Chapter 7: Sugarhill

The Princeton University campus looked like a college should look. An Ivy, anyway. Venerable, distinguished buildings. Sidewalks that wended and winded. Even in the July heat, hordes of students were strolling, reading, lying on lawns, playing hacky sack, sharing a joint, napping. I felt ... old.

It was Saturday morning; Rowley was still at the Marriott Marquis. She had requested a late Sunday checkout. Thank you, Jessie and Jesse.

I was on my way to Rowley’s leafy neighborhood, to Elm Ridge Road. I’d walk the environs, scope out the surrounding houses. Then return for the after-midnight open house. One thing I wanted to check out — how many homes on Elm Ridge were covered by Pruitt Security. I wasn’t sure if it mattered — Rowley could be their only customer or one of dozens. I was just curious.

Night. I hadn’t bothered the Hakleford clan. Took Uber from the Hyatt back to the campus. I was dressed in navy — long-sleeved hoodie, jeans, sneakers. Black shoulder bag. Accessorizing is key.

After being equipment-embarrassed in Billings, I’d upgraded from manual to electronic. Li-Ion Battery Operated Electric Pick Gun. Lithium battery. The gun wasn’t cat-burglar cool. It simply vibrated inside the lock until the motion caused the pins to fall into place. In theory.

I’d also sent myself my old-school kit. Just in case. As I walked toward Elm Ridge, I was having an internal conversation — this one involving the police who had found my two sets of picks to be ... interesting.

Well, Think Positive, that’s the Boy Scout motto if I remember correctly.

It was 12:14. I was sitting across the street from Rowley’s house, leaning back against a neighbor’s Oak. There was a sodium vapor streetlight at the east and west ends of the block, but I was pretty much invisible. Three houses still had downstairs lights on; two of them showed flickering screens.

I’d wait until at least one, maybe later. Rowley’s alarm system was on a temporary work stoppage until four. Um, Officer, I can explain the dark clothes and penlight, just give me a mo.

I hadn’t expected to find the Eureka Clue in Rowley’s home. And I didn’t. But it would have been ... derelict for me to ignore the opportunity. The electric pick worked almost silently and very quickly. The alarm wasn’t blinking in the entry hall.

I purposely deepened my breathing to load oxygen into my blood. The more blood pumping through my brain, the faster I see things, the more clearly I see them. Or maybe I was just fucking nervous.

The house had that empty feeling, that no-one-was-home feeling. But I did a quick room check anyway — upstairs, downstairs, basement. I would focus on two rooms — her bedroom and her office. I’d photograph everything work-related. Most of it wouldn’t mean a thing to me — I think I had studied Sanskrit poetry instead of biochem. No, if I remember correctly, it was between the Gita Govinda and molecular biology, a coin-flip.

Two hours later I was back in my Hyatt suite, ride courtesy of Lyft.

I’d found dozens of work-related files. Hundreds of pages, too many to photograph. I’d shot sample pages, summaries when those were available.

Rowley’s personal stuff — letters, calendars, handwritten notes, photos, lists ... were mundane. Not a single reference to Drake Fowler. No hidden porn. I didn’t even try to guess her laptop password — probably something to do with molarity, oxidation, solubility, like that. Mendelevium.

Oh, I could have puzzled it out eventually. Given a millennium or so.

I took out my burner’s battery and left the cell by the door. I’d overnight it to Carmen in the morning. Later in the morning.

I thought briefly about my B & E. How outraged I’d be if someone did that to me. But Rowley ... deserved it. Perhaps. Or was I practicing bespoke ethics? Fuck.

I drifted off to sleep with the feeling that I hadn’t found anything of value. Searching Rowley’s home, sorting through her personal stuff ... my sense was that this was a very cautious woman.

The Princeton Hyatt Regency is the kind of hotel I’m comfortable in. A pretty decent bed, room service, small-plates restaurant. It was about a mile to the campus and convenient to lots of bars and cafes. It had a good 24-hour gym and an indoor swimming pool.

Oddly, I’ve reconsidered swimming pools, just as I have hotel bathrobes. I’m no germaphobe, but...

