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  “Let me guess,” I said. “You ran into a door.”

  “McKenzie, please,” Alice said. “He’s hurt.”

  I didn’t care that Randy was hurt. In fact, it gave me pleasure to see it. But Alice’s voice was filled with anguish that she was working hard to keep to herself.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “I don’t know how to say it,” Randy said.

  Alice sat by his side and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. He leaned against her. That gesture alone told me a great deal.

  “Tell me more,” I said.

  Randy tried to reply but didn’t do a very good job of it, just a lot of “what happeneds” and “you sees.”

  “Randy was attacked by a drug dealer when he said that he was going to stop working for him,” Alice told me.

  “Oh.”

  I sat down in a chair opposite the sofa and adjusted my sling. I had the feeling this was going to be a long story.

  After settling in, I watched the couple across from me. Alice still had her arm around Randy and he was resting his head against her. I thought “La Princesa Virgen and the Wastrel.” It sounded like one of those movies Harry’s wife watched on the Hallmark Channel. Not that I would know.

  “Explain,” I said.

  “Where should I start?” Randy said.

  “Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

  They both stared at me like they had heard the line before but didn’t know where. I could have told them it came from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, impressing them with my literary expertise, only I wasn’t in the mood.

  “Just talk,” I said.

  “New Mexico,” Randy said. “I guess it all began in New Mexico. Albuquerque. We went down there, Erin and I, to enter Salsa Girl Salsa in a contest. This was a long time ago. Eight years at least. Nine. The Scovie Awards. I guess it’s like the Oscars of the hot sauce world. And we won. First place in the fresh salsa category. Erin thought it would be good publicity for Salsa Girl, and it was. She thought it would open doors for us, and it did. We were contacted that very day by a distributor who wanted to sell Salsa Girl Salsa throughout New Mexico and Texas. The business was on its way because of that. We were able to negotiate a deal with Minnesota Foods because of that. Erin did all the negotiating because I wasn’t very good at it. She represented the company, ran the company, because—I’m not good at anything. Grandfather was right. I’m just a fuckup. I fuck up everything I touch.”

  “No, you don’t,” Alice said.

  “Yes, I do. Now I’m screwing up your life by involving you in all of this. I’m so sorry, Alice.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  Part of me was impressed by Alice’s loyalty toward her boyfriend. I wonder when that happened, my inner voice said. The rest was disgusted with Randy’s apparent disloyalty toward Alice. Wasn’t he trying to be all lovey-dovey with Salsa Girl just three days ago?

  “How exactly did you fuck up this time?” I said aloud.

  “McKenzie,” Alice said.

  “I was approached by a man, a Mexican, Colombian, I don’t know, Hispanic,” Randy said. “In Albuquerque. This was five years ago. Erin sent me down there. She said I should make myself useful because—I never really did have much to do with running the company. My name was on the door, but that was all. I went down there—all I had to do was sign some papers for our distributor. We could have sent them through the mail, used FedEx, but looking back I realize now that Erin thought it would please my family to think I was actually involved with running the business even if I wasn’t. Anyway, his name was Alejandro Reyes. He said he had a deal for me. I told him that Erin did all the deals. He said that he and his people didn’t do business with no putas. Puta means—”

  “I know what it means.”

  “He said he would only deal with me. An hombre inteligente y fuerte.”

  Playing to his vanity, my inner voice said.

  “Go on,” I said aloud.

  “He said he was willing to sell Salsa Girl all the jalapeños, all the other chilies and bell peppers we’d ever need. The price he quoted was half of what we paid in Minnesota. Plus”—Randy looked down and away—“he said there would be a little something extra in it for me. For me personally. All we’d have to do is supply the truck, pick up the fruits and vegetables in Delicias, Mexico, and take them to the Cities. Since we were already sending a truck down there once a week, it didn’t seem like a problem. I took the offer to Erin. She was impressed. My family was impressed, too, when I told them, especially because I kind of embellished the story a little.” Randy smiled, but only for a moment. “Erin agreed to accept the deal. ’Course, she never knew about the kickbacks. Anyway, now what we do, we deliver our salsa to the distributor in Texas, and our driver crosses the border, loads up the fruits and vegetables in Mexico, and brings them here. It’s a good arrangement.”

  “When do we get to the drugs part?”

  “McKenzie, you have to understand. I never made enough money from Salsa Girl to support myself, to pay for what I need. I’m a Bignell. I can’t live like ordinary people. My family wouldn’t give me anything, though. They cut me off years ago because—because I’m a fuckup.”

  That’s already been firmly established. Get on with it.

  “They were waiting for me to prove myself, prove myself worthy,” Randy said.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Randy moved slightly away from Alice and adjusted his ice pack. That’s when I noticed that Reyes had not only slapped him around, he had used a knife. I crossed the room and sat on the sofa next to him. I pulled the ice pack down to take a closer look. There was a straight cut from the middle of his ear to his cheekbone. The wetness I had thought was caused by the melting ice pack was actually blood.

  “Is it bad?” Randy asked. “It took forever to stop bleeding.”

  “It isn’t very deep,” I said. “Not deep enough for stitches, anyway. It’s going to leave a mark, though. Think of it as a dueling scar. The chicks dig that.”

