits. But I was the contact guy. Cartel mules knew my name. I took a bigger hit.” He paused. “Supposed to be fourteen years, but the day I walked in, I knew I was done with that crap.” He shrugged. “So I kept my chin down and nose clean and I was out early. Worked on my degree while I was inside.”

“Why?” I asked.

He rubbed his chin again. “I just remember lying on the ground, DEA guys screaming all around and it was surreal. Like, I couldn’t believe I was there. Just because I was lazy and stupid.” He shook his head again. “I just decided I wasn’t going to be stupid anymore. Take what I had coming and move on. I’m lucky it happened, you know? Now I just gotta back it up.”

I nodded. He had a good perspective. I hadn’t come to the house expecting to like him, but I did.

“Any of that help?” he asked. “Since I still don’t know what you’re looking for.”

“You said there were no local police there?” I asked. “Only feds?”

He thought for a moment. “I’m sure there were a few locals there by the time we were done. But it was mostly feds, yeah.”

I wondered about Mike’s role in the bust and how Coronado ended up with the money from the deal. Dailey wasn’t going to know that, but I still wondered.

“My daughter was kidnapped,” I said. “Right around the time your bust went down. She’s back now. We just found her. But I’m just chasing down some stuff that might be tied together.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Wow. Okay.”

“Weird question,” I asked. “Your gang. You guys involved at all with trafficking?”

“Yeah. Drugs for sure.”

“No. I mean kids.”

His eyes went wide and then his entire face took on an expression like he couldn’t believe I was asking the question. “The kings? Seriously?”

I nodded.

He chuckled then caught himself. “Sorry. I don’t mean to laugh. But you gotta understand. The guys that I ran with? They could barely count, alright? They weren’t sharp. They weren’t even real criminals. They were a bunch of poseurs. Guys who acted tough, but were just…lost. Push came to shove, they usually got shoved.” A sad smile crept onto his face. “They could barely handle ripping off a 7-11. Anything more than that?” He shook his head emphatically. “No way.”

“But you guys were gonna deal for the cartel,” Lasko said. “They could at least do that.”

“Stand on a corner and deal heroin?” Dailey said. “Sure, they could handle that. Because they didn’t have to think. The heroin was going to be given to us. All we had to do was sell it. But there was no big organized effort, okay? The cartel just wanted some traction in I.B. That was it. And my guess is the percentage I negotiated was far less than what other locals would’ve wanted. We were cheap labor.”

I appreciated his candor and I thought he was telling the truth.

“So no possible way any of your guys would’ve been involved with trafficking? Of kids?” I asked.

He shook his head. “None. None. Most of the guys were teenagers themselves. No way they would’ve been into something that heavy.” He paused. “And most of those guys deferred to me. They did what I said. And there’s no way I would’ve gotten into that.”

“Why not?” Lasko asked.

Dailey leaned forward again, back on the edge of the sofa. “Because I’m not a piece of shit. I was a stupid, lazy kid and I did some dumb things. I sold drugs, I beat up some other kids, I jacked a couple cars, stuff like that. But what you’re talking about? Selling kids?” He stared at Lasko. “I wouldn’t have done that for a million bucks. That isn’t me and it never was.”

I stood. “I don’t want you to be late for your interview. We’ve taken up enough of your time.”

Dailey and Lasko stood.

I pulled out a card from my wallet and handed it to Dailey. “I’m kind of on hiatus at the moment, but normally I work as a private investigator. Construction thing doesn’t come through, give me a call. I can probably find you some work.”

He took the card, read it and nodded at me. “Okay. Thank you.”

He and Lasko shook hands, then he looked at me.

I held out my hand. “Good luck, Ben. I hope I don’t hear from you.”

He shook my hand and smiled. “Thanks. Me, too.”

TWENTY FOUR

“Cartel doesn’t do that shit,” Lasko said.

We were back at our cars, standing between them, hashing out what we’d heard from Ben Dailey.

“Cartels have gotten pretty ugly lately,” I said.

Lasko shook his head. “Yeah, but they have their own set of rules. They don’t mess with kids. There have been a couple of rogue characters who’ve broken those rules and the cartel was pretty swift in dealing with them. Like chopping off heads swift. I can’t see any way they’d get involved in moving kids, especially American kids.”

I figured he was more in tune with what had been going on south of the border than I was, so I didn’t argue.

“So maybe they’re separate things,” Lasko said. “Maybe the bust isn’t related to Elizabeth.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But it still feels like there are some crooked lines attached to it. If it was a DEA bust, why was Mike Lorenzo one of the busting officers?”

Lasko thought for a minute. “Probably a jurisdiction thing. DEA will usually involve a local office or two, just to play ball and make nice. So maybe they called him in as their local contact.”

“But what about the supposed all-clear from the cartel?”

“If Lorenzo didn’t know or wasn’t the guy they arranged with, he wouldn’t have had any way of knowing,” Lasko said. “Or maybe Lorenzo was working quietly with DEA. Maybe his department didn’t know. If it was even his department that arranged the failed cover.”

I nodded. “So if Bazer was the guy who arranged the safe area, he might not have known Mike was working with the DEA. Or that they had a deep cover guy in the cartel.”

“You’re making a big jump,” Lasko said. “Both in that Bazer arranged the cover and that Mike wouldn’t tell his superior he was working something with the feds. Because Mike not even have been, technically speaking, working something with the feds. It may have just been a favor for a friend. But, yeah. That’s possible. Think it’s most likely that whoever arranged the cover had no clue there was an inside guy. That makes the most sense to me.”

He was right. I was making a big jump. But I didn’t really have anywhere else to go at the moment.

“Or it could’ve been reversed,” Lasko said, shrugging. “Lorenzo might’ve offered the cover and Bazer could’ve been working the DEA. That actually makes more sense to me, if you’re going that route. Bazer wouldn’t have any reason to share a joint effort with a subordinate.” He paused, thinking. “Still think the most likely thing is that whoever arranged cover had no clue about the DEA being inside and they were just as surprised as anyone else. Or maybe I’m just talking in circles.”