I’d been reading about a couple of public pool felons — Cryptosporidium (gastrointestinal illness and diarrhea) and Legionella (Legionnaires’ disease, a severe pneumonia, and Pontiac fever). Pass.

Of course not going in the water doesn’t preclude me from rocking my new yellow one-piece. When you’re tan, you’re ... golden.

I’m also taking an El Paso on the Hyatt’s comedy club. I wish the performers well and all that. Thanks, but no.

My Sistine instructions had been to scope out Dr. Samantha Rowley. I’m waiting to hear from Carmen to see if I need to sneak back into the house and shoot some more of those voluminous pages. I had mixed feelings — it would add another layer of risk. Yet if something in there could be central to our cause ... color me in. Ms. Bespoke Ethics.

I decided to give Rowley a rest. I took the Hakleford Express into New York. Which meant, to me, Manhattan. Specifically, 6th Avenue and the Triple-I building. Unlike the stand-alone Kansas City headquarters, Macklin rented only ten floors of a sixty-five story building in Midtown. Not that far from Phillip Montgomery and Envoy Assets on 7th.

Sistine hadn’t mentioned Drake Fowler, not directly. But since my target — Samantha Rowley — was secretly on his payroll...

For some reason, I was trying to be less dependent on rationalization. I decided that Sistine and Gloria wanted results, not procedural details. I simply made an executive decision to check out Mr. Fowler on my own.

These days, he didn’t look much like the former Military Policeman that he had been back in the 90s. He’d reached the rank of Major during his third hitch in Iraq. While MPs were charged with protecting personnel and property, Fowler’s records indicated he worked primarily in two areas — keeping control over the ever-growing prison population and rebuilding the Iraqi Police.

He had one Purple Heart and several unproven misconduct whispers. Honorable discharge in 1998.

Fowler then founded — funding amount and sources unknown — Fowler Zone Protection. A niche security firm that offered technical and physical security to emerging small businesses. Companies formed on the fly by young entrepreneurs who had millions of creative ideas, but little or no concept regarding protection of intellectual property, corporate espionage, personal safety.

Over time, Fowler hired several colleagues from his Army days. These were quiet men, competent, grimly efficient when a problem arose. He grew his security company rapidly enough to catch the attention of a Citi banking executive named Mike Davies.

One of Fowler’s vice presidents had personally thwarted an attempted kidnapping of the husband of an AI startup founder in San Jose. She ran the company that Citi now owned 64% of through its Silicon Valley venture capital operation.

Davies and Fowler hit it off. Stayed in touch over the years. Then a Citi subsidiary was caught up in a bribery scandal in China. The huge fine — over $7 billion — actually wasn’t all that significant to the bank’s bottom line. But the corporate embarrassment was.

The whispers were that Citi was really pissed at getting caught. Indulging in the same foreign business practices that competitors do is one thing. Negative publicity on an international scale ... no thank you.

Mike Davies approached Fowler with a unique proposition — come head up Citi’s Security arm. And maintain a 51% stake in Fowler Zone Protection. Citi would handle the minority sale to Fowler’s key executives.

Fowler said yes. Provided he could bring in his own team. Davies shook hands with one proviso, “I need to approve every VP-level firing.” This was for legal, not compassionate, reasons.

Fowler was 41, a millionaire, an executive with a hugely successful international bank.

But whispers — perhaps competitive jealousy, perhaps not — swirled around him.

Jessie Sullivan told me, “There’s a growing belief in San Jose that Fowler engineered the botched kidnapping.”

Jesse nodded, “So his company looked heroic.”

There were darker rumors, starting back in Iraq. Missing funds that had been intended for prison construction. Black market weapons purchased by a private security firm arming the Iraqi Police units that Fowler was training. Two suspicious deaths, ten months apart, both were colonels in the Military Police. Fragging, unproven, but possible.

Drake Fowler, in his corporate photos, didn’t look like an evil manipulator. By the time Macklin lured him away from Citi, Fowler, now 48, wore wire-rimmed spectacles, kept his light brown hair cropped close, dressed in conservative suits, and kept a low public profile.

He was a quiet man, not tall, not short. Wiry, but not skinny. Kept himself in good shape judging from the photos. Bland looking, but inside ... who knew? Of course that was probably true of all of us, n’est-ce pas?