  Randy smiled weakly. Alice didn’t look like she dug it at all.

  “You were telling me what happened,” I said.

  “Reyes came to me after we had been doing business for two, three months,” Randy said. “I was in a coffeehouse here in the Cities and I looked up and Reyes was standing there and smiling like he had been expecting to meet me all along. I asked him what he was doing there. He said he had another deal for me. A big deal just between me and him. One not involving the maldita puta.”

  “I’m getting real tired of you calling my friend a whore.”

  “Not me. It wasn’t me, McKenzie. It was Reyes.”

  “What was the deal?”

  “That he would, that we would … Reyes said he was moving his operation to the Cities. He said that I already proved I could be relied upon because we had been doing business for three months. I asked what kind of business. He said he was opening up a … he used the word ‘franchise.’”

  “Selling what?”

  “Heroin.”

  I left Randy’s side and returned to the chair. Instead of looking at him, though, I leaned my head against the back of the chair and stared up at the ceiling.

  C’mon, McKenzie, my inner voice said. You didn’t buy a ticket for this ride. All you agreed to do was help a friend of a friend keep the glue out of her locks.

  “Oh, Randy,” Alice said. “Heroin?”

  “When I said I was assaulted by drug dealers earlier, what did you think I was talking about?”

  “I don’t know. Marijuana?”

  “Look, Alice, I don’t sell it. I don’t. All I do … all I do is what Minnesota Foods does. I take the product from one place and transport it to another. That’s all. I don’t know these people. I don’t associate with them. McKenzie, Reyes said if I didn’t do what he asked, he would tell Erin about the kickbacks I was accepting. I had to do what he said, you see?”

  �
��No, I don’t,” I said. “But go on.”

  “The driver, Jerry, he doesn’t know anything about it. Reyes said that way he never looks suspicious when he passes back and forth across the border. The customs people get used to seeing him. The drugs are mixed in with the jalapeños and other stuff. He drives the truck up here. We unload the truck—I don’t. I don’t do it. Hector does. I pay him. And Tony Cremer. I hired Tony because Hector can’t always be there week after week.”

  Week after week. Five years’ worth of week after week.

  “They unload the truck, sort out the heroin, and put it in a box,” Randy said. “They put the box on the shelf. I take the box and deliver it to wherever Reyes tells me to. A man comes and looks in the box and gives me an envelope. That’s all I do. It’s not like I hurt anybody.”

  “I gave you a key to the building,” Alice said. The way she said it, I was sure she now considered herself an accomplice.

  “I told you, I’m a partner,” Randy said. “I should have a key.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “I couldn’t live on what I get from the company. Honey, it was only temporary, until I could prove to my family that I wasn’t—”

  “A fuckup?” I said.

  This time Alice didn’t object.

  “I didn’t hurt anybody,” Randy said. “It’s just business.”

  People have used those words since the beginning of time to justify all manner of bullshit, my inner voice reminded me.

  “If people are stupid enough to use drugs…” Randy said.

  I would have gotten up and punched him in the mouth, but I didn’t have the energy. Besides, my shoulder was starting to throb.

  “I’m just a middleman,” Randy said.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Look, I’m doing the right thing now, okay? I’m trying to quit.”

  “Except Reyes won’t let you. Will he?”

  “No. I told him what happened. He doesn’t care.”

  “What happened?” It was about the thirtieth time I had asked that question, though I was less concerned than I was earlier. Now I was just curious.

  “I found out that Erin was trying to sell the company,” Randy said.

  He glanced at Alice. Alice had removed her arm from around his shoulder and was now looking away. I had a feeling she was in the midst of reevaluating her current situation.

  “I told Reyes,” Randy said. “Partly he was afraid if Central Valley International sent productivity experts to study the operation, they might learn what we were doing. Mostly, though, he was afraid CVI would move the entire operation out of the state, or insist Salsa Girl use their suppliers, and he would need to find another way to move his product across the border and up to the Cities. He said we should damage the company enough to kill the deal without putting it out of business. That’s why I poured the glue in the locks, why I dropped the rat pellets on Erin’s desk. I could have done worse, McKenzie. Much worse. All I wanted to do was make her think about what she was doing. When that didn’t work—”

  “You bombed the truck,” I said.

  “That was Reyes’s idea. He’s the one who gave me the dynamite. I timed it so—McKenzie, no one was supposed to be hurt. I’m sorry you were hurt.”

  “Yeah, me, too. I take it you didn’t know you were being filmed at the time.”

  “No.” Randy glanced at Alice again. “I didn’t know about the cameras.”

  Alice left the sofa and began pacing.

  “I’m glad,” she said. “I’m glad I didn’t tell you. This has got to stop.”

  “Alice…”

  “You said you loved me.”

  “I do love you. I love you with all my heart.”

  “How can you do these things and still love me?”

  “Please.”

  “Erin is my friend. She’s more than a friend. She’s—McKenzie, you need to believe me. I didn’t know what Randy was doing. I would have told someone if I had known.”

  An innocent bystander blinded by love, my inner voice said. Her eyes wide open now.