On an impulse, a rather thoughtful one, I called Gertie Oppenheimer. “Did you ever run across a guy at Citi named Drake Fowler?” From her NYC days at Chase.

Silence. Then, “Security, right? Yeah, I saw him at a couple of conferences. One at Aspen. Let me think ... okay, conservative looking guy. Dresses professionally, but dresses down. What was it they called him at Citi ... the Gray Man? No ... oh yeah, Mr. November. Gray eyes, quiet disposition, toned-down wardrobe.”

Mr. November.

By the second day, Tuesday, of my Fowler mission, I changed the Hakleford schedule. I was spending the week at the Sheraton on 7th, another anonymous business hotel.

I told the Tuesday Hakleford, “Pick me up at eight Wednesday night. And for the rest of the week.”

Fowler came to work at Triple-I around two or three in the afternoon. Didn’t leave the building until ten or eleven at night. He didn’t vary his schedule the entire week I followed him.

The one surprise was where he lived — Queens. He had what for him would be a rather modest bungalow. It was on a small cul-de-sac. I was so used to the Sullivans, I almost forgot to call Carmen. She told me, “We’ll have the neighborhood skinny tomorrow.”

What I began to think of as Fowler Crescent may be the smallest gated community in America. Five houses, two on each side of Fowler’s. There wasn’t a guardhouse, but the iron gate between the two brick columns looked imposing.

Of course the ten-foot barrier could be breached with a small ladder. But an intruder would be visible in the arc lights. And I had no doubt that Fowler Crescent would have an alarm system I couldn’t get around with a call to the Sullivans. Especially when Carmen told me, “The other four houses are owned by Fowler’s Army buddies. Two of them work for Macklin, two are still at Citi. None of them are married.” Five bachelors.

Five bachelors immediately conjured up gay bathhouses, Roman orgies, a quick way to exploit Fowler’s weakness. Except. The other four men occasionally had whores delivered. Women. Well, appearances aside, I couldn’t be positive they were prostitutes.

But ... midnight arrivals, flashy clothes, heavy makeup. Oh, I suppose they could be a couple of quantum physicists. And a couple of macroeconomists putting together the Davos agenda.

For some odd reason, Fowler Crescent reminded me of the Corleone homes on Long Island. Rumor has it that Puzo based the residential setup on a Kansas City mob family. I, for one, chose to believe it.

I sat up front the first couple of times the Hakleford cousins and I followed Mr. November on his late night journey from 6th Avenue to Fowler Crescent. Less conspicuous. Then I reverted to my backseat position. Town Cars — the Black-Car services in New York — are so common. But maybe not so much in Queens ... fuck.

Fowler had his own driver. Who looked like a bodyguard, thick and thuggish. Thursday night when Fowler got out at his gate, I told the current Hakleford, “Follow the car.”

Quite a bit of traffic even this close to midnight. The driver stayed on surface streets and wove his way east toward the Nassau County line. He drove into a burg called Elmont. We were two blocks back when he turned into a commercial garage — All-County Motors — on Franklin street.

I watched the commercial door grind and shudder its noisy way down. Clank. A minute later, lights on the second floor came on. I started to text the Sullivans, then remembered — I had an actual client footing the research bills.

The thuggish looking driver was a thug. Two three-to-fivers for assault-related hijinks.

I was back in Kansas City reviewing my progress in the Macklin case. Didn’t take long.

Jakub Nowak had driven for Fowler for eleven years. Dating back to Citi. LA hadn’t found any secret connections — Nowak hadn’t been in the Army. Not only hadn’t been in the Middle East, he hadn’t left the States, two excursions to Canada aside.

Nowak, now 51, had failed at pimping, at hosting table-stakes poker games. He had been a scuffler — collecting for midlevel gangsters in Queens and Nassau County. Assisting with truck hijackings, airport freight robberies. Unskilled labor.

Then, out of nowhere, Nowak went to work for Drake Fowler. His first full-time job. His first with actual benefits — health, dental, vision, pension plan. Fowler put Nowak on the Macklin payroll — current base was $86,000. Plus Macklin paid for the car and the second story apartment. Not bad.

I met with Jessie and Jesse, “Los Angeles said that there isn’t any background connection between Fowler and Nowak.”

The twins hid their smirks. But I am a professional detective, licensed. I knew competitive juices were flowing; they wanted to show up the Gloria Allen team.

Pilar said, “Gertie, coding bores me.”

Shrug, sip of Tanqueray, “Then drop it.”

“But everyone says...”

“Fuck a bunch of what everyone says.’ She smiled at the solemn little girl, “Besides coding is overrated.”

“Even for girls?”

“For everyone. Think about it, honey, AI will soon be creating code that codes.”

I was back at Last Call. The bar can kind of grow on you. Of course, so can fungus.

Dolly answered the landline, “Last Call, he isn’t here.” Click.

Jittery Gerald Malden, jiggled his knee, squeezed his crotch, picked his nose, crossed and uncrossed his legs. Cracking his knuckles, he looked at me, “Quiet out there.”

I smiled, “Too quiet?”

“Huh?”

The boys at the bar, hunched over, staring straight ahead, were probably discussing quantum physics.

Tony, rattling his stein of Old Crow, “Who invented ice?”

Second crow, “It was that military guy ... Colonel ... Colonel ... Colonel Electric!”

Third, “Hey Einstein, it was General Electric.”

First, “When he was stationed in the Philippines.”

Second, nodding, “It gets hot down in the Philippines.”

I had slept late; Vanessa was already dressed by the time I brushed my teeth. She smiled, “Breakfast?”

“Kegel exercises first.”

Smile turned into a grin, “Want me to tell Walker?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely.”

Our Project Reunification couldn’t be a success until the ... um, reunification part.

Lina, Luzon, and I spent three hot, dusty days trying to find any official trace of Ennio López. Lina did most of the talking, translating for me when necessary. I talked with the English-speaking officials who would deign to see us. Lina translated for Luzon.

Bureaucratic attitude? It varied. Mostly, sympathetic indifference. They were swamped, tired of the same sorry questions from the same sorry sort of people. Not one person we talked with took a single ounce of responsibility.

“It’s DC.” “It’s El Paso.” Huh? We’re in El Paso. But the harried staff meant ‘the bosses’. The regional bosses. Worker bees just followed orders; details such as where a five-year old boy had been shipped ... no es mi trabajo.

Well, fuck that.

I ignored my earlier pledge and made two calls. So much for my independence rant. But, as most of us do, I rationalized it. Remembered Daddy’s mantra, “Do whatever it takes. Use whoever you need to. Get the job done.”

First, Carmen Ortega in Gloria Allen’s LA office. “Carmen, could I speak with Sistine?”

“Of course.”

“Sistine, Winter. I want to drop Gloria’s name in El Paso.” I explained our quest.

“Of course.”

“You don’t need to ask her?”

“It’s a small favor, Winter. You’re part of our team.”

Next, I left word for Constance Grayson to call me. “At her convenience.”

Our fruitless journey had us tracking back and forth across the vast Texas plains. Lina, Luzon, and I had one immediate goal: find Ennio. Luzon was out of jail; the shoplifting charges would be dropped. Her hoped-for green card was, at best, months away. But thanks to the Temporary Protection Status, the threat of immediate deportation no longer hung over her head.

And, once we found her son, we’d get the little family the fuck out of Dodge.

Annalie Delgado called me, “All clear. The bodega dropped the charges. Charge. Luzon is out of the system, no more court appearances.”

“Thank you.”

“I have a check for you, $15,000”.

“I’ll stop by, thank you.”

“How goes the search?” Ennio López.

“We’re in Port Isabel.”

“Oh. Well, good luck down there, let me know.”

Lina, Luzon, and I stood outside the Port Isabel Service Processing Center in Los Fresnos, Texas. This was the primary reunification port for the whole fiasco. So designated by the Department of Homeland Security. The Center, not the fiasco.

As a general policy, ICE was its usual communicative self — no comment. Then, errant releases, some of which contradicted each other. Biz as uzual.

An airplane, a rental car, over 800 miles. Which, West Texas, is just about next door.