  “Randy, tell me about Erin,” I said. “What happened at the meeting yesterday?”

  “She told me and my grandfather she had film that showed me putting the bomb in the truck. Erin doesn’t know about the heroin. She thought I was just trying to kill the deal with CVI, that I was working with my grandfather to bring down the market value of the company and force her to sell it to us instead. She said we were idiots because if we really did want to buy Salsa Girl all we had to do was make a fair offer. My grandfather said she was crazy. Erin said crazy or not, she was going to keep the film to herself as long as we left her alone. Grandfather said he would not submit to blackmail. Erin said he was right, she was way out of line. She brought out her cell phone and asked if she should call the police or if he wanted to do it. My grandfather was—”

  “Yeah, I saw how your grandfather was.”

  “Erin also said that if she ever saw me anywhere near Salsa Girl again she’d make sure I spent the next twenty years in prison. But that was just because she was angry. After she has time to think about it—I know things about her. I know plenty.”

  What do you know? my inner voice asked.

  “Anyway, I didn’t tell them the truth because I figured the truth was much worse than what Erin and my grandfather thought I did,” Randy said. “I was right. When we went home to Cambridge that day, my grandfather was more upset that I got caught than with what I did. He kept saying there were smarter ways to take over a company than using bombs. He blamed my parents for not teaching me better.”

  Probably there’s something in Scripture explaining how it should be done, my inner voice said.

  Alice moved against the wall as far away from Randy as she could get and still be in the same room with him. I thought of her ultrastrict mother, the one who didn’t want her daughter to drink. I wondered what she would think of all this.

  “I called Reyes this morning,” Randy said. “I couldn’t leave Cambridge last night, so I called him this morning and arranged a meeting. I told him what happened. I told him that he couldn’t use Salsa Girl to ship his drugs anymore. I told him that I was out, too. I should have told him over the phone, because he said I was out when he said I was out. He said he was going to keep using Salsa Girl and he didn’t care if Erin knew about it or not—that was my problem. He had his men do this to me.” Randy pointed at his cheek. “He did it to prove that he was serious. Now I don’t know what to do.” He looked across the room at Alice. “I don’t know what I’m going to tell my mother.”

  Alice shook her head as if she didn’t know either.

  “I have a more important question,” I said. “What are you going to tell the police?”

  “No,” Alice said. “No police. We can’t.”

  “Alice, I think we’re way past protecting your boyfriend.”

  “It’s not about Randy.”

  “You don’t mean that,” Randy said.

  “What he did was awful, but the police? McKenzie, if we go to the police, Erin will lose everything.”

  “Think it through,” I said. “It’s heroin.”

  “Erin would lose the deal with CVI. Minnesota Foods would cut her loose. All the stores—who would stock her salsa if this got out? That her company was involved in drugs? She’d be back to working farmers markets in a week. She’d be all the way back to where she’d started. And the others—what about all the others? Her employees? People who have been with her for years? They’d be out of work. Some of them, it would be hard for them to get new jobs. We can’t let that happen. Can we? McKenzie, you said you wanted to help her. This isn’t helping.”

  “To hell with Erin,” Randy said. “What about me? They’ll want revenge. Reyes will come after me. He’ll come after my family. My mother.”

  “Don’t play that card,” I said. “You didn’t care about your family before, did you? You expect me to believe you care about them now? Besides, your family
has all the resources in the world. They can surround themselves with an army out there in Cambridge. They’ll be fine.”

  “But then they’d have to know what I did. You know my grandfather. They’ll disown me.”

  “Do you honestly think I care? This is all on you, man.”

  “Erin. What about Erin? Alice is right. If this gets out, Salsa Girl is finished. And not just the company. Erin, too. You don’t know these people, McKenzie. Revenge is part of their business plan.”

  Don’t listen to him, my inner voice said. He’s just using the threat to Erin to protect his own ass.

  Except there is a threat to Erin, and it’s very real, I told myself. Erin is your friend. You can’t just allow her life to be shattered like this.

  What are you going to do, McKenzie? You’re the one who had better think this through.

  “How do you communicate with Reyes?” I said.

  “Cell phone,” Randy said. “I never actually see him. Well, I saw him today, but that was the first time since he moved up here.”

  Meaning there’s no direct evidence linking Randy to Reyes or Reyes to the heroin, I told myself. Just Randy’s word. That’ll mean next to nothing in court.

  So what?

  “Give me the number,” I said.

  “I can do better than that.”

  Randy handed me a classic burn phone, one of those prepaid flip-phones available at Target for $19.99 that you can use and then dump along with the phone number when it becomes too risky to use. I had about a dozen of them in my secret room.

  No, no, no, McKenzie. Don’t you dare. This is way bigger than Salsa Girl, and you know it. Bobby told you about the heroin epidemic in the Cities. Now we know where it’s coming from. If you want to call someone, call him. Imagine how happy he’ll be.

  Alice crossed the room to where I was sitting. She knelt next to the chair and took my hand in both of hers.

  “Can you help her?” she asked. “Help Erin? And Randy, too.” She turned her head to look at him. He seemed so damned pathetic sitting on the sofa. “Usually he’s very caring.”