The fenced-in facility was known locally as El Corralón, or the big corral. Appropriate for how those poor families were being treated.

Luzon had had a momentary emotional uptick when she walked out of jail. Another when she learned the shoplifting charges had been dropped. Now her face was frozen, a mask of ... determination, concern, fear.

Dropping Senator Wainwright’s name, yet again, had gotten me a telephone conference with a Mr. Golding in DC. An Associate Director, office of Professional Responsibility. Huh.

A brief, long-distance conversation with a busy, possibly important, executive. I had put up with it without demur, and the three of us were now waiting to meet with a Mr. Jalisco. An ICE muckety-muck who may or may not be able to help us. Or be willing.

Once again, the heat hit me like a punch to the solar plexus. Lina and Luzon felt it, but not so much as the blonde Gringa.

Mr. Jalisco, short and tidy, pencil mustache, let us into his cubicle right on time. A tentative smile flickered on and off. “Mr. Golding called my boss.” Disapproval dripping from that sentence.

I led with my strength, “I talked with Mr. Golding at the suggestion of Senator Wainwright.” Who knew nothing about it.

Mr. Jalisco shrugged, “Politicians are all over the place.” Well, yes. Once the government starts ripping babies out of their mothers’ arms ... well, yes.

Lina showed him Luzon’s file, her Temporary Protection Status. Then that garish photograph of Ennio.

Mr. Jalisco turned his laptop screen toward us. We three leaned in. Ennio López’s current location: TBD.

The ICE agent smiled again, just as briefly, “There are now under fifty un-located minors whose parents have been freed from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers.” Like he was proud.

Curious, I said, “Where did that statistic come from?”

He glanced away, “NPR.”

Lina said, “Un-located? That’s what you’re calling them?”

Luzon’s head swiveled back and forth; she may not understand the words, but she felt the heat in Lina’s voice.

The conversation devolved to a dead end. Mr. Jalisco answered each of our Ennio questions by pointing to his computer screen. Well, fuck that.

I said, “I’m working with Gloria Allen on an international case that will involve Congress. She will take an acute interest in Ennio López if I ask her to.”

“Gloria Allen?”

He knew of her. Anyone with a cable subscription would.

“Yes, here’s her direct line — home and work.” Bluff.

Mr. Jalisco licked his lips rapidly. A US senator hadn’t fazed him; a nationally renowned attorney, famed for her media savvy, had his attention.

“Wait one.”

Lina updated Luzon while we waited. Ten minutes. Fifteen. Twenty. At least the air conditioning was doing what the taxpayers expected.

Mr. Jalisco bustled back, looking inordinately pleased with himself. “I made four different calls to El Paso. The Office of Refugee Resettlement gave me a lead. Finally tracked down an agent who remembered Ennio López.” Smile-flash. “Kid tried to bite him.”

My heart was hammering.

Mr. Jalisco handed me a handwritten sheet ripped from a spiral notebook. “Ennio López is in a detention center, a shelter, just outside of Des Moines, Iowa. He’ll be on a plane to El Paso in the morning.”

Lina and I yelled, “No!” together. He sat back, stunned at the ferocity. Ungrateful bitches.

I said, “We’ll fly to Des Moines. Give us the necessary paperwork.”

Lina was whispering to Luzon. I was making flight reservations.

What a difference a day makes. Well, okay, three weeks in Kansas City.

Lina, Luzon, and I had collected Ennio the morning after Mr. Jalisco had located him. The handover was surprisingly smooth. No last-minute bureaucratic snags. Of course, the process was pre-wired. Obvious what a little money, persistence, and connections can accomplish. Fair? Of course not. Effective? You betcha.

The emotionally gripping mother-son embrace brought tears to my eyes. Lina was sobbing quietly. Luzon couldn’t let go. Neither could Ennio. Luzon was a petite woman, Ennio looked like a little doll, not that much over three feet tall. Both had black, shiny hair, bronze skin, handsome faces with a hint of their indigenous Mayan heritage.

I had rented a car from Ms. Hertz at the Des Moines airport and kept it to drive down to Kansas City. To provide Luzon and Ennio with plenty of bonding time. She looked years younger, had a spring back in her